You know it's bad when Kansas is poking fun at you

Putting this here instead of the Media Central Cosmos thread.

Note the red bolded bits.

Is "Haroldry" the study of people named Harold?

Well, Topeka's News is a satire site, so I would expect this. Though to be honest, it's hard to tell the difference between satire and what we see in reality.

I'd never heard of it before.

Keep in mind, the story you posted is completely believable, because there are an obscene number of outspoken morons on this planet, and they will show that moronic nature in public, at the top of their lungs, so don't feel bad. Plus, it has an innocuous name like "Topeka News," and it was a story about Kansas, so it's understandable. People that fall for The Onion, or the Daily Currant? Silly, because there are obvious signs it's all fakery, but this one is almost believable because of the way it's presented, so don't feel bad.

You should have been clued off by the implication that someone might possibly believe there to be news coming out of Topeka.

Sunday I met a buddy at Pancake Chef down in Seatac for breakfast. He was flying off to Afghanistan for hopefully his last time. He did two tours in the Army and now on his 4th tour as a contractor (Academi nee Xe nee Blackwater). He's spent 5 of the last 8 years in that shithole. We were talking about him setting up residency here, so that this tour is over he's gonna hopefully get into the UW and use up that G.I.Bill. At one point we got into a discussion about just how much a shithole Afghanistan was and how we could both go the rest of our lives without seeing it again (both of us would like to go back to Iraq someday).

At point he made this observation about Afghanistan: "About all you say is that at least it's not Kansas."

(He's from Kansas)

Great! If other states get on board we'll have another Ciliv War on our hands!

I think the real story here is how susceptible ShootER was to taking this hokum seriously.

I initially thought it was a true story as well. I've never heard of the Topeka News in any regard, so had no context to know it was satire. And c'mon, let's face it...most of us wouldn't put it past a group of hardcore Christian fundies to do something like that, would we?

I'm just sayin...

There are many for whom the concept of a moderate Christian is unthinkable. Popular media has done a very good job of portraying all Christians as slobbering Westboro-types.

But in fact many of us are not nearly that respectable...

^ISWYDT.

Did they get this mad over the original Sagan Cosmos in 1980?

Poe's law...

They probably didn't know it existed. It was only aired on PBS stations, while their local affiliates were showing reruns of Hee Haw. (And remember, no cable in those days.) Otherwise they'd have made just as much fuss about "that Jew fella lying to our kids" as they are about Tyson.

There certainly was cable when Sagan's Cosmos ran. Even my dinky hometown had it by the late 70s.

Different markets, I guess.

I should've been tipped off by the "story" taking place in OKC.

Eastern Oklahoma would've been far more believable.

Really? I never saw cable until the very late 70's during a trip to visit family near Chicago. My town had a population of about 1,000 and the nearest "big" town had 5,000 peole and was 45 minutes away. That could be why nobody there had cable.

'Ciliv'?

From funny or Die: Creationist Cosmos.

It would be an even better retort if it actually made sense. Fox News routinely doubles or triples the viewers of CNN & MSNBC combined, and they built their network around pandering to the Christian right.

Bill Maher, OTOH , is over the top hostile to all religion, especially Christianity, and his ratings are miniscule even accounting for the reduced market share of being on HBO.

Fatuitas delenda est.

You know, I've seen you post this opinion numerous times. What in the world makes you think the OKC area is any less religious than "eastern Oklahoma?"

That's cuz Maher is a smug douchebag and people recognize that.

Smug douchebags aren't rare in the world of cable news.

I took the liberty of removing the unnecessary words from your post...

Mebbe not, but Maher oozes smug on a level even Shatner never approaches. He's so convinced of his own smarts that you just want to punch him in the nads.