From Cracked.

With the threat of global warming looming, it’s more important than ever that all of us appear to care about the environment.

Maybe no one works harder on this than celebrities, who make it a point to show up in the papers every now and then with their latest eco-friendly gesture. We would applaud them for this, if it wasn’t for the fact that the gestures are often mind-blowingly retarded.

Read on.

Dave Barry: 

The Democratic party has gathered in Denver for what will be without question one of the most exciting political conventions in decades.

Granted, this is like saying that Moe was without question one of the smartest Stooges. The political conventions have been pointless and boring for years, culminating in 2004, when MSNBC, during its prime-time coverage of the Republican convention, broadcast 38 straight minutes of Chris Matthews snoring and drooling into his lap. (This got by far the highest ratings.)

But this year will be different. This year there is high drama in the Mile High City as the Democrats gather under their official 2008 convention slogan: “A Unified Party, United in Unity Together As One, Undivided.”

Already there has been sporadic gunfire between the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton delegates. Political observers see this as indication that there is still some underlying tension between the two sides. Yes, Clinton has been making speeches urging her supporters to work for Obama; but at the same time she has also been using what one Obama advisor described as “a lot of air quotes.”

It’s hard to blame Sen. Clinton for being bitter. Here she is, the smartest human ever, PLUS she spent all those years standing loyally behind Bill Clinton wearing uncomfortable pantyhose (I mean Hillary was, not Bill) (although there are rumors), PLUS she went to the trouble and expense of acquiring a legal residence in New York State so she could be a senator from there, PLUS she assembled a team of nuclear-physicist-grade genius political advisors, PLUS she spent years going around to every dirtbag community in America explaining in detail her 23-point policy solutions for every single problem facing the nation including soybean blight. And after all that, she loses the nomination to a guy who has roughly the same amount of executive governmental experience as Hannah Montana. Hillary is like: “Are you KIDDING me?”

The antidote to hubris is ridicule. John McCain has made my day.

He’s in a funny, but foul mood.

“There is only one number that matters in politics. And you may think that that’s the number of votes, but that’s not the number. The number that matters in politics is the lowest common denominator. It is the avowed purpose of politics to bring the policies of our nation down to a level where they are good for everyone.

No matter how foolish, irresponsible, selfish, grasping, or vile everyone may be, politics seeks fairness for them all. I do not. I am here to speak in favor of unfairness. I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says that, I say, “Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.”

P.J. O’Rourke writes the commencement speech no one will deliver.

1. Go out and make a bunch of money!

Here we are living in the world’s most prosperous country, surrounded by all the comforts, conveniences and security that money can provide. Yet no American political, intellectual or cultural leader ever says to young people, “Go out and make a bunch of money.” Instead, they tell you that money can’t buy happiness. Maybe, but money can rent it.

There’s nothing the matter with honest moneymaking. Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino’s box. In a free society, with the rule of law and property rights, no one loses when someone else gets rich.

2. Don’t be an idealist!

Don’t chain yourself to a redwood tree. Instead, be a corporate lawyer and make $500,000 a year. No matter how much you cheat the IRS, you’ll still end up paying $100,000 in property, sales and excise taxes. That’s $100,000 to schools, sewers, roads, firefighters and police. You’ll be doing good for society. Does chaining yourself to a redwood tree do society $100,000 worth of good?

Idealists are also bullies. The idealist says, “I care more about the redwood trees than you do. I care so much I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It broke up my marriage. And because I care more than you do, I’m a better person. And because I’m the better person, I have the right to boss you around.”

Get a pair of bolt cutters and liberate that tree.

Who does more for the redwoods and society anyway — the guy chained to a tree or the guy who founds the “Green Travel Redwood Tree-Hug Tour Company” and makes a million by turning redwoods into a tourist destination, a valuable resource that people will pay just to go look at?

So make your contribution by getting rich. Don’t be an idealist.

