Tag Archives: News

This Can’t be the First Donald Trump Drinking Game, But…

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by in Politics

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800px-Donald_Trump_March_2015It’s already old news. Narcissa Trump has entered the race for the Republican nomination for President. He has of course made an ass of himself every step of the way, and Republicans seem to love him for it. So too do comedians, but in either event the dumb dial on politics just got turned up to 11, and there is only one thing left to do.

We have to gamify this!

Okay, I don’t have a lot of time right now, so we’re going for the simple and obvious. You read the title, and you know where we are going with this, right? Just watch Trump basking in the reflection of his own media presence and follow these instructions.

If Trump says something completely thoughtless. …okay don’t drink yet. This would have you on the floor in no time.

If someone in the media humors trump by referring to his verbal diarrhea as ‘straight talk,’ take a shot of something really stiff and write down the idiot’s name. When you wake up tomorrow with a hangover, you’re going to want to remember just who is and who isn’t a journalist.

If Trump doubles down after having been called out for saying something truly idiotic completely asinine, or both. …take a sip. Just take it easy here. You don’t want to be bent over the porcelain throne before the end of the interview.

If Trump says something bad about Mexicans. …just another sip, a small one. You know why.

If Trump says something nice about Mexicans in the hopes we’ll forget the bad stuff he already said about them. …Yeah, it’s time to take a drink. Don’t whine about it though, you knew this was coming.

If Trump tries to pretend his critics are objecting to actual policy recommendations instead of his childish hate-mongering, drink again.

If Trump calls another leader ‘weak’, drink-up and do like three push-ups. That oughtta be enough for the Donald.

If Trump declares himself a winner, do some coke and say a prayer for Charlie Sheen.

If Trump says he’s the best at something, don’t bother drinking cause you know damned well he’s a better drinker than you, so you might as well just give it up right now.

It Trump’s hair does something odd, don’t drink and don’t laugh. Seriously, this whole hair-theme was old a decade or two back. Can we please stop pretending the man’s hair is half the train wreck that we get with every fricking word out of his mouth?

If Trump retweets one of his adoring fans proclaiming him the only possible savior for America and all of western civilization, don’t drink. This too will end the game too quickly. Maybe just fart a little, because it’s kinda fitting, and you know you wanna.

If Trump brags about the number of fans who showed up at an event, ask him to pay you to drink. It’s only fair.

If Trump dismisses the views of someone who understands politics far better than he or any of his advisers ever well, call John Stewart and tell him he has to help us drink our way through the next year and a half.

If Trump threatens to sue someone, don’t drink. Just fill your glass and wait.

If Trump mentions how much money he has, drink something really cheap served in a gaudy container and burn up a ten dollar bill. You’re getting as good a deal as any customer ever got from the Trump label.

If someone else mentions bankruptcy, drink some water. You know you need the break.

If Trump tries to lecture us about how bankruptcy is really just good business, buy a drink for one of the many mere commoners trying to live in the wake of bankruptcy. They need it more than you.

If Trump plays a rock tune completely out of place with his campaign, don’t bother drinking. Politicians always do this. It’s nothing special.

If Trump says anything about Isis, drink or don’t drink, but keep it to yourself. You’re the only one that needs to know.

If Trump complains about violations of his free speech, don’t drink. This is a totally serious thing, and no-one should make light of it, not ever.***

If Trump ever makes a substantive point about anything in the course of this election, then give up drinking entirely. (Don’t worry. This will never happen.)

__________________________________________________________

***Just kidding! It’s time to drink that double you poured earlier. Maybe two or three of them right.

Jesus H. Attitude-Dancing Christ, MSN News Blurbs Can Be Damned Irritating!

01 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in History, Irritation Meditation, Religion

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JesusDon’t the folks at MSN know that I’m busy? Don’t they realize I have better things to do than rant about the slippage between their storylines and their headlines? Or is it some kinda clever plot to drive me bonkle-wozzies before the end of summer?

I mean, seriously, take a look at the teaser line for that story on MSN. Isn’t that amazing? No, not Zimmerman, silly, or the guy whose face I deliberately cut in half with the cropping tool (I’m in a bad mood); I mean the lady in the funny hat. Check out the line underneath it.

Seriously?

Somebody has reason to think they actually found a piece of the cross to which our dear and fluffy bamble-hussy was nailed in the way back when. And if that is true, then maybe a few other claims about that old carpenter’s cat might be true too, and damn! If that’s true, I guess I better re-evaluate a few things, not the least of them being the way I talk about our Lord and Savior.

Seriously, …uh oh!

