Feeling Motivated?

Gingrich Promises The Moon After Promising The Moon

In his Florida "concession" speech losing GOP candidate Newt "I'll Promise You Anything" Gingrich told his supporter the things he will do once elected President, and pledged his "life, wealth, and sacred honor" to someone who would presumably want that.

The Legacy Of The 9/11 Terror Attacks

The way we travel has changed since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Here’s a Fox News presentation on how air travel has changed since the 9/11 terror attacks. It doesn’t actually mention anal probing, but we know it’s implied.

Professor Leaps To Death During Class

A Philadelphia college professor killed himself by diving over a second-floor railing inside a campus building during class.

Police say the 71-year-old math professor yelled at the students as he leaped: “I’m falling at 32 feet per-second squared, and it’s exactly 28 feet 7 inches to the ground – how long will it take me to – “.

No Sex For Seniors

Because of the easy availability of so-called “potency” drugs like Viagra and Cialis, emergency rooms all over the world are being clogged with old people who should not have been having sex. Sure the number of heart attacks and strokes has gone up, but the number one cause of senior emergency room visits is now wrinkle-lock: two old people becoming essentially Velcroed together due to the intersection of their wobbly epidermis.

This is placing an unsustainable burden on our health care system, and it’s time for governments to act: senior sex must be banned – not only is it wasting precious health care resources, it’s just icky to even think about.

Every Decision Has Consequences

Obviously She’s Been Drinking

Just because you've been drinking there's no reason to make these rash, irrational statements.

 

Peter Falk Dies At Age 83

R.I.P. Peter Falk 1927 - 2011

We all remember him as “Columbo”, but Peter Falk had a long and varied career on television and in movies. He started in television in the 1950s on shows such as “Robert Montgomery Presents” and “Kraft Theater”. In the 1960s he did comedic movies including Stanley Kramer’s “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World” and “Robin And The 7 Hoods”. And in 1968 he created the role of “Columbo”, which he would return to over the next 35 years.

Falk did some of his most compelling work in partnership with his good friend John Cassavetes: “Husbands” in 1970, “A Woman Under The Influence” in 1974, and “Mikey And Nicky” in 1976 (directed by Elaine May).

In 1984 Falk appeared as the grandfather character who narrates “The Princess Bride”. Prior to that he appeared in the whodunnit send-ups “Murder By Death” (1976) and “The Cheap Detective” (1978). In 2009 Falk made his final appearance in the film “American Cowslip” with Diane Ladd, Bruce Dern, and Val Kilmer.

Equally at home in comedy and drama Falk never had those “dry” periods that actors often experience – he was always in demand as his IMDB entry shows. His gruff voice, everyman looks, glass eye, and ability to fit these attributes to almost any role kept him in demand. He lost the eye when he was three due to cancer.

Contrary to popular belief Falk was not of Italian ancestry: his father “was of Russian Jewish ancestry and his mother was of Polish Jewish, with a mix of Hungarian and Czech Jewish ancestry further back” according to IMDB.

Also contrary to popular belief his “Columbo” rain coat is not in the Smithsonian – he claimed it was in his “upstairs closet”. If you’d like a “Columbo” raincoat of your own you can get a brand new one from Freeman’s Sporting Club. And did you ever wonder why a detective in Los Angeles wore a raincoat, anyway?

Riots Break Out In China

Riots broke-out in Xintang, China and officials from the Chinese government say “Western agitators” are responsible for the unrest, although it’s hard to see what connection there might be to events in the Western Hemisphere.

Rioters in Xintang, China took to the streets and overturned cars.

Saudi Women Take To Streets – In Cars

Women in Saudi Arabia defied religious edicts and drove in the conservative Arab country’s streets Friday. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that does not allow women to drive.

The protest was organized via social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter, after a Saudi Woman was arrested for defying the ban. Manal al Sharif was taken into custody on May 22nd and forced to sign a pledge not to drive again before she was released. The “Women2Drive” campaign was organized in response to al Sharif’s arrest.

Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia say women should not be allowed to drive, or even to travel unless accompanied by an adult male, because of the possibility of becoming “westernized”. To prove their point they issued the following photographic evidence:

World To End May 21, 2011

Judgment Day® May 21, 2011

SATURDAY

SATURDAY

SATURDAY

Get your tickets now while they last to the biggest civilization elimination event of the millennium!

See nitro-burning fire-breathing devils and demons drag the damned down to ETERNAL SUFFERING!

See fleecy cloud-riding angels and cherubim lift the saved into heaven’s embrace in MIND-BLOWING 3D!

Good seats still available!

THAT’S

Judgment Day® May 21, 2011

SATURDAY

SATURDAY

SATURDAY

Man Sits In Chair For Two Years

This must be one damned comfortable chair.

Charlie Sheen And The Economy

Why would 74,040 people want to work as an intern for Charlie Sheen, who is quite possibly the next O.J./Robert Blake/Phil Spector celebrity murder suspect?

Oh, he’s going to make $100 million dollars in syndication royalties – that’s why. And he’s just nuts enough to leave his intern a chunk of it after he biffs off after the next comet.

Actor Charlie Sheen consults with his co-stars on "Two-and-a-Half Men" about their future.

Yet More Stiffing

FoxNews.com has a surprisingly lengthy stiff list slide show starting with Art Clokey, inventor of Gumby, and ending with the twin brothers who took part in the first organ transplant. And a slew of famous dead folks in-between.

GraceLessLand Flashback: Dan Rather

CBS anchor man Dan Rather gets caught inventing the news

Stiffing The Annual Stiff List

I am too old and tired to compile a Stiff List this year. So instead I’ll just link this cheesy Dead Celebrities list on CNN – even though it leaves-out some pretty prominent dead people.

First The Good News

After the repeal of the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy you can now openly serve in the military even though you are not a heterosexual.

Now the bad news:

After the repeal of the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy you can now openly die in the military even though you are not a heterosexual.

Just keeping things balanced….

Think About It #1

Shakespeare, Milton, Fielding, and Thoreau were lying about on the floor after having sex. As Thoreau passed a joint to Milton he said “I’d rather be here with you three than with the finest people on Earth”. Shakespeare immediately scribbled this down for use in his next play.

Fear Of Gilligan’s Island

“I thought I was going to die, we were so high up, I thought to myself: I hope we don’t crash and burn or worse yet landing in the ocean, living through it, only to be eaten by sharks, or worse yet, end up on some place like Gilligan’s Island, stranded, or worse yet, be eaten by a tribe of headhunters, speaking of headhunters, why do they just eat outsiders, and not the family members? Strange … and what if the plane ripped apart in mid-flight and we plumited (sic) to earth, landed on Gilligan’s Island and then lived through it, and the only woman there was Mrs. Thurston Howell III? No Mary Anne (my favorite) no Ginger, just Lovey! If it were just her, I think I’d opt for the sharks, maybe the headhunters.”

This is a note handed to an airline flight attendant by a nervous passenger. The flight was turned back to it’s original airport because you don’t just fuck around when people are talking about “Gilligan’s Island” at 30,000 feet!

Reason #1 To Always Read The Warning Labels

The hazards of not reading the warning labels

 

Okay, let’s start with the young lady. While I admire her desire to acheive complete streamlining of form, we must talk about tanning: the idea of tanning is to get an even, all-over darkening effect of the epidermis. You really mustn’t wear a bag on your head while lying in the machine, or you will appear to have your head Photoshopped on someone else’s body.

And now, for the unfortunate science experiment gone awry on the right. Firstly you need a nose to breathe – I know, I know, Michael Jackson seemed to get along just fine without one – but look how that turned out. Next, see my remarks about the point of tanning above: you really must get out of the machine before being afflicted with second-degree burns! I mean look at you – over-tanning has burned the lips right off your face.

