Monday, April 15, 2013

Dumbest line of the day so far...

Some yammerhead on the televisor: "This would appear to be some sort of homemade... or what they call an 'improvised explosive device'..."

Really? You mean he didn't go buy it off the rack at Crazy Vern's Discount House of Roadside Bombs?

I think that they fear if they don't feed the microphone a steady stream of words, it will become hungry and eat their face.

31 comments:

Bram said...

And once they figure out what they were made out of, the banning will begin. Politicians seem to be in a real banny mood.

Hope it wasn't gunpowder or any other product I use regularly.

ScottH said...

They probably got those mics from Dr.Weird:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkKVixISUgI

Shane W said...

Too bad it doesn't eat their face

CoolChange©© said...

Yeah, what Shane said. That just seems apropos.

Anonymous said...

Heard one fem NBC reporter state that the site "seemed dead" while feeding the mike 4-5 hours after the event.

I about fell out of my chair!

Anonymous said...

Of course constructive possession of finger nail polish remover, hydrogen peroxide, and household fridges will be next on the suspected terrorist pre-crime report your neighbor list...And Herr Bloomberg Inc. will have another reason to fear salt and electricity.

drjim said...

I've worked with some of these talking heads.

Most have an IQ barely above room temperature.

As Don Henley put it:
"Well, I could've been an actor but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear"

Defens said...

Once more, a clear demonstration of why the bomb show loophole needs to be closed. And universal background checks need to be made for any person wanting to buy a bomb.

The very important legislation that now needs to be passed is the high capacity ball bearing ban. Nobody needs to have more than two dozen ball bearings in their IED. 'Cause terrorists will be careful to comply with a ball bearing ban.

Joel said...

My very first thought upon hearing this news was “The headline writes itself. ‘And this is why we need strict, common-sense gun control.’”

I’m obscurely aware that this makes me a bad person.

ToddG said...

it will become hungry and eat their face

From your keyboard to God's monitor...

Anonymous said...

I remember Frank Zappa calling Rolling Stone magazine, "People who can't talk being interviewed by people who can't write for people who can't read."

It is all Rolling Stone, all the time now.

Robert said...

The best comment of the day was seen on BBC when they were talking to the trauma surgeon outside the hospital:

Dr: We currently have 6 people in critical condition.

Reporter: So how are those people, do they look OK?

Dr: No they don't look OK at all, that's why it's called critical condition.

I'm not sure what sort of credentials you need to be a reporter these days, but I wouldn't give that one a mop job.

Brad K. said...

" it will become hungry and eat their face. "

Remember, the talking heads have jobs. And bosses. And annual evaluations. And ambitious backstabbing snipes after their job.

So, yes, they keep the jabber going to avoid looking baffled, to avoid dead air, and to keep the backstabbing, ambitious wannabes from claiming part of their Xmas bonus, er, air time. Besides, if they spout something that happens to make the station/network look good (or just get noticed), then that adds onto the resume as well.

I like Sharon Astyk's approach, "A Nation of Farmers". Simple, less reliance on cheap energy that happens to be challenged by finite resources and an administration bent on making everything else as expensive as solar cells, and increasing local food security. And if we plant talking heads in barns and pastures, the only ones they might mislead are the cows.

TigerStripe said...

@Joel and Defens - the problem was the lack "Bomb Free Zone" signs.

@Robert - I heard that. I thought I didn't hear it correctly because it was so dumb I didn't think even a reporter would screw up that bad.

TS

Fred said...

I had to ask one of the other soldiers in the TOC if they seriously just spent the better part of five minutes saying how important it is for the medical personnel and first responders to drink plenty of coffee. I thought it was due to my own lack of coffee... but no... that just happened.

Scott J said...

My worst case overreaction to this will be putting the TSA in charge of all public spaces.

That will effectively be the end of CCW.

I bet some variant of that is what happens. Hands of blue, two by two just like the airport but in any place you can travel on foot.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. Or a bombing correspondent, it would seem.

Bruce S. said...

The next time you are watching one of the talking heads blathering on about , imagine a crank affixed to the back of the on-air "personality" being turned by a tired disgusted gnome just off camera. If the cranking should stop, the bubble head would simply collapse forward and the ceaseless verbal diarrhea ends. It is a visual that brings sense to the matter...

Brad K. said...

Brian S.,

The visual that comes to mind for me is the "reinflation" sequence of Otto-Pilot, in the movie Airplane.

Anonymous said...

I think that reporter must have thought that Airplane II was some sort of documentary, where Sonny Bono had to choose which bomb to buy in the airport gift shop.

Ken said...

I dunno...a fair number of the people in that industry otherwise act as if they had sold their souls to Cthulhu, and may actually have to worry about their microphones suddenly eating their faces.

BobG said...

"I think that they fear if they don't feed the microphone a steady stream of words, it will become hungry and eat their face."

We can only hope.

J.R.Shirley said...

Well, for once, the talking head comment might have made sense. An anti-tank mine or a Claymore would be an existing military explosive. But your snark is glittery, oh my Tam, so I bow before it.

Robert, that is amazingly...well, all sorts of things. Kudos to the ER doc on calling them on it.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

"I think that they fear if they don't feed the microphone a steady stream of words, it will become hungry and eat their face."

I'm going to go with the Ford Prefect theory on this one: If they don't keep on exercising their lips, their brains start working. For a reporter, that must be the most horrifying thing imaginable.

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

Ugh. Google stopped automatically checking the email subscription box for some reason. Feel free to delete this comment, I just needed to subscribe.

Anonymous said...

I would LOVE for more professionals to call the journos on their idiocy.

Like that general "your're stuck on stupid" a few years back.

Or some variant of "Who asked that? You? Fine, leave the room you cretin, adults are trying to exchange information here. Just go. This conference is over until you leave. And anyone who thought that was a smart question can leave too."

Kristophr said...

Maybe they thought you could by them ready made at gunshows?

Geodkyt said...

Waiting for DiFi to start waiving around an inert training Claymore, screaming how they are sold "without restriction" via the "gunshow loophole".

NotClauswitz said...

Pressure Cookers, same as the Indian train-bombings. Religion of pieces again.

Heath J said...

Obviously those were from Crazy Vern's. Had the badguys went to Haji Bob's ied emporium, things would've been way worse :P

Anonymous said...


"I think that they fear if they don't feed the microphone a steady stream of words, it will become hungry and eat their face. " Holey Moley! Great Visual! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now, if those buffoons who prattle "Those who would give up some liberty for some security, will have neither", would contemplate the Second Amendment, for a moment....nahhh, that's asking for intellectual consistency!