Republicans today added another icon of public media to their targets for broadcast de-funding – Sesame Street, the popular children’s educational program on PBS. Following congressional threats to defund NPR, and the firing of an NPR correspondent over comments ridiculing neoconservatives in an “ideological sting” video, that critics say is evidence of a liberal agenda, a new, even more [controversial video] has surfaced.

The [segment] features Sesame Street character Pino in a skit on collaborating with those who aren’t like ourselves, achieving goals by mutual coooperation, and not bullying others because we don’t share their views. Under pressure from conservative activists, who say the skit expresses liberal values and portrays conservatives in a bad light, Sesame Street is reportedly considering the termination of Pino’s contract, but nothing is confirmed as of yet. In the meantime, freshman Tea Party Republicans are calling for an end to any public funds for the educational TV show.

“The statistics are quite damning,” said an unnamed source. While roughly half of NPR listeners consider themselves moderate, and the other half are neatly divided between conservatives and liberals, PBS viewer research shows that school age children who view Sesame Street are five times less likely to make requests they know others can’t possibly agree to, and seven times more likely to resolve disputes by looking for genuine ways to compromise. Conservative spokespersons say this proves Sesame Street is “anti-God, anti-family, and unpatriotic”. Time will tell if Bert, Ernie, Big Bird, Elmo, Oscar the Grouch, and Pino will lose their funding for what some are calling, “a despicable cultural bias in children’s broadcasting”.

Anzu Ayami has been awarded the Beauty Icon of 2011 crown by Popular Opinion Monthly (POM). Critics have pointed to her childish face, and stick-like body features, saying she doesn’t represent real women at all. “It’s a mistake to encourage the current fetish with anime girls,” said Rachel Okawa, spokesperson for the Foundation for Healthy Sexual Outlooks. “It’s no different than Barbie, which is lauding anorexic images of girls with shallow concerns. Men with low self-esteem are attracted to these images, and girls with devastated personas try to fulfill those desires.”

POM spokesman Jarrod Gilmore, a former ESL teacher, defended the decision saying, “Jeez, that’s our bread and butter!” When asked if holding up Ayami as the picture of beauty repesents a latent pedophilia, latent homosexuality, sexist, misogynist, fear of substantive sexual equals, rife with ethnic exploitation, he responded, “No, definitely not. We just like girls with infantile facial features, boyish hips, and vapid expressions, in prissy effeminate ragdoll poses, who seem physically frail and powerless and are Asian.”

Not to be outdone, Maxim magazine announced it is giving its Twenty-Something Men’s Favorite Award to an actual Asian ragdoll – Kiki – who is even more juvenile in appearance, with fewer defining features of adult females, and far less intelligence than Ayami could ever aspire to. “As a companion with almost no substance at all, other than a little latex between the ears,” said a Maxim spokesperson, “we think she truly represents the romantic aspirations of most 20-30 year old men. The future of celebrity stardom is definitely latex.”

Under fire over the hearings on radicalization of Muslims, Peter King today responded to his many opponents with somewhat strident remarks.

“I don’t think these people are doing enough to prove that they’re not trying to subordinate our freedoms to some nutjob religious playbook. Their radicalization  is a danger to liberty for everyone in the US. They want to put us all under some kind of theocratic law, with themselves and the organizations they represent as right-thinking keepers of the code by which we all shall live.”

Asked if those remarks wouldn’t be particularly applicable to fundamentalist evangelicals and neoconservatives, such as those in favor of the hearings, King replied, “OK, yeah, six of one. The difference is that we’re right. The muslims are not.”

U.S. human rights supporters who called for an end to the genocide by Muammar Gaddafi perpetrated against pretty much everyone else in Libya, are now saying they weren’t really calling for a course of action. Despite urging intervention even after Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, said “any no fly zone begins with an act of war”, several groups turned out in New York and Chicago, three days ago, to protest the use of force.

In Chicago, one demonstrator remarked, “When we said that it must be stopped, we didn’t mean by the United States or, if we did, we didn’t mean by the military or, if we did, we didn’t mean using weapons.” The protester was holding a sign that read “Drop daisies from balloons not bombs from planes.”

