FunctionalAmbivalent

False Advertising

Padded swimming trunks for men.

I assume the YouTube is animated because they couldn't get anyone to wear the shorts on camera.

Things Sure Have Changed Since I Was Single

After a poll last year indicated that women from New Zealand were the most promiscuous in the world, local media jumped on the story. You can imagine the editorial meeting:

Assignment Editor: Let's send Jennings out to local bars to interview attractive young women about their sex lives.
Another Reporter: How come Jennings gets to go? How come I never get to interview attractive young women about their sex lives?
Assignment Editor: Jennings is gay. He'll come back.

One newspaper (they apparently still have them in New Zealand) came back with the following data point.

The Sunday Star-Times' "Being a Bloke" survey last year found that 29% of the 5000 men surveyed felt they had been pressured into having sex or had had sex unwillingly.

I'm thinking if they just didn't dress so provocatively...

One More Reason Why I'm Staying Married To My Wife Forever

You can, if you like, look for a mate at Inmate Penpals. An awful lot of our prisoners are one-time losers fallen prey to our stupid drug laws, after all, and you never know. You could find a cutie like Wendi, a misunderstood soul who'd just love for someone to share her life with when she gets out:

I'm a fun loving and sometimes serious girl.  I know when to work and when to play.  I work hard and play even harder. I'm a thirty year old Veterinarian from West Texas. I graduated from Texas A&M and practiced for five years before this ordeal. Once I am released, I plan to reopen a Veterinary practice. 

I am five foot tall, have long dirty-blond hair, and brown eyes. I love animals, working out at the gym, music, dancing, pool, and horseback riding. I have two young boys, and my husband passed away a few years ago.

The thing is, a quick Google and you discover that cutie-pie Wendi's husband didn't just pass away a few years ago; she seems to have poisoned him. Then, she coolly weighed his body down with auto parts and dumped it into a farm pond. Later, when the cops got suspicious, she tried to pin the murder on her parents.

But she sure has a nice smile, doesn't she?

Disillusionment Sets In

Apparently, the Christopher Walken I was following on Twitter is not the real Christopher Walken.

I thought everything on the Internet had to be true. Isn't that why we have a government?

Hilarity Ensues: Conspiracy Theory's Big Bang Coming To a Theater Near You

It's got everything: the Clintons, piles of campaign cash, Fox News, Sarah Palin and Scientology! I'm thinking high-concept farce along the lines of It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but set in Washington. Chase scenes around Dupont Circle! Zany antics atop the Washington Monument! All it needs is a wacky ending in which everyone ends up swimming in a lake of poo.

Whatever Could Be the Difference?

The same Republican Party that demanded an instant end to recounts in the close, contested 2000 Presidential election promises "World War III" if the Senate tries to seat the winner of the close, contested 2008 Minnesota Senate race.

Liberal Media Watch: There's Also, of Course, the Possibility That It's Not News

The not-at-all-insane World Net Daily does a "review" of President Obama's writings and speeches and uncovers the shocking truth that President Obama uses speechwriters and may even have used ghostwriters in his books. Jack Cashill, who has previously reported that the Clintons murdered their labor secretary and that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by terrorists, did the research himself, so he can be sure it was untainted.

Taking his stunning findings about the President to the mainstream media, he finds the liberal media conspiracy still strong. His proof: no one wants to pay him for his groundbreaking work.

To be sure, not one single major media outlet stepped up to commission a university study or even test the evidence that I had gathered. If my hypothesis were true, and they may have feared it was, they simply did not want to know.

Curses! Foiled again!Clearly, there can be no other reason for disinterest by responsible grown-ups than ideological conspiracy! Why, I'd bet if you'd come up with research demonstrating that President Bush used speechwriters, the media would have been all over it!

The Reality of Torture

Pro-torture conservatives liked to use the fictional TV show 24 to justify real life torture. The Washington Post reports that the real-life dynamic of the American torture program was considerably different from the dramatic ticking time bomb scenarios that powered the show.

As weeks passed after the capture (of Abu Zubaida) without significant new confessions, the Bush White House and some at the CIA became convinced that tougher measures had to be tried.

The pressure from upper levels of the government was "tremendous," driven in part by the routine of daily meetings in which policymakers would press for updates, one official remembered.

"They couldn't stand the idea that there wasn't anything new," the official said. "They'd say, 'You aren't working hard enough.' There was both a disbelief in what he was saying and also a desire for retribution -- a feeling that 'He's going to talk, and if he doesn't talk, we'll do whatever.' "

So, instead of a ticking time bomb scenario with lives on the line, we have conference rooms full of bored bureaucrats and political operatives ordering up torture because they've got nothing else to do.

And then they lied about it. It's interesting to note that virtually everything the Bushies and their defenders have said about torture has proven to be a lie.

The Sound of a Career Being Flushed Down the Toilet

Lindsay Lohan's new movie, Labor Pains, will not be released to theaters. Instead, it's going straight to basic cable, and will premier on ABC Family in July, when TV audiences are tiny.

Go Big Blue

Later this afternoon, the University of Kentucky will fire it's men's basketball coach, Billy Gillispie. Hired just two years ago, and greeted on his arrival in the Bible-belt city of Lexington with signs saying "Our Savior!", Gillispie's salary has been $2.3 million a year. In a state where desperately needed education is being cut across the board and college tuitions are rising at five times the rate of inflation, Kentucky will now reportedly pay Gillispie $6 million to go away. The University will hire another coach, probably at a higher salary, and will likely have to pay some kind of cash settlement to the school that coach walks away from.