The Disgraceful Mr. Dobbs

Pressure is building for CNN to do something about their resident conspiracy-theorist-in-chief Lou Dobbs. His nightly "reporting" on Obama's birth certificate drew fire today from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which called on CNN to take Dobbs off the air for "fanning the flames of racism." None of this should be surprising; for years, Dobbs has used his program to spread misinformation and paranoia.

In 2006, Dobbs ran several segments on the Amero, an imaginary currency that he believes will be shared by North America and replace the U.S. dollar. That same year he called for a new Sept. 11 investigation, vaguely citing the many "9/11 lies" told to Americans. Another favorite myth Dobbs reported on in 2008 is the NAFTA Superhighway, which (according to Lou's reporting) would extend from Mexico to Canada. None of these stories had a factual basis, and CNN repeatedly failed to exercise any editorial judgment.

Lou Dobbs has even appeared as a guest on leading Sept. 11 Truther and "Birther" Alex Jones's radio program and was sympathetic to Alex's rants. Knowing Lou, he probably believes the pressure to fire him is coming from the Illuminati and the New World Order. CNN needs to move quickly and remove Dobbs from their lineup to prevent further embarrassment. It's been a long time coming.

Originally posted on The Hill's Pundit Blog. Crossposted on The Huffington Post.

Dicktation

One of the best things on television last year was the Australian comedy series Summer Heights High. Chris Lilley created the series and plays three of the characters including Jonah Takalua, a kid who tags everything with Dicktation.

Last night Kevin and I were out on the Bloomington town celebrating his 24th birthday and I came across this graffiti in the bathroom of Upstairs, a local college bar. Cool to see Jonah's tag has made it all the way across the world to an Indiana straight bar.

President's Day

Lincoln is my favorite U.S. President. I'm a total cliche.

Last year when I read that Obama's favorite book was Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, I read it right away. I was the only person reading it on last summer's Rosie Family Cruise. It's a terrific book, detailing Lincoln's life and focusing on his experiences with his cabinet.

The book inspired me so much on the whole Team of Rivals idea, that I argued on Queerty that Obama should choose Clinton as his VP. Thankfully he didn't listen to me, because I'm quite a fan of Joe Biden.

I'm excited for The History Channel's Stealing Lincolns Body, tonight at 9PM EST.

Today is George Washington's Birthday. I've read David McCullough's 1776, but not a full biography on Washington - so I just ordered His Excellency by Joseph Ellis. Until that comes in, watch this three minute YouTube Video on Washington that truly made me LOL.

Watching Skins...

I just finished watching season 1 of BBC's Skins, a sexy, realistic look at middle class teens in suburban England, on DVD. The series goes way further than any similar American show at realistically portraying the experience of being a contemporary teenager. It's full of sex, violence, and drugs. All the stuff I remember most from my teenage years.

Some of Skin's characters are new to television. Dev Patel (from Slumdog Millionaire) is Anwar, who trying to find his place in society as both a teenager who wants to have fun and a Muslim. One of his best friends is Maxie (The super cute Mitch Hewer), a gay tap dancer who struggles with his friend's faith more than his own sexuality. One of the most powerful scenes for the first season involves Anwar's conservative father and Maxie. The other characters deal with traditional teen stuff from anorexia to low self esteem. It's great television.

Skins doesn't follow a traditional narrative, each episode focuses on different character and flows freely from story to story. It's the kind of grown-up story telling that teen shows usually don't receive. The cast is uniformly great and you may notice Nicholas Hoult, the boy from About A Boy, is now all grown up and the most popular boy in school.

The show has been quite controversial, apparently British teenagers now throw 'Skins parties' where they do drugs and have sex. My bet is they had those same parties before Skins premiered, under a different title.

Skins has just entered it's third season on the BBC, but for now those of us in the USA can only get season one on DVD. The second season is scheduled for release in the states on April 14th 2009.

Note: In America Skins was shown on BBC America, but it is a Channel 4 Production. Thanks for the note.

Cross Posted on The Huffington Post.