A protestor in the rally in Times Square, said “We may have wanted to stick up for people’s human rights, but we didn’t mean actually doing anything about it. It was more a suggestion, to Gaddafi, that he be a nicer guy and let the protesters in his country live.” Those thoughts were echoed by another participant, “I would rather every protestor in Libya die under missile attacks by their government than that our government use missiles to stop their missiles. That’s just wrong.”

Even normally hawkish voices oppose US involvement in the coalition to stop the attacks. Newt Gingrich said yesterday, “All war is inherently dirty. I don’t oppose war. I don’t oppose invasion. I don’t oppose attacking anyone. I don’t even oppose suspending the Constitution, secret prisons, torture – if you want to call it that, and making people disappear if we need to. I merely oppose it when the Obama administration does it. If I were the next President, for example, and I were doing it, then it would be OK. Other than that, it’s madness. Just outright madness.” Sources close to Gingrich say he is currently considering a presidential bid in 2012 on a platform of consistency at home and abroad.

Published research by the US Department of Fish and Wildlife, yesterday, revealed the existence of actual “fat cats” in Washington, a claim Sarah Palin has long been making, but with little evidence or support until now. A department spokesperson says the cats were “defensive and displeased” about being called out into the open, and attempted to engage Palin in one of her trademark “petulent hissy fits”.

The Fish and Wildlife Department is considering making Palin the new ‘poster child’ or marketing mascot for a department that “just isn’t very sexy or even animalistic most of the time”. Officials point to Palin’s work with wildlife during her failed Vice Presidential campaign, such as hunting wild mooses from helicopters using a high-powered animal assault rifle. “Who better,” asked one interviewee, “to both conduct a sustained catfight in Washington, and to represent the raw, feral, subhuman climb up the media food chain?” Palin is staying mum about the offer, and is reportedly trying to decide if it fits with her current status as prima donna and effigy for the Tea Party, a role that could get her taken even less seriously.

Under fire about a previous comment on Muslims “occupying US neighborhoods” and that they should “go home”, and in the wake of a US Today report that most American Muslims are US-born citizens, and so actually are home, Palmer, Alaska Republican Representative Carl Gatto admitted today, “We don’t actually believe any of this stuff. We just say it, because it stirs up the kind of people that bring bull horns to Muslim charity functions. You know, like those loons in Orange County. Did you see some of them? They looked like angry versions of Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.” Gatto is expected not to succeed in any future bids for public office. One voter interviewed on the street summed up the general consensus of that community, “No, no, we really do believe this stuff. It may sound batshit crazy to you, but they really are building a Caliphate somewhere in the US and trying to put America under Sharia law.”

In response to recent revelations that most of the sensational claims about Muslims in the US originate with an Arizona-based white supremacist hate group, SANE (Society of Americans for National Existence), which is deeply embedded in the Tea Party, conservative Republican circles (such as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum), and fundamentalist evangelical media, the founder of SANE, David Yerushalmi, said “We are nativists, nationalists, and purists when it comes to the Caucasian history of the US. We think Caucasians are inherently superior at some things, than non-Caucasians, and that giving everyone – like women and blacks – the right to vote was a mistake, and we want to expel any Muslim non-citizens from the US. We also believe, with Mel Gibson, that most Jews, the liberal ones, are parasites, and of course if you’ve ever had a tape worm, you know the only way to deal with a parasitic infestation. But we aren’t white supremacists, or racists, or anything. We’re just ordinary, conservative, Christian Americans who are fed up with the way things are, and we want to take this country back to its roots. And these people (referring to the Tea Party and Republican lawmakers) basically agree with us.”

At the same time, Tennessee is considering a law that bears striking resemblance to suggestions made by Yerushalmi in the National Review and the Washington Times, and is drafted from a model introduced by Eagle Forum. Republican Tennessee state senator Bill Ketron and state representative Judd Matheny introduced the bill that would make it a felony for Muslims to practice Sharia law. This would include specifically “washing one another’s feet” which, in the words of Matheny, “good, conservative Christians, don’t do anymore”. Ketron defended the bill, “Look, this stops short of making it illegal to be Muslim. We’re merely making it a felony to practice Islam. You can still be Muslim, you just can’t practice it. You see the distinction. We aren’t even taking their towels or their camels away from them. After all, we want to know who they are, and make it easy to spot them on the street.” Republicans in Tennessee promised to make the bill better and clearer. Language was later added to the bill to prohibit sitting cross legged in public while eating with one’s hands, and wearing white head gear that doesn’t fully cover one’s face.

