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New evidence was discovered in the case of the Russian dissident who was radioactively poisoned in a London sushi restaurant. Police uncovered the man’s Zagat survey form where he complained about the restaurant’s “lack of ambiance” and warned diners to “stay away from the Polonium-210 Roll.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin maintained that there is no evidence that Alexander Litvinenko died a “violent death.” He repeated his call for all Russians to get an annual radioactive flu shot and not to disagree with him in order to prevent further deaths.

Fingertips, Pt. 2

A Federal judge ruled recently that the government discriminates against blind people by printing money that all feels the same and ordered the U.S. Treasury to design bills that could be distinguished by feel.

Next week the judge is expected to rule on the landmark Stevie Wonder v. Playboy case.

Headline: Snake king Ali Khan dies from cobra bite.

Follow up story: Internet death pool announces lowest ever payout

humor

Play ball!

I have a new favorite baseball team.

Every few years, I switch team allegiances. Ex-girlfriends and Boston Red Sox fans will suggest this is symptomatic of my inability to sustain a long-term relationship. I will admit that it is not the behavior of your average baseball fan.

Typical baseball fans are loyal supporters of the team they grew up watching.

My perspective is a bit different. Our family moved on an average of every three years when I was growing up. This means that my “hometown” team rooting interest has been, at various times in my life, the Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cleveland Indians, the Baltimore Orioles, the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants and the English national cricket team.

Personally, I think it is harder than ever to maintain loyalty to a particular team. Players come and go like Lindsay Lohan at rehab. Upon occasion, entire teams pick up and move from one town to another.

If a team doesn’t move, chances are it will, at the very least, move to build a new stadium. One of the great things about old baseball stadiums was their quirky and original character. New baseball stadiums have all the charm of a promotional paperweight – all modern glass and ceramics with a corporate logo plastered on the side.

So, I drift from team to team, sometimes following a favorite player or a favorite manager but, more often falling into rooting for a team that someone that I hang out with really cares about.

This year is different, though. This year, one team has separated itself from the pack by a bold and innovative move . . . the kind of move that raises a team to legendary status; a move that is squarely directed toward the average fan. This year the Los Angeles Dodgers are my new favorite team, not because they made a bold free agency move, but because they appealed to both my sense of value and my anti-authoritarian streak.

You see, this year the Los Angeles Dodgers have set aside a whole section in right field where the price of the ticket also includes an all-you-can-eat option. It’s clearly a return to the traditional American values of baseball, apple pie and the second deadly sin of gluttony.

And, in an age where salad-eating, hybrid-driving doomsayers are urging everyone to live more simply, the Dodgers are encouraging fans to revel in the great American tradition of stuffing your face with food while watching other people exercise.

We’re not talking macrobiotic sushi and bean sprouts here, either. The right field section features solid, rib-sticking, heart-stopping, insurance-premium-raising food like hot dogs, soda and nachos.

It’s enough to make you stand up and sing America, the Beautiful - except that it’s not polite to sing with your mouth full.

If the Dodgers take it one step further and staff the entire section with blonde concession vendors in skimpy outfits, I swear I’ll remain a loyal fan for life.

Or at least until some other team comes up with a better promotion … like Lap Dance Day.

Up for grabs … my team loyalty, that is ….

baseball, apple pie, lap dance, gluttony,

New York City bong hits …

Talk about a buzz-kill …

A government-commissioned report in London has concluded that “a single joint of cannabis raises the risk of schizophrenia by more than 40 per cent.”

I’m pretty sure I read someplace the risk of schizophrenia is raised by 130% every time there’s a government-commissioned report.

Especially if you read that stuff while you’re high. It’ll freak you out every time … Dude, it’s like they’re talking directly to you.

I’ll have more to say on this topic as soon as the giant spiders with Larry King’s head stop attacking …

Okay, now where was I?

