Giant Obama Head Stopping For A Big Gulp?

When seated on the upper torso, the entire bust is 20 feet tall, and will be displayed in President's Park at Mount Rushmore. To be fair, I would remind critics that's only half as tall as the statue of Saddam Hussein that was toppled in 2003.

Oversized upper torsos of dead former presidents make me feel a little wierd. But for some reason, oversized upper torsos of living current presidents are fodder for my nightmares. Something having to do with Caesar, or something. The whole phenomenon makes me wonder if they'll ever bust someone for slaughtering animals or burning incense illegaly in the park.

Obama: U.S. To Bail Out Struggling Video Game Industry

No joke.

I feel like I live in an alternate universe, and that the real me is extremely confused by all my fictional goings-on.

They Came And They Took Without Giving

In a move likely inspired by the First Earth Battalion, a mall in Christchurch, New Zealand has decided that if Hannah Montana is successful in drawing unruly youth to their premises, perhaps "Copacabana" may be successful in driving them away. In order to stem the problem of loitering teens, mall officials have decided that playing the songs of Barry Manilow (or, as my father-in-law refers to him, "Barely Manenough") overhead in their common areas could be useful in either pacifying the miscreants, or perhaps driving them away:

"The intention is to change the environment in a positive way ... so nobody feels threatened or intimidated," Central City Business Association manager Paul Lonsdale told The Associated Press. "I did not say Barry Manilow is a weapon of mass destruction."

A group of several dozen young people regularly spread rubbish, spray graffiti, get intoxicated, use drugs, swear and intimidate patrons at the outdoor mall, he said.

The city council, police and local property owners covering 410 businesses agree that "nice, easy listening" music like Manilow's "Can't Smile Without You,""Mandy" and other hits might change the behavior of loitering teens.

Hot Topic, prepare to watch your sales plummet. Fluff of the fro to Red Cardigan.

And while we're on the subject, here's one of my all-time favorite renditions of a Manilow classic:

No Eating Barnacle Geese During Lent

What grows like a fungus on a piece of driftwood, gestates underwater inside a barnacle, drops off like a rotten apple, and flies away? What else, but a barnacle goose! Or so it was once thought.

In truth, these waterfowl, who were seen neither nesting nor laying eggs because they did so in the Arctic, come into the world the same way other geese do.

But because these birds of once questionable origin were thought to have spent their early lives underwater, some 13th century Irish bishops figured they could be classified as fish, and therefore fair game when it came to the Lenten menu.

However, during the Fourth Lateran Council, between condemning Joachim Fiore as a heretic and forbidding priests from engaging in duels, Pope Innocent III expressly stated that since it walked like a duck and talked like a duck, the same fast requirements applied to it as did to the duck. The clerics subsequently altered their behavior, and apologized for running afowl of the papacy.

So if you're looking to skirt ecclesial law by eating something other than fish that still counts as a fish, I'm afraid you'll just have to get the Dread Pirate Roberts to slaughter you a capybara.

Conspiracy Theory Belly Laugh Of The Day

Got this little piece of awesomeness from David Hartline's blog. As someone who enthusiastically collects anti-Catholic propaganda, this has to be one of the awesomest accusations I have ever seen from Reformation.org (I'm printing the highlights below):

Russian Patriarch Alexy II—the Pope of the Russian Orthodox Church—died suddenly of poisoning on November 5, 2008...

Patriarch Alexy II was the Pope of the Greek church, and his position was equivalent to that of the Pope of the Latin church...

Memorial services for the poisoned Patriarch were held at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow on December 9, 2008...

Obviously Te Deum's (sic) are being sung and there is great rejoicing at the Vatican over the downfall of the leader of their millenarian enemy—the Russian Orthodox church...

Both the Black Pope (my note: the Superior General of the Jesuits) and White Pope (my note: B16) were ALARMED by the resurgence of the Russian Orthodox church after 70 years of communism...

Obviously there is not enough room in the world for 3 Popes!!

The Russian Pope also had a beard which made him look more like St. Peter than the other 2 Popes!!(emphasis mine)

President-elect Obama's mentor and guru is Polish born Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Brzezinski was the éminence grise behind the Papacy of Pope John Paul II and is an extreme Russophobe and hater of all things Russian.

