CBS News Loses Its Mind

All I can say is, "Wow!" A jaw-dropping, head-spinning, jowl-shaking "Wow!"

I thought my satirical piece on the alleged gas price conspiracy was so completely out there that no one could possibly believe such drivel. Leave it to the internet public to prove me wrong. The comments that the article received were unbelievable.

Here is a typical comment that was posted under the articles incarnation at Gather.com.

"Look into it. $10-20 per barrel is from speculation. Since dereg[ulation] over the counter and spot trades are not recorded. Hence billions of dollars are pumped into the oil market by buyers intentionally unknown. Now, who has the pockets and motive to keep the oil spec[ulation] market artificially high? What industry is wallowing in cash and would directly benifit? [sic] And who in Federal government has long ties to that industry? Connect the dots."

Whoa! Somewhere there are always true believers. Now even the CBS Evening News is getting into the conspiracy game. On October 16, 2006, CBS' Anthony Mason filed this story. I don't know why I'm surprise by the lack of ethics in journalism, especially during an election year. Such blatantly over-the-top fiction is just beneath even CBS. Did they run out of transcripts to fake and photos to doctor?

The most amusing thing about CBS' web-version of the story is that Mason takes the one interviewee's comment that was clearly incredulous about the conspiracy theory and use uses it out of context to support the preposterous claim. Read Mr. LaPerriere's comments a few times and see how you can twist it yourself. Then note the photo caption.

I'm strongly recommending a mailing campaign. I'm mailing a roll of aluminum foil to CBS News headquarters along with instructions on how to construct various forms of foil headgear. The reporters and producers of the CBS Evening News are in obvious need of some extra-thick foil hats to keep the mind-controlling, government rays out of their brains.

What?! You don't know about the satellites? There are hundreds of satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit right now bombarding our minds with pro-Bush, pro-war, pro-GOP, subliminal messages. Will CBS News break that story before Election Day? We can only hope.

With CBS as our final defense against the evil empire, we shall overcome. I hope they're working on some cool graphics and a flash animation depicting the satellite orbits for their web site. Maybe they can throw in a blueprint of the Oval Office that indicates exactly where the mind-control button is located. Thank you CBS News for proving me wrong. I was worried I could think for myself.