I’ll trade you an Avian Flu and Strep A Infection for your Cyclosporiasis.
Get your Set 1 Disease Cards today! (They’re free, if you can believe that.)
Or maybe you’d rather have diphtheria or mumps or chickenpox, in which case you’ll have to check out Series 2.
(via BoingBoing)
https://www.swordbilled.com/get-yours-today/
You think it’s a joke. The first words you read on the page are,
You don’t support Democrats.
Why should your ketchup?
and you figure, it has to be a joke, right? You see a picture of a ketchup bottle (right) with the words “America’s Ketchup” emblazoned across it, and you figure, it has to be a joke.
You glance over the comments section, where there’s a place for comments on the right and a place for comments on the left, and you can’t reasonably see how W Ketchup is anything but a joke. The fact that it’s a joke, you reason, has to be intentional. Right?
Comments like “You’re not only tasteless, you a##holes are stupid!” on the left and “Thanks for filling the ketchup void for us patriots!! Great label, too!” on the right, and it seems literally impossible that this is anything but a joke. Everything fits into an almost perfect stereotype—one that’s too perfect, in fact. So you think, is this a joke? Is it?
Probably not, is my own personal belief, against my greatest hopes and dreams; it seems, ladies and gents, that W Ketchup, with its encomium for Ronald Reagan and its donations to the Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund, is the real deal.
It’s tongue-in-cheek, yes, but also serious.
Sez W Ketchup(TM):
The leading competitor not only has 57 varieties, but has 57 foreign factories as well. W Ketchup comes in one flavor: American.
What can I say? I’m not going to be buying a case anytime soon, but you’re certainly welcome to if it lights the fire of passion in your heart.
I mean, it’s a free country.
That’s what they say, anyway.
https://www.swordbilled.com/americas-ketchup/
There’s witty banter, there’s political crosstalk, there’s incomprehensible oddity; it’s all there when Larry King interviews Jon Stewart.
STEWART: Can I tell you something, I appreciate you acting interested in me the night after you had the president on. I think that’s really sweet.
KING: Hey, wait a minute.
STEWART: You’re focused like this.
KING: Each night is a new night. That’s past. This is present. I focus on you. You count.
STEWART: That is the most profound thing I think I’ve ever heard in my life. But I will say this, I do think you are phoning in a little bit, because if I may just to the people, there’s nothing in my cup. You have coffee, you’re taken care of, you’re pampered and you’re in the good chair with the nice comfy and I sit…
KING: There was something in Clinton’s cup.
STEWART: I’m sorry, did the president drink everything?
Is that what happened?
KING: No, he had diet something, Diet Pepsi or Coke something.
Are you mad?
STEWART: I’m not mad, it diminishes me.
KING: It was not my fault. Maybe the crew has let you down.
STEWART: Well, I established my war cabinet, you know, years ago when we talk about this sort of thing. You know, there have been four justifications that I’ve heard so far for the war and you tell me if I’m wrong about this. There was the weapons of mass destruction. There was the ties to al Qaeda. There was the oppressed his own people. And there was one other in there somewhere. Weapons of mass destruction, ties to al Qaeda, possible nuclear. OK.
KING: Support terrorism.
STEWART: That describes like five countries. So if that is the standard that we’ve set to go into a war, shouldn’t we also be…
KING: North Korea.
STEWART: Iran, Sudan, aren’t they all doing the exact same thing and have maybe closer ties to al Qaeda, even?
KING: How do you know they’re not next?
STEWART: What have you heard?
KING: We’ll be right back. We’ll take your calls later for Jon Stewart.
STEWART: Am I being drafted?
KING: Toronto, hello.
CALLER: Hello.
KING: Yes, go ahead. Speak up
STEWART: They’re bilingual.
CALLER: (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
STEWART: Oh, is that a delay?
KING: Yes, we have a delay.STEWART: What he said was…
KING: Don’t say what he said.
STEWART: He praised us.
KING: Here’s what he said.
STEWART: What he said was. What he said to us was.
KING: What a great show.
STEWART: He basicly paraphrased Dick Cheney to Pat Leahy, but was to referring to us instead.
KING: Yes, he was referring to us instead.
STEWART: Surprisingly to see that from Canada. They’re typically very pleasant.
KING: I know.
…read the complete transcript here.
https://www.swordbilled.com/larry-king-vs-jon-stewart/
In Bad Comma, Louis Menand takes Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) to task for her peculiar and highly idiosyncratic application of punctuation. The revelation of how wrong Truss is, by itself, is comical (at times), but it’s unfair to say that Menand writes about nothing else; the entire article is insightful, engaging philosophical questions and cultural norms along the way to developing a book review. Worth a read? I’d say so—particularly if you’re thinking of picking up East, Shoots & Leaves at the bookstore (or anywhere else).
By the sound of things, E,S&L might be entertaining, as long as you’re only looking for an outlet for your grammatical irritation (e.g., irritation at signs reading “The Albertson’s” hanging by the mailbox, what signs lead you to mentally ask the Albertson’s what?)
