• Every time someone mentions Haiti, Chile, or earthquakes; take a drink.
• Every time someone references the Na’avi, Pandora, blue people, Avatar, James Cameron, or 3D; take a drink.
• Every time you see someone wearing a colored ribbon on their lapel; drink.
• Every time you stifle a fat joke about Gabourey Sidibe; drink.
• Reading glasses? Someone pretends to go off teleprompter? Drink.
• Music starts to play before someone finishes their speech? Drink.
• Fat guy with a beard on stage? Drink.
• “I’m honored just to be mentioned with the other nominees.” Drink.
• Someone makes a Meryl Streep joke; drink.
• Random cut to George Clooney in the audience? Finish your beer.
• Winner cries during acceptance speech? Finish your beer.
• Meryl Streep takes a dump on the stage? Take three speedballs and queef on a turtle.
And as a note, Velvet Glove - Iron Fist is 100% back to normal and up to date, so enjoy getting a humor concussion.
Best of the week: It's no good for a family values Republican to get picked up on a DUI. But substantially worse to get picked up for a DUI after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in a state vehicle. That's the story of state Senator Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield).Ashburn, a fierce opponent of gay rights, has been fighting marriage equality and organizing anti-gay marriage rallies as part of his "Traditional Family Values" campaign. But that message needs some clarification, since CHP officers observed him weaving and driving erratically in downtown Sacramento at 2AM. After a field sobriety test, officers determined that Ashburn, who reeked of alcohol and had bloodshot, watery eyes, was under the influence of alcohol and placed him under arrest. He was released from jail just before 4 AM.
Initial reports only noted the DUI arrest and Ashburn issued a contrite apology. But later that evening, a CBS affiliate in Sacramento reported that "sources" confirmed that Ashburn had left Faces, a gay nightclub in downtown Sacramento, just prior to his arrest. The state issued black Chevrolet Tahoe Ashburn was driving has been impounded at the state Capitol.
You can follow all the developments on the story here, and take some time catching up on the greatest GOP sex scandals of the past.
Plus: An Orange County jury (rightly) declined to hold Botox maker Allergan Inc. liable in the death of a 7-year-old Texas girl being treated for cerebral palsy because it found the company's warning labels adequate. I'll say - they clearly state that children under 11 should not have Botox without adult supervision.
The case involving the girl was believed to be the first of its kind to go to trial, as the girl's family alleged that the product was responsible for her death. What did they expect but giving a paralysing neuro-toxin to their kid anyway? At issue was the safety of the blockbuster cosmetic drug in the higher dosages that are used in pediatric cerebral palsy cases and the adequacy of the Irvine manufacturer's warning labels.
Kristen Spears, who was born with severe cerebral palsy, began receiving large doses of Botox at age 6 in an effort to reduce debilitating limb spasticity. The girl died in late November 2007. Best known as a face-lift-in-a-syringe, Botox can relax contorted muscles and sometimes help young patients walk without surgery. U.S. regulators have not specifically approved the use of Botox in children, but doctors may legally prescribe it as an "off-label" use. Dosages used in such patients are many times those recommended for facial wrinkle injections.
Dee Spears alleged that her daughter died as a result of an overdose of Botox, which led to respiratory failure and pneumonia, and that Allergan failed to adequately warn the girl's pediatrician of the drug's risks. The jury, which deliberated for several hours over two days, did not agree. The panel found that Botox posed risks of "a substantial danger" that "ordinary consumers" would not have recognized, according to the verdict form. But jurors concluded that Allergan did not breach its duty to warn of those potential risks and therefore could not be held responsible for any potential adverse effect.
While Allergan faces another civil trial set for next month in Oklahoma City, I am predicting a victory there too. Because even though Americans are stupid and sentimental, I think that even the folks in Oklahoma City can understand that the product, when used as instructed - for it's intended purposes - is adequately covered in their warnings.
