No, the Hijacked Mercedes Did Not Have a “Coexist” Sticker

The meme got out there, at some point early on Friday, that the Boston Marathon bombers, during their overnight theft and shooting spree, had hijacked a car with one of those “coexist” stickers. The implication being that the owners of the car were stupid hippie liberals who believe in equality, oppose prejudice, and are generally dismissive of the notion that all Muslims are evil.

The origin seems to be this screen cap, from local news coverage in Boston:

A great story, that seems to validate the right-wing view of things. But it’s not true.

The car the bombers hijacked was a Mercedes SUV. I’m not sure if the car above is a Mercedes, but it’s most assuredly not an SUV. It also doesn’t appear to have any bullet holes. Here’s the actual car, as photographed by ABC News later that day:

It’s very clearly not the same car- it’s taller, the back window appears to have been shot out and- most importantly- there’s no “Coexist” sticker.

Sounds like a lot of conservative leading lights fell for this one, however… 

UPDATE: It sounds like the suspects were driving two separate cars for part of the night, including a Honda. However, according to ABC News, the Honda was the younger brother’s own car, and was not hijacked from some clueless hippie. And once again, we have no idea if the car above was ever driven by either of the brothers.

What’s the Best Sitcom?

I enjoyed Vulture’s “tournament” of the best sitcoms ever, and while I’d have chosen Cheers or Seinfeld over eventual winner The Simpsons, I really loved Matt Zoller Seitz’s final essay:

Every episode of The Simpsons is about television, comedy, popular culture, history, human nature, America, the world, the universe, time, space, head and groin injuries, gluttony, piety, lust, greed, hypocrisy, dogs, cats, living together, mass hysteria, parenting, marriage, maturity, immaturity, and the exquisite pleasures of the prank phone call, plus anything else that Groening and his murderer’s row of writers felt like stirring into the mix… Cheers is a flawless pearl glinting on a beach. But The Simpsons is the beach. It’s bigger than Cheers, bigger than sitcoms, in some ways bigger than television. It’s our virtual Smithsonian and Library of Congress, our collective data cloud, the Force, or Farce, that surrounds us, binds us, and holds the galaxy together.

I haven’t watched new Simpsons episodes in years. But will it last long enough for my kids to one day enjoy it? I wouldn’t be surprised.

On Obama, Israel and the Golden Girls Video

Here’s one of the stranger diplomatic missives in history:

My summer camp, in the mid-’90s, once did a stunt in which they had counselors dress as Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin, Yassir Arafat and King Hussein, and had them lip-sync the audio of the post-Oslo Accords and Israel/Jordan peace treaty speeches. The Israeli embassy’s “Thank you For Being a Friend” stunt may have been even weirder.

Meanwhile, here’s a demonstration of how wide a cross-section of people I follow on Twitter:

Jonah Turns 1

I neglected to post this on his actual birthday, but here’s a video I made to celebrate my son Jonah’s first birthday on Saturday:

In Defense of Michelle Obama at the Oscars

That’s the topic of this week’s Philly Post column.

By the way, I made an error, which I caught right before submission, and fixed. But if I hadn’t fixed it, it might have led to the following correction:

An earlier version of this column stated that radio host Mark Levin, after Michelle Obama’s Oscar appearance Sunday, compared the First Lady to Eva Peron. In fact, Levin’s Michelle-as-Eva quote was from several months before the Oscars, and was in reference to the First Lady’s proposed school lunch standards.

Yippie Ki Yay, Chubby Checker Penis App

I have two new pieces on EntertainmentTell the last two days- a review of the new “A Good Day to Die Hard,” and a story about that weird lawsuit involving Chubby Checker and a “penis-measuring app.”

“Friends of Hamas”

I mean, come on.

A pro-tip for news consumers: If you see a news story, and the word “Breitbart” is anywhere in the URL, it’s probably based partially or entirely on a lie.

Coming in 2014: “Jack Reacher, Round Two”

I review the surprisingly awesome “Jack Reacher” at EntertainmentTell.

Blank Google Reader!

What you’re seeing below is about a once-a-year occurrence for me:

Michelle Obama Associates With Known Pedophiles!

More shocking than the Whitey Tape!