Extended Daylight Savings Time To Doom Us All

Every once in a while, an article comes along that breaks all barriers between parody and seriousness. A reader — even a seasoned media-obsessed reader like myself — simply cannot tell if the people in the article are serious, if the writer is serious or if the article is some sort of elaborate scheme between journalist and source to make readers’ heads explode in confusion. This is one of those articles.

It’s a trick, a treat or a “nightmare.”

The government changes time.

You drive to work in darkness. You drive home in darkness.

Suddenly, child vampires and ghouls are wandering the streets before the sun goes down on Halloween.

And you spend your diminishing daylight hours changing all the clocks on TVs, VCRs, cell phones. (Don’t forget the microwave and coffeemaker.)

For the first time ever, daylight-saving time was pushed back to the first Sunday in November this year. The sun won’t set till 7:30 p.m. on Halloween. In some places, it won’t rise until 7:30 a.m.

The government says the time shift could save energy.

Area psychologists say it will also make us stressed, leave some depressed and possibly weaken our immune systems. And we might never recover.

If only we had such strong writing in the run-up to the Iraq War, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. The Bucks County Courier Times has given us a wonderful gift: The greatest news story of all time.

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Pa. To Be Attacked By Terrorists Next Week

On Friday, an Associated Press article revealed Pennsylvania wouldn’t be revealing the list of polling places to voters (except online) due to fears of terrorism inspired by the 2004 Madrid train bombings.

On Friday, everybody laughed and laughed and laughed at Pennsylvania for not even trying to come up with a good excuse to attempt to get fewer Democrats to vote.

And then Ed Rendell decided the state was going to release a list of polling places. But nobody really cares, since everyone already laughed at Pennsylvania and moved on.

I’d wear a bulletproof vest on the first Tuesday in November, since terrorists are now going to be able to find out where you vote. The Taubenberger-Nutter election must not go off without a hitch!

In About-Face, Pa. to Release List of State Polling Places [KYW 1060]

John Street A Serial Wheelchair Pretender

On Friday, John Street’s legs were kinda tired so he decided to spend the entire day in a wheelchair.

Okay, no, actually, Street wanted to see what it was like to be disabled, and he said he learned a lot about accessibility issues in City Hall from it. However, much like anything else Street does — say, waiting in line for an iPhone to show how in touch with technology this city is — instead of making him look concerned or sensitive, it just makes him look like an idiot.

“I’m having today a sensitivity experience. I’m going to be in this wheelchair all day. This is not the first time I’ve done this, but every time you do it, you really have a renewed appreciation for the problems associated with disability,” Street said. “Even though I’m voluntarily exposing myself to this limitation for the day, already it has been interesting.”

His quote is essentiually: “Even though I’m only doing this for a day, already it’s been interesting.” What, you have to do things for more than one day in order for them to be neat?

Mayor Street Spends The Day In A Wheelchair [CBS 3]
June 29: This Kind Of Sums Up Eight Years Of John Street

One-Paragraph Rant Disguised As Newspaper Column

The large, one-¶ rant to your right is not a blog post on a comment on some messageboard. No, it is a one-paragraph column by none other than America’s Best Columnist, Chris Freind,!

It was one-paragraph online, at least. The Bulletin doesn’t have the customary line of white space between paragraphs online, and there are spots that could have broken this rant into as many as four (4) paragraphs. Freind’s enemy this time is New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who is apparently promoting a plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

I don’t care enough to look up Spitzer’s reasoning for the plan, but Freind says it will only lead to terrorists flying planes into the Empire State Building. No, really: “If the brotherhood of Mohammed Atta decides to target the Empire State Building with weapons and explosives bought legally with their state-sanctioned drivers license, or, on the off-chance, they take a one-way joyride in a 767, you may have a few people knocking at your Mansion door.” Why is mansion capitalized?

Freind has a ton of awesome arguing techniques in this column, including a reminder that illegal immigration is against the law. “Period.” He actually writes that! And he uses the term “fat cats”! Oh, and he talks about how terrorists are now going to be voting in record numbers, since they’ll be able to obtain driver’s licenses. Basically, it reads like a parody of a right-wing opinion column.

The ending is my favorite part, though, because I’m not sure if he’s inciting a call to violence or not:

In the midst of the most dangerous time in our nation’s history, our “leaders” go out of their way to aid and abet the enemy. In case you’re interested, the Governor’s Mansion is in Albany.

So… are we supposed to storm the capital, Bastille-style, and come out with Spitzer’s head on a pike? I mean, I like Macbeth and all, but I don’t really know if recreating Macduff’s beheading is the best way to settle disputes in 21st century America.

However: On Saturday, Spitzer went back on his plan, meaning Freind turning up the heat most certainly worked. Don’t try to cross America’s Best Columnist; you’ll only get burned.