Also: Starbucks Corp. is sticking to its policy of letting customers carry guns where it's legal and said it does not want to be put in the middle of a larger gun-control debate. As they should...but if you're charging me a premium for a coffee, do you really want me to be armed and still pay that much?The company's statement stems from recent campaign by some gun owners, who have walked into Starbucks and other businesses to test state laws that allow gun owners to carry weapons openly in public places. Gun control advocates have protested. Oh, you're just upset you can have guns but you don't.
The fight began heating up in January in Northern California and has since spread to other states and other companies, bolstered by the pro-gun group OpenCarry.org. What? A pro-gun group getting into the mix? Why, that's unheard of!
Some of the events were spontaneous, with just one or two gun owners walking into a store. Others were organized parades of dozens of gun owners walking into restaurants with their firearms proudly at their sides. Predictably, they were sat preferentially. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence retaliated and launched a petition drive, demanding that the company "offer espresso shots, not gunshots" and declare its coffeehouses "gun-free zones." The group planned to deliver 28,000 signatures to the coffee giant's headquarters in Seattle. The group also held a press conference near Seattle's Pike Place Market, just a few yards away from where the first Starbucks cafe opened. Gun rights advocates showed up as well, some carrying handguns in holsters around their waists.
Businesses can choose to ban guns from their premises, and Starbucks said that it complies with local laws in the 43 states that have open-carry weapon laws. Wait, who are the seven that are behind the times? "Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position," the company said in its statement.
Starbucks asked both gun enthusiasts and gun-control advocates "to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue." It said security measures are in place for any "threatening situation" that might occur in stores. But they're not. If somebody brings a gun in and starts blasting, there's no coffee bean ninja waiting to save you. Though you can bet they will call the police.
And: Teens are getting high on an emerging drug called "fake weed," a concoction also known as K2 and "spice" that is also causing hallucinations, vomiting, agitation and other dangerous effects. HE WHO CONTROLS THE SPICE, CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE! (where else can I make a Dune joke?)
In the last month, a professor of toxicology at Saint Louis University, has seen nearly 30 cases of teenagers experiencing these adverse effects after smoking the fake weed, a legal substance that reportedly offers a marijuana-like high. "K2 use is not limited to the Midwest; reports of its use are cropping up all over the country," he said. "I think K2 is likely a bigger problem than we're aware of at this time." For instance, Atlanta has seen about 12 cases recently. Are you kidding?
K2 has been sold since 2006 as incense or potpourri for about $30 to $40 per three gram bag - comparable in cost to marijuana. "K2 may be a mixture of herbal and spice plant products, but it is sprayed with a potent psychotropic drug and likely contaminated with an unknown toxic substance that is causing many adverse effects," the professor added.
This K2 compound was first created in the mid-1990s in the lab of organic chemist John W. Huffman of Clemson University, who studies cannabinoid receptors. He's not sure how the recipe for what is named JWH-018 (his initials) got picked up, but he did publish details on a series of compounds including JWH-018 in a book chapter. Even before that book came out, he recalls learning that in China and Korea people were selling the compound as a plant growth stimulant. As for where it was first smoked or used as a recreational drug, Huffman thinks perhaps somewhere in Europe.
"Apparently somebody picked it up, I think in Europe, on the idea of doping this incense mixture with the compound and smoking it. You can get very high on it. It's about 10 times more active than THC," the active ingredient in marijuana, he said.
Leave it to the dummies to try and get even higher with odd shit. Look, you can get plenty stoned on regular dope, and don't need that tenfold. And if you really need to be that much higher, switch from weed to LSD.
Best picture of the week:
80,000 tablets of ecstasy (I'm giving that up for Lent) Best bonus links:
• Baby Born In Traffic Jam As Leader Drives By - Like a nation's true leader, obstructing their citizens from having access to basic welfare services.
• Body Of Newborn Found By Trash Collector In Redondo Beach - Finders keepers! And no, it was not the same baby from the aforementioned link.
• Marines Land On Iwo Jima To Mark 65th Anniversary - And this time, they totally annihilated them! They had zero casualties as they retook the island, and let me tell you, the inhabitants were surprised!
