Contributor Balk
You know the phrase "Knifecrime Island"? I don't want to boast, but, yeah, that's one of mine.
Australia Horrified By Comic Remarks About Its Princess 2010-03-19
Scandal on Prison Island after comedian Fiona O'Loughlin brought that country to a standstill with a suggestion that National Treasure Bindi Irwin "needs a slap in the face." Irwin is the daughter of revered Prison Islander Steve Irwin, who earned the love of fellow Australians by molesting reptiles on TV and then died. Outraged viewers "called O'Loughlin spiteful and hateful after her performance on ABC music quiz Spicks and Specks on Wednesday." And now they're going to beat her with a spoon. 3
I admittedly know very little about Canadian politics, but I thought that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was supposed to be the more palatable choice for voters who were scared by the creepy evangelicalism of Stockwell Day and Preston Manning. But apparently he is going as far right as he can? What is up, Canada? You guys are supposed to be the sane ones! Can't you reanimate the corpse of Lester Pearson or something? 2010-03-19 10
No two farts smell the same, says the man with the worst job in the world. [Via] 2010-03-19 4
I Am Prepared To Sacrifice Any Number Of Babies So Long As I Can Keep Smoking 2010-03-19
This Russian anti-smoking billboard (which apparently reads "Smoking in child’s presence is a much bigger torture for him. You don't care?") is kind of graphic, I guess, but it's still better than our own PSAs. I mean, it sucks for the baby and all, but I'd much rather deal with that than think about losing my fingers or having a giant hole in my throat. Also, shouldn't that baby be on its back? You don't want it to get SIDS. 7
And That's When I Clicked "Close Tab": Words No Longer Mean Anything Edition 2010-03-19
"In addition to these legal issues, one group will be hit especially hard – our senior citizens. Always the wisest folks, seniors have been against this bill from the beginning. And for good reason. Obamacare cuts a half-trillion dollars in health care for seniors to lay the foundation for socialized medicine."
—Actually, I should have clicked "close tab" when I read the words "an Ideas piece by by Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King," but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. This was far enough, though. 5
Sarah Palin's Giant Hairdo Will Blot Out The Sun 2010-03-19
As part of their continuing campaign to prove to the world that Sarah Palin is going bald, the folks at Wonkette point to this photo. In the interest of fairness, we should note that it might not be a wig at all. It could just be a huge mushroom cloud rising above the mountains behind her. 16
"Bands such as the Cockney Rejects, the Angelic Upstarts – Marxists from South Shields managed by a man [journalist/manager Garry] Bushell colourfully describes as 'a psychopath – his house had bars over all the windows because people had thrown firebombs through it' – Red Alert, Peter and the Test Tube Babies. It briefly stormed the charts. The Angelic Upstarts followed the Cockney Rejects onto Top of the Pops, while Splodgenessabounds made the Top 10 with the deathless Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please. But today, if the general public have heard of it at all, they tend to agree with the assessment once offered by journalist and broadcaster Stuart Maconie: 'Punk's stunted idiot half-brother, musically primitive and politically unsavoury, with its close links to far-right groups.' It is, asserts [English nationalist/television critic who once tried to get a comedian banned from live broadcasts because he made a joke about fisting the Chancellor of the Exchequer Garry] Bushell, 'without a doubt, the most misunderstood genre in history'."
—There's a delightful history of the Oi! genre in today's Guardian which I think you'll rather enjoy. 2010-03-19 15
The Ritz-Carlton South Beach is looking for a new tanning butler! Could it be you? (Dudes only, but since this recession has hit men much harder that seems fair.) [Via] 2010-03-19 7
Museum Of Living Short People: Is It Good For Short People? 2010-03-19
"Shocked Westerners call it a human zoo, but the residents of China’s 'Empire of the Little People' have a different name for the place where people pay to watch performing dwarves. They call it home." Uh, okay. I'm gonna leave this one alone. 3
Sweet mother of Christ, it was nice out yesterday! It'll be pretty today, and it's going to be absolutely stunning on Saturday. Come Sunday we will be reminded that all beauty is fleeting, but such is life. Such is spring. Such are the tides that carry us along through this world, with its torrential downpours and sun-strewn interludes. On days like this, enjoy what you have and worry not about tomorrow. (Seriously, don't worry about tomorrow, it's going to be crotch-hardeningly—or moisteningly, depending on your equipment—gorgeous.) It is so frigging great out there! 2010-03-19 20
Silvio Berlusconi Under Investigation (Yes, This Is A New Post) 2010-03-18
Silvio Belusconi has been placed under investigation after wiretaps revealed an apparent attempt to influence Italy's main broadcast network against airing programs unfavorable to the prime minister. (READ MORE) 3
Alex Chilton: Further Ruminations 2010-03-18
Why were so many people so profoundly affected by the passing of Alex Chilton? Here's a thought: The musician
was the voice of at least a subset of a generation. Call it the "spent a chunk of the 80s/90s rewinding the cassette of Radio City and waiting for that boy/girl to call generation." Most of the folks above, I would guess, are older than 35 and younger than Chiton himself. But not that much younger. Chilton was born in 1950, and he was 59 when he died. With better living/luck/genes, he might have seen his threescore and ten, but he was not, by any means, a talent cut down in the flower of youth. If you are a member of the generation I mention above, the people in the bands you like are starting to die not because of heroic abuse of drugs/alcohol, but because they are getting old. Unfortunately, that means that any one of us could be next. That's the scary part.
