Lest any citizen think the U.S. Congress is absorbed only in the weightiest matters like nationalizing the health care system, the House just passed another piece of legislation - a bill urging that TV commercials be no louder than the shows in which they appear. The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (CALM) passed Tuesday on a voice vote, "presumably expressed at a comfortable level," joked a USA Today writer. It now goes to the Senate, which is considering an identical bill. "I not only dive for the mute button, but I end up having to close my windows so that... continue reading
Liberal newspaper people are so predictable when it comes to internal party fights. If it's inside the Republican Party, it's the conservative Republicans who are wrong. If inside the Democratic Party, it's the conservative Democrats who are wrong. The Washington Post recently gave us a case study in this slanted worldview. On December 14, they splashed across the front page an article by reporter Michael Leahy on an obscure California Republican assemblyman named Anthony Adams. The charge: he betrayed his no-new-taxes vow and supported a $12 billion tax increase. The Post analysis: Adams was savaged by the "toxic infighting" of... continue reading
Some memories that still define the warmest moments of American television are the long-running animated Christmas specials. There's "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (first aired in 1964), "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) and "Frosty the Snowman" (1969). Many grown-ups remember all of those shows once aired just on CBS. So somehow it's still shocking that the soulless, cynical people running CBS today would find a way to trash that memory. An online video has surfaced called "Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman," a mash-up of classic "Frosty" scenes (and clips from the less-than-classic 1992 cartoon "Frosty Returns") along with a collection of audio... continue reading
Talk about an inconvenient truth. In ever-increasing numbers, Americans are becoming skeptical about the scientific argument that there's a man-made global-warming crisis that requires immediate and drastic government action. The media's enablers of the radical environmental left have a response: maybe America just isn't smart or curious enough to save the planet. In fact, they say our growing denial is making us nationally irrational. On Monday, National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" ran a story by science correspondent Richard Harris. He worried out loud about a new Harris Poll showing that 51 percent of the American public believes that the carbon... continue reading
On Sunday morning, November 22, Nickelodeon's cable channel Teen Nick was running a series of promos during a rerun of its junior-high sitcom "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide." Which of these ads isn't quite like the others? 1. A promo for a themed "Attack of the Little Sisters Thanksgiving Weekend," with reruns of child-friendly shows such as "Full House" and "Drake and Josh." 2. An ad for dolls and talk-show microphones associated with the "i-Carly" show on Nickelodeon. 3. A vulgar, smash-mouth, in-your-face promo savaging anyone who finds fault with the homosexual lifestyle. Surprisingly, promo number three was sandwiched between... continue reading
Last week, Fox News reported a jaw-dropping story about how our War on Terror has now become a war on ourselves. In September a team of Navy SEALs captured terrorist Ahmed Hashim Abed, a man known to the U.S. military as "Objective Amber," the architect of the vicious and deadly attack on four American contractors in the summer of 2004. These poor men were shot, burned, and then their bodies were desecrated, hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. But instead of hailing the SEALs as heroes for bringing this vicious murderer to justice, three of them have been... continue reading
If there is an entertainment trend ripe for satire, it is the begging-for-attention smut routines at nationally televised music awards shows. How low can these "artists" go? Sadly, there is always another frontier. "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert was the latest offender at the November 22 American Music Awards on ABC, with a routine complete with S&M bondage slaves, deep male-on-male kissing, and simulated fellatio on stage. All in front of millions upon millions of impressionable youngsters. It was another in-your-face Janet Jackson moment. There's only one thing that makes this funny. It's the idea that somehow none of this... continue reading
Here's a dirty little secret about The New York Times. It likes to leak things. Important things. Things that change the course of the public conversation. From the Pentagon Papers to the ruined terrorist-surveillance programs of the Bush era, the Times has routinely found that secrecy is a danger and sunlight is a disinfectant. Until now. A troublesome hacker recently released e-mails going to and from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain, e-mails that exposed how the "scientific experts" cited so often by the media on global warming display are guilty of crude political... continue reading
It is amazing how a phrase can emerge seemingly out of nowhere to become the statement du jour - used, overused, and ultimately abused. Last year there was "low hanging fruit" everywhere. Today everyone's being "thrown under the bus." Sometimes, it's just one word. "As a writer, you're always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk," Dan Harmon, the creator of the new NBC sitcom "Community" told The New York Times. In a surprisingly controversial front-page story on November 14, Times reporter Edward Wyatt tried to identify the zeitgeist by one hot "potent" word for jerk:... continue reading
Picking up the Sunday paper on November 15 could make a reader a little airsick - even while standing in the driveway. The Washington Post "news analysis" on the front page carried the headline " 9/11 trial could become a parable of right and wrong : Before worldwide audience, both prosecution, defense seek control of narrative." Does The Washington Post really think that the death and destruction of 9/11 "could" be right, or "could" be wrong? Liberals cannot stand it when the national media won't simply declare contentious debates over and their viewpoint settled truth. Take, for example, the allegedly... continue reading