An Obama Presidency will mean only one thing: WAR WITH RUSSIA!!

That's right, kids. If you look more like St. Peter than he does, Pope Benedict will KILL you.

This conspiracy theory involving the Catholic and Orthodox Churches may be my new favorite, toppling the one about how the Vatican invented Communism to take out the Russian Church.

By the way, let me point out that as a mindless automaton of the Pope, I am never offended by these things. They always seem to bring a little spark of hilarity to my day.

For The Love Of God, Don't Try This At Home

Deepest apologies for the above image, but it unfortunately applies.

A Scottish scientist is warning other scientists and legislators about the possible fallout that might result from experimentation with human sperm and chimpanzee eggs. According to Dr. Callum McKellar (who wins the Awesome Scottish Name Of The Day Award), were a human to mate with a chimpanzee, the DNA are close enough to where a hybrid could result from the union.

When reached for comment, Apoloblogology Field Correspondent Dr. Ian Malcolm stated, "Yes first it's 'ooh, aah, look at the Manpanzee,' but then there's screaming, and yelling, and running..."

Does anyone else get the feeling that this was addressed in Leviticus? I feel like a couple verses after "you shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk" there has to be something to the effect of "you shall not mate with another species that shares 98.5% of your DNA..."

Shedding The Green Blood Of The Silent Animals

A Switzerland ethics committee has begun a debate to try and argue for those who cannot speak for themselves. Is it the defense of the unborn from creation and extermination as part of the "designer child" mentality? Or perhaps a criticism of the abortion industry for targeting minorities? Maybe it's an attempt to get parents to stop late-term aborting their children for cleft palates?

No, my friends. The ethics committee is arguing that:

"plants deserve the right to life and that killing them is morally wrong except when it comes to saving humans. In a report on "the dignity of the creature in the plant world", the federal Ethics Committee on non-human Gene Technology condemned the decapitation of flowers without reason."

Often truth is stranger than fiction. However, sometimes truth is exactly as strange as a particular piece of fiction. G.K. Chesterton seems to have won his own game of "Cheat the Prophet" on this one, judging by this passage from 1904's The Napoleon of Notting Hill:"

"...Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (‘shedding,’ as he called it finely, ‘the green blood of the silent animals’), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called ‘Why should Salt suffer?’ and there was more trouble."

I'm wondering what exactly they're eating for dinner over there in Switzerland...

And Now, Commentary Free, A News Item Too Strange To Be Invented

From the Washington Times:

India uses gun license as sterilization incentive
By Shaikh Azizur Rahman
March 29, 2008

NEW DELHI — Government officials in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have begun offering fast-track gun licenses to men who agree to undergo sterilization, so they will not feel less manly.

The region is part of Chambal Valley, notorious for its rampaging gangs of robbers and bandits, and many villagers desperately want to possess firearms.

Vasectomy camps — regularly set up in many parts of the country as part of a solution to India's population explosion — often fail to meet their targets. Most men refuse to be sterilized, thinking the process strips them of their manliness.

[snip]

After a survey found that most men refused vasectomies because they did not want to lose their "manliness," the government adopted a new strategy.

"We decided to match it with a bigger symbol of manliness: a gun license," Mr. Srivastava said, and "it has worked wonders."

Only eight men came for sterilization in the district last year. In the first 10 weeks after the plan was announced this year, more than 200 men have undergone vasectomies and many others are waiting, he said.

[snip]

"...as soon as the offer of a gun license was announced, people threw away all worries and began responding to our program enthusiastically," said one family planning official.

I Will Not Soon Tire Of This

Because I love Phil Collins. And candy. And gorillas.

And I Thought I Was Cool For Dancing To Prince

You have to watch the whole thing. Tip of the hat to Fr. Rob Jack.

What To Do With Lots Of Candy And Restless Tolkienite Tendencies

Someone made a gingerbread version of the Battle of Pellenor Fields, complete with a white tree of Gondor made out of yogurt-covered pretzels and a dead licorice-rope Nazgul. Pretty amazing.

Last year, he did the same thing with Helm's Deep. Who needs employment?

Tip of the hat to Mark Shea.