Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Top 11 Ways Media Matters Plans to Carry Out "Guerilla War and Sabotage" Against Fox News

11. Create false rumor that Fox News contributor and America's sweetheart, Mary Katharine Ham, is about to get married

10. Secretly place whoopee cushions under all seats on Fox & Friends

9. Assert that Fox is making up stories to make Joe Biden look foolish

8. Demand that Rupert Murdoch produce his birth certificate to prove that he is not a Koch brother

7. Ensure that nobody watches by convincing them to hire Anderson Cooper, Elliott Spitzer, Piers Morgan, Chris Matthews, Ed Schultz, or Lawrence O'Donnell.

6. Start rumor that Megyn Kelly is actually Helen Thomas' great great grandson

5. Lace Glen Beck's coffee with LSD

4. Poison the minds of the children through new PBS cartoon character Foxy the Nazi

3. Accuse Fox of racism anytime someone on the network says something critical of Woodrow Wilson

2. Release the stuxnet virus into the Fox computer system to slow down their WMD program

1. Hire the homeless to chant "Fox lies" at every live shot

Monday, March 21, 2011

Top 11 Reasons The University Of Minnesota Will Join The Big Ten Hockey Conference

11. Losing to Nebraska doesn't sound quite as bad as losing to Nebraska-Omaha

10. U of M wants to help continue the process of deconstructing racist, sexist notions of mathematics and the meaning of numbers

9. Wanted to appease the 62 people still alive who relish the days of the Minnesota-Michigan hockey rivalry

8. Insurance will no longer cover games against the hacks at University North Dakota

7. Makes it easier to recruit in hockey hotbeds of Indiana and Iowa

6. Coach Lucia likes odds of finishing in top five much better

5. No longer have to worry about getting beaten by "Gopher rejects" at UMD, St. Cloud, Mankato, and Bemidji State

4.Gopher hockey players were jealous that their football and basketball counterparts get to lose more games to Michigan and Ohio State

3. Players will feel better about themselves losing to Penn State than losing to Mankato State

2. Last condition that needed to be met before Devil officially takes possession of Sid Hartman's soul

1. Adding travel cost is a great way for the University to say F*** You to Minnesota taxpayers

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Here Comes The Story Of The Hurricane Machine, Or Be Careful Using The Nuclear Option

A few years ago when George W. Bush was President and the Republican Party had a Senate Majority, the Democratic minority blocked the appointment of several federal judicial nominations by exploiting a parlaimentary procedure. At that time, there was discussion that the Republicans should thwart this strategy by changing the parlaimentary rules. This was referred to by the media as the Nuclear Option. Equating a procedural change to reduce the requirement of votes from 60 to 51 might seem like a boring adminstrative maneuver, but the media has never failed to sensationalize any action that Republicans or conservatives might take to further their agenda.

Many argued that the Republicans shouldn't use the so called nuclear option, reasoning that once Republicans used it then Democrats would be free to use it later. In the end, John McCain brokered an agreement to approve some of the judges, and the standoff was settled.

Later in Bush's administration, he was criticized for his handling of Hurricane Katrina. Bush was accused of using military technology to develope a weather changing machine capable of creating a hurricane. In fact, Bush was accused of using this machine against New Orleans, because he hated black people.

Fast forward to 2011, where President Barack Obama, with his distaste for using fossil fuels to make America productive and prosperous, was close to being forced to allow expansion of nuclear power. This was the case because Obama's preferred sources of wind, solar and biofuels simply don't work well enough to power America's fuel requirements. Nuclear is the only non-fossil alternative that does work well, but the environmentalist constituency that Obama represents hate it. How could Obama find a way to end public support for nuclear power? Could the Bush hurricane machine help him?

Unfortunately, Bush should have listened to the argument that once a precedent is set for using a tool at your disposal, the other side can use it later. Obama obviously redesigned the hurricane machine to create an earthquake. The earthquake would cause a tsunami, which would destroy a nuclear power plant, which would lead to a nuclear moritorium for another generation. Since nuclear accidents are genuinely dangerous, this would have to be done half way around the world. It's so simple that the President would have enough time to work on fixing the NCAA basketball tournament so his bracket would look really great.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Top 11 REAL Reasons Garrison Keillor is retiring in 2013

11) Only has two years left before he completely exhausts the material he's been cribbing from the Big Book of Lutheran Humor

10) Actuarial tables indicate his entire fan base will have died by then

9) As a devout Mayan, he believes world will end in 2012 anyway

8) Made a strict vow to retire at the point where he's telling the same joke for the 10,000th time

