Whenever crazy things start happening, my wife tells me "Mercury is in retrograde". I have no idea what that means or why things would be going nuts because of a planet's orbit. In my personal life, I had a dead battery and a blown tire and Hurricane Earl all hitting while we're trying to get ready for a long weekend trip. On a larger scale, it's no less crazy elsewhere...

It's always been an asylum over at FOX News but even THEY seem to be jumping the shark lately. They DO have the word "News" in their name, right? Or is that like the words "serving suggestion" on the box of a frozen dinner?

Glenn Beck - our favorite inmate there - first misrepresents a professor's statements, then doubles down on his prevarication to say that universities can be as dangerous as Iran:

Of course, no one really considers Beck "news"... No, instead the newscasters are busy trying to blame the Discovery building bomber on Al Gore. If it doesn't make sense, I'm sure Beck can pull out his chalkboard and draw the lines.

Since they themselves have zero-credibility, they try to infer credibility by interviewing "experts". When it comes to military stories, the typical approach (by them and other networks) is to interview active or retired military brass. Nothing conveys military expertise like a few stripes on the shoulder, right? It turns out that the 3-star general that FOX uses to reinforce its biased stories is a "birther". Hear that swooshing sound? That was credibility flying out the window.

Besides FOX, though, there are plenty of other examples of "WTH??" moments. By now, everyone's heard that there was another oil rig explosion in the Gulf. Supposedly, there is no oil leaking from this one. The interesting thing is: it was this very oil company that was loudly criticizing the need for an offshore drilling moratorium for safety reviews the day before the explosion. Yes oil companies - this is why you can't have nice things...

It's getting where you can't even trust the hippies and stoners anymore. Remember "Double Rainbow Guy"? In a world of corporate
money-thuggery, he gave us a little hope that there were still people out there who camped in the woods, got really high, and grooved on nature. Apparently, though, he grooves on money too, because he just sold his cred for corporate cash:

And of course - there's the anti-Muslim hysteria, which seems to be reaching WWI madness levels. One conservative radio station has a poll on their web site asking if the U.S. should register Muslims in a national database. Hey - why not just ship them off to internment camps, or maybe concentration camps? Like a broken clock, though, sometimes even the mosque-opposers are right every once in a while. Some of them hate FOX News too. No honor among thieves, I suppose...

Even bastions of progressive values like Seattle are not immune. A 7-11 store clerk was attacked and accused of being a terrorist by a patron in the store. Why? Because the victim - as a Sikh - was wearing a turban.

Add that to the arson attacks on a mosque under construction in Murfreesboro TN, and ask: How crazy is it? Let's see what Red State Update has to say: