Reality makes way for the Bush script

"No camera crews have ever been granted this much access to this national security adviser," Oprah told her audience as she greeted her guest. A major scoop was not far behind. Is there anything you can tell us about the president that would surprise us? Oprah asked. Yes, Ms. Rice said, Mr. Bush is a very fast eater. "If you're not careful," she continued, "he'll be on dessert and you're still eating the salad."

Japanese Bum-poking Videogame

Built into the cabinet is a bent over backside, and on the screen in front of you appears the expression of the person as you shove the finger inside. The harder you shove the finger inside, the more points you score.

Flame Warriors

Stone Deaf is one of the few truly invincible Warriors because nothing can shatter his impenetrable armor of non recognition. His primitive battle strategy is maddening effective; he simply refuses to acknowledge any arguments he doesn't like.

World Beard and Moustache Championships

The World Beard and Moustache Championships will take place in Carson City, Nevada, on November 1, 2003. A panel of distinguished judges will determine which beards and moustaches in seventeen separate categories merit their owners the championship trophies and the coveted world champion titles.

Judge Raps Decision in Eminem Case

A Michigan judge has written a rap-inspired poem to explain why hip-hop superstar Eminem didn't take the rap for slander.

...

"The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact/They're an exaggeration of a childish act," she wrote.

"Any reasonable person could clearly see/That the lyrics could only be hyperbole."

Sorry, my mind's a blank.

While it may be true that the Bible's attacks on homosexuality are scattered, complex and ambiguous, one thing's for sure:

God Hates Figs

MPs back Carr's go-home remark

Federal politicians from both sides backed NSW Premier Bob Carr's comments that migrants unwilling to live by Australian law should go home.

Mr Carr has attracted criticism for saying those responsible for this week's drive-by murders in Sydney should "obey the law of Australia or ship out of Australia".
The federal government and Muslim community groups said the premier's comments were divisive and fanned racism.

But federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson said average Australians did not like that kind of violence by anyone.

"None of us want to see this kind of violence, this kind of retribution," he told reporters.

"The message to people who want to engage in this sort of behaviour is that they should be subjected to the full force of the law.

"Anyone who thinks that they will be coming to Australia and want to bring that sort of behaviour with them, they would do well to listen to Mr Carr's remarks because that is what the average Australian thinks.

"It's this sort of behaviour that gets right up our nose."

Too right. Doesn't Johnny Foreigner know that in Australia you follow Australian ways? Shoot your wife and kids, then shoot yourself. If murder-suicide is good enough for fair dinkum Aussies it's good enough for bloody immigrants!

Ooooooh! Satire!

We need more extremists like these:

CIVILISE THE CITY

A gentle protest against vulgarity commencing at 8.30 am on Thursday 16th October 2003, departing from the statue of Oscar Wilde, Adelaide Street, London WC2.

Society is teetering on the edge of a precipice overlooking a dark chasm – a darkness where the only affordable footstuffs are hamburgers and pizzas; a darkness where ‘a cup of tea’ is in reality an overpriced cardboard beaker of tea-flavoured hot water; a darkness where every citizen wears a meaningless outfit of faux-sportif clothing made in third-world sweatshops – in short, it is a darkness in which Chappist qualities such as common courtesy, eccentricity and civility have no place.

We propose to take a stand against this culture of vulgarity. On Thursday 16th October 2003, we shall politely disrupt the status quo by gently pointing out the error of its ways. Our methods will be stealth, civility and charm, our targets the symbols of corporate banality: fast food emporia, coffee shops, sportswear purveyors and lager shebeens. We also aim to provide gentlemanly assistance to those citizens whom we feel have lost their way in the quagmires of solipsism that our cities have become. Civilise the City will commence at 8.30 am at the statue of Oscar Wilde on Adelaide Street, London WC2. We urge participants to protest in the following manner:

• Enter the purveyors of ‘fast food’ and request a table for two with “a pleasant view,” then order a breakfast of devilled kidneys, kedgeree and eggs Benedict.
  
  
• In a high-street coffee chain which offers tea on its menu, ask for a pot of lapsang souchong, a cup and saucer and some toast with Gentleman’s Relish.
  
  
• In the premises of Mr Nike, ask to be measured for a suit by the head cutter.
  
  
• Offer passing gentlemen exquisite buttonholes for their lapels.
  
  
• In the type of high street hostelry that has a bouncer on the door, order a Pousse Café (the yolk of one fresh egg, 1/6 gill of yellow Chartreuse, 1/6 gill of Eau de Vie de Danzig, or Danziger Goldwasser).
  
  
• Enter an ophthalmic optician and ask to see the monocle selection.
  
  
• Offer to escort ladies across the road and assist them with their luggage.
  
  
• In a communications outlet, attempt to ‘upgrade’ a perfectly good Royal Exchange telephone to a mobile telephone.
  
  
• Enter an establishment offering “Internet chat rooms” and try to engage someone in conversation.
  
  
• Offer “gentlemen of the road” (hobos) not money – which they might spend on food – but a nip of cognac from your hip flask.

Yes, but is it something other than art?:

Hikers Find 70 Shoes Filled With Butter

A Swedish couple hunting on a remote mountain Sunday in Sweden's far northern province of Jaemtland found 70 pairs of shoes, all filled with butter.

"If we knew who had done this we could make them clean this mess up," Alf Kjaellstroem, a province spokesman told The Associated Press Thursday. "It's not going to be pretty when the butter starts to rot. And we have to wait for the snow so we can get up there with the snowmobile."

He said there were 140 shoes of all kinds — sneakers, children's shoes, high heels, boots and tap shoes — each stuffed with half a kilo (1.1 pound) of butter and spread out in the landscape.

The find was similar to one done by artist Yu Xiuzhen's in 1996.

His exhibit "Shoes With Butter," was laid out in the Tibetan mountains surrounding Lhasa, China.

Oh yeah, go ahead: something weird happens so you blame the Chinese artist.

"I've just discovered one hundred and twenty umbrellas painted with lard and buried in a pit of ear-buds inside a Holden Astra."

"Must be a Chinese artist."

You people and your Sino-ethnic stereotyping.

It's not going to be pretty when the butter starts to rot. That's strange - isn't that the title of Fred MacMurray's autobiography?

(Story found at The City of Floating Blogs. Those Haypenny boys get all the best tips.)

Hmm, I wonder how many times I'd have to mention Satan before the adbot (see above) stops directing people to Christian sites. Satan Satan Satan Satan oh wait, that'll probably just make it worse. Erm... Secular Humanism Secular Humanism Secular Humanism - actually, probably just as bad. Buddha Buddha Buddha Buddha. Velvet Spatulas. Mel Tormé's Brush With Martian Death Ray Wielding Vampire Lesbian Quilters. Ayn Rand And The Victory Of Plum-Folding. Toes. Smaller Toes. Toes With Masters Degrees In Renaissance Plane-Spotting.

OK, I give up.

Arnold Swarzenegger's election as Governor of California clinches it - reality is sucking the humour out of me. For a week and a half I've been deathly unfunny, and now I know why. All the zany quip-meister cracked-perspective off-the-wall laff-riots that usually flow out of me like killer ants swarming from the mouth of a dead and bloated capybara* have been leached out of me and embedded in the real world. I am hollowed out by the abject stupidity of the objective universe. Do not ask for whom the squeaky-toy squeaks, it squeaks for thee. And by thee, I mean me, obviously. I'm going to drown my sorrows in custard and rum. I suggest you do likewise.

*See! It took me four minutes to pick "capybara" and there are funnier animals. Madness, madness!