THE TANNING MACHINE WORKS JUST LIKE A TOASTER! Turn the knob down to “lightly browned”, otherwise you will suffer the fate of English muffins, which are just too thick to be toasted at the same setting as Wonder bread!

Official 2009 Stiff List – NEW! IMPROVED!

It’s that time again: the annual round up of the famous, the infamous, the known and unknown, but mostly of the freshly dead: it’s the 2009 GraceLessLand Stiff List. There are some innovations this year. First, the list is divided into monthly sub-lists, and second we have instituted a “Grim Reaper Point Score System”, or GRPSS. The Reaper is assigned points based on degree of difficulty, terrorist affiliation, Frenchness, royalty, and many other arbitrary and less-than-sensical criteria. Also this is the longest annual Stiff List ever – not because more people died in 2009 than in other years, but because I discovered Wikipedia already keeps track of this stuff, so a huge thanks to them for reducing my job to pretty-much a cut-and-paste effort! Of course I have added some commentary here and there. Finally it should be noted that a new cause of death seems to be sweeping the list this year: “airstrike”.

DECEMBER

Vic Chesnutt, 45, famous unknown musician, works now worth millions, of muscle relaxant overdose.

George Michael, 70, Sports journalist, broadcaster, and not the gay guy who wrote “I Want Your Sex”, of leukemia.

Mick Cocks, Austrailian musician famous for having the last name “Cocks”.

Yiannis Moralis, 93, Greek visual artist and unfortunately NOT Yanni.

Connie Hines, 78, played Wilbur’s wife on “Mister Ed”, where her only lines were “Dinner’s ready!” and “Oh, Wilbur, honestly!”, of heart failure.

Dan O’Bannon, 63, American screenwriter, director and actor. He wrote and starred in the cult clasic “Dark Star”, and also wrote the original story for “Alien”, and the scripts for films such as “Heavy Metal”, “Total Recall”, and “Blue Thunder”, of Crohn’s disease.

Roy E. Disney, 79, Walt’s much less talented nephew who nontheless inherited the Disney Empire, of stomach cancer.

Nur Akbar, 56, Afghan Al-Qaeda terrorist, airstrike (+5 bonus points for the Grim Reaper).
NOVEMBER (a particularly good month for royalty)

Prince Alexander of Belgium, 67, Belgian royal, pulmonary embolism (+1 royalty bonus).

Princess Farial of Egypt, 71, Egyptian royal, oldest child of King Farouk, stomach cancer (+1 royalty bonus).

Jacques Baratier, 91, French film director and screenwriter (+1 French bonus).

Francis French, 7th Baron de Freyne, 82, Irish aristocrat (+1 royalty, +2 IRISH royalty bonus).

Ken Ober, 52, American comedian and host of MTV’s “Remote Control”, probably of chronic has-beenitude.

Roy Butler, 83, American politician, first directly elected Mayor of Austin, Texas (1971–1975), complications from a fall. Prior to Butler the mayor of Austin was selected by penis size.

Carl Ballantine, 92, American actor and magician who played Gruber on “McHale’s Navy”, natural causes.

Princess Haya bint Abdulaziz, 80, Saudi royal, sister of King Abdullah (+1 royalty, +3 Saudi royalty).
OCTOBER

Norton Buffalo, 58, American singer-songwriter, blues harmonica player (Steve Miller Band), lung cancer (-1 for the Grim Reaper for taking someone I liked and admired – Norton could put on a great show).

Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, French anthropologist and author (+1 French, +1 French intellectual, -1 centenarian penalty).

Soupy Sales, 83, American comedian and television host, cancer.

Howard Unruh, 88, American spree killer (+3 spree killer bonus).

Joseph Wiseman, 91, Canadian actor who played “Dr. No” (+1 Evil Genius bonus).

Vic Mizzy, 93, American composer of “The Addams Family” and “Green Acres” theme songs, of terminal schmaltz.

Dickie Peterson, 63, American rock singer (Blue Cheer), liver cancer (-1 penalty for member of Blue Cheer).

