Rapture happened, says Camping, but it was invisible

By Dan Brooks in lying 5 Comments

Ladies, it comes down to two choices.

A fun thing to do Saturday was warn your friends about the Rapture predicted by evangelical minster/probable crazy person Harold Camping, then watch as they ascended into heaven got drunk and talked about their dads like usual. Camping performed a series of numerological calculations based on scripture to predict the end of the world to the day, apparently on the assumption that A) neither he nor a 2000 year-old account written 250 years after the fact could possibly be wrong about the day of the week on which Jesus was crucified, or B) there was no way he’d live that long. It’s also possible he realized C) he could always lie about it afterward, in a sort of Rapture-predicting encore. God never closes a door without opening a window,* and Harold Camping now assures us that the Rapture he predicted did happen, but it was invisible. The world will actually end on October 21, exactly six months after the date he originally predict—dammit!

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White Americans believe anti-white bias worse than anti-black

By Dan Brooks in lying, Uncategorized 1 Comment

Come on, son, Reince Priebus.

A new survey finds that white Americans A) love to take surveys as long as Wheel of Fortune isn’t on or about to be on and B) believe that anti-white racism is now a more serious problem in the United States than racism against blacks. By contrast, African-Americans—who are more likely to actually know some black people—reported that racial persecution is still, you know, the one thing in society that white people do not get to have more of. None of this is surprising—you can tell because it’s extremely depressing. Using the same powerful sense of victimhood that made 1968 the most important summer in American history, white people have taken a hard look at anti-black racism and decided that, since the 1950s, it has declined by two thirds. Over the same time, anti-white racism has nearly tripled. This is why you must never ask white people their opinion.

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Internet has its way with Jon Kyl

By Dan Brooks in lying 6 Comments

Arizona Senator Jon Kyl on the set of his extremely unpopular children's show

If you are a regular viewer of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, which at this stage of American discourse are types of news, you probably already heard about Jon Kyl’s claims regarding Planned Parenthood. During debate on the Senate floor, Kyl said that abortion is “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.” That number turns out to be off by a mere 2900%; abortion is actually about 3% of what Planned Parenthood does, which puts them well below such organizations as Courtney Love.* Shortly afterward, a spokesman from Kyl’s office told CNN that the Senator’s remark was “not intended to be a factual statement.” See, Jon Kyl wasn’t lying: he was merely making a statement that he did not consider accurate but his listeners did, as part of a persuasive argument he conducted in his capacity as a United States legislator. The absurdity of this defense has not escaped the internet, and Senator Kyl has consequently achieved the highest grade of infamy possible in contemporary western culture. He has become a meme.

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Glenn Beck to end Fox News show

By Dan Brooks in lying 1 Comment

Beavis wept.

We won, you guys. Glenn Beck announced yesterday that he will not renew his existing contract with Fox News, meaning that the network will stop airing The Glenn Beck Program and Old-Tyme Conspiracy Hour sometime between now and December.  The news is startling but not surprising. Reports have swirled—swirled!—regarding Fox executives’ displeasure with Beck, whose show has lost 300 advertisers and 40% of its ratings share since the salad days of late 2009. It appears that the same principle applies to Fox viewership as applies to the nation: the more people know what Glenn Beck is talking about, the less they buy it. The bad news is that he may purchase his own cable channel—in order to, and I quote, “extract more value” from his fan base—but the interesting news is his and Roger Ailes’s mutual attempt to hide their contempt for each other. “I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News,” Beck said in a statement yesterday. Ailes quote and uncharitable analysis after the jump.

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Walker appoints, promotes, demotes lobbyist’s son

By Dan Brooks in lying 4 Comments

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, seen here on school picture day

Is this the face of a machine politician who unquestioningly executes whatever obscure directives party apparatchiks give him? Um, yeah—now that you mention it, it kind of is. Especially if you mention it along with the news that Scott Walker appointed 27 year-old college dropout Brian Deschane to a $65,000-a-year supervisory position in the Wisconsin Bureau of Licensing and Regulation. Deschane has no management experience, only a short history of full-time employment and two drunk driving convictions, but he is the son of Jerry Deschane, head of the Wisconsin Builders Association, which sent Walker over $120,000 in contributions during the 2010 campaign. Two months after he was hired at L&R, Brian Deschane was promoted to a supervisory position in the Wisconsin Commerce Department, where he got a 24% pay raise. Then a bunch of articles came out about that, and Walker demoted Deschane to his earlier job. He’ll also be in charge of Walker’s exploratory team for the 1882 election.

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