PREFACE: This is not a political post. Not really, anyway.

TRUE STORY: The other day, a much older gentleman asked me what television news shows I watch, and I explained to him that I don’t watch any of them. He then proceeded to chastise me for being a lousy citizen before I could inform him that I don’t watch television news because I get most of my news coverage on the Internet (save for “The Daily Show”). He didn’t quite understand that because he’s still rocking an AOL account, and he’s a Newt Gingrich supporter, so he’s probably a little soft in the brain anyhow.

Truth be told, I don’t like television news because they yell a lot, and if I wanted someone to yell at me, I’d post something on WarmingGlow that made our readers miss Matt. Television news contains very little substance, and even the opinion is obscured by the volume. Frankly, it’s boring. I listen to NPR in the morning, and the rest of the day I stay informed through the Associated Press app on my phone and The New York Times, because I’m a pinko commie liberal hippy.

According to the Pew Research Center, I’m not alone, as fewer and fewer people turn to television news to stay informed.

Only 69% of adults turned to the tube first for election news last month, the lowest percentage in at least 20 years, according to the weekly surveys taken for the Pew Research Center’s News Interest Index. The latest figure is down from 72% four years ago, 78% in 2004, and 86% in 2000. Broadcasters are seeing the biggest losses. Just 32% of adults cited local TV news as their primary source for election news, down from 40% four years ago. The national nightly newscasts were down to 26% from 32%. Cable news channels held relatively steady at 36%, down from 38%. As you might imagine, a lot of people now are turning to the Internet for their political news fix. It passed newspapers to become the No. 2 source of election news, with 34% turning first to the Web vs 26% in the 2008 campaign and 13%.

I’m actually surprised that 32 percent of people use local news to stay informed because local news is garbage in every single region of the country. It’s basically good for one thing, and that’s embarrassing verbal gaffes, like this one:

Or the best one in recent memory:

Of course, even local news is better than Fox News and MSNBC. If I wanted to watch petulant children scream at each other, I’d hang out in more playgrounds … I mean … er … you know what I mean.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Where do you folks get the majority of your political news?

During a British press conference for The Muppets, Kermit and Miss Piggy responded to recent allegations by Fox News that they are left wing propagandists. Miss Piggy turns on the news network and absolutely owns them.

Ron Paul Secures the Coveted Snoop Dogg Endorsement — The people who write Ron Paul’s newsletters would not approve. [Uproxx]

Trailer for Bobcat Goldthwaite’s New Movie God Bless America — You must see this trailer. It’s about serial killers who take out idiots. I swear to you, I actually clapped three times while watching it and stopped just short of giving it a standing ovation at my desk. [FilmDrunk]

It’s the Last Temptation of Tim Tebow — I don’t want to give too much credit to Tim Tebow, but if he could escape the University of Florida as the most popular football player in the nation without getting his hang low stinky, I don’t think Kim Kardashian will be much of a challenge to his man hymen. [With Leather]

Ferris Bueller’ And 9 Memorable Movie Parody Commercials — The only one this list is missing is the memory-raping Breakfast Club inspired Back to School commercial for JCPenney’s. Hey, hey, hey, HEY. [Screen Junkies]

Overachieving Graphene Has Yet Another Use: Strengthening Booze: I’ll be honest: I didn’t understand a word of this post until Robopanda got to the part about making vodka stronger. [Gamma Squad]

25 of TV and Film’s Finest Villains Looking Downright Adorable — You have not lived until you’ve seen that motherf**king c**kscuer Al Swearengen dripping with cute kittens. [Pajiba]

Middle Finger Supercut — Here’s a supercut of cinematic middle fingers. I really hate the way that Molly Ringwald flips the bird. [Daily What]

Believe It Or Not, The Pro Bowl Wasn’t Terrible: The Game In Pictures: I calculated once that I watch over 200 hours of live football each year, and yet I still manage to miss the Pro Bowl every single year. Burnsy’s got us covered. [With Leather]

I don’t care what part of the country you come from, or what your politics are: Paula Deen is a goddamn national treasure. When it comes to Fox News and the New York Times, I’m likely to agree with the latter eight times out of ten, but where Fox News and I agree is a love of Southern food. I grew up in the South, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s this: No matter how liberal, crunchy, hipster or metrosexual a Southern transplant may be, he will always show pride for his Southern sports teams and fried chicken.

