For the past couple of months, I’ve found myself watching NBC’s Today Show regularly. If you’re a regular viewer, too, then you’ve probably noticed some disturbing trends in their reporting – such as the near-daily “Octomom” updates of the fascination with animal attacks. Today, however, I found myself pretty amazed by the coverage of an anti-smoking ad that shows a lost child to guilt parents into not smoking.

This was one of two – TWO! – segments where Matt Lauer embarked on an oratorical crusade to find out whether the commercial’s producers put undue stress on the child actor by making him think he was lost to get the reaction which gives the commercial its weight. He talked to advertising experts and producers, but absent was the mother of the child, or even the child himself. As was intimated at least once, they prefer to stay out of the limelight – but that won’t stop NBC’s cornerstone entertainment-as-news program from running a story about the child and the harm that may or may not have been done.

(Full disclosure: when I was about this kid’s age, I liked to wander around a bit, so my parents “lost” me – on purpose – in a department store. They knew where I was the whole time. To this point in my life I haven’t had any lasting psychological effects except for the fact that I pay freaking attention to where I am and where I should be.)

Meanwhile in Washington, there are trillions of dollars that have been borrowed from that kid and his generation being flushed down toilets with $100,000 seats. I wonder how bad he’ll cry when that bill comes due?

I woke this morning to hear on the local news that cigarette prices have gone up thanks to a new federal tobacco tax. On a day where Congress is considering a bill that would expand FDA oversight of tobacco products, simple economics are proving the best anti-smoking campaign: The skyrocketing prices are forcing many smokers to kick the habit.

That’s too bad – the cigarette taxes pay for the SCHIP program to extend health insurance to the nation’s children. You might say smoking is a civic obligation.

Thank you for smoking…

April Fools jokes are getting harder and harder for the media – the never-ending news cycles produce enough stories that turn out to be untrue that “fake” stories. In charting some of corporate America’s best April Fools jokes, Fast Company recalls the original practical joke newscast, a British news segment on spaghetti farmers:

Of course, my favorite April Fools joke continues to be the Curious Case of Sidd Finch. (But if you’ve sent any mail to my GMail account today, it may have already told you that.)

Remember the idea of “Sunlight before Signing?” That was Presidential candidate Obama’s promise to… now, wait, how did that go again? You can read for yourself:

“Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.”

President Obama has signed a land conservation bill into law – the third piece of non-emergency legislation he has enacted without a five-day comment period. And it’s probably a good thing he did – as the Heritage Foundation notes, the bill contains some extreme provisions. A lengthy public comment period might tarnish proponents’ image of the bill as a simple land protection act.

Similarly, during confirmation hearings for her nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius indicated possible fast tracks for health care reform. Without a doubt, this measure (which can’t help but be controversial no matter what it says) will also be deemed “emergency legislation” when it gets to the President’s desk.

It all makes the pre-election calls for transparency look like transparent attempts at positioning. When President Obama picks up his pen, it apparently goes where the sunlight don’t shine.

The President of the United States is now firing CEOs. And why not? If the American Government is bankrolling a business, shouldn’t the CEO of the American Government have the power to hire and fire the leader of its subsidiaries?

Maybe this is the journalism degree talking, but when I heard that Rick Wagoner was being let go by General/Obama Motors, my first thought went back to a story that broke last week: Senator Benjamin Cardin proposing that newspapers be able to exist as tax-exempt entities. Essentially, this would grant the struggling local newspaper industry a bailout of sorts.

Ask anyone who has worked at a tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization and they will tell you that there are certain things you can and can’t do – for instance, you can’t endorse or oppose candidates for office. Thus tax-exempt status is a tradeoff – you don’t have to pay taxes, but in return your speech is limited by the government.

In other words, the newspaper bailout would create a plan where government would limit newspapers’ speech – a plan which would carry financial incentives over alternatives, such as finding new and innovative ways to deliver content. And though current tax exempt law still offers a great deal of freedom, how long will that last when a 501(c)(3) paper starts printing something unpopular?

Perhaps I’m stretching a bit to envision a world where government would use a newspaper’s tax exempt status as a way to regulate content. But if you told me five years ago that the President of the United States would dismiss the head of the world’s second-largest automaker, I would have said you were stretching a bit, as well.

While perusing Right Wing Video, I found this insightful clip that displays the inner workings of our government’s monetary policy:

Over the past week or two, my conversation with other people has generally turned to sports – specifically, to the NCAA tournament. But in joining in the fun, our President has received criticism from USA Today’s Christine Brennan. Brennan complains that Barack Obama’s bracket is sexist because he ignored the women’s basketball tournament altogether.

There’s a reason for that: the men’s tournament is many times more popular than the women’s tournament. For one thing, the ratings for the first rounds of the men’s tournament – featuring all 64 teams and plenty of top-seeded teams blowing out the ones who earned automatic bids – dwarf the ratings of the women’s championship game.

Though women’s basketball enjoys niche interest that has been building for a decade and a half, the interest is simply not there. The WNBA has contracted a team and is trimming its rosters.

That’s not to de-value women’s sports – sports teach teamwork and all that stuff regardless of who is playing. It just isn’t compelling spectator television programming. And President Obama didn’t fill out a bracket for the World Baseball Classic, either.

All that said, I’ll put $5 down that there’s a women’s bracket next year…

Our elected leaders in Washington, DC are finally, at long last, sitting down to examine how the NCAA crowns its Division I-A football champion. The Senate Judiciary Committee is examining the current system.

Luckily, a vote before the full Senate won’t end up in a tie since there are only 99 Senators – if you’re scoring at home, we still haven’t figured out who the other Senator from Minnesota is.

In case you missed it, one of the recipients of the AIG bonuses, Jake DeSantis, turned in his resignation. DeSantis had been working for almost no pay ($1) with the promise that he would be compensated for 12 months of work all at once – compensation which may now be taxed at nearly 100%. His resignation letter, printed in the New York Times, chides AIG’s corporate leadership for lacking backbone and accuses the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut of abandoning their oaths to uphold the law.

Q: What are the three things every politician cares about?

A: Re-election, re-election, and re-election.

And Sen. Arlen Specter is no different – which is why he suddenly cares enough about the economy to oppose the abolition of secret ballots in union elections – publicly reversing a past decision to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which removes the freedom of choice from workers’ unionization elections.

Pennsylvania Republicans might have handed him a primary loss in 2004, if President George W. Bush hadn’t hit the campaign trail for him. Then-Congressman Pat Toomey went the distance in that first Rocky-vs.-Apollo match-up; as a Philly native, Specter doesn’t need to be reminded of what happened to Apollo in the sequel. And if he did, a 41-27 deficit in recent polls of GOP primary voters should do the trick.

In the end, it may be too little too late from Specter – one vote, even on a critical issue like forced unionization, won’t convince conservative Pennsylvanians he’s their man. A 2004 Toomey supporter and campaign volunteer recently pointed out that Specter is even more vulnerable than in 2004, noting that many moderates changed their registration to vote in the contentious Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Specter finds himself facing a smaller, more conservative electorate for this go-around – so, he changed his mind.

Some are warning that without labor’s support, Specter is a sitting duck for his general election, too. That may be true, but not if he’s careful – and he need only look to the Yuengling brewery in his own backyard for an example of how simple economic facts can make union support evaporate.