TLC’s retooled ‘Kate Plus Eight’ is pulling out all the stops for an upcoming episode — including a big cameo by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a source tells In Touch magazine. And with Palin’s upcoming docu-reality TV show set to run on the same network, it’s potentially a great opportunity for cross-promotion.
It’s the year of the metal tiger (so, gold or white tiger). Make sure you eat some long noodles today.
Also, watch this:
I love how they don’t actually hide any of the social extortion/negotiation that goes along. Kids behave because if they don’t, no red envelope for you, you little shits. And the adults hang around long enough until they drink enough to stand each other.
Look for the phrase “Gan Bei” (= “bottom’s up”). Repeatedly.
Those ACORN videos that caused such an uproar? Those ones where they were supposedly giving tax advice to a “pimp and prostitute” (though the offices that called the cops on them were, of course, not in the video)? Yeah, those ones.
The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.
Where’s the kerning squaders for truth now?
If reactionary conservatives weren’t dishonest they would have no other recognizable qualities. Fuckers.
Oh, and by the way, that backdoor bill of attainder that Congress tried to pass about ACORN? Ruled unconstitutional today. Suck on that, freepers.
Also, I want an apology from Jon Stewart for running so hard with this story.
Now that Vivendi and General Electric have struck a deal, cable giant Comcast is expected to to buy a controlling stake in NBC-Universal; marking the biggest proposed media merger in recent memory. Comcast, the largest cable company and the No. 1 residential Internet service provider in the nation, would take over the NBC empire: a television network, Universal Studios, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, the Weather Channel, Hulu.com, 27 television stations and a host of other properties.
This train wreck of a deal will hurt all over. It will mean increased costs for cable television service; currently free online NBC content locked behind a pay wall; less opportunity for the distribution of independent media; even fewer choices and less programming diversity. On average, nearly one quarter of all channels offered to cable subscribers will be owned by the bloated Comcast.
I’m not sure I buy that this deal must mean free content moving behind a pay wall, but for the rest… pretty much. Consolidation of formal, accepted media (that is, not the internet) into such a small number of companies is a Really Bad Idea, for democracy, freedom, and overall entertainment value. Think about it – in just a few months, 80% of everything you see on TV will be coming from one of four companies. That’s just crazy.
I haven’t been a fan of Slate since the pre-WaPo days, but this biography of that raving sociopathic waste known as Alissa Rosenbaum/Ayn Rand is quite good. In case you were wondering, the article is much fairer than the adjectives in my previous sentence… but comes to largely the same conclusion (though it does not address my clinical diagnosis of “sociopath”).
I will never understand why Rand is so popular among the far right and “libertarians” of this country. Let me rephrase – I can understand why the philosophy of utter narcissism may be appealing, but am unable to understand how anyone could devote themselves to it. Add in that her writing is sub-Twilight/Dan Brown-level bad, the dialogue wooden and worse than something from the Cultural Revolution, and that at some point, the reader must come into contact with another human being and I just don’t see its appeal.
Check that, Rand nails the mental makeup of the current American right:
Her heroes are a cocktail of extreme self-love and extreme self-pity: They insist they need no one, yet they spend all their time fuming that the masses don’t bow down before their manifest superiority.
Spot on.
Add in that the narcissism of Wall Street (who are obviously the producers and not the lice, right Mr. Greenspan) and I can see this appealing to an insular little group of aristocrats… but how on earth did our financial policy become beholden to this group of retards?
I encourage all Objectivists to go Galt. Immediately. And/or talk to a girl. I’m not sure which will happen first.
Words cannot encompass just how much wrong is contained in this 7 minute video. Trust me, there are oodles. And oodles. And then more. At some point, it goes around the bend from cover-your-eyes all the way back to fantastic … but then it goes back to horrible.
If, say, you get a new iPhone and, say, have a 5+ year old gmail account… it is not a good idea to sync your contacts with said gmail account. Unless you like spending 20 hours cleaning that shit out.
Dayam this week’s product placement slash “challenge” was paaaaaainfully bad. Just awful.
(for posterity: they went to Times Square aaaaaand… had to make something from the products they found in the H*rsh*y’s store. So… clothes made from candy wrappers. Whee.)
If you watch the show, there are two bits of honesty that kind of make it worthwhile – Christian VO’ing “So I was thinking ‘Great, we’re going to make shit out of chocolate’” and Victorya’s bitchface while they’re standing in the store lining up to hear the bullshit they’re supposed to act excited about. There’s no joy in Hong-ville. Good times, good times.
The rest of the episode suuuucked, though.
The H*rsh*y’s lady was straight out of central casting as well… if you’re casting for stunningly craptacular corporate marketing shill slash Stepford slash Seussian mom. Also, she had no lips. Creepy spokesperson, poor-quality chocolatier company! I’ll never eat one of your poor choco pieces again! Except for the peanut butter cups. And the extra creamy toffee nuggets. And whatever else I eat.
Actual quote from the show (Chris, I think):
Real food is… not … practical
Now that’s good quote!
Unfortunately one of the tiny number of interesting personalities got auf’d. Boo!
This season sucks. Cast is uninspiring and the product placement is worse than an Adam Sandler movie. I need ghostfinger here in order to make this show enjoyable again.