Tasteless Advertising

Aw, jeez. Sometimes it isn't difficult at all to determine if the creative geniuses behind an advertisement are heterosexual males. I would vote to fire the ad agency but someone at Guss' must have thought it was money well spent.

Now I'll confess I am no stranger to penis humor when it comes to vegetables which actually look like a dick. But I laugh about it and move on.

Next time, you adolescent creative-types, save your budget and go find a horny 15-year-old boy to design your ad. You might get the same amateur result. Meanwhile, I'll stick with Gundelsheim Barrel Pickles, the delights of which have never resulted in this queer having a blow-job fantasy with a woman.

Sometimes a pickle is just a pickle. Sometimes a bad ad is just a bad ad.

Via.


Oh, it gets worse. In the marketing gone haywire arena, there's the pole dance for the kiddies! I shit you not.

Chillin' with the KKK

An advertising agency in Belgium has created this ad to promote just how "relaxing" the Luxor hot tubs can be. Hmmm. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't find this relaxing or appealing. In fact, it's kind of disgusting.

Click to embiggen.

Via.

Credit Checks Are Screwing the Downtrodden

This isn't a new practice; in fact I read about this last year and another article appears in today's New York Times regarding employers running credit checks on job applicants and then refusing to hire those who appear to have a history of "bad decision-making."

Business executives say that they have an obligation to be diligent and to protect themselves from employees who may be unreliable, unwise or too susceptible to temptation to steal, and that credit checks are a help.

“If I see too many negative things coming up on a credit check, it’s one of those things that raises a flag with me,” said Anita Orozco, director of human resources at Sonneborn, a petrochemical company based in Mahwah, N.J. She added that while bad credit alone would not be a reason to deny someone a job, it might reveal poor judgment.

“If you see a history of bad decision-making, you don’t want that decision-making overflowing into your organization,” she said.

More than 40 percent of employers use credit checks at least sometimes, according to a 2004 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, up from 25 percent in 1998. The share has almost certainly risen today, say career counselors.

Yeah, like the millions of people who made the "bad decision" to take a job at a company which would at some point lay them off, or the "bad decision" to feed their families vs. pay the mortgage when the option is either/or. And many made the "bad decision" to seek medical help for a serious injury when they had no health insurance because they can't afford it, and are now facing bankruptcy due to the enormous costs of health treatment.

Are there also millions of Americans who have abused credit cards, shopped for things they don't need and can't afford, simply because credit was easy? Of course. But this practice is screening out far too many honest workers who have been impacted by the current recession and making their lives far more difficult.

But hey, people who might easily pass a credit check are just one less thing to worry about because we know they aren't going to steal, right?

Your Daily Fetish

And I thought I had a cat problem:

I do hope this 90 day "sentence" is for mental help and not taking up space in a jail. That would be even more ridiculous than her crime.

Related story.

Speaking of Instant Karma

The ranks of the unemployed just increased by two after this absurdly stupid stunt in which a couple of employees at a Dominoe's shot this video and uploaded it to YouTube.

I just wonder how stupid people can be. Did they not have a clue that retribution would be swift? The woman shooting the video probably didn't realize just what an understatement she was uttering when she said this:

"I think our boss lady may be coming out here soon."

They have been fired today. And thanks for giving gay people another bad rap, assholes.

Golden Showers Parachutes

No man or woman on this planet is worth $45 million. Even if $45 million doesn't carry the same weight it did 20 years ago. It's just wrong.

I don't care if you are a member of Metallica or U2, or Tiger Woods, or Magic Johnson, a CEO of HP, the Dalai Lama, or least of all, a glorified politician. Jesus Christ would probably agree with me on this point. And in this case it's a fucking severance package, not a salary.

Sarah Palin: A Clear Choice for Feminists?

Via Toast, who finds some amusement in the fact that some who call themselves feminists are impressed enough with Sarah Palin's feminist credentials to support her as the VP choice.

Now that Palin can be heard giggling as two shock jocks have called Senator Lyda Green, an opponent of Palin's, a "cancer" and a "bitch," we know she's the real McCoy. Or maybe that's some funny shit up in heavily-Republican Alaska.

Hunter/Edwards 2008

This is the year when Democrats -- especially the good ones who are nationally recognized -- should be showing America their best side.

Ummm. Just not today.

Cheating on your wife while she is busy having cancer is clearly not the best moment for John Edwards. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but thank God he's not the nominee.

In an interview for broadcast tonight on Nightline, Edwards told ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff he did have an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but said that he did not love her.

Edwards also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although the one-time Democratic Presidential candidate said he has not taken a paternity test.

So, he "didn't love her." That's gotta make Elizabeth feel just great about the matter. And his denial about being the father of the baby doesn't exactly carry a lot of weight since he lied previously about the affair.

Message to Obama: Keep your fucking dick in your trousers. This shit makes me nervous.

And it makes me furiously angry that Edwards would not endorse marriage equality while campaigning, and while cheating on his wife. Why? Oh yeah, because us queers are the immoral ones. I keep forgetting.

