Parody becomes reality

Hey, remember yesterday? You know, when joking about defending insurance companies being the highest priority of health reform was a funny, tinged with truth joke and not an exact template for a new front of attacks? Someone should have told the GOP that Will Ferrell was joking.

Republicans took to the floor of Congress, the Internet and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page Tuesday in a rush to defend a health insurance company that used taxpayer-subsidized communication to terrify seniors with the prospect that health care reform will cut their Medicare benefits.

Republican leaders in both houses of Congress ripped Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put a stop to the insurer's efforts, decrying what they called a "gag order" and reading the First Amendment on the floor of the Senate.

So what happened? Humana, a crooked group of fucks, got mad about a provision in one of the health care bills that took the Medicare Advantage plan, where the government pays 14% more to insurers than under regular Medicare, and cut those payments to the tune of $12 billion a year. An OMB study said that through Medicare Advantage the government ends up paying $1.30 for every dollars worth of service it gets from insurance companies. Humana got mad about its profits and used a Medicare beneficiaries list to send out a bunch of dishonest scare letters telling grandma that the government was coming to steal her stuff. After Max Baucus heard about it, thought to himself "this sounds illegal in addition to being full of lies" he got them to stop, so the Kentucky based Humana called up several Senators and Congressmen it owned lock and stock to bitch about it.

Whew! Thank God for this, we had gone a few days without seeing how political opposition to health reform was nakedly fueled by corporate toadying and greed. I'm glad that we have men like John Behner and Mitch McConnell in our congress to stand up for the first amendment rights of government teat suckling insurance companies to lie to the elderly because their "pay a $1.30 for a $1" gravy train is going to be marginally affected. Finally, we're off of discussing this unimportant "making health care coverage more affordable for the people" thing and on to seeing our elected betters fist fight in the aisles of congress for campaign cash. It's much more dignified than pretend concern for health care access.

New York mayoral race heats up

The shriveled plutocrat ticket just got a lot more crowded:



/From Burns for Mayor.

Good morning, with your morning radio zoo crew

That's right, it's Glenn Beck as part of Phoenix's Y95 Morning Zoo radio program in 1986, 4 short years before he allegedly raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. Isn't it sad that a hackneyed, paint-by-numbers, "wacky" 1980's morning radio show was more dignified than what he's doing now? It's a shame he doesn't have access to a monkey now, I think it would really improve his program.

I wonder what the monkey is up to now? Perhaps the monkey killed and replaced Beck, wearing his clothes and face like a mask. It all makes so much sense. The shit flinging...the rage...the shrieking.

Practice

Looks like the government is running through its "inept enforcement of toothless legislation that constitutes a pass for the industry it's meant to regulate" playbook just in time for the big Health Care showdown.

WASHINGTON – Federal health officials Tuesday banned the sale of flavored cigarettes and hinted that they may soon take action against the far-larger market of flavored little cigars and cigarillos, the first major crackdown on cigarettes since the Food and Drug Administration was given authority to regulate tobacco.

That's the good part. The rest:

The legislation giving the F.D.A. regulatory power over cigarettes required the agency to ban flavored cigarettes but did not clearly define what constituted a cigarette.

Surely this little misunderstanding can be cleared up by an F.D.A. official...

In a press conference Tuesday, agency officials were deliberately vague when asked whether the ban would apply to flavored little cigars like Swisher Sweets or cigarillos like Black & Mild, which can have flavors like apple and chocolate.

Heard they got black cherry, too. Gets the taste of hooker spit off your tongue quicker than lager turns to piss. And the kicker:

Another cigar store owner told Mr. Sharp that an F.D.A. representative called last week to tell her to remove every flavored tobacco product from her shelves that “looked like a cigarette” but could not define what that meant, Mr. Sharp said.

In other words, F.D.A., you are empowered to regulate an entity we have deliberately left undefined. Go. Regulate.

The real trouble, far as I can tell, is that this legislation will most likely apply to clove cigarettes. If those are banned, what are freshman Classics majors going to smoke?

Besides pole, of course.

Broken News: Conservatives blast Obama over "competent, effective" missile defense system

WASHINGTON--Republicans went on the offensive today in response to President Obama's new missile defense policy, unveiled late last week.

The plan, which either reverses or drastically modifies the policy put forth by former President George W. Bush, calls for a wider, more mobile network of land and sea-based missile defense platforms. This is in stark contrast to the previous version predicated upon the fixed installations in Eastern Europe that has inflamed tensions with Russia, which viewed the policy as a threat to its regional sovereignty entirely centered around a neoconservative fixation with America's perceived penis size.

Responding to a New York Times editorial by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Jerry Lewis (R-etard), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, called Obama's policy, "Laughably competent and cost-effective, not to mention shockingly respectful of international relations with a nuclear power. I can scarcely believe the state of rational military policy that the President has plunged us into."

Banging his fist on the desk, Lewis yelled, “I will not allow the Russians to think that I have a baby dick!”

The President's plan, which has the support of senior Pentagon personnel and high-ranking national security experts, was hailed by Secretary Gates as "very pragmatic."

For their part, Republican lawmakers have vowed to fight the policy every step of the way. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-eprehensible), explained during his morning press briefing that, "I do not want my children, or any of your children, to grow up in an America that lacks a wildly impractical, cost-prohibitive shield against statistically improbable threats."

Added Boehner, "By the by, my penis is huge. Seriously, when I walk down the street, I clothesline children and midgets. I just regret that Obama’s reckless policies are forcing me to hire professional photographers to document this fact, so I can send proof to President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. I’m out-of-pocket on this!”

Criticism was also quick to bubble up in conservative pundit and talk radio circles, the two areas of American society that most need American foreign and military policy to act as an extension of their genitals.

On his daily radio show, right wing personality and lover of all woodland creatures, Glenn Beck exclaimed, "Barack Obama's missile defense plan is less expensive, will be in place almost a decade sooner, and unlike the previous system, has undergone a successful field test. That type of competence from the Military Industrial Complex is not only unwise, it is un-American. Obama has stolen our dongs!"

While some of the criticism has been over the top, even some traditional Obama supporters are wary of this new plan and how it will affect American missile defense of vulnerable countries, as well as America's position of Johnson-based superiority over the entire planet.

They point to an early 2001 Pentagon study entitled Thunder Dick: American Strategic Defense Analysis of Phallic Psychological Capabilities, which concluded that America’s penis had shrunk to its smallest size since the post-Cold War era spending cuts, with the country’s balls in sad shape as well. It was this report that initially spurred the Bush Administration into the largest expansion of America’s cock since World War II.

“I will not allow the world to think our dingus is merely 15 or 16 feet long,” explained Lewis. “I want them to fear it! To see it cresting over the horizon, crushing their bridges and menacing their skyscrapers! I want our dick to blot out the sun! Isn’t this the whole point of spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined?”

As for combating this attempt to plague America’s defense with cogent thought, Boehner and Lewis are unsure what steps to take next. Lewis had initially planned to have an alternative defense plan boondoggle ready for the new legislative year, but was reportedly undecided on whether it should involve Transformer-like robot ICBM launchers or genetically engineered rocket-intercepting pterodactyls in "Fuck Russia" sweaters.

For Boehner, he’s unsure his caucus has the energy to recklessly warmonger at a level sufficient to convince the world that our penis is bigger than ever.

“Lousy Obama and his rotten competent military planning,” muttered a dejected Boehner. “I shouldn’t have to prove shit to the Russians. I mean, look at my last name!”