I saw Sicko so I know that the medical establishment in England is the finest in the world, but the claim that one joint increases your risk of schizophrenia by more than 40% just doesn’t make sense.

I’m pretty sure the percentage of people who’ve had a joint over the past 30 years has gone up by about seventy hundred percent. At the same time, I don’t remember any stories about the amazing rise of schizophrenia over the same time period.

Call me crazy, but I think somebody would have noticed that.

The other problem I have with all these studies is that you can get a doctor to swear to anything these days. With a couple of quick calls and a wire transfer you can find a doctor to swear that you can have six-pack abs in just eight minutes a day or that you can take a pill and add up to four inches to your manhood.

This kind of “research” is just ridiculous. Everybody knows the only way to get a rock-hard midsection is to use one of those electronic ab stimulators.

Coincidently, that’s also a great way to add up to four inches to your manhood. I know it’s true because I read about it in the Letters section of a leading scientific journal.

All I’m saying is we need to do more research on the whole marijuana-schizophrenia link.

I’ll get on that right after I finish these Doritos….

marijuana, pot, herb, ganja, cheeba, giggle weed, grass, cannabis, schizophrenia, British doctors, Sicko, Doritos

Ed. note - Check out some other great humor blogs at … Humor-Blogs.com

As someone new to having a dog around the house on a regular basis (there was nothing I could do, it came with the girlfriend), I got a kick out of this cartoon ….

dogs, Middle East, girlfriend

It’s bad news when your company and the punchline to an old gay joke have something in common….

God is smiling on humor writers this week. She does that every once in awhile.

For the second day in a row, you haven’t had to look any further than a news story headline to find humor in the day’s events.

Today’s headline from Reuters News:
FDA Says Food Recall is Urgent Threat

I thought that was the whole point of a recall … to get a dangerous product off the shelves as soon as possible. If there is long-term danger in some meat products it’s not a recall, it’s the value menu at McDonalds.

This particular recall was triggered by botulism found in cans of Castleberry’s Hot Dog Chili.

The other beef (haha! the jokes practically write themselves) I have with the recall is that it is getting in the way of evolution. Since we no longer have to stalk our food or survive on our wits in the jungle unless we’ve been chosen for a reality show, the only real Darwinism that still operates in our society is when stupid people get weeded out of the gene pool.

If you’re stupid enough to buy an off-brand can of chili made with hot dogs, I think the government is doing society a disservice by inserting themselves into the normal process by which a species thins out the slower, weaker members.

It’s hot dog chili. What did you think was going to happen? That you were going to lose 15 pounds and gain muscle mass? I’m pretty sure that hot dog chili even comes with a warning label clearly printed on the can: Warning: This is hot dog chili. WTF are you thinking?!

The Reuters article notes:

The recall by Castleberry’s originally affected 10 products. The expanded move involves more than 80 types of stew, chili, hash and other products as well as pet food sold under a variety of brand names.

Couldn’t they just have quarantined one assembly line?

I’m not saying that the stew, chili, hash and dog food all come from the same pipeline and are just put into different cans but … um, yeah, that pretty much is what I’m saying.

As detailed in the story, “botulism is a potentially fatal illness. Symptoms include dizziness, double vision, difficulty in breathing and abdominal problems.” Botulism can be difficult to diagnose as these are the same symptoms you’re liable to get when your girlfriend tells you about her surprise pregnancy. Or from eating a normal can of chili.

It turns out the best advice came from Cicero almost 20 centuries ago: caveat emptor. I’m pretty sure that’s Latin and it means either “become a vegetarian” or “only eat candy.”

botulism, Castleberry, hot dog chili, warning labels, FDA, pregnancy, candy

Ed. note: For some great tips and recipes of how to live without meat (which doesn’t sound nearly as zany as it did before the FDA recall :D), check out Sally Anderson’s blog, Living Without Meat.

… Inspectors Fail to Find Any Radiation.

United Nations, U.N., UN inspections

There are some days when it doesn’t feel all that great to be a professional smart-ass.

