Senate Majority Lead Harry Reid, D-Nev., discontinued his latest run after falling in the street. The impact resulted in a black eye and dislocated shoulder, which opponents believe are unrecoverable, killing any future runs.
Despite his early, hard exit, analysts predict Sen. Reid will still win this race by at least 3,000 votes.
No, the headline above is not a LOL; it’s purely observation of a phenomenon witnessed only in Washington D.C. and Mr. Magoo’s torture cellar: clueless execution. And, as Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. hoped, the Associated Press missed it in the midst of their story about an FDA bill.
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. got an agreement to move the legislation by allowing Republicans to offer amendments not relevant to the bill. […] Coburn is expected to offer an amendment to place a moratorium on spending for ‘earmarks,’ or pet projects in lawmakers’ states and districts[.]”
Alright, technically, it’s not an earmark. But it sure ain’t a straightforward bill, neither.
The past couple of weeks, I’ve examined the news, looking for topics for this column. There are certain subjects I’ve bypassed, not because I haven’t heard about them or couldn’t think of any quips, but the stories themselves were obvious bait.
I will argue (long after my identity is stolen, my friends’ profiles have devolved into mafia dens and virtual pastures and PayPal wipes out the human race to collect our debts) that the Internet is the greatest thing to happen to communication since the printing press. However, there is a seedier element that has spread from the online community into the established news media: trolling.
“Trolling,” for those of you who are just now joining Facebook, is the act of posting an intentionally inflammatory post in order to elicit a purely negative response. This is different from satire or parody because, when successful, the reader “sees what you did there.”
The latest top news items are trolling. Well, except Haiti …. Unless you’re Pat Robertson, but he’s God’s troll.
I fully realize that, by discussing these stories below, I’m officially not not writing about them. Just bear with me; there will be a point at the end.