Quote of the day

Today it's a lovely little ditty from the Values Voter Summit, in which the Young America Foundation's Jason Mattera decides to take it upon himself to trenchantly sum up the sheer intellectual weight associated with the last decade or so of Republican party policy and politics:

If conservatives (David) smite liberals (Goliath), they will be rewarded with the hot conservative women, just like King Saul promised his daughter to the warrior who slew the evil giant. “You know his daughter must have been beautiful because there’s no guy whose gonna die for an ugly girl,” Mattera chortled. “Our women are hot. We have Michelle Malkin. Who does the left have, Rachel Maddow? Sorry, I prefer that my women not look like dudes.”

Well, I'd check that Adam's apple on Ann Coutler before I get too excited there Skippy. Still, I must say I do applaud Mr. Mattera. I've been trying for years to combine tit ogling, the Bible, and the implication that the yelling lady on the TV is thiiiiiiiis close to banging me and all my like minded friends for our services to the movement into a serious argument for my beliefs. Just haven't been able to cobble it together.

And a mini-zoo in your backyard for exotic animals like a white tiger and pygmy horses

Will Ferrell and friends, including TheseBastards favorites Olivia Wilde and Linda Cardellini, warn of an impending assault on the livelihoods of insurance company executives.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Art of the Day

Mike Stimpson - "I Have You Now"

Picture of the Day

In honor of the UN Conference on Climate Change, Wired Science brings us something we won't see a lot of in the future: large non-refrigerator based collections of ice. Glaciers from space. Splaciers. Fun fact: all the glaciers they show are much, much smaller than they were decades ago. See how the cowardly ice clusters retreat in the face of industry? This is why they deserve to be wiped out.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.22

Waterboarding Doesn’t Work, Scientists Say
I don't want to blow your minds too hard before noon, so let me slow walk you through this one: the use of waterboarding, stress positions, and sleep deprivation are proven to actually destroy memory functions cause frontal lobe damage. So let's see, that makes it morally, ethically, legally, medically, and scientifically wrong to use waterboarding as a torture enhanced interrogation method. Do we need more, or must we unearth an ancient stone tablet that says it too?

Better world: Be nice to people
Great, now science says that being nice and altruistic acts spread through non-internet social networks and that being kind within your social groups can come back to benefit you, if you want to think about it selfishly. In a related study they show that negative acts and bad vibes can spread the same way, and that, more or less, Sean and I are responsible for the genocide in Darfur. Sorry. Our bad. We'll try to perk it up a bit here.

F.D.I.C. May Borrow Funds From Banks
Turns out that the FDIC is almost out of cash due to a little matter of all the banks failing. Now, desperate for cash, instead of turning to the Treasury Department for a always available line of credit, they're just going to borrow from the banks that haven't collapsed. In a related story, WE CAN SEE THE FUTURE! Don't offend us lest we use our awesome powers on you.

U.N. Climate Conference Opens With Call for Unity
The UN Climate Conference has started with big speeches from Barry and Hu Jintao talked of the need for large action on climate change and pollution controls before the ceremony ended when both simultaneously faked fainting spells when they were directly asked about concrete actions their countries were taking. Whew! That was a close one there, boys. You almost had to mention a concrete plan. Artfully dodged.

Kirk Cameron's 'Origin Of Species' Plan: Ex-Actor To Distribute 50,000 Altered Darwin Books
Far be it from me to mock those who follow the teachings of evangelical former TV stars, after all, I handle venomous snakes for Jesus at the church Alan Thicke started near my house. But isn't Kirk worried that trying to indoctrinate children with a fancifully distorted text filled with lies is going to infringe on what the church does? I smell a lawsuit. Still, I'm sure that altering a scientific text to include ominous Hitler, racism, and misogynist accusation towards the author is what God would have wanted. I'm just a little surprised, I thought Kirk's banana video would have converted everyone who believed in evolution.

In which I am momentarily confused

Glenn Beck decided to make some news, and not for saying something so insane or racist that it would cause him to lose the other the other half of his advertisers. No, he went on on Katie Couric's online web show, which is pretty much going to make sure no one sees it or hears it, to praise....Obama? Well, only in comparison to Grandpa Crackers. It's complicated.

