John Oliver continues to deliver the best comedy tech analysis in the business, with an epic rant/explainer that delves into Apple vs FBI and the new crypto wars with scathing wit and deep, technical truth that's made miraculously accessible to a general audience. Read the rest

Samantha Bee's monologue on the 2010 midterm election -- the election that will.i.am didn't make videos for, the election where progressives stayed away from the polls, the election that put the obstructionist, do-nothing radical right into Congress and the vicious, do-everything right into state houses across the USA -- is hilarious, but like everything Bee does, it has a sting it its tail. (via Metafilter) Read the rest

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled that states could restrict access to abortion provided the restrictions weren't "unduly burdensome," Republican thinktanks have been spreading "TRAP" ("Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers") rules that have a veneer of reasonableness but have the effect of making abortions impossible to procure for the majority of women in those states. Read the rest

On McSweeney's, Susan Harlan rounds up some less-objectionable alternatives we can use to describe so-called "Resting Bitch Face," such as "Yes I Really Do Just Want to Sit Here and Read My Book Unmolested Face." Read the rest

Univision, a hugely successful Spanish language broadcaster, bought humor newspaper/site The Onion two weeks ago, and in so doing, transferred control over a site that has produced scathing comedy at Hillary Clinton's expense to Haim Saban, millionaire financier and Democratic power-broker, who calls Clinton "pristine plus" and "great for the country and great for the world." Read the rest

A timely entry from the Scarfolk blog, which documents the doings in a small, sinister English town caught in a loop between 1970 and 1979: the I-Spy Surveillance books, which "transformed the tedium of surveillance into play, encouraging children to routinely observe and record the actions, speech and private correspondence of people who the government deemed to be enemies of society. These included 'free-thinkers, beneficiaries of welfare and other degenerates. [...] Extremists, potential extremists, and those whose profound lack of extremist attributes is extreme in itself, are also worthy of suspicion and censure.'" Read the rest

The UK humour site Daily Mash nails the UK's transformation into a Torified, bank-centric place where the need for shelter is a vulnerability to exploit in order to enrich yourself at the expense of the people around you with a brilliant short piece: "Tories to build thousands of affordable second homes." Read the rest

Adam Conover latest "Adam Ruins Everything" is five depressingly hilarious minutes on aviation security, security theater, privacy, and ritual humiliation, with a guest-appearance by Bruce Schneier. If you didn't laugh, you'd have to cry, although you can always do both, right? Read the rest

His hilarious, bathetic op-ed in Glamour is full of sneaky, countersunk gender ha-ha-only-serious humor: "Women havesmart, resourceful role models -- Marissa Mayer, Michelle Obama, Sacajawea, and the green M&M.;" Read the rest

Ha-ha-only-serious: He was speaking to the all-male Hibernian Society of Charleston, making a ribald speech peppered with (telling) humor, when he promised them that under a Lindsay Graham presidency "white men who are in male-only clubs are going to do great." Read the rest

Brian from Mayday.US writes, "Represent.us, a campaign finance reform and anti-corruption group, is running a satire candidate, Gil Fulbright, (though for the right amount of campaign donations, he's willing to change his name to Phillip Mamouf-Wifarts), in the Kentucky Senate race that is expected to cost more than $100 million." Read the rest

Pat sez, "Alaska Robotics News is a political satire series covering the Alaska legislative session. We've had good luck at engaging law makers and have had several notable guests on the show. U.S. Senator Mark Begich recently joined us to talk about NSA dragnet surveillance and precognitive policing. We have a small group of writers contributing the the show and enjoy a lot of support from our community. This segment was a good opportunity to get outside our local issues and poke at the boiling frog of government surveillance." Read the rest