After 9 months with no government, breaking the record previously held by Iraq, Belgians have decided not to create one. “It’s just that we’ve been unable to discover what a government is actually good for,” said one Belgian protestor.

Talking to reporters, Prime Minister Yeves Leterme expressed concern, “This has been something of an embarrassment, both to us and to the governments of other Western powers, because people are coming to the realization that they don’t need us. And if they don’t need us, who’s next?” That remark brough a visible shudder to Finance Minister Didier Reynders. “Banks,” he said. “Good Lord!”

Western news outlets erroneously reported today that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi announced a cease fire in response to the UN authorization of military action to stem his eastern advance. It turns out this report was not correct. Gaddafi, straining to make himself heard over the sounds of his tanks advancing toward Libya’s eastern front, did not say “cease fire” but actually said “sieg heil”, a German phrase that means “yeah victory!” or “I still think I can win”.

European analysts were not sure what to make of this apparent outburst, but reacalled a 1989 summit of non-aligned countries in Belgrade, at which Gaddafi, in one of his often inscrutable rants, claimed France and Germany would one day go to war, and Jews would be relocated. Gaddafi’s third foreign minister in as many weeks, “Moussa Koussa” (a name which literally means “wet pickle”), evidently trying to make sense of Gaddafi’s remark, said “Last night, our great leader was watching an old episode of Hogan’s Heroes, and today he is simply sharing his insights.” Saifa Gaddafi, apparently in support of his father, said today “East Libya will be liberated. Just like Poland.”

Not everyone thinks Gaddafi is off his rocker, though. North Korean autocrat Kim Jong-il sent an open letter to the UN praising the Libyan leader for being strong, sane, and his similar efforts on behalf of nepotists everywhere.

The US state department said today that ongoing government attacks on civilians in Libya are very different than ongoing government attacks in Yemen, where government snipers today shot 240 civilians, killing 40, including some children, and also different than government attacks on civilians in Bahrain, where government soldiers have done the shooting point blank or in drive-by attacks.

Asked to clarify the difference, a state department spokesperson responded, “The difference is very clear. For one thing, in Libya, they’re killing Libyans. They’re not killing any Libyans in Yemen and Bahrain.” Bewildered reporters seeking further clarification were told, “Look, in Libya, people are being massacred by the government, but in Yemen, people are dying as a result of ‘clashes’ with the government. You see the difference, now?”

National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon, asked about Yemen today, said “It’s ridiculous what is happening in Iran. Just ridiculous.” Asked again about Yemen, he said, “We support the universal rights of the Algerian people.”

Yesterday, a CIA drone launched missiles in northwest Pakistan, killing about 40 people, including everyone present at a meeting of tribal elders with Taliban representatives to settle a dispute over access to a chromite mine. According to a CIA spokesperson, the second deadly CIA attack in a row, following the killing of three civilians on the streets of Lahore, came because “they didn’t have permission to make peace with anyone. They were doing it entirely on their own, without US help, and we feel there’s a need for US involvement in the process.”

Journalists asked CIA Director Leon Panetta how the US attack on a peaceful gathering differs, fundamentally, from a suicide bombing. Panetta told reporters, “nobody committed suicide. That’s the difference. I think you know that.” Later this week, the CIA is expected to stop a group of fruit market vendors from coming to an agreement on the price of pomegranates using, according to the same source, “a joystick located in Langley.”

Sarah Palin is decrying the Supreme Court’s decision, earlier this month, on what she calls “the Wacko Church in Topeka, Kansas” that protests soldiers’ funerals as part of an oblique strategy to deprive homosexuals of civil rights. Tweeting from her Blackberry, Palin also criticized her earlier position which was opposed to gay rights and for free speech, a position due to shift again in 2012, just prior to the presidential campaign debates. Sources close to Palin say nonetheless she will try hard to dismiss the debates, in protest over the requirement that one respond to questions with sentences that actually make sense and say something about what was asked.

Asked about the separation of Church and State, Palin has said “I can’t separate Church and State. I don’t know anybody who can. It’s mind boggling.” Speaking more recently before the Women for God in Politics Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, Palin remarked, “I plan to run my campaign on my knees, which is where women of God belong, as often as possible, keeping Church plugged into the State.” But later, Palin again refused to confirm her presidential bid, saying “I’m deliberating candidly, internally, about what we’ve not yet decided might happen.”

