In the comments to a post on the Hollywood writers' strike at Twenty Sided, RustyBadger asks the ultimate question:

"The people that write for The DailyShow are funny, yes, but they have an easy job: write funny stuff about famous people who are in the media spotlight so the viewers can feel smugly superior about their own pathetic lives. I mean, really. How hard IS it to make fun of Brittney Spears and Michael Jackson?"

As someone who makes fun of John Edwards EVERY SINGLE DAY, I feel emminently qualified to answer that one.

"Hardness", as we all know, is measured on the Mohs scale, with Talc (the crumbly, powdery stone from which talcum powder is derived) being a 1 on that scale. Diamonds are a 10.

Mocking celebrities does not contain an absolute hardness factor, but is rather a repetitive-dependent sliding equation which is directly proportional to the number of times you have previously mocked the celebrity. By which I mean, the more often you make fun of someone, the harder it gets.

This SEEMS counterintuitive, as one would expect it to get EASIER with repetition - practice making perfect, and all that. However, the hardness in this case actually arises from the physical limitations of existing in a finite universe. That is, poking fun at the famous is based on making an analogy between the famous person and an existing object, and connecting the two in a manner that is completely unexpected, yet also perfectly sensible to the reader afterwards. Given that the universe contains only 10⁸⁵ discrete objects, the writer has fewer and fewer objects to compare their celebrity target to with each joke written, thus making the job increasingly hard.

As anyone who's contributed a Bonus Fact can attest, the first one is talc-easy, but pretty soon you find yourself smacking your forehead against Hydrated Sodium Beryllium Aluminum Silicate Hydroxide Fluoride.

In other words... "very".

So as someone who makes a living writing (if you define "living" as "three squares a day - of Ramen Noodles"), I'm siding with the writers, and showing my solidarity by posting a video that explains the writers' strike in terms everyone can understand.

Enjoy:

Know who wanted to nuke the moon? Hitler!

Usually IMAO flies under the radar of left-wing blogs. They want stuff to be angry about, but who could be angry at fun-loving IMAO? We only want to nuke the moon -- there aren't even people there to hurt. Still, we've had our run ins with some of them such as when some guy named digby criticized us for our "hostile" humor and Amanda Marcotte and her commenters once spent about 500 pages in a horribly pedantic analysis of whether a post of mine was technically "satire."

Now, Sadly, No! -- a left-wing humor site -- has latched on to our Fred Thompson Facts. By itself, it's not that notable. It seems to be a lashing out at how the left-wing blogs' favorite candidate Edwards is perceived as being "swishy," and now they must be further frustrated on that count since Edwards took time out of the last debate to criticize Hillary Clinton's outfit. The humor seems borne more out of being angry than being clever, but their audience seems to like it so I can't really criticize.

Anyway, what was interesting to me was the monologue preceding the humor where this bit caught my eye:

Not that we don’t have a begrudging sort of respect for the I.M.A.O.s of the world. After all, it’s sort of mulishly courageous to tackle humor as they do, from the opposite end of what is actually funny. Very few humorists can find comedy in the violent victimization of the marginalized by the overclass, largely because there isn’t any. But points to I.M.A.O. for trying. And even if their output isn’t — how shall we put it? — ‘funny in the slightest,’ at the very least it makes for a nice sort of homage to the Golden Age of Beer Hall comedy. . .a kind of living monument to the jackbooted stylings of those brownshirted stand-ups who, once upon a time, quite literally ‘killed’ at venues across Europe.

Now, if this was meant in jest, it's exceptionally clever. Basically they're poking fun at their own side and how many have an overwrought hatred of any one with a different political viewpoint. It's much more self-aware than you'd find anywhere on DailyKos. If it's meant even partly serious, though, then it's rather sad.

And that's the problem with a humor site with politics like that of the popular left-wing blogs. If you handed me something written by Glenn Greenwald and said, "Here's this hilarious parody of a left-winger I wrote!" I'd think it was some genius satire and admire the work you put in it ("Wow. You kept it up for like five pages."). When I first read Amanda Marcotte, I thought she was joking as she preached a kind of feminism I had long thought was made up by the older conservatives to scare us. So, when a left-wing site is sometimes trying to be funny, how can you tell when it's saying something in jest or when it's saying something ridiculous with a hilarious though somewhat sad earnestness? When many on that side honestly believe the government is behind 9/11 and that President Bush is going to establish a dictatorship before leaving office, how can you tell when they're joking about something?

If I were to guess, I'd say who wrote that at Sadly, No! meant it seriously. That's because it's extremely rare to see left-wingers use self-deprecating humor about their own politics. I could write a whole paper on the reasons why for that, but just think about: How often do right-wingers make jokes using the left-wing's stereotypes of them? We here at IMAO do it about every other post; it's fun to pretend to be a mindless warmonger who hates the poor. Now how often have you seen a left-winger make a jokes using the right-wings stereotypes of them. I can't think of very many instances; they really hate those perceptions of them and don't find anything about them funny.

So, if I'm wrong and that statement from Sadly, No! was completely in jest, it was all the more exceptional.

What do you think? Do you think they were joking, or do they really think our humor makes us like Nazis? If so, then which posts are the Nazi ones? Maybe it was the one where I drew Kos with exaggerated Jewish features.

UPDATE:

I got a response in the comments from what seems like a dour, humorless person. I'd thought I'd put it here with my response:

1: Power. The powerless use humor to try to deflate those with power over them.

That's one use of humor, but it's far from the only use. Most people who play the game of "[insert group here] can't be funny" start by making up their own esoteric definition of what constitutes humor, trying to make complex a simple human impulse.

When the powerful make fun of those beneath them, that's not funny, it's cruel. It comes off like cheerleaders mocking the poor kids for wearing hand-me-downs. Brandi and Candi might laugh, but it's not "humorous."

Ridiculing is actually the basis of all humor (or so I argue). Still, calling all the humor of one side "bullying" shows a very narrow mind which probably isn't open to actual discussion in the first place. It also shows absolutely no understanding of humor (which isn't to say the person is incapable of humor; just incapable of understanding it outside partisan blinders).

It's hard to make stuff funny when one side is dedicated to bringing Americans together to make things better for all of us and the opposing side is devoted to accentuating the divisions between different groups to increase their power.

