Romney and Paco

The Onion has come up with an hysterical take on Mitt Romney and his attempt to court Hispanic voters.

WARNING: Not for the politically correct. (*Disclaimer: I'm Hispanic and I thought it was spit-take funny.)

Parody Is Dead...

...at least according to the Fox Nation website.

to·tal·i·tar·i·an·ism: absolute control by the state or a governing branch of a highly centralized institution.

Yes! Lawless! Totalitarianism!

They keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it means.

Disarming the GOP Memes

Yesterday I posted the video to Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Dinner and took the opportunity to watch them a second time. I thought the second time was better than the first in regards to both the President's and Jimmy Kimmel's performances.

But something struck me while watching the President. There were the dog eating jokes. A lot of dog eating jokes. Just when you think he'd move on, he'd come in with another one. For a bit, I thought it was too much. But watching it a second time, I realized that all the self deprecation was yet another tool to disarm some of the ridiculous right wing talking points and conspiracy theories that still resonate with the uninformed, misinformed and ignorant that plague our society.

The President's wink after he stating he was born in Hawaii, the GSA scandal cracks, Hillary Clinton's "drunk texting from Cartajena" joke, and the constant dog eating jokes, all designed to disarm the constant harping from the right wing on things that don't matter, or more serious issues that are being dealt with but are used to misplace the blame on the President.

Why this struck me the way it did was because I can't recall such self deprecation on the other side. Sure, there's that hilarious time President Bush was looking under his coffee table for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, but that wasn't so much humorous as it was sad and insulting. Eating dog because it's part of the culture in Indonesia when you're eight years old is a little different than starting a war under false pretenses. An "Oops, my bad" joke in that situation is not at all funny. But I digress.

The point is, watching the idiots on Fox and Friends or Hannity make the off-handed dog eating joke now is only going to make them look childish.

The Brainiacs at Fox Nation and The Imbeciles Who Read It

Mediaite: "...Fox Nation editors were apparently so enamored with an Onion piece from today entitled “Frustrated Obama Sends Nation Rambling 75,000-Word E-Mail” that they reposted the first two paragraphs in their culture section with nary a sign as to its fictional nature. The only clue that this wasn’t real (besides a quick peek at your inbox to confirm that Barack Obama hasn’t been emailing you) was a link at the bottom instructing readers to go to TheOnion.com for the real story. This tiny link was, unfortunately, not enough for the vast majority of FN readers. At least, that’s the way it seems from the comments section."

Some of the comments left by the MENSA members reading Fox Nation, which can be seen in Mediaite's screenshot, ramble on from the President being incompetent and calling his mental health into question, to suggesting he smoked marijuana and calling his presidency an affront to American exceptionalism. So exceptional was that commenter that he couldn't discern between truth and satire.

Finally someone chimed in with some realism:

professorbrown: WOW! I can't believe how many readers think this is REAL! I can't believe FoxNews is touting this as REAL news! This link will be removed within an hour.  That is if anyone with a brain is working at FoxNews today...
It's "The Onion" for God's sake!! We as a country are hurting when the right [can't] tell the difference...

Well, "professorbrown" nailed it. Here's what you get when you click the Fox Nation link now:




If you ask me, the only ones "lost at sea" are the Fox Nation editors and their readers.

ADDING... This wouldn't be such a big deal except for the fact that some right wing ideologies have become so full of rage and rabid hate for all things Obama, they'll eat anything up and trust it as fact without the slightest hesitation or fact checking.  It's also the reason right wing humor is not funny. There's no way you can be humorous when you don't understand satire and your idea of a funny joke is a parody song called, "Barack, the Magic Negro." Seriously, when was the last time you laughd at anything Dennis Miller said since he crapped his pants after 9/11?

Tweet of the Day

H/T @ceut

Camp Can Be Rough

I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to send to summer camp so I can receive letters like this:



Of course, she won't have to worry about the p-nus rash problem, so it'll be a cakewalk.

Don't You Love A President with A Sense of Humor?

...and perspective?



(H/T Cesca)

A Huge SNL Disappointment - UPDATED

I was so looking forward to SNL when I got home from work and it was probably the worst show I'd seen in years. Hell, Ryan Reynolds is hysterical in his movies and he was hosting. And Lady GaGa performing is always going to intrigue me.

