Stories to Watch: 3/7/12

Thinking about making another batch of english muffins. If I get started tomorrow, I'll be out by the time their finished. Now here's the news...


#stopkony


After all the brouhaha, TLC's All-American Muslim is cancelled after one season. It was pulled because it sucked -- turns out they really were just boring, normal midwesterners -- but expect wingnuts to claim some sort of boycott victory.


As big of a jerk in victory as he is in defeat, Newt Gingrich's Super Tuesday Georgia victory speech included an Obama "quote" pulled straight out of Newt's ass.


Andrew Breitbart's swan song continues to be a big pile o'nuthin'. Note to political celebrities: don't make empty threats, because you might die and then your fans will ask to see your cards.


Shelly Bachmann continues to be insane.


An entire ad agency drops Limbaugh.


Warn the neighborhood: STAR WARS IS GAY!! Won't someone please think of the children?


Finally, Newt seems to be writing off Kansas entirely.

Related articles

• Georgia Win Keeps Newt Alive (newser.com)
• Ron Paul Is Night's Big Loser (newser.com)
• Super Tuesday results 2012: Mitt Romney says he feels 'pretty darn good' after 6 wins (dailymail.co.uk)
• TLC cancels 'All-American Muslim' (variety.com)

News Roundup for 12/13/11

Hitting a new Lowe

-Headline of the Day-
"Protests growing against Lowe's."

All Lowe's wants to do is sell you a hammer. Maybe some bathroom tiles. If they're lucky, some big saw thing. So it was that the home improvement chain sought what it thought was the path of least resistance when it came to wingnut bigots concerned that a TV shows wasn't portraying American Muslims as terr'isty enough. Turns out TLC's All-American Muslim managed to find a family that wasn't building bombs in their basement and this was the worst thing ever! One guy even suggested they find a family that does engage in terrorism and film that, because committing crimes against America is apparently cool with him so long as it makes Muslims look bad on the teevee.

So all these people got together and decided they needed to complain to the advertisers of the show. And that's when things got stupid. Lowe's, apparently headed by people born without spines, decided that they wouldn't advertise on a show that was controversial. They said they were sad that they'd made "some people very unhappy," but this was the way things were going to be.

But here's the problem with avoiding controversy: you can't. It's pretty much impossible -- especially when the people ginning up the controversy are a bunch of bigoted assholes who hate a show because it doesn't lie about an entire American demographic. In running away from a tiny controversy, they ran headlong into a giant one. That's the sort of brilliant business sense that we've come to expect from corporate America.

Anyhoo, now Lowe's is in trouble with the not-bigot people, which is just about everyone (I know, we've been over this all before, but some people are just tuning in). They've got MoveOn and a Democratic senator on their case, as well as people like me. It's just really, really bad.

So, the lesson here is that if you run a business and a bunch of customers tell you to start hating another bunch of customers, chase them off with a broomstick. Pronto. (Politico)


-An apt analogy-


Click to embiggen

Works for me. (DailyKos)


-Bonus HotD-
"Axelrod Plays The Monkey Butt Card On Newt Gingrich."

David Axelrod: "I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, 'just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.' So, you know, [Newt Gingrich] is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view." (Talking Points Memo)

News Roundup for 11/28/11

The only kind of Muslims anti-Muslim nuts like

-Headline of the Day-
"Religious Right Groups Launch Fight Against TLC Reality Show."

You know what the Florida Family Association thinks is terrible? Muslims! They hate them like the dickens. So when The Learning Channel announced they'd be airing a reality TV show called All-American Muslim, FFA freaked out.

See, it turned out that people on the show didn't reflect FFA's stereotypes at all. No one attacks old ladies while yelling "Oodle-oodle-oodle!" There's no Death to America stuff, no one tries to force sharia law on anyone. They don't stone their daughters in the backyard. It's just terrible. It's like they're trying to show that all the things anti-Muslim people believe is crazy horseshit -- which means it's secret terr'ist propaganda!

"The Learning Channel's new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law," says FFA. "The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."

Maybe that's because the family in the show doesn't know any people like that -- which would make sense, right? I mean, just because I'm a white guy doesn't mean I have white power types coming over to my house. Seems to me this is the same sort of deal.

Anyway, FFA aren't the only crazies up in arms about the show. Anti-Muslim activist Robert Spencer -- who's just awful, BTW -- suggested what he considers a more accurate idea for a reality show. TLC should go find some guy who starts off OK and then ends up "participating in jihad activity" -- because it's totally cool to let some guy plan and carry out terrorism for a TV show, as long as that makes Muslims look bad.

So, for the record, the anti-Muslim nutjobs have now gone completely around the bend -- Muslims who are terrorists are good, while Muslims who aren't terrorists are bad.

There really is no word to adequately describe the clownishness. (Right Wing Watch)


-Thanksgiving leftovers with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, one of the cool things about taking a week off of blogging is that you get an extra cartoon from Mark Fiore the week you come back. Yay!

Today, Uncle Mark (who's a famous Howitzer Prize-winning cartoonist) will shows us all how to draw turkeys!


Click for animation

Wow, and I thought I was sick of turkey before... (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Union Leader Declined To Endorse Romney Because He ‘Represents The One Percent.’"

So instead, the New Hampshire paper endorsed Newt Gingrich.

Seems like kind of a lateral move to me. (ThinkProgress)