I don't have the stomach to wade through Democratic Underground, or Kos, but I can't imagine that they ever have as funny a thread as this one at Free Republic.

i get a bunch of broken image icons......

You have to read further through the entire thing. In fact, I believe that comment #2 of the entire thread was "where ar ethe pictures?". The pictures get re-posted later on.

As with many things on FR, it's not necessarily funny right off the bat. You have to read through the whole thing and follow the progression of humour and comments.

Q. How many idealistic liberals does it take to change a light bulb?

A. THAT'S NOT FUNNY.

Mark, you forgot an exclamation sign (or two).

IMO, dedicated liberals can never be very funny because all humor relies on stereotypes of some kind. Yes, ALL humor. Think of it -- what makes a punchline a punchline? A buildup toward it creates a script with some kind of expected behavior. The punchline breaks that script, but never arbitrarily -- rather, it substitutes another script, different yet also with expected behavior (otherwise you get absurdity instead of a joke). And any widely recognized script that follows some expected behavior is by definition a stereotype.

Also, notice that all jokes, without exception, are about human behavior. Sure, they may involve animals, angels, genie, inanimate objects, etc., but they always act in human-like manner. Think of any joke or cartoon, or an episode of "American Funniest Home Videos" -- they never involve animals acting in normal animal manner. Only when their behavior reminds us of people (or, more often, is deliberately anthropomorphized) can animals be funny.

So, all humor is about one or another stereotypical human activity. And avoidance of stereotypes or offending anyone is so deeply ingrained in modern Left, that just can not bring themselves to be very funny.

BTW, I do not regard professional comedians such as Al Franken "dedicated liberals". Sure, Franken is a liberal, but he is comedian first and liberal second. He plays on stereotypes all the time.

The steering wheel with the buit-in makeup kit is my favorite.