At any rate, I haven’t read E,S&L. I don’t plan to, though it’s always a possibility. If you’re looking for an entertaining and highly educational book on grammar, I can recommend the brilliant Deluxe Transitive Vampire (full title: The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed), which is ably authored by the irrepressable Karen Elizabeth Gordon. E,S&L sounds like it might be hit-and-miss. DTV is all hit and no miss. So there you have it.
(The New Yorker: “Bad Commas” by Louis Menand [June 28, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/eat-this/
There are some articles whose headlines and captions appear written by mentally deranged waterfowl, and then there are articles whose headlines virtually write themselves (though not without human intervention, of course); the following, I think, is one of the latter.
https://www.swordbilled.com/augment-all-you-can-augment-in-the-army/
One guess who said this:
[The legislators] cannot have the guts to come out there in front of you and say, ‘I don’t want to represent you. I want to represent those special interests: the unions, the trial lawyers’ … I call them girly-men. They should get back to the table and they should finish the budget.
Well?
Here’s another hint:
That’s right, the Governor of California called the CA legislators “girly-men.” Does self-parody get any better than this?
(AFP: “Schwarzenegger mocks California legislature as girly-men” [July 18, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/guess-who/
The NYT has a list of the 1,000 best movies ever made. So they say. Best of all, though, you don’t need to be registered to see the list. I’n’t that spectacular? (At least, I don’t think you need to be registered to see it. If it turns out you do, lemme know.)
Of the thousand movies declared the best by the NYT, I’ve seen a hair over 10%, which is either bad, good, or somewhere in-between. Though I have to say, there are a couple movies on my “best” list (certainly my “1,000 best” list) that were left off the NYT list. A technical error, probably. I’m sure they meant to include “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead,” and merely forgot about it.
(NYT: “The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made” by The Film Critics Of The New York Times)
https://www.swordbilled.com/1000-best-movies/
Ubuweb relaunches (though I have to confess, I missed the initial launching) its 365 Days Project: 365 mp3s of crazy, eccentric, off-the-wall recordings.
Wild and crazy stuff, like Casper The Friendly Ghost singing Motorcycle Policeman (yes, that Casper the Friendly Ghost), and Van Morrison singing songs called Ring Worm, You Say France And I Whistle, and Want A Danish (yes, that Van Morrison), and Barbie and Ken singing Nobody Taught Me (yes—incredibly—that Barbie and Ken). Though of course, being what it is, there are also lots of tunes from groups you’ve never heard of, like Leslie Harris and the House of Fire, and the, er, Badger Theatre Movie Phone, which isn’t quite a “group,” but you get the idea.
Lots of great stuff, browse away. Commentary and pictures for almost all the entries.
(via MeFi [June 24, 2004])
Also: Speaking of Barbie, here’s an interesting news bite:
A Utah artist… won a five-year legal battle with Mattel Inc. over his photographs of Barbie dolls sometimes naked and paired with kitchen appliances on Tuesday…
…
Forsythe incurred Mattel’s wrath with his “Food Chain Barbie” series of 78 photographs featuring the popular plastic doll in kitchen appliances ranging from a martini glass to a fondue pot. Other photos showed the doll stuffed into a tortilla, a fondue pot and a blender.
…
U.S. District judge Ronald Lew… [wrote] “There was little risk of consumer confusion… Defendant’s parodic intent was clear.”
(Reuters: “Artist Hails Court Win Over Barbie Parody” [June 30, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/ubuweb-365/
People are betting it’s either Elvis Presley, a black border collie, or Dante, a husky-Australian shepherd mix, though it also could’ve been park regular Mattie.
(Reuters: “Friendly Dog Prevents Killing Spree?” [June 25, 2004]; and Reuters: “Mystery Hero Dog Captures Toronto’s Imagination” [June 28, 2004])
A Gamble. In other news, less civic-minded dogs were found gambling in Atlantic City (right). To be fair, it wasn’t entirely their fault. Employees at Sands Casino used dogs to re-create the scene of the famous painting with dogs playing poker (called “Looks Like Four of a Kind” and painted by C. M. Coolidge around 1910, for all you trivia buffs). Here’s the original (below, center), if you’re itching to make a comparison:
(via AP/CNN: “Dogs gamble in Atlantic City” [June 24, 2004]; other informative links above left uncited)
…the “giant octopus of St Augustine” from 1896, the 1960 Tasmanian west coast monster, two Bermuda blobs from the 1990s and the 1996 Nantucket blob…
(New Scientist: “Beach blob mystery solved at last” by Jon Copley [June 27, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/dogs-dogs-blobs/
This sentence is so wickedly, outlandishly sloppy that it’s almost funny:
The whole article reads like a bad tenth grade essay. Admittedly, the AP’s not here to bring us fine literature, but they could at least bring us coherent sentences.
(AP: “British report says assertion was ‘well-founded'” [July 18, 2004])
https://www.swordbilled.com/thirdly-the-logic-is-supported/