Of course, this is just one person's retarded viewpoint of the world which is shared only by a small fringe. Who gets to say what it funny and what isn't is the audience to the humor. You can't just say that it's only humor if people with my own narrow political viewpoint thinks its funny; everyone can play that game and its completely pointless.

2: Fringe reality. The fraction of Kosites who believe that Bush was ACTUALLY behind 9/11 is roughly the same as the fraction of $Con_site who believe that Hillary is ACTUALLY a lesbian Mossad agent who had Vince Foster murdered b/c he wouldn't keep quiet about Bill importing planeloads of cocaine into Arkansas. It's a big country full of weirdos of all types and the internet just makes them a lot louder.

Of course, this is more a political than a humor argument. Those viewpoints make the recommended diaries (though 9/11 conspiracies are now verboten from Kos). Polls -- as useful as they are -- show those viewpoints are significant among Democrats and thus even more significant among the fringe that is Kos. I don't think most fervently believe the conspiracies, and it's mainly just how silly their partisanship has gotten that they even consider them.

Anyway, the person who wrote this comment obviously has a silly little viewpoint and takes himself way too seriously. From his own definition, that makes him the pompous one to deflate using humor. If this is the writer of the Sadly, No! post, then they really should change their name to the exclamation of "That's not funny!"

UPDATE 2:

Phelps has an example of how the violent victimization of the marginalized by the overclass can be hilarious.

I laughed.

IMAO got a shout out from Jonah Goldberg in a discussion of humor and politics.

People find funny what people find funny, and thus I never got into discussions of who is funnier: Conservatives or liberals? The answer, of course, is that conservatives will find conservatives funnier and liberals will find liberals funnier. That's not to say there aren't some differences in approaches to humor between them, but at the core their doing jokes based on what their audiences believe to be true. Since conservatives and liberals believe fundamentally different things about some issues, humor tailored for one will fall flat for the other.

Jonah makes a good point on the perception of who is in power makes a difference. It's sad to say it, but a Democrat president and Democrat majorities in Congress would be a huge boon to this site.

Update: Here's the audio-only version.

Gabe & Max from HuffPo try to make fun of the "gay bomb" thing, but outside of "scoliosis toast", I think their whole bit was just off. Here's why:

Problem 1: Overusing the "invisible" reference - While a "running gag" is a time-honored comedic technique, it really only works when you have enough material between uses for your audience to forget about the gag. That way, when you hit the reference again, they go "Ha! I remember that!" instead of "Oh... THAT again". Using it four times in a ten item list is sleep-inducing, at best.

Problem 2: Brevity! - Unless you're in a permalink contest, the key to list humor is brevity, or at least economy of phrasing. Adding endless qualifying phrases is ok ONCE, as a change-up. Using the technique six times in a ten item list bogs down the pace and muddles the timing. It ends up reading like a third-grader's "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" essay.

Problem 3: Brevity! Brevity! Brevity! - Rather than resorting to the amateurish technique of explaining how the weapons work, try thinking like a professional. Use the NAME of the weapon to tell the joke.

Problem 4: END the piece - Don't just let your list peter out and then call it a day. Tack on a little bonus joke at the end to wrap it up in style.

Here's how a REAL web humorist does it:

---

From the makers of the "gay bomb", here are the latest technologically advanced weapons the Army is developing to incapacitate terrorists on the battlefield:

* Lambada bullets

* Michael Moore super-weight-gainer bomb

* Hippie smell missile

* Ron Paul loony laser

* Can't get the chorus from "Hey, Jude" out of my head grenades

* Restless Leg Syndrome rockets

* Satellite-based wedgie weapon

* French courage gas

* Special Olympics mines

* Portable pit o' ravenous Rosies

* Paris Hilton work ethic ray

* Not-so-fresh feeling cluster bombs

And the most effective hi-tech terrorist-stopper of all:

(see extended entry)

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Have you seen the Hillary Clinton Sopranos spoof? Now I enjoy hating Hillary Clinton as much as the next conservative, but there was some effective use of humor in a political campaign. Subconsciously, we set the humor bar very low for politicians, because we're used to them being too cramped in by their talking points to be capable of much humor ("America's health care crisis is no laughing matter."). Thus, we'll reward them with laughter for merely venturing out of their comfort zone to make a joke.

With Hillary, you have someone considered cold and impersonal to a large segment of the population, so she particularly has a lot to gain through using humor. With this video, she slightly makes fun of herself (which is good for someone with her image) and makes her seem like a regular person (the wooden line reading actually helps with that; she just seems like a regular person having fun with a joke). Also, it's actually "edgy," parodying a popular subject that hasn't already been satirized to death (of course, the joke will be lost on the few people who aren't aware of the Sopranos controversy, but that's always the trade off with that sort of humor). Because it's so surprising, it's getting wide airplay and free publicity. I really don't see a downside to it. I've seen some conservatives over-analyzing it and wondering if it's proper for her to associate herself with the mob or a TV show with such adult content, but no one other than someone who already really hates Clinton is going to pick it to death like that. To the average person, its just going to be funny and, through using a reference they know, make them subconsciously feel more connected to Hillary Clinton. It's a big win for her and I would hope whoever thought of doing this gets a big raise.

For politicians, there's a lot of be gained by just a little bit of humor, which is why I'm surprised we don't see more serious attempts at it. This is why I should be a political consultant for the Republican Party focusing on humor. After the 2006 elections and the recent immigration bill fiasco, they're seen as completely disconnected from their base. They should try some humor for an attempt at outreach. Maybe, with a bit of effort, they can have a video go viral. It's not going to magically make Republicans cool again, but it will help.

I could go on about this sort of thing forever -- the advantages, disadvantages, possible pitfalls, etc. of humor (and why, as cool as it would be, I don't think Fred Thompson should publicly acknowledge the Fred Thompson Facts) -- but the point is that humor is an important branch of cognitive science that could be of great use for humanizing politicians and getting issues focused on if used correctly. Sometime I think I'm the only one who takes humor seriously.