Vyacheslav Ivankov, 69, Russian crime figure, gunshot wounds.

René Sommer, 58, Swiss co-inventor of the computer mouse (-2 penalty mouse co-inventor).

Fatima of Libya, 98, Queen of Libya (1951–1969), widow of King Idris I (+1 royalty bonus).
SEPTEMBER

John Couey, 51, American murderer, killer of Jessica Lunsford (the inspiration for Jessica’s Law), anal cancer (+2 pedophile bonus, +5 imaginative agonizing death for pedophile).

Nick Strutt, 62, British country musician (-1 world’s only British Country musician).

Susan Atkins, 61, American murderer (‘Manson Family’ member), brain cancer (+1 Manson bonus).

Ertugrul Osman, 97, Turkish 43rd Head of the Imperial Ottoman Dynasty, lung and kidney failure (+1 Turk, +1 important Turk).

John Hart, 91, American actor (The Lone Ranger).

Alan Deyermond, 77, British hispanist (+1 hispanist bonus).

Arthur Ferrante, 88, American pianist (Ferrante & Teicher), natural causes (+2 muzak bonus).

Dick Hoover, 79, American professional bowler (+1 pro-bowler bonus).

Henry Gibson, 73, American actor (Laugh-In, Boston Legal), cancer.

Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, c.30, Kenyan terrorist, airstrike (+5 bonus points for the Grim Reaper).

Patrick Swayze, 57, American actor (Dirty Dancing, Ghost), pancreatic cancer.

Thabet bin Laden, 49, Saudi businessman and patriarch, brother of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (+1 Saudi, +1 bin Laden relative).

Jim Carroll, 60, American author (The Basketball Diaries), poet and musician, heart attack (+1 bonus to Grim Reaper for waiting this long).

Maria Christina of Bourbon-Parma, 84, Spanish royal (House of Bourbon-Parma), daughter of Elias, Duke of Parma (+1 royalty bonus, +3 House of Bourbon).
AUGUST

Chanel, 21, American dachshund, world’s oldest dog, natural causes (-1 doggie penalty).

Ted Kennedy, 77, American politician, Senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009), brain cancer (+1 Kennedy bonus, +1 JFK’s brother bonus, +1 swimming bonus, -3 penalty because conservatives hated him so and they shouldn’t get such a break).

Joseph Corbett, Jr., 80, American murderer and kidnapper, suicide by gunshot (+1 murderer bonus, +1 kidnapper bonus, +1 relative justice bonus).

Robert Novak, 78, American conservative author and pundit, brain cancer (+1 pundit bonus, +1 balance bonus for same month as Ted Kennedy).

Paul Healion, 31, Irish cyclist, car crash (+1 irony bonus).

Les Paul, 94, American guitarist and inventor, complications from pneumonia (-3 global hipness reduction penalty).

Willy DeVille, 58, American singer–songwriter for “Mink DeVille” and Puerto Rican impersonator, pancreatic cancer (-1 penalty for Grim Reaper for bad form).

John Hughes, 59, American film director, screenwriter, and producer (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Breakfast Club), heart attack.

Anthony Impreveduto, 61, American corrupt politician, member of the New Jersey General Assembly (1987–2004), lymphoma (+1 bonus corrupt politician, -1 penalty because finding a corrupt politician in NJ is a bit too easy).

Budd Schulberg, 95, American screenwriter (On the Waterfront), television producer and novelist, natural causes.

Benson, c.25, British common carp, voted as Britain’s Favourite Carp (death announced on this date).

Princess Felicitas of Prussia, 75, German princess, great-granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II (+1 royalty bonus, +1 relative of Wilhelm II bonus).
JULY

Sybil, British Downing Street cat, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office (2007–2008), after short illness.

Gerald Gardner, 83, Irish-born American mathematician, evidence led to ban on sex-segregated classified advertising. leukemia (+1 obscure accomplishment bonus).

Gidget, 15, American chihuahua, Taco Bell mascot, stroke (+1 annoyance removal bonus for the Grim Reaper).