• Huge Wave Kills 2 On Cruise Ship In Mediterranean - Far more exciting than getting swept overboard, having a food-borne illness, or being mugged at a port-of-call!
• Worst Fries In America - For your health. But perhaps the most delicious. So what if you get your whole day's calories in one sitting? You're done for the day and can move on to more important things.
• Can Peanut Allergy Be Cured By... Eating Peanuts? - Let's test that theory and try that with someone with allergies. It's just like how I learned to swim...by getting thrown in the deep end of the pool. But it didn't fix my drowning allergy.
• Mullahs Help Promote Birth Control In Afghanistan - "Stop having babies, or we will cut off your hands!"
• Interval Training Can Cut Exercise Hours Sharply - High bursts of intense physical activity makes sense. Never realized all that masturbation was really high impact interval cross training.
• Snooki Met Boyfriend On Facebook - I have to figure that anyone who meets her in person first would be totally put off to dating her. Or anyone.
• Hamas Leader Disowns Son Who Spied For Israel - You read about that here last week...don't act surprised.
• Scott Brown On Managing Your Digital Remains - Well, pre-managing. Once you're dead, it's not really your problem.
• Jessica Simpson: I Don't Want People to Know How I Am in Bed - That's the only thing that made her interesting anyway. You take that out of the equation, and she's just another stupid, chunky girl with big boobs who can't sing
• No Is No: More Men File Sexual Harassment Claims - I'm claiming that I am not being harassed enough. Unless you're talking about same sex harassment. Damn, I get a lot of that. Must be something about me that Latino men love.
• Hamas Bans Men From Women's Hair Salons In Gaza - Because a terrorist organization keeping men from working in salons is hysterical to me.
• Dave Grohl Wants Shelley Duvall To Play Him In Nirvana Movie - Awesome casting, but who would fill out the rest of the band?
• It's Official: An Asteroid Wiped Out The Dinosaurs - Well, official in the sense that a bunch of people made a concensus opinion on that. None of the evidence or information has changed, they just figured things would be easier of they made a conclusion and called it a day.
• Nerd Merit Badges - You can buy them, which is the same as earning them from the interweb.
Worst of the week: The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism." And with totally inappropriate imagery too.
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.” The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
Manipulating donors with crude caricatures and playing on their fears is hardly unique to Republicans or to the RNC – Democrats raised millions off George W. Bush in similar terms – but rarely is it practiced in such cartoonish terms. One page, headed “The Evil Empire,” pictures Obama as the Joker from Batman, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.
The document, which two Republican sources said was prepared by the party’s finance staff, comes as Chairman Michael Steele struggles to retain the trust and allegiance of major donors, who can give as much as $30,400 a year to the party. Under Steele, the RNC has shifted toward a reliance on small donors, but the document reveals extensive, confidential details of the strategy for luring wealthy checkwriters, which range from luxury retreats in California wine country to tickets to a professional fight in Las Vegas. Basically, they're also going after small fish in addition to the big whales, and they're using chum tactics to get their dollars. No surprise they're putting blood in the water.
Plus: Brendon (WWTDD) has this so nailed, all I need to do is post it. And seethe.
Sean Penn is throwing another hissy fit today because he pouts like a little girl if everyone doesn’t kiss his ass 24 hours a day. The new temper tantrum is about his heroic efforts in Haiti. He says he went down there and was a daring angel of mercy, and if you dare question the amazing Sean Penn about how amazing Sean Penn is, then he hopes you “die screaming of rectal cancer.”
…some have argued that celebs like Penn should stay out of aid efforts, insisting that stars use tragedy merely to rebuild their public image.But in an interview this weekend on CBS News’ Sunday Morning, Penn says he ignores the negative chatter.
“I guess I’ve been so away from it all– and our tent camp in Haiti that I haven’t had an awful lot of time to pay attention to them,” he says. “You know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah. You know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy on it.”
The problem here is that Sean Penn lies his ass off constantly. He lied about the stuff he did in New Orleans during Katrina, so why the hell would anyone believe similar stories about Haiti.