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Beck said when asked about Hillary Clinton, "but I think I would have much preferred her as President, and may have voted for her against John McCain."

That's because John McCain is a "weird progressive" like Theodore Roosevelt, Becks says.

Then, laughing almost frighteningly, Beck said:

"I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama. How's that?"

Let's see, you've blamed Obama for the economic meltdown, the bailout, the stimulus, you've called him a socialist, communist, fascist, racist, compared him to Hitler, said he'll murder everyone's grandma, said he's starting FEMA concentration camps, is indoctrinating our children, used health care reform as a jumping off point for racially motivated fear attacks against blacks and Mexicans, and used your program to draw up various nefarious conspiracy charts about left wing plots to destroy this country while weeping and screaming, as well as a hundred other things I'm probably forgetting.

How would McCain have been worse? Because he's like Teddy Roosevelt? Or because Beck wouldn't have been able to drum up attention, support, and ratings by doing all that stuff to an old, rich, white Republican? Though I do agree that Hill-Dawg would have been better for Glennie's career. He wouldn't have had to spent all that time inventing new conspiracies, he just could have used all the left over ones from the nineties. Obama has cost him precious "Glenn Time". So just remember all of this next time Glenn goes off on one of his "Obama is using the fillings in my teeth to transmit CIA codes" rants: he can actually conceive of a world where things are worse than the imminent freedom destroying liberal apocalypse that he's describing. He's a sick man.

Good morning, avert your eyes

Corrupt former Majority Leader Tom Delay, dancing his ass off and resetting the bar for the unintentional comedy scale Dancing With the Stars. I think my favorite part is when he jumps in the air and the camera does a "Matrix" around him. It's even better than his rehearsal promo showing his barely concealed disdain for gays. Thank you, ABC, thank you. Just get him to do a jailbird themed cha-cha in prison stripes, then contrive some situation where he blows out every ligament in his knee and I promise to glance at the finale for two or three seconds.

Orrin Hatch is an adult

Since no one yelled out something during a speech or accused anyone of wanting to put the nation's grandmothers into an apple press for "ciderizing" you might be under the impression that our elected betters are returning, if not to the emotional level of adults, at least to the level of less angsty teenagers. Well, you didn't read the list of 534 amendments proposed to Max Baucus' Senate Finance Committee health bill. To be fair, neither did I. But I read someone else's summary, and while there are some worthwhile amendments in there, it mostly goes to show how juvenile and childish the Senate is.

Roberts 144: To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it.

Did I miss this meme? Was there an "Obama's gon stealz ur hospitalz" movement that came right on the heels of the grandma murder one?

Ensign 409: Transparency in Czars.
Hatch 511: Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN.
Ensign 543: Strike the word “fee” everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word “tax”.

When I think of things that are absolutely vital to the fight to reform health care, czars and getting pissy about ACORN are the first two things I think about, not to mention making it easier for my colleagues to demonize something as a tax.

But perhaps the childish coup de grâce, after you get though all the amendments prohibiting the government takeover of health care, amendments getting the vapors over rationing, or stripping out anything useful from the bill, was delivered by Orrin Hatch of Utah...Utah....U.....tah:

Hatch 497: add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name that begins with the letter ‘U’.

Whew, thank God he's trying to get that one in there. That's got to help, what, 20-30 extra states dodge that tax fee on gold plated policies, right? Glad to see you're taking this seriously Orrin. Now I'm kind of hoping that Rockefeller 612, the amendment that states "any doctor is allowed to beat any person named Orrin with a sack of surgical grade oranges on any day ending with the word 'day'" passes.

