Shakesville: endtimes

Showing posts with label endtimes. Show all posts

Showing posts with label endtimes. Show all posts

Three Birds. One Show.

1. Europe: Yeeeeeaaaaah, not so much. (Well...)
2. The United States: SUPERCONGRESS!
3. NBC: The Playboy Club (Whoops!)

Europe and the US clearly need to try something different, and NBC's desperate for a brand new show that's basically just a slightly repackaged version of an existing show.

I give you Wank Swap, the new reality show where European and American leaders trade places to weigh in on important issues of economic policy.

Because I once had forty-five minutes of free time and something resembling Photoshop, I've been able to track down some stills from the first season:

[French President Nicolas Sarkozy struggles to give the tiniest infinitesimal fuck about a county fair in US Representative John Boehner's southwestern Ohio Congressional district.]

[US Senator Mitch McConnell beats a hasty retreat through the Frankfurt airport after disrupting a European Central Bank meeting to suggest that Belgium could really "lighten up".]

[US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner saves London from a dalek, or vice versa.]

[In season one's most shocking episode, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi serves as New Jersey's governor for four months. His cover is blown during an impromptu concert with the floating head and torso of White House Council for Community Solutions member Jon Bon-Jovi.]

[In a very special episode, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper makes a guest appearance, cooking dinner for ~~The Beaver~~ the son of ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet. Portugal is doomed to a thousand years of hyperinflation.]

I'm not saying that this show is a good idea. I just think it's a lot better than anything anyone's tried so far.

Quote of the Day

"Now normally, investors accept the unknowability of bank equity because they have some faith in the system. Does anyone have any confidence in the system now? Financial regulators have shown themselves to be incompetent and/or badly captured by banks. Earth to base: letting off bank management easy is bad for investors in the long run. Being an investor in an overly risky bank looks swell until it suddenly isn't."—Yves Smith, in a must-read piece about the tanking of Bank of America's stock, which is, as Henry Blodget bluntly writes here, "stoking fears that Bank of America will go bust, taking the whole economy down with it."

Gee, it's almost like the government should have DONE SOMETHING after the last panicky bailout, instead of letting the banks go right back to doing what they were doing before, without regulation or consequence.

What is it they say about those who refuse to learn from history...?

Headline of the Day

I know it's early, but I'm pretty sure nothing's going to beat this:

screen capture from CNN website with image of Charlie Sheen and headline 'Charlie Sheen heckled by juggalos'.

Perfect. Put this in the time capsule and mark it "Summer 2011."

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

There is a lot of bad news today.

The market closed with the Dow 634 points down. Verizon is fucking over its workers gilded age-style. The House has unceremoniously ended its page program. Rick Perry is going to run for president. Newsweek still can't report on female candidates without being sexist. The conflict in Syria continues to worsen. As does the famine in Africa. And there is rioting in London.

That's not even everything. It's like the world is falling apart. Or fixing to explode. Or something.

Iain and I were emailing about Operation Handbasket, Destination: Hell the other day, and Iain said: "Seems that the wavelength of human folly is tuned to hit peak amplitude at around the turn of every century." To which I could only reply: "OMG IT'S BEEN LIKE FIFTY YEARS SINCE A WORLD WARRRRRRR! LET US BREAK EVERYTHING!"

Anyway. I know a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed by how much shit is going on at the moment, whether it's actually more than usual or it just feels that way. And there's a lot of guilt going around about feeling disposed to stick one's head in the sand, or a game of Zuma. So I thought I'd open a thread for discussion.

If nothing else, at least we need not feel alone.

Best Headline Ever + Photos of the Day

People: Neil Patrick Harris, Elton John Take Their Babies Yachting. LOL! Of course they do!

the two families walking down the pier

It's just a lot of men and babies going yachting, all right?

the parents put teensy wee life jackets on the babies

the parents put teensy wee life jackets on the babies

Elton John and David Furnish attend to their son Zachary; Neil Patrick Harris
and David Burthka attend to their twins Gideon Scott and Harper Grace.
Straight Scoop: There is a part of me that recoils with distaste at such displays of wealth and privilege, and even though that part of me is kinda barfing, the part of me that is Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain cannot stop laughing at how TOTALLY PISSED every homobigot who sees those pictures is going to be.

LOOK AT ALL THESE RADICAL GAY MEN RAISING RADICAL GAY BABIES!!! JUST LOOK AT THEM!!! IT'S THE END OF AMERICA!!!!!!1!!eleventy!!!!1!

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

Fake media outlet, The Onion—Obama Turns 50 Despite Republican Opposition:

WASHINGTON—After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress.

"With the host of problems this country is currently facing, the fact that our president is devoting time to the human process of aging is an affront to Americans everywhere," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who advocated a provision to keep Obama 49 at least through the fall of 2013. "To move forward unilaterally and simply begin the next year of his life without bipartisan support—is that any way to lead a country?"