Walter Cronkite, 92, American television news anchor and father figure who was instrumental in turning Americans against the war in Vietnam, cerebrovascular disease.

Robert McNamara, 93, American business executive, Secretary of Defense (1961–1968), natural causes (+1 dipshit bonus).

Drake Levin, 62, American guitarist (Paul Revere & the Raiders), cancer.

John Barry, 84, American president and CEO of WD-40, pulmonary fibrosis probably caused by inhaling too much WD-40.

John Keel, 79, American ufologist and writer (The Mothman Prophecies), heart failure (+1 ufologist bonus).

Karl Malden, 97, American Academy Award winning actor (A Streetcar Named Desire), natural causes.

Mollie Sugden, 86, British actress (Are You Being Served?), natural causes.
JUNE

Billy Mays, 50, American pitchman and television host (Pitchmen), hypertensive heart disease (+1 annoyance removal bonus).

Gale Storm, 87, American actress (My Little Margie, The Gale Storm Show).

Farrah Fawcett, 62, American actress (Charlie’s Angels), anal cancer (-1 adolescent fantasy figure penalty).

Michael Jackson, 50, American pop singer–songwriter, acute propofol intoxication (+1 Michael Jackson bonus, -1 Michael Jackson penalty).

Ed McMahon, 86, American television host (Star Search) and announcer (The Tonight Show) (+1 pitchman bonus, -1 cultural icon penalty).

Arthur Luft, 94, Manx politician and deemster (+1 deemster bonus).

IZ the Wiz, 50, American graffiti artist, heart attack (+1 graffiti artist bonus).

Bob Bogle, 75, American guitarist (The Ventures), non-Hodgkin lymphoma (-1 global hipness decrease penalty).

Bernard Barker, 92, Cuban-born American intelligence operative, Watergate burglar, lung cancer (+1 Watergate criminal bonus).

David Carradine, 72, American actor and film director, hanged self while masturbating (+3 embarrassment bonus, +1 dipshit bonus, -1 zen interest penalty).
MAY

Millvina Dean, 97, British woman, last living passenger aboard the Titanic, pneumonia (+1 elusive prey bonus for the Grim Reaper).

Danny La Rue, 81, Irish-born British female impersonator and singer, prostate cancer (+1 irony bonus).

Octavia St. Laurent, American transwoman and performer (+1 bonus for pretentious trans-gender name selection).

Dom DeLuise, 75, American actor and comedian (The Cannonball Run, The Secret of NIMH), writer and chef, kidney failure.
APRIL

Maxime de la Falaise, 86, British model, socialite, fashion designer, cookbook writer and gastronome, natural causes (+1 over-achiever bonus).

Beatrice Arthur, 86, American Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress (Maude, The Golden Girls, Mame), cancer (-1 cultural icon penalty).

Alex Lees, 97, British planner of the Great Escape during World War II (+1 difficulty bonus for the Grim Reaper).

Ray Nance, 94, American World War II veteran, survivor of D-Day (+1 difficulty bonus for the Grim Reaper).

Patty Costello, 61, American ten-pin bowler, pancreatic cancer (+1 pro-bowler bonus).

Marilyn Chambers, 56, American pornographic film actress (Behind the Green Door), erotic dancer, and politician, heart disease (-1 adolescent fantasy figure penalty).

Colin Jordan, 85, British politician and Neo-Nazi activist (+1 politician bonus, +2 neo-Nazi bonus).

Henri Meschonnic, 76, French poet, linguist, translator and theoretician (+1 French bonus, +1 French intellectual bonus).

Dave Arneson, 61, American game designer, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, cancer (+2 overcoming saving-throw bonus, +3 Vorpal Blade).

Netherwood Hughes, 108, British fourth-to-last veteran of World War I (+1 difficulty bonus for the Grim Reaper).
MARCH

Uriel Jones, 74, American drummer (The Funk Brothers), complications from heart attack. (-1 global funk decrease penalty).