We Are Descended From Apes

Sorry, but them's the facts.

Another conversation just overheard at kona ranch.

txrad: Why don't you zip up your pants and stop playing with yourself?

konagod: Why? Is it a problem? There's no neighbors looking in. There's no one here but us. Is it a problem for you? Do you think I'd have a problem if you were wearing torn jeans with your dick hanging out?

txrad: You look like a monkey. Uh uh uh uh uh....

konagod: Well, I like to keep things loose down there. If I don't keep things limber and loose, pretty soon my dick is sticking to my balls, and my balls are sticking to my legs. I gotta keep things all loose and breathing.

It's a Texas summer. Shit.

Do women have any similar problems? Or is this just a male thing?

Consider that a Question of the Day.

My shorts are unzipped again.

Thank You SOS Chats

Early cat blogging: If you can read French, check out SOS Chats in Switzerland which I learned about today after reading an article in the New York Times. Even if you can't read French, the pictures are great.

I had no idea it was legal in Switzerland, of all places, to skin cats for their fur and sell the garments. Fortunately, this is about to change and hopefully this year.

While it is legal in Switzerland to shoot feral cats as well as domestic ones that stray more than 200 yards from their homes, it is not clear how many cats are hunted every year here and across the border in France, where residents have also complained about disappearing felines. One government official put the number at a couple of dozen. Luc Barthassat, a legislator with the Christian Democratic People’s Party, said about 2,000, but members of S O S Chats, an advocacy group, say tens of thousands are killed.

Estimates of the value of each pelt vary wildly. Mr. Barthassat said he had been told by tanners that they pay only about $5. But animal rights advocates say that hunters make much more than that, noting that some blankets made from 10 pelts sell at retail for more than $1,700.

But the numbers almost seemed beside the fact this fall, after a series of TV reports created a public furor. Three TV news crews from Switzerland and France conducted hidden-camera investigations that caught tanners who had officially denied trading in cat fur actively doing so and, in at least one case, explaining that cat meat was also available.

It's one thing to raise animals in captivity for pelts as well as hunting wild animals for the same reason, and I'm personally not a proponent of either. But at least I understand it. I'm less adverse to the idea if the wild animals being hunted are primarily used as food and the pelts are used secondarily to avoid wasting any part of the animal.

But people have been losing their beloved pets to this absurd practice. SOS Chats did a lot of work in exposing this and I'm very happy they did. If I knew someone had shot and killed any of my cats for pelts or meat I'd be tempted to reciprocate.

The Incredible Shrinking Penis

Seriously, enough of this spam promising to give me an enormous schlong. It's actually causing erectile dysfunction.

I had 28 such offers this morning. One of them is being marketed as a "Green product." Yes, help the environment by growing a longer harder dick.

A Pissing Contest. How Presidential.

Benazir Bhutto's body is barely cold and the 2008 contenders for the White House are already measuring their national security dicks. And I have come to the conclusion that Rudy is fucking N.V.T.S. nuts!

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan jolted the race for the White House on Thursday, sending candidates in both parties scrambling for political advantage while condemning the attack.

[...]

Giuliani issued a statement that said the assassination was further evidence that the United States needs to increase its efforts against terrorism — and he began running an a new TV ad focusing on the Sept. 11 attacks.

The "war on terror" is a recipe for a bankrupt nation, and I can only assume that increased efforts go hand in hand with increased funding.

How many nations do we need to occupy to defeat terrorism?

The Wahhabi Interpretation: Beat the Victim

A girl is Saudi Arabia, 19-years-old at the time she was raped, has been sentenced to receive 200 lashes for her "crime" of being in the same car with an unrelated man.

Lashing is a common sentence under the Saudi penal code, applied for crimes ranging from homosexuality and drinking alcohol to theft and adultery. Usually, lashes are meted out in increments because offenders could not survive hundreds of lashes at once. The administrator of the punishment is supposed to hold a
Koran under his arm so he cannot swing the whip too fiercely; lashes are not supposed to leave permanent scars. The sentence is frequently delivered in public, often at the entrance to a jail.

Wow. Nice society! I won't be vacationing there. God only knows how many lashes I'd get for being a tequila drinker AND a homosexual. But at least I'm not a woman!

I'm so glad my country buddies up to to the Saudis. Let's keep buying their oil.

Bad Taste

From Petulant’s quick trigger finger:

And Bad Omen perhaps. As I trudge into work this morning, on a day when layoffs are rumored to be likely and widespread, that might be the phrase of the day.

Hey, Ad Council, Eat This

The Ad Council has just lost all my respect. Primarily for this reason.

I can't find it now, but if you could see the commercial I just saw on the Food Network, you'd vomit your gourmet cuisine.

Brainwashing continues unabated.

If you knew that your tax dollars were being spent to keep you living in fear, by placing television advertising in popular programs, would you be amused?

I'm not.

The terror continues, until January 2009 apparently.

