A Psychedelic/Erotic History of Cartoons.

Utterly stupifying animated short from graphic artist Andreas Hykade.

Snowpocaliptic Snowpidity!

I guess I never really had an appreciation of how much contempt Fox News really held for its audience until this week, when personalities across its programming schedule began repeatedly citing this weeks eastern seaboard blizzard as proof that global warming isn't real.

Now, you've been able to find this nonsense on Fox for years, but it was usually relegated to its far right opinion shows like O'Rielly and Hannity. During the D.C. blizzard, however, there seems to have been a decision made high up in the chain of command to go all in, and Fox now seems to be deliberately trying to convince its audience of something that is demonstrably false;



What's so galling is that you'd think that even a child would be able to see how false this line of reasoning is, or at the very least be suspicious enough to seek another source of information on the subject. But it appears that Roger Ailes and his colleagues estimate that their viewers are so remarkably dense, or predisposed to accepting this claim, and are so intellectually isolated (getting all their information from conservative news sources), that they can push this one over the top.

Naturally, this all translates to more fodder for liberals to point and laugh at:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Unusually Large Snowstorm
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
We're Off to See the Blizzard
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Now, all this is good fun, and hopefully anyone who happened to see any of these segments came away convinced of how stupid this all is. But Glenn Beck makes a valid point; ratings for Fox News are far higher than its main stream counterparts. And a large portion of its audience systematically shut themselves off from the main stream media, relying only on Fox and self-identified conservative publications and personalities for all of their information. What then is to stop these people, if they hear it enough times, from accepting this claim as fact?

Fox News is constantly running a gambit of exactly how much influence they can exert over their audience. They seem to honestly believe that objectivity is impossible, which gives them license to behave in anyway they see fit, just as long as it pays dividends on the bottom line. By working from a well documented, top-down command structure, Fox News spins nearly every story to the right so consistently, while simultaneously telling its audience all other news sources cannot be trusted, that it has carved out its own alternative reality for its viewers to live in.

Viewed as journalist, this is an abomination. Viewed as a product, however, Fox News is remarkably successful. And as its market share grows, so does its power, leading to bolder and bolder flauntings of reality. I think today we're seeing that dynamic in action.

12 inches of global warming disappointingly safe for work.

So when I last posted roughly two weeks ago, I thought I had properly debunked the whole "it's cold out, what global warming?" anecdote. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this:



Incidentally, when I originally clicked on the link for "12 inches of global warming", I was expecting something a little more NSFW. Apparently there are voters in Virginia that are still susceptable to this nonsense, if only they'd seen my last post!

Another weird justification for global warming denial is a devout belief in creationism. Rush Limbaugh explains:



I suppose connecting global warming denial with creationism was an obvious move for those who traffic in this kind of disinformation; creationists are liable to believe anything.

Annual mid-winter nonsense.

As I've said before; most doubts people have about the reality of global climate change stem from lackadaisical fact checking and misleading anecdotes. And the immortal mother of all of these false arguments is a simple canard that always emerges from its den around this time of year; how can there be global warming when it's cold outside?

Now, one would think this assumption should appear so obviously incorrect that only a moron would be taken in by it. But when you're buried under three feet of snow and have to warm up your car for a half hour before driving it and have to protect every inch of your body before going outside in broad daylight because a -30 degree wind chill will frost bite exposed flesh in minutes, you do tend to wonder exactly where all that warming is right now.

Peter Sinclair's Climate Crock of the Week tells us:

NBC shits the money bed.

I grew up watching Late Night with Conan O'Brien, especially during its heyday in the late 90's, and always hoped the former Simpsons and SNL writer would eventually displace Jay Leno's style of folksy, moron-targeting shtick with smarter and edgier material. That's why it pains me to see NBC doing to O'Brien what it did to David Letterman almost twenty years ago; reneging on its word and fucking him over, publicly.

In case you weren't aware, last week NBC announced it was moving The Jay Leno Show into the coveted 11:35 time slot and pushing The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien back to 12:05, witch is technically tomorrow morning, not tonight. O'Brien's opening monologue last night was one of the best of his career, as he unloaded on his bosses:



The next morning O'Brien announced he wasn't going to play along:



I didn't quite realize how badly NBC had shit the money bed until I saw this clip of Bill O'Reilly commenting on the whole fiasco and found myself agreeing with him:



It only takes a few minutes for O'Reilly and Goldberg to veer of track and start using the whole affair to somehow bash Obama, but there's no denying that NBC is in serious trouble. As for Conan, one can only hope he and his staff land somewhere fitting their caliber and talent. If such a place still exists on network television.

Bob Barker rescues Whale Wackos from sinking Bat Boat!

