Category Archives: Humor

Thursday Night Linkorama

  • I wouldn’t link to Obama’s utterly content-free op-ed in the Post except for one thing: I love that the post, in the byline, reminds us of who writer is. I mean, just in case we’d already forgotten or something. Matt Welch fires back.
  • Are college loans the next big bubble? He sites an extreme case. It still seems to me that $20k in debt is not unreasonable for a college education.
  • One cow. Two cows.
  • Sweet-sweet justice for class action lawyers.
  • RFK, Jr. Phew, what a looney.
  • Should cheerleading count toward Title IX requirements? That sounds stupid … until you realized how athletic and dangerous modern routines are and that cheerleader get injured more often than some varsity athletes.
  • Just when you think the anti-sex zealots can’t get weirder.
  • Humor Is Subjective

    I don’t what it is, but sometimes a thing will just grab me as hysterically funny. I will laugh way out of proportion to the funniness of it. Part of it is the way that humor can build. When you’re laughing, every subsequent joke seems even funnier. But sometimes a joke just strikes my brain funny and I think I might die.

    I just encountered a prime example. Via Cracked’s humorous article on infomercials, I found these two lines about the Pasta Pro (that stupid pot with holes in it). From Cracked:

    For our money, the cameo by cocksucker husband, who irritably taps his watch when his wife drops the pasta, is the clear winner. The expected “Where’s my dinner bitch?” comment is never uttered, but it is practically swirling around on screen in capitalized letters like tiny angry-man sugar plums.

    Also, on top of saving your marriage, the amazingly versatile Pasta Pro fits both gas and electric stoves.

    You try to pull that shit with a regular pot, the bastard’s likely to burst into flame. You won’t have time to worry about that, though, as the fierce blows rain down from your husband’s belt.

    So that set me up. Then this knocked me down from the infomercial product review message board:

    Shitty Pot, Great Entertainment Value

    7/17/2008 – Jenn of Alberta, Canada writes:
    My boyfriend got this pot as a gift. He used it once and when he went to drain the pasta, the lid stuck to the pot and wouldn’t come off. He was very hungry. Instead of throwing out the pot, he decided that he was going to have some [] pasta whether or not the pot was going to cooperate. He eventually took it outside with a baseball bat and smashed it in. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take too long considering how [] the pot was to begin with. Two stars! One for the crappy pot and one for the strange looks he got from the neighbours that day.

    I literally could not finish that comment the first time because I was laughing so hard. It made me have to go the bathroom. It’s not that funny, really. You probably don’t find it funny at all. But for some reason, it struck me at the right moment and put me in near hysterics.

    This has become less common as I get older. When I was a kid and camping out, we could recite dumb jokes that, when combined with copious farting, would nearly result in suffocation. Such events are rare and memorable now. They were common then. It’s nice to watch my daughter get to the stage where I can make her laugh uncontrollably just by making her rubber ducks dance together.

    Update: Also, is it just me? Or do the models in these infomercials seem to spend an inordinate amount of time holding the product in front of their chest? If I had to think of a theme for infomercials, it would be, “She’s not wearing a bra.”

    Snowfall Linkorama

    As the snow comes down here in lovely PA, I find myself reading the following:

  • A response to Arianna Huffington’s nonsense. Anyone who thinks the mortgage meltdown was a result of a runaway free market hasn’t done their homework. The Bush Republicans don’t believe in a free market any more than Fidel Casto does.
  • A brilliant article on Bush’s legacy:

    Bush leaves to his successor two unfinished wars, Osama bin Laden living in an unstable Pakistan, a U.S. reputation soiled by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and torture, a deep recession and what is sure to be the first $1 trillion-plus deficit. In short, a gigantic mess, all the bigger for the peace, prosperity and black ink he inherited.

    Bush both grew the government and gave laissez-faire a bad name, overseeing a rash of corporate scandals in 2002 and the housing meltdown. The financial wreckage has many fathers, but Bush, the first MBA president, stands among them, failing to restrain the liquidity bubble as it ballooned and asking for $700 billion to rescue banks as it burst. The GOP is fractured and adrift.

    “Bush has really destroyed small-government conservatism,” said David Boaz, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute.

    Read the whole thing.

  • The wonders of socialism. You can get extended sick leave for a broken heart. I wonder if I could get off because I’m disappointed Doctor Who is in reruns.
  • Are we living Atlas Shrugged? Sure seems like it sometimes.
  • Is it wrong that I like this?
  • Monday Night Linkorama

  • Fark does come up with some good headlines.
  • Cool.
  • Interesting. We’re giving $5 billion to GMAC so that they can become a bank and become eligible for the bailout money. This bailout gets worse all the time. And the idea that the taxpayers will ultimately profit looks more unlikely each day.
  • Apparently, it’s only torture if other people do it. Who knew?
  • One of the many reasons I’m glad I don’t live in Massachusetts.
  • New Year’s Linkorama

  • Oops
  • No matter how you slice it, federal control of health care will lead to rationing. Of course, to most supporters, that’s a feature, not a bug.
  • I’d feel bad about linking up the Caroline Kennedy “you know” clip except that she is being seriously considered as a US Senator. Her potential nomination has brought out the worst kind of child-like thinking in the Left. There are, by my estimate, a couple of million women in New York more qualified.
  • This sort of nonsense, in which the Feds claim drug use has dropped, drive me nuts. The Bush Administration has been particularly bad about sorting through all the little wiggles and bumps in sociological trend lines — drug use, education, crime, etc. — and claiming that any period where the wiggle went down is due to their policies while ignoring any upward wiggles. That’s what happens when you’re more focused on politics than policy.
  • Poor poor Little Legal Creep. If only he hadn’t mindlessly supported so many illegal things.