Jonah Goldberg angered the Europeans, and one sent him an angry letter including two American jokes to show just how much contempt he has for us:

1. They warned Columbus that if he sailed out too far to the west it would lead to disaster. Well, he did. And it has!
2. American: "I feel very lucky that I don't live in Europe."
European: "Me too!. I also feel very lucky that you don't live in Europe."

Oy. That's so pathetic it makes you feel bad for ever making fun of Europeans.

Let's look at this analytically. The subject hates Americans, so he wanted to ridicule us. So what did he ridicule? The fact that Europeans don't like Americans. Really, we've been around over two hundred years, and that's the best they have on us?

For ridicule to sting, it has to hit on a sensitive subject, and the fact that a few Europeans don't like us certainly doesn't count. For good ridicule, the first question is what is the common wisdom about Americans (NOTE: None of this is necessarily true, it's just the perception):

* We're violent and warmongering
* We're ignorant of other countries; none of us owns a passport
* We have a vapid culture and make low quality crap (Budweiser, McDonalds)
* We're stupid

There's more, but that's plenty to work with. Let's try and make some jokes.

Q. How many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A. 200,000. That's how many it takes to invade Iraq when the Americans link the light bulb going out with Saddam.

Heard of the well-traveled American? He's been to Mexico and Canada.

The American culture will be around forever since American cheese can survive a nuclear blast.

Well, that's the best I could come up with in a couple minutes' time. Not so great, but I'd say better than that of the European who actually hates America. Thus, it was good enough for this exercise.

Now, one other factor to ridicule is that it matters who is doing the ridiculing. The ridiculee must have some respect for the ridiculer for the joke to sting. That's why, no matter how clever most Europeans may be, it's unlikely they'll be able to come up with a joke that will actually make an American mad. One of our stereotypes -- that we don't care what other countries think -- actually makes ridiculing us all the harder.

UPDATE:

BTW, try and come up with some good American jokes in the comments. I know you can top mine.

Many of you may be unfamiliar with scientifical* humor analysis. While I won't go over all of general humor theory, here are two fundamental rules of humor:

1. The evolutionary purpose of humor is to enforce social structure by ridiculing undesired behavior. This is best observed in the good feeling of being in a group laughing versus the bad feeling of being laughed at by a group.

2. All humor is ridiculing undesired human behavior. Thus, animals are only funny so much as we can project human characteristic onto them.

Already, you can see why a show that ridicules liberals would have an advantage among conservatives, because, to them, liberalism is essentially an undesired behavior to be corrected through ridicule. This is also why liberals don't consider conservatives to be funny since liberals are often the ones laughed at, and being laughed at causes the opposite sensation of laughing with a group.

Measuring the level of humor of a joke is tricky as who the joke is being told to has a large effect on the humor perceptions of the joke. Not only do the joke recipients own prejudices and beliefs about human behavior have to be factored in, but so does that person's affinity for the joke teller and other joke recipients who may or may not be laughing at the joke.

Ignoring most societal factors (for this show, we're going to assume the joke recipient is watching the TV alone and has no special affinity for the fake new anchors since they are unknown actors), how funny a joke is comes down to the level of brain activation in comprehending the joke within approximately a quarter second of the joke telling. This comprehension can be do to the cleverness of a joke or processing it ridiculousness (for instance, seeing someone hit in the face with a pie if you have never seen such a thing before). I say approximately a quarter second because this space of humor activation--the cumulation period--varies from person to person, but this short time period is the sweet spot of humor. The more activation in the cumulation period, the more the humor area of the brain is activated. After this time period, the initial brain activity when the joke was first told will have died down and will not be compensated by the new activity. That's why if a joke takes too long to comprehend, humor is lost. This ignores the delayed humor reaction in which, due to confusion, the cumulation period happens well after the joke was told. The reason brain activation is translated to humor is because, when a certain amount of brain activity is caused by another's words, this is interpreted by the brain as showing that your thoughts are similar to that of the joke teller. Because of the social nature of humor, a perception of a similarity of beliefs and intelligence is most important.

For example, take this joke:

A woman orders a pizza. The pizza chef asks the woman if she wants it cut into six or eight slices and she replies, "Six slices. I couldn't possibly eat eight."

For a child who just learned the principle of the conservation of matter, this involves a large amount of brain activation and is perceived as quite funny. For most adults, the brain activation in comprehending the joke is low which causes most laymen to label the joke as "cheesy."

Here comes the problem in marketing humor to a large audience. While its easy to find jokes that cause a low level of activation in most people, a certain joke will only cause high levels of activation in a very specific group. By going for the funniest jokes for a certain audience, other audiences will be confounded or bored.

Jokes are rated on the Fleming Brain Activation Scale which ranges from zero to ten. The extremes are both theoretical as comprehending any joke takes some brain activation thus making a zero impossible to obtain. Also, a high amount of brain activity in a short amount of time would activate a self-defense mechanism that would shut down the brain. Thus, before a level ten could be reached, the joke recipient would black out and forget the joke due to short term loss quite similar to be being knocked out with a tire iron.

Focusing only on brain activation misses two important factors, though: Approval and disapproval. If one already as a dislike of the joke teller or the subject causes offense, this can keep the humor area of the brain from activation despite high activity within the cumulation period. This is why liberals seem immune to clever jokes from conservatives. On the other hand, if there is already high approval of the joke teller or the joke is aimed at something highly disapproved, then humor activation takes less brain activity within the cumulation period. This is commonly known as the "girlfriend effect" seen when a girl laughs at all the jokes of a new boy friend. She is essentially submitting to his views on human behavior as is common in the mating process. This is also seen when liberals laugh at "BusHitler" jokes that don't seem to be clever at all. Contrary to popular opinion, this isn't forced laughter as the end humor activation is exactly the same as that which would be obtained through humor activation obtained solely through stimulation of brain activity within the cumulation period.

Now, with that explained, we can move on to analyzing The 1/2 Hour News Hour.

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The Y factor hosts this past week's carnival of comedy

Sorry for neglecting to link it.

The host for the carnival of comedy this week will be The Y Factor.

If you have to submit to something, why not submit to the Carnival of Comedy?

But keep your head on, submission isn't mandatory.

The Carnival has been on hiatus. I'm sure you've noticed. Haven't you? Just humor me.

