Category Archives: sarcasm

Redefining Marriage

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When I am king of all that I survey, I want to propose a series of marriage reforms. For starters, there will be now be two marriage designations. One will be a Christian Marriage, and the other will be called a Heathen Marriage. Heathen marriages can be given to any disgusting pairing of people who do not qualify as Christians engaged in a good, old fashioned marriage. That way, when gay people, atheists, or other lower moral forms want to get married, they can get Heathen married. It will grant them certain rights and privileges, but it won’t sully the integrity of Christian Marriage.

The Christian Marriage designation will be automatically given to anyone presently married who claims to be a Christian, and to all Christians wishing to marry in the future. The Christian Marriage differs from Heathen Marriages because it will follow the teachings of the Holy Bible. This means a few subtle but important changes to their existing relationships:

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Efficient Killers

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We raise a big stink when it comes to killers. There is a good reason for this. Killers kill people, and being that we are people, this comes across rather badly. It could, for instance, have been me who the killer killed killfully, and since my interest in being killed is very small, an attitude that I believe most people hold about themselves, my support for killing is very, very small.

We focus in weird places from a purely scientific perspective. If a serial killer is stalking the streets of Our Home Town, it unnerves us even though the odds in a city of more than a million souls of meeting said serial killer and earning a killing are minor, especially so when said serial killer has a “type” that he or she likes to kill. Still, there is something entirely unsettling about having a killer walking the streets where you live. But serial killers, even the really efficient ones, are simply not that good at killing.

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Letters: Hard Copy Of The Words That Bite Us In The Ass

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From the desk of Julie Smith-Williams, Vice President
To: All staff of Blaggman Children’s Services Worldwide

Greetings!

Well, it is another new year and I hope that you find yourselves whole, happy, and ready for a great and exciting time of growth and change! With each passing year we continue to grow as a company, and we hope you take the opportunity to grow as a person through our many programs and services.

Unfortunately, that is not the purpose of my message today. I need to talk about some problems we have been seeing. One of the most important things at Blaggman is that we have built a strong and vibrant culture, one that shines with the twin lights of positive worker interactions and self-policing. While we strive to ensure that our staff are shining examples of Blaggman and that they are all good people doing good work for children, we are all too aware of the occasional bad apple. No names will be mentioned, but whenever and wherever abuse has been seen WITHIN the company, the word shot straight up the corporate ladder like a bullet and consequences were handed down WITHIN the company.

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Miracles – The Not ICP Version

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Oh, CBC, sometimes you hurt me deeply. They put up a feature on their show Connect listing the top ten miracles of the year 2010. Now, I would say that none of these are miracles. This was not the hand of God making the impossible possible, this is a collection of interesting and in some cases hard to believe news items. And it’s sad that they’re purporting this list as miraculous. Let’s look at the list!

10. Adopted brothers living across the street from one another! – Two brothers, born a year a part, were both given up for adoption. Amazingly, they found each other again, and were amazingly enough living across the street from one another. Now, that’s impressive. The part of me that is jaded and cynical smugly replies, “Wow, two people who never left a small town in Newfoundland? How is such a thing POSSIBLE!”, but the truth is that as much as the odds are not good that anyone would find themselves in a similar situation, given the number of children given up for adoption, it’s certainly not impossible to imagine something like this happening. I cannot in good conscience say that the hand of God moved two brothers onto the same street just so they could find each other. Fail.

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An Exciting Legal Precedent

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Life in Calgary is funny. We’ve had a lot of weird legal decisions, as I suppose is true of every city on earth. Here we found out that the punishment for shooting your ex-husband in the back six times is a few months of basket weaving and that stealing is worse than serial murder. But I really like the direction this case is heading in.

Essentially, this guy named Gary Yuen beat the piss out of his prostitute with a baseball bat. His lawyer, Calgary’s Balfour Der (the guy who always seems to get the job when it’s these ridiculous sorts of trials) is alleging that his client was asleep at the time.

Man, I hope that goes through. If we’re suddenly going to allow people in a so-called parasomniac state to commit murder and get away with it, then sign me up! I often have trouble transitioning from sleeping to waking, and I might as well use that opportunity for the good of the city.