Broken In Brief: Black Eyed Peas spend 10 whole minutes writing new hit

LOS ANGELES—“Yeah, so I’m gonna be all like, ‘We’re gonna rock it, rock it. We’re gonna rock it, rock it. We’re gonna rock it tonight.’ And I’m gonna repeat that like forty or fifty times. Understand?” said Black Eyed Peas member and producer will.i.am during the band’s marathon 10-minute writing session for their upcoming #1 hit We’re Gonna Rock It.

It is this very commitment to the craft of songwriting that has the band’s label, Interscope, privately excited that this might be the track that gets used in every single commercial and montage during the fall and winter months, as opposed to merely most of them.

“Yeah it’s got this great beat. ‘Du-dum-dum-dum, da-dum-dum-dum-dada-dumdumdum’ and it repeats it over and over and over and over again, at least a couple hundred times. I don’t know, I’m not a mathematician,” said an excited Jimmy Iovine, Chairman of Interscope. “And just when you think it’s about to drive you insane and sap your will to live, they double-time it and Fergie starts singing, ‘We’re rockin’ it, rockin’ it, rockin’ it, rockin’ it’ and those two other guys… shit, I don’t know what they do. I guess they’ll be dancing in the video and going ‘Yeah’ and ‘Huh’ on the backing track. Anyway, it’s going to make everything Bob Dylan did sound like a Raffi tape.”

The 10 minutes spent on this new song eclipses the previous 8-minute record the band spent writing Boom Boom Pow. To be fair, this total also included recording time. Most credit this new focus and dedication to the realization within the group that painting by numbers simply wasn’t enough, that they needed to spend time making sure the colors were right and put carefully into their designated spaces.

“Yeah, it’s about art and shit,” said will.i.am from atop his giant pile of cash. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rap about how hard I’m rockin’ it. I’m counting this interview as part of the writing time.”

Picture of the Day

It's almost October and we all know what that means: China's birthday! What did you get China? I got it a fat hunk of American debt, which it seems to like. But with China's birthday comes a massive celebration and an example of one thing that China does extremely well: pollute cyber-attack America menace Taiwan own everything stage expertly choreographed celebrations that are simultaneously awe inspiring and yet still fill you with dread. The Big Picture blog documents the preparations. Click to embiggen.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.21

Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform
Let me assure you, you're reading that headline wrong. Sure you may think it says "Blue Dog Democrats eye new financial reform", but what it really says is "Blue Dogs seek to fuck over decent financial reform". Mostly by scuttling a planned Consumer Protection Agency and weakening planned regulation. Because if this global financial apocalypse taught us one thing, it's that we don't really need to keep an eye on that whole financial and banking sector. They're good people.

Good Billions After Bad
Vanity Fair comes at us with a piece that alleges that the trillions from the TARP bailout package seemed to have large chunks of the money spent poorly, being put in the wrong hands, and doing the opposite of what was needed. And all just because the system was designed without restrictions, accountability, or common sense by the Paulson Treasury Department. Are you shocked? Neither am I. Rest assured though, nothing will be done and the next time a problem like this rolls around, nothing will be learned.

Ahmadinejad: Holocaust Denial A Source Of Pride
Some people take pride in a job well done, others by helping someone else out. Then there are others, "assholes" we call them, who take pride in denying one of the most widely documented events in human history. Couldn't he take pride in rigging an election and suppressing a revolution? At least that's an achievement. Still, this is probably the smartest way to kick off your big "message of peace and friendship" UN trip.

Steve Keen Out-Thinks Larry Summers
One of the great things about this economic meltdown, besides the hobo-grade tins of beans, hopping boxcars, and all this free time, has been watching some of the most respected economists in the world armor up, grab a truncheon and a shield, and wade into the Thunderdome to do battle on the bloody fields of economic theory. Up next is Australian economist Steve Keen, who hopes to garrote Larry Summers over the Obama Administration's economic approach and neoclassical economic theory. Winner faces the viking helmeted Joseph Stiglitz and his steel murder talons in the next round.

