One of humorist Dave Barry's signature lines before he reported on something true but silly was, "I'm not making this up!" Well, I'm not either. Today, presented for your approval (I'm channeling Rod Serling this morning), three really bizarre recent news stories that I managed to find before Mike scooped me...
Number 1: Ooga Ooga! Men Overspend to Attract Mates. From LiveScience.com comes this searing blast of the obvious - that men will spend themselves into poverty to attract desirable sexual partners. Oddly enough, this article led to a lengthy scholarly discussion in the office yesterday during a break from our usual routine of defending the nation from godless communists and over-godded religious fanatics. One of my coworkers claimed that men marry for sex, while women marry for security...seen this way, men who vaporize the magnetic strips on the back of their credit cards to impress cute girls are simply fulfilling the biological imperative to prove they are good providers. This is important, as it's pretty hard nowadays to show up at a girl's door with a gutted, bleeding aurochs slung over your shoulder.
Number 2: Military Interrogators Use Blasting Music as a Weapon to Break Detainees. The most interesting thing about this story isn't that playing Nine Inch Nails at top volume makes hard-core fanatics crazier than they were before...it's that the playlist also includes Barney the Dinosaur's "I Love You" song and several hits from Sesame Street. This is, of course, not news to parents who have been driven around the bend by their toddlers who want to hear those songs seven billion times a day. I also recall a recent news article about a judge who sentenced some teens guilty of blasting their rock music at top volume in public to sit in a room and listen to hours of Barry Manilow tunes. I'd confess, too.
Number 3: (Alert - temporary interjection of seriousness into an otherwise frivolous post) Pope Pius XII Unfairly Criticized for Not Speaking Out About the Holocaust. In this article reproduced on the Project Syndicate website, Rocco Buttiglione (Italy's former European Affairs minister) maintains that Pius XII could not have condemned Nazi Germany without appearing to give moral comfort to Josef Stalin's less-than-saintly Russian government, and couldn't condemn Stalin without giving a propaganda gift to Hitler's war effort. Therefore, he didn't condemn either one. Where I come from, this is called horses**t (a topic with which, along with boobies, fellow blogger Fiona is passingly familiar). When the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church can't bring himself to speak out against unspeakable evil, regardless of who is at fault, something's wrong.
Okay, that's enough for now. Time to get ready to out and face this odd world of ours yet again. Hopefully today will start off differently from yesterday, when my bus drove right past me as I jumped up and down and yelled like a wild man. This morning, it's raining...and if that bus passes me up again, I'll just jam the point of my umbrella into the nearest tire.
So there.
Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.
Bilbo
1. "Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious; both are disappointed." -- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
ReplyDelete2. I'll confess to anything if you get the Barney earworm that you placed in my head outta there.
3. See? This is a basic forensic fallacy. If A and B are at odds with each other, saying that you condemn A is not saying you support B, and vice-versa. It's possible to be in complete disagreement with two different sides of an issue. Not everything is binary.
Well if that plug doesn't get me more readers I guess nothing will!
ReplyDeleteMayhaps I should change the name of my blog to Travelin through with horse shit and boobies? Or just horse shit and boobies? I like that,sums me up quite nicely :-)
No. 3. How did the RC church react to the situation they knew fully about? They didn't! Batshit crazy they are!
ReplyDeleteLoving your blog, even if I don't post every single time. Thank you, tho. Appreciate it.
I would like to agree with Oscar Wilde when he said "Men marry because they are tired." But I'd like to add ...tired of picking up after themselves. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe Pope didn't want to lose customers from either side. Shame, really.
the music thing I'd read about a while back and laughed HARD thinking of all the billions of dollars we spend on technology and weapons for our military service (none of which we actually USE, mind you, but we spend it) a $20.00 boom box is most effective. That rocks. hahaha
OH... also, and most importantly ... I'm cracking up over the thought of you looking like Mary Poppins on a 'roid rage ... first all cheery pip pip with your umbrella waiting patiently for your bus, then turning into a raging looney, using your cute umbrella as a weapon and slashing tires with it.
ReplyDeleteheeeeee.
Twinkie,
ReplyDeleteA $20 boom box to you or me, to the government it is a $2000 interrogation device!
Now I have to go check out this blog about boobies and horse poop!
Woohoo Bilbo it worked!!
ReplyDeleteJohn is going to check me out *blush*
Phooie, I'm here late today and all the good stuff has been said already.
ReplyDelete1. I agree with your coworker.
2. See Gilahi
3. See Twinkie
4. off to Fionas
Remember the dictator Manuel Noriega? I believe US troops got him to surrender after setting up a megawattage sound system across the street from his house and blasting Ozzy Osborne and such tripe for several 24-hour cycles. Wonder what would have happened if they'd turned up the decibels on the Partridge Family?
ReplyDeleteCan you believer that there are grown men and women who actually swallow hogwash like "Pius XII could not have condemned Nazi Germany without appearing to give moral comfort to Josef Stalin's less-than-saintly Russian government, and couldn't condemn Stalin without giving a propaganda gift to Hitler's war effort. Therefore, he didn't condemn either one."
ReplyDeleteTHAT attitude may explain why - instead of siding with the victorious allies (lead by Protestant Britain & the U.S.A.)- the "Holy See" sided with the many Catholic war CRIMINALS who led Nazi Germany, and established an "underground railroad" to enable many thousands of those war criminals to escape justice and flee to Catholic countries in "Latin" (i.e. Roman Catholic) America!
Google "RCscandal" and see how closely allied the R.C. Church was to Nazi Germany, and how many of the top brass of the Axis Nations (other than Japan) were R.C.'s.