Jim

Teach The Controversy — The Rabies Denialist Edition

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I was just reading an article on Skepchick that got me thinking a bit. The article, entitled Brian Dunning’s DDT Fail is about a skeptic who recently posted about DDT, and made a series of rather striking errors. He had basically taken a manufactroversy at face value, and suffered the backlash of comments that came from other skeptics as a result. 

That got me to thinking about manufactroversies. First off, I love the word. And I have seen time and time again examples of these horrible little spoofs of the common good will, and when I have recognized them, I have done my best to warn those around me who believe in them. I would be a fool to say that I didn’t believe in any, however. I cannot think of an example that I believe, but that is because the nature of a manufactroversy (like any misinformation campaign) is to make you believe that what you know is the truth. I’m just saying that just because I am one of those skeptical people does not preclude me from believing something in error.
Let’s start with a definition of a manufactroversy, which I shall take from the link Bug Girl included in her article:
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Things I Can Do That The Faithful Cannot

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Last night, I was sitting in my yard with my pal Philly drinking beer and working on a contract for a big show I want to bring to town. The subject turned to the faithful (though I’m not entirely certain how that happened) and our shared confusion. I understand that children can believe in God, but I am always amazed at grownups who continue to hold true this notion long after their reason and common sense should have shown them the truth of the universe. One of the turns our conversation took us led me to this blog post, and my thoughts on the things that I can do that the faithful cannot.

1. I can take ownership of my mistakes. I screw up. I admit it wholeheartedly. I probably do it on a more regular basis than others, largely because I also put myself out there and take risks a lot more often. I don’t mean jumping off cliffs or similar risk-seeking adventure behaviors, I’m referring to things like doing stand up comedy on a whim, marrying my roommates, and that sort of thing. Those were both extremely happy experiences, but goodness knows I’ve made my share of mistakes.

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The Arrogance Of The Buffoons – Clock Fixin’ Edition!

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As I write this post, I have no idea what time it is. The clock on my desktop says a time, of course, but it’s under the faulty method of Greenwich Mean Time, a means of standardizing the time that is wholly arbitrarily determined. No, arbitrary is just silly. Arbitrary implies that it could be anything, and that is bad. So a group of scholarly sorts have come up with a significantly better plan, one that uses a reasoned approach to determining what should be the mean time of the planet. They want to use Mecca. That’s right, they want us to observe what I am lovingly calling Allah (who is most merciful) Savings Time.

Think about it, it’s perfect! What did Greenwich have to offer that’s better than Mecca? Mecca isn’t arbitrary, it’s where Mohammad last prayed (probably after setting his watch!) before going to Heaven. Jesus never even went to Greenwich, and we all know that after he was lifted by angels it was not to get to heaven, but to America. And he was a Jew, and clearly, Muslims aren’t about to wind their watches to some Jew-time. Nope, Mecca is the sensible choice.

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Three Cheers For British Petroleum!

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I touched on this briefly yesterday, but today I wanted to go into greater detail. I for one am tired of all the negative nellies misunderstanding what BP has done in Louisiana, and damnit, I’m gonna say my piece. All of you Johnny Bandwagon-Jumpers need to listen up, because I’m about to drop some knowledge.

First off, this is all a question of how you look at things. Yes, you can call it an environmental holocaust, but why do we always resort to terror buzzwords whenever businesses do anything? Remember New Coke? The public were practically screaming that it was made of clubbed seals and the rendered fat of war criminals, which admittedly is not far off the taste, but still very reactionary.

No, I prefer to think of this as BP opening up their business to a new customer base. And like many businesses, to drum up support they have offered their product or service free of charge in the beginning. When a new Starbucks opens up, you’re sure to see barristas in the neighborhood with free samples, and goodness knows crack dealers are notorious for their “first hit  free” marketing ploy.

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The Fine Art Of Over-Reacting

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Two stories that I just felt the need to comment on today. First off, there is a lawyer in Pakistan who is taking his country’s overreaction to Draw Mohammed Day that one step further and attempting to charge three of the founders of Facebook over the incident. According to Pakistani law:

“Use of derogatory remark etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable for fine.”  
 
Yes, that’s right, this little man of the bar wants to impose a death sentence on three men who once upon a time founded a company.

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