There has been a development though, a brigand in the spirit of talk like a pirate day, has taken over the good ship Carnival of Comedy and posted it without approval, clearance or authorization.

They also did it without permission. I did not sign off on it or greenlight it.

I did not say it was alright or allowed.

I did, however, say it ws OK.

Go check it out at The Evil Incarnate Blog.

Anarchy Rules.

I'm sorry folks, the carnival reminder is on time this week. I mean, "Hey look, folks!," the carnival reminder is on time this week! I guess I'm just in the habit of apologising.

Anyway, Steve The Pirate will be te host of the Carnival of Comedy this week.Go check out his blog Stevethepirate.net, though its not really much there about pirates.

And while you are on the internet today write something funny on your own blog and submit it to the carnival here, and give Steve somehing to do Wednesday night and garner the huge surge of traffic when the carnival actually gets posted on Thursday (as Steve promises)

I'll do my part for the carnival community.

Yay! Acme Anvil Co. will have the Carnival of Comedy today.

I DO need a host for next week.
and the next
and the next
and the next
and the next
and....

Update: As in it's up! on this, uh, date!

Last weeks Carnival of Comedy was at the KAG report. Sorry for the late posting.

Mr. KAG, or Kaggy as we call hiim, also did me and by extension you, the favor of compiling the carnival for the week immediately prior to that one since Miriam didn't even bother. He called it the Spare Carnival.

Which reminds me of a bumper sticker I once planned to make.

SPARE: the Final Front Tire

More carnival stuff today too. Whee!

July 27th is like tomorrow and The Kag Report will be the Host Site. Yay!

Hey losers, send your entries for tomorrow's carnival here, or here!

------------------------------
Carnival Schedule
Aug 3rd Eteraz - He says he's a funny muslim!
Aug 10th The Blue Square - He's sad and his 4 sides all measure the same!

Steve (the late carnival of comedy hosting Pirate) has (finally) posted the carnival.

He's calling it Snakes on a Carnival of Comedy

He gave some sort of excuse too.

Update: I am the king of spelln

Update2: I should like post the future hosts of the carnival since the current host hasn't been assigned.
July 13th The Platypus Society - He's a egglaying mammal!
July 20th Miriams Ideas - She doesn't do fancy graphics!
July 27th The Kag Report - Striving for average got too tough for him!
Aug 3rd Progressive Islam - He says he's a funny muslim!
Aug 10th The Blue Square - He's sad and his 4 sides all measure the same!

This should be on a T-Shirt?

Steve the Pirate will be hosting thje carnival of comedy TOMORROW!

Get those entries in to here, or here!

I checked and checked and finally quit checking and then he posted it.

I check today and SteveO had posted it a few days ago. The theme didn't work out. but hey, whoever does buy Mexico had better be a Mexican because otherwise it could be seized at any time. At least that's the word on the street. And the street is usually pretty reliable.

So.....

Here is your Carnival of Comedy # 60. Yay!

This should be on a T-Shirt

Carnival #60 Will be at the Acme Anvil Co on Thursday. Steve's already thought of a theme! (Who should buy Mexico)

Get those entries in to here, or here!

Want to host? Email me at Spacemonkey -at- IMAO.US and have me eventually add your name to this schedule.

Upcoming Carnival
#61 Will be at Blogs for House

This week's carnival of comedy is a roast!

A spacemonkey roast!! Sounds tasty, doesn't it?

The Carnival of Comedy has an American Idol theme this week. Check it out at Passionate America.

Wild Bill, know who you are and you made the carnival your own.

Eugene Volokh is having a discussion about what constitutes "fair" political humor referencing Slate's "Bushism of the Day." Probably not a discussion that will get anywhere, but that Slate feature does seem pretty asinine.

Dr. Phat Tony Hosted this weeks Carnival of Kennedy and does a bangup job.

[Author's Note: The following is mostly a technical analysis of TV commercial humor and is not specifically a humor piece itself, so read it at your own peril. However, hilarity may ensue in the comments if offended feminists start dropping by.]

Via Right Wing Nation, I found an offended feminist complaining about this Carl's Jr. commercial wherein Dr. 90210 recommends breast augmentation... the punchline being that he's talking to a chicken, and chicken sandwiches are what's being advertised. But yon offended feminist claims that it's not "just a commercial"

It's not "just" anything. It's an ideological piece of propaganda designed to justify two things: the annihilation of chicken's lives and the annihilation of the human female's self esteem.

Gotta disagree.

(continued in extended entry)

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In his duties of hosting the 53rd carnival of comedy, Abbagav has caught teh funny bug. Careful, it's spreading!

The Carnival of Comedy this Thursday will be at AbbaGav

Get those entries in to here, or here!

Schedule
May 11, #54- Dr Phat Tony
May 18, #55- fmragtops - How do you pronounce that?
May 25, #56- Passionate America
Jun 01, #57- The MoxArgon Group
Jun 08, #58- Jerry Dante [language]
Jun 15, #59- NOBODY!

I added dates to the schedule! No more doing calender math in your head!

Welcome to the April 27, 2006 edition, the 52nd edition, and also the 1st Anniversary Edition ( We skipped a week back when the london 'tube' bombings took place) of the Carnival of Comedy. This is one big edition.As you may or may not know, I am an artist or perhaps I am a nartist. Either way, I draw stuff. I drew stuff for the carnival, in fact I drew all the stuff you see on this here carnival. The 52nd and First anniversary Carnival. Of Comedy.

Sorry it's late but it wouldn't be a spacemonkey carnival of comedy if it were on time. Would it?

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Sometime I like to take a break from telling you all what to think to tell you why you think that (Short Answer: Because I told you too). Now, some unwary liberals have stumbled onto conservative humor on some t-shirts from ThoseShirts.com and were quite shocked and appalled by what they saw. Digby feared that our humor meant we mean his ilk real harm, while maha says that this just follows a long line of violent conservative humor rooted in hostility.

She also says there is no such liberal equivalent.

Yeah, yeah; calm down. It's just like the "there's no liberal media" types who basically have King Kong trashing their living room but claim not to be able to see a monkey. But doesn't such obtuseness bring up some hostile feeling in you? Maybe there is a point about right-wing hostility in humor, as, if you look at it, there are a lot of factors out there that can be pushing conservatives like me to a very hostile disposition which I could possibly be reflecting in my humor.

