Funny Site

[JayB]

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

 

Kind of a hit-or-miss anthology of lists that I heard about on NPR the other day.

 

Samples.

 

"Toddler T-Shirt

Slogans.

 

BY DARRYL BERGER

 

- - - -

 

Acceptable

 

Ask me about the C-section.

 

More of a tit man, thanks.

 

Still pissed about missing the millennium.

 

I buried my heart at Legoland.

 

Waiting for Godot.

 

Don't let Tony Danza touch me.

 

Stop the war. Already.

 

Stunt double for Katie Holmes's baby.

 

Unacceptable

 

Property of Child and Family Services

 

Glad those stairs were carpeted.

 

Slap me if you love Jesus.

 

Not quite getting this whole "MILF" phenomenon.

 

I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.

 

Daddy didn't want me.

 

Ask me about the extra digit.

 

Grandma won't shut up. "

 

 

"TOURISM SLOGANS THAT FAILED TO SEAL THE DEAL

 

by Michelle Orange

 

Kyrgyzstan: Kazakhstan’s Mexico

 

Germany: Let It Go

 

Venezuela: We Dare You

 

Cambodia: Nike’s Best Kept Secret

 

It’s Worse in Western

 

Samoa

 

Canada: Turn Left at Greenland

 

Syria: Come for the Ruins, Stay Because We Confiscated Your Passport"

 

"BARTLETT’S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS

 

by Martin Bell

 

“Hi there. John Bartlett.”

 

—John Bartlett

 

“Reservation should be under ‘Bartlett.’ That’s two T’s. Yes. ‘Bart- let-et.’ ”

 

—John Bartlett

 

“Yep, that was me. I’m that Bartlett.”—John Bartlett

 

“Yes, I’d like another one.”

 

—John Bartlett

 

“. . . and I said, ‘Yeah, and you can “quote” me on it!’ Ha, ha!”— John Bartlett

 

“Ah, yes, where’s your restroom?”—John Bartlett

 

“Hey there, my little . . . my little cowgirl. I’m Jack Bartlett. Want credit for a quotation? I don’t think anyone’s laid claim to your phone number yet. Nice. Just . . . just one second, let me get a pen.”—John Bartlett

 

“That’s not funny. It’s not funny. Don’t ask me what, you know what. The little quote fingers. All the goddamn time. Everything I say. Just . . . just stop. Okay?”—John Bartlett

 

“No, how about you please leave the premises? Huh? How about you don’t make a scene? How about . . . how about that? Well, fine. Fucking . . . fine. Don’t touch me! Don’t you dare touch me! Fuck you, you fucking piece of . . . of fuck. How’s that for a bloody quotation?”—John Bartlett

 

“Oh, nice one, honey. Yes. Clever. That’s becoming quite a familiar quotation in its own right, isn’t it? Maybe I should just add it to the next edition. ‘Mother was right.’ Author: Mrs. Bartlett, world- renowned nag. Year: 1859. Attribution: A short play entitled Every Goddamn Weekend.”—John Bartlett

 

“Right. Well, you call him and talk about it. Hey, and when you bring it up, ask him about the ‘Bartlett’s’ on the cover. Singular possessive, mind you. Note where the apostrophe is. Ask him if he thinks you’re entitled to half the royalties. Just ask him. I have my hunch, but I’m sure his legal opinion counts for a lot more. Go on, call Stanley. If you need me, I’ll be in bed.”—John Bartlett"

 

"CINEMATIC EXPRESSIONS OF INNER SELF-LOATHING IF THERE WERE NO MIRRORS TO SMASH

 

by Ross Murray

 

Junkie jazz singer sees self in back of spoon; uses telekinetic powers to bend it until it snaps in two.

 

Actress who clawed her way to the top catches reflection in pond; uses nearby backhoe to drain pond.

 

Woman who married for wealth rather than love looks at photo on driver’s license; goes to DMV to ask for new photo.

 

Politician who has forsaken his grassroots values discovers potato in shape of own head; mashes it.

 

Burned-out rock star looks down at himself during out-of-body experience; refuses to go back in body “until we start seeing some changes around here, mister.”

 

Aging supermodel has plaster cast made of face; backs over it in SUV.

 

Alcoholic author looks at reflection in a tumbler of Scotch; drinks Scotch; pours another to see if he looks any better in this one."

[lI1|1!]

what?

[G-spotter]

look who just outed himself as a closet liberal. listening to NPR

what would Rush say?

[Crux]

NPR today. Air America tomorrow. It's a slippery slope.

[Fairweather]

NPR today. Air America tomorrow. It's a slippery slope.