Okay, I know it’s not really alleging proof of a miracle, but what the lie does suggest is that they have serious reason to believe a piece of wood actually dates back to the historical event of Christ’s crucifiction, and THAT would be a Hell of a piece of research to produce. It really would.

Jesus2But wait a minute, the actual headline on NBC News doesn’t have quite the same force as the front page teaser on MSN. The teaser is just the sort of phrasing you would use to put a claim on the table; the actual headline could as easily be used to suggest you were getting ready to throw the claim in the trash. This whole thing just got less interesting with a single click of the mouse. Still, I wonder what the Hell this is all about.

Guess I’ll have to read the article…

Oh well, it’s right here in the first paragraph.

Turkish archaeologists say they have found a stone chest in a 1,350-year-old church that appears to contain a relic venerated as a piece of Jesus’ cross.

It turns out that what MSNBC meant was little more than that they unearthed a artifact that WAS venerated as a piece of the old bad bark by a particular people in a particular time and place. The rest of the article discusses some of the comments thrown back and forth about such artifacts in centuries past, all of which is actually quite interesting, but what this piece does NOT contain is any reason to believe that it really is a piece of the most famous chunk of wood in human and (Divine) history.

Speaking of Icons, there is definitely an iconic relationship between the marketing of this article and its informative content, one that probably shouldn’t be there. Seriously MSN-NBCNews guys, it’s one thing to tell us about holy relic hyping; it’s quite another to hype a relic yourselves. …or at least those SHOULD be two-different things. The problem is at least partly a matter of slippage between the various stages of publication and promotion, but somewhere in there a potentially interesting story has been transformed into the rhetoric of carnival barking.

So, I guess this isn’t really the journalism-as-apologetics piece that the original teaser seemed to suggest it would be. Don’t get me wrong; this is actually kind of neat – in a perfectly-sober-professional-archaeologist-doing-what-those-guys-do sorta way, maybe even in a cool-find-and-high-fives-all-around-kinda-way, but definitely not in holy-carble-monkeys-you-has-found-the-holy-of-holies kinda way.

…one of these days I’ll go back to using real words in my posts.

But not today.

Today I am just blowing raspberries at the whole damned thing.

Speaking of absolutely bunk, let’s try an online poll. This oughtta be about as meaningful as all the other junk polls you get with news stories. I only regret that it will probably fail to find it’s way into anybodies talking points.

Dammit!

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CORRECTION: I took a second look at this and changed a few things (including the title) on accounta I still think it’s June of 2012. Thanks to John for catching my mistake.

CNN Runs an Article on Wikileaks’ Release of Syrian Emails, …Wait a Minute, No it Doesn’t!

05 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in Politics

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Yes, this is the photo they used as well.

I don’t have a lot to say about this news story, but it’s worth a look. …a look at the three paragraphs that CNN devotes to the stated topic of the article before reverting to a bog-standard narrative about Wikileaks and the legal troubles of Julian Assange.

I suppose we could learn a thing or two about media bias here.

– Perhaps a bit about the limits to the oft-cited left wing bias of the media, which is certainly true for a certain range of issues in the culture wars of the U.S. That bias quickly reverses course when substantial features of the world political economy are at stake. Wikileaks does far too much to threaten those interests.

…which is why the topic makes a much better sex scandal.

– There may also be a lesson in here about the way that news stories get their titles. Seriously, you click on a link to an article entitled; “Wikileaks Releases 2.4 Million Syria emails,” and you get a story about its founder’s legal troubles. It isn’t all that uncommon, and the author may not be at fault. Still someone is responsible for this. Someone chose to run a story under a false flag. And that someone ought to get noogies from his boss every morning for the rest of July.

…unless, it is the boss. Then he gets Indian burns.

– Or perhaps there is a lesson in here about editing? Who knows what interesting information might have been in the original piece. The 3 paragraphs on the initial topic certainly hint at interesting and juicy information, shortly before reverting to old news. I think there is a pretty good chance there was something worth reading in that original story.

…and I wonder if they will ever let us read it?

– And most of all, I suspect what we have here is a story about the economics of news reporting and the growing tendency to regurgitate the same old shit, all the while calling it news. It will take time and work to sort through the Wikileaks material, and it will take some knowledgable folks to do that. Why put out that effort when you could just take some old stuff about a long-running story and slip it under the sexy new title about a genuine news development?

…cut corners much?

But hey, I’m sure that with good sound journalistic practices like this, CNN will quickly put the whole Supreme Court ruling fiasco behind them! And seriously, this may be yet another extension of that story. Is the misleading title an attempt to finesse the issue of time, a means of holding off the story while they look over the material? Possible.

…but still damned foolish.

Please pardon me now. I’m off to see if I can find someone who actually did a story about the Syrian email leaks.