I would say the Bush Administration has jumped the shark, but it's too late for that.
Government asks court to block wider testing for mad cow
Isn't this exactly the sort of thing conservatives would presumably oppose? Not to say all, or even most, conservatives would support this, just pointing out the hypocrisy of the Bush Administration.
Oh, Phelps. You rascal, you. As I recall, his reasoning is that the US, by tolerating (maybe by not condemning to death?) homosexuals, is deserving of God's punishment and, apparently, Fred Phelps's presence. I believe he sent out a press release after Jerry Falwell's death claiming Falwell was going to hell for compromising with the godless.
Well, at least the man's consistent.
Blah blah blah teens suck at writing blah blah chatspeak blah....
Language that makes you say OMG
Ok. Fine. Whatever. But I think it's a stretch to blame LOLCats for this.
Linguistic butchery while texting is one thing. In school assignments, it is quite another. What's worse is how popular culture is encouraging this madness. A notorious offender called ICanHasCheezburger.com is a cute enough diversion -- it posts adorable pictures of cats, "lolcats" as they're called, with funny captions. But persevere beyond your first gag reflex and you'll notice that the captions are written in lolspeak.
Lolspeak has its own wiki-dictionary online -- sorry, a dikshunary -- where fanatics go to linguistically out-mangle one another. A recent entry on ICanHasCheezburger.com featured a cat looming over a laptop with the caption: "Just when u thot it wuz safe 2 go bak on teh interwebs." Another features a kitten: "why ur hed just asplode? wuz it my cuteness? sry."
Why did my head just "asplode," kitty dear? Because I could not transcribe that caption without Microsoft Word's AutoCorrect going into overdrive. And because ICanHasCheezburger.com receives 50 million page views every single month. Only 50% of users are between 18 and 49 -- which means a large chunk of the under-18 set is picking up lolspeak when they should be learning English.
LOLCats - bringing down Western civilization since... 1997?
Well the beeping went away so my plan worked!
If that isn't a "get offa my lawn" story, I don't know what is.
ETA re the LOLcats are ruining the youth of America story.
I believe he sent out a press release after Jerry Falwell's death claiming Falwell was going to hell for compromising with the godless.
Did he picket the funeral?
Blah blah blah teens suck at writing blah blah chatspeak blah....
I was just laughing at work about this, because my coworker and I were talking about this book we had both read that included a ton of letters written between lovers in the 1830s, and how a similar book written about our time would be all emails like, "LOL. see u l8er. ilu!!"