Not to beat a dead horse…

…but this story is so absurd. You have to read this to believe it. I’m not sure Bradley Manning has officially changed his name to Chelsea or not, but does anyone at CBS realize that changing your name does not change your gender? Chelsea Manning is a man! That’s it.  There is nothing ambiguous about it. To pretend otherwise makes them look absolutely foolish.

I will assume Bradley has officially changed his name to Chelsea and refer to him as such, but what if Chelsea were to escape from captivity and CBS ran a story about that? According to their own reporting practices it would read something like this:

"Fort Leavenworth authorities are searching for an inmate who escaped on Wednesday. At about 11:45 a.m., Chelsea Elizabeth Manning escaped by walking away from an inmate work crew assigned to the field squad.

"Manning is a white female who is 5’2”, 140 lbs with short, dirty-blonde hair.  Anyone who sees this fugitive should immediately contact Fort Leavenworth officials."

How would that ever lead someone to this person?

This is really mind-boggling to me.  I guess in the minds of the people in charge at CBS, this person is black.

CBS is ridiculous

One day after being sentenced to 35 years in prison for the release of massive amounts of classified information, Bradley Manning has decided that he wants to become a woman. And that’s exactly the way it should be reported.  Despite What CBS would like to tell you, Bradley Manning is actually a man.

As I read this story I couldn’t help but notice something really strange. Somewhere between the time that I read the opening sentence…

“One day after being sentenced for leaking a large amount of classified documents to an anti-secrecy website, Army Pfc. Bradley Manning announced he intends to live the remainder of his life as “Chelsea Manning,” a woman, and begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.”

…and the time I got to the fourth paragraph…

“Manning is also requesting the public now refer to her by her new name and as a woman. She says she looks forward to receiving letters from supporters and intends to write back.”

…Manning’s gender had miraculously changed!  Just like that, in mere seconds. No hormones. No surgery.  Nothing.

I’m sure CBS thinks it is doing the right thing by immediately accepting this convicted criminal’s wishes, but if all it takes to become a woman is to declare that your new name is Chelsea, then why is there a need for hormones? According to CBS, Manning is already a woman. So I suppose they think he should be housed with female inmates for the next 35 years.

Wait a second…

This Manning fellow is a genius! And our media outlets are morons.

Prince has a sense of humor

Prince has released a new single and it has some of the best cover art ever! In a surprising demonstration of self-awareness, he went with a shot of Dave Chappelle's classic impersonation of him from The Chappelle Show's segment, "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories."

This is pure genius.  I hope that others will follow Prince's lead and use famous impersonations for their own future releases.  Some suggestions:

These People Lead our Country

Senator Brian Schatz (D, Hawaii): did you have carnal relations with that sheep?
“…most distasteful in view of the fact that the sheep was under 18 years old.”

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  August 8th, 2013 at 05:01 PM  |  49

No, I never thought that I’d have the opportunity to write that out, either.  But apparently this is the world that we live in, now:

Hawaii senator Brian Schatz involved in simulated sheep rape rituals

U.S. Senator Brian Schatz once led a fraternity that got into trouble with the law and animal welfare groups for threatening to sodomize a sheep.

One of the fraternity brothers involved in the incident claimed at the time that no actual sheep were sodomized in said ritual; and in truth I will be willing enough to accept a denial on Senator Brian Schatz’s (D, Hawaii) part. An explicit denial. As in, While I admit that there was in fact an official investigation along these lines, I have in fact never in my life [expletive deleted]ed a sheep.

And then we can all put this unfortunate incident behind us.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: As near as I can tell: yes, Senator Brian Schatz (D, Hawaii) would have participated in a ritual where he would have had to decide whether joining his fraternity was worth [expletive deleted]ing a sheep.

PPS I’m sorry! This HAPPPENED! I can’t not write about this! I’m only flesh and blood!

PPPS: The subtitle is, of course, a classical reference.

Word Game

Since I know you will be _______ (adjective) tomorrow evening, I have two _____ (plural noun) for you, neither of which is you not seeing me.”

Now the first thing that has to happen is that you need to pre-plan with ______ (person’s name) that you will leave the office at 7:30 so that everyone else who ______ (transitive verb) me that causes me lots of trouble goes home.

Then you ____ (adjective) sneak back and then in the meantime I quickly sneak over and then we can have a nice little visit for _______ (length of time)  or _______ (length of time). Whatever you want.”

Maybe we could go over and watch a _____ (noun) together and just have kind of, I don¹t know, _____ (plural noun) or something like that.

 And then that way we don’t have to deal with the problem of there being a record of me going upstairs and we can spend some time together and see a good _______ (noun).

I could take my _______ (noun) off and start… well… I know you wouldn't enjoy that? I hope to see you later and I hope you will follow my ________ (noun) and do what I want.

So those are two proposals and you can’t refuse me because I’m too _______ (adjective)  and _______ (adjective)  and soon I won’t be here anymore to _______ (verb) over.

I’m hoping you will hear this and you will choose which one you want to do and go tell _______ (same person’s name) and then she can ______ (verb)  me and let me know so I don¹t have to ______ (verb)  all day and I don¹t have to call her every _______ (length of time) and __­­____ (verb)  her because, I know you will find this very _______ (adjective) to believe, but I can be a _______ (noun)  in the _______ (noun)  sometimes.

I’m very persistent, but I really want to _______ (verb)  you.

Glice?

Tauntin' Bieber

Jerry Sandusky son files request to change name

The son of disgraced former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky has filed papers to have his name changed.

Matt Sandusky filed a formal name change request this week, a little over a year after his father was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse. The disgraced former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys in a 15-year period. He is currently serving more than 30 years in prison.

Sandusky’s new name was not immediately known, but sources have indicated the most likely names are:

Chester Rubbentug