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS TO RIGHT-WING HOSTILITY

* We were able to steal two Presidential election, but unable to rig Presidential approval polls.

* Confusion resulting from that we hate women and minorities, yet love Condoleezza Rice's warmongering and the punditry of Michelle Malkin.

* Our neo-nazi tendencies push us to anti-Semitism, but we're also working on Zionist conspiracies to fight wars solely to benefit Israel.

* Walker: Texas Ranger was canceled years ago.

* Illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs (personally, I have tons of bills to pay for my college education in electrical engineering, so how can I compete with Pedro hanging out by the Radio Shack who will design custom Power-On Reset circuits for $2.00 an hour?).

* We got Halliburton the illegal wars it wanted, but it's yet to deliver on the cheap oil.

All of that combined can lead to quite a bit of hostility, and, subconsciously, that could seep into our humor, our jokes revealing our violent intentions. How can we tell, though?

Obviously, Digby and maha lack any sort of science background to definitively detect latent hostility hiding in humor. Luckily, you have me, and there is no one more scientifical than Frank J.

Now, I contacted the humor department at Carnegie Mellon University (it's an actual university; Google it), and they happen to have specific studies on hostility in humor. It is essential to note that humor is hostile by nature. While it feels good to laugh at something, it feels horrible to be laughed at. Studies have shown that being laughed at activates the same centers of the brain as when one is threatened with a gun (That particular study was done by having some people connected to a brain monitor and then having the entire staff come in the room and laugh at the people for how dumb they looked with all that equipment attached to them. The other test case had people connected to the brain monitor and told they were going to view a series of pictures, but instead Samuel L. Jackson runs into a room, points a gun at the subject, and recites a stylized version of Ezekiel 25:17. The control case had people connected to the brain monitor and just forgotten about until they got angry and left.).

To measure hostility in humor, the Franken Scale is used. It's a linear scale for signifying the amount of latent hostility in a joke and ranges from 1 (no hostility) to 10 ("My name is Ted Rall."). Before we use the Franken Scale on the right-wing humor in question, let's use it on some simple examples so you can familiarize yourself with it. First, let's start with a joke common among many children:

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Almost Average will be hosting the Carnival of Comedy Thursday Get those entries in to here, or here.!

Schedule
52- spacemonkey - It will be at IMAO, though.
53- AbbaGav
54- Dr Phat Tony
55- Somebody still- I still have some emails to return.

Well it's up.

All I can figure is that A4G thought doing the carnival was real drudge work.

Update: Direct link not working, so use this instead.

A4G will be hosting the Carnival of Comedy tomorrow. Get those entries in to here, or here.!

Schedule
51- Almost Average
52- spacemonkey - It will be at IMAO, though.
53- AbbaGav
54- Dr Phat Tony
55- Somebody- I have some emails to return.

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

Carnival of Comedy #49 had no host, but Fitch of Radioactive Liberty volunteered at the last minute and saved the day. Yay, Fitch!

Visit the Carnival of Slackers where he takes all the non-hosts (us) to task for not hosting.

If your work is featured in the Carnival, remember to link to it, real unslacker like.

Thanks to Fitch we have ourselves a carnival!

Ad we NEED HOSTS! I'll be hosting the anniversary (52nd) Carnival, but the rest are open! This could be your chance to be somebody!

Carnival of Comedy Schedule
# - Host
50- A4G
51- Almost Average
52- spacemonkey - It will be at IMAO, though.
53- AbbaGav
54- Dr Phat Tony
55- Nobody

Thanks again to Fitch.

Dr Phat Tony has gone and done the job American's wouldn't do.

He has volunteered to patrol the border of humor and host Carnival of Comedy #48 for less than legal wages.

Muchas gracias, Doctor Antonio Gordo.

On Thursday, March 23rd Steve The Pirate will be hosting Carnival of Comedy #47 at his self titled blog. It's always "talk like a pirate day" when Steve is around.. Even when he's not talking in the traditional pirate dialect, Steve's still talking like a pirate because he IS a pirate.

Future Carnival Schedule:

Want to host? Email me at spacemonkey@imao.us with "Host Carnival Of Comedy" as the subject.

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

On Thursday, March 16th, 2006, Ben will be hosting Carnival of Comedy #46 at Ben's Rants

Future Carnival Schedule:
March 23rd - #47 - Steve The Pirate at his self titled blog
March 30th - #48 - Tommy at Almost Average

Want to host? Email me at spacemonkey@imao.us with "Host Carnival Of Comedy" as the subject.

Want to enter? Go here, or here or I'll threaten to threaten you.

Go right now to EitherOrr for a fresh episode of the Carnival of Comedy.

Also If you want to host it, let me know.

On tomorrow, March 9th, 2006, Bob will be hosting Carnival of Comedy #45 at Either Orr. Here's a little peom I wrote to mark the occasion.

Untitled
by spacemonkey

Bob has hosted the Carnival before.
Bob has a last name and it is Orr.
Bob will host it again on March ninth.
I can't think of anything that rhymeth.

Future Carnival Schedule:
March 16th - #46 - Ben at Ben's Rants
March 23rd - #47 - Steve The Pirate at his self titled blog

Want to host? Email me at spacemonkey@imao.us with "Host Carnival Of Comedy" as the subject.

Want to enter? Go here, or here or we'll make YOU rhyme, all of the time, until you decline, and then go insine,

Tomorrow March 2nd - Carnival of Comedy #44 will be hosted by Chris at Platypus Society.

As his blog title suggests, Chris has dedicated his life to exploring the rich and hertofore unknown lives and vibrant culture of the platypii, a race of sentient egg laying mammals, native to North America, kept down by the Man.

Future Carnival Schedule:
March 9th- #45 - Bob at Either Orr
March 16th - #46 - Ben at Ben's Rants
March 23rd - #47 - Steve The Pirate at his self titled blog

Want to host? Email me at spacemonkey@imao.us with "Host Carnival Of Comedy" as the subject.

Want to enter? Go here, or here or we'll have to make you go live with the platypii.

