Author: Richard

Witless Protection

I’m watching this movie right now on Showtime. Unfortunately, the funniest part so far is the title.

Larry the Cable Guy plays a small-town deputy with big dreams about becoming an F.B.I. agent. Somehow, he’s banging Jenny McCarthy, who is still not past her expiration date at 36 (in real life, not the movie). She works at some food service place thing and the F.B.I. comes in with a lady in the witness protection program while Larry is there and somehow (I was trying not to pay attention) he ends up confiscating this chick from the F.B.I. guys and going on the run. So now the men in black dudes are trying to find them and Larry for some reason is trying to bang this girl who is less hott than his gf Jenny and I have no idea why. The witness protection girl is a bitch and Jenny shows no signs of being anything other than a great girlfriend so wtf?

There’s a lot of racial humor that doesn’t really make sense. Like the black F.B.I. guy orders coffee and Jenny McCarthy asks “black?”… cuz he’s black… get it?… I don’t either. Then later when Cable Guy and witness girl check into a hotel the clerk is the middle eastern lookin mofo from 40 year old virgin and there’s some references to his accent and nationalism and — why is he stealing this girl away from the government? I still don’t get this. And why is this girl the main female supporting actor when all the promo stuff has Jenny on it? And who is being made fun of exactly I’m not totally sure. Are the racial jokes supposed to be jokes?

Larry and witness girl go to the airport for some reason and have trouble with security cuz the mall-cop type TSA employees are drunk with power in a few digs at the Patriot act. Awesome humor in this scene includes noting that Larrys feet stink and then him shitting on a TSA guy? I think? They strip search him in full view so he’s nude and just covering his junk out there in front of everyone and they decide to investigate what might be a fuse coming out of his ass by a cavity search. Larry warns them that they don’t want to do that, but they do, and something terrible happens off screen to lead another employee to page “officer down!” before a smash-cut to another “meanwhile” scene.

nakedlarrycableguy
this is what I look for in a movie. always.

While driving, Larry calls a friend and asks him to punch up the DOJ (Department of Justice) website for him. The friend asks “Dynomite Juggs?” I laughed. I wasn’t sure exactly how I was supposed to react when Larry now on the phone with someone else notes that “News travels fast – faster than Angelina Jolie adoptin jungle babies”. Really?…

The internetz says this movie was released in was released in theaters on February 22, 2008 but I never heard of it. You didn’t either? That’s odd. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 0% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 24 reviews.

Greenpeace: well ya, we exagerate, but we need to emotionalize

Hippie enviro-group Greenpeace spokesdude Gerd Leipold admitted on the BBC to ridiculously exaggerating the possible effects of global warming but justified it since, duh, no one’s gonna like totally care about the earth n stuff unless we scare the shit out of them with scary stories about us all drowning because of SUVs.

Reporter Stephen Sackur was all wtf about a July 15th press release that sounded the OMG alarm for immediate action against your lifestyle and the countries economy because if we don’t do as they say then all of the Arctic ice would disappear by 2030. You can watch the full interview here if you’re interested, but the golden moment is this admission where the Greenpeace leader immediately admits that the claim in the press release is laughable bullshit designed to scare women and children into submitting to hippie law and order.. or something.

Good thing Greenpeace is just a concerned science based organization with no alternate agenda other than caring for the planet n stuff.

Although he admitted Greenpeace had released inaccurate but alarming information, Leipold defended the organization’s practice of “emotionalizing issues” in order to bring the public around to its way of thinking and alter public opinion.

Leipold said later in the BBC interview that there is an urgent need for the suppression of economic growth in the United States and around the world. He said annual growth rates of 3 percent to 8 percent cannot continue without serious consequences for the climate.

“We will definitely have to move to a different concept of growth. … The lifestyle of the rich in the world is not a sustainable model,” Leipold said. “If you take the lifestyle, its cost on the environment, and you multiply it with the billions of people and an increasing world population, you come up with numbers which are truly scary.”

oh…

nvm.snl

O’Reilly puts the kabosh on the Daily Shows teasing

The Daily Show is pretty honest about what it is, yet thousands of college aged adults are constantly proclaiming what an awesome news source it is. Except it’s not. and Jon Stewart doesn’t even claim it is. It is not news delivered in a funny way. Its fake news. Jokes based on news content. it never claims to be anything else.

Recently a clip from the show went viral allegedly exposing that Fox News has become exactly the type of “whiny liberal” that it used to be against since the network is now praising protesters against the Obama’s health care plan as average Americans rising up to be heard but treated protesters against Bush as whining crazy liberal lunatics.

