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Category Archives: I Am Not Cleaning That Up
Michele Bachmann Threatens Liberty University Students: God Has a Plan for You
So Michele Bachmann, the Lutheran turned GOP presidential candidate, gave an address to the students of Liberty University, billed as the “largest private, nonprofit Christian university in the world.” Liberty U was founded by the late Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell and has seen its share of controversy, not least of which was the Moonies’ paying off a chunk of the school’s debt in 1994. But it boasts a 141,000-sq.-ft. student center named after the coauthor of those Left Behind novels, who coughed up $4.5 million to pay for it. Why so much debt was left behind remains a mystery to be unveiled only at the advent of the eschaton.
Be that as it may: Bachmann’s speech has been described as more evangelistic than political in tone, as she claimed that “Even though I hadn’t been a drinker, even though I never did drugs … even though I hadn’t been chasing around, it didn’t matter. I was a sinner … I radically abandoned myself to Jesus Christ.”
God saves bores too. Remember that, students of Liberty U. Read the rest of this entry »
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A 600-year-old tradition is coming to an end in China: the dog-eating carnival. Now the little children will have to endure the horrors of watching 64 clowns climbing out of a tiny car. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
A Spanish chef has invented dessert-scented perfume, for those who want to smell like chocolate raspberry cheesecake.
President Obama is not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect America from a growing threat to our security, our safety, our very future. That’s right, he’s taking the fight to asthma inhalers. Because a breathing American is one more chance he won’t be re-elected.
“Online dating websites, specifically designed for Christians, are exploding on the Internet.” As opposed to those online dating websites exploding on newsstands. Anyway, I will bet you $11 that most of them launder Mob money or sell meds without prescriptions. For the Lord.
FEMA close to running out of disaster funding, government resources exhausted creating disaster of an economy…film at 11…
Woah! Someone took some strange homemadey footage of director Christopher Nolan shooting a scene from The Dark Knight Rises! (Don’t watch this if you don’t want the entire film ruined for you, because Anne Hathaway goes all Julie Newmar on Christian Bale. Damn! I just ruined it for you!)
After watching that, you know what I realized? I would hate to be the boom operator.
A letter from Frank Sinatra singing the praises of the guy who used to concoct the New York Times crossword puzzle, which Ole Blue Eyes could do in half an hour. Though my favorite letter from the crooner was this one, to Mike Royko:
Man Bursts into Flames While Sitting at Home. And No, He Wasn’t Watching ‘The Playboy Club.’
There’s no reason why only characters in great English novels should spontaneously combust. Now the Irish can make a claim of their own:
A man who burned to death in his home died as a result of spontaneous combustion, an Irish coroner has ruled.
West Galway coroner Dr Ciaran McLoughlin said it was the first time in 25 years of investigating deaths that he had recorded such a verdict.
Michael Faherty, 76, died at his home in Galway on 22 December 2010.
Deaths attributed by some to “spontaneous combustion” occur when a living human body is burned without an apparent external source of ignition.
Typically police or fire investigators find burned corpses but no burned furniture.
An inquest in Galway on Thursday heard how investigators had been baffled as to the cause of Mr Faherty’s death at his home at Clareview Park, Ballybane.
Perhaps the gentleman was engaged in particularly incendiary thoughts, or his pact with the devil was simply past its due-by date. Maybe he’d been snacking on an inordinate number of pistachios, which are famous for their combustible nature.
Or maybe everyone is just making it all up, which is my default position on most controversies.
Tens of Protestors Shut Down Wall Street. Unfortunately for Them, It Was Saturday.
Thi is what the protest would have looked like had it taken place in another country.
So a call for 20,000 protestors to bring an Arab Spring–type protest to the heart of American capitalism issued in about 12 guys plopped on their asses with signs reading “Unfair.”
“When you idealize financial markets as salvific you embrace the idea that profit is all that matters,” [some guy] said.
A few minutes later about 15 people briefly sat down on a sidewalk on Broadway, leaning against a metal barricade that blocked access to Wall Street. For a moment things grew tense as officers converged and a police chief shoved a newspaper photographer from behind.
After a police lieutenant used a megaphone to tell those sitting on the sidewalk that they were subject to arrest the protesters got up and marched south.
Mr. Browne said no permits had been sought for the demonstration but plans for it “were well known publicly.”
Mr. Browne said two people in bandanna masks were taken into custody for trying to enter a building at Broadway and Liberty Street that houses Bank of America offices. A third person fled.
If you have any information about the whereabouts of that third person, please contact hacker Anonymous13, as the runaway has the keys to the van and seems to have bogarted the pretzel M&Ms.
The Year of Eating Dangerously
Rachel Abrams, aka Bad Rachel, has one of those rare posts that is wickedly funny, poignant, and telling about the sometime pleasures of our variably strange pop culture. It starts with a food fight between Anthony Bourdain, host of the unwatchable Animals Legal to Eat Only in the Sixth Century, and some of the more popular personalities found on the Food Network, which actually features food you can prepare without violating the Geneva Accords.
