No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.

Britney!
A life-sized statue of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug has been unveiled at a gallery in Brooklyn. It is called "Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston." A photograph of the sculpture can be found at the gallery’s web site: http://caplakesting.com/.

On the gallery’s press release, the sculptor, Daniel Edwards says, “Britney provides inspiration for those struggling with the ‘right choice.’ She was number one with Google last year, with good reason -- people are inspired by the beauty of a pregnant woman.”

Also from the press release: "’Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,’" believed Pro-Life's first monument to the 'act of giving birth,' is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears' pregnancy, like lactiferous [huh?] breasts and protruding naval [sic], compliment [sic] a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean's head.”

One can’t be sure any more, of course, but I believe the Pro-Life art-loving Britney fans out there have just been pranked.

Immigration!
Huge pro-immigration crowds gathered over the weekend to protest proposed U.S. policies – which include making illegal immigration a felony, and building a wall on the border.

I must confess I don’t quite understand the anti-illegal immigrant fervor. If you don’t want illegal immigrants, it seems to me the solution is simple: DON’T HIRE THEM!

Why blame them? They’re hardworking people risking their lives to try to earn a buck. We should make life easier for them, not harder. Or: DON’T HIRE THEM!

News from Other Lands
From Reuters:

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, fighting for re-election against a centre-left coalition which includes the hard left, said on Sunday that communists had a history of boiling babies.

"I have been accused many times of saying communists eat babies," he told a rally of his Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party.
…

"Go and read the black book on communism and you'll find that under Mao's China they didn't eat babies but they boiled them to fertilise the fields.”

And disturbing news from home.
According to the New York Post, last Thursday, former Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen McFarland told a crowd of Republicans, "Hillary Clinton is really worried about me, and is so worried, in fact, that she had helicopters flying over my house in Southampton today taking pictures."

A spokesman told the Post that she was just kidding around: "It was a joke, and people laughed."

“But,” says the Post, “three witnesses who were present said nobody in the audience cracked a smile.”

In a statement released on Saturday, Mr. McFarland said, "This is a perfect example of what is happening in American politics. One misinterpreted joke, and your opponents are smearing you in the press. I continue to believe that we can be better than that. But I've got to tell you, it's not easy."

So she made an unfunny joke about Hillary Clinton, and somehow that becomes Hillary Clinton’s fault? I love politics!

Chain chain chain...
Referring to Democrats during a speech in Orlando, Vice President Cheney said, "If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol."

I would LOVE to see that. He could do a cover of Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry,” maybe, “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” or “Bird Dog.”

Texas: What Happened?
This is SO San Francisco, isn’t it? Well, not. According to Reuters, “Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.”

Wasn’t Texas the state where you could drive eighty miles an hour, backward, with an open bottle in your lap, steering with one hand, and blasting a handgun at stop signs with your other? I am disillusioned. Next thing you know they’ll outlaw smoking in steak houses.

Conceive of a being than which no greater can be conceived….
Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, told the online magazine TCSDaily, "From a purely logical perspective, it will never be possible to disprove the existence of God, since the tools of science apply only to the natural world. Thus of all the possible worldviews, atheism is the most irrational choice."

Um, okay….

Take God out of the statement, and substitute “an invisible flying magic hippo.” Then for atheism, substitute “not believing that an invisible flying magic hippo exists.”

Just a sec, there's somebody at the door....
"Are you there, Merle? It's me, God."

Hot Blog, hold the mustard.

The Dread Wife and I.
Celebrated our fourth anniversary last week. With dinner at the highly authentic Mel’s Diner, and a movie in an actual theater – THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

I never saw the original, but this version had everything one could want from a movie about a hapless family being picked off one by one by deranged atomic mutants. Recommended!

Snippets from an actual eBay auction, misspellings and all.
HELLO, I AM A GIFTED MUSICIAN AND OWNER OF MIND CONTROL DEVICE. HERES HOW IT WORKS.

… The Mind Control Machine converts your voice into something called Silent Sound. It is basically a special format the brain can understand without your conscience awareness of any message. In technical terms, it frequency modulates your voice data at 16 kHz in a special format that affects our unconcious mind. It sounds a bit like some kind of secret military communications. … Solid-State circuit works great on women too (and men for that matter).

But wait, there’s more!
I AM ALSO THE PROUD POSSESSOR OF A SACRED GIFT, THE GIFT OF SONG.

IN MY LIVING ROOM, I WRITE AND RECORD WHAT COULD BEST BE DESCRIBED AS TRIUMPHANT SOUNDTRACKS TO MY FAVORITE THEMES.

I SING ABOUT THE FREEWAY, MY FAVORITE FOODS, FRIENDSHIP, WOMEN, MY WORRIES AND MY HOPES. MY HEALTH PROBLEMS, PEOPLE I KNOW, ALIENS, PEACE, FANTASIES, CURIOUS THINGS LIKE THE PYRAMIDS OR THE BRAMUDA TRIANGLE. PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING THAT COMES TO MIND THAT I FIND INTERESTING

Bid now! Why?
I MIGHT BE FAMOUS SOON.