3. Get politically uninvolved!

All politics stink. Even democracy stinks. Imagine if our clothes were selected by the majority of shoppers, which would be teenage girls. I’d be standing here with my bellybutton exposed. Imagine deciding the dinner menu by family secret ballot. I’ve got three kids and three dogs in my family. We’d be eating Froot Loops and rotten meat.

But let me make a distinction between politics and politicians. Some people are under the misapprehension that all politicians stink. Impeach George W. Bush, and everything will be fine. Nab Ted Kennedy on a DUI, and the nation’s problems will be solved.

But the problem isn’t politicians — it’s politics. Politics won’t allow for the truth. And we can’t blame the politicians for that. Imagine what even a little truth would sound like on today’s campaign trail:

“No, I can’t fix public education. The problem isn’t the teachers unions or a lack of funding for salaries, vouchers or more computer equipment The problem is your kids!”

4. Forget about fairness!

We all get confused about the contradictory messages that life and politics send.

Life sends the message, “I’d better not be poor. I’d better get rich. I’d better make more money than other people.” Meanwhile, politics sends us the message, “Some people make more money than others. Some are rich while others are poor. We’d better close that ‘income disparity gap.’ It’s not fair!”

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I’ve got a 10-year-old at home. She’s always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says this, I say, “Honey, you’re cute. That’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That’s not fair. You were born in America. That’s not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.” What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

5. Be a religious extremist!

So, avoid politics if you can. But if you absolutely cannot resist, read the Bible for political advice — even if you’re a Buddhist, atheist or whatever. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those people who believes that God is involved in politics. On the contrary. Observe politics in this country. Observe politics around the world. Observe politics through history. Does it look like God’s involved?

The Bible is very clear about one thing: Using politics to create fairness is a sin. Observe the Tenth Commandment. The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: Thou shalt not make graven images, steal, kill, et cetera. Fair enough. But then there’s the tenth: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

Here are God’s basic rules about how we should live, a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. And, right at the end of it we read, “Don’t envy your buddy because he has an ox or a donkey.” Why did that make the top 10? Why would God, with just 10 things to tell Moses, include jealousy about livestock?

Well, think about how important this commandment is to a community, to a nation, to a democracy. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don’t whine about what the people across the street have. Get rich and get your own.

Now, one last thing:

6. Don’t listen to your elders!

After all, if the old person standing up here actually knew anything worth telling, he’d be charging you for it.

From Shrinkwrapped:

There was a wonderful science fiction story written many years ago by Murray Leinster called “First Contact”  which concerned the first contact between an alien race and human beings.  The contact occurred far off in space; our space ship contained diplomats and military men.  Both races took great pains to conceal the location of their home worlds and made contact with a fair amount of anxiety and paranoia about the intentions of the other.  The story ended with one of the characters, an enlisted man if my memory serves, expressing confidence that our two races would find a way to co-exist in peace.  His reasoning?  All the while the senior diplomats and military were parlaying, he had spent the time with a junior soldier of similar rank telling jokes to each other.  The idea that the aliens had the same sense of humor as the earthlings was enough for him.

In a similar vein, one of the places that computers routinely fail the Turing Test is to fail to “get” humor.  Try to joke with a computer program and you will find the “intelligence” you are involved with to be quite alien indeed.

Humor is one of our most effective and most sophisticated defenses.  It can defuse the ability of anxiety, depression, anger, and a myriad of other uncomfortable emotions to control us.  It is considered one of the most mature defenses.  As might be apparent, humor does not resolve dysphoric affects but robs them of much of their power and intensity just as it allows an attenuated expression of the affect.

Ideologues typically are humorless.  What humor does get expressed by them is usually bitter and angry and directed at their enemies.  This is one reason ridicule is an effective weapon against such people.  They take themselves and their ideologies extraordinarily seriously and cannot tolerate ridicule.  One recent example occurred when the outtakes of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ’s last videotape were placed on the web.  His ineptness with a rifle inspired laughter rather than fear; his death was assured at that point.

In today’s Huffington Post, Erica Jong, a writer who made her reputation writing humorous novels, shows the damage that ideology can do when it destroys one’s  sense of humor.  She is angry that male reporters routinely comment on Hillary Clinton’s appearance:

Read on.

