Video: Four Lions — Trailer
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]

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.

After the Times blew up with a story in part on how the youngs, who have no jobs, use the foodstamps at the Whole Foods, Salon has followed suit about the youngsters buying the organic chickens and boy are the comments insane.

Like, THIS kind of insane: “I know people need help right now, but its a slap in the face to know that I’m busting my butt working 40+ hrs a week, buying generic to feed my kids and someone collecting food stamps is eating better than us — thanks to my hard work. Do these people think this is ok? And seriously if you’re just getting food stamps so you can buy organic free range chicken that is HORRIBLE!!!!”

Well at least you have the broadband so as to complain on the Internets. And I’m sure your kids are thrilled that you are such an unhappy person.

And: “Of course people are going to be pissed that they’re busting their asses every day in real jobs so that some douchebag can satisfy his ‘flexitarian’ gourmet diet.”

This “ass-busting” is a recurring theme.

Also, LOL: “Maybe a degree in post feminist analysis of Sumerian Temple Prostitutes wasn’t such a wise choice after all.”

And then there’s this letter:

As a 27 year old single mother of three children I qualified for and received food stamps from 1979 to 1982 while completing my undergraduate degree. During that time, while shopping at the local Safeway, I presented the orange USDA coupons for my food and dug out a dollar for a Time magazine. The checker said with no small amount of distain, “I wish I could afford Time magazine.” As if, because I was using food stamps, I should not be purchasing a magazine. I’ll never forget that checker’s attempt to shame me for my choices.

There will always be people who discount those of us who take advantage of government programs to further our welfare and that of our families. I’ve been employed almost continuously since I graduated from college in 1982, I’ve paid my taxes willingly. I might not agree with what our government does with “my” tax dollars, but I have three, high-functioning, well-educated, adult children who remember aloud what it was like to grow up without much money. They never talk about how they went to bed hungry, because they never did.

I don’t begrudge anyone whatever they choose to buy and eat using government subsidized food. At least they know how to cook, which is more than I can say for myself. More power to them. Maybe someday they will have a chance to pay into a system that gave them the opportunity to eat well, with dignity, when they did not have much money.

Getting food stamps while GOING TO COLLEGE? And having children left and right? Disgusting hipster welfare queen! CRUCIFY HER.

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!

A woman named Karen Brown, of Randolph, New Jersey, is suing her former psychic counselor for fraud, claiming the storefront clairvoyant, Paula Lee, took her for $160,000. As the Asbury Park Press reports: “Brown became convinced that Lee ‘had genuine psychic abilities, powers and the ability to influence future events,’ the suit said. She claimed she could communicate with departed souls and convinced Brown she was under a curse and ‘dark forces were obstructing her efforts to find happiness,’ the suit said.” While it’s difficult to totally excuse the victim in such a case, Ms. Lee seems like a particularly predatory fake-psychic. Besides depression and marital problems, Brown was suffering from cancer. And Lee allegedly told her she would die without her help. That’s just not nice.

“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.”

That’s right hoops (that’s slang for basketball) fans, it’s March and it’s about time we go mad for it! At the suggestion of one of our loyal readers, I have created a group on ESPN and have forced both Choire and Alex to fill out a bracket, much to their chagrin (and, in Choire’s case, total bafflement, followed by blind guessing), and now it’s your turn-to fill out a bracket. But wait, we’re not just playing for pride and bragging rights here.

Here are the details and instructions.

1) Go to our ESPN group page, join our group, create a bracket, and pick the teams you think will win!

1a) Make sure that you do this before tomorrow at 12:20pm when all of the brackets officially lock!

2) Watch the tournament unfold! Stay tuned for updates about how you sports enthusiasts (!?) are performing within our group!

3) And if you win, you may choose two of your favorite Jock Jams CDs from here (I’d recommend Jock Jams Vol. 2, it’s a great blend of 90’s R&B; and great sports anthems, like ‘This Is How We Do It’ and Reel 2 Real’s ‘I Like To Move It’) and we will have them purchased and sent to you!

Could this be any easier? No! It could not! So go do it!

Contest void where prohibited by law etc., etc. disclaimer, disclaimer, you know the drill.

The only bracket that matters: the Greatest Living American Abstract Painter Tourney. It starts easy-for instance, Louise Fishman pounds Ross Bleckner-then gets hard. And then weird: the top four seeds are… Ellsworth Kelly, Cy Twombly, Robert Ryman and Mark Bradford? Mark Bradford is about 1/3 the age of those other three. Weirdsies! Also, you know, it’s not even likely that all of these painters will be alive by the end of this tournament!

“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.”

When will Lita Ford, the Stevie Nicks of hair metal, get the respect she deserves? Not, apparently, in The Runaways. BOO. “We see Cheri Currie and Joan Jett do drugs and make out a few times, but the movie does nothing to explore whatever complications that brought-if any-to their onstage and offstage relationship and only hints ever so briefly at what it did to the band dynamic. And speaking of the band, what about the other three members? Each gets a handful of dialogue (oh, Lita Ford, you always get the shaft!) but don’t even make it into the here’s-what-happened notes at movie’s end.”