I HAVE EVEN PERFORMED FOR A "QUEER TV" TALK SHOW CALLED "THE QUEER EDGE'" GUEST HOSTED BY THE FORMER EDDIE MUNSTER. DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW? I AM NOT EVEN GAY! IM GOING TO BE ON AGAIN THIS MONTH WITH BELINDA CARLISLE.

SEE THE PICTURE ON THE BOTTOM? THAT IS ME NEXT TO EDDIE MUNSTER AND THE TRANSVESTITE DRESSED LIKE LILI MUNSTER. I AM THE BEARDED ONE. THIS WAS TAKEN IN OCTOBER, MY BEARD IS HUGE NOW AND GETTING HUGE-ER.

Act now, and get this special bonus!
I WILL EVEN SEND A BEARD HAIR IF YOU WANT ONE AS A FREE GIFT.

And, in local news, a common sense response to danger….
Informed that an FBI informant had told authorities that he had seen three high-ranking Al Qeeda leaders in central California, a Lodi resident in turn told the San Francisco Chronicle, "I think the FBI should rely on more-reliable informants.”

Craigslist? Is that a porn site?
“Upscale executive seeks beautiful female 18-24 to live in his luxury condo in Coral Gables for $1/month in exchange for some light duties. Help take care of dog, cook occasionally. Sex 2x/week. Serious inquires only. Please email a picture for consideration.”

Dutch treat?
From the Associated Press:
“The camera focuses on two gay men kissing in a park. Later, a topless woman emerges from the sea and walks onto a crowded beach. For would-be immigrants to the Netherlands, this film is a test of their readiness to participate in the liberal Dutch culture.”
…
“’As of today, immigrants wishing to settle in the Netherlands for, in particular, the purposes of marrying or forming a relationship will be required to take the civic integration examination abroad,’ the Immigration Ministry said in a statement.”

Are you paying attention, Denmark? Make your would-be citizens watch porn! You’re the country that first put porn on the map, after all. Stand up! Be proud!

A Request from the Missus.
She has come up with a punchline to a joke, but not the joke itself. On her behalf, I am inviting you to provide the joke. Post it as a comment. This is not a contest. There will be no winners. No, I take that back. We’ll ALL be winners, won’t we?

Here’s the punchline: “Meteorologist? No. I said he was a meaty urologist.”

Our Innocent Past: the Blog

News from our innocent past.
Hollywood is making what it likes to call a “biopic” about Grace Metalious, who wrote PEYTON PLACE, and a couple of other books before drinking herself to death at the age of 39. Sandra Bullock has been “tapped” to play her.

It has been fifty years since the book was first published, and the Associated Press tells us:

“Grace Metalious' sensational story of sex, violence and other scandals in a small New England town, based in part on Gilmanton, made the author an international celebrity and a local pariah. It transformed an otherwise obscure township into a symbol of decadence and hypocrisy and rivaled Elvis Presley as a shocking breach to the official decorum of the 1950s.”
…
“Published in fall 1956, PEYTON PLACE sold millions of copies, becoming more desired as censors sought to stop it. Metalious' novel was banned in several cities, declared ‘indecent’ by Canada and labeled by New Hampshire's Manchester Union-Leader as symbolic of a ‘complete debasement of taste.’ A sign in front of a library in Beverly Farms, Mass., read: ‘This library does not carry PEYTON PLACE. If you want it, go to Salem.’"

The book later became a movie, and a television series, which launched the careers of Mia Farrow and Ryan O’Neal. Today the novel is unread, and Gilmanton still stands.

So much for that molehill in a teapot.

Maggie Gallagher’s tempest.
Talking about the new HBO series, BIG LOVE, she writes—

“There's Hollywood family values for you: taking the yuck out of polygamy on national TV. This is just the latest salvo in what appears to be a nascent push for normalizing polygamy in this country.”

The latest salvo for normalizing polygamy? Did I miss something? Where are those guns, besides the wilds of Utah?

I love it when conservatives pull some imaginary trend out of their asses, and then blame liberals for it. Let’s take a poll of the practicing polygamist hordes in Idaho and see how many of them voted for John Kerry.

Cheney takes good-natured ribbing!
There are few things I hate more than “celebrity roasts,” in which the well-connected pick on their own over cocktails and chicken.

The Gridiron Club dinner is an annual event that features journalists and others “poking fun” at journalists and others.

This year’s jokes included:

-- Noting Cheney’s middle initial, President Bush said, "B. stands for bulls eye."

-- Illinois Sen. Barack Obama sang a parody, "If I Only Had McCain.”

-- Reporters sang, "What do we stand for? We don't know. What's our platform? We ain't sure. All we know is Dubya's got it wrong.”

