Stop the Presses!

On the 3 February telecast of the NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams gave the following lead in to a story.

“A new development tonight concerning the giants of the American road. Some people drive SUV’s for the safety they fell they bring them, car drivers say it makes for an unfair matchup out on the road concerning height and sheer size.”

The story was about the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and a study they did revolving around accidents between small cars and larger cars. The reporter mentioned that this institute already had test data supporting the conclusion that in accidents, smaller cars fare worse than larger cars.

Okay, big red flag here. Who needs to spend money (taxpayer money, no doubt) on research into the winner of a wreck between a huge vehicle and a tiny vehicle? But wait, wasting money once is not enough. Let’s do it again.

So this institute, which proclaims itself to be “an independent, nonprofit, scientific and educational organization”, goes out and throws more money into this baffling puzzle. Guess what their findings were? When a large vehicle and a much smaller one collide, the loser is usually…drumroll please…the smaller vehicle.

Wow. Talk about compelling news worthy of national attention. Thanks, Brian Williams, for alerting us to this earth shattering news.

Oh, wait, that’s right. This was a way to appease the environmentalist overboarders. Never pass up a good chance to denigrate SUV’s and other examples of capitalistic consumption, right? Notice how the story was introduced – “giants of the American road”, as if SUV’s are only driven in the bad US of A. And be sure to point out that “car drivers” say it’s an “unfair matchup”. Why, those big ole meanies in their gas guzzling tanks scare me.

I have some ideas for news items that the allegedly unbiased networks could use. Who knows, one of these exposes could be worthy of a Pulitzer nomination.

Will eating foods higher in calories and fat contribute in some way to obesity? Does refraining from eating at all hurt you? New studies prove that those who don’t eat will eventually die.

Studies have shown that people who stand in the rain tend to get wetter than those who don’t. The one exception to this is a group of people who call themselves swimmers.

The National Focus Group for Head Banging has determined after a twenty year study that hitting yourself on the head with a hammer can cause headaches.

And finally, the Where Will It Be Today Foundation, a nonprofit independent research group funded totally by taxpayers, has concluded after exhaustive studies that the sun tends to rise in the East each morning, but will surprisingly set in the West as it gets darker each evening.