I just realized where a lot of my anger comes from.

Keith Olbermann plays a stark raving mad liberal. He is, I think we can all agree, a stark raving mad liberal.

O’Reilly, and Beck- they AREN’T anti-intellectuals, they just play them on TV! They’re big phonies! They aren’t the demographic they say they’re speaking for! Some of these Fox News guys are ivy leaguers! O’Reilly got his masters at Harvard! They’re among the intellectual elite! BUT they pander to a conservative, anti-intellectual crowd. They intentionally rile them up with information, illogic, and stories they must know aren’t scientifically true or fair and unbalanced in order to continue to have Americans think like them as the ends to their conservative-agenda means! It’s dishonest! And I think it’s scary! They’re turning people against logic and thinking so that they can continue to hold Republican viewpoints! Isn’t that worrisome? How can you be on that side? Only Fox News and other conservative networks spew this kind of anti-intellectual, distrust science, the-learned-ones-don’t-know-what-they’re-talking-about politically driven talking points and present it as news! I see them holding back both our society and the necessary progress of scientific achievement for political reasons and I don’t like it.

I’m so glad I’m young. In a few years, finally we’ll have the voting block to undo all the damage that the baby-boomers’ did to the rights that their parents fought so hard for.

Oh, which reminds me: earlier, that thing that you called “satire” regarding Fox News’s take on climate change and the snow storm? Straight up anti-intellectual rhetoric. A laugh riot.

Yes, both Beck and Olbermann play to their audiences, but Beck plays to his in ways that hurt America. Specifically, I am talking about anti-intellectualism. And yes, Beck uses it, as displayed in his using it as the basis for his humor in jokes about global warming and in the way that he “publicly present[s] [himself] as champion of the common folk — populist against political elitism and academic elitism — proposing that the educated are a social class detached from the quotidian concerns of the majority, and that they dominate political discourse and higher education.” And no, Olbermann doesn’t do that.

Wow, I actually just scared myself. To think- an informative television personality can fit the definition of anti-intellectualism SO literally.

And what Glenn Beck often does is cite a report that may debunk one study, or call into question the interpretation of another study, and use that as a sweeping conclusion that climate change isn’t real. What he’s doing isn’t trying to help the rational debate about whether or not climate change is real. He is intentionally trying to pander to his conservative audience and further polarize his side in a debate that has NOTHING to do with liberal or conservative ideology. I am in full support of an open and honest scientific debate over the merits of climate change. That isn’t what is happening. People have stubbornly drawn political lines in a non-political issue.

Keith Olbermann is not anti-intellectual (see: link above). He’s bull-headed and pretty douchey, but he’s not anti-intellectual. I don’t think that he has been as harmful to an honest debate about the subject as Fox News has been, simply because he doesn’t rely on anti-intellectual arguments. He’s skewed his share of data left too, but I don’t think he relies on ignorance like Fox does. Also, I don’t watch Olbermann as much as I watch Fox, so I really can’t say much about him.

I never said 98%. I don’t know where you got that number from. I don’t know what the % is. I doubt anyone does. This isn’t all cut and dry. People’s beliefs (in the scientific community, at least) usually fall along a continuum, from believing climate change is ridiculously severe and 100% manmade, all the way down to denying any influence man may have had on the weather. There’s a looooooot of room between those two. I don’t know how many scientists fall on the half of the continuum that believes man has an influence on climate change. It’s probably true that yes, a vast majority of scientists believe that man has created, or at least put into motion, phenomena which have and will deleteriously impact climate.

The problem with Glenn Beck saying what he does is that a lot of people aren’t as well informed as scientists are as to what climate-change data is out there, or is currently under investigation. The modern trend has been towards people only tuning in to news outlets that affirm what they already believe. People who fall below that mid-point on the climate change continuum who primarily watch Fox News (because most of them do, which is another empirical fact) and continue to hear primarily about what a crock global warming is have their beliefs affirmed, and it leads causes them to close off their minds to contradicting information, no matter how well grounded in science or the popular opinion of experts.

