The Dumbering of America

Coming to you live from the lounge of the USC Annenberg School of Communication. A bank of monitors cover the wall, providing us with a live feed from each of the major news outlets. The one closest to us is broadcasting CNN Headline News.

Good Gawd. CNN Headline News is hands down the most inane block of programming we've ever seen. Currently, they are debating whether Tom Hanks or Tori Spelling have enough life experience to be believable if they are cast in the real life Eliot Spitzer movie. ("Tom played a gay guy once" was among the endorsements given by one of the panelists)

Now they’ve moved on, and are showing a clip from the latest edition of those awful movie parodies, (you know, the ones that have supplanted the Wayans brothers as the unfunniest comedy franchise in Hollywood.) The clip includes a scene where they parody the Tom Cruise Scientology video.

As we go to a break, the tomato behind the anchor desk intones, with her eyebrows properly raised in the universally understood symbol for anchor seriousness: “Coming up next, we’ll take a look at the hilarious new must-see movie that attacks Tom Cruise."

To paraphrase David Spade, we can actually hear ourselves becoming dumber.

We love this story

Because it was Sinbad –SINBAD! – who outed Clinton

“In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady." Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'" Via some Washington Post blog.

Yeah, this story is breaking big now, but we originally found a few days ago via Mickey Kaus at Slate.com.

Our Favorite New Site

Photoshop Disasters. A daily posting of lame photoshops found in mass media.



We can’t stop looking thru it. There’s an Orwellian thrill in watching someone dissect these corporate images and expose them for their blatant fakery.

Meanwhile, Back in Boston ...

The Hancock Tower slowly advances on Newbury Street, intent on destroying everything in its path.
We still miss being in Boston. Especially this time of year, when the annual Anime Boston fest takes place at the Hynes, right around the corner from our old Ten AM World Headquarters. There's simply no better time to be in the Prudential Center food court than this weekend, when the Panda Express is overrun with costumed anime fans*.

It’s just kicking off now, but here are some photos from last year’s show.

*If you do swing by the Hynes, we recommend you avoid angering the Time Lincoln.

Photo via flickr.com

"Everybody kills Hitler on their first trip"

Checking out some message board posts from The International Association of Time Travelers: Members' Forum Subforum: Europe – Twentieth Century – Second World War

11/21/2104
At 02:21:30, SneakyPete wrote:
Vienna, 1907: after numerous attempts, have infiltrated the Academy of Fine Arts and facilitated Adolf Hitler's admission to that institution. Goodbye, Hitler the dictator; hello, Hitler the modestly successful landscape artist! Brought back a few of his paintings as well, any buyers?

At 02:29:17, SilverFox316 wrote:
All right; that's it. Having just returned from 1907 Vienna where I secured the expulsion of Hitler from the Academy by means of an elaborate prank involving the Prefect, a goat, and a substantial quantity of olive oil, I now turn my attention to our newer brethren, who, despite rules to the contrary, seem to have no intention of reading Bulletin 1147 (nor its Addendum, Alternate Means of Subverting the Hitlerian Destiny, and here I'm looking at you, SneakyPete). Permit me to sum it up and save you the trouble: no Hitler means no Third Reich, no World War II, no rocketry programs, no electronics, no computers, no time travel. Get the picture?

At 07:55:03, BarracksRoomLawyer wrote:
Amen, SilverFox316. Although, point of order, issues relating to early 1900s Vienna should really go in that forum, not here. This has been a recurring problem on this forum.

Thanks to kottke.org for the link.

All around the world, the same song

If you've lived in America for more than 10minutes, you've come to the realization that everything is racist. Don't believe it? Then just ask someone. No matter what the subject, there's always someone out there willing to find the racism hidden within.

Oh, to live among the enlightened Europeans...

On Valentine’s Day, a Danish newspaper went so far as to run a front-page headline accusing Ikea, the furniture giant founded by a Swede, which Danes have long loved to hate, of “bullying Denmark” by giving comfy sofas and shiny tables Swedish and Norwegian place names while assigning Danish names to doormats and rugs.

“I don’t think this can be a coincidence,” a Danish professor is quoted as saying on The Local, an English-language Swedish Web site (thelocal.se). He called it “cultural imperialism.” via the NY Times.

Stranger in a Strange Land

We've added a new site to the Ten AM pantheon of links.

The Big Sand, Musings from 6664 miles due East of Beantown. A blog posted by a smart-assed friend of ours who just moved to Dubai. We're fascinated by Dubai, and are pumped to read what he posts. (We're hoipng when he lands and gets into his first Arabic cab, it's driven by an Irish Catholic guy from NY who doesn't know his way around Dubai.)

We love this kind of stuff; Ten AM.com is a direct descendant of a travelog one of the Ten posted when he attended the 2000 Olympics. *

Also, please note we've updated the links and other items on the right hands side of this page.

*for those of you keeping score, that member of the Ten is still banned from coming within 100 yards of a Wallaby, per order of the Commonwealth of Australia.

Daylight Savings is Here already

So don't forget to set your clocks ahead.