The truth is that that meme is a big fat lie. I watch Fox News and there was never a running theme of “protesters who protest Bush are crazy, whining liberals” that has switched now to “protesters who protest Obama are patriotic courageous Americans” except for one show and one personality: Sean fkking Hannity. As I’ve pointed out recently on RichWatch, Sean Hannity used to blindly mock Bush’s opponents regardless of context and is now blindly endorsing Obama opponents for purely partisan reasons. It’s mock-worthy and an example of hacktivism, but its one guy at the news channel. Claiming FNC as a whole was anything like that is just a smear to fit a “please, for the love of Christ don’t watch Fox News” narrative.

So is Jon Stewart a liar? He says he’s not, and there’s no reason to doubt him. He’s not a liar, he’s a frigging comedian. It’s only a lie if you present false information in a humorous way with the goal of making a political point. That’s why columnists like Maureen Dowd or Ann Coulter can’t rely on the fact that they use humor in their published works as a shield against criticism: because if you’re trying to make an actual point, you can’t just make shit up. You have to be present the facts and THEN make the jokes. But Stewart doesn’t claim this position. Stewart is not a funny news commentator – he is a fkking comedian who uses content from the news to make jokes. Colbert, I think is a different story because I have never heard him go on record saying that he makes things up and his presentation suggests that his show is in fact meant to be humorous political commentary through satire, sarcasm and farce. But The Daily Show, to its credit, has never denied making shit up for the sake of comedy.

So now TDS mocks Fox for a thing most people who hate Fox suspect the channel probably did and that’s enough to make it true. Never mind the stuff about you blindly accepting a comedian as a credible source of news and turn a blind eye to all those times Jon Stewart publicly admits that his show takes things out of contexts to make them funny — what matters is that someone (anyone) bashed Fox News, and since they’re evil over there, then its true.

Bill O’Reilly, featured in the Daily Show montage of alleged Fox flip flops pointed this out tonight, showing in good humor and respectful tone, that those of you who blindly took TDS’s montage as hilarious ownage were in fact victims of an epic FAIL.

This will no doubt be met with the usual hate and smearing that any good natured response to a freaked out ideologue is met with: O’Reilly will be said to be “whining”, he’ll somehow be an asshole for even mentioning this and the entire response will be disregarded anywhere because O’Reilly didn’t refute every syllable Stewart uttered – therefore they continue trusting the news-comedian over the news-commentator. Why in fact, how can you tell which is which? yuk yuk lolz harr harr omgz.

As O’Reilly said – “some young people actually believe he presents an accurate view of the country on his program… and that is frightening” – especially due to the fact that Stewart himself admits it.

Demons vs Obamacare

I had Fox News on today while on the computer and heard one of the anchor-babes sign out and introduce Neil Cavuto coming on next, followed by “the power of Christ compels you!” several times before any explanation or context was given.
And people wonder why I think Fox News is awesome…

The opening segment was a discussion with MI Governor Tim Pawlenty on health care reform topping agenda with faith leaders and the use of the “what would Jesus do” type argument regarding Obama’s push.

I don’t know why they’re switching tactics here. What was wrong with just calling your protesters swas-tee-ka carrying fakes and phonies?

Hannity hearts Dem town hall rabble rousers

Tonight Sean Hannity snickered over video of people getting snippy with Democrat Congressman from MA, Barney Frank, and in true hack fashion, had nothing besides the snickers to add to the reporting. *yawn*.

At the same town hall Barney told a woman there comparing the Obama socialized medicine plan to the German National Socialist (Nazi) plan, “Trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table.” Although I get the impression from Barney that he is exactly the time who regularly argues with furniture, the chick was not wise to bring any comparison with Nazi’s into the debate. It’s actually the first I’ve ever heard where a conservative used the Nazi slur against a liberal. Weird. and stupid. UPDATE: I assumed wrong. The lady who made this comment was NOT a conservative as I erroneously said. she’s another Lyndon LaRouche (liberal) follower. I regret the error.

Previously, Hannity similarly covered a St Louis town hall meeting with MO Senator Claire McKaskill (D) asking a rowdy audience the same question as Frank: wtf is up with all the yelling? Do you think you’re persuading anyone with it? I think probably not and the purpose is just to vent and voice disapproval of their policies, but still – what IS up with all the friggin yelling?