The above photo of a bare-footed child is from a remarkable collection taken by photographer Julian Li.

This image pretty much trumped anything else I thought about putting up here today.

If the world is to survive, it will be through education and a philosophy that espouses the sanctity of individual rights.

I’ll be back tomorrow. I just need a little time off….

Cambodia, children, individual rights

A River Runs Around It…

Michael Moore was pulled from a shallow section of the St. Croix River yesterday after his inner tube deflated, stranding him in shallow water on his back. Dozens of rescue workers spent over …

Oh, wait …. that was another 500-pound clown wearing a baseball cap.

The real story is almost as ridiculous as this guy was stranded and had to be portaged by a bunch of rescue workers until they had enough water to float him down river to an ambulance that was waiting to take him to the nearest Denny’s.

The whole chain of events started because a quarter-ton dude decided to go tubing in two inches of water. A helicopter was called in but was of no use because “the aircraft that found him said they could not lift that amount of weight.”

Because of the cost of the helicopter, the aluminum boat, the ambulance, over 25 people and tipping the Denny’s waitress 20% on a $438 check, Kaiser Permanente has announced that it is raising rates for all two million of its policyholders by $3600 a year.

We really need to address the health care crisis in this country….

Michael Moore, Sicko, 500-lb man, tubing, health care, insurance, Kaiser Permanente, St. Croix River, Denny’s

“Stupid pagans…”

It’s about time we realized that cartoons and religion don’t mix. First, it was the Muslims getting their turbans in a twist about the way Muhammad was portrayed in a Danish cartoon.

Now, British pagans are upset over a chalk figure of Homer Simpson that has been drawn next to the famed (really?) Cerne Abbas chalk giant in Dorset, England. The Cerne Abbas is a giant fertility symbol has been a tourist attraction and site of pagan worship since before the 1700s.

The pagans, like the Muslims, are threatening to unleash a holy war against those who would defame their idols.

I’ve got a gut feeling that we could see an outbreak of paganism later this summer in the U.S.

The pagans have already made threats against the image of Homer Simpson. According to reports, “Ann Bryn-Evans, joint Wessex district manager for the Pagan Federation adds that they’ll be doing some ‘rain magic’ to wash it away.”

Okay, so it’s not a car filled with explosives, but this kind of behavior isn’t what you’d expect from a purported “religion of peace.”

Pagan fanaticism can’t be allowed to continue. We need to send a message to these pagans that we won’t allow them to threaten one of Fox-TV’s most profitable icons. We shouldn’t rest until we bring all the pagans to justice.

That’s why we need to send an immediate troop surge to England but … we need to make sure our troops have instructions not to fire on any pagans unless they get rained on first.

The last thing we want to do is anger the pagans so that a whole new generation of pagans, armed with spells and incantations, can wreak humidity on the free world.

And if pictures like this keep showing up on the web…

… watch out for an increase in sectarian Catholic violence.

It could be a long, hot summer.

Homer Simpson, Cerne Abbas, d’oh, pagans, Muslims, Fox-TV, England, rainy weather, Catholics, YMCA, Village People

Ed. note: For more on the story from a decidedly British perspective, check out 451 Press blogger Dave Parrack over at Pop Buzz UK

Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff responds to criticism from Paula Abdul that he didn’t really “sell” the old B.J Thomas tune and needs to “make it his own”….

You would think that some of the qualities you’d look for in a Homeland Security Chief would be steely-eyed rationality, an over-arching intelligence and the ability to present a calm, competent image in a crisis.

And if you can’t get that, maybe someone who uses a Ouija board to forecast terrorist attacks.

At the very least, Michael Chertoff should have had a “gut feeling” that he should keep his gut feelings to himself when it comes to assessing the terrorist threat level.

Unless he owns stock in The Daily Show, it’s hard to figure out why Chertoff would let himself in for the kind of abuse he’s taken over his recent comments. Jon Stewart should definitely make sure he buys Chertoff something nice for Christmas.