You Will Never Find A Husband In New York 2010-03-18
Are ladies leaving New York because the city's men refuse to settle down? That's the premise of this piece in the Post, which posits that the paucity of paramours prepared to propose perplexes and perturbs their presumptive partners, prompting them to pack it in for more promising provinces. (READ MORE) 78
At last glance, 284 of you had signed up for our inexplicable March Madness bracketpalooza. Tipoff for the tournament proper—play-in game MY ASS—occurs at 12:20, so if you're one of those procrastinatory types who figures, "Oh, I'll get to it eventually," you should get to it now. We'd hate for you to be left out of all the, I don't know, fun? Yeah, let's go with fun. Anyway, do it up! 2010-03-18 13
A Virus Victim Seeks Assistance 2010-03-18
Good FUCKING Lord. I just spent the better part of two hours removing some dickserrating virus from my poor computer. You can IMAGINE how pleased I am right now. It was some sort of pox on humanity called Antivirus which installs itself through Adobe or something and requires an intensive series of maneuvers to remove, none of which I'm remotely qualified to perform. And let's not even mention the shame of infection. (Yes, here is where you Mac people can laugh at me. I am happy for you that your shiny, expensive machines are so rare that evil people will not even bother creating viruses for them.) Anyway, I need your help. (READ MORE) 66
How was your St. Patrick's Day? "Police say two bank robbery suspects, including one dressed in a green leprechaun costume, have been shot dead after a St. Patrick's Day chase and shootout with police in Tennessee." 2010-03-18 11
Alex Chilton, 1950-2010 2010-03-17
Alex Chilton, who pretty much influenced everything that influenced the music you listen to now, has died of a heart attack at the age of 59. I lack words. (READ MORE) 24
Briton Turns Tiny Plane Into Giant Knife 2010-03-17
Your Knifecrime Island knife crime story of the day involves enormous knives and fox hunting. It's never a good combination: "A pilot and animal rights campaigner who drove a gyrocopter at a member of a fox hunt, cleaving his head from top to bottom with its blades, was cleared of manslaughter today." The report notes that "The case highlighted the intense passions and entrenched views on both sides of the hunting debate," which, uh, yeah. 21
Study: Women Just As Shallow As You Think They Are 2010-03-17
Exactly what I suspected. Yeah, you broads talk a good game about how a sense of humor is the most important thing, or that you really just want a good listener who appreciates you for all funny, quirky things that make you who you are, but when it comes right down to it you're just gonna go for the jerk with the fancy car. Science is on to you, ladies. This is why dudes drive Hummers, you know. Nice job. 25
New iPhone App Adds All The Excitement Of Exercise And Number Crunching To Fucking 2010-03-17
This one's from the Sun, so take its origin story with a grain of salt, but anyway:"A WOMAN desperate to get her lazy boyfriend to exercise has invented an iPhone app that measures how many calories you burn off having sex. The 59p download, called the Bedometer, analyses the time and intensity of each romp…. The gizmo is put on the bed and measures raunchy activity using the iPhone or iPod Touch's motion sensor before adding up the calories." Listen, ladies, I don't care how badly you want your boyfriend to exercise: If he's only willing to have sex with you when there's an iPhone alongside you in the bed, something is very, very wrong. 8
"The moral of my brief political story is not that casting a tough and decisive vote necessarily predicts a bad electoral outcome for you, nor that the majority of your constituents is always wrong or always right. It's that there are times in all our careers when we must ask ourselves why we're here. I decided that my desire for public service at that moment was greater than my desire to guarantee continued service."
