#1 is, of course, Rob Riggle and the Marines in Berkeley.  Loved it then.  Loved it now.

The rest are... ehhh.

I thought it'd be interesting to look at some of our favorite blogs and see what they're talking about.

For our little blog here:

I'm definitely talking about shows, groups, audiences and the festival.

Comic Vs. Audience:

It looks like recently crowned Philly's Phunniest Kent Haines, Chip Chantry and shows in August are getting the love here.

Die Actor Die:

Most everything is on an even keel here with the Daily Show, Colbert Report and the Consumerist being  consistent sources for our favorite Phillyist contributor.

Not really many surprises overall, but it's nice to see it all put together.

The national average for answering the three questions was only 18%. But 34% of The Colbert Report fans got them right, with 30% of The Daily Show viewers doing so – even though the two Comedy Central shows draw younger audiences which generally scored less well on the "test" than older viewers/readers.

The Pew Report observed: “The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are notable for having relatively well-informed audiences that are younger than the national average.”

Topping the knowledge list were The New Yorker and The Atlantic (48%), NPR (44%), MSNBC’s Hardball (43%), and Hannity & Colmes at 42%.

While consumers of most news outlets scored poorly on the test, a separate question revealed that a vast majority believe they follow national news closely.

Respondents were asked to identify which party now controls Congress, who is the current U.S. secretary of state and name the new prime minister of Great Britain.

Coming in behind the two fake news show on the test were consumers of :

News magazines 30%
O’Reilly Factor 28%
Lou Dobbs Tonight 27%
MSNBC 25%
C-SPAN 24%
Daily newspaper 22%
NBC News 21%
Letterman/Leno 20%
Larry King Live 19%
ABC News 19%
CNN 19%
Fox News 19%
CNBC 17%
Personality magazines 13%
Religious radio 12%
CBS News 10%
National Enquirer 9%
*
Greg Mitchell's new book in Iraq and the media includes chapters on Colbert and Stewart. It is titled "So Wrong for So Long."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003839873&imw=Y

Digby notes that the largest market segment remains the "traditionalists" who get their news predominantly from television, and she discusses the distorting effect the audiovisual and visual media can have on audience perceptions.

Others have discussed the survey's questions designed to test the knowledge of audiences for different programs - including the fact that, while the baseline level of knowledge was low, it was consumers of Comedy Central's fake news shows (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) who were most well-informed. Atrios puts forward a plausible explanation for this - to be funny, political comedy requires that the audience understands the topic being satirised.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1489175&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D179222]

Press liaison! DNC! Obama! Can you tell I'm excited! Exclamation mark!

I'm relatively sure that—being a week away from the convention and not having heard anything else since—the chances of my actually attending are slim, but it's nice to get psyched and daydream about it anyway. To think that I could be in the same room as Obama (and Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams and Jon Stewart)! Jon Stewart!

Speaking of The Daily Show, here's an awesome Even Stevphens clip back when Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert were still regulars on the show. That's all for today.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1487140&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D179234]

When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that “ ‘The Daily Show’ is clearly impacting American dialogue” and “getting people to think critically about the public square.” SOURCE

Which begs the question, will traditional tv news broadcasts (somehow I don't think the Daily Show was included in this study) survive another generation?  And is that actually a problem?  I'm certainly amongst those who refuse to watch the news broadcasts, prefering to get my news from a number of online sources (they update faster, don't have commercial breaks, and I can find sources with less of a bias).  News is just one of the things the internet excells at (although not how to navigate it).

So I hope the reason for the age gap in the news is that people are just going to other sources, although opting for ignorance wouldn't surprise me terribly either.

Ei oikein ole varteenotettavia uutisia matkaan liittyen. Näin siis toimitan tyhjää:

* * *

Yahoo! linkitti eilen omasta mielestäni mielenkiintoiseen artikkeliin/haastatteluun (ja itse asiassa vasta tämän uutisen myötä kuulin ensimmäistä kertaa Salon.com -nettilehdestä, pitäis ehkä ruveta sitä selailemaan, jos tämän kirjoituksen tasosta voi mitään päätellä) pariskunnasta, joka (melkein) asui vuosia amerikkalaisessa ostoskeskuksessa.

Four years after the mall opened, Yoto, Townsend and six friends in their art collective, called Trummerkind ("children of the ruins" in German), vowed to spend a full week at the mall that had transformed their city, to use the mall as an actual public space while surviving sans commerce.
"The mall has something really positive to offer, something that has nothing to do with shopping," Townsend told me.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know -- that's what I moved there to find out."

Rahtasivat alkuun välttämättömimmät huonekalunsa ostoskeskuksen "rivien väliin" pudonneeseen hylättyyn varastotilaan, jossa viettivät öitä, ja jota he alkoivat muunnella oikeaksi asunnoksi, ja päivät he viettivät "tutkimusmatkaillen". Projektin mediajulkisuuden lopulta paisuessa sala-asujien paljastuminen ja häätö olivat vääjäämättömät. Artikkelin lopussa mainitaan myös koomikko, joka muutti tämän vuoden alussa viikoksi asustelemaan New Jerseyssä sijaitsevaan IKEAn myymälään kyseisen ketjun tuotetulvan "hämärrettyä rajaa hänen oman kotinsa ja huonekalukaupan välillä", IKEAn asettumatta hiukkaakaan poikkiteloin.

* * *

Moni länsimaiden asukki on taatusti leikitellyt ajatuksella tavaratalossa, kirjastossa :) , museossa, kuulemma jopa kirkossa tms. asumisesta tai yökyläilystä, vähintäänkin lapsuudessaan. (Useimmilla tähän ajatusleikkiin kuuluu erottamattomasti se, että jos asuisi kaupassa saisi jostain mystisestä syystä käyttää kaikkia myynnissä olevia tavaroita ja elintarvikkeita parhaaksi katsomallaan tavalla... Juuri mainitun artikkelin henkilöt viettivät silti vierailunsa varsin lainkuuliaisesti.)

Tuo tosiasia saattoi osaltaan varmistaa myös Night at the Museum eli Yö museossa -elokuvan (laatuun nähden suhteettoman) menestyksen. Taka-ajatus yksinkertaisesti on ikään katsomatta kutkuttava, vaikka lopullinen elokuva osoittautui mitäänsanomattomaksi ja komedianakin kirvoitti todelliset mahanaurut vain yhdessä ainoassa kohtauksessa. En esimerkiksi jaksanut tuntea elokuvan intoa museoesineiden henkiinheräämisestä kun päähenkilökin suhtautui siihen niin tavattomana riesana.
Minulle yö museossa -set-up toisi ensimmäisenä mieleen pikemminkin tiivistunnelmaisen mysteerin. Mutta helpotuksekseni elokuva ei onnistunut romuttamaan lapsuudenkuvitelmiani yön autioittamista julkisista rakennuksista. Tuleva jatko-osa ei liene kovakaan pettymys, kun sitä katsoo ensileffan avaamasta näkökulmasta: ei katsojien kenties vuosikausia muhineen mielikuvitusjuhlan kuvittajana (vaikeaahan sille olisikin vetää vertoja) vaan historiallisparodisena (<- erittäin kevyellä tavalla) äksönkomediana.

Ja sitä paitsi, jatko-osassahan on Bill Hader. Hurraa Bill Haderille.

* * *

Lainasin Wodehouse on Wodehousen kirjastosta noin kymmenettä kertaa. Oikeastaan kyseessä on kolmen kirjan yhdistelmäpainos, josta luen aina kaksi viimeistä kolmasosaa (Performing Flea ja Over Seventy) ensin, ellen jopa jätä niitä lukematta, ja viimeiseksi -- jälkkäriksi -- luen ensimmäisen kolmasosan (Guy Boltonin kanssa kirjoitettu Bring On the Girls), koska se on kaikkein paras.
Vanha virteni: "Pitäis jo ostaa se." Mulla on kylläkin hirviömäinen lista kirjoja jotka odottavat ostamistaan ennen sitä, ja saavat odottaa pitkään kun tilanteeni on mitä on, ja maastamuutto vaatii leijonanosan energiastani SEKÄ jo valmiiksi vähistä rahoistani, puhumattakaan lähiomaisteni rahoista. Apua, alan masentaa kaikkia, äkkiä siihen varsinaiseen ASIAAN: onneksi opiskelijaviisumihakemukseni Kanadaan ei vaatinut niin perusteellisia tietoja kuin P.G. Wodehousen viisumi Yhdysvaltoihin vuonna 1949.

