Can I point something out

A few days ago LeBron James leaves the city of Cleveland to take his talents to South Beach, by some estimates devaluing the Cavs by $100 million and cost the city and it's businesses $50 million a year.

Yesterday Cleveland comic book legend Harvey Pekar dies.

Today, Cleveland shipping magnate and Yankee owner George Steinbrenner dies of what everyone in the media is calling a MASSIVE -assive -assive heart attack. As opposed to a regular, hilarious, whimsical, easy heart attack.

I don't want to be too much of a doom obsessed gainsayer... but it's clear the God is killing anything and everything successful, talented, powerful, artistic, creative, or wealthy in Cleveland. I'm fairly certain that by week's end a meteor will have hit the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame, Drew Carey will have been murdered and cannibalized by a serial killer, the recipe for brown stadium mustard will be lost for all time, the lake will catch back on fire, the Browns will be able to field a team this year, and most of the townspeople will be turned into pillars of salt.

Cleveland is the new Sodom and Gomorrah and the Lord is piling up his vengeance on thee. Get out while you can. Even then... that didn't save Steinbrenner. I'd say "God have mercy on your souls", but it's clear he doesn't.

Broken News: Jesus breathes sigh of relief at underwhelming iPad release

THE HEREAFTER—After the tepid reaction to Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the new Apple branded tablet laptop, dubbed the iPad, sources close to the Son of God, Jesus, have noted that our Lord seems more relieved than usual at the seeming failure of the device to ignite the imaginations of the public at large.

“I just think that of all the things that could possibly supplant His status as the messiah, He was most worried about technology,” revealed one of the holy host anonymously, given that it was an ephemeral being on a spiritual plane without corporeal form or tangible existence.

“He felt that with one more great product that either Apple or Steve Jobs himself would be able to supplant Him in the Trinity. The iPod was great, everyone loves the iPhone, and He really feared that a cheap, touch screen tablet would really push Apple over the top. Thankfully it appears that everyone was underwhelmed, calling it an oversized iPod touch, knocking the whole ‘no keyboard’ thing, or bagging on the underwhelming features. Jesus is really relieved about that.”

Indeed the iPad is only the most recent attempt made to supplant His legacy as the savior of man. In recent years Jesus has successfully fended of challenges to His throne, from the Star Wars prequels, every Super Bowl, Playstation 3, and all forms of alcohol to Tom Brady and President Obama.

However it was only with Apple that the Lord started to take an active and rooting interest against their products and CEO.

“I think it was because He had to switch His service from Verizon to AT&T to get an iPhone,” sang a host of cherubim. “Let’s face it, the 3G service and coverage is remarkably poorer and He is currently in the process of condemning Luke Wilson to hell for convincing Him otherwise. The Lord has been holding back on punishment for residual good will he still held towards Wilson for both Bottle Rocket and Old School, but those fucking ads were just too much. Verizon had unlimited night and weekend minutes!”

“Plus there was the worry that an iPad could revive the flagging fortunes of the moribund US print media, magazines, and newspapers. The Lord has spent the better part of the last two decades smiting them unmercifully and he didn’t want to see his work undone with a new revenue stream.”

In fact the Lord was heard to gleefully cheer on middling reviews from Gizmodo and other tech sites, punctuating His relieved whoops with fist pumps and remarks that newspapers “stay dead.”

“IPad?” a chuffed Lord was heard to sarcastically ask.

“Sounds like a high tech tampon, am I right Father,” our uncreative Lord was heard to ask, no one in the immediate vicinity having the guts to mention that iPad/tampon jokes were completely fucked out and unfunny within five minutes of the name being unveiled.

For now the Lord is in a holding pattern. Gleeful that Apple seems to have made a misstep, but wary that they might, as is their style, be holding back a better, new and improved, second generation iPad to be released four months after the initial iPad release.

“I think He’s just going to hang back, jam some tunes on His iPod, play a little Risk on his iPhone, maybe download one of those boobie jiggling apps, and capriciously smite great historians and writers while leaving alive everyone currently appearing on a reality show,” observed close friend and confidant to Jesus, Superman.

“That’s right, I really existed and now I’m dead,” yelled the angry Man of Steel. “Snookie: still living!”

