That Mitchell and Webb Look looks at what happened during the later years of this once unstoppable force in operettas, when the well of creativity threatened to dry up. (The clip is only up to the 3:45 mark and then repeats itself.) [Read more…]
In the US, advertising is everywhere. You can’t go anywhere without being urged to buy stuff. You see them when you are driving, they are there at the gas pump when pumping gas, they are there on the ATM screen when you are getting cash, you hear them when you are put on hold. You simply cannot avoid them. [Read more…]
The Daily Show had a good summary and analysis of president Obama’s speech last Friday on his proposed NSA reforms. Jon Stewart was not impressed. [Read more…]
Comedian Emo Philips writes to express his pleasure that a joke he wrote twenty years ago has been voted the funniest religious joke of all time, even though people have forgotten that he was the creator. I have to admit that I had heard it before but that I had not even heard of Philips. Here is the joke. [Read more…]
The only time I see any of the talk shows on TV is when clips of them appear to show how idiotic they are. So while I have a vague idea of the various shows that are around, I have never actually watched one for any extended time. The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee does a remarkable one-woman performance that looks at the people and dynamics of a program called The Five that appears on Fox News and she shows more of it than I normally see. [Read more…]
Steven Brill has an article in Time describing how some of the very people who would benefit most from the Affordable Care Act have been misled by the virulent anti-Obamacare campaign to think that it is a terrible program and would do nothing for them. He also highlights the way that hospital monopolies and the reluctance of people to change providers prevent a truly competitive system from being created that would lower costs. [Read more…]
What is with people who are constantly worried that American manhood is under threat? It seems like anything that seeks to make people safer or expects people to treat others with respect and dignity and not act like a jerk, is taken as evidence of the increasing wussification and feminization of America. [Read more…]
Every year we have the same sequence of events. There will be a few days in succession when temperatures fall far below average values, combined with fairly heavy snowfall. This is what we who live in the northeast call ‘winter’. And sure enough, this will be followed by amusement among some members of the media that this conclusively proves that global warming is some gigantic hoax being perpetrated on the US by a conspiracy of scientists, liberals, and the rest of the world. [Read more…]
The Daily Show marveled at Fox News’s obsession with this topic and and had fun with Bill O’Reilly’s weird beliefs about the dangerous joint addictions of young people with marijuana and texting. [Read more…]
The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart hails from New Jersey and knows something about its hardball politics. He is disappointed in governor Chris Christie’s behavior over the bridge closings, saying that it is far below the state’s extremely high standards of political retribution and vindictiveness. [Read more…]