As IF Times

link Jon Stewart, a force in comedy and news, will leave The Daily Show – LA Times.

If this ‘event’ has any traction with real people outside of the liberal echo chamber, I haven’t seen it.  For a while, there was much moaning about how  a generation had lost a credible news voice.  Really? Losing Jon Stewart as news source is the same as losing Mad magazine as a news source.

All credit to this guy for pushing the shtick for as long as he had, but even Stewart knew he couldn’t keep it up any longer.  Widely lauded as being ‘ironic’, satirical and devastatingly witty by the ‘intelligentsia’, many of his diatribes were sophomoric and naïve.  It’s quite possible that his reach affected not only vapid hipsters but also to people having positions of influence.  Just the other day, a State department spokesman, Marie Harf opined that the ISIS terrorists currently creating havoc may best be neutralized not by bombs and bullets but by providing them with adequate career opportunities.  Not making that up, check it out.  Marie Harf  There is an outside chance that Ms. Harf is working to replace Stewart as host of the Daily Show, because her utterances are comic gold.

While we can’t confirm that Ms. Harf’s opinions were formed by watching Stewart, this kind of naivete is reflected many times over by a wide swath of people so isolated from reality that they live in alternate universes which includes, rainbows, unicorns and of course, organic food.  While people are being roasted alive, beheaded, dismembered among all other sorts of unspeakable things, people like Harf think all they need are job opportunities.   No less than the current White House resident thinks that the battle is all about changing hearts and minds.  You can’t make this up.

While all of this mayhem is going on in the world, the guys on MSNBC still feel that Global Warming is the number one crisis facing the world.  Global Warming. We can begin to understand Stewart’s decision to vacate the show because there is so much more fodder for humor by skewering the left.  And it doesn’t have to be made up.

link The 5 Most Dangerous Guns in America Pictures – Derringers | Rolling Stone.

It appears as if there’s an entire community of aspiring ASiF writers out there.  With so many true but bizarre events transpiring these days, it’s often hard to discern actual reporting from editorial from satire.  The classic Karl Marx quote is that history repeats itself first as a tragedy, then as a farce.

If the offerings of popular media are any indication of where we are in Marx’s continuum of history, then it’s likely culture and society have moved into the farce stage.  In a recent study by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute, Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central’s eponymously named show is considered a more reliable news source than MSNBC.  Of course that’s a low bar, but the implications of that are astounding.

On any given day in popular media, there’s always front page coverage of The Life Of Kim, the top 5 beach bodies, the top hunkiest actors, or the most recently rumored Apple device.  Media has become a resource for 12 year old girls.  Rolling Stone for years has tried to present itself as the cool rag of the leftist intelligentsia and in truth, they’ve had some good articles when Matt Taibbi was on board.  With this article on the five deadliest guns, they have truly jumped the shark and abandoned any pretense of intellectual reportage.

Fortunately, there seems to be a contingent of people out there who get it.  It is within the comments section to this piece where the most entertaining snippets lie.  Actually, there’s plenty of fodder there for future columns.  For those too lazy to click on the link, here are some real gems:

The 5 Most Dangerous Marx Brothers:
Groucho
Chico
Harpo
Zeppo
Karl

Five most common vehicles used by drunk drivers:
1. SUV’s.
2. Pick up trucks.
3. Sedans
4. Coupes.
5. Minivans

Five Most Dangerous Rock Bands

5) Rick Derringer
4) L.A. Guns
3) Guns ‘n Roses
2) Shotgun Messiah
1) The Beatles during the recording of “Revolver”

Five most dangerous seasons:
5. Rabbit Season
4. Duck Season
3. Rabbit Season
2. Rabbit Season
1. Duck Season….

And for the global warming crowd:

100% chance you will die if you drink water
100% chance you will die if you breathe Oxygen

We’re going to get these guys on staff.