I'm Such A Shitty Senator
The Onion was able to look at Max Baucus and see the future, why couldn't anyone within the Democratic caucus or White House see? I mean just look at that S.915 Semiconductor Investment Act. What in the hell was that shit?

Boris

It's such an unassuming, boring headline: Secret interviews add insight to Clinton presidency. You look at it and go "meh" because you already know what's in it: Clinton talking about the sex scandals, impeachment, blow-ups with Gore over the 2000 election, health care this, financial regulation that, "I could have done more". But you really need to go through it, otherwise you miss a slice of fried gold like this:

[Clinton] relayed how Boris Yeltsin's late-night drinking during a visit to Washington in 1995 nearly created an international incident. The Russian president was staying at Blair House, the government guest quarters. Late at night, Clinton told Branch, Secret Service agents found Yeltsin clad only in his underwear, standing alone on Pennsylvania Avenue and trying to hail a cab. He wanted a pizza, he told them, his words slurring.

The next night, Yeltsin eluded security forces again when he climbed down back stairs to the Blair House basement. A building guard took Yeltsin for a drunken intruder until Russian and U.S. agents arrived on the scene and rescued him.

He just wanted a pizza! Sure there's that whole "die for the President thing", but after reading that, did you ever want to be in the Secret Service more? This does raise some serious questions, and not just "Was Matt Taibbi underselling the drunkenness in his Rolling Stone obituary of Yeltsin?" What do you think the booze protocol for Boris was? Did they fly around with an oversized steamer trunk full of booze for him, did some poor staffer have to make a run each time they hit a new city, or was there a staffer trailing the Presidential motorcade in a pickup truck with the cargo bed filled with Vladimir and Banker's Club?

Pull Murray Waas and Sy Hersh off of whatever they're doing and tell them to find this out. We don't need some new depressing story on who Cheney was ordering to have killed or what CIA agent was outed, we need to know the elaborate procedures for getting Boris Yeltsin properly soused and how the Russian authorities, and foreign authorities, had to wrangle him while he was completely lit up. There have to be a million stories like this. We need to hear them.

Oh that rascally Bush Administration

The Matt Latimer book on the end of the Bush Administration is coming up on its release date and boy does it look like a hell of a read. In previous installments we learned that Bush had no idea what the bailout bill was about and that he likes to talk shit on everyone that isn't himself. Now we're learning about all the numerous anecdotes, foibles, and shenanigans of the rest of the gang...shenanigans that led to a couple wars, a couple hundred thousand dead, a couple Constitutional violations, a bit of torture, a sprinkle of police state, and stewarding over the complete collapse of the economy. But at least we can look back and laugh.

Donald Rumsfeld had to be talked out of editing his own entry on Wikipedia, which he referred to as "Wika-wakka."

Oh, that Rumsfeld. This almost makes up for not planning out those wars. I think we can definitively state he spent more time trying to edit his own Wikipedia page that planning the Iraq invasion. But the fact that we can imagine him walking around his office raging about "the bleggers" on "the intertubes" smearing him on "the Wikka-wakka" before having to be physically pulled away from the edit page blunts that pain a little.

"Karl spread rumors through the White House that one of Obama's potential vice presidential running mates -- and a United States senator -- had beaten his first wife. 'Karl says it's true,' the president assured a small group of staffers. Then knowing Karl, he quickly added, 'Karl hopes it's true," reports Latimer.

I'm disappointed. This is such a rote and obvious depiction of evil. I guess I just had expected more creativity in the dark deeds Karl performed.

For a commencement address at Furman University in spring 2008, Ed Gillespie wanted to insert a few lines condemning gay marriage. Bush called the speech too "condemnatory" and said, "I'm not going to tell some gay kid in the audience that he can't get married."

See, this is only a partial quote. It ends with "...but if everyone in my party wants to and Karl wants to run a 2004 re-election campaign around it, who am I to stop them? Someone want to get me a pretzel?" I think that's the very definition of moral courage.