“Strange, but true, thanks to a bunch of 8th grade boys, intentional farting has been banned from CRMS,” the newsletter said. “It started out as a funny joke and eventually turned into a game. This is the first rule at CRMS that prevents the use of natural bodily functions. The penalty for intentional farting is a detention, so keep it to yourself!”

According to a group of seventh-grade students milling around downtown following Friday’s storm-related early release, the eighth-graders’ escapades are well known in the school.

“They would do it in science class and other places,” said Jordan Tyler. “It’s a natural occurrence and we all do it 16 times a day.”

Via Instapundit

From a 1955 Good Housekeeping article on how to be a good wife:

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.
• Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc and then run a dustcloth over the tables.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will give you immense personal satisfaction.

Blogger Life of a Wife has updated it.

• Plan dinner for yourself and family. Even if the food has a “Mc” in front or a “King” behind, it still counts as a dinner you planned. Making reservations is also considered planning as is asking your husband to pick something up on the way home from work.
• Take a nap if possible, after all, you deserve it. Feeding, cleaning, dressing and running after children all day is hard work. Plus, if you are rested, you are less likely to take off to Vegas like you’ve threatened to do on more than one stressful occasion. Also to make yourself “fresh-looking”, have the hubby watch the kids for you so you can take a nice relaxing bath and maybe have time to shave. He’ll love that.
• Do whatever makes you happy. If you enjoy dancing around the house in your underwear then do it. And do it for yourself not for your spouse because being “gay” for his benefit is just plain gay.
• As long as there is nothing living or breathing in the inch high dust that covers the TV, cabinets or shelves, it can wait. And if your washer, dryer or dishwasher are running when your husband comes home, well it’s a sign that you’ve obviously been busy that day.
• Building a fire is fun if you have a fireplace. And if you do, try not to “accidentally” knock your husband into it when he picks a fight even though that might bring you “immense personal satisfaction.”
• Children get dirty. If there is even a spec of mud in the backyard, they will find it. As long as their hands are clean before they eat and as long as they aren’t smearing dirt on your new carpet or couch then they’re clean enough for the time being. If their loud voices drive you crazy, send them outside where they can drive the neighbors crazy. And to fix any hair issues, make them wear a hat. Also, if they want to jump all over their father the minute he walks in the door, let them. After all, they’ve most likely been jumping all over you all day.

This is more humor that Photoshop tutorial, perhaps an “humoratorial?”

Hilarious:

As many of you know, I am a longtime resident of Lakewood Mobile Home Court, a gated community on the outskirts of Coralville. When I first moved to Lakewood in 2000, I was attracted by its affordable rental rates and many amenities, such as ample streetside parking, easy access to I-80, and a quiet, low-surveillance wooded area in which to store my automobiles and train my beloved sport dogs. At the time it seemed an ideal neighborhood in which to raise the various children the Iowa courts have assigned me financial support. Here was a place they could run and play carefree, while I relaxed with a drink and conversation with friendly new neighbors like Kyle and Chuck.

After several years of living in the community, however, I began to notice a change. Trash and beer cans and dog waste mysteriously began to pile up. Formerly friendly neighbors became suspicious and wary, and I was saddened to realize they were locking their trailers while away at work. Worse yet, crime skyrocketed, in large part due to the gangs of unsupervised juveniles that roamed the streets and woods. As a concerned parent, with several children facing Iowa’s draconian “three strikes” sentencing guidelines, I realized that I needed to get them out of this environment but I didn’t know how. Like millions of Americans I dreamed of home ownership, but it remained elusive. Early Sunday mornings I would drive slowly through Majestic Oakewoods, the new luxury housing development on the other side of the woods, with my headlights off, wistfully thinking: “someday… someday.”

Then one afternoon while parked outside QuikTrip, Kyle, Chuck and I heard an advertisement on Q-103 for no-money-down, interest-only discount home loans at First Coralville Mortgage. Best yet, the ad promised a free First Coralville Igloo mini-kooler for all applicants regardless of approval! I decided to call for an appointment on the QT pay phone, before Ramesh chased us out.

