When news breaks....

​A reporter needs a nose for news.

Sometimes, though, that nose is stuffed.

This isn't the highest-quality video, but it does show what was airing at KFDM during the recent bad weather. The station tapped into one of Beaumont's live-action traffic cams, while a reporter talked about the need to drive cautiously on the wet roads.

But look closely at the video.

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Chevrolet: The car for mass murder

​Another Super Bowl, another series of high-priced, high-stakes TV ads.

What did we learn? These five things:

5. Budweiser has a hard-on for Prohibiition
Because your target demographic is, we guess, is prople who remember fondly when beer was made legal again in 1933.

4. Never ever believe a baby ad
Babies = CGI, whether they're giving financial advice or bungee-jumping for junk food. Borrrrring.

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God bless us, everyone.

​Every fan of A Christmas Carol has their favorite Scrooges -- whether it's George C. Scott, Patrick Stewart or Mr. Magoo.

But the role of Bob Cratchit is also crucial, and a slew of big names have taken their shot at it, with mixed results.

It can be a tough role to pull off without going overboard on either the pusillanimous workplace behavior or the Hallmark saccharine of the scenes around the family hearth.

Here are ten Cratchits, ranked from worst to first.

10. David Warner A talented actor who will perhaps forever be best known for his role in Titanic, Warner's performance in the George C. Scott TV movie isn't terrible, but it's badly hampered by the set designer and director. The Cratchit hovel looks positively homely, all light and airy and clean, and you'd never think their Christmas goose was especially small until Warner mourns its supposed tiny size.More >>

​We have some great commenters here on Hair Balls, and it's time we paid some damn attention to them.

So we'll be highlighting a Comment of the Day each morning, from the previous day's work. Maybe two comments, even.

This will all be determined by a highly rigorous scientific formula involving wit, clarity and whatever else we feel like at the moment.

Lakewood Church's Joel Osteen is getting a reality show, and we offered some examples of what it would be like if it followed templates like Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Dog the Bounty Hunter or Fear Factor.

One reader offered another option.

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From the producer of Survivor.

​TMZ has reported that Lakewood Church's Joel and Victoria Osteen will be the stars of a new reality show by the producer of Survivor.

"The premise of the show is that ordinary people will give up several days or longer to go on a mission with Joel Osteen, one of the most popular pastors in the world," TMZ says. "All of the missions will be in the confines of U.S. soil to 'start fixing things.'"

Sounds fun? Or sounds like some weird mix of Extreme Makeover, Supernanny and The Biggest Loser?

We think the Osteens might do better using the templates of some other reality shows. Like:

6. Real Housewives of Lakewood: The claws are out as five stiff-haired, expensively dressed women spend no time thinking about Christian theology in any but the most vague way, albeit one that emphasizes financial success.

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​Last week, we posted a list of anti-drug commercials that not only didn't stop any children from doing drugs, but potentially encouraged such abusing behavior. The famed PSA one-liner, "I learned it from watching you," probably made more kids of the '80s wish they were rolling doobies with their dads than scaring them into stopping.

As if the Internet heard the mocking, yesterday four new anti-drug PSAs appeared out of nowhere. The ads were created for anti-meth group The Meth Project and directed by shock and awe director Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky is most recently famous for his ballet-nightmare drama The Black Swan, but prior to that he directed the drug-abusers nightmare drama Requiem for a Dream. Requiem is a 2-plus-hour anti-drug movie in and of itself, but his new PSAs hit their target in less than a minute each.

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The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

State Rep Larry Taylor of League City may have thought his whole "Jew them down" crisis had passed over.

But last night, it went national. The Colbert Report tackled the subject. Stephen Colbert suggested better phrases for a Republican to use in Taylor's situation: "Muslim them down" or "Gay them u" or "Mexican them sideways" were his suggestions.

Let's just say it's probably not a good thing when your big national exposure involves extensive analysis by the Bigot-O-Tron 9000.

Fashion advice from the government.

​In the course of our assiduous research into strange and ineffective anti-drug PSAs (public service announcements), we got somewhat immersed in the whole 1970s PSA world.

It's a world in which you want to tread lightly.

The PSAs can be creepy, ill-lit, grainy things that dare you to watch them, or they can be urging behavior no human being would ever consider.

But somewhere, someone thought they would be effective, or needed to be done for the good of society. Here are eight:

8. Love won't add weight
Even 40 years ago, people were wailing about kids getting fat. So they put together this ad -- aimed at kids -- urging them to tell Mom to give them a hug instead of cookie or cake when sympathy or praise is called for. That's ridiculous enough on its face, but then there's the whole creepy psychological subtext of kids lecturing parents on how to express love.More >>

Television public-service announcements are to fighting drugs what abstinence-only education is to preventing teenage sex: In theory it should work, but the presentation often falls very, very short.

That hasn't stopped people from trying, of course. Here are five of the classics. Decide for yourself if they did more harm than good.

5. The what now? "It's the in thing, the hula hoop of the jet generation and as much a part of growing up as smoking corn silk behind the back fence" -- Man, people talked crazy back then.More >>

Come on: You can see us in TWO bars in Dallas!!!

​College football fans all across the nation are eagerly awaiting the biggest game of the decade: LSU-Alabama Texas-Kansas.

Unfortunately for those (very few) fans, the game is being broadcast on the Longhorn Network, an operation with all the reach of the DuMont Network airing the 1951 World Series.

The Longhorn Network, as Awful Announcing recently noted, is not off to a rousing start.

You would never know it from the network's Twitter account. On the other hand, maybe you would.

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