There's more, like Bush's reaction to Larry Craig, the Administration deciding to sleight Colin Powell by reminding everyone he used to work there, the unending petty war between Maine's senators, and the testimonial adventures of "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." This is really going to be one of those "laugh....then slowly stop laughing as your rage boils up and you angrily throw the book down" kind of books.

Quote of the weekend

Former Miss California Carrie "Jesus wanted me to get these implants" Prejean, vying to become the third most influential Republican behind Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin, on how large of a golden house God is going to give her for hating fags harder than any beauty queen had ever attempted to do during a beauty pageant.

"Even though I didn't win the crown that night," said Prejean, while pausing to fight back tears, "I know that the Lord has so much of a bigger crown in heaven for me." "God chose me for that moment because he knew that not only would I be the one to stand up for him and for the truth, but because he knew I was strong enough to get through all the junk that I've been through," said Prejean. "I feel as if I'm Miss Universe."

You aren't Miss Universe. That's a separate crown where the organizers also would have been horrified at your "God sez so" opinion on "opposite marriage." But you are set up quite well to vie for the crown in an even more degrading, emotionally crippling beauty pageant: the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary. You keep flogging that anti-gay, "free speech means everyone has to reward me for saying something repellent", dishonest, Bible thumping, ego mania and you might just vault Michelle Bachmann into the VP slot on Sarah Palin's White House run.

England is a stupid place

We'll just start with the headline:

Jedi church founder thrown out of Tesco for refusing to remove his hood was left 'emotionally humiliated'.

Did they ask him to leave or did they use (the) force? Let the story continue.

The founder of the Jedi religion inspired by the Star Wars films was thrown out of a Tesco supermarket for wearing his distinctive brown hood.
...
As a result Jones, who also goes by the Jedi name Morda Hehol, claims he has been 'victimised over his beliefs' and left 'emotionally humiliated' by the supermarket in Bangor, North Wales.

I would have thought the emotional humiliation would come from dressing like a Jedi and going out in public, but then again I'm probably not as emotionally mature/dead as this man. But surely he was singled out for dressing like Jedi. What does Tesco's have to say to that and to the potential Death Star sized lawsuit that would surely be underway if this were America and we didn't keep our religious delusions and fashions carpenter based?

But Tesco hit back in the spirit of the epic space saga and claimed that the three most well known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies - Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker - all appeared in public without their hoods.
...
'Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and Luke Skywalker all appeared hoodless without ever going over to the Dark Side and we are only aware of the Emperor as one who never removed his hood.

'If Jedi walk around our stores with their hoods on, they'll miss lots of special offers.'

Well played. Actually using the movies against him in a mocking fashion and to logically rebut his childish, childish actions? Nicely done. I'm sure that by attempting to talk to him logically and using the vernacular of his chosen unhealthy obsession, you broke through to him and got him to realize the sheer level of childish fantasy he had ensconced himself in, right? ...Yeah, you don't know Star Wars fans.

Mr Jones, from Holyhead, said his religion dictated that he should wear the hood in public places and is considering legal action against the chain.

'It states in our Jedi doctrination that I can wear headwear. It just covers the back of my head,' he said.
...
'They said: "Take it off", and I said "No, its part of my religion. It's part of my religious right." I gave them a Jedi church business card.'

He's got a card and everything! But really, this man is clearly a fraud or not a true practitioner of the faith. I think he's a heretic. I mean the Jedi teach emotional calm, rational thought, logic, being one with the surroundings, conquering your emotions, and focusing on the material trappings of chain supermarkets. They don't teach you to whine and threatening lawsuits like you were angry that they couldn't go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.