Fog and Herring

Albert Brooks is the best Jew since Mel Brooks.

But I digress.

What the fuck is Fred Thompson doing in this movie? Is it really him?

Is this the platform on which he's running for the highest office in the land?

I'm so full of questions, and so short of answers.

Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World

America has sunk to a new low.

America's Culture of Death

I'm not sure why I pay $55.00 monthly for a New York Times subscription when the news is routinely depressing. Part of me would just prefer to remain ignorant.

On the other hand, I'm glad they cover state executions with such excruciating detail. People need to understand how this works.

He looks almost like a young child buckled into a car seat, with his closed eyes and freshly shaved head, with the way the black restraints of the electric chair crisscross at his torso. He yawns a wide-mouthed yawn, as though just stirring from an interrupted dream, and opens his eyes.

He is moments from dying.

Daryl Holton was the first person executed by electrocution in Tennessee since 1960. And in my opinion, the details of his execution are equally as grisly as his crime of killing his four children by shooting them in the heart.

Two corrections officers step forward to place a sponge soaked in salted water on Mr. Holton’s bald scalp to enhance conductivity. Next comes the headpiece, which the procedures describe as a “leather cranial cap lined with copper mesh inside.” Finally, a power cable, not unlike the cable to your television, is attached to the headpiece.

The copper mesh pressing wet sponge sends salty water streaming down the inmate’s ashen face, soaking his white cotton shirt to the pale skin beneath. When officers try to blot him dry with white towels, Mr. Holton says not to worry about it, “ain’t gonna matter anyway.”

Damn right, it's not gonna matter. But it gets worse.

With the push of a button on a console labeled Electric Chair Control, 1,750 volts bolt through Mr. Holton’s body, jerking it up and dropping it like a sack of earth. The black shroud offers the slightest flutter, and witnesses cannot tell whether they have just heard a machine’s whoosh or a man’s sigh.

Fifteen seconds later, another bolt, and Mr. Holton’s body rises even higher, slumps even lower. His reddened hands remain gripped to the arms of the chair, whose oaken pieces are said to have once belonged to the old electric chair, and before that, to the gallows.

SCOTUS is dead wrong on this one. While it may not be unusual in the United States, it certainly is in the civilized world, and it's absolutely cruel to the core. A civilized nation does not proclaim murder to be a crime and then murder the murderer.

If I believed in hell, I'd swear the prosecution, the jury, and the fucker who pushes the botton on the ECC would all burn there eternally, as well as the politicians who refuse to condemn the brutality, and the assholes who continue to elect them.

All Show and No Substance

This is one of my big pet peeves. I think music and entertainment DO mix, but I do NOT think entertainment should ever, in any way whatsoever, overpower the music, when it's supposed to be all about the music.

Take any of your big pop stars today. There's your example.

Watch the MTV Music Video Awards.

They should just remove the word "music" from it.

The video should supplement the music, show you the pain and the emotion.

Instead it's just a cheap fucking Vegas show.

And I despise it.

And it's an infomercial for The Palms.

My God, marketing has gone to a whole new level.

And let's not forget that ART is not allowed to enter the picture, and by that I mean art as honesty.

We must bleep all the "bad words."

It's like airbrushing away Mona Lisa's smile, and making her thinner as well.

While still claiming it's great original art.


Bovine excrement.

Bumper Sticker of the Week Award

Goes to the stupid bitch in our neighborhood who drives the Toyota SUV with the asinine bumper stickers:

1. Peace - The Old Fashioned Way (a bomber over an American flag was the imagery accompanying the punch line.)

2. If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a soldier.

Now, pardon my French, but what the fuck? What soldier can claim responsibility for me reading in English? And what difference does it make what language I'm reading as long as I can read? And if I couldn't read her stupid-ass sticker, should I not thank a soldier? What if I could read it in English but didn't know what I was saying? What if I could read it in English and didn't know what the fuck she was on about?

I'm so very confused.

Petrol Price Check

QotD: How much is premium where you are? I don't give a damn about regular since I can't use it. Just a few weeks ago it was about $2.35 here in Austin. Then I noticed it going up several cents a day and suddenly it was $2.59. I tend to notice such things while sitting on the bus staring out the window. I think I may have filled up both cars around that time. Then it kept going... $2.65, $2.75... and now premium is up to about $2.93.

Summer is quite a ways off. Apparently we're going to be seeing $3.00+ long before Memorial Day and frankly, I don't give a shit. My apologies to those of you who must drive places, but I'm glad I'll continue to take the bus to work except on days when I can't for whatever reason. High gas prices will do wonders for the alternative energy brainstorming. Not to mention the fact that I absolutely love to call someone an asshole who is speeding down the road in a Hummer, only to slam on the breaks at the red light which they could clearly have seen for half a mile before they decided to break. Have fun filling that fucker up.

Some people are stupid. Do I need to create a new label for this post? It already overlaps several. Of course if I did add a new label, I'd have to go back and apply it to the post I did this morning. But I'm not lazy. OK, "fuel" it is.