 

He'll soon have a hard time hearing Air America anywhere as it filed for bankruptcy last week and has no sources left for additional funding. And if NPR were taken off the public dole I doubt it would last long either. (But I will admit to actually liking much of their programming.) As confirmation of the beliefs held by so many 'progressives', it seems the free market and boredom just don't get along without extorting capital from hard working folks via taxation - or at least milking charity from wealthy left-leaning activists. It now appears Air America's inflated poll numbers were nothing more than questionees making a political statement - few advertisers there saw a noticeable lift in sales. So long Air America...so long Al Franken. You just weren't that entertaining - or funny.

[ScottP]

Didn't Fox News lose millions of dollars in it's first couple of years?

[Fairweather]

I don't know, but it's still on-air and profitable. And, to my knowledge, they never filed for bankruptcy.

[Crux]

Didn't Fox News lose millions of dollars in it's first couple of years?

Yeah, and AAR is losing money now in its first years like FoxNews did. But there is no safety in these numbers. AAR keeps getting backing from Clear Channel and who knows what other ruthless capitalist enterprises. Worse, AAR keeps improving the content and marketing of its disgusting product to the end that its incessant smear campaign against all that is good about America will continue in perpetuity. Consequently, JayB is in great peril: Good ole' might-makes-right conservative yesterday, commie conspirator tomorrow. I don't want to talk shit about anybody here, but you right-wingers out there might do well to think twice before taking the sharp end with this guy watching your back.

(Just a word to the wise, that's all.)

[JayB]

Hell - I have listened to NPR since I was about 13, and spend enough hours at the lab everyday that I hear pretty much every program twice and....I am a contributing member. I've also had concurrent subscriptions to the New York Review of Books and The New Criterion. I'm generally less concerned with what someone believes than with why they believe it, so if I'm listening to or reading something by a smart person who's employing good information in service of logical arguments, their particular viewpoint matters less to me than you might think. if I'm not won over by them, the worst thing that can happen to me is that my arguments get that much stronger.

 

With the notable exception of most of the callers, most of the content produced by NPR features smart people whose opinions I can at least take seriously, whether I agree with them or not. That's the biggest difference between NPR and Air America, and that's probably a major reason why the network imploded. It's not that there's not a market for left-of-center commentary on the Radio, it's that for the most part the content sucked in a massive way. The fact that the management was clearly incompetent as hell didn't help, but I doubt things would have been different even with the best management in the business. The fact that people who - whatever anyone may think of them - know how to run radio stations profitably want to pick up the one or two viable shows from the rubble is no more a vindication of "Air America" than someone buying Enron's natural gas pipelines in a post-bankrupty trustee auction is a vindication of Enron's business plan or management flair. If anything, the fact that someone can take the same assets and make a profit with them is a further indication of just how inept and useless the folks running the show at "Air America" were from the get-go. The fact that most businesses start out with an operating loss is hardly news, but it's hardly a credit to Air America to point this out that they share this trait with business that, unlike this enterprise, eventually went on to turn a profit without passing through bankruptcy.

 

How any of this constitutes any sort of peril for me, let alone "Great Peril," is quite beyond me, unless by "Great Peril" you mean "that which may, at most, elicit a bored yawn."

[archenemy]

How does this fit in with the "Liberal-controlled media" theory referred to so often in arguements?

[Off_White]

And if NPR were taken off the public dole I doubt it would last long either. (

 

I think NPR is currently running on a 13% federal funding subsidy. If public funds were cut off I'm sure they'd have to take on a more mainstream approach to advertising, rather than the "support provided by blah blah" version of advertising lite they currently use.

[foraker]

And if Lockheed/Boeing/Northrop/Raytheon/TRW were taken off the public dole I doubt they would last long either. (

[chris]

And if NPR were taken off the public dole I doubt it would last long either. (

 

I think NPR is currently running on a 13% federal funding subsidy. If public funds were cut off I'm sure they'd have to take on a more mainstream approach to advertising, rather than the "support provided by blah blah" version of advertising lite they currently use.

 

This is how NPR says its funded:

NPR supports its operations through a combination of membership dues and programming fees from over 800 independent radio stations, sponsorship from private foundations and corporations, and revenue from the sales of transcripts, books, CDs, and merchandise. A very small percentage -- between one percent to two percent of NPR's annual budget -- comes from competitive grants sought by NPR from federally funded organizations, such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

You can read more about it here: http://www.npr.org/about/privatesupport.html

[JayB]

Speaking of the NYRB, here's a case in point:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19371

 

One of the better articles I've come across in quite a while.

 

[JayB]

Now back to the original subject:

 

"Movies That

Won't Be Shown

on the Lifetime

Network.

 

BY SHYRA LATIOLAIS

 

- - - -

 

Mother, May I Marry a Nice Doctor You Really Like?