My “anger issues” have nothing to do with being anti-conservative. I’m not angry at conservatives. I’m not anti-conservative. I’m pretty moderate on a lot of issues. What I am is anti-anti-intellectualism, and Fox News, on the subject of climate change (and a number of other things) usually supports anti-intellectual arguments. Before you go ahead and contradict me on that, please take some time to seriously consider it. When a conservative has a viewpoint that is based in anti-intellectual arguments, that makes me mad, not the conservative belief itself. I’m not an irrational, hot-head. I try to weigh the pros and cons of as objective of sources as possible when I have an opinion on something. In the case of climate change, I think more and stronger empirical evidence has supported the theory that human activity has and will impact the climate. I’m not getting this from news sources. I’ve drawn my opinion from the research I have done on the topic. There are, as you’ve pointed out, valid arguments critical of certain studies involving climate change, but for the most part, these arguments, I feel, have been overblown and misrepresented by conservatives (i.e., Fox News), because it is politically advantageous to do so (just as, I’m sure you’ll say, the left takes pro-climate change evidence and uses it for their political advantage- they do; I’m not saying they don’t). Cable news didn’t convince me of climate change. Science did. Until science disproves it, I’ll probably continue to believe that our ecosystem wasn’t designed to handle what we’re doing to it right now and it could cause problems in the future.

Also, I’m not obsessed with global warming. It just happened to be the topic that started our first debate. I don’t feel as strongly about it as I do about other issues. I just think that it is a good place for a rational debate about topics from which broader points could be drawn (i.e.- anti-intellectualism).

And I place Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly, Olbermann, Maddow, and Shultz all in the same category of non-news anchors, so don’t be too presumptuous about what I believe there.

“Clearly, yet another example of ‘Team Obama’ trying to ‘Hit Back Twice as Hard’ like they promised last summer.” – FALSE. This is not an example. This is you drawing a false analogy. Your quoted “Team Obama” is the White House. They had nothing to do with this “joke”. It’s not particularly funny. It’s an ok show with medicore ratings that has tried for years to get shock-laughs by lampooning everything and everybody. And if somehow this gets you feeling justified in somehow hating Obama more? I feel sorry for you and your seriously misplaced anger. Actually, I feel more sorry for every single person who has to encounter you and your twisted, illogical mind every single day.

“You wont find much [outrage] in your comment section. The majority of your comment section will either be cheering this on, making fun of Palin, or ignoring because they can’t defend it.”
-A quick scan over the comments finds this to also be objectively false. You can’t make a statement that arrogantly predicts the future, smugly walk away feeling like you know how this will play out. You’re wrong. I don’t think anyone really wants to “defend” a joke that makes fun of downs-syndrome. We, the evil left, may be able to “shrug off” a lame, not topically atypical, joke on a cartoon show for being just that. If you’re looking for a reason to be offended or angry at the president, try looking for something based in reality.

“One would get the impression that liberals are obsessed with feeling superior to other people.” – Really? Just curious, how would one get that impression? Because from your comment, you’ve given me the impression that you, personally, are obsessed with making sweeping, unsubstantiated, comments. And if you honestly believe what you said, then you have personally just declared your own ignorance and close mindedness, or at least justified, to yourself (but clearly, not me, or I doubt anyone else), why you can immediately dismiss any argument coming from liberals. How could we have a rational debate if you think I’m motivated by personality factors instead of listening to what I’m actually arguing? It’s a mismatch and it hurts honest debate. Please be reasonable next time you want to make some sort of overgeneralized, defacing claim.

Can’t do it. Damn. And I’m usually really good at it!

Hell, the episode even ended with a “you’re just like the rest of us” moral to the story (albeit with a twist). And besides the fleeting “former governor of Alaska” line, there was no other parallel at all. Last I checked, Mr. Palin wasn’t an accountant.

One of the tamer Family Guy episodes this season…

That being said, I don’t see why this clip is getting so much hype.

If I had to guess, I’d bet that Palin would love to have Trig high-functioning enough to go out on a date when he grows up. The clip doesn’t depict the girl as slobbering, drooling, or an imbecile. In fact, it’s rather PG — most Family Guy gags are a helluva lot more graphic than this.

The true tragedy here is that Family Guy just isn’t funny anymore, and Seth MacFarlane is clearly jut begging for ratings.

And the above clip is a good example of a Family Guy “script”: If the girl had said that her mom worked at the Quickie Mart, it would’ve gone past without a reference. There would be no headlines about the show making fun of cashiers and it wouldn’t even make it to Convenience Store News, but it’s Family Guy, so they throw in some pop culture with “the former Governor of Alaska” or maybe “Dunder-Mifflin”, which are probably the only things that would work.