and point your car towards D.C.

[neufer]

Colbert to rally against faux nemesis Stewart
By BRETT ZONGKER (AP) – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON — "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart is hosting a "million moderate march" in Washington — for people who think shouting is annoying — but faux political nemesis Stephen Colbert will be nearby to keep fear alive against those "dark, optimistic forces."

Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," and his arch enemy on the network plan to hold opposing political rallies on the National Mall just before the November elections.

Stewart interrupted his regular fake newscast Thursday night to announce a "Rally to Restore Sanity" on Oct. 30. He said it's for people too busy with their normal lives to go to other political rallies.

"We're looking for people who think shouting is annoying ... who feel that the loudest voices shouldn't be the only ones that get heard," Stewart writes in promotion for his rally. "Think of our event as Woodstock, but with the nudity and drugs replaced by respectful disagreement."

No Adolf Hitler mustaches allowed at the Stewart rally — unless it's drawn on a photo of the German dictator (or Charlie Chaplin).

Nearby, Colbert also announced a "March to Keep Fear Alive" to restore "truthiness" to the nation on his show Thursday night. For those who don't know, truthiness was a 2006 word of the year that means "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

Colbert is encouraging "all freedom-loving patriots" to bring an overnight bag and five extra sets of underwear to challenge Stewart's "dark, optimistic forces." He said the nation can't afford a rally to restore sanity in the middle of a recession.

He wrote the United States is built on three bedrock principles: freedom, liberty and fear.

"They want to replace our fear with reason," he wrote. "But never forget 'reason' is just one letter away from 'treason.'"

The events come a few weeks after Glenn Beck's recent rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s March on Washington. Stewart's website notes Oct. 30 was chosen as a date "of no significance whatsoever."

The rallies take aim at extremists from the political fringes. Stewart said it will give voice to about 70 to 80 percent of Americans who aren't heard in daily political discourse.

Stewart and Colbert have filed a single application for a permit to host 25,000 people on the Washington Monument grounds, National Park Service spokesman Bill Line said Friday. It hasn't been approved yet.

Stewart said Thursday night that his rally would be a "million moderate march." He suggested a few signs for the rally, including "I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler."

"You may be asking yourself ... 'but am I the right person to go to this rally?'" Stewart said on his show. "The fact that you would even stop to ask yourself that question as opposed to just jumping up, grabbing the nearest stack of burnable holy books, strapping on a diaper and pointing your car towards D.C. — that means I think you just might be right for it."

[Ann]

Nearby, Colbert also announced a "March to Keep Fear Alive" to restore "truthiness" to the nation on his show Thursday night. For those who don't know, truthiness was a 2006 word of the year that means "truth that comes from the gut, not books."

Truthiness? "Truth that comes from the gut, not books"?

Wow! In the Middle Ages, people here in Europe used truthiness to know that an assortment of societal ills and medical problems, such as war and pestilence, the failure of crops, cold weather and unwanted limpness of male body parts all were casued by the pernicious influence of witches. So the Medieval brave souls attempted to cure all those societal ills and medical problems by burning witches.

The truthiness of the idea that female corruption causes all kinds of general catastrophes is not dead. Very recently some ayatollah or other in Iran declared that earthquakes were caused by the indecent way of dressing by Western women.

A popular political truthiness in America today is that if you slash taxes for the very richest Americans, overall tax revenue will sharply perk up, jobless American Janes and Joes can finally find employment now that the poor rich people can finally afford to hire them, and any economic woes that have plagued the nation will go away.

And don't you know in your guts that the "face on Mars" was a real face? Come to think of it, don't you know that there is an Elvis statue on Mars and that happiness awaits us all if everyone just remembers to salute the flag and carry a loaded gun wherever they go? And why are people not allowed to exercise their constitutional right to carry a loaded gun on board airplanes, by the way? Of course they should not be allowed to carry truly dangerous and unnecessary items like miniture all-purpose Swiss Army knives, safety pins and crochet-hooks, but that is another matter!

Truthiness! I love it! I think I know in my guts that the Earth is flat. It sure looks flat enough to me. And what's that nonsense that you wouldn't fall off the Earth if the Earth is round and you are on the bottom side of it where your feet are up and your head is down? And I read someplace that the wife of the leader of the Flat Earth Society had taken a cruise from the United States to Australia, and afterwards she reported that the ocean had been flat, apart from the choppiness of the waves, all the way from America to Australia!

Ann