Irrelevance Glorified

Recently, both The Colbert Report and The Daily Show featured consumers who successfully took legal action against big banks when they were threatened with foreclosure. In one case, the couple didn’t have a loan with the bank in question, and they owned their house outright! I found it interesting that both shows found different people to interview, and took such different approaches to the subject. As one might expect, Stephen Colbert’s approach is a bit more absurd.

Back in April, during a contentious debate in the Senate over the budget, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) made an interesting but embarrassing statement. The federal government does not allow federal funds to be used to fund abortions. In arguing against any federal dollars going to Planned Parenthood, he said that it is common knowledge that abortions are 90% of what Planned Parenthood does. Of course, that was an outrageous overstatement — it turns out that abortions are about 3% of what they do, i.e. federal funds help fund the other 97% of what they do in the name of reproductive health. When this came to light, questions were addressed to his office asking for some sort of explanation. Kyl said that his claim was “not intended to be a factual statement.” An absolutely ridiculously excuse. Anyways, when Stephen Colbert heard of this, he had a field day. He took to twitter, writing tweets like this. But he started it off with this segment on his show, one of the few times where he’s laughing too hard to stay in character.

I don’t know of any recent food product launch that has gotten as much publicity as KFC’s recent Double-Down. In case you are unaware, the Double Down is a “sandwich” composed of two pieces of breaded & fried chicken surrounding cheese, bacon, and sauce. If you are watching your Lose Weight Exercise, you can substitute grilled chicken for the fried chicken. That was not a mistake by the way — it’s a sandwich with no bread (but breading optional). I normally read a bunch of tech and political blogs, and many of them have come out with opinions. Consumerist had their review, and also included a review by Consumer Reports. Gizmodo ate theirs while using their iPads, because they are hipster nerds. Even one of my favored political blogs, FiveThirtyEight, got in on the fun (with a focus on numbers and statistics, because that’s how they roll). If you follow me on Google Reader, I’ve shared a few items on it, because it’s hilarious in concept; you just get the feeling that it should be an SNL commercial (Taco Town!!!). Anyways, I saw a clip from the Colbert Report that includes it. It starts with mentally-ill food mascots, segues in to a Double-Down taste test, and caps it all off with a visit from the “German Ambassador to the U.N.” to try out some cupcakes. Pitch perfect

I don’t normally post stuff from the Colbert Report, because I don’t really have time (or make time) to watch both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, so I’ve picked TDS, and rely on other websites to recommend any extraordinary segments. Talking Points Memo posted this one a week and a half ago, and I finally got around to watching it. Overall, a solidly hyperbolical segment, with a great use of elemental symbol humor.