7) Wants to spend more time with Angel T!ts

6) Doesn't want to perform after public funding is eliminated, because the image of his political opponents being forced to pay for his attacks against them is the only thing capable of giving him an erection

5) Expecting to be tossed into a concentration camp after Michelle Bachman is elected President

4) Wanted to retire immediately, but his designated replacement, Charlie Sheen, will be too busy bangin' hos for the next few years

3) Getting career advice from Brett Favre, will next announce he's not retiring, then will email pictures of his genitalia to massage therapist

2) NPR getting pressure to force him out from hairy backed swamp developer lobby

1) Plans to retire after huge settlement from suing blogs that steal his material for their names

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Method To The Madness

Decades ago, the NCAA coined the phrase "March Madness" to describe their entertaining basketball tournament. Now, each March everyone on the internet seems to have their own version of March Madness. In the past, I've seen NCAA tournament style brackets to determine the best Simpsons character (Mr. Burns), the best all-time sit-com character (Archie Bunker), the best American rock band (inexplicably, the Eagles), and the best beer (Troegs HopBack Amber).

This year there are a couple of interesting contests that are open:

The Weather Channel online has America's Toughest Weather City. I'm rooting for International Falls, Minnesota to win the title. They have already taken out Green Bay, Wisconsin in the tough Midwest region and face nearby Duluth in the second round and potentially the Twin Cities in a region final. Of course, East Coast bias probably means that snowy Buffalo, NY will win out.

First Things has the Tournament Of Novels. I'm a little less interested in this, since some real classics lost in the first round, including my favorite novel of all time, "The Brothers Karamazov" falling to "Brideshead Revisited." As more evidence of an anti-Russo bias at First Things, Sisyphus recommended "One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovitch" lost to the mediocre, "The Hobbitt." It's probably more a case of bad taste than anti-Russo sentiment, as Vladamir Nabokov's perverted "Lolita" defeated the touching "A Prayer For Owen Meany."

There is literally an infinite number of March Madness tournaments that could go on. My hope is that next year we see Reefer Madness, the ultimate tournament to determine if Acupulco Gold provides a better high than Northern California Sensemilia.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Top 11 Reasons Gallagher Collapsed And Was Hospitalized In Rochester

11. New assistant during sledge-o-matic bit really botched his instructions

10. Slipped on watermelon rind on the floor and hit his head

9. It's all part of his new impersonation of Tubby Smith's Gophers

8. It's all part of his new impersonation of Don Lucia's Gophers

7. Arteries clogged from eating too much BBQ (Rochester is the BBQ capital of the USA)

6. Somehow it's Sarah Palin's fault

5. Decided that since it's now free under Obamacare, he'd get a full physical at the Mayo Clinic

4. JB Doubtless failed to follow our specific instructions on how much poison to use

3. Shocked over his 45 minutes of material on the similarities between the Mayo clinic and a jar of mayonnaise bombing

2. Overcome by the fact that his career had fallen to doing bar gigs in Rochester

1. The shame of failing to write any new comedy material for 40 years was finally too much for his heart

Monday, March 07, 2011

Back In The Saddle Again

It's no secret that this blog hasn't been most prolific recently. I have decided that it may be best to update it whenever possible as best I can. The first thing I've done is clear out the blog roll. It now includes only active blogs. My top 11 blog list is also updated and includes only high quality, frequently updated blogs and other web sites with the exception of the Kool Aid Report, which we love and want to see updated again.

Today I'm linking to a hilarious interview that new blogroll member Peter Schiff did Monday with Dick Morris. I've always disliked Dick Morris. Once a Clinton insider, he turned on his master and now spends his time fighting the Democratic party. He strikes me as a hired gun who does the bidding of the highest bidder. Schiff confronts him and he immediately flees. Watch it here:

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Top 11 Redundant Federal Teacher Programs

In this post, Chad references the fact that the General Accounting Office has identified hundreds of redundant Federal programs that could be targeted for budget savings. I was personally shocked to learn that there are 82 different programs to improve teacher quality. Here are my top 11 favorite Federal Teacher Improvement Programs referenced in the report. See if you can guess which program names are fake. I'll post the answers later this week.

11. Even Start
10. Teachers For A Competitive Tomorrow
9. Cooperation Over Competition Grants
8. Teacher Quality Partnership Grants
7. Improving Teacher Quality State Grants
6. School Improvement Grants
5. Transition To Teaching
4. Teaching Teachers To Teach
3. Teach For America
2. No Teacher Left Behind
1. Troops to Teachers

And the answer is #9, #4, and #2