 

The Ideal Husband (Not Meant Ironically)

 

A Child Accounted For and in No Danger

 

The Amicable Divorce and Custody Agreement

 

A Pleasant Family Christmas

 

The Man Who Was as Nice as He Initially Appeared to Be

 

My Daughter's Internet Pen Pal Who Really Is Another Preteen Girl

 

The Successful Surgery That Improved the Quality of the Patient's Life

 

The Number of Children We Planned For, All Healthy "

[JayB]

Less-Threatening Islamist Groups.

 

BY CHRIS WILKINSON

 

- - - -

 

Abu Nidal Ladies Muffin Club

 

Hamas and Garfunkel

 

Log Cabin Martyrs Brigade

 

MujahaDeaniacs

 

Gene Loves Hezbollah

 

Al Axsa Coffee Clutch

 

Al Jarreau

 

Balsamic Jihad

 

Weird Al Qaeda

[archenemy]

Speaking of the NYRB, here's a case in point:

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19371

 

One of the better articles I've come across in quite a while.

I haven't read the whole thing yet, but I can't help but be a bit surprised by this comment:

 

So the Muslims have won the Battle of Poitiers after all! Won it not by force of arms, but by peaceful immigration and fertility.

 

Fertility? Since when has controlling woman and denying them their reproductive rites considered "fertility". Wretched.

[JayB]

When it results in live offspring, I think.

 

Might be worth reading the rest of the article.

[JayB]

Seven

Band Names

That Would Be

Impossible

to Book.

 

BY MIKE HAMPTON

 

- - - -

 

No Event Scheduled

 

Open Date

 

Canceled Due to Fire

 

Postponed

 

All Ages w/ No Cover

 

Renovating

 

Private Party

[archenemy]

When it results in live offspring, I think.

 

Might be worth reading the rest of the article.

I'm working on that.

 

"It's no disrespect to Ms. Ali to suggest that if she had been short, squat, and squinting, her story and views might not be so closely attended to."

 

yeah, but it might be disrespectful to all the short, squat, squinting women who do indeed have something to say. And this is written by an author who comments on being judged by having darker skin than the Europeans.

[foraker]

Mother, May I Marry a Nice Doctor You Really Like (Because I Need an Abortion and I Don't Want to Die in An Alley)?

 

A Child Accounted For and in No Danger (But Who Lives in Constant Fear of Terrorists Who Want to Kill Him Because They Hate His Toys)

 

The Amicable Divorce and Custody Agreement (That Didn't Involve a Lawyer)

 

A Pleasant Family Christmas (As Long As Everyone Pays Their Visa And Mastercard Bills)

 

The Man Who Was as Nice as He Initially Appeared to Be (And the Men Who Controlled Him and Led A Great Country to Ruin)

 

My Daughter's Internet Pen Pal Who Really Is Another Preteen Girl (So I Took Her to Have Her Latent Homosexuality Fixed Before It Became A Problem)

 

The Successful Surgery That Improved the Quality of the Patient's Life (Yet Who Died In Poverty Because the Insurance Company Wouldn't Pay)

 

The Number of Children We Planned For, All Healthy (Hate Foreigners, and Think Dinosaurs are 'Fake')

[archenemy]

"This is precisely why she is a heroine to many secular European intellectuals, who are themselves Enlightenment fundamentalists. They believe that not just Islam but all religion is insulting to the intelligence and crippling to the human spirit."

 

Um, little bit of a generalization maybe.

 

"I regard it as both morally indefensible and politically foolish for the French state to insist that grown women may not wear the hijab in any official institution—a source of additional grievance to French Muslims, as I heard repeatedly from women in the housing projects near Saint-Denis. It seems to me as objectionable that the French Republic forbids adult women to wear the hijab as it is that the Islamic Republic of Iran compels them to wear the hijab"

 

I find it confounding that men overtly control via legal methods what women wear at all. What sickness is this? What is the psychology behind this madness?

[archenemy]

Oh, and the fucker who shot Van Gogh was living on Dutch welfare payments at the time. Nice.

[JayB]

Everyone can play along...

 

"Initial Ideas for Naming the Drug that Became Viagra that Never Made it Out of the Original Brainstorming Session Held at the "Branding Consultant's" Office.

 

By Jay Brazier

 

Limpitor.

Turgiplex.

Flacitrel.

Impotrex.

Deflaphen.

Inadequel.

Regretacin.

Chastocet.

Frigalin.

Celitrex.

Platonidone.

Castrazel.

Wiltonizole.

Languinex.

Erodiconf.

Boniquel.

Rodistat.

Torpizone.

Emasculol.

Shrivipram.

Dwindovir.

Regretofen.

Pliatrol.

Supinatol.

Witherazole."

[Dechristo]

Since when has controlling woman and denying them their reproductive rites...

 

I'm very interested in reproductive rites.