Ezio Flagello, 78, American opera singer, heart failure (+1 opera bonus).

Natasha Richardson, 45, British actress, epidural hematoma (-1 unnecessary roughness penalty).

Nicholas Hughes, 47, American marine biologist, son of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, suicide by hanging (+1 family tradition bonus).

David Wood, 86, British Army officer, last surviving platoon commander of the Pegasus Bridge operation during World War II (+1 difficulty bonus).

Frederick Conyngham, 7th Marquess Conyngham, 84, Irish nobleman, cancer (+1 royalty bonus, +1 IRISH royalty bonus).
FEBRUARY

Paul Harvey, 90, American radio broadcaster (+1 pitchman bonus, -1 cultural icon penalty).

Philip José Farmer, 91, American writer (Riverworld).

Howard Menger, 87, American ufologist (+1 ufologist bonus).

Socks, 19, American Presidential cat of the Clinton family, euthanized so he couldn’t talk.

Snooks Eaglin, 73, American guitarist, heart attack (+1 Guy Named Snooks bonus).

Gyula Sáringer, 81, Hungarian agronomist (+1 agronomist bonus).

Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., 90, American publisher, son of Alfred A. Knopf, out of print.

Virgil Lee Griffin, 64, American Ku Klux Klan leader (+1 KKK bonus, +1 KKK leader bonus).

Herbert Hamrol, 106, American centenarian, one of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, pneumonia (+1 difficulty bonus).
JANUARY

John Updike, 76, American author (Rabbit Is Rich, The Witches of Eastwick), lung cancer.

Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, 96, British aristocrat, last heir of the Reuters family, granddaughter-in-law of Paul Reuter (+1 royalty bonus).

Panapasa Balekana, 79, Fijian-born Solomon Island co-writer of the Solomon Islands national anthem.

Bob Doyle, 93, Irish activist, last surviving Irish member of the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War (+1 difficulty bonus).

Vivian Illing, 108, American centenarian, one of the last survivors of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (+1 difficulty bonus).

Charles H. Schneer, 88, American film producer (Jason and the Argonauts), Alzheimer’s disease (+1 under budget bonus).

Raymond Parker, 89, British sprint canoer (+1 difficulty bonus, special aquatic capture category).

Andrew Wyeth, 91, American painter (Christina’s World), after short illness.

Ricardo Montalbán, 88, Mexican-born American actor (Fantasy Island, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan), heart failure (+2 Overcoming Wrath of Khan bonus).

Mikhail Donskoy, 61, Russian programmer, co-developer of the first world computer chess champion (Kaissa) (+1 strategy bonus).

Patrick McGoohan, 80, American-born Irish actor (The Prisoner, Braveheart), after short illness (-1 cultural icon penalty).

Rob Gauntlett, 21, British mountaineer, youngest Briton to climb Mount Everest, climbing accident (+1 appropriateness bonus).

Bill Stone, 108, British World War I veteran (+1 difficulty bonus).

Ray Dennis Steckler, 70, American film director (Rat Pfink a Boo Boo), cardiac arrest due to arteries clogged with schmaltz.

Bob Wilkins, 76, American television personality, horror film host, complications from Alzheimer’s disease (+1 Creature Feature bonus), -1 cultural icon penalty).

Ron Asheton, 60, American rock guitarist (The Stooges), heart attack (death announced on this date).

India, 18, American pet cat of President George W. Bush.

JLo As An Angel

Is it wrong to wonder if that stuff she's slathered in is saliva?

Gene Pool Pollutant Alert

Here’s a story on CNN about two would-be burglars who had these ideas pretty-much in this order:

1. Let’s get drunk…
2. …and go rob someone and…
3. … disguise ourselves…
4. …by writing on our faces with marker pens…
5. …permanent marker pens…
6. …the kind that don’t wash off

Police tracked the miscreants down by looking for the people who didn’t not have permanent marker all over their faces.

