Thursday, April 29, 2010

Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its TV audience since January

The future of FOX News is on the decline, This year Glenn Beck has dropped one third of his audience, and 200 major advertisers won't purchase advertising spots on his show. A full breakdown of the situation is here http://mediamatters.org/blog/201004280008

Eric Massa was accused of 'groping' a male staffer. That 'Massa Moment' spoken of in the article can be seen here.


I think it's time for Glenn Beck to get some lessons off South Park, this is how they parodied him




I think I like 'Cartmen' Beck better...lol

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Noah's Ark Found!!!

THE remains of Noah's Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.

They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah's Ark Ministries International research team, said: "It's not 100 per cent that it is Noah's Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it."

He said the structure contained several compartments, some with wooden beams, that they believe were used to house animals.

The group of evangelical archaeologists ruled out an established human settlement on the grounds none have ever been found above 11,000ft in the vicinity, Yeung said.

Local Turkish officials will ask the central government in Ankara to apply for UNESCO World Heritage status so the site can be protected while a major archaeological dig is conducted.

The biblical story says that God decided to flood the Earth after seeing how corrupt it was.

He then told Noah to build an ark and fill it with two of every animal species.
After the flood waters receded, the Bible says, the ark came to rest on a mountain.

Many believe that Mount Ararat, the highest point in the region, is where the ark and her inhabitants ran aground.

Some video footage here

From http://www.thesun.co.uk/

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Freedom??? Not on my watch baby!

Last week Matt Stone and Trey Parker celebrated their 200th episode of South Park. The episode basically showed every celebrity that they had ripped on in the previous 199 episodes trying to figure out a way that they could become impossible to mock, then the answer dawned on them, the one being that is never mocked…Mohammed!

If the group of celebrities could capture Mohammed, they could extract his ‘goo’ to make them impervious to mockery.

The episode was entitled ‘200’ and is below.


If you haven’t had time to watch the episode, at the end Mohammed is in a bear suit, as he isn’t allowed to be seen, and there is another group also trying to gain his powers of ‘no-mockery’, a group that has been mocked, teased and kept society kinda creeped out for generations….the gingers! So Episode 200 finishes with the gingers insisting that the people of South Park, hand over Mohammed (who is in the bear suit remember) to get his powers.

This aired in the States last week.

Then the ‘you know what’ hit the fan.

After the airing of ‘200’, a group calling themselves Revolution Muslim delivered what is now being described as ‘veiled’ death threats. Muslim Revolution now say they were just sending a warning to Stone, Parker and the South Park crew that ‘some’ Muslims have killed people before for offending their faith. Citing specifically when a Dutch filmmaker was murdered for a film that Muslims considered insulting.

You decide in this extract as printed in the NY Times
The post, written by a member named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, said the episode “outright insulted” the prophet, adding: “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

You might think that a group like Revolution Muslim, may be sitting in the hills of Pakistan sending messages via grainy internet connections, and that may make sense as the ideology and fervour in some of those extremists are removed from daily Western society. Well one of the many kickers here is that Revolution Muslim is a New York based group, as Jon Stewart said, “…residing in the former shadows of the twin towers.” Crazy!

So now Parker and Stone have a decision to make, you see Episode 200 is a two-part story, the following week there is to be aired ‘201’, and like any free loving First Amendment boys they leave 201 as it is…however, Comedy Central censors it heavily, bleeping out the word ‘Mohammed’ every time it is said and bleeping out whole lines of the final wrap of the story.

The full episode is here…201


Stone and Parker had already, very cleverly censored Mohammed, as a message about ‘pointless censorship’, which is pointed out when Tom Cruise get’s Mohammed’s powers…but is still able to be mocked. Why is there a prohibition on satire on Mohammed? Why is anyone person, group or religion above the wit of a comedian?

What is Comedy Central doing? Why would you bow to the threat and basically turn this commentary of a social/political/religious issue into a waste of time, we don’t get the show kicker, we don’t get the wrap, and the only people that are happy….are still not going to be happy, even if Mohammed’s name was bleeped…it still inferred he was there.

Parker and Stone issued a statement after 201 showed.
In the 14 years we've been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn't stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn't some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle's customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn't mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We'll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we'll see what happens to it.

Others in the Comedy Central family have come to their defence as well…
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
South Park Death Threats
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party


Freedom of speech? Freedom of the press? Freedom of expression? Freedom of religion?

Where are we left? We either have freedoms…or we don’t. There is no middle ground here. Once you attach strings to freedom, then freedom is tethered and can’t be called freedom….

I guess what we have in truth in the world in 2010, is freedom that society allows us. We have freedom that the government approves. We have freedom…as long as we don’t say Mohammed

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

US Military shoots and kills Iraqi civilians and Reuters staff

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded



Wikileaks.org has the full footage and story behind the video