Well, I’m guessing that only the most die-hard “liberatarians” will want to spend any time inside this (true) Fantasyland. Just imagine the joys of eating food that has NOT been FDA-approved or inspected. Rides that aren’t inspected for safety nor are they subject to routine maintenance-only when the ride’s actually broken down will anyone do any work on them. Everyone entering the park will be required to sign a contract relieving the park and its ownership of any liability for a personal injury that may be incurred while enjoying the park’s facilities.

Margarita, you could’ve just as easily destroyed FoxNoise’s “report” with the first sentence from the Gallup piece:

“On the eve of a new term, President Barack Obama’s approval rating currently stands at 56% in the latest three-day Gallup Daily tracking average. . . .”

“Debi” is obviously using this as her audition piece for FoxNoise or Breitbart.com. As we all know, both those “news outlets” take real stories and selectively edit them to fit the FoxNoise/Breitbart agenda.

Well, “Roger,” perhaps you should direct some of your “due respect” to FoxNoise. I find it incredibly insane when someone disparages those who (quite rightfully) attack FoxNoise for the inane comments of their various hosts and guests—NOT A SINGLE ONE OF WHOM wants to "show some compassion and try [and] start a new dialogue on how we can help boys.

The simple fact, “Roger,” is that FoxNoise is NOT interested in any sort of REAL dialogue; the FoxNoise kkkrew is only interested in returning to the “values” of the 1950s. The FoxNoise “dialogue” simply wishes to blame the women’s movement for all the ills besetting America.

The FoxNoise kkkrew grew up with FALSE images of “manhood”—ones that glorified violence in general and treating women as nothing more than objects to be conquered and owned.

But men traditionally were instructed to bottle up their emotions which led to far more GROWN men being medicated for ulcers and stress and dying earlier than women by nearly a DECADE. (Yes, men, on average, die younger than women, but now, the average is less than 5 years.)

Maybe Mr Starnes doesn’t understand the whole concept of the Constitution. He quotes Pres Obama as saying “With rights come responsibilities” and then attacks that as “justifying the destruction of our Constitution.” And yet, Mr Starnes might try to write a treatise on violently overthrowing the government, and see how far his “free speech” and his “free press” gets him. Or heck, maybe he should go to his local multiplex and then (falsely) yell “Fire!” and see how much protection his First Amendment rights give him after he’s tossed in jail for endangering the public.

But seriously, rights have power and, as every good Spider-Man fan knows, “With great power there must also come great responsibility.” Heck, the saying is usually attributed to Voltaire but Spidey made it part of pop culture. Though it’s worth noting that a variant of the saying can be found in the Gospel of Luke, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48) You’d sort of think the “American Family Association” would know this kind of thing.

truman: Don’t forget Dubya’s little infamous comment from around 2005/6 when he admitted he didn’t “think much about bin Laden.” Or the fact that, under Dubya, the whole unit dedicated to hunting down bin Laden was virtually shut down.

I know the GOPers like to forget these little “facts” (since they don’t match the GOPers’ worldview); of course, they were quick to demand that Obama give full credit for killing bin Laden and quite peeved when Obama didn’t give Dubya and Cheney any credit.

I don’t get the right-wing trolls. They don’t seem to have any problems knowing that multi-millionaires and billionaires fund their favorite “news” networks and websites but bring up the name “George Soros” and they virtually turn rabid. I realize it’s difficult for most of them to fathom the idea that one can be incredibly wealthy and STILL have a conscience allowing them to be empathetic to those not as fortunate as they and, therefore, seek to fund organizations and websites that share their views. But there you have it.

I’m also amused how these same trolls have no problems with all of Murdoch’s (proven) crimes but they can’t wait to recount the hundreds of (disproven) crimes committed by Soros that should be used to deport Soros (again, willfully ignoring the crimes Murdoch’s committed that should have had his wrinkled ass deported).

@paul: The hostage situation was in Algeria, not Mali. The situation is believed to be a response by an Islamist Algerian group sympathetic to the Islamist Malian rebels.

But it is a large producer of gold*, at least as of 2006 (the intervening years of rebellion have probably put a large damper on the production), the country produced more than 85,000 kilograms of gold (not really sure how much that comes to in “tons of gold” since an ounce of gold is based on the Troy system rather than the standard/avoirdupois system—85000 kg of gold translates to nearly 3000000 standard ounces or to about 2750000 Troy ounces—and the Troy system wasn’t designed for weights over a pound which, in the Troy system, only has 12 ounces).

*And, as we all know, if there’s anything the right-wingers like more than oil, it’s gold.

Perhaps Mr Levin would care to ask why so many modern teenagers (13-16) are able to access alcohol even though President Ray-gun signed an EXECUTIVE ORDER more than a quarter-century ago requiring states to raise the legal drinking age or forfeit Federal highway tax funding (partly because it was allegedly so “easy” for teenagers [13-16] in the 1980s to get alcohol because the drinking age was 18).

Or is it just that Levin feels executive orders are only bad when they’re signed by a President who belongs to a party that starts with the letter “D”?

Executive orders are a proper legal function of the Presidency, no matter which party the President belongs to.

Q: How do you know when O’Reilly’s lying?

A: Simple. His lips are moving.

Okay, I’m not following the FoxNoise “logic” here. Are they seriously suggesting that a burglar is MORE likely to invade a home that’s known to have guns, rather than one that doesn’t?

