Get Incensed

Jon Stewart isn’t covering the Paris Hilton story either …

…

But The Daily Show will cover other people covering the story…

…

Bread will be served at noon. Circuses to follow.

Paris Hilton, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show,

Paris Hilton’s latest prison break plan involves clever use of a look-alike imposter …

I cannot believe the amount of breath, ink and bandwidth that has been wasted on covering Paris Hilton. Not just this past week, but ever.

So, I’ve instituted a new policy here at GI: I refuse to post any original content on Paris Hilton because it’s like adding trash to an already full garbage barge.

Let this ship sail already and let’s start trashing someone else.

That doesn’t mean I won’t link to some of the funnier stuff…

From WWTDD:
On Paris Hilton telling Barbara Walters that she’s become more spiritual and would like do work for a multiple sclerosis charity:

People don’t generally stop being spoiled whores overnight, so I’ll believe this transformation when I see it … Paris is a genuine retard, and she has no idea what the hell she’s talking about. I guarantee she gets on stage to lecture about multiple sclerosis and just talks about her vision of a world where people only have one sclerosis.

On Paris’ supporters (as shown in the picture):

If you’re one of the ones defending Paris Hilton, congratulations, because these are your contemporaries. They include that women on the right, who either has an ass in the front or who can turn her head around 180 degrees.

Can we puh-leeze talk about something else now…

Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton, aaaaggghhh

They may not be making a sequel to Borat anytime soon but this video from Lithuania is almost as good. It features Militant Angel vs. Wayward Anaconda in a battle to see who gets to take on Poisonous Lily in the next championship round.

No, these aren’t Marvel comic superheroes, they’re Lithuanian models battling for glory by wrestling each other in honey.

The background techno music is just an added bonus.

This just goes to show America’s declining stature in the world. A small, two-bit country like Lithuania can have a honey-wrestling tournament with a big-name (in Lithuania) announcer and the best American TV execs can come up with is National Bingo Night.

You guys oughta be ashamed of yourselves.

And somewhere … Chuck Barris plots a comeback …

models, Lithuania, honey, Chuck Barris, Gong Show, National Bingo Night, sport, light erotica

Once upon a time, before the whole world became branded and franchised, you might have had a chance to see two musical geniuses come together for a transcendent performance on one of the music video channels that are part of the basic cable package.

Now you have to search around YouTube to see one song from an awesome concert featuring two musical icons.

God DAMN you, MTV. This is what you could’ve been.

If you don’t get chills watching John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison do Gloria, you deserve the Olive Garden that just opened across the street from The Gap in your town.

music, MTV, Olive Garden, The Gap, John Lee Hooker, Van Morrison, Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A

Hyperbole hyperbola: graph of how rhetoric approaches infinity on both sides of an issue as it receive more media attention.

We are living in the Age of Hyperbole. We don’t have problems anymore; we have crises, calamities, disasters and issues that are rapidly approaching a “tipping point.”

And, OMFG, there’s another one on the horizon.

I know because I read about it in Parade Magazine. According to “scientists,” the next global crisis is … (cue ominous music) … obese kids.

Yes, from the same group of people who brought you global warming, er, … global cooling, I mean no, we had it right the first time … global warming, comes the latest catastrophe that threatens the planet: Attack of the Fat Kids.

Wait until scientists find out that, because of their increased body mass, fat kids are actually causing global warming.

There’ll be panic in the streets that day, my friend.

Childhood obesity isn’t some Third World scourge like malaria or AIDS that we can all ignore. Childhood obesity is a G-7 problem, baby. We’re talking industrialized nations and NATO members. This means the concert to rock for fat kids won’t be in Africa.

As any good fund raiser knows, you can’t raise money if all you have is a quandary. Nobody’s going to donate money if your house scientist says, “I believe childhood weight gain is problematical.”

No, no, no. What you need is a scientist who’ll swear on a stack of intelligently-designed bibles that, “The looming disaster of childhood obesity is an imminent hazard to the very existence of life on this planet.”

See the difference? In the second case, you’re practically diving for your checkbook to do your part to avert the looming Armageddon that is facing you, your children and, perhaps most importantly, your children’s children.

Let’s be honest, here. Nobody really cares about their children’s children. By the time your kids have kids the world will be so screwed up it’ll be every man for himself. Get used to it.

I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say that the whole “obese children crisis” could be the perfect junk science storm.

Think about it. The issue combines all the essential elements to make it a charitable goldmine…

First, it involves health and kids. That’s crucial. People love charities that involve kids. People fall all over themselves to get children’s hospital wings named after them. On the other hand, you don’t really see a lot of Ira and Hilda Silverman memorial colostomy bags.

Of course, every good cause needs a villain. In this case, you’ve got two of the biggest and easiest targets to pick on: fast food corporations and insurance companies.

Somebody get Michael Moore on the phone … NOW!

I can hardly wait until next year’s Oscars when Hollywood celebrities fall all over themselves talking about how courageous directors made films that boldly addressed the topic of childhood obesity. There’s a Gilbert Grape sequel coming, I just know it.

In the end, if everything’s a crisis … then nothing is.

Then we’re back to just having problems. And we can solve problems.

Global warming? Childhood obesity? Turn up your air conditioner and have a fruit salad.

Crises solved.

childhood obesity, global warming, climate change, Gilbert Grape, rock concert, Africa, science, hyperbole, hyperbola

Do that voodoo that you do

A famous politician once said, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”

I was reminded of that quote as I pondered a news story about a recent study on the effectiveness of prayer.

A study of more than 1800 heart patients recovering from cardiac surgery showed that prayers had no beneficial effect on patients’ recovery. In fact, people who knew they were being prayed for had more complications than those who didn’t get prayed for at all.

