Because, if you ask me, Daniel 9:21 sounds downright saucy:
Yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation.
Either that, or we’ve just discovered the first documented case of altar boy abuse. Thanks, random Bible verse generator! [h/t Michelle]
Chuck has a potpourri of good ole fashioned down-home talking points in his most recent column. For safe holiday fun for the whole family, find the word that does not mean what Chuck Norris thinks it means.
How The World Works, “Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown“:
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the poor do see themselves as having a significant amount of choice, and choose not to exercise it in the direction of spending more on food. The typical poor household in Udaipur [in India] could spend up to 30 percent more on food than it actually does, just based on what it spends on alcohol, tobacco, and festivals.
Carrying enough savings to make sure that they never have to cut meals, should not be too hard for these households since, as noted above, they have substantial slack in their budgets and cutting meals is not that common. It would also make it easier for them to deal with healthcare emergencies. As such, saving a bit more would seem like a relatively inexpensive way to reduce stress.
Putting aside the rather unfortunate phrasing — describing people who live in what the World Bank considers conditions of “extreme poverty” as having “substantial slack in their budgets” seems a little odd — there is an undertone in the paper that suggests that if only these poor people could demonstrate a little more “self-control” then they could Horatio Alger themselves out of their dire conditions by sheer force of boot-strapping will.
Don’t we all wish that! Wouldn’t we all be more productive, healthy and wealthy if we eschewed all sin and luxury, squirreled away every spare cent, and dedicated ourselves to unremitting self-improvement? When I look at the survey results compiled by Banerjee and Duflo, I don’t see a lack of self-control or self-discipline, I see people being ordinary humans, with ordinary desires, no matter what their income level. When I read the following passage, I am tempted to rephrase Hemingway’s and Fitzgerald’s famous exchange: “The poor are different than you and me.” “Yes, they have less money.”
Men’s News Daily is the news aggregator and blog that has all the hits!
Carey “Them womens is voting and they’re out of CONTROL!” Roberts:
But that turned out to be a Faustian pact. Because when it comes to women’s issues, it’s the rad-fems who pay the piper and call the tune. Suddenly the Grand Old Party found itself beholden to the dictates and whims of the National Organization for Women.
John “After these messages, we will return to hating Mexicans, already in progress” Lillpop:
Which means that the classic Christmas carol titled “Come, Let Us Adore Him,” has literally been changed to “Come, Let Us Abort Him.”
Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas!
Denise “Not even I know what the hell I’m talking about” Noe (shit, I need to email her still):
Bolivar today is very different in many ways from the town in which BJ Dickerson grew up but the caring and hospitality of its people has remained constant. Hopefully, these characteristics will remain a part of the town of Bolivar as it continues to enjoy the current technological improvements and as it meets the challenges yet to come.
But the superstar of the last few days has been Robert Paul “I saw Spears’ labia and I can’t get it out of my mind” Reyes
Anyone with a modicum of decency would have kept a low profile after exposing her genitals to the entire world.
But the word “decency” is not in Britney’s lexicon. The shameless tramp continues to make the rounds of clubs — drinking and cavorting into the wee hours of the morning.
But like all sites where men go to be angry, eventually they must turn on each other – and that’s when the comment sections become comedy gold!
First, the set-up: what happens when the need to hate on the women conflicts with the need to see some more T&A?
I’m sorry, but the male in me just can’t condem any good looking woman who likes to expose herself..Go Skanks Go!
But, I’m sure glad that I don’t have any daughters that might be looking at these skanks as role models…
she IS a slut – it’s not name calling but ‘truth calling’.
I have to support the idea of Mr. Reyes here. As an old police force maxim said; If it walk like a duck, looks like a duck and quack like a duck, maybe because it’s a duck.
Next, Robert is cornered and begins commenting defensively:
reply to comment 13 by The Ranger:
I am as fed up as you with America’s silly celebrity culture. The reason I write so many essays about bimbos like Mariah Carey and Britney Spears is because bloggers can get away with telling it like it is. MSM columnists aren’t very likely to call Britney and Paris Hilton sluts.
Then, somewhere, a connection is made, a circuit is closed, and a light begins to dimly glow:
RPR, your essays about washed up pop divas are at odds with the rest of your agitprop. Islamic goons likewise fly into a sputtering rage at the sight of a woman not covered to their satisfaction. Your response is different only by degree…
If you are truly opposed to the “exposure” these women get, do the one thing they can’t stand: ignore them.
Which sets us up for the punchline (emphasis mine):
Islamic Goons going into hysterics because a devout Islamic woman has the temerity not to cover her face. I’m criticizing a slut for being a serial vagina flasher. A question of degrees? Sure, about 360 degrees.
