New Religion

There's a new religion of Bush the Father, Bush the Son, and Bush the Holy Crap How Could Anyone Be That Stupid and Insensitive!*

*“And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." - Barbara Bush after touring the refugee camp at the Houston Astrodome.

Linguistics, part deux

Every @#$% thing we buy is @#($&*% made in @!#$(&% China! How old does one have to be to absolved from the admonition that "you'd better start learning Chinese"?

Higher Logic

The logic of those who would have us believe they have a special relationship with a deity is nothing if not fascinating, infuriating, and entertaining. Some examples:

• Professional athletes who make some sort of religious gesture when they come to bat, prepare for a foul shot, or line up for a field goal. Leaving aside the chutzpah implicit in the assumption that the deity has nothing better to do than take part in their activity, what happens if they make the gesture and are unsuccessful? Does it mean that the deity favors the other team or likes some other player better or that this player is unworthy of help? If a player constantly prays before coming to bat and then hits for a low average, does the player reexamine his or her life and try to become more worthy of help? What if a player prays before the action and then cheats by, say, taking steroids?
• The religious right who are praying to god to create more vacancies on the Supreme Court to replace the godless activitist justices with more correct justices, justices who would allow the placement of the ten commandments in court buildings (despite the fact that, as Bill Maher has pointed out, only two of the ten commandments are actually laws) and permit prayer (Christian prayer) in public school. If god is all powerful, then how did the current justices get on the Court in the first place? Did they sneak in whilegod was on his annual five-week vacation? And if god is all powerful, and justices are removed by death or illness, are the people who pray for that to happen accessories to attempted murder or reckless endangerment?
• The settlers in the Gaza strip who resisted leaving because they claimed that god had placed them there. Isn't it also a possiblity that god now wants them to leave?
• And leave us not forget to mention people who feel that god wants them to kill people by committing suicide, despite the fact that there is no scriptural authority for this contention.

Some Things the Porn Industry Should Consider

There is a porn movie called "Bikini Cavegirl," the plot of which (it has a plot?!) revolves around (and the plot revolves?!) a prehistoric man and woman going through some sort of time travel device which transports them to the present, where they learn how to spice up their sex life before going back to their own time. Two problems: The man, like all male porno actors, has absolutely no body hair, quite a stretch for a prehistoric man. The woman, like all female porno actors (and all male porno actors and apparently most of the general population) has some very elaborate tattoos, not something that couldn't easily be fashioned with a flint arrowhead or a bone needle. Not that there's much consistency in these films in general. They're just an excuse for sex. But since these movies actually claim to have "directors," "producers," and "screenwriters," someone should put a little thought into these issues, n'est-ce pas?

Linguistics

There was a picture on the New York Times web site of an antiwar sign from 1969 that said "War Is Over." I hope that current antiwar activists realize that to have any impact today, the equivalent sign would have to say: "War Is, Like, So Over."

Burning Questions

I hope that at least on my deathbed, if not sooner, I will receive Enlightenment in the form of an answer to the question: What is the opposite of Old Navy--Young Navy or New Navy?

Commercials, part 2

Sex in Commercials

A wealthy man is eating dinner at his favorite restaurant when a heart-stoppingly gorgeous woman sits down a table by herself. The man calls the waiter over and tells him to bring the woman a bottle of the restaurant's most expensive wine with his compliments. He sees the waiter bring the bottle over to the woman. She writes a note and the waiter brings the bottle and the note over to the man's table. The note reads: "For me to accept a bottle of wine from a man, he would have to have 5 million his bank account, a Ferrari in his garage, and twelve inches in his pants." The man keeps the bottle and sends back a note that reads: "I have 20 million in my bank account, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Rolls, and a Mercedes in my garage, but not even for a woman as beautiful as you would I cut six inches off my penis."