Scanner : msnbc

Rachel Maddow Talks Teabagging (Video)

Colleen Kane — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:30:00 GMT

Who knew conservatives were so into teabagging? Well, Larry Craig probably did...

Related:

What We Learned About on Wikipedia Today: Teabagging

The 99 Most Degrading Sex Acts... There Has To Be One More, No?

Rachel Maddow 2012, or Anyone But Sarah Palin, Actually

Sloppy Seconds: Michelle Obama Does the Unthinkable

Emily Farris — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:41:00 GMT

MSNBC has finally discovered fuck buddies. And that college students have them. [MSNBC]

Will items off of the Chipotle value menu have fewer calories? We sure hope so. [Yahoo!]

We always wonder why people who spend lots of money to have signs, boxes, etc. printed don't get copy editors. An Oregon company probably could have used one before printing a phone sex number on their cereal box. [Google/AP]

Starting next month, same-sex couples can be legally married in Sweden. [BBC]

More "celebrities" blogging about their relationship woes. Meh. [People]

Madonna is already celebrating the adoption of a child she has not yet officially adopted. [Us]

A man in China swallowed a pair of scissors. And survived! [Telegraph]

For the first time in 57 years, the Queen of England publicly hugged someone (sort-of). And that someone was Michelle Obama. And then Obama hugged the Queen back (sort-of)! Apparently, this is a big deal. [DailyMail]

Related:

Yes, Scanner Emily. Chipotle will make you fat.

Crush of the Week: Kate Middleton, Rollerskating Queen

Did You Hear? The Beard is Back (File Under: No Sh*t, MSNBC)

Emily Farris — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:03:00 GMT

Breaking news from MSNBC!!!: the beard is back! Also, it's a recession trend. No really. It's a totally brand new recession trend only made trendy by the trendy recession.

Okay, it's not just the economy, but it does make sense as more men lose their jobs they quit shaving. According to The NPD Group, a marketing research company, sales of electric shavers and men’s facial trimmers have dropped twelve percent in the last year.

This trend requires a two-page article from MSNBC on the popularity of the beard. If you'd like to skip it, we'll give you the money quote:

“I think beards are gross,” says Kate Jacobus, a 23-year-old marketing associate from Atlanta, Ga. ”Especially when men don’t have thick hair, like Spencer Pratt on ‘The Hills.’ His beard just looks like fuzz. Not to be gross, but it looks like pubic hair.”

And, of course, a trendy style piece wouldn't be complete without consulting a professional:

Sociologist Paul Roof, who runs the Holy City Beard & Moustache Society of Charleston, S.C., says that while there are certainly purists who believe beards should never be trimmed or shaved, most beard buffs try to keep up a “clean, professional appearance.”

“If you’re going to have a beard and do it right, you’ve got to keep it clean and groomed and shampooed and conditioned,” he says. “It actually takes more work than shaving.”

You hear that Rick Rubin?

[MSNBC: Hairy economy trend: Beards are back]

Related:

Beard vs Beard: Rick Rubin and Zach Galifianakis

Bearded Man of the Week: Zach Galifianakis

Bearded Man of the Week: Sam Beam

We Finally Found a Beard We Simply Cannot Endorse

Bearded Men of the Week: Unshaven Bartenders in New York

Better Than Porn: Whiskerino

Scanner Highs and Lows: Saturday Night Beard

[Image]

MSNBC Needs a Lesson on Panties

Colleen Kane — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 22:10:00 GMT

A hard-hitting MSNBC video expose on a trend in sales of panties-- namely, that sales of thongs are down in the economic downturn in favor of "granny panties"-- reveals an oversimplified, antipodal view of panties. According to newscaster Lauren Petty of WVIT, there are only two kinds.

Can we just review the range of other readily available categories, all of which are more comfortable than thongs and less ugly than granny panties?

String bikini.

Bikini.

Boyshort/ hipster cut.

Vintage-style high-waisters.

Just sayin'. And to watch that news video, it's here.

Scanner Survey: Hot or Not, Granny Panties?

Sloppy Seconds: Panties for Peace

Rachel Maddow 2012, or Anyone But Sarah Palin, Actually

Nicole Pasulka — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:18:00 GMT

Rachel Maddow annotates recently unhinged Sarah Palin comments and exposes her as a babbling maniac.

Oh, America, we dodged a bullet last week for sure. Stick it out until the end, when Palin reveals her new career plans.