Islamists Force Women To Shake Breasts

You can’t make this stuff up. Apparently a bunch of, shall we say, men in Somalia are all worked-off that women are wearing bras that make their breasts look firmer than they really are. So they are rounding women up in the streets, forcing them to remove their bras, and then shake their breasts so their “firmness” can be judged. Apparently Islamic law has a strict “firmness index” that must be adhered to at all times, so when a man finally makes his way through the layers of clothing they force women to wear he won’t be disappointed by the boobs he eventually finds.

The Islamist group is called Al Shabaab, which is Arabic for “Let’s find an excuse to go out and molest women and check-out their tits”. These guys get a high rating on the GraceLessLand “stupid fuck index”. In fact we’ve extended the scale to accomodate them, and it now goes to 11, or “Mega-douchebag”.

GraceLessLand Flashback: Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart Makes Investing A "Bad Thing"

They Don’t Have A Nobel For Spending Money

U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, making him the first recipient of that award who has never actually done anything to promote peace.

Obama said “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership.” So if there were a Nobel for understatement he would have that one, too. The announcement by the Nobel Committee cited ” Obama’s incredible potential for accomplishing something some day” as the deciding factor in awarding the prize. “If and when he gets off the pot, we expect to see great strides toward global peace” the announcement announced.

Other Nobel awards announced at the same time: The Standing Still award, the Being Very Quiet For A Long Long Time award, the Managing To Not Be Noticed award, and of course the Taking Forever To Come Up With An Afghanistan Policy award, which Obama also won.

Is Your Mind Interesting Enough To Read?

First, here’s a story about recording every minute of your life and putting it online. And here’s one about new technology that can select images you have seen from a database just by using an MRI scan.

Now, I don’t want to seem as if I am complaining or anything, but there is some stuff I just don’t want technology to do, and these are two of them. First, can you imagine what a complete visual and audio history of your life would be like? Every trip to the bathroom, every dentist appointment, every hangover, every bad date, every rejection, disappointment, losing bet, pointless meeting, tax return, visit with your relatives, etc. All right there at your fingertips to be re-lived. Most of life is waiting, digesting, farting, eating microwaved junk, and wishing you were somewhere else. I really want that crap up there in the “cloud” somewhere. It would be the real-life equivalent of having “The Complete Gilligan’s Island” on DVD: what is the point?

Okay, now on to mind reading. What’s wrong with this? Two words: The Government. Two more words: Your Employer. Five additional words: Everyone Who Is Not You. Like it isn’t bad enough these people want to sniff your urine to find out what kind of week-end you had. Definition of stupid: Trusting other people with the ability to read your mind.

You know the kind of stuff you think all day:

• “My ass itches”
• “I wish my boss would get a disease”
• “I wish my boss would strip naked and jump up on my desk”
• “Damn government has their head up everyone else’s butt”
• “If no one was looking, I would totally steal that”
• “Hopefully no one will find out I made up all the numbers in that report”
• “Nice tits”
• “Really nice tits”
• “If my mother-in-law’s ass was any bigger it would have its own ZIP code”
• “Can they tell I’m into S&M?”
• “Last week-end I snuck into the wrong side of the confessional and tape recorded my math teacher confessing to having sex with my gym teacher”
• “I really want to get my nipples pierced, but I don’t have the money”
• “I’m not worthy”
• “You all aren’t worthy”

Yeah – having that stuff filed down in Human Resources will be a major plus, career-wise.

Look, it’s okay for science to cure diseases, invent new sex toys, and study the mating habits of tree sloths, or whatever. But stay the hell out of my mind! I can hardly stand being in there myself, and I sure don’t want any company.

Caster Semenya Debate: Hitting Below The Belt?

The controversy over Caster Semenya continues. The South African runner, who posted the fastest times ever for a female runner at the world championships in Berlin last month, claims to be female. But now information has come to light that a gender test before the Berlin competition indicates Semenya may be male, and that Atheletics South Africa (ASA) chief medical officer Harold Adams covered-up the results. Adams first called for the tests because of Semenya’s deep voice, five o’clock shadow, and prominent adam’s apple.

