Friday, October 8, 2010

Gadzooks, They're Not Even Pretending To Do News Anymore

I still can't believe that Fox (can't dignify them with the "News" moniker) ran a story , based on original reporting by the crack journalists of the brilliantly loony Weekly World News, about the purchase of 10,000 jetpacks by the L.A.P.D. Oddly enough, this piece is funnier than the "satirical" show Fox ran (for added hilarity, check out the first comment on the linked site). The dark-haired guy (can't be arsed looking up his name) comes across as an especially lunk-headed mook:





Underneath the hilarity, this story rankles for a few reasons. First, it is merely the most egregious example of the piss-poor fact-checking that is the "new normal" in the news media (so-called). It's also a transparently false (uh, dark-haired d-bag, if Montana has a surplus, it's because of states like California) anti-government spending piece... if this little fable had been set in Bush-era Colorado Springs, it would have been glowingly covered as a "get tough on crime" narrative. Finally, the Martin Jetpack Company is based in New Zealand, a nation I had been led to believe possessed no aircraft more sophisticated than trebuchet-launched gliders. Now, I am skeered and afeared that an invasion force of New Zealanders, accompanied by unholy hypnostag/Haast's eagle hybrids, will pillage my neighborhood, carrying off all of the akvavit and blood pudding, and adding superfluous "U's" to the marquees of the local color-printing businesses.

9 comments:

  1. Also, for those of us who understand a few things about physics ---


    WHA HA HAH HA HAH HA HA!


    ... you know the engineers that were not good enough to design buildings and bridges? THAT WAS THESE GUYS.

    LOL. Except for the people who died testing this crap.

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  2. Also, for those of us who understand a few things about physics ---

    Such as Ph.D. Ape, who was mentioned in the WWN article to which I linked.

    Oh, and I am watching Isabel MacDonald take Lou Dobbs apart on an MSNBC video posted at "Crooks and Liars"... WABOOLI!!! She's like Sippy Cupp, but with a brain.

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  3. “You gotta make up some rules,” said co-host Brian Kilmeade. “Because you're going to have jetpacks flying into choppers!

    That's FAUX and Fiends for ya.
    ~

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  4. At one point I was thinking of ranting in some way about the jetpack story, but it would have duplicated an earlier Riddled story about a NZ implementation of existing technology

    Also you misspelled 'marquis'.

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  5. Geez, Carlson looks like one of those BRATZ dolls.

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  6. And hey, which Republican presidential candidates are not paid by Fox?

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  7. Also you misspelled 'marquis'.

    I blame this spelling error on television.

    “Because you're going to have jetpacks flying into choppers!"

    Nothing ever made me want to punch someone in the face like this line did.

    Geez, Carlson looks like one of those BRATZ dolls.

    She does look like she's had a little too much "work" done.

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  8. superfluous "U's"

    Also yo mispelled 'sperflos'.

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