The Associated Press reports: “Cheney, who sat at the head table, laughed along with most of the jokes.”

Hmm. What I want to know is, which ones DIDN’T he laugh at?

Science News
According to the Wall Street Journal, Scientists at Stanford University, used “X-rays generated by [a] synchrotron, a kind of particle generator, to study chemical bonds in molecules in water.” They finally concluded that water “has a structure totally at odds with what textbooks say and what scientists have believed for more than a century.”

That’s right, my friends. In this uncertain world, we no longer even know what water is.

Scare quotes!
I seem to be “addicted” to “them.”

Oscar-Free Blog

The Move
I spent the major part of the week installing the Aged Parents into a managed care facility, called an “old folks’ home” back when I was a tad. It was very stressful for all involved, but at the end of the move, there was a visible look of relief on my mother’s face. We managed to keep Dad out of the way for most of the process, but when the movers brought his scooter out, he got on it and began driving it in and out of the unit, hampering the movers’ progress. Mother finally actually said to him, “Don’t drive that thing in the house.” Poor Dad. At one point, I was unpacking a box and Dad said to me, matter-of-factly, “I don’t remember where I am.”

In other news
President Bush has apparently made some kind of deal with India whereby India gets to develop nuclear plants, and we get to import Indian mangos. There’s a quid pro quo for you.

Marking the historic occasion, President Bush claimed that “..the United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangos.” As I’m sure we are.

That Ann Coulter. What a caution!
From her Oscars column:

Is the idea of gay cowboys really that new? Didn't the Village People do that a couple of decades ago? Am I the only person who saw John Travolta in "Urban Cowboy"?

Movies with the same groundbreaking theme to come:
-- "Westward Homo!"
-- "The Magnificent, Fabulous Seven"
-- "Gunfight at the K-Y Corral"
-- "How West Hollywood Was Won"

Why that’s so funny.
She took the phrase “Westward Ho!” and turned it into “Westward Homo!” It’s kind of a play on words. Adding “Fabulous” to “The Magnificent Seven” gently lets us know that the Seven in question are gay, because gay people use the word “fabulous” a lot. K-Y is a lubricant very popular with gay people, and West Hollywood has a large gay population.

But URBAN COWBOY, I’m sorry to say, was not a gay cowboy movie. (Charlie Daniels was in it. Q.E.D.) Ann Coulter could probably remake it as BLOWJOB COWBOY, though. That would be funny, because gay people like blowjobs.

Speaking of gay movies…
Michelle Williams, who plays Heath Ledger’s wife in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and has been nominated for an Oscar, got her start at Christian Youth Theater in San Diego.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, “BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is a long way from the rigorous religious precepts of Santa Fe Christian and the G-rated productions of “The Sound of Music” at CYT.”

The gracious and beaming Santa Fe Christian headmaster Jim Hopson told the paper. “We don't want to have anything to do with her in relation to that movie. Michelle doesn't represent the values of this institution.”

Choking back tears of emotion, he continued, “We would not approve of her movies and TV shows. We'd not like to be tied to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. I hope we offered her something in life. But she made the kinds of choices of which we wouldn't approve.”

Pointing proudly to a photograph of Ms. Williams from a CYT production of ANNIE, he said, “BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN basically promotes a lifestyle we don't promote. It's not the word of God.”

Did you hear…?
The Vice President shot a guy!

Crime news!
CourtTV has informed me that a man vandalized the restroom of a Mexican restaurant in Council Bluff, Iowa, because he thought the employees had put hot sauce in his tacos. The restaurant, Taco John's, does not put hot sauce directly on its food.

More Christian news.
A woman named Katherine Albrecht has written a book called THE SPYCHIPS THREAT: WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD RESIST RFID AND ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE.

According to WIREDNEWS, “…RFID… is fast becoming a part of passports and payment cards, and is widely expected to replace bar-code labels on consumer goods. RFID chips contain unique identification codes, and can be read at varying distances with special reader devices.”

Apparently, these chips – which can be installed subcutaneously in humans – may be the Mark of the Beast.

Finally….
From Reuters:
“Half of 1,000 Americans randomly surveyed by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum could name at least two of the five members of Fox Television's Simpson family, the stars of the network's long-running show.

“But just 28 percent of respondents could name more than one of the five freedoms listed in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment -- about the same proportion that could name all five Simpson family members or could recall the three judges on Fox TV's top-rated AMERICAN IDOL.”

Testing myself, I found I could not remember the baby’s name from THE SIMPSONS, could remember Paula Abdul’s name, but not her face, and had forgotten all about the “freedom to petition for redress of grievances” right. Do we still have that? Or have all the trial lawyers been put in prison?

Finally finally.
I will be avoiding the Oscars, as is my custom, but somebody please tell me whether Michelle Williams, if she wins, gives a special thanks to all the wonderful warm people at Christian Youth Theater.