A meeting of the minds ... or at least ALF's ...

It was almost to unreal to believe. Bill O'Reilly facing off with ALF? Has O'Reilly dropped so far that he needs ALF to give him a lift. But it happened.



Here's the promo for O'Reilly's match with ALF. It aired in advance of the show.



Here's the actual "interview" that took place Friday night.


The actual encounter was rather amusing. O'Reilly, for a change, didn't take himself so seriously. Maybe he should consider a career change to comedy. His show is pretty funny now.

O'Reilly to debate .... ALF??

I saw this earlier today on YouTube, but I thought it might be a joke. Apparently not. O'Reilly tonight is debating .... ALF? Yes, ALF of the old NBC TV series?
It looks like Bill has finally found his intellectual equal.

Tom Brokaw cuts through the talk radio spin

This isn't really about our boy Bill, but it's worth mentioning.
Veteran NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw put conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham on the defensive earlier this week when he appeared on her radio talk show to plug his new book, "Boom!"
isn’t a huge fan of talk radio, saying it has a “mob mentality.” He said talk radio inevitably has “a lot of wannabes” and that, eventually, “you don’t have civil discourse, you don’t have a forum, then, for this country to come together and make decisions and hear each other. ... My big issue in 2008: We all have to re-enlist as citizens. ... In 100 years when they look back on it, what are they going to say about the role of citizens in this country?”
The conversation turned to Rush Limbaugh.
“A lot of people, Tom, make a lot of money trashing [President] Bush or trashing faith. I just resent the whole — you mention Rush Limbaugh in the book, but you kind of have a throwaway line about Limbaugh and it’s in the drug section, and without a doubt Rush Limbaugh is the most influential [baby] boomer, I think, in the media today. There is no person who has had more of a profound impact on the way people think about politics than Limbaugh, and he gets a line in the drug thing, which I thought was ... I don’t think that’s right,” Ingraham said.
“My problem with the whole spectrum is, you know what Rush’s whole deal is. He doesn’t want to hear another point of view except his,” Brokaw replied.
Ingraham said, “I disagree. He talks to all sorts of people. He doesn’t interview people like I do ...”
“He doesn’t interview people. And he mocks people,” Brokaw retorted.
“He’s not an objective person; he doesn’t say he is. That’s the difference between him and anchors on some of our networks who have a political agenda but then pretend that they’re objective,” Ingraham crowed back.
Brokaw, finally put a lid on the debate, saying, “Oh, Laura, we’re never going to resolve this — you have your point of view and I have mine. ... My problem with talk radio is they mock anybody else’s point of view, and they do it often in a mindless fashion.”
Brokaw hit the nail on the head. The majority of talk radio, especially conservative talk radio, is a rooting section. There's little or no dialog taking place.
And people wonder why the political divide is getting wider.

Lesbian couple irks O'Reilly

Two gay high school seniors in Illinois who were named "cutest couple" by their peers in the upcoming school yearbook have come under fire from Bill O'Reilly. The "Factor" master criticized the school’s students on his Nov. 7 show, accusing them of voting for the couple to “cause trouble.”
In response, administrators created a "cute couple'' page in the yearbook that will include the gay couple, plus five heterosexual couples who received the most runner-up votes.
That's a terrible way to treat the girls who were chosen in the first place. They should have been given what they were originally supposed to get -- a page of their own. Shame on the school for caving into O'Reilly.
All because of a stupid TV show. How sad.

Read reports in Windy City Times and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Conservative talk radio -- dumb and dumber

In the debate over why conservative talk radio outdraws liberal talk radio, I've found the answer and it's incredibly simple.
Conservative talk radio is very simplistic and dumbed down. Dumb and dumber. It's easier to instill fear in your listeners by saying things shouldn't change or they should revert back using old prejudices than to promote intelligent solutions.
They don't call liberals progressives for nothing. Conservatives aren't.
Conservative radio is a mental comfort zone. It's easier for people to lay back and not move forward in their thinking. That, of course, is the weakness of conservatives as a whole.
Look at the debate over immigration and how talk show host have used the logic of prejudice to make their point.
Look at the whole recent "Redacted" controversy manufactured by Bill O'Reilly, who isn't a true conservative talk show host, but more like a sideshow clown. O'Reilly did a cheerleading act to get his audiences to hate "Redacted" before it was released and before even he saw it. Don't bother suggesting your audience judge for themselves. Just tell them it's bad. Easy way out. No work on their part. Dumb and dumber.
Liberal radio, on the other hand, isn't dumbed down. Actually, if there's one thing liberals probably do too much of on the radio is they intellectualize. You don't see a lot of conservative show hosts do that. Their audiences would turn them off in a millisecond.
Conservatives follow the old axiom Keep It Simple, Stupid. Keep 'em entertained. Conservatives wisely keep their ideas in basic terms even a child could understand. Most liberal talk show hosts don't. Conservative ideas generally don't challenge. They rely on existing ideas and prejudices. That's why it's so easy to listen to conservative talk radio. It doesn't take any brainpower.
Most of all, conservatives want to dictate everyone's values. Don't criticize the president. Fund the war and shut up. Marriage is reserved for heterosexuals only. And the most outlandish of all: I got mine, so the hell with everyone else. All too simple answers to complex questions. Conservatives have no compassion, no soul and no values -- unless it benefits them.
Liberals, however, will ultimately triumph in the end. Conservatives may apply the brakes, but liberals supply the propellers. You can't move forward without them.