This Sunday, Palin plans to speak in front of her own religious congregation, “the Wacko Church in Wasilla, Alaska” about “God and the right way to vote and stuff”. On condition of anonymity, we interviewed one church member who said, “We keep suggesting she convert to some other nice religion, and even moved the service to Monday mornings at 6am, but she just keeps showing up. Once she had us pray that God would tell her whether to run for president, and too many of us whispered ‘No!’, so she knew it wasn’t God and came again the week after. We’re thinking about converting the congregation to Islam. Do you think that would do it?”

Oklahoma is back in the news. After narrowly defeating a bill proposed by Republican representative Randy Terrill, that would remove ‘full personhood’ status from illegal aliens, paving the way for them to serve as laborers when needed, or be shipped to fruit plantations and poultry processing plants in other states like Arizona, instead of deported, a new firearms bill has passed the Oklahoma Senate.

The so-called “Pancho and Lefty” Bill is named for the lyrics in that famous country song, “wore his gun outside his pants, for all the honest world to feel”, and would allow Oklahomans, except for immigrants, to openly carry a firearm without a gun license or concealed carry permit. This would mean any legal Oklahoma resident could strap on a six shooter, and wear a side arm in public.

Oklahoma Republican Senator Steve Russell said yesterday, “Oklahoma has a long history of packing heat. From the Doolin-Dalton Gang, who shot it out against a posse of deputies and US Marshalls in 1893, to the kidnapping of an Oklahoma oilman by “Machine Gun” Kelly, to the 1936 shoot-out with Southwest Public Enemy Number One Pete Traxler. This is a return to our heritage, not a reaction to feeling powerless on a national level.” The Senator was not asked about feeling powerless on a national level.

When asked if this could lead to a lot of crazy, angry, road-raged, inbred, snaggle-toothed, immigrant-hating individuals driving around in trucks with holstered firearms, one spokesperson summed up the Republican position when he chuckled, “Yeah. Isn’t it great?”

Oil and Gas executives in Texas have called emergency meetings this week over proposed legislation in Texas that might force them to reveal what chemicals they inject into the ground and groundwater in a process called “fracking” (or hydraulic fracturing). Whole towns along the Barnet Shale, where ten of thousands of fracked wells exist, have reportedly been poisoned, wildlife obliterated, and children afflicted with serious illnesses, while natural gas pumps and stations advertise natural gas as a “clean, green fuel” and Ohio Governor John Kasic prepares to open up state parks to fracking, a move which elicited a rare comment to the press by former Vice President Dick Cheney, “it’s about fracking time.”

Readers may remember that the former Vice President had an exemption inserted into a 2005 energy bill, which fans call the “Haliburton loophole”, removing EPA authority to regulate fracking. A video made it onto Youtube shortly afterward, purportedly featuring the Vice President saying “Frack those mother frackers. They can fracking go get fracked. And frack their kids too.” A bystander is heard asking “Mr. Vice President, who exactly do you mean?” at which point an apparently inebriated Cheney replies “humans. Fracking humans. Those fracking frackers. Frack all of them.” Shortly thereafter, Eminem, released his hit song “Without Me” which included the words “Dick Cheney fracked me s’why I so fracked up.”

In Oklahoma, where fracking originated, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon and Larry Nichols, Executive Chairman of Devon Energy, companies that get 100% of their natural gas from fracking, told the press in a joint statement, “We don’t think most people want to know what we’re injecting into the ground where they live. If they knew, they’d be unhappy about knowing, and that’s the message we have to send to the few, overly inquisitive people who are asking questions about this.” Immediately after providing the statement to the press, the executives commissioned a marketing study to look at renaming fracking to something less disturbing, such as “poking shale”, “laying pipe”, “glory hole pile driving”, “the hot mystery injection”, or “bumping oilies with a stranger”.

Update: Shortly after our report was published, Sarah Palin expressed displeasure that she hadn’t been interviewed on the subject. When asked for comment, she asked what the subject was, and then replied “Nevermind. It’s more of those fat cats at the EPA trying to keep America down with another blood libel. But that’s not what we’re about, we’re not Katie Couric. We’re about, and you know, the little pockets of America, and we’re not talking about the rapture.”