The whole home buying process can be confusing and intimidating, especially for first time buyers. Luckily, First Coralville mortgage broker Linda Mustaine was there to help guide me through all the steps. Linda explained that the first step to home ownership was getting pre-qualified for a loan. I was surprised to learn that my lack of a full-time “paying job” was no barrier, thanks to FCM’s exciting RapidNow Subprime HomeCash program. Linda explained that I could count as income the Worker’s Comp settlement I was receiving from the fryer accident, as well as the anticipated flood of tipjar income from a totally awesome blog post idea I’ve been thinking about. Using a sophisticated financial computer math program, she demonstrated how I could minimize my payments by selecting the 200-year interest-only ARM.  The only formality was the credit check, and my TransUnion score was more than adequate after adding in the scores of my cosigners Kyle and Chuck.

These have been kicking around a couple of weeks, but if you haven’t seen them, they’re a hoot. My favorite line: “I should know because I’m black.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OFOy29nNIo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj9bjRixkVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhEPNOusKv4

Bloggasm (via Instapundit):

1. You’re like an exothermic reaction, you spread your hotness everywhere!

2. I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves.

3. You’re like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life!

4. If I was an enzyme, I’d be helicase so I could unzip your genes.

5. I’m attracted to you so strongly, scientists will have to develop a fifth fundamental force.

6. Baby, you overclock my processor.

7. Be my queen and mate me with your knight moves.

8. Baby, you make my floppy disk turn into a hard drive

9. You make me want to calibrate my joystick without the latest drivers.

10.You defragment my life.

A man has been severely injured after attempting to loosen a stiff wheel-nut on his car by blasting it with a shotgun.

Scrappleface:

With the success of last week’s simulated news conference on the California wildfires by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), mid-level bureaucrats at the disaster-relief agency have reportedly initiated plans to stage “natural” disasters as well.

The imitation news briefing, which featured FEMA employees pretending to be genuine journalists, was “just a test run for the more ambitious pilot program of engineered catastrophes designed to help even out the work flow during the year,” according to one unnamed source inside the agency.

“Due to the unreliable nature of floods, wildfires, tornadoes and blizzards,” the source said, “FEMA employees have a lot of down time, during which there’s little else to do but post notes about their boredom on Facebook or Twitter, and of course, to manufacture realistic-looking PR events. When we start creating these centrally-planned natural tragedies on a quarterly basis, it will help to keep their minds engaged, and ultimately, will result in a more experienced crew to deal with the aftermath of unpredictable freelance disasters.”

A great sendup of the pompous ads that Apple turns out.

In The Know: Are Our Children Learning Enough About Whales?

HT:/ Maggie’s Farm

To commemorate the death of Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman, Iowahawk has reprised his script from one of his rejected film projects. Here’s an excerpt from his excerpt:

OPENING MONTAGE
Slow motion shots of the General Sundqvist ‘69 Volvo jumping over broken bridges and misty fjords

THEME (By the Kronos Quartet with vocals by ABBA)
Just the good ol’ boys
Filled with guilt and ennui
They’re bored, racked with discord
Just hangin’ by the fjord
Scarred emotionally

Masking their pain
The only way they know how
Just a bit more existentialist
Than their souls will allow

Just them good ol’ boys
Wouldn’t change if they could
Psychically crippled
Like two planks of Danish teak wood

Yee. Ha.

SCENE 1
Interior shot of a backwoods cabin in rural Georgia. The room is tastefully decorated with Bruno Mathsson lounge chairs, Eero Saarinen side tables, a rebel flag and moonshine still. An old bearded man lies on a vintage midcentury Alvar Aalto death bed.

NARRATOR (Gunnar Biörnstrand)
Just plumb about everybody in Hazzard County has a story to tell ’bout them Duke boys and their existential auto-didactism. This one starts back at the farm, where Bo ‘n’ Luke are about to find out that Uncle Jesse has a little surprise in store for ‘em…

UNCLE JESSE (Max Von Sydow)
Bo, Luke. Come to my side, nephews.