[via Feministing]

Right-Wing Nutjob Kevin James Proves Right-Wingers Are Nutjobs

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT

When we've toured the country for political candidates, we've noticed that although there are civil conversations to be had with some people, most right-wingers are utterly clueless on the issues (this actually has been statistically proven-- look it up if you don't believe it) and tend to subscribe to the Bill O'Reilly school of Thunder Makes Right.

Kevin James, the radio show host and thankfully not the ridiculous actor, embarrassed himself and the Republican Party last night on, of all places, Hardball, where he was shown up by, of all people, Chris Fucking Matthews.

They were discussing President Bush's atrocious remarks (does he ever say anything intelligent?) about Barack Obama, comparing him with his beautiful logic to Nazi sympathizers and "appeasers."

Check out the hilariously painful clip of his loud (and wrong) attempt to rewrite history. Yes, we're biased, although we defy anyone to send us a clip of a liberal loudmouth acting like this much of an asshole.

Fox News So Fair And Balanced, They Run Frederick Douglas For Senate

Katie Halper — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Fox News really is fair and balanced. The "news" channel showed a picture of Frederick Douglass in reference to the Abraham Lincoln versus Stephen A. Douglas debate of 1858. People like MSNBC's Dan Abrams may think it's a sign of stupidity, sloppiness or ignorance to confuse the abolitionist with the pro slavery senator, and to think that a black man could run for senate in the 1850's. I say, it's just an example of Fox News being fair and balanced, post-racist, and color blind. VIdeo after the jump.

All Aboard the Pony Express: the Power of the Man With the Long Flowing Hair

Nicole Pasulka — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:46:00 GMT

A man in West Bengal needed to get an empty engine and three coaches about 10 or 12 feet down the track, so he did what any self-respecting man would, and attached it to his ponytail to drag it behind him.

According to Sailen Roy, the man with the iron hair:

I could not pull it for too long, but managed to pull it for 10-12 feet. In 2000, I have done acts like lifting 20 kg weights with moustache, pulled one AC bus and a truck. In ropeway, instead of using rope to cross, I used my pony tail to cover a distance of 300 feet."

Color us fucking impressed. Here's the video, try to ignore Keith Olbermann's incessant blather.

John Conyers: On Our To Do List

Katie Halper — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

John Conyers is one sexy beast of a congressman. This civil rights activist is a rainbow lover and shows much love for Americans, Albanians and the people of Darfur. Conyers speaks the universal language of love and his website whispers sweet ~~nothings~~ significant things in English, Arabic and Spanish. The Congressman is a giver-- not a taker, who would love to spoil you, the American people, rotten. He wants to lavish you in health care coverage. And he's going to give you tips on avoiding uncomfortable premature housing ejaculation. This "congressman with benefits" is all about getting you benefits. His long, righteous voting record shows how much he loves women and jazz, a killer combo.

The Congressman knows how to spice things up, play rough, and give tit for tat. Watch a coy Conyers humiliate a bodacious blond after the jump.

The congressman has so much love, it's no surprise that he was the one who introduced the bill to make MLK Day a federal holiday. When Conyers criticized McCain for waiting 25 years to apologize for opposing MLK Day, an MSNBC anchor said, "silly, old, angry, black congressman. Don't you know that McCaine apologized for opposing MLK day! Or are you too old to hear or see that?" (I paraphrase)

The insatiable Conyers responded by tearing McCain a new one and teasing the anchor, all the while maintaining his composure and debonair, dapper, glasses-in-mouth demeanor:

Well look. I’m happy. That was in 1983, he didn’t make any apology, he didn’t make any apologies in 1987, so I guess I’m thrilled and forgiving that finally when he’s running for President he remembers to apologize. No, that’s great.

Congressman Conyers gave it hard and rough to McCain. So we have no choice but to give Conyers the props he deserves by putting him on our "To Do" List.

Obama's Dainty Balls

Katie Halper — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:10:00 GMT

Obama has a prissy side. And he lacks the "balls of Reagan" that Americans need and want.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-hosts and co-real-men Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist showed fascinating footage of Obama bowling in Pennsylvania and discussed the nominee's "dainty release" and the way he handles his bowling balls.

SCARBOROUGH: Americans want their president, if it's a man, to be a real man... I remember Ronald Reagan goes to South Boston. He holds up that beer mug. He's a real man. And I guess Barack Obama's trying to do the same thing, too... Awful. Good Lord. Oh my God. Oh, this is awful.