For his part, Steve Jobs vowed to fix the iPad and create new technological innovations that would allow him to supplant the Lord.

“I have this one idea: it’s essentially a really, really big iPhone instead of just a kinda big iPhone like the iPad was,” Jobs announced. “52 inches wide, with a wireless remote… I call it the i…TV!”

“I’m running out of ideas here,” he sighed.

As of press time it was unclear how the Lord felt about these new revelations.

The last honest man

If you didn't already really, really hate Joe Lieberman with the fire of a thousand suns, our great newspapers have taken it upon themselves this week to try and take that loathing and crank it up into the two or three thousand sun range.

First there was the Wall Street Journal's epic paen to Joe, in which thousands of words are spent memorializing and lauding self-aggrandizing narcissism, hypocritical self-interest, inflated egotism, spite vendettas, and self commissioned statue building. The story really should become the dictionary definition for fellatio, or at least "media fellatio."

The Washington Post took a different angle, showing why everyone hates Joe Lieberman and attempting a pushback on the large bullshit parade he attempt to lead any time he opens his mouth. It's a nice catalogue of grievances, but at the end of the story, while discussing his disdain for the public option, it drops this little nugget:

“He keeps saying over and over that we can’t afford the public option, but the question is whether we can afford the subsidies,” said John Holahan of the Urban Institute.

Confronted with the cost-saving assessments of a strong public option, Lieberman concedes the point, but he says an aggressive government-run plan would put undue pressures on medical providers and force them to shift costs to private insurers. Put simply, he opposes the public option in any form, regardless of whether it reduces costs.

That's right, his "principled" opposition to the public option fully concedes that it would save money. If he knows that, he knows the stronger a public option is, the more money that it saves. Yet still he opposes one. Yet God is still refusing to hit him with a flaming rock from the sky.

So there, just mull that one over as you get to read over and over that the public option was just removed from the Senate health reform bill. Swish that one around the 'ole palate. Push the rage deep down inside and save it for another day, so when you see the inevitable news story praising him for his "contributions" and "action" during the health care debate you can explode out with an emphatic "THATFUCKINGSONOFABITCH", perhaps directed at a loved one or small child. As you think over how hard this man worked to take money out of your pocket and degrade your health care options, one thought will rattle around in your head: "Thanks Connecticut. Thanks for electing him." They're welcome.

Broken News: Amid Discord, Frustrated God Cripples Brady, Puts World on Notice

God smites the ligaments of Tom Brady early in the first quarter. (AP/Tom Smorgenberry, now deceased)

SILVER CITY--Distraught over the collapse this week of negotiations to find a replacement for the deposed Holy Ghost, God held a press conference where He stated His intention to revert to Old Testament form and start, "dealing on all the pricks who've been getting free passes lately."

A visibly irritated and uncharacteristically brash deity then claimed, "That asshole, [New England Patriots Quarterback] Tom Brady, was just the beginning. Rest assured, it won't be this season's last knee implosion."

When a reporter asked why God hadn't instead crippled Patriots coach, Bill Belichick, long considered one of the more rueful, dismissive, morally repugnant figures in professional sports, God immolated the journalist before training a smoldering finger on the press corps and asking, "Next question?" When met with silence, He continued, "What's wrong with you people? I pop the MVP's knee like a warm grape less than 15 minutes into the season and still my wrath is questioned? Of course I'll get to Belichick. Is it so wrong that before conjuring a massive heart attack or paralysis-inducing stroke while that cretin is greasing himself up for another roll in the rubber kiddie pool with a half-dozen prepubescent Thai boys, I warm up with a little debilitating knee injury that simultaneously ruined the lives every single Patriots fan and tanked no fewer than 10 million Fantasy Football seasons? If you'll allow me a small concession here, Jesus Christ..."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was quick to issue a response, insisting that the league would cooperate fully with God's decrees. "We are in no position to oppose His will, and ask only that Peyton Manning, LaDanian Tomlinson, Brett Favre, Adrian Peterson, and Tony Romo be spared, purely for commercial purposes. After all, a girl's gotta eat." At that, Goodell was stricken blind as his tongue turned into a pile of putrid ash.