There is one thing that celebrity skanks hate more than being ingnored, and that’s to be ridiculed.
Bwaaa-haaaa-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Oh, you can’t make shit like that up.
Get it? Here’s some help.
Ain’t seen much of me lately, have you?
That’s probably because I got myself a Wii.
I’m sure you’ve heard people rave about this thing before, but seriously, it’s the most fun I’ve had since I learned to masturbate.
The addictive games that come with the system, like tennis and bowling, provide hours of entertainment, but a big part of what makes them special is the character you play with, a.k.a. your mii. Which is you. The creation of personal avatars, many of which can be made to look an awful lot like their creators, really enhances the gaming experience.
Of course, you don’t have to make mii = you. You can make a mii of anyone. Daumen, a mad genius and friendly associate of mine, recently discovered the celebrity mii contest, and the winners are charming. While a Zach Braff look-a-like collected first prize, these are the entries I enjoyed the most:
(more…)
Texans QB David Carr on how fans should feel about his 1 TD and 7 INTs over the last 8 games:
“First of all, merry Christmas to everyone,” Carr said. “That’s exactly what we need to be talking about. Don’t let what the Texans are doing, what I’m doing, ruin your Christmas. That’s the message I want to send out.”
I guess Carr was worried all that “war on Christmas” rhetoric was aimed at him.
One of the perks of working at Big Media Co. is free services. Free internet connection, free movies, free cable, free telephone. For someone making jack-shit-you-owe-us-a-dollar wages this is a mighty big benefit, not to mention that it helps with the porn sales:
“I understand that you didn’t mean to order Barnyard Bunnies: Taking Out the Trash eight times while your family was at church last Sunday, but have you ever considered a broadband connection? There is a lot of adult programming on the internet for free. I could have it installed for you within the week?”
I forget how important it is for people to have a solid internet connection, considering I don’t pay a penny for my own. And considering they usually pay upwards of forty dollars a month. And considering that our service hasn’t exactly been up to par lately. Rolling outages have been plaguing the area after the failure of a major piece of equipment several weeks ago. This infuriates users of Vonage and MMORPG enthusiasts.
A couple of weeks ago I got a call from one client, a man who seemed disproportionately angry at what was at that time a temporary issue. While he bitched and moaned and threatened to cut off his service I perused the notes on his account. Not only had he been given two months of credit for two weeks of outages, he had already called the office twelve times that day. Like a good customer service representative, I forwarded him to technical support mid-sentence.
His name is quickly becoming a metaphor for “pain in the ass” around the office. I get you’re pissed that your service isn’t working. Disconnect and move along.
During a slow period today, because I remember douchebags like this guy, I read his account notes again to see what he’d been up to. As usual, he’d been calling more than ten times a day, demanding managers and credit, completely flipping his shit about the internet service. Every time he called he threatened to disconnect and yet neglected to do so. Finally, I saw why.
Buried in his account notes was a small detail I had neglected to see before. Because he had been unable to use the internet at full download speeds, he couldn’t get the amount of gameplay needed to maintain his skill level as a Level 4 Mage in World of Warcraft. And although I am loathe to speculate on others’ lives or rely on the use of stereotype to discern a person’s life experiences, I suddenly realized why he has the time to call us over twenty times in on 24-hour period.
No one asked Time Magazine to crown a “person of the year” every year, so it’s OK if they’ve run out of ideas and just. fucking. stop.
Seriously, where do I print out my certificate of achievment?
So this finals week, I went to the gym a few times to work off some nervous energy. Since I had more than an hour to work with, I finally got a chance to go swimming. Now I love swimming, it is my least loathed form of exercise, but I haven’t done it regularly in like four years so I suck. And I’m all pudgy and my swimsuits didn’t fit. So back in September, when I told myself that this was the year I’d really, really start swimming again, I purchased a swimsuit. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, since my intention was to swim until I was thinner and then buy a flattering expensive swimsuit. But this semester, I just needed something functional to cover my ass as required by the rules of my university pool.
It was the end of summer, so I figured I could get a good clearance deal on a swimsuit. And I did, $20 at Land’s End. The swimsuit came, and it was ugly and a little bit low and tight around the chest but otherwise OK. I was more concerned about the amount of pubic hair and ass coverage, which in this particular swimsuit was adaquate.
It sat in my dresser for a few months, then I finally got a chance to go swimming. I got into the lap pool with 5 rather hairy middle aged guys and began to swim using the front crawl stroke. I swam one and a half laps, then paused because something felt wierd. I looked down and saw…
BOOBS! BOOBS EVERYWHERE! C-cup floation devices had burst free from my swimsuit! Nipples exposed to oxygen!!! Gaaahhhh!!!11!