Penn told Larry King he arrived in New Orleans on day 4 (says it right here). He stresses the point several times. In reality he got there on day 7. Katrina hit New Orleans on August 29th. Here’s a Rolling Stone article written on September 2nd that says Penn leaves for New Orleans “tomorrow.” He got into New Orleans around midnight on the 3rd. The picture above was taken on the 4th, his only day there.
Day 4 was when the first 6,500 national guard troops arrived in New Orleans. On day 5 the first emergency supplies arrived. By the time Penn got there on day 7, the National Guard troops had grown to 27,000 and the Coast Guard had rescued 15,665 people. Even the Superdome had been evacuated by then. Big difference between day 4 and day 7.
He told King, “we were able to just get a boat out in the water and help people out of the water, and go back out and do it again. So it was kind of a no-brainer, and kind of shamefully so, because there should have been more support there.”
27,000 troops. 15,000 rescues. But he wouldn’t look as cool if he said, “By the time I left the Four Seasons hotel in Houston (seriously) there wasn’t much to do,” so he changes things around to make himself more heroic.
He also told King, “We had a lot of people that were not willing to get on a boat and get out.”
Oh there’s a fuckin surprise. Let’s say a guy with greasy hair and a bad mustache pulls up to you and he’s not a cop and yet he’s holding a shotgun and has a bulletproof vest and the boat didn’t as much “pull up” as it did “scrape along the street because it was in 5 inches of water” and he’s telling you he wants to take you somewhere. Does that look like someone here to help? Or does it look like someone who says “nigger” a lot in a town already littered with dead bodies.
Also: Israel's military said that a planned raid on a West Bank village was called off after a soldier disclosed its details online. Ummm...unfriend?
The military said the soldier posted the time and location of the raid on his Facebook page, saying that troops were planning on "cleaning up" the village. Fellow soldiers reported the leak to military authorities, who canceled the raid, fearing that the information may have reached hostile groups and put troops at risk. The soldier was court-martialed and sentenced to 10 days in prison. He was also removed from his battalion and combat postings. What a fuckhead.
A military statement added that it is cracking down on soldiers' use of social networking Web sites and has launched a campaign warning of the dangers of sharing military information online. "Uploading classified information to social networks or any Web site exposes the information to anyone who wishes to view it, including foreign and hostile intelligence services," the military statement read. "Hostile intelligence agents scan the Internet with an eye toward collecting information on the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), which may undermine operational success and imperil IDF forces."
The military said that soldiers were prohibited from publishing classified information, including photographs containing military data. In posters placed on military bases, a mock Facebook page shows the images of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Below their pictures — and Facebook "friend requests" — reads the slogan: "You think that everyone is your friend?"
And: One in four parents buys unproven vaccine-autism link. That means 25% of parents are unfit to raise their children.
Yes, they believe some vaccines cause autism in healthy children - without proof, but even many of those worried about vaccine risks think their children should be vaccinated. Most parents continue to follow the advice of their children's doctors, according to a study based on a survey of 1,552 parents. Let's repeat - extensive research has found no connection between autism and vaccines.
"Nine out of 10 parents believe that vaccination is a good way to prevent diseases for their children," said lead author of the study from University of Michigan. "Luckily their concerns don't outweigh their decision to get vaccines so their children can be protected from life-threatening illnesses." In 2008, unvaccinated school-age children contributed to measles outbreaks in California, Illinois, Washington, Arizona and New York. Thirteen percent of the 140 who got sick that year were hospitalized. Thanks, assholes.
Fear of a vaccine-autism connection stems from a flawed and speculative 1998 study that recently was retracted by a British medical journal. The retraction came after a council that regulates Britain's doctors ruled the study's author acted dishonestly and unethically. Some doctors are taking a tough stand, asking vaccine-refusing parents to find other doctors and calling such parents "selfish."