Yesterday was Valentine's day. If you didn't know that already, the damage is probably already done. Sure you could claim to have been in some sort of catatonic state, but those are hard to fake. Too many questions. Why wasn't I notified? What do yoi mean I'm not on your 'notify in case of emergency card, yet your mother, drycleaner and Ex are? Why didn't the florist/barbershop quartet/jeweler deliver the flowers/candy/jewelry anyway? Unpleasant questions which require quick thinking and lets face it, many of us are not quick thinkers.

But the past is behind. So lets concentrate on the future. Namely tomorrow.

Tomorrow, February 16th, the- 42nd carnival of Comedy will be hosted by Sherlock at Bakerstreet. [warning, language]

Future Carnival Schedule:
February 23th - #43:- Damian G at Conservathink
March 2nd - #44 -: Chris at Platypus Society. Read his Dimmer Switch column too, funny stuff.
March 9th- #45 - Bob at Either Orr
March 16th - #46 - Ben at Ben's Rants

Want to host? Email me at spacemonkey@imao.us with "Host Carnival Of Comedy" as the subject.

Want to enter? Go here, or here or we'll have to break your heart, with an axe,.

The latest Carnival of Comedy, hosted this week by Rachel at Pereiraville, is up! Go lookie look at all the funny submitted and sorted and processed and belittled and Rachel linked to at the Carnival of Comedy #38!!. Go Rachel!

Carnival Schedule Update:
January 26th - #39: Michael Fitch at Radioactive Liberty
February 2nd - #40: Taleena at Sun Comprehending Glass
February 9th - #41: Some unsuspecting schmuck - It could be you!
February 16th - #42: Sherlock at Bakerstreet (First to be volunteered by a spouse)

Another Carnival of Comedy is coming up, this time at Aaron Benedict!

Carnival of Comedy Schedule:
Jan 05 - Aaron Benedict
Jan 12 - Desert Elephant
Jan 19 - rachel pereira. Rachel, Don't act like you didn't email me, asking to host.

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

Participate in the Carnival of Comedy or Al Queda, Al Franken and the Al Kossacks win.

Mr. Moto tells me there are very few entries this time. So, get your crap entered. I can say that, cause I know from crap.

Carnival of Comedy Schedule:
Dec 29 - Motopolitico
Jan 05 - Aaron Benedict
Jan 12 - Desert Elephant
Jan 19 - rachel pereira

I took some liberties with the schedule, but I hope my conscripts (and you know who you are) are amenable.

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

The 33rd Carnival of Comedy is up at Right Wing Testimonial. but it's not finished. He's got some excuses:

Computer trouble
School
Work

I'll add a fourth one:

Slap pinky toe, Lazy

But he at least followed the rules. Anyway, it's up even though it's a work in progress.

Update: DONE!

Carnival of Comedy Schedule:
Dec 15 - Right Wing Testimonial
Dec 22 - Cadet Happy
Dec 29 - Motopolitico

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

To: ALa
Rule breaker! Rule Breaker!
Now you're just a mule... shaker.

To: Everyone
Ok I have no idea what that meant either.
But ALa did do a very nice job on the Carnival of Comedy in spite of the blatant and utterly unforgiveable rule breaking.

She added a nice touch with the 'Rules Guys Wish Women Knew'. Even more fitting considering the upcoming heterosexual nuptials between Frank and Sarah.

Why not go over there to Blonde Sagacity, read the current carnival of comedy and call ALa a mule shaker or a rule breaker or something that rhymes with 'ool acre'

Read More...

Hey sportsfans, Chadrafans and ceiling fans!

The Carnival of Comedy is approaching like some sort of runaway literary device.

This weeks host? Why it's going to be Blonde Sagacity.

See?

Schedule:
Dec 8 - Blonde Sagacity
Dec 15 - Right Wing Testimonial
Dec 22 - Cadet Happy

Want to enter? Go here, or here.

Just a few days till carnival time!

Submissions are due tomorrow night! The (not so) Daily Me will be hosting. 'Daily Me', sounds like a some sort of blog name or something.

Schedule:
Dec 1 - The (not so) Daily Me
Dec 8 - Blonde Sagacity
Dec 15 - Right Wing Testimonial
Dec 22 - Cadet Happy

Did everybody go check out the the Carnival of Comedy over at Immature With No Conscience on Thursday (Thanksgiving)?

No? Then get over there!

Of course you didn't. None of my cobloggers linked it. What a buncha slackers.

I have some Carnival of Carnival hosting opportunities* for some lucky bloggers out there!

I know what you are thinking. "I can't host a carnival! I don't know any freaks other than the ones at the office and I can't let those losers know I blog from my cubicle!" Well fear not, you fearful fearface. There's no freak recruitment involved in producing the Carnival of Comedy. The entrants however... well nevermind.

So with that obstacle aside, I'm opening up the schedule to people who fit the following profile

• Do you have a blog?
  
• Do you want to host the Carnival of Comedy?

If you answered yes to both of these questions. email me . Subject: Carnival of Comedy Host for Date: (enter date you want to host)

Open Dates:
Nov 24 - Immature With No Conscience This Thursday!
Dec 1 - The (not so) Daily Me Next Thursday!
Dec 8 - Blonde Sagacity You get the picture.
Dec 15 - Right Wing Testimonial You still have the picture.
Dec 22 - Cadet Happy Makes funny pictures (photoshops too)
Dec 29 - The END OF YEAR - Wooooooo

Host the Carnival of Comedy or the terrorists win!

----
Update: 5 bloggers have seized 4 of the opportunities. Carpe Comedy

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Tomorrow's host for the ever popular Comedy Carnival? Why, its Radioactive Liberty, of course!

Is your drink spewing, knee slapping, side splitting entry entered yet? No? Then submit, submit!

Taleena of Sun Comprehending Glass is our Hostess for the Carnival of Comedy! this week. On short notice no less.

Thanks Taleena! Good Job! (sorry about the caps)

This week's Carnival of Comedy is up at Shoot a Liberal

If you go now, look what SeanS will add to your order! Are you looking? No matter. The ginsu knives will wait for you.
----
BTW We need hosts.
November 3rd - OPEN!
November 10th - almostaverage
November 17th - OPEN!

I have an email if you can find it, and you can afford it, maybe you can hire..the A-...I mean host the carnival. And for clarities sake, it's free to host.