Everyone on the show Intervention should die

Why don’t I ever walk into a room and then *surprise!*, all my most important friends and family are there to reveal that the camera crew that has been following me for the past week isn’t really doing a documentary on my lifestyle, but is really affiliated with a television show that spotlights and offers all expense paid vacations to people whose loved ones nominate them for being so awesome? Because they don’t make that show anywhere. that’s why. or at least mostly why.

Instead, we have a show that has alcoholics and junkies carelessly trampling on the emotions and lives of their loved ones who then get together to help them not die by flying to a special rehab place for a month.

This is every episode of Intervention:

intervention Pictures, Images and Photos

And then blah blah crying and blah blah “go to this free treatment resort for 90 days or we’re not frenz anymorez”, more crying and then then a bunch of title cards. Wtf is with the title cards? It’s called tele-VISION so you can listen to stuff. or something. Point being – It’s not tele-READING, so wtf. Hire a frigging announcer to tell me that so and so relapsed or refused the treatment or died from doing a combination of both.

intervention Pictures, Images and Photos

Statistics vs Bill O’Reilly critics

I saw this link posted of a Huffington Post page that is parroting a Media Matters claim that O’Reilly is using fuzzy math, but I don’t get it…

oreillymathfacebook

Most of you probably caught why this is allegedly a dumb thing to say right away, but when I saw it I was left with a big “wtf?” until the person who posted it explained the accusation to me…

I commented on the posted item asking “what evidence do you have that countries with higher populations do NOT experience vastly more fatal accidents and fatal crimes?”. Then I received more understanding on what exactly Media Matters and the HuffPo are charging:

Stephanie: Did you watch the clip? He says that America’s life expectancy is lower than Canada because “America has 10 times as many people which translates into 10 times as many accidents, crimes…”

So what he is saying is that is this. Say Canada has 100 people and 5 die due to accidents and crimes. “America has ten times as many people and ten times as many accidents and crime”. Therefore, America would have 1000 people and 50 would die from accidents and crimes. Thus 5% die from accidents and crimes in both countries. His argument, therefore, makes no sense, as he argues that America has a lower life expectancy because the same proportion of people dies from accidents and crime in America as inCanada.

Ah, I see now… The 3 of them are creating a straw man argument by deleting the context of the original statement which is right there in the video in order falsely impugn O’Reilly for making an alleged fallacious statement.

The email noted “life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA” and O’Reilly responded that this is to be expected because the USA suffers higher car accidents and deadly crime and not lack of medical care. No argument based on the statistical fallacy you describe was made because no statistics were given. O’Reilly is speaking colloquially, and not citing “10 times” or “10 percent” in any official capacity, but rather is making an astute and accurate observation that America’s life expectancy is lower (78 vs Canada’s 80) due to factors that have nothing to do with either countries health care system. He attributes the higher death by car and crime number to higher population, leading me to ask what makes

Obama website to display transparency contains entire pages blacked out

Irony: The $18 million contract to build a website to make federal stimulus spending transparent was released – with entire pages blacked out.

So much for change we can believe in:

Back in July, a software company named Smartronix landed an $18 million contract to build a Web site where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money. It was just another part of the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to bring transparency to stimulus spending, we were told.

But it seems the drive for transparency doesn’t cover the contract itself.

After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the General Services Administration released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless.

Don’t believe us? Take a look.

ProPublica sought the contract under the Freedom of Information Act to find out what kind of site Smartronix planned to build and to assess whether it justified the cost, which Republican critics of the stimulus plan called “unreal.”

Ed Pound, the director of communications for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, defended the redactions as “legitimate.” The Web site Smartronix is to build will replace Recovery.gov, the existing stimulus Web portal run by the transparency board.

“I’m not concerned about whether journalists are concerned about this,” Pound said. “We have been very transparent.”

The GSA declined to comment, but said in its response to ProPublica’s FOIA request that such redactions were allowed if material “involves substantial risk of competitive injury” to a contractor.

rahm door shut

Some sections of the contract were redacted in their entirety. They include:

In all, 25 pages of a 59-page technical proposal — the main document in the package — were redacted completely. Of the remaining pages, 14 had half or more of their content blacked out.

Fishy info

The Whitehouse is asking people to send “fishy” information they’re seeing online to flag@whitehouse.gov so the Obama administration can lay the truth-hammer down on any stray dis-info nails. In theory, I love the idea, but some Obama critics are freaking out about its Orwellian implications, like Obama is going to use these emails to come after anyone who’s talking smack about his HopeandChange master plan.

The White House cannot delete communications, nor keep information about citizens exercising their free speech rights. Linda Douglass admits the White House is Breaking the law.