You see what Star Wa.....oh fuck, now I'm doing it. Disregard these last few sentences. I'm normal! Normal, I say! This was not a childhood obsession that has spilled over into adulthood! I like sports! Sex with women! Hitting things with fists! Cursing! Drinking! I don't even know what a Corellian YT-1300 is, let alone all the pilots and their call signals during the Battle of Yavin. Normal!

Is our Wolf Blitzer learning?

Not a misprint. Not a Late Night with Conan O'Brien sketch. Wolf Blitzer went on Celebrity Jeopardy and racked up a -$4600 smackeroo defeat. You know, Celebrity Jeopardy: the Jeopardy that dumbs down it's questions. That's "won't even allow you to answer the final question" territory. That's "take money from your chosen charity" territory. That's "Wolf Blitzer might be functionally retarded" territory.

It's not surprising. I mean any guy that has 8 pages worth of links on Media Matters listing his numerous inadequacies and mental shortcomings as a news host surely isn't going to be able to rattle off facts about Charlemagne or who played bass for Foghat. How could he? It's Sean's famous "anyone who remotely looks like Will Ferrell's version of Alex Trebek stands no chance on Celebrity Jeopardy" corollary in effect again.

Broken In Brief: Area man tricked by time travel aspect of romantic drama

CHICAGO—“Oh God! This is just a fuckin’ existential metaphor for love, loss, and time in failed relationships,” said an exasperated Tommy Flanagan, nearly an hour into a screening of the piece-of-shit movie The Time Traveler’s Wife, which he attended with his lying girlfriend of five months. “This son of a bitch isn’t going to travel back to kill Hitler, see baby Jesus, or forward to witness any horrible events that he must stop. This is just a fuckin' chick flick!”

Flanagan, a claims adjuster from Lakeview who busts his fucking ass for his hard earned money, had agreed to see the goddamn Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams film, a fuckin’ love story which explores determinism and free will through the bullshit use of time travel, on the grounds that he thought it would be a "fuckin’ badass science fiction flick like Back to the Future" or "motherfuckin’ Timecop."

As the poor bastard slowly became wise to the totally gay bullshit romantic horror unfolding on the screen in front of him, as well as all the money he had just thrown away on this goddamn film, he totally felt like he had been kicked in the balls several times. He then reportedly placed his thin hopes on the remote possibility that this shitshow would turn into a thriller where the the gay-ass husband would have to hunt down people who murder his whining wife… through time.

When this didn’t happen, Flanagan was overheard to say to his girlfriend that “she fuckin’ owed him, like big time” and that they were going to be seeing Gerard Butler’s Gamer, a fucking badass movie about future war video games that use real people as characters, “at least 3 or 4 fuckin’ times.”

As a disappointed male audience filed out solemnly next to their spouses and girlfriends, muttering bitterly about the lack of any flying Deloreans, several supporting murmurs of “I heard that” as well as thumbs up of solidarity were thrown Mr. Flanagan’s way. They were of little comfort to the distraught man.

How Obama should have handled Joe Wilson

You can almost picture Pelosi behind him yelling "Awwwwww Shit!"

Thrust~!

If you ever wondered what 3.6 million pounds of balls to the wall, fire breathing, yee-haw, good 'ole American rocket thrust looked like, NASA is happy to let you know. Above is the test of the Ares-1 rocket motor which will be used to launch the post-shuttle generation of manned spacecraft in the future. Now if only we were sure what NASA's future was....

Good morning. We are all going to die.

Well, 80% of us, anyway.

A PREVIOUSLY unknown virus that killed four of the five people it struck in an outbreak in South Africa last year has been identified as part of a family of viruses humans can catch from rats.

The virus, named Lujo, is an arenavirus that over nine days caused rash, fever, muscle pain, diarrhoea, severe bleeding, vomiting, organ failure and death, said Nivesh Sewlall, who treated the first patient at Johannesburg's Morningside MediClinic Hospital.

Coincidentally, these same symptoms seem to arise after listening to five sustained minutes of Glenn Beck's radio program.