According to White House officials, Obama attempted to work with Republicans right up until the Aug. 4 deadline, but was ultimately left with no choice except to turn a year older.

Real but garbage media outlet, World Net Daily—Happy birthday? (love the question mark LOL!):

How much don't we know about Barack Obama as he nears the end of his third year of White House occupation?

Well, he claims today is his 50th birthday.

Yet, incredibly, it is still only an unsubstantiated claim – and, perhaps, more suspect than ever.

This was the year Obama finally yielded to pressure, largely from me, Jerome Corsi and a handful of other Americans, to release his so-called "long-form birth certificate" – the one he had been scrupulously hiding for so long. ... When he posted an image of this document last April on the White House website, the news industry fell all over itself proclaiming that all questions about his background had now been answered.

Nonsense.

...While the media and the failed Washington political establishment would like it to just go away, that will never happen.

Not as long as I am around to sit on Obama's birthday cake.

Happy fucking birthday, Mr. President. Love, America.

There's a Lot of Depressing News Today

And here's some more: Ryan Seacrest made $61 million last year.

Just LOL

graphic from a recent survey showing that only 19% of likely GOP primary voters think Obama would be raptured, but 51% believe Palin would

From a recent poll of likely GOP primary voters.

This country, lol. Honestly.
[Via.]

Wacky Weather

Thursday evening, we had a hail storm:

Video Description: Scenes of medium-sized hail balls falling in our front yard, with bursts of lightning.

Then, Friday, we had the apocalyptic storm that knocked out our power for an entire day:

Video Description: Scenes of rain coming down in sheets, accompanied by thunder and lightning.

That was before the storm got really bad. It stormed like that, with full-on thunder and lightning, for about four hours, then just continued to rain and rain, until there was flooding all over the area.

Saturday, it was sunny and almost 100 degrees. The dog park, which has excellent drainage, was nonetheless still flooded in the morning. Dudley, who has no stamina in and no tolerance for the heat, found a neat way to cool off:

Video Description: Dudley lays up to his chest in the floodwater, drinking it as he lies there. Iain and I laugh about how goofy he is.

Video Description: Dudley lays in the water, and, as he pants from running around in the hot sun, ripples fan out around him in the water. I laugh and ask him what he thinks he's doing. He spies his Beagle friend Walter across the park, and he leaps up, water dripping off of him.

Today, the sun is out, but I just heard thunder in the distance. Yikes. Who knows what today will bring! I've got $5 on snow. Why not?

Perfect

Charlie Sheen is reportedly getting a new sitcom in which he will play a character "very similar to the one he played on Two and a Half Men" but "the show will be a lot racier."

Way to go, universe.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Trigger warning for fat hatred and body policing.]

I know it's early, but I'm pretty sure there's not going to be anything worse than this horrendo Daily Fail article about getting liposuction to fix your cankles.

Good lord.

Whenever I hear the word "cankles," I am reminded of a former acquaintance of mine who once groused to me that it was no fair that she was skinny (her word) but had cankles and I was fat and had "nice ankles," followed by this plaintive look as if she expected to me apologize, or, perhaps, offer to exchange ankles with her in acknowledgment of the injustice that a skinny girl was forced to envy a fat girl.

Instead, I told her, "There's nothing wrong with your ankles."

"You WOULD say that," she sneered disgustedly in reply.

My fervent hope is that, in the interim, she has found body acceptance. Or, failing that, doesn't read this article.

[H/T to Shaker JPlum.]

The Rapture Is Coming! (Again!) This Time for Real! (Again!) Math Is Hard! (Again!)

Harold Camping, the opportunistic thunderfuck who has twice predicted the Rapture to resounding failure, now says he got the date wrong. (Which is the same thing he said the last time he whoopsed the Rapture.)

A California preacher who foretold of the world's end only to see the appointed day pass with no extraordinarily cataclysmic event has revised his apocalyptic prophecy, saying he was off by five months and the Earth actually will be obliterated on Oct. 21.

Harold Camping, who predicted that 200 million Christians would be taken to heaven Saturday before catastrophe struck the planet, apologized Monday evening for not having the dates "worked out as accurately as I could have."

Okay, player.

Pop Quiz!

Which is more ridiculous?

A. Former Congressman, former Speaker of the House, founder of multiple D.C.-based political orgs, and current GOP 2012 contender Newt Gingrich's absurd contention that he's "not a Washington figure."

B. Grade-A charlatan Harold Camping expressing that he is "flabbergasted" the Rapture he predicted failed to materialize.

Please show your work.

Someone Get Me a Flag and a Foam Finger—STAT!

Well. I'm glad to see that the release of President Obama's long-form birth certificate has put a stop to all that birther nonsense.

Seen

screencap of a HuffPo headline reading 'Charlie Sheen A Birther: Doubts President Obama's Birth Certificate'

Sure.