The insufferably self-congratulatory ex-heroin-addict/coke-head chef-manqué TV personality Anthony Bourdain periodically takes time away from his on-camera consumption of cod-sperm crème anglaise and sheep-testicle soufflé—and some molto serioso hangover braggadocio—to heap abuse upon the cast of Food Network characters who show Americans how to cook quickly and dine on a budget. Most recently, he took to the pages of TV Guide (golly, Tony, could you have gotten any more untesticular?) to insult Paula Deen, (among others):
The worst, most dangerous person to America is clearly Paula Deen. She revels in unholy connections with evil corporations and she’s proud of the fact that her food is f—ing bad for you. If I were on at seven at night and loved by millions of people at every age, I would think twice before telling an already obese nation that it’s OK to eat food that is killing us. Plus, her food sucks. Read the rest of this entry »
Barney Frank Tells Rachel Maddow What He Thinks of Her
Or he may just have been expressing another one of his thoughts on the economy.
Brit-tabloid hacking scandal gets scandlierer. Next they’ll be telling us that these papers make stuff up about celebrities.
John MacArthur, scourge of charismatics, modalists, antinomians, paedobaptists, et el., says preachers should stop boozing in the pulpit. That’s what Bible study is for. Although I may have misread this.
Because Grand Central Terminal was not crowded enough. Soon to open there, for the sake of counterbalance, a pawn shop, a branch of the New York State unemployment office, and a pool hall.
Fitch says U.S. debt is still among the best debt in the world. We may not produce much else, at least nothing that hasn’t first passed through the raw, scarred hands of Chinese street urchins chained to assembly lines, begging for air and light and a childhood, but we can still spend money we don’t have. So we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice…
OK, message to Tibetan monks: you have got to stop doing this kind of thing. It just makes China’s job easier, and you come across as fanatics who need suppressing. I’m sure any day the West will come to your aid and enable you to throw off the yoke of communist rule. Just as soon as they pay off all that debt. And start manufacturing their own crap. And stop using cheap labor … OK, now I can see why you’d want to set yourself on fire…
Admit it: millions are dying and you don’t care. Yes, I said you! You selfish, solipsistic, cold, cruel, synonym, intensifier, synonym! Psychology Today said it, I believe it, and that settles it!
In entertainment news: the season premiere of The Office is September 22, in which James Spader takes the helm as psycho boss to Dwight’s just psycho.
Oh, and that show with Maria Bello looks fun. And that Hank Azaria/Kathryn Hahn sitcom could possibly not blow.
And finally, Warren Buffett wants to pay more taxes. My question is: What’s stopping you? You’re from Omaha, right? The irs.gov site says to send your check to California, presumably because California is in such bad shape it will want to skim some off before it gets to Washington. So here’s the address: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Fresno, CA 93888-0102. And God bless you, sir! I’m sure the extra revenue will be used wisely!
Mr. Giuliani: I’m Sure You’ll Find London a Riot
So my second favorite city in the world is on fire. Look, Britishers, get over it: The IT Crowd is doing one more season and THAT IS IT.
They’ll be other wacky comedies to soothe your brittle nerves at the end of a long day doing whatever it is you Europeans do with your time other than nap and whine about having to wait until your second year at university to retire on full pension.
As for the chaos in the streets, you guys need a strong arm to do for your city what it did for my favorite city, New York, a metropolis that once saw more murders per year than there were inhabitants. Rudolph Giuliani is never going to be elected president, so perhaps you can woo him to London town to start throwing large segments of your population into prison, starting probably with Boris Johnson, who bears a striking resemblance to Giuliani’s son Andrew, which will probably make it easier.
Until then, calm the hell down. You’re embarrassing yourselves. You’re supposed to be the placid stiff-upper-lippers. You’re acting like southerners, for goodness’ sake. Even IRAN is appalled. (And who is more appalling than the Iranians?)
Here’s something to appease you for the time being. Great jumping dust bunnies…
Strange Herring for Tuesday, February 15, AD 2011
Apocalypse NY. If New Yorkers can survive the mayor’s plan to bar traffic from stretches of Broadway so tourists can lunch in the middle of the street, they can survive anything.
To make matters worse for the Big Apple, the Germans have invaded Wall Street. Surviving members of the Greatest Generation sell off all existing shares of Amalgamated Lint.
The Italian prime minister has been indicted on sex charges. Italians are taking it in stride, but the firm that makes that color hair dye is panicked.
At least the Italians have worked it out with Tunisia to stem the flow of illegals. I mean, Tunisia cannot support that many Italians at one time…
Americans with a thing for Italian sports cars, however, are in for a treat. For a mere $1.1 million, you too can own a car that hasn’t yet been built that you cannot drive on 99% of American roads.
The cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue was accidentally revealed early. BREAKING: It’s a young woman in a bikini on the beach.
So WikiPeeks has hired Alan Dershowitz, a guy who has made an impassioned argument FOR torture in very specific circumstances, to bail it out of the Justice Department mess. So who will play Dershowitz this time in the inevitable movie? It was Ron Silver in Reversal of Fortune. I’m thinking Saul Rubinek. Assange? Justin Bieber, easy.
Want a job? Forget the cover letter. What can you possibly say there that your resume doesn’t already? Your current parole status should be clearly stated under “EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES.”
My former Beliefnet colleague Lauren Winner talks apostates in the news, but stops just long enough to deliver a left hook to the Protestant mainline, asserting that it would be nice if it actually believed something strongly enough that it could, at least in theory, produce an apostate now and again. But wait a minute: doesn’t failure to recycle count?
More herring as it accumulates.
