America

Yah!

A while back I linked to Saturday Night Live‘s excellent “Narnia Rap”, Lazy Sunday. Via An Englishman In New York, I have now experienced Britain’s response to this online hit: Lazy Sunday UK: We Drink Tea. [Requires Macromedia Flash Player.] Unlike the US original, the rapping is painfully inept, but I think that’s the point. […]

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Run, Katie, Run!

“We want to get married. I won’t let this woman get away,” Tom Cruise told the German media Monday. The world famous movie star said he and Katie Holmes, also of Hollywood, were planning to marry this summer. They have been engaged since last June.

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For The Record

Some freaky blog technology glitch has resulted in a link back to PooterGeek being posted underneath a review of The Road To Guantánamo on a site calling itself “The Movies Blog“. Worse: the text of the link is the heading of a post of mine where I enthused about a trailer for Team America: World […]

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Like Yesterday

The Anonymous Economist draws my attention to this amazing story: James McGaugh is one of the world’s leading experts on how the human memory system works. But these days, he admits he’s stumped. McGaugh’s journey through an intellectual purgatory began six years ago when a woman now known only as AJ wrote him a letter […]

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Chef Can’t Stand Heat

Scientology is evil rubbish. South Park is gloriously disrespectful of every kind of religious and ideological fairy tale. So this story LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Soul singer Isaac Hayes said on Monday he was quitting his job as the voice of the lusty character “Chef” on the satiric cable TV cartoon “South Park,” citing the […]

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Countrified

For girls (or boys) reading this who used to have a crush on John Corbett, the actor who played DJ Chris Stevens in the TV series Northern Exposure, an uncharacteristically frivolous Gloria Salt has some bad news. For the (other) boys, all I can say is that there’s a special kind of schadenfreude that comes […]

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Fatuous Bint

Regular readers here know that I had little time for the argument that “we” had to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had a strategic arsenal trained on Hoxton hidden under his various country homes. It’s been said that I’ve been quite rude about people who signed up too confidently for certain types of WMD-related bollocks, […]

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Mixing It Up

You won’t be surprised to read that I thoroughly approve of miscegenation. One day the whole world will be beige. There will be no war, all corner shops will sell five-spice, and no one will be able to make a buddy movie featuring a funny black sidekick. It always made me smile that the genome […]

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Tandem For Sale

As announced prematurely back here by Jackie, here’s news of this month’s celebrity break-up. (But, according to the cover of one of the sleb mags in the newsagent’s George Clooney and Teri Hatcher may be involved in merger talks—denial here.)

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The American Disease

I would happily sign the Economist‘s editorial today on US healthcare myself (but for that paper’s irritating misuse of the word “America”). Many ‘Bloggers with an unthinking fetish for “market solutions” would do well to give it and the associated special report a scan: [N]owhere has a bigger health problem than America. Soaring medical bills […]

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But What Do You Do All Day?

Sorry about the thin posting so far this week. I’ve been busy. Surprisingly, considering it covers those strange games Americans play, there are items in The Onion’s sports review of 2005 that even Brits can find funny. I missed their “World’s Emotionally Strongest Man” report when it first appeared last September: During the show’s premiere, […]

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I’m Condi. Fly Me.

Hi! Welcome to the CIA Airlines check-in desk. Could I ask you to itemize your hand luggage as you place it on the belt, sir? Er, one holdall of shoes, running gear, and toiletries; one suitcase of casual clothes; one suit carrier containing three identical black suits and ties with matching Ray-Bans; one attaché case […]

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Senior Moment

In a way, I’m glad I don’t have proper Internet access. The BBC radio news yesterday evening was apocalyptically depressing. How much global death, disaster, and destruction is it possible to fit into one broadcast? Pakistan, Mexico, South-East Asia. The latest Economist—a journal not normally known for “quagmire” rhetoric—welcomes the Iraqi people’s recent vote on […]

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The End Times

You might have guessed from the thinness of posting here that I am busy at the moment, but the Anonymous Economist recommends this (non-free) editorial from the New York Times. I extract the first five and last three paragraphs: IF you believed Tom DeLay then, you no doubt believe now that the deposed House majority […]

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Cha Cha Cha

Here’s someone who is even more offensive about minorities than I am. And she’s funnier. And I bet lots of people want to sleep with her. If you’ve got a Quicktime player on your computer, you must watch the trailer for Sarah Silverman’s new film.

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Blamestorm

There’s been some interesting debate on the ‘Blogs I read about the slinging around of blame in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Before hosting a more-heat-than-light comment scrap, Harry’s Place has posted a couple of extended contributions from readers, one broadly critical, one trying to put events in context. Yesterday Norm drew attention to a […]

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Says It All

Who Knew? has a telling post. Imagine: you have invested your life savings in a multinational corporation, who would you choose to run, respectively, its US and UK arms: Bill Clinton and Tony Blair or George W Bush and John Major? Whatever happened to the Right’s ability just to manage serious stuff competently?

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Do You Work South Of The Border?

casualsavant sent me this amusing example of shonky pirate DVD translation, which you might have already seen. The same ‘Blog also reproduces this sign from a Mexican restaurant in China, which you might not have: “Zapata’s Mexican Cantina does not sponsor prostitutes at our establishment. If you are a prostitute please refrain from entering our […]

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Why Carl Hiaasen’s Imagination Doesn’t Have To Work Too Hard

Currently these are the top five most popular stories on Florida’s Local6 news Website: Giant ‘Blue Bird’ On Roof Upsets Neighborhood Killer Bees Found In Louisiana Cops: Man Fabricated Hitchhiker’s Death To Make Wife Leave Giant ‘Bra Fence’ Sparks Controversy Woman Allegedly Sells Sexual Favors To Elderly For $4 [LUNCHTIME UPDATE:] Noteworthy headlines in the […]

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A Lie

BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme five minutes ago in its report on the 60th anniversary of the dropping of The Bomb: “In the United States there was a steely determination to triumph [in the war] in the Far East by whatever means, at whatever cost.”

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Life And Death In Daily Mail World

Okay, so this post links to an article in the Telegraph, but work with me here. Celebrity newsreader and reality TV ballroom dancer Natasha Kaplinsky has had some difficulty selling her house. This fact opens a piece about other nice middle-class people [British definition] trying to flog their own or their parents’ respective gaffs in […]

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The First Valley Girl In Space

This, however, is not only not one of my spoofs; it isn’t a spoof at all. It’s a direct quote from a New York Times article about the Captain of the next Space Shuttle mission: Capt. Wendy B. Lawrence of the Navy looks at her first space shuttle flight in 1995 almost as a vacation. […]

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Not McPassingOff

Usually I only knock McDonald’s when they are particularly nasty and stupid. It warms my heart to know that a company that beat them in a case you’d have thought McDonald’s would win hands down are, four years later, is still selling East Asian fast food under the cheeky name “McChina“.

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