—Marjorie Margolies, who, as a freshman representative in 1993, cast a deciding vote for Bill Clinton's first budget and wound up losing the next election, urges wavering House Democrats to follow their conscience on health care. 2010-03-17 5
"Four Lions" Trailer Makes Me More Excited About "Four Lions" 2010-03-17
Here's the official trailer for Chris Morris' Four Lions, the "terrorist comedy" I've been banging on about since April. IT LOOKS AWESOME! Sorry, I'm just kind of into this, can you tell? [Via] 6
This is going to come as a shock to some of you, so brace yourselves: Astrology? It's bullshit. Here's some actual proof, not that those of you who believe in astrology will pay attention to that, particularly those born between March 21st and April 20th, who are all exactly the same kind of gullible. 2010-03-17 4
It is buried deep within the nether regions of a piece on The New Floppiness—supposedly the most recent trend in male grooming—so you may very well have missed this rather important bulletin. Pay attention, beard-wearers: "Of course, the grizzled look poses its own perils, like a certain prickliness during one act of love." In case that is still too obscure for you, we'll just put it out there: She's talking about cunnilingus. It's a valuable lesson, but not exactly a new one. As Dorothy Parker so famously put it, "Men with soul patches are rough on girls' snatches." Now you have no excuse for not knowing! 2010-03-17 14
Surfing Alapaca Ups The Ante On Funny Animal Cruelty Videos 2010-03-17
"Pisco is thought to be the first alpaca who has ever been taught to surf…. Pisco wears a floatation jacket while on the board, given that alapacas – mountain animals bred for their warm, silky coats – are not natural swimmers." 9
The Legacy Of The Irish: Two Views 2010-03-17
"The Irish fanned out across Europe, salvaging books wherever they could, making copies, reassembling libraries and teaching the newly settled barbarians of the continent to read and write. But they did more than this: they managed to infuse the emerging medieval world with a playfulness previously unknown. In the margins of the books they copied, the Irish scribes drew little pictures, thickets of plants, flowers, birds and animals. Human faces occasionally peek through the tangle, faces of childlike delight and awe. If you were a scribe copying out some especially ponderous philosophical Greek, the margin in which you could reflect on your own world served as a source of 'refreshment, light and peace,' to quote the ancient Latin liturgy…. We have many reasons to be grateful to St. Patrick and his fierce and playful Irishmen and Irishwomen. So on this St. Patrick’s Day, remember them as they would wish to be remembered. Read a book." 58
Will Mexican Drug Violence Change The Way America's College Kids Tan? 2010-03-17
Panic in Acapulco as heavily-armed Mexican police are sent in to protect our nation's most valuable resource: nubile young college students whose scantily-clad bodies perk up pretty much any boring news story. Anyway, parents of our country's spring breakers are concerned that Mexico's spiraling drug violence will put their children—who just want to get drunk and have random sex in warm weather—at risk. They're also worried about the lives of the poor Mexicans whose daily existence is a struggle to survive the violence of rival cartels and who are about a million times more likely to become crime victims, especially now, when even the terribly inadequate police protection they are used to has been shifted in service of a bunch of yanqui undergrads. Actually, I'm just guessing on that second part. 2
Good news from yesterday's election in Queens: "Popular Assemblyman Jose Peralta crushed [slashy former State Senator Hiram] Monserrate with 65% of the vote to his rival's 27%, according to the unofficial final tally in the special election." A defiant Monserrate told supporters that "This is not the last of Hiram Monserrate," so, you know, watch out if you see him near the stemware. 2010-03-17 3
Book Trailer Amuses 2010-03-16
The whole Pride and Prejudice and Zombies thing seemed worth a chuckle and not much more. I mean, a one-note joke on Jane Austen is all well and good, but was there really call for a sequel? Apparently yes, there was, and Dawn of the Dreadfuls will be arriving in bookstores soon. Whatever reservations you might have about that—and do you? Do you really? Are you somehow that invested in what winds up in bookstores? Is your little masterpiece somehow going unpublished while an extended riff on romantic fiction from the Regency period festooned with the living dead somehow merits a second volume? Maybe the problem is with your work and not with anyone else, did you ever consider that? I'm sure you've brought a delightful and idiosyncratic spin to modern ennui and you're no doubt terrific with illustrations of the sky and depictions of urban angst, but maybe we've all had enough of that. Did that ever occur to you?—you've got to admit that this "trailer" is pretty damned good. I enjoyed it, at least. Oh, whatever, I'm tired of you and your complaining. Just watch it. [Via] 5
What 80s Hits Do Sarah Palin's Tweets Remind YOU Of? 2010-03-16
This is why Sarah Palin is the best at what she does: In a simple, 140-word burst of text she can evoke both the beginning of Whitney Houston's "So Emotional" and that Berlin song from Top Gun, all while distorting what Nancy Pelosi actually said. Admit it, the gal's a pro. 15