This morning, Fox and Friends rightfully took the Times to task for a piece in the Dining section that spoke unkindly of three things I hold sacred: Crisco, Fried Chicken, and Paula Deen (I won’t take issue with the piece’s characterization of Cracker Barrel because, besides their chicken and dumplings, that place is nasty).

Damn you, New York Times. Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve made me agree with Fox News.

You know why the SEC is the best football conference in America? Two words: Fried chicken and gravy. The life expectancy of those players may be 27, but that’s beside the point. When they die, they die happy: Holding a fried drumstick in one hand and BCS National Championship Trophy in the other.

(Source: Gawker)

After yesterday’s ratings post, which revealed that “Community” is the sixth least watched TV show on the Big Four networks, that “Harry’s Law” is more popular than “Parks and Recreation,” and that “NCIS” is America’s most watched TV show, the collective American intelligence needed a win.

Enter Jon Stewart:

Fox News’ prime time lineup now averages fewer viewers than Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. According to TVNewser, Fox News averaged 1.868 million total viewers in prime time compared to 2.3 million for The Daily Show … The reason why Fox News feels so threatened by Jon Stewart is because his program is more popular than anything not named Bill O’Reilly on the network. Not only is Stewart popular, but he is popular with the coveted young demographics that Fox News struggles with. The average Fox News viewer is 65 years old.

The ratings win is not only big in terms of moral victories for common sense, but the demographics also suggest that there are more younger, brighter television viewers than deluded senior citizens demanding that hobos “put some skin in the game.” Then again, to put it in a broader perspective Fox News was the 4th ranked cable network of 2011 (while “The O’Reilly Factor” and “Hannity” were number one and two in cable news, respectively), compared to MSNBC, which was 28th (with CNN trailing behind at 29th), which suggests that there are a lot more deluded senior citizens watching Fox News than there are wackjob Pinko-liberal fascists watching MSNBC.

Either way, it’s a victory for fake news and dick jokes.

(Source: TVNewser)

This awesome non-apology from Andy Levy to Chris Brown Fox News’s “Red Eye” was everywhere two weeks ago, but it never got posted here ‘cuz Daddy was on vacation. Sorry about that. Let’s just keep it here for posterity.

TV, Murder, and Hurricanes, Oh My. Vince and the boys had me on the Frotcast this week. I haven’t listened to it, but I remember a LOT of jokes about their college friend who murdered his business partner. Good times. [FilmDrunk]

GOD’S AWAY ON BUSINESS. Spencer Hall’s meditation on the start of the college football season is the best thing I’ve read in ages. I’ve read it twice. [Every Day Should Be Saturday]

15 Haunting Film Cinemagraphs. “Cinemagraph” is a fancy word for a special kind of GIF. [UPROXX]

The Best of the 2011 U.S. Open. Hint: It’s all Brooklyn Decker. Well played, Burnsy. [With Leather]

The Justice League goes to the Wild West. Artist Ted Brandt makes the JLA one badass posse. [Gamma Squad]

18 Famous TV Roles Originally Played by Someone Else. Whoa, Louie Anderson was supposed to be Cousin Larry from “Perfect Strangers.” I did not know that. [mental floss]

Three Seasons of ‘Sons of Anarchy’ in Ten Minutes. Very efficient. [ScreenJunkies]

11 ‘Arrested Development’ Shout Outs To Its Actors’ Past Roles. [The Bluth Company]

What’s Really Going on at AMC? A deeper, more nuanced look at the money squabbles that tarnished the network of “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” [Vulture]

Zooey Deschanel Is Hilariously Banal. Twenty-five of her Facebook posts, including “What are some of your favorite board games? I love them all.” [BuzzFeed]

(GIF via theclappingmonkey)

Angry finger-pointer Bill O’Reilly is perhaps smarter than the average Fox News talking head, but he’s never come across as someone with a “conscience” or “soul” or “capable of human feeling.” So it’s not exactly a surprise that he tried to use the Nassau County Police Department as his own personal investigation unit in an attempt to dig up dirt on the police officer sleeping with his estranged wife, Maureen McPhilmy O’Reilly.