GEIST: Started out nicely, got the Velcro shoes.... But then he started bowling. The score you're really after in bowling is 300; that's a perfect score.

SCARBOROUGH: But, you know, if you get 200, you're a good bowler.... You get 150, you're a man -- or a good woman.

GEIST: Out of my president, I want a 150, at least. Barack Obama bowled -- well, you can see his form here --

SCARBOROUGH: Hee!

GEIST: A 37. That's a three, next to a seven.

SCARBOROUGH: Baby, if you go to Altoona, Pennsylvania, on a Saturday night and you're going to try to bowl -- Oh, that's so dainty. Ugh. What a dainty -- That is such a dainty release.

GEIST: Oh, it's like a children's birthday party.

SCARBOROUGH: I've got a feeling he -- he didn't go bowling in Cambridge that much. That's a guy that's been studying a lot of -- reading a lot of books.... Not bowling.

Tyra Banks Looking for the Next "America's Next Top Model" Host?

Bryan Christian — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:06:00 GMT

MSNBC's Scoop is reporting that OK! Magazine is reporting that tensions on the set of America's Next Top Model are so tense -- catfight between Tyra and that guy who looks like J. Peterman -- that Banks may be splitting to concentrate on her talk show. (Sorry to bring such bad news, Scanner Em!)

OK! magazine reports that Banks isn’t getting along with photo shoot creative director Jay Manuel, and her days on the show could be numbered.
“It’s gotten so bad that Tyra and Jay aren’t speaking,” an insider told OK! magazine. The selective silent treatment isn’t limited to Manuel, either. “Tyra barely interacts with the contestants and only wants to show up on judging day,” the source told the magazine.

OK, so, question: which is more offensive: that we sometimes refer to Jay Manuel as "Gay Peterman" because we think he looks and acts just like John O'Hurley but queeny, or that we chickened out of saying it until we could explain ourselves. Lose/Lose!

Get Your Ashley Alexandra Dupre Drink On

Emily Farris — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 19:26:00 GMT

As Eliot Spitzer's career has gone to shit, another person's is about to take off, and no, we're not talking about Spitzer's replacement, new New York Governor David Paterson. Like everyone else in the world, including us, Georgi Vodka wants to capitalize on the myth, the woman, the legend that is Ashley Alexandra Dupre. We want her to write a book and Georgi wants put a blown-up shot of her ass on the back of every bus in New York City.

Martin Silver, chief executive of Star Industries — owners of the U.S. rights to the brand, said he is in talks to pay Dupre more than $100,000 to be this year's Georgi "butt girl," the annual pinup the brand places on city buses and taxicabs.

"The girl's butt we have on there now is pretty good, but if you can get (Dupre) to do it, and to make some personal appearances, it's like Paris Hilton or something," Silver told AdAge.com. "We are trying to work out a contract."

Additionally, they want to name the vodka "No. 9" —which, in case you live in a cave, was the code name the FBI used for Spitzer while they investigated the prostitution ring.

MNBC's idea for a new cocktail?

"The Spitzer Screwdriver: "No. 9" vodka and orange juice with a shot of schadenfreude. On the rocks ... just like his marriage."

They beat us to the punch line...

[MSNBC: From governor's paramour to vodka's 'butt girl]

(Thanks, Marco!)

Scanner Highs and Lows: The Week We Learned to Appreciate Our Bodies Just the Way They Are

Emily Farris — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:57:00 GMT

We spent the week contemplating our belly buttons, boobs, bellies and butts. And in the end, we appreciate what nature gave us a little bit more than we did when the week began. How about you?

Highs:

This woman's ginormous breasts (NSFW) made us appreciate the lightness of being small chested just a litlte bit more.

These women like their butts just the way they are. OK, lies! They want them bigger.

This body of work got us more excited than anything all week.

France wants children to learn about their bodies.

We ogled Christina Aguilera's baby body.

We're not sure if this is a high or a low, but Lindsay Lohan's body. 'Nuff said.

Lows:

Gene Simmons made a sex tape. While wearing a t-shirt. And the girl was wearing flip flops. This also made us appreciate our bodies in so, so many ways.

Courtney Cox needs a fucking sandwich. STAT!

This man claims to have appreciated Barack Obama's body in the nineties. But we're not buying it. Obama has much better taste!

This man appreciates art and his dick.

MSNBC got somebodies mixed up.