I’m going to give Chertoff the benefit of the doubt and go with the idea that he’s carefully analyzed intelligence reports and reams of data on global terrorism. He may, for all I know, have a good track record of playing his hunches.

But, in the interest of not having the color-coded threat level system become more of subject of ridicule than it already has been, you have to keep your personal feelings to yourself or risk gaining a reputation as the boy who cried Yellow-Elevated Wolf.

Given the current debate in this country about Iraq, Scooter Libby, stem-cell research and immigration, the last thing we need right now is have another administration official operating on an emotional, gut level decision making basis.

“All these years I’ve been wandering around,
Wondering how come nobody told me
All that I was looking for was somebody
Who looked like you….”

Take us home John, Paul, George and Ringo (SIMS):

More funny stuff on the Chertoff story at CAP News.

Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, red, yellow, blue, green, indigo, violet, Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Pamela Anderson could become illegal in New Jersey….

Here’s a chicken-and-egg question for you. Does politics turn people into idiots or are we just electing people who are idiots to political office?

The question is even tougher to answer if you live in New Jersey. A New Jersey senator wants to make it illegal to sell or give toy guns to anyone under age 18.

That should put a huge dent in the imaginary shootings that have plagued the state.

Why not ban the showing of The Sopranos while we’re at it?

Senator Nicholas Scutari (D-Bozo-Union County) explained his barely-cogent thought process to WABC news like this:

“We need to stress to our children that guns are not toys, but deadly weapons which should always be regarded with extreme caution and handled with respect,” Scutari said. “Restricting access to imitation firearms will help to drive that point home.”

Hey, Senator, let’s also ban the sale of Matchbox cars to help kids realize that global warming is a serious problem.

And right after that, we can ban the sales of Barbie and Ken dolls… you know, just to make sure kids don’t go getting the idea that it’s okay to live together before you’re married.

Scutari’s bill would make it illegal to sell or give to anyone under 18 and imitation firearm, which is defined as anything “reasonably capable of being mistaken for a firearm.” … Violators would face a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison

So, if you’re in New Jersey, don’t go pointing your index finger at anyone.

You could end up in jail with a lot of people who actually understand the difference between a real gun and a fake one.

idiot politicians, gun control, Nicholas Scutari, The Sopranos, New Jersey, Pamela Anderson

Keep On Rockin’ in the Un-Free World…

Doesn’t it just drive you crazy when the mainstream media doesn’t cover all the good news coming out of the Middle East?

Just this past week, a man was stoned to death for adultery in Iran.

Did you see any coverage of that on NBC or in the New York Times? Of course, not.

There was only a small story on the Breitbart.com news wire.

Traditional media outlets completely ignored the fact that, for a change, it wasn’t some young girl getting stoned for sleeping with someone who wasn’t the man who’d been picked out for her when she was 10 years old.

It’s a travesty that a watershed event like this in Islamic women’s rights doesn’t get the attention it deserves from the major news agencies.

Before you go getting all excited about the progress women are making under strict Islamic rule, the article goes on to explain:

Under the punishment of stoning, a male convict is buried up to his waist with his hands tied behind his back, while a female offender is buried up to her neck with her hands also buried.

Sure, some advancement in women’s rights has been made over the past 2000 years in Iran, but there is still a long way to go.

stoning, Islam, adultery, women’s rights, Neil Young,

“Oooooh, snap. We are sooo edgy and controversial…”

I understand that when you’re in a creative field, not every idea you come up with is going to work. It’s part of the process. You throw as much stuff as you can up against the wall and see what sticks.

There are two basic steps in a creative process. The first step is brainstorming. You lock yourself in a room, take a walk in the woods or wash down a little peyote with some Jack Daniels and try to come up with as many ideas as you can.

