Stupid Politician Tricks

[unixronin]

Or, the Seven Nine Fourteen Twenty-two Words You Can't Say On Television

We were listening to NPR on the way home earlier, and apparently Congress is expanding the Seven Words You Can't Say On Television to nine, probably increasing the fine for $27,500 to $275,000, and possibly making the fine apply to "each obscene utterance" rather than each offending broadcast.  They also apparently intend to order the FCC to reverse itself on several past rulings, like for example the ruling that Bono's exclamation of "This is fucking brilliant!" at the Golden Globe Awards last year was not an offensive utterance because it was not used in an obscene context, and even want to extend the statute to extend to "explicit innuendo" that doesn't actually use any "obscene" words.

I can see it now . . .

"What's explicit innuendo, Senator?"

"Well, I can't define it, but I know it when I hear it."

The NPR discussion made the point that the way Congress wants to redefine the obscenity statute, you can't even TALK about it except in circumlocutions.  I remember when AOL started filtering traffic for "obscenity", and members of AOL's forum for breast cancer sufferers and survivors woke up one morning and found they couldn't talk about their condition in their own forum any more, because the word "breast" was now considered obscene.  It's depressing to realize that Congress could be this stupid, but the imbeciles are pretty much trying to legislate thought.

As an interesting footnote, NPR never did actually identify which two new words Congress now considers so obscene they may not be spoken on the air.  I suppose since they're not currently banned, there's no commonly-known euphemism or circumlocution they can use to refer to them.  "Um, which M-word do you mean?  I know a lot of words that start with M."

You know what's one of the most obscene things I can think of?  The inside of a professional politician's head.

(There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Congress has directed the FCC to formulate a list of The Five Hundred Words You CAN Say On Television.)

Comments

[elegantelbow.livejournal.com]

Bwahahah!

Do you read Susie Bright (http://www.susiebright.com/)? She said she masturbated to the Warren Report until she passed out (the late '80s/early 90's congressional report on obscenity).

Muff? Mutton? Motherfucker? Masturbate? Munch?