MSNBC: Obama = Osama

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Barack Obama, known to Wonkettes as Barry Hussein (get it-- his middle name is the same as Saddam's last name), is up against the ignorance that brought us George Bush, chewing tobacc'a, and Pabst Blue Ribbon. In short, he is facing the American electorate in states long ignored by the thinkers and philosophers, and MSNBC is making sure to pander to them, jumping into the pig troughs and throwing the shit at each other to fill up every news hour.

The geniuses who brought you the Pimped Out Chelsea Clinton and other insults directed at her parents, particularly by head jackass-of-all-trades Chris Matthews, have now done themselves one better. On Monday night's Hardball, Matthews was speaking of Senator Obama when a graphic of the other Muslim terrorist appeared (no, not Dennis Kucinich), Osama Bin Laden, that Crazy Liberal from the East:

The other classy American news institution, CNN, committed same error last year, in a way:

Mitt Romney made the same, um, "mistake" during his campaign when blurted out Senator "Osama" when he meant to say "that guy the leader of my party never bothered to catch before or after 9/11."

Yep, above's another winner, Senator Lindsay Graham of one of those Carolina states that still practices lynching and uses different water fountains for Jews and darkies, seen here at a McCain event. They love that alliteration shit-- I guess it's better than literacy, folks! Yuck yuck yuck.

Here are some more gems from the Scanner vaults... yes, we save everything... otherwise, it'll get buried by NBC and their lackeys in the MSM.

On the Subject of Being "Pimped Out"

Emily Farris — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:02:00 GMT

OK, not so much the subject itself, but the semantics of the phrase.

Last Thursday, MNSBC anchor David Shuster said on the air, “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” after she was recruited to make calls for her mother's campaign. Now the Clinton camp is throwing a huge fit and may pull out of an MSNBC debate scheduled for later this month.

On one hand, if we ("we" being everyone under the age of 30) didn't use "pimped out" to describe many things (cars, apartments, internships), then maybe it would be a bigger deal. It's not like Shuster was implying that the Clintons were sending Chelsea out to have sex in exchange for votes. In fact, we don't think we would have given it a second thought had we been watching the broadcast.

But on the other hand, as Tina Fey (Ms. Norbury) so famously said in Mean Girls, "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores."

We're not in any way saying Chelsea brought this upon herself; it's highly possible she's never uttered that phrase in her life. But we (women, including Scanner Emily who has used "pimped out" to describe something as benign as Rice Krispies Treats) throw it around like it's no big deal. Like many words and phrases, it's lost its meaning. "Whoring" would have been much more offensive, we think.

Scanner verdict: While Shuster shouldn't have said what he did, the Clinton campaign is making way too big a deal out of it (identity politics, anyone?). And maybe that makes us bad feminists.

[Previously on Scanner: MSNBC: Chelsea Clinton Being "Pimped Out"]

Anyone Here Get "Special Sex" for Christmas?

Bryan Christian — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:28:00 GMT

Looks like Bill Gates and NBC weren't quite done messing with our heads this season. Perhaps you remember how MSNBC was intent on keeping you from having hot ex-sex a few weeks back? Well, now they're trying to invent the idea of reserving certain sex acts for the holidays -- even though the question asked of sex columnist Brian Alexander has absolutely NOTHING to do with giving or getting an XXX-mas!

Q: Is it normal for my husband to withhold a certain way of making love that really truly works for me? He knows it’s my favorite, but he told me once that it is only for special occasions. I feel I am so sexually deprived. Most of the time it’s all I think about, right down to having affairs in my head.

However, we're happy to report that not even MSNBC readers are buying this one. When we took a related poll, 56% of MSNBC readers called the concept of saving special sex acts for the holidays "absurd." But, for the sake of thoroughness, we have to ask: anyone here get to unwrap an extra-special gift this holiday season? Tell us!

Bill Gates Love Secret #39: Don't Screw Your Ex

Bryan Christian — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 15:32:00 GMT

Over on the MSNBC (hence the return of Sexy Bill Gates), Today Show correspondent Dr. Laura Berman doesn't want you making the same mistake that everyone's made over the holidays: drinking unpasteurized eggnog. Huh? Oh, sorry. Banging your ex.

Loneliness around this time is inevitable, and many single people like to turn to a familiar place for comfort: the arms of an ex. We all have one stuffed in the closet of our lives — whether it is a long-ago love, or a recent breakup, exes always seem to be just a phone call away.

OK, you know what might also be good advice? Don't listen to anyone who's clearly thought about stuffing their exes in a closet. If that means playing Secret Santa with your high school backseat-mate, well then Happy Holidays to you!