At this point in the process, the important thing is to not censor your own or anyone else’s ideas (if you’re working in a group). You don’t want to inhibit the free flow of opinions during the brainstorming phase so concepts aren’t judged. The goal is to try to find new ways of looking at things and get as many proposals out on the table as possible.

At some point, though, it’s important to remember that there is a Step Two in which all those wild-eyed plans need to be evaluated.

A whole bunch of people at Sisley Fashions skipped the second step when they came up with the “Fashion Junkie” advertising campaign. Whether it was the realistic-looking cocaine on the credit card or the carefully planned nipple slip on the model in black, somebody needed to raise their hand at a meeting and suggest that maybe promoting the image of coked-out whores isn’t the best way to sell a lot of designer clothing.

It’s not even the best way to sell drugs.

All you parents out there will be glad to know that Sisley makes fashions for kids, too. This is especially good news if you want your son to dress like Prince or one of the droogs from A Clockwork Orange.

Oh, yeah … and if you’re interested in him getting his ass kicked (or worse) on a regular basis.

Call me a traditionalist, but I liked it better when the fashion world promoted anorexia, nudity and surgically-enhanced breasts.

Wait, … what? They still do?

Sweet!

Victoria’s Not-Too-Much Secret

fashion, cocaine, drugs, peyote, Sisley, Victoria’s Secret, anorexia, Prince, Clockwork Orange, nudity

Animal House…

Well, the mid-term grades are in and it looks like Iraq won’t be graduating with the rest of the class.

According to an interim progress report to be released later this week, the “U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform.”

Yes, you read that right.

None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not a single target.

To paraphrase the famous Dean Wormer, “Fatwa, Muslim and incompetent is no way to go through life, son.”

Had same GPA as Iraq: 0.0

Seriously. This is ridiculous, Iraq. You couldn’t even get one thing right?! We’re pretty lenient graders here in America. We would have given you partial credit for “putting your AK-47s away” or “playing well with others.”

I think it’s time for some tough love. Iraq - you are grounded, mister!

And, if Congress has any balls, we’ll send you to bed without any U.S. troops, too.

Iraq, report card, progress report, lack-of-progress report, Belushi, Animal House, Baghdad, Delta Force, Delta House

“So, God, you’re telling me you might not back the Republicans in the next election? …”

GI reader and soul-saver Allan sent me a link for an Interview with God with the instructions to “scroll down and click on View Presentation.”

Perhaps, God is trying to tell me that I should switch to a Mac, because when I clicked on the View Presentation button on my Mozilla-browsing, Windows XP-running Dell computer, all I got was a blank window.

God is nothing if not confident, so there was no technical support link or online chat to turn to. I’m aware that all answers are supposed to be in the Bible, but you’d think there’d at least be an FAQ so you wouldn’t have to look through the whole book….

Fortunately, God isn’t picky about who he allows to display his content, so the Interview was on YouTube.

Or at least it’s there until God finds out somebody jacked his exclusive interview with the folks at Get Inspired Now! Incorporated.

Just so you won’t be disappointed … it’s not a live interview like on Larry King or Conan O’Brien. It’s just a poem about a dream by this guy “author unknown” who’s so humble he doesn’t even capitalize his name.

Still, according to GIN! Incorporated (I’m thinking that the corporate name was picked because it helps to have a couple gin-and-tonics before reading the poem if you really want to “see” God - but I could be wrong),

The Interview With God, its popularity propelled by millions of visitors from all parts of the world, has become a spiritual phenomenon.

I’m not one to argue with spiritual phenomenon but, just in case Congress decides to enforce the Fairness Doctrine on bloggers, I thought I’d include George Carlin’s take on religion.

You never can be too careful when it comes to hedging your bets on Supreme Beings …

Interview with God, monologue with George Carlin, Larry King, Conan O’Brien, online customer support chat

Hey, gang: If you liked this article, you’ll also prolly like friend and fellow blogger Lyndsey’s story over at Lez Keep It Real.
Check it out!