The real comedy in the article comes from the contortions various holy types went through trying to “interpret” the results of the study.

“I am always a little leery about intercessory prayer,” said the Mayo Clinic’s Chaplain Marek, “What we have in mind for someone else may not be what they have in mind for themselves …”

I can’t count the number of times that people have asked me if, after going through the pain, trauma and expense of cardiac bypass surgery, I’d want to have complications afterward.

Oh, wait a minute . . . yes, I can. It was zero.

There are two startling elements to this story. First, that the study cost $2.5 million to do and, second, that anyone is surprised at the results.

If praying for something worked, there’d be a lot more lottery winners walking around and I would have been dating the Playmate of the Year in high school.

prayer, cardiac surgery, Mayo Clinic, Playmate of the Year

“I love all the freebies at these upscale hotels . . . “

I think it’s about time that hotels stopped dangling the complimentary Continental breakfast as some sort of major incentive for choosing to stay there.

Let me get this straight … I’m paying $225 a night and $13 per X-rated video (pushing the cost of a one-night stay to well over $350) and you’re going to spring for a 85 cents worth of coffee and lemon danish? What are you the United Way or something? Does your philanthropy know no bounds?

As long as you’re going to trumpet your free Continental breakfast as a major perk, why stop there? How about advertising the free dental hygiene package available at the front desk - you know, the 10 cent toothbrush and the tube of toothpaste you have to be careful not to confuse with a chapstick? It’s kind of like universal dental care.

I can usually get a free comb and a disposable razor at the reception desk, too. This is pretty much the same as providing a free makeover for all your guests.

If you want to know the truth, I would trade all those enticing free gifts for an extra two inches of plaster on the walls between the rooms so I can’t hear the play-by-play from the guy in the next room as he tells his new bride all the things he’s going to do to her that night.

Wait, what … they’re part of the AARP group?

Eeeeewww.

hotels, continental breakfast, United Way, toothpaste, chapstick,

Feel the burn . . .

There are many fine institutions of higher learning in this country that allow you to major in Hotel Management. The basic requirements of these programs include courses like Food & Wine Pairing, Revenue Management and the all-important How to Make Outrageous Claims with a Straight Face.

There is no other business that tries as hard to convince you that you’re getting some kind of great deal by throwing in chintzy perks as the hospitality industry.

Even carnival folk don’t try to tell you that the stuffed animals are made of cashmere.

Yet hotels continually trumpet the most mundane items as “extra features” and “luxurious options” for your “added convenience.”

When I travel, I like to try to maintain the discipline of doing some kind of workout. This means I always check to see if a hotel has a Fitness Center. It is rare to find a hotel these days that doesn’t claim to have a fitness center, but I’ve learned to keep my expectations extremely low as to exactly what that description encompasses.

Most hotels should be brought up on charges for what they try to pass off as a “fitness center.”

I can only surmise that the typical hotel management training devotes less than half of one class to Developing and Managing Your Fitness Center.

Here’s the basic instruction on how to make your own hotel fitness center:
-Find an unused closet, preferably in the basement or in a remote part of the hotel
-Install mirrors and a big industrial fan
-Prior to opening, spend a weekend visiting garage sales and purchase a stationary bike from 1968 that has no resistance settings and as many mismatched hand weights (not to exceed 12.5 pounds each) as you can find
-Have your son or daughter make a sign in fourth grade art class that says “Fitness Center”
-Congratulations, Trump Junior, hang up your sign and you’re ready to start featuring the Fitness Center in all your brochures and online advertising.

I don’t want to imply that all the equipment in hotel fitness centers is outdated, but the “gym” in the hotel I stayed at this weekend had stone weights labeled with Roman numerals.

The hotel was in downtown Baltimore and billed the surrounding sidewalks as an “all-weather, state-of-the-art running track.”

The biggest shock, though, came when I went to check out. At one point, the maid had walked into the room when I was doing sit-ups.

My final bill included an extra charge for a personal training session.

hotel management, fitness center, spa, Baltimore, running track, exercise equipment

Get down on it

John Edwards is concerned about price gouging. Surprisingly, not on haircuts, but on gasoline.

Edwards joins a host of dingbat politicians, including Barbara Boxer (D-nitwit-CA) and Charles Schumer (D-windbag-NY), who want to enact Federal legislation to prohibit price gouging on gasoline.

Senator Boxer is aghast that gas prices in California are at record levels. So are tickets to see Don Henley, but nobody’s pressing Federal legislation to force the Eagles to get back together.

I understand that this seems to be a no-brainer for politicians. They get to make a name for themselves as crusaders against big, rich, oil companies and corporate fat cats while at the same time showing their solidarity with the average Joe who’s spending extra money at his local Mobil station.

There are a couple of problems, however. First off, if you’re concerned about the high price of gas, you should be apoplectic about the price of everything else because it turns out that gas prices are at the low end of the range of almost everything we buy. (see chart)

Oh, and for those of you keeping score at home … the Congressional pay level rose about 125% for the same period as the graph. The big difference is that you can go further on a gallon of gas than you did in 1980 whereas your average political bribe doesn’t go nearly as far as it did in the mid-80s. Your mileage may vary.

More importantly, the whole concept of ‘price gouging’ is ludicrous. Prices paid at the pump reflect the value that we as individuals are putting on gas. We are not ‘forced’ to pay higher prices; we do so voluntarily in lieu of other choices such as riding the bus, biking or carpooling.

This is in direct contrast to the ‘force’ exerted on oil companies by the government when they are prohibited from drilling in new areas in which they are willing to risk investment.

Gas station owners should have the same rights as any other business owners - to charge as high a price as people are willing to pay. There’s no such thing as a ‘right’ to cheap gas.

global warming, climate change, gas prices, John Edwards, Barabara Boxer, Charles Schumer,