Fox gone wild

Keith Olbermann followed up the video we posted previously with this interview with Robert Greenwald. Fair and balanced? How about fair, balanced and sexy?

Ad for "Redacted" airs on O'Reilly show

So as long as it's for money, it's ok, right, Bill? Obviously, Fox News's ethics are in their wallet.

"Redacted" -- the rhetoric and the reality

Director Brian DePalma got somewhat of an early Christmas present thanks to Bill O'Reilly's venting over DePalma's new film, "Redacted," which O'Reilly criticized without seeing. He said it was unAmerican and would endanger the troops.
Well, we have seen it and O'Reilly, as usual, is wrong.
O'Reilly's overreaction has certainly boosted the visibility of the film. "Redacted" may not do what DePalma hopes -- end the war -- but it delivers a powerful message about the war's effect on its soldiers.
"Redacted" is actually a combination of several stories merged into one film. It's the account of Angel Salazar (played well by Izzy Diaz), who spends a lot of time taking video of his fellow soldiers. Patrick Carroll as Reno Flake and Daniel Stewart Sherman as B.B. Rush also figure heavily into the story and both do a great job.
The big question, though, is is O'Reilly's criticism valid? Does it do an injustice to the troops?
Well, if you are one of those who believes anything that makes the troops look less than perfect is an injustice to them, well, needless to say you won't like it. But despite the less than rosy picture it paints, "Redacted" basically allows that war is hell and soldiers are human, even despite the ugly events depicted in the film.
Do these events and the film itself cast a shadow on the troops? We say no.
We all know war is hell. War movies are hell. "Redacted" isn't the first movie to show the ugly side of war. It won't be the last. It does, however, reveal the injustice of American occupation in a land where we are not always welcome.
But this isn't the fault of the troops, who are there to do a job. It's the fault of our government, who never should have gotten us there in the first place.
"Redacted" is a film that makes a good point, but it certainly isn't enough to make it the be-all, end-all at getting us out of Iraq. That will take the enlightenment of the politicians in Washington, D.C. -- either this administration (unlikely) or the next one.

The "Redacted" official movie site

Who's the real nut here?

Andres Oppenheimer, Latin American correspondent for the Miami Herald, who was called a "nut" on Bill O'Reilly's show on Nov. 8, has responded in a follow-up column.
In an earlier column on Nov. 4 titled "Angry migrant underclass might erupt in U.S.," , he said:

"We are creating an underclass of people who won't leave this country and, realistically, can't be deported. They and their children are living with no prospect of earning a legal status, no matter how hard they work for it. Many of them will become increasingly frustrated, angry, and some of them eventually may turn violent."

In his second column, he said,

"My main point was that the estimated 1.8 million U.S.-raised undocumented youths — who were brought to this country as toddlers, often speak no other language than English and don't even remember their countries of origin — will soon be thrown into the U.S. labor market with zero chances of getting a legal job.
What is going to happen with these youths? Most are barred from applying for in-state college tuition and will grow up on the streets. Many of them will join the gangs that are already terrorizing many U.S. cities. Undocumented kids, especially the brightest ones, need to be given an opportunity to gain U.S. citizenship, as was contemplated in the Dream Act that was recently defeated in the U.S. Senate."

And more importantly, people like Bill O'Reilly are more the problem than the solution.

"My opinion: For the record, I never called for violence, nor would I. Suggesting that I was endorsing violence, as was done in the O'Reilly show, is irresponsible journalism.
But even more irresponsible is what O'Reilly and other cable television anti-immigration crusaders are doing every day: inciting Americans to rebel against ''illegal immigrants'' -- most of whom are Hispanic -- without offering any realistic solutions to America's immigration problem."

Try to get O'Reilly and his minions to see that. Bet you it'll take awhile.

More smut from Fox

Brave New Films has created a new site called Fox News Porn to show some of the sexy footage that seems to run rampant on Fox News Channel. Their reaction to all this: "Can you quote us so not giving a shit?"

If all this bothers you, you can find a list of Fox News advertisers at http://foxattacks.com/attacker/?utm_source=rgemail.