According to Laurence Simon, It's time for the Carnival of Comedy.

I'm not so sure, but it's up anyway. Yay!

Update: Sorry. The Carnival of Comedy is AT "Is Full of Crap", again, I haven't read it yet so I don't know if the title is correct or not.

Carnival of Comedy #24 ~ Oz Edition

Lyn has spun off of the podcast theme and created an Oz themed Carnival of Comedy.

Did your entry win the Ruby Slippers, Do you not have a brain? Find out who-what-when-where-witch at for bloggin' outloud. Now.

basil is hosting the carnival of comedy this week on his blog, basil's blog. i'm not sure how he came up with the name, though. he doesn't capitalize his name so i am not using any capltals in this reminder post.

boise, idaho! i couldn't go without at least one. that's the only one I'll use.

of course sarahk and cadet happy don't use them much either but i digress.

come on folks, submit some good funny for basil this week. don't get "stuck on stupid"

upcoming carnival schedule
Week 21 - Sep. 22 - basil's blog
Week 22 - Sep. 29 - steve the pirate
Week 23 - Oct. 06 - don surber

info about joining the carnival is here

lethal injection!

Hey there fellow Rastafarians! The Carnival of Comedy is coming up this Thursday, Sept 15th! No, really, it is. I'm not kidding. It will be at Either, Orr.

Submissions:
If you have a joke that your grandmother or uncle forwarded to you, all your cousins and your dad's bowling team? Do you have anything, remotely humerous. Can you scrape the friggin' barrel for us? Yes? There's still lots of time to break our ribs with crushing rounds of laughter!

Full Carnival Schedule
Week 20 - Sep. 15 - Either, Orr
Week 21 - Sep. 22 - basil's blog
Week 22 - Sep. 29 - Steve the Pirate
Week 23 - Oct. 06 - Don Surber

Want to host?
Want to spend hours working on a project that will ultiimately have you cursing my name and several generations of my ancestors? Sure you do!

Send your incoherant rambling feeble pleas regarding hosting the Carnival of Comedy to flyingspacemonkey-at-gmail-dot-com. (substitute the appropriate nonsense, y'know the 'at' and the 'dot') Subject: Carnival of Comedy Hosting

Still have questions?
Info about joining the Carnival of Comedy is here And its sealed in a pneumatic chamber free from updates that would tarnish its pearly gleam.

Read More...

Yay! The Rapid Politics Blog has the newestest ever Carnival Of Comedy - which is Number 19.

No 'iffy content' warnings this time, he just dropped the chaff (no word on flares)
and he kept the laughs.

No snarky comments either, well, save for his rating system, so we are left with a minimalist carnival much in the flavor of a spacemonkey hosted carnival. Go Dan go!

Everybody go rapidly and politically and have at it.

Frank beat me to this but...

Mithras a blogger, who is, and I mean this with the strictest inter-blogger professional courtesy, an ignorant moonbat nutjob of I'm sure, the most delightful sort, also possibly an extremely large radioactive moth [ed note, nope that was Mothra], asks Where Are All The Funny Conservative Bloggers?

Then he (she? no offense, dunno, don't read him/her) lists a few:
* IMAO.US (good call),
* Scrappleface (I'll link him, even though he gets plenty 'o traffic already) and
* Lileks (ditto, I'll link them in the off chance they link back)

Outside of them, it's all self-righteousness and persecution complex, all the time. And outside of the three listed above, when a conservative blogger does employ humor, I find that usually it's in retelling a joke they read somewhere else.

First of all thanks for including us on your extremely short list of funny conservative blogs. Really thanks, glad to know we don't use words that are too big for some of y'all.

Mithras also wonders:

Is there just some birth defect that prevents right-wingers from being funny?

But instead of assuming we, conservative as a lot have some sort of birth defect that doesn't allow us to make, as we in the funny business call 'teh funny.' perhaps you should take the long view. When liberals are in thier natual habitat at a protest, painted pink and green head to toe, running rampant, howling at the moon, at the OUTRAGEous things the conservatives are saying, THAT's what we are laughing at. And we laugh our rear ends off at you. Figuratively.

Mithras also asserts

The key to successful humor, after all, is to be able to see things from other people's perspectives - a liberal trait that conservatives deride variously as "relativism" or "objectively pro-terrorist".

What about our perspectives? Can you see our worldview? Perhaps liberals should try to use that 'see things from other, whatevers" ability and try looking at humor, which arguably is not a thing, from another POV namely ours. When conservatives make fun of liberals, conservatives laugh and laugh and laugh, while the liberals, best case, don't get the joke, worst case, call the ACLU to set up legal proceedings for a civil rights abuse case.

I will look at humor from a liberal point of view.
When liberals make fun of conservatives, liberals laugh and laugh and laugh thinking "BUSH LIED!! PLASTIC TURKEY!!" blissfully ignorant of the fact they are in fact a bunch of unfunny, treasonous freaking sillysallys, while the conservatives are frankly too busy happily researching new and more efficient ways to destroy the environment for any such futile impotent flailings emanating from the left to make a blip on their radar.

See? It all becomes painfully clear when you simply broaden your mind and look through the eyes of your intellectual superiors. Us.

Where are all the funny conservative bloggers? Somewhere, laughing at you, just not with you.

---
Heh.
---
Disclaimer: I know I didn't list any conservative humor blogs, pointing them out to liberals would have been as futile as the list of lefty 'humor' blogs was to us. Also, I know, I use commas, too much. I'm getting help.,

You have to try hard to be this dense. Yet I keep seeing this meme (I still hate that word for reasons unknown) from so many liberals (you get a lot of this in Greg Gutfeld's comments - "I don't find you funny! Why aren't conservatives funny?").

If there are some liberals reading this wondering why they don't find conservatives funny, let me explain this very simply: It's not fun to be pointed and laughed at.

Why make this complicated? Take liberal and conservative out of the equation. When someone has a completely alien viewpoint to your own, you won't find that person funny.

KEY HUMOR ASPECT NUMBER ONE: Humor involves shared, unsaid beliefs between who tells joke and who hears it.