“We must be careful these days not to promote gender stereotypes” Adams said in a statement. “Just because this athelete has abnormal testosterone levels, a drivers’ license that says ‘Gender: M’ on it, a penis, a wife and three children, and the word ‘semen’ in her name does not automatically mean she may be male. We wanted to wait until after the championships before coming forward, or not coming coming forward, depending on if Semenya won or not.”

Caster Semenya celebrates after crushing the competition at the World Atheletic Championships in Berlin. We are unable to show the athelete from the waist down due to legal restrictions.

Madonna Sets Trend: Old Man Arms

This could be Madonna’s version of Michael Jackson’s nose.

Some suspect she bought the old man arms in China

Why Redheads? It Has To Do With The Death Wish

This story on CNN’s site  explores the male obsession with the female with the red hair. At one point the writer claims there is no complementary obsession on the part of women toward red-haired men. I beg to differ, because

I WAS A MALE REDHEAD

That’s right, there was a time when my head was literally sprouting thick luxurious wavy locks of strawberry-blonde goodness that were the envy of other males and the lusting heart’s desire of all women, no matter what age or even sexual orientation. I had an advantage over other red-headed males in that my skin wasn’t entirely lacking in pigment, a la Conan O’Brien. And just to make things even harder to resist, I had a full beard of sumptuously silken red whiskers.

Sadly, those days are gone now, and all that remains to me is a red fringe around my bald head. My beard has turned gray. I am no longer universally admired and lusted-after.

Okay – I never was. But there are women who have The Thing for redheads. And no matter how young or old they are, whether married or single, they just don’t seem able to control it. I, of course, have always been much too noble to take advantage of these poor disturbed creatures – not even my mom’s best friend when I was a teenager. She was the one who would always grab my ass when no one was looking and stick her tongue in my ear. I never succumbed to that. Never. I swear.

I, too, went through my period of fascination with red-headed women. There really is something about them that was at first difficult to articulate. And then, one day in the midst of a particularly onerous red-on-red relationship, it hit me. You know the story about how if there are 100 men in a room, and 99 of them are the nicest guys on the planet, all the women will be crowded around the one asshole? That’s the deal with red-headed women, but in reverse, gender-wise. I will, for my self-image’s sake, not speculate as to how this applies to red-haired men.

This is a relatively good mood

In short, redheads are bitches. They think their poo smells like roses. They know they are a rarity, DNA-wise, and they think that makes them special. Redheads will give you the time of day, then several hours of the evening, and then kick your sorry ass out in the morning and scream someone else’s name at you as they slam the door. All redheads are in some way psycho. And men eat this stuff up. I call it The Redheaded Death Wish.

This is similar to, but much scarier than, the well-known Italian Babe Death Wish. Italian women have an inverted menstrual cycle: you get maybe three, four, five good days a month if you’re lucky. The rest of the time you might as well be living with a serial killer. But with Italian women you know what’s coming.

Redheads are scary because of the lightning-fast switch from the woman of your dreams who does all that nasty stuff you only read about, to this vicious sort-of badger-woman who will peel the skin off your face and then eat it, raw, right in front of you. One minute she’s telling your friends what a great guy you are, and the next she’s holding her hands apart as if sizing a fish she caught – a very small fish. And they are laughing, and she is looking at you with that “burn in Hell where little worms like you belong” look in her eyes – the one that is very similar to the “when I get you home I’m gonna put rug burns on your ass on the living room carpet” look, and if you aren’t totally on your game, you’re not sure which you’re getting.

So I have reformed, just as a matter of self preservation, because female redheads are the preying mantis of our species. Give me a nice tall, thin, raven-haired Anglo-Saxon, or a well-rounded Brazilian with that insanely curly brown hair, or a muscular Israeli woman who can field-strip an automatic rifle and beat me arm wrestling. Something I can deal with. Because now and then you have to get some sleep, and if you live with a redhead you damn well better sleep with one eye open.