Thinking it might have been an isolated incident, I as discretely as possible shoved my ta-tas back into my discount swimsuit and swam another lap, when I discovered that it happend again. So again I cram the flesh pillows back into my piece of crap Land’s End ugly ass swimsuit, finish the lap and climb out of the pool looking like someone who can’t even do more than three laps in a row – how embarassing.
The upshot of all this is that I need a decent suit and am now willing to spend some cash. Any suggestions?
I’m off to visit the quasi-in-laws. Back tomorrow when I will hopefully write something worth reading.
I received an email this morn from friend and reader Quin addressing the whole Michael Crichton dust-up. I think it’s fabulous and worth sharing:
I just saw this and just felt the sudden urge to write you from my hotel room in Nagano, Japan, though it be past 3 in the morning and I have to be up in four hours.
As you know, Michael Crichton’s been getting some raised eyebrows in the lefty blogosphere because of his now-non-scientific consensus views about global warming, and for that matter, his non-scientific-consensus views about the validity of scientific consensus. I think there’s a story in there that has so far been missed, which could get some notice right now since he’s on the radar again, and really SHOULD be noticed.
See, Crichton is held up in the press as a writer whose stories are based in some kind of scientific reality, since he was once trained as a medical doctor, knows academia-speak, and likes to pepper his books with the latest new scientific theories that he read about in Omni magazine before any other hack writers get to them. But the fact is that, deep down, he is very anti-science (and I don’t only mean because nearly his entire ouvre has the dangers of science as its core theme). I am not sure why he has taken on the weird views he has about global warming, but the fact is that his opinions on science are not to be trusted at ALL.
The proof is all contained in his autobiographical memoir called “Travels”. Read the second half, which is his account of spiritual awakening. Basically, step by step, he goes completely Shirley MacLaine, while rationalizing it every step of the way with his self-supposedly brilliant scientific powers. What begins with meditation lessons quickly goes to aura reading to past-life regression to (literally, I’m not making it up) his multiple conversations with the spirit of a cactus that was on the grounds of a New Age retreat he went to for a couple of weeks. Yes, he actually heard the cactus speaking in his head. No, it was not meant as a literary device. Literary devices do not get bookended by earnest calls for Westerners to experience the cosmos with open eyes, that there is much science is not able to explain, blah blah blah.
I’m sure it’s an impossible book to find in Japan, or I’d buy it again just to find all the juicy bits for you. I remember it as an entertaining read. I read it as an impressionable teen, and I remember thinking “wow, maybe there’s something to this spiritual stuff after all.” Now I remember it mainly as a reminder that the people who have crazy religious experiences really do experience something subjectively, even if it’s something which could never be objectively measured (mainly because it doesn’t exist).
But the main point is that, at least back in the 1980s, and probably still today judging by his weird behavior, Michael Crichton was completely batshit crazy. Yet millions of people read his dangerous views on global warming, and think, “well, maybe I don’t have to worry about it after all, then.” I mean, State of Fear sold millions and was #1 on the NYT Bestseller List. (As well as winning the American Association of Petrolium Geologists 2006 Journalism Award, despite being a work of fiction.) This is a public figure in serious need of a takedown.
All the lefty blogs do is point out the factual errors in his works, or (now) make fun of him for his immaturity. But all the wingnuts who believe in him as a figure of actual scientific authority might have at least a couple of second thoughts if they found out just how spiritually nutty (in an anti-Jeebus kind of way) he is.
Finals week is wrapping up, the weather is freakishly warm, and in China, the world’s tallest man has saved two dolphins.
BEIJING – The long arms of the world’s tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling plastic material out of their stomachs, state media and an aquarium official said Thursday.
All is well in the world today.
End of the year meme from Lauren:
November:I was flipping through a fashion magazine some months ago as I waited for Walmart to install new tires on my boyfriend’s car (please, I know. I’ve been having more success recently in getting him to spend his money elsewhere. It helps alot that their clothes are for crap.) and there was a whole section in the magazine devoted to stylish clothes you could buy at Walmart.
October: Jess at Bee Policy has a simple 6-question quiz to determine if the government will be just that into you in the near future.
September: Like nuts and gum, NASCAR and reality TV…together at last!
August: Remember when everyone just knew that all the good men were taken by the time you girls were thirty, so you’d better get married before your expiration date hits?
July: So I finally got to try out this Celebrity Face Match thing that is making the rounds, and I am utterly confused.
June: I’m back!
May: The European Union is about to have a new battery recycling law:
April: Domain names are hot, hot, hot again, and yet somehow punkassblog.com was still available for marc to grab before fleeing into the balmy internet night.
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