(Cousins Bo and Luke, scions of Uncle Jesse’s crumbling moonshine dynasty, enter.)

LUKE (Börje Ahlstedt)
What is it you want, Uncle?

(Bo and Luke exchange long, blank glance; a Hans Wegner clock ticks on a far wall)

THIS plucky pensioner led police on a low-speed chase around Middlesbrough - and then gave officers the slip.

The lukewarm pursuit started after he caused traffic chaos by crawling down the fast lane of a busy dual carriageway.

Police asked the stubborn senior citizen to pull over. But he defiantly cranked his battery-powered mobility scooter up to its top speed - 8mph - and somehow managed to escape their attention.

Engineer, Ian Hardy, from Darlington said he couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched the chase unfold on the A1032 Newport Bridge Approach Road on Monday afternoon.

“It was just incredible,” said Ian, of Darlington, who captured the action on camera. “It was so bizarre. He came along in the outside lane with a queue of traffic behind him and a panda car to his left.

“Most motorists were having a bit of a laugh. It was so strange. You don’t expect something like that on a busy road. It was like a bit of a circus.

Pack carefully, young man:

A young Thai man lost his penis to his knife-wielding wife and then forgot to bring his severed member with him to hospital, fatefully delaying a reattachment operation, news reports said on Monday.

Sornlam Yotbanya (24) had a heated argument with his wife, Rungnapha Pongalee (32), on Sunday night about his mistress. He went to bed and was rudely awoken hours later when his wife sliced off his member, reported ITV.

In Sornlam’s haste to get to Bangramrung hospital in Chonburi, 60km south-east of Bangkok, he left his penis behind in his bedroom. Bangramrung hospital dispatched a nurse to retrieve the severed member for a reattachment operation.

Although the nurse packed the penis in ice, too many of the cells had died by the time it was delivered to hospital, killing all hopes of a revival. Thai hospitals, especially Bangkok’s Police hospital, have achieved some fame for their high success rate with penis reattachment operations, providing they are carried out swiftly with all the parts in place.

High success rate? How many severed schwanzes are there in Thailand? Should the State Department issue a travel warning?

The Onion:

In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office.

“Many bad things are not just bad—they’re terrible,” said a beaming Edwards, whose “Only the Good Things” proposal builds upon previous efforts to end poverty, outlaw startlingly loud noises, and offer tax breaks to those who smile frequently. “Other candidates have plans that would reduce some of the bad things, but I want all of them gone completely.”

According to Edwards, his plan is composed of three steps. Everyday bad things, such as curse words and splinters, would be eradicated during his first six months in office. Next, very bad things, including child abduction, soil erosion, and resurgent diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, would be ended by the the end of 2009. Finally, extremely bad things—plights such as genocide, species extinction, and virtually every form of cancer—would take a full two years to wipe out.

Fake News from The Nose on Your Face:

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank announced yesterday that he was so inspired by the story and photos of two American brothers gored during the Running of The Bulls in Pamplona, Spain yesterday that he plans to participate next year.

“I thought this whole event was simply a testosterone-laden macho spectacle,” said Frank, “but clearly, there’s…uh…more going on here.  Something deeper, more penetrating.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I believe by experiencing the event first hand, I’ll be better able to articulate it.”

A spokesman for a leading bull rights group was less enthused about the American politician’s decision.

You need to see the photo to get the joke.

Iowahawk’s running his Hoosegow Honey of the year contest. Please, base your vote entirely on how much you dig the chick’s booking photo.

A 16-year-old Berlin student was so worried he would have to repeat a year at school because of poor marks he convinced two friends to storm his class and steal the report cards with his bad grades.

The student probably honestly believed that he could avoid repeating the school year if he made the report cards disappear,” a spokesman for local police said.

The youth sat quietly at the back of the classroom as the two masked robbers, aged 14 and 15, burst in and threatened his teacher with a steel bar if she did not hand over the reports.