If your shared belief is that Bush is Hitler, you will not laugh at the same jokes as people who believe Bush is not Hitler. Your viewpoints are just too askew to share a laugh. Mithras asserts that James Wolcott is funny. The few times I read that guy, I found him about as funny as a burning bus full of orphans (Heh; stupid orphans. That'll teach them to not have parents - On second thought, a burning bus full of orphans is kinda funny; Wolcott should emulate that more). That doesn't mean either of us is malfunctioning in the humor department. It just means that on certain issues we are too different to laugh with each other.

This seems so simple to me. Am I beating a dead horse here?

The only thing I've seemed to notice as a key difference between liberals making jokes about politics and conservatives making jokes about politics is that conservatives seem to be able to laugh at themselves more. I poke fun of my own beliefs all the time here. Yet, I've never seen a liberal making fun of the common liberal beliefs he or she holds dear - even with all the material that's available! (Just think of Howard Dean alone!)

Then again, I don't really seek out liberal humor on politics. Can someone point me to a self-deprecating (on the political level, that is) liberal?

I haven't done this in a while, but I am a humor expert (prove I'm not), and it's fun to do a little navel-gazing every so often.

There was a radio ad for Steven Wright who is appearing at a local auditorium. If you don't know Steven Wright, he's a comedian who speaks in a monotone, bored voice and makes a number of funny statements instead of doing a coherent routine. One of the sound clips in the radio ad was of this joke of his: "Do you think when George Washington was asked for ID, he'd just pull out a quarter?" Now, you could replace "quarter" with "dollar" and the joke would still work, but why is quarter funnier?

Also, I remember when Seinfeld was on SNL and had a little joke about 7-11 in which he said, "What's the deal with the Big Gulp? Does anyone really need that much Mountain Dew?" (it’s funnier if you say it out loud trying to imitate his voice). Why would that joke be less funny with Coke or Pepsi as the beverage? Can you name another soda that would be as funny or funnier in that statement?

Finally, I have Futurama on DVD and was listening to the commentaries. They always used the word "underpants" instead of "underwear" as one writer was convinced that "the word underpants is twenty percent funnier than underwear." Is he right or wrong? Why?

I have my answers to each of those questions, but I want to hear what you think. So discuss amongst yourselves.

DISCUSS!

UPDATE: Here are my (and thus the correct) answers to the questions:

Read More...

John Hawkins recently took a post of mine about Hillary Clinton and turned it into a top ten list (he has special permission to do that). In the comments section, though, some woman named Elaine, angered by my attacks against Hilary just because she is "democratic, outspoken, and a woman", took it upon herself to prove that I'm a fraud as a satirist by saying that almost all the jokes I made about Hillary could easily be applied to any politician and be just as funny.

Oh, silly, silly girl.

If you don't mind me being long-winded and not very funny for a bit (though there is a brand new top ten list at the end of the post), let's take some time to analyze this. Let me put on my scientist hat...

UPDATE: The Gingrinch list has put placed on the Democratic Underground by my inside man, my brother Joe foo' the Marine. Let's see if Whinus Liberalus reacts to the stimuli.

Read More...

I really like writing humor, but my other real joy in life is pointless navel gazing, i.e., analyzing a subject beyond any actual utility. I thought maybe I'd indulge myself and thus write a serious post, but I'll meet you half way and write a serious post on the subject of humor.

For me, writing humor is mainly a gut thing. I have very few conscious heuristics I use; most of it just comes from some unknown muse. Analyzing humor most likely won't actually help one write better humor, but only seems to work as a post-mortem, explaining why something was funny. Still, I find it interesting to do. I plan on later discussing different types of humor and liberal versus conservative humor, but today I'm going to start with why people laugh in the first place.

The best theory I've seen on the evolutionary purpose of humor was from Henri Bergson. Basically, he argues that humor is a social force meant to discourage behavior unwanted by the group. This makes a lot of logical sense when you consider the difference in feeling between being laughed with and laughed at; it's very pleasant to be a part of a group laughing, and very unpleasant to be the subject of ridicule. And, if one is laughed at, he or she is likely to want to avoid doing again whatever caused the laughter (or vow to make everyone regret the day they laughed at him, if the person is a mad scientist). Thus, before advanced language was developed, laughter allowed the popular caveman to communicate to the loser caveman that a buffalo should not be painted pink. Keeping with humor expressing a social order, if you thoroughly detest someone, he or she can't make you laugh. I don't care how many good light bulb jokes Hitler might have; he'd be wasting his material on me.

Also, a social component to humor is quite apparent. People usually don't laugh at their own thoughts, and, though someone may come up with a humorous statement, he or she won't laugh until it is expressed to the group. I know that when writing my own material, though I may gauge that something I came up with is funny, it never causes me to laugh out loud (question for later: then how do I guess that something I write is funny?). Also, humor is certainly amplified in groups, as I know at least I laugh more at a Simpson episode when watching it with other people than watching it alone. Actually, enjoying humor by oneself can be annoying, because if you see something funny, there is a strong desire to share it (hence all those joke forwardings).

Finally, in further evidence that the evolutionary purpose of humor is to moderate human behavior, things can only be funny if it has some relation to people. Rocks are not funny. A leaf being blown by the wind is not funny. Animals are only funny in so much as their behavior reminds us of human behavior. Thus, arguably, the funniest animal is the monkey (most human like) and the least funny is the sponge (that is, before the advent of SpongeBob SquarePants).

Though the original evolutionary purpose of humor was to cause people to conform to the group, it certainly is used for many other purposes in modern life. Still, understanding humor's original purpose is a good starting point in analyzing it in toto. Still, it raises some questions.

Questions:

If humor causes people to conform to the group, does that make it fascist in nature? Then why aren't fascists known for their humor?

If humor is such a strong social force, why aren’t comedians the most well respected people? Why instead do many comedians come from more outcast groups, such as Canadians?

Though, by this theory, a monkey may be funny, it also means that a monkey who is stunned falling from a tree and then ends up in a coma (i.e., more sponge-like) would not be very funny. Yet, I find the idea of a monkey in a little monkey bed hooked up to little monkey life support systems kinda funny; why is that? I hate monkeys.

Anyway, discuss amongst yourselves. If I feel like it, maybe I'll continue this next week.