Post #350: A good Colbert-style joke

Yes, this is my 350th post. And to celebrate, I'm going to have a good laugh at the good and ugly -- not bad -- of the Internets.

Start here at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which published a hysterical letter to the editor. It's a conspiracy theory -- the liberal Congress wanted to perpetuate the global warming hoax, so it pushed back the beginning of Daylight Savings Time so that March would be warmer.

(Stop. Make sure you read that -- if not the full letter, at least my synopsis, which doesn't do it justice.)

How would the blogosphere react to this?

A few people figured it was a lost cause to explain that Congress didn't actually gain control of time and space, so they explained that the DST law was passed before the Democrats gained control of Congress. Some were a little hostile, at least at first. Even Boing Boing.

But some people figured it must be a joke. And Snopes, bless their hearts, gets to the bottom of it. Snopes also shares some of the livid reactions in subsequent letters but is kind enough not to print their names.

The story has a good subplot -- the headline. As you can see, it's misspelled -- "Daylight exacerbates warning." (As a former copy editor, I feel the pain here, especially because changing the "n" to an "m" would mean the headline wouldn't fit.)

Among the snarky reactions (you'll have to go to that "misspelled" link and pop open the comments -- it's #2):

"And I guess one of the first caualties of the new ‘journalism’ take of todays media was the proofreader/spellchecker. Which since most Writing Programs on the computer have them built in - should be a given."

Accept that eye don't think a spellchecker wood have cot "warning."