Given the frequency of his outrageous lies, someone needs to remind Bill of that little Biblical notion of “The Ten Commandments.” I’d highlight, for starters, “Thou shalt not lie” but also bring up “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Okay—maybe phone-sex harassment doesn’t strictly count as adultery, but I believe it was Jesus who suggested that “harboring lust in one’s heart” was pretty much the same as adultery and, let’s face it, phone sex is a lot more about “lust” than it is having an engaging conversation on socio-economic-political topics of the day.)

And, of course, there’s that little thing about “the mote and the beam” from Matthew 7:1-5 or Luke 6:37-42. Perhaps BillO might consider removing the beam from his eye before commenting on the mote in O’Donnell’s.

Priscilla. Was it really necessary to go beyond “Is Bill O’Reilly lying?” Obviously, no matter the subject, the answer to “Is Bill O’Reilly lying?” is “Yes!!” It’s only when “No” is the answer that we really have something truly surprising. (Even a broken clock tells the true time more often in a single day than Bill O’Reilly tells the truth in a whole week. Okay, it’s probably more like a whole year, but I thought I’d give O’Reilly a little benefit of the doubt—even though he doesn’t deserve it.)

Joshua, perhaps you should direct your comment to FoxNoise. I watched the video and it appears that the graphic was simply put up by the producers as nothing more than just a simple scare tactic, having no other real purpose.

Of course, no one actually believes (not even the pinheads at FoxNoise*) that the coin would’ve actually weighed nearly that much but FoxNoise hasn’t been much for letting rationality take precedence.

If they wanted to be honest (not something FoxNoise hosts hold in high esteem), they’d point out that a “quarter” doesn’t weigh “a quarter of a dollar” nor does it weigh as much as “25 cents (pennies).” The simple fact (something else FoxNoise doesn’t hold in high esteem) is that the Mint could produce a coin, no bigger than a dime and made of a diamond-plutonium combination, with a face value of 1 Googol dollars and that’s how much it would be worth. Bear in mind, for example, that it costs more money to make a penny than the face value.

(*Referring to the talking heads that host the various programs and their guests. Their viewers, on the other hand, not so much.)

@joshua: Way to miss the facts, buddy. For starters, Al Jazeera is NOT an “oil kingdom”; it’s a PRIVATE network that is based IN an “oil kingdom.” As for the “not once did I hear lamentations about selling to a Muslim” bit, again—way to miss the facts. There wasn’t any need to make it specifically about “selling to a Muslim”; that’s IMPLIED by the very fact he sold to Al Jazeera.

As for any alleged hypocrisy (and if you’re going to use such big words, try to spell them correctly, ‘kay?), it’s completely off-base considering the fact that FoxNoise is partially-owned by a MUSLIM—a fact that FoxNoise NEVER bothers to mention to its viewers. Hypocrisy is actually the last thing to which FoxNoise needs to use as a basis for criticism. Perhaps the name “Sean Hannity” rings a bell when it comes to hypocrisy? Or the name “Bill O’Reilly?” (The latter guy, for instance, loves to come off as a “traditional family man” but he’s had to reach a financial settlement with a woman who accused him of sexual harassment—while he was married—and he’s currently separated from his wife. He’s also constantly complaining about all the “left-wing vitriol” and how “intolerant” the left is of others but he certainly has no problem spewing venom at those who disagree with him and he has no use for anyone who promotes tolerance for things with which he disagrees.)

I’m all for a gov’t shutdown if the first item that the gov’t cuts in terms of spending is Congressional salaries—especially the salaries of idiots like Salmon. It’s so funny that these yahoos, when they’re out on the campaign trail promising to “cut gov’t spending,” never seem to promise they’ll seek a 50% cut in Congressional pay (which would still allow these morons to have a larger annual salary than the average voter) and a similar cut in all the perks. They want to cut every other item in the budget except for defense spending and their own salaries.

I’m really not surprised that he found “liberal bias” in algebra homework. After all, the cons proved in this past election cycle that they’re not even comfortable with simple addition and subtraction (you know—the stuff you learn in first grade), so it’s not surprising they’d be really uncomfortable with more advanced math. (DOYC help us if he ever discovers calculus.)

Aria, what “limit?” The Blacks who still tune into FoxNoise are the ones who believe (like the white FoxNoise viewers) that Blacks like Clarence Thomas, Allen West, Herman Cain and Alveda King should be the “real” leaders of the Black community—in other words, Blacks who spout the same type of anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-liberal bullshit and are willing to sit back and grin while other Blacks are routinely denigrated (while the “of course, none of this applies to you” argument is used).

On the plus side, we’d have some serious redistricting going on in the other 49 states, getting to split up Texas’s 36 districts*. (I’d imagine at least a dozen of them would go to the current 1-seat and 2-seat states with the remaining 2 dozen splitting up among the “big” gain states and some of the mid-range states that have had population growth but not enough to merit an extra Congressional district.) I’m not sure how this would affect the Electoral College since DC is only guaranteed the “minimum” number of votes, but I imagine a Texasless Electoral College would only have 536 votes.**

*Federal law set the House of Representatives membership at 435 back in the early 1960s.

**From the 435 HR component, the 98 Senate-seat component plus DC’s 3.

@agent 86: Why? What have the Brits done that warrants punishing them so egregiously? I mean, haven’t the Brits had enough to contend with lately, given Princess Kate’s recent hospitalization? And you would consider giving them even more pain by sending Varney back there? You’re just cold and evil.

Are you sure you haven’t sent a resume to work for FoxNoise? LOL