Twenty-five percent of the parents said they agreed "some vaccines cause autism in healthy children." Among mothers, 29% agreed with that statement; among fathers, it was 17 percent. Nearly 12% of the parents said they'd refused a vaccine for their children that a doctor recommended. Of those, 56% said they'd refused the relatively new vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV, which can cause cervical cancer. Others refused vaccines against meningococcal disease (32%), chickenpox (32%) and measles-mumps-rubella (18%).
Perhaps one day, these morons will come to their senses. Or at least we can persecute them for child endangerment.
Worst picture of the week:
Worst bonus links:
• 3 LA Teachers Suspended For Honoring O.J. Simpson - A little Juice goes a long way...just not all the way to Black History Month. Double murderers don't quite rate that high.
• Hulu Losing "Daily Show", "Colbert Report" - Not a problem for folks who know a little something about P2P file networking, but sucks for everybody who watches television at work.
• Precious Wins Big At 41st NAACP Image Awards - And considering the five or six movies that were in the running, why wouldn't it? A Tyler Perry movie? That documentary about black hair? It's like wondering how Jennifer Lopez keeps winning at the Latin Grammys.
• Internet-Obsessed South Koreans Starved Baby - The awesome part is, they were playing and web game simulating child-rearing.
• This Hurt Locker Non-Story Refuses to Die / Hurt Locker Producer Barred From Oscars / Hurt Locker Producers Sued Days Before Oscars - Everybody has knives out against the new frontrunner. Cue the fake indignation about the mild campaigning, and the shitstorm begins, complete with leeches.
• Elliott Yamin, 'American Idol' Finalist, Tweets From Chilean Quake - Sadly, he lived. Usually, their 15 minutes comes back as a guest shot on a CBS sitcom, but making some Twiter comments is really more fitting. But I want to know, who the hell is actually following the Elliott Yamin feed?
• Kids' Snacks Encourage 'Constant Eating,' Study Finds - That's why you have to put the food in mazes or traps. Make those kids work for it. If they just pull a lever to get a reward, they'll never learn self control.
• Attorney Says Stun Gun Never Used On Jackson Kids -What other shithouse crazy family other than the Jacksons would need to make a statement - via a lawyer - to explain that thier wards were not going to get tasered. They really ought to think about using on the rest of the family.
• Jake Pavelka Denies Cheating On Vienna With Ex - Hey, the show is over. So is there any reason to follow this douche and his skanky chic.
• Gilligan's Island Headed To The Big Screen - What happened, they couldn't get the shitty reboot going for television? This is going to be a horrible, nightmare project that will no doubt scar any viewer. The news alone causes me anger and concern.
• Sarah Palin's New Gig: Late-Night Comedian / Sarah Palin Loads Up On Free Stuff At Gift Suite - How funny can she be if she's not telling jokes about herself? Palin will fail at her television escapades, just like everything else she does. And that's why she and her crew totally sacked the pre
• The Official Petition To Establish Hella As The SI Prefix For 10^27 - It's a big number, so let's give something of that magnitude some respect by not using that dialectic stutter as a prefix.
• Real Housewives' Kim Zolciak Steps Out With Girlfriend / 'Housewife' Kim Zolciak Didn't Trade In Big Papa For Big Mama - Is she or isn't she gay? Who cares! Besides, her claim to fame is that she's a housewife. And go punch yourself in the face if you actually were preparing an answer.
• Audio Indicates Kid Directed Planes At NY Airport - And he would have goten away with it if he didn't throw a tantrum afterwards about not having a juicebox.
• Michael J. Fox Named Honorary Doctor In Sweden - Alex J. Keaton, Professor of spastic jerking...or something like that. It used to be that to get an honorary doctorate from an institute, you had to be a doctor and contribute to the field. Shit, now they're jsut giving them away if you ahve a disease they're studing.
• Canada May Adopt Gender-Neutral National Anthem - Good thing they waited until after the Olympics to address this controversy. And why did they change the 1908 version anyway?
• Postal Service's Emerging Model: Never On Saturday - Finally, the Sabbath shall be observed! Oh, that's not why they're scaling back?
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