Jon Stewart came back from his vacation and delivered a great rant about Ferguson and the indignities that people of color routinely face in America, comparing it to the kinds of things that the majority constantly whines about. It was excellent.
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Net neutrality is a really important issue that is hard to get people excited about, except for those who are really into internet policy. But John Oliver did an long segment about it that got to the core issue so clearly and understandably that Tim Wu, the Columbia University professor who coined the term ‘net neutrality’, said that it had “rendered every other explanation obsolete.”
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Whenever I go to the dentist, it seems like the Dr. Oz show is on their TV in the waiting room. It is an absolutely nauseating show where the host uses his impressive medical credentials to plug various products with wildly exaggerated claims. And yet apparently people take him seriously, making the dietary supplement industry highly profitable.
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The Pearls Before Swine comic strip is my favorite among the ones currently running. It has a wildly unpredictable absurdist humor that often breaks the fourth wall by inserting the cartoonist Stephan Pastis into the strip to interact with his characters, and uses puns and other plays on words (like this one).
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Once in a while, especially at times when people are fighting and killing over religion more than usual, I like to link to this audio of a rant by British comedian Marcus Brigstocke. The whole thing is worth listening to but especially the part where he talks about how while the violence is committed by a few extremists, the undoubtedly much larger number of religious people who are peaceful cannot completely escape responsibility for what is done.
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Bank of America is the latest to pay a fine for mortgage fraud that led to the financial crises that resulted in thousands of people losing their homes. In announcing the fine that had been agreed to of $16.65 billion, Attorney General Eric Holder said today:
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… be prepared for surprising things to happen.
Another football season is about to start and we have the Washington DC football team owner continuing to stick with its current deplorable name despite increasing disapproval and the decision by some reporters and media outlets to refuse to use it. I hope that this football team, like my hometown Cleveland Indians whose racist logo is also contemptible, lose every single game or at the least, never make the playoffs. At the moment, the Indians are well on the way to another season of well-deserved mediocrity and I couldn’t be happier.
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I have long since ceased to be surprised that some of the best analyses of hot-button issues like what happened in Ferguson is coming from comedy shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and now with newcomer Last Week Tonight. Oliver provides valuable context and background information on what transpired and brilliantly leavens the dark matter with humor.
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There are a lot of people on the internet whose main goal seems to be to say silly and outrageous things just so that the public will pay attention to them. Ann Coulter in one such media hustler. Sarah Palin is another. The logical thing to do is to ignore them and deny them the visibility they so clearly crave and usually I do just that. But sometimes the things they say are so funnily mockable that I bend the rules.
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