The Daily Show won two Peabody Awards for each of its last two Indecision coverages (2000 and 2004), and now Stephen Colbert has won one for The Colbert Report. His reaction?

"I proudly accept this award and begrudgingly forgive the Peabody Committee for taking three years to recognize greatness. On a personal note, I'd like to say that I've long been a fan of Mr. Peabody, as well as his boy Sherman," Colbert said.

COMEDY CENTRAL had been honored previously with two Peabody Awards for the multiple Emmy-winning "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart's 'Indecision'" election-year coverage in 2000 and 2004, as well as a 2005 Peabody Award for the network's long-running, highly-rated irreverent animated series "South Park," also a multiple Emmy-winner.

Considered the broadcast and cable industry's most prestigious prize, the Peabody Awards were announced by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, which has administered the Peabody Award program since its inception in 1940. The awards will be presented at a luncheon ceremony to be held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on June 16, to be hosted by NBC News' Brian Williams.

30 Rock won the award as well, which shouldn't surprise anyone that watches the show.

Yes, sadly April Fools is over. The background is back to normal, the tagline is as well, and no more fake stories. But you say you actually liked the polka dot background? Well, to each his own, I suppose. You can now choose polka dots in addition to the other options that were already there when you click the "Change page color" link in the top left corner of the left navigation pane.

The bill to take down the internet passed today, resulting in the announcement that the internet will be taken down next week. The reasons cited for the bill include confusion over whether it was making people more or less productive, annoyance with popup ads, and literally everyone and their mom owning a blog. "There was just so much noise on the internet, it was impossible to find anything useful," said House Representative Laurence Tureaud.

NASA today announced the real reason the Mars rovers, which were only built to last 90 days, are still roaming the planet 4 years later: It turns out there is life on the planet, and the creatures discovered have actually repaired the rovers several times. Apparently the alien creatures are friendly, or just amused to have the rovers roaming around. The government has been trying to hide the discovery for the purposes of global security.

Will Arnett has refused to take part in an Arrested Development movie, saying he "didn't much care for the role of Gob. It's really one of my most unsatisfying roles I've done, as I wasn't given much freedom and he just wasn't a very fun character to play." He also described how excited he is about his upcoming role as a judge in My Name is Judge. "I've been waiting for a role like this for a long time. After this movie I'm working on another project that's currently been given the working title 'Single City'," he said.

Hot on the heels of the digital TV transition that will stop all analog TV broadcasts on February 17, 2009, the next step has been announced. The HDTV transition will cause all standard definition TV broadcasts to cease on February 29, 2010. "This move will help accelerate the rate of HD adoption and result in higher quality content for consumers," says Paul David Hewson of the Standard to Hdtv-Infused-TV group. SHIT also advocates the creation of a government program similar to the one being run for the digital transition currently, in order to offer vouchers for people to purchase HDTVs and prepare for the transition.

Of course this transition would likely be followed by an eventual transition to BDTV. More information on the HDTV transition can be found on the SHIT website.

As a reminder, here's how standard def, HD, and BD compare: Image Quality Comparison:

SDTV (Standard Def) Pic from Wikipedia	HDTV (High Def) Pic from Wikipedia	BDTV (Best Def)

I just saw two items in my Google Reader list with the title "When in Rome" and thought they must be related at first glance. I saw the imdb one first, so I assumed that the second article must be talking about the movie with Will Arnett that just got updated on imdb. But reading the rest of the title showed that it was a completely unrelated story. But Google Reader even shows the two stories got picked up within the same minute. How bizarre.


In case, you're curious about the Arnett movie, here's the imdb page.

You may recall the Jack Black and Mos Def movie that came out recently, Be Kind Rewind, which they used to encourage people to make their own sweded (their own low-quality remake) versions of their favorite movies. I just came across an awesome sweded version of the Tron lightcycles done using cardboard:

Tron
by freres-hueon

I especially like how they show the behind the scenes at the end.

And here's a bonus video, cardboard Star Wars:

Apparently China is going to try to keep the Summer Olympics free of rain this August, though I think the artificial disruptions would also mess up natural weather patterns.

First, Beijing's Weather Modification Office will track the region's weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer, purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of 44,000 square kilometers (17,000 square miles) accurately enough to generate hourly forecasts for each kilometer.

Then, using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city's weather engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium.

Finally, any rain-heavy clouds that near the Bird's Nest will be seeded with chemicals to shrink droplets so that rain won't fall until those clouds have passed over. Zhang Qian, head of Beijing's Weather Modification Office, explains, "We use a coolant made from liquid nitrogen to increase the number of droplets while decreasing their average size. As a result, the smaller droplets are less likely to fall, and precipitation can be reduced." August is part of Northeast Asia's rainy season; chances of precipitation over Beijing on any day that month will approach 50 percent. Still, while tests with clouds bearing heavy rain loads haven't always been successful, Qian claims that "the results with light rain have been satisfactory."

So if there's a flood or a drought this summer, we should blame Beijing's Weather Modification Office for messing with the weather. And it sounds like they can't stop heavy rain, so it's not guaranteed to be dry at the Olympics either. Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to put a giant umbrella or suspended tarp over the Olympic village?

TV Sqauad has a great story about how 30 Rock is bringing back the MILF island joke that was brought up in a previous episode (which also reminds me of Gob's Fuck Mountain). But apparently TV Squad's story source, The Washington Post, doesn't allow their writers to write MILF, so here's what their scoop looked like:

On the April 10 episode of "30 Rock," the staff of the late-night show "TGS" has become obsessed with a new reality hit called "MIL[letter that's been deemed too naughty for The Washington Post when it follows M, I and L] Island."

For the uninitiated: MIL[WaPo Scarlet Letter] stands for Mothers I'd Like to [have sex with].

So now the letter "F" isn't allowed? What the hell is going on with TV and the internet? The FCC needs to be disbanded. In case you've forgotten, the premise of MILF Island is: "25 super hot moms, 50 sweaty eighth grade boys, and no rules!"