NBC commentator Chris Collinsworth, predictably drunk during his segment, blurted out, "Who does this 'God' think he is, anyway? Brady breaks every offensive record in existence and gets rewarded with a season on the trainer's table? If I see That Guy on the street, I swear I'll knife--" before his hair caught fire and his teeth exploded one by one. Sources close to His Holiness suggested this only further infuriated God, as Collinsworth was all the way down at #7 on His list.

Only the recently retired John Lynch, a 15-year veteran and newest member of CBS’s 17-man, six-hour pregame preview show, “NFL Ex-Player Jugfuck and Mushmouthed Idiot Merry Go-Round” seemed to think before he opened his mouth. “I’m not saying He is wrong or in any way could be wrong,” Lynch whimpered through a torrent of nervous, pouring sweat. “But isn’t God in a Catch-22? If he injures more players then the profile of the league goes down, garnering less attention for each player he injures."

Lynch then checked over each shoulder for stray lightning bolts before clarifying, "Not that God even needs or would take advice from such a lowly wretch as myself,” before tearing off his microphone and scampering into the woods to hide.

Questions persist as to the true impetus behind God's sudden reversion to an iron-fisted ruler who once demanded child sacrifices and turned disobedient women into spice piles. Many wonder -- most either very quietly or to themselves -- if this can really be blamed solely on the lack of a successor to the Holy Ghost.

“It’s a lot of things,” said one of God’s circle on the condition of extreme anonymity while zipping up a fireproof suit. “As far as football goes, frankly He hasn't been paying much attention since the Montana years. When training camp started, He was talking about the upcoming season and He kept mentioning how 'great the LA Rams were going to be this year.’ We let him go on like that for a couple of weeks before we told him that the Rams moved to St. Louis and were going to be terrible. He didn’t take that so well. Then we did our Fantasy draft and he got stuck with Tavaris Jackson and Vince Young as his QBs and he just started throwing shit around and demanding a redraft. Then he locked Himself in His room for three days before coming out talking all this fire and brimstone and about ‘doin’ shit old school!’ He saw Brady walking around with some smug look on his face and a supermodel on his arm and He just said ‘Fuck this guy’ and, well, here we are.”

Inquiring minds question whether His holy wrath might be more justly trained on other sports, such as baseball. As Ken Burns, historian, jazzbo, and director of the documentary, Baseball, says, “No.” Or to put it more verbosely, “Look, with the same few mega rich teams like the Red Sox and Yankees dominating the sport for the past few years and pricing out the small markets with their reckless overspending, baseball already qualifies as sports hell and thus the domain of the Devil. Sure, He could take a run at America's Pastime but infringing on one of Satan's clearly designated playgrounds involves a ton of paperwork. Plus, any sport that punishes both the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates every year is A-OK with God. It stems from an incident at the 1992 MLB winter meetings where Willie Stargell got God to drink out of a punch bowl George Brett had peed in. He’s never really gotten over that one.”

With His wrath trained squarely on the National Football League, players, coaches and front office personnel are doing their best not to incur their own taste of God's seemingly random, horrific, non-specific sense of justice. The NFLPA today announced several new binding resolutions, all unanimously agreed upon during an overnight teleconference. The list includes a moratorium on pointing skyward during touchdown celebrations for fear The Almighty will take it as some sort of challenge, more affected weeping during pre-game prayer, new levels of incessant God-thanking during post-game interviews, and the addition of sulfur rain to this year's Super Bowl halftime show.

In light of these concessions, speculation abounds as to the identity of God's next target. The initial Vegas line, complete with perceived offenses, broke down as follows:

Bill Parcells (Giving hope to Dolphins fans): 7/2
Chad Johnson (Improperly translating 85 into “Ocho Cinco” and not “Ochenta Cinco”): 7/2
Art Modell (Refusal to move a second team out of Cleveland): 7/1
Al Michaels and John Madden (Using each successive year to further degrade their reputation as great broadcasters): 8/1
Peter King (Insufficient Brett Favre fellatio in his columns): 9/1
Tony Romo (Not laying a big enough egg in the playoffs so that God could break even after his Wildcard Weekend betting fiasco): 9/2