Driver’s Licenses For Illegals Makes Al-Qaida - And Dems - Cheer [The Bulletin]
Governor Accused of Betraying Principles [NYT]

Bigfoot Enthusiast Says Photo Is Bigfoot

Hey! A Pennsylvania hunter, Rick Jacobs, says he has a photo of Bigfoot (at right). He apparently snapped the photo with a camera with an automatic trigger he set up in order to get snapshots of deer.

But, instead, he got a photo of an animal of indeterminate origin, which means it must be Bigfoot! “It appears to be a primate-like animal. In my opinion, it appears to be a juvenile Sasquatch,” Paul Majeta told the Associated Press. Paul Majeta, incidentally, is a member of the Bigfoot Research Organization, and is therefore an impartial judge of a creature’s Sasquatchness.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission says there is “no question” the animal is a bear with a severe case of mange, but that doesn’t make for a good headline.

But there is even better news. The Online Gambling Paper reports: “An online sportsbook once offered odds on the existence of Sasquatch, but the prop was canceled due to lack of interest. Now with Jacob’s Bigfoot, we may see those weird odds pop up again.” The OG Paper also has a report on the odds for the 2007 World Hamburger Eating Championship.

Update: In the comments, “michele” draws us a picture, literally. I really couldn’t make any sense of the photo — other than knowing it’s not Bigfoot — so it was helpful.

Hunter Rick Jacobs claims Bigfoot photo [OG Paper]
Pa. Hunter Stirs Bigfoot Debate [AP/Time]

War Protesters Brave Weather

There were a bunch of anti-Iraq War protests over the weekend, because we’re still in Iraq even though everybody wants out except George Bush and Dick Cheney and The Bulletin.

Around here, there were protests in Center City and across the river in New Jersey, where protesters were just as courageous as U.S. soldiers:

Adverse weather doesn’t keep American troops in Iraq from completing their missions and it didn’t keep protesters here from rallying to bring them home.

Both missions have similar chances of death, too, I’m sure.

New Jerseyans join protest against war [Camden Courier-Post]

Abridged ‘Daily News’ Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: Hey, you may not know this, with the Daily News being your only source of information and all, but a magazine poll ranked this city ugly! Also, here’s a note about City Council: “You’re more likely to find their pictures on a milk carton than on a Wheaties box.” Uhh, I know athletes tend to be attractive, but Wheaties box cover subjects aren’t chosen on attractiveness. As far as I know.

Stu Bykofsky: Wuzzah? Stu wrote two columns today? They’re both dated Oct. 29, so it seems so; the Daily News doesn’t label Byko’s columns as columns on Philly.com for some reason, so I miss them sometimes. Mdaybe the Travel + Leisure poll column is older?

This second column is about how the Democratic machine in this city wants you to vote for whoever the hell they want, which is how political machines work, but Stu isn’t having it. Anyway, apparently Jack Kelly’s I love puppies campaign worked on at least one person: “But a vote for Oh, in effect, may deprive Kelly of a vote, and since he’s Council’s leading animal advocate, I must vote for him.”

Chris Brennan: Some woman’s house was stolen and the dude who stole it is all, “Yo, I’ll give her some money, look how generous I am!”

John Baer: Hey, here’s how Vince Fumo can get off.

Graffiti Now Outpolling Al Taubenberger

If you weren’t around this weekend, you missed a pretty eventful weekend in the City of Brotherly Love. Case in point, this headline in my Google Reader Sunday:

Yes, somehow graffiti acquired sapience and up and decided to write itself on a wall and vandalize a school. I am confused as to how this wasn’t a bigger story.

Graffiti Vandalizes School [6 ABC]

Hey, The Eagles Might Need To Win Today

Uhh, yeah, the Eagles might need to win today’s game. It’s, as they say, a “must-win.” Or maybe a “have-to-win.”

Rumor: Eagles facing must win in Minnesota [Yahoo! Sports]

Anonymous Blog Poster Wants Fistfight

Don’t worry, don’t worry, youse are all safe, even from the wrath of Mark B. Cohen. The above “Blog comments to be investigated” headline comes from Quakertown, where, indeed, blog comments are going to be investigated. The comments were made on a local news chat forum, so, yeah, it wasn’t a blog but that’s a shorter word to fit into a headline.

Following an angry debate over student performance and other matters, a person who signed onto a local news chat forum as “QCSD Board Member” threatened another poster by saying “…please say that to my face, preferably in the parking lot out back. If you’re a woman, say it to my daughter so that she can tear you apart.”

The anonymous poster then revealed confidential district information and called his or her adversary a “fool” who lacks “the courage to lie to my face.” With a street fighter’s bravado, the poster added, “You know where to find me. I don’t have to hide in anonymity like you.”

With a street fighter’s bravado anonymously on the Internet, of course.

Blog comments to be investigated [The Intelligencer]