According to our source, [Inspector Neil] Delargy offered [Detective Richard] Harasym no justification for investigating the detective—who is unmarried—aside from the alleged infidelity. “The order was to investigate this detective not for any misdeeds,” the source said, “but to see if they could get anything on him. Delargy also told him to tell the detective to back off.”

Delargy told Harasym that the investigation was highly sensitive for two reasons, the source said: 1) It was ordered directly by then-police commissioner Lawrence Mulvey, and 2) O’Reilly was at the time considering making a major donation to the Nassau County Police Department Foundation, a private not-for-profit foundation Mulvey helped found in 2009 to raise money for construction of a planned $48 million police training facility at Nassau Community College. [Gawker]

What? That’s legal, right? If you and your wife get separated, and she starts dating a cop, you can dangle a couple million dollars to the police chief in order to get the cop investigated by internal affairs, right? That’s just capitalism, people. If you don’t like it, you must be one of those SOCIALISTS trying to get medical care.

Glenn Beck announced his impending departure from Fox News in April, and tonight the clown prince of illogical fear-mongering will air his final show. To mark the occasion, Media Matters made this epic video of Beck “highlights,” if you can call them that.

After about a minute and twenty seconds of watching this, my eye started to twitch, but I decided to stick it out because I owe it to you, the reader, to give a fair account of the news and clips I share. But then, 1:49 into the video — this really happened — my computer froze. I couldn’t even ctrl + alt + delete out of Chrome — I had to hold the power button down and restart my laptop. Clearly, my computer’s failure is part of a conspiracy by pretentious technocratic progressives who want to stifle Beck’s egalitarian message of freedom for the common man. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

[via BuzzFeed]

Pundit Dog thinks it's a ruff break for Glenn.

It’s a great year for people who don’t want their political opinions from jackasses flailing around in hysterics: first Keith Olbermann got fired from MSNBC, and now Fox News has just announced that Glenn Beck’s show will leave the air later this year. Fox News and Beck’s Mercury Radio Arts released a joint statement today that mentioned no specific end date for the show and especially vague plans for future projects together.

“Glenn Beck is a powerful communicator, a creative entrepreneur and a true success by anybody’s standards,” said Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO of Fox News. “I look forward to continuing to work with him.”

“I truly believe that America owes a lot to Roger Ailes and Fox News,” Beck said in a statement. “I cannot repay Roger for the lessons I’ve learned and will continue to learn from him and I look forward to starting this new phase of our partnership.” [via EW]

Of course, there was no mention of how Beck has lost advertisers or how his audience has dropped more than 40% in the cable news demo this year. I’m sure that unspecified plans for future projects with Fox News will have much greater clout than hosting an hour-long news show. *cough* FIRED! *cough cough*

Former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson was on Fox News to talk about something — I don’t know, maybe Social Security? — and because he’s 79 years old, he has no goddam idea what the hell he’s talking about. Move over, Andy Rooney, there’s a new crotchety geezer bitching about kids these days.

The co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission tried to scold the elderly on Monday for complaining about their Social Security funds being targeted, but instead he found himself making a reference to “Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg.”

“This is a fakery,” Simpson said on Fox News. “If they care at all about their children or grandchildren, and sometimes I doubt that – I think, you know, grandchildren now don’t write a thank-you for the Christmas presents, they’re walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg, and they don’t like them!” [Politico]

I can’t believe that those are words that were actually said by a real human being, and not something I made up during one of my imagined Andy Rooney rants. Honestly, I don’t know why we put up with old people the way we do. Alan Simpson should have been burned for fuel five years ago.

[via Daily Kos and BuzzFeed]

This video is only a minute long, but I could barely tolerate thirty seconds of it. Bill O’Reilly sent a producer for his show to “ambush” Snooki at a book signing, and what ensues is probably the worst thing ever: a stand-off between a producer for “The O’Reilly Factor” and Snooki’s publicist. It’s the human equivalent of a hyena defending a bloated pronghorn corpse from vultures: two repugnant, scavenging animals seeking nourishment from diseased flesh.

As recompense, I offer you the other side of humanity:

A Brooklyn man found a roll of 35mm film in Prospect Park, and he made a movie about it with the hope of returning the film to its rightful owner. So much better than that poisonous crap above. [via]