In case you were wondering where yahoos like Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society get the millions of dollars for their vessels, the answer is well meaning yet clueless celebrities like Bob Barker:



It's worth noting that at about the 4:45 mark, while Barker is claiming that the Japanese intentionally rammed the Adi Gil, the footage rolling to his left simutaniously refutes that statement, clearly showing the Adi Gil turning its bow into the path of the oncoming whaling vessel before impact.

Rachel Maddow goes pretty easy on Bob, which is understandable I suppose. Considering all he has done for animal rights over the decades, and perhaps because like myself, Bob Barker was a major part of Maddow's childhood. He and Mr. Rogers were probably my best friends from age three to five, the days where you first become self aware and start having memories and are plunked down in front of the T.V. when mom needs a break.

Still, I have a hard time not thinking about all the good that five million could have done in the hands of responsible charities and non profits, instead of adding to the aging hippie navy.

Whale Wackos sink Bat Boat!

It looks like the first casualty of Animal Planet's despicable reality show Whale Wars is a famous (now infamous I suppose) Batman inspired concept boat called the Ady Gil.

For those not familiar with the show; Whale Wars debuted on Animal Planet HD in 2007 and features disgraced former Greenpeace board member Paul Watson and a crew of useful idiots and cranks who play chicken with Japanese whaling vessels. Though it does bring attention to illegal Japanese whaling, the show is little more than Watson coaxing his loyal peons into risking their lives and those of the whalers for cheap political stunts that wind up making the whalers look like the good guys.

Up till now the show was little more than fodder for South Park, however, now it looks like they've upped the ante:



Here's the result:




A friend familiar with the Ady Gil tells me it had been involved in a similar collision in 2000 during a race around the world, which probably is why the people behind Whale Wars aquired it and then rammed it into the side of a Japanese whaler; the free publicity. At any rate, here's what a fine piece of maritime design looks like before reality T.V. gets a hold of it:

Rush Limbaugh praises socialized, unionized healthcare.

Many probably thought their prayers had been answered last week when Rush Limbaugh was rushed (no pun intended) to a Hawaiian hospital complaining of chest pains. One could compile a very long list of politicians, party bosses, journalists, and basic human beings of all political persuasions who would be grateful for him to be silenced. As it turned out everything was fine; liberals will still have their whipping boy they love to hate, conservatives will still have an endless supply of the ideological crack that is Limbaugh's routine, and moderate Republicans will still have to quake in fear and grovel at his feet.

Not surprisingly, upon his release Limbaugh took the opportunity to lavish praise on the American health care system:



At about the 2:30 mark he declares that his status as a celebrity multimillionaire got him no special treatment, a laughable statement, but one expects nothing less from him.

What is more interesting is that while he couldn't say enough good things about the American health care system, he was treated in Hawaii, which boasts features like employer madates and standardized plans, things Limbaugh spent 2009 decrying as socialist . Firedoglake points this out:

Hawaii’s health care system is distinct from the rest of the country, in that they passed a version of health reform decades ago, in 1974. The Hawaii Pre-Paid Health Care Act includes a requirement for employers to provide health coverage to their workers. As you may know, a similar requirement on large employers is a key part of the reform now pending in Congress.

And the employer requirement seems, by and large, to have succeeded. It has increased coverage–just under 8 percent of the state’s population is uninsured, second only to Massachusetts–and access to care. At the same time, Hawaii still has some of the lowest health care costs in the nation, despite its high cost of living and without an apparent decrease in quality–as Limbaugh himself discovered.

And the nurses whom Limbaugh said did such a good job were all in fact, union members:

Limbaugh stayed at Queen’s Medical Center, where nursing staff are represented by the Hawaii Nurses’ Association (read: a labor union). The nurses at Queen’s are protected by their contract, which adheres to the ANA’s safe-staffing principles guaranteeing appropriate staffing levels for any patient care unit.

In fact, Hawaii has one of the greatest percentages of organized workers of any state and also had the highest percentage of organized RNs. All private-sector acute care hospital RNs are organized, with just two known exceptions. We’re guessing this might have something to do with why Limbaugh found the Hawaii hospital staff’s work so “confidence-inspiring.”

When Limbaugh was released from Queen’s Medical Center, he cheerily noted, “The treatment I received here was the best that the world has to offer.”

Whether he realized it or not, Limbaugh was praising the care he received from union nurses in one of the country’s most progressive health care systems. On behalf of the labor movement and health reform advocates everywhere, THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT, Rush!

Treating Rush Limbaugh must have been the ultimate test of the Hippocratic oath for many professionals in that hospital; working to save the life of a man who makes a living trying to tear down everything you've worked for. Rush is lucky that there are people out there who believe that health care is a right that cannot be denied no matter how bankrupt you are, whether it be morally or financially.