So imagine my surprise when I sat there in complete silence with the opening Obama skit. There is Fred Armisen going through a list of non accomplishments.



Yeah, just watched it again. Still not funny. At first I thought maybe I've become so partisan and jaded that it's gotten to the point of laughing hysterically at skits slamming Republicans (the Joe Wilson "You Lie" skit made me chuckle) and being completely unable to laugh at myself when Democrats are attacked. The difference I'm realizing is that they really have to stretch the truth when trying to razz Democrats, but can almost take the GOP verbatim. "It's funny because it's true" isn't just an empty phrase.

The whole point of satire is in the truth behind it. Last week's skit on Thursday's Weekend Update with Obama appearing on every network including MTV and The Food Network was humorous after he'd done the Full Ginsburg for obvious reasons. This one was just completely off base. When you can complete every sentence with an obvious qualifier to discredit the point, it becomes unfunny. For example, "Close Gitmo... in one year." "Get out of Iraq... in 18 months." It just went on and on.

Unfortunately, the "we can attack Democrats too and we will so as not to be called in the bag for Obama" meme was shining right through with that most recent sketch. And as impressions go, Fred Armisen wasn't even trying this time. Maybe his heart wasn't in it because he knew it was bullshit and a crap ass skit.

When the funniest sketch of the evening comes at the end of the show with Lady GaGa and Adam Samberg in identical "bubble dresses" trying to kiss, it's time for the writers to take stock and get back at it.

Adding... Here is a list of accomplishments in President Obama's first eight months provided by Bob Cesca.

UPDATE (7:20pm): Here's PolitiFact's review of the SNL skit.

Apropos of Nothing

posted by Armadillo Joe

I have always been a fan of the NBC sit-com "News Radio" and of Stephen Root in particular. The Inter-Webs are really cool because this scene popped into my head this afternoon and I had found and it re-watched it -- for the first time in over a decade -- in under five minutes.

From Season Two, Episode 8 - "The Negotiation"

Where's The Left Party In America?

posted by Armadillo Joe

Yes. Yes. Yes.

He's Barack Obama!...

... He's Come to Save the Day!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

One of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

Because driftglass told me to...

posted by Armadillo Joe

Info on the Wingnut Family Photo:
First row seated (L - R): Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck
Second row standing (L - R): Joe the Quitter, Rupert Murdoch, Brit Hume

Another Time-Waster

posted by Armadillo Joe

I don't know why, but this makes me laugh (from BlueGal at C&L):


And if you're curious, Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard is an actual variation of the original game.

I got nothing else right now. My last post kind of did me in. Any ideas?

For my drinking buddies...

posted by Armadillo Joe

Choo-choo trains RAWK!

A plan I can get behind

posted by Armadillo Joe

End of Days

guest-posted by Armadillo Joe

I don't think it's one of the signs of the apocalypse, maybe it's one of the ancillary affects of hellfire and brimstone -- B. Hussein is our president afterall -- but upstate New York is having something of a problem with black vultures.

And they are vile, disgusting creatures.

The manlinest name on the inter-webs, Lance Mannion, reports from the front lines:

Their feathers were black, not brown. Their bald heads and bills were gray, not red and bone-white.

Passing through the next town, we came across more of them. These were prowling the side of the road and, closer up, I could see that, big as they were, they were smaller than turkey vultures, squatter too. They struck me as uglier and meaner-looking as well, although that might have been an effect of there being so many of them together, pooling their ugliness and meanness.

"What kind of birds are those, Dad?" the Mannion guys and their mother wanted to know, as if I am the unimpeachable source of all things ornithological, an idea they picked up from their old man's habit of showing off the little bird lore that he has memorized.

"Beats the hell out of me," I said. "Definitely not turkey vultures though, unless they're a rare subspecies that works the coal mines."

I think at least two of my passengers were impressed that I knew what turkey vultures looked like well enough to spot that these weren't turkey vultures. The third passenger just harrumphed knowingly and went back to reading her magazine.

We were on our way to visit Mom and Pop Mannion and as soon as we arrived I hopped on the internet and called up Cornell University's Ornithology Lab's website, All about Birds.

Yep. Definitely not turkey vultures.