I also had to have X-Rays done on my chest, I suppose to prove that there was nothing deleterious inside it. I took the X-Rays home and stored them in a cupboard, and on arrival at the American Consul's at Niagara Falls found that I ought to have brought them with me and couldn't get my visa without them. It seemed for a moment what we French call an impasse, but fortunately the Consul was a splendid fellow and let me wire to the Ellis Island doctor, asking him to wire back that I was OK. When the doc's wire arrived, saying that my chest was the talk of New York and had five stars in Baedeker, I was given my visa.

* * *

Hyvähyvähyvähyvähyvä. The Daily Shown JA The Colbert Reportin jaksoja voi nykyisin katsoa kokonaisina thedailyshow.comissa (tiedän, olen myöhässä kertoessani tämän, mutta enhän minä tässä mitään uutisblogia pidä). Erinomainen asia, vaikkakin jaksoissa on muutama mainos mukana. Mainokset sisällytetään lähes samoin kuin southparkstudios.comissa -- odotettavissa, kaikki kolmehan ovat Comedy Centralin ohjelmistoa.

Siellä Tropic Thunder -elokuvan trailerin osuessa ohimennen silmiini en kiinnittänyt hirveästi huomiota näyttelijöiden nimiin, joten olin sanalla sanoen tyrmistynyt nähdessäni pian Tropic Thunderin leffajulisteen jossa ne lueteltiin ja yksi niistä oli Jack Black -- trailerin perusteella kun olin (tosijuttu!) luullut häntä PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMANIKSI:!: ROHAHAHAHAHH voitteko uskooooo...

* * *

Ja Tropic Thunderissahan on Bill Hader. Hurraa Bill Haderille.

Hader ei ole ainoa loistava syy katsoa seuraava lyhyt mukadokumentti The Stingin (Puhallus) ääniraidan uudelleenmasteroinnista. Lupaan että naurattaa.

Sounds Good to Me: Remastering The Sting

"My friend Gerbils Chow played the role of Paul Newman's character, which was a huge kick for that little guy... Now, on the surface of it you'd think it was a hindrance to have a Chinaman who doesn't speak any English play Paul Newman but -- seamless. Totally seamless."

By Paul Craig Roberts
08/15/08 "ICH"

The Bush Regime imbeciles don’t know when to stop. With the world still rolling in laughter from John McCain’s claim that “in the 21st century nations don’t invade other nations,” the moronic US secretary of state declared: "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

This from Condi Rice who is “proud” of the Bush Regime’s invasion of Iraq.

This is not 1968. It is 40 years later, and roles have reversed. In the 21st century it is the United States that invades countries, occupies capitals, overthrows governments, and gets away with it.

The criminal Bush Regime has sent out its flunkies to huff and puff because Russia put its foot down against American hegemony on its border. Take your aggression elsewhere, the Russians said. We did not free constituent parts of our empire in order for them to become constituent parts of an American empire.

For years the Bush Regime has been fodder for the Daily Show. Condi Rice’s inane statement will keep the laughter rolling.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

***

The Daily Show
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=179231
Aug 14, 2008

The Russia-Georgia conflict allows John McCain and Barack Obama to get in the commander-in-chief simulator.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1479701&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D179234]

"Russo-Georgian Conflict | The Daily S...", posted with vodpod

see

Russia-Asia cooperation a nightmare for US hawks

“Gori in ruins”? See for yourself + Paul Craig Roberts on Russia Today + Georgia is a US Project

Inventing Your Own History As It Happens By John Steppling

Wag the Dog: How to Conceal Massive Economic Collapse

RNN: Nuclear war by miscalculation (Part 2)

Georgia - Another Pawn in the ‘Great Game’ By William Bowles

Will American Insouciance Destroy the World? By Paul Craig Roberts

This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government, and get away with it. Things have changed."

Yeah, she gets paid to come up with stuff like that.  Jon Stewart takes it from here--

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1478536&w=425&h=350&fv=videoId%3D179234]

I created an avatar yesterday. I don't know how much it looks like me, but you can't fault me for how I see myself, right?

I'm really sorry about this lazy post, y'all. Looks like time is finally catching up with me.

Oh, war... it's just God's way of teaching Americans geography.

I immediately recognized this as one of my favorite quotes from American satirist Ambrose Bierce, who is most well known for his seminal work, The Devil's Dictionary. The exact quote from Bierce is:

War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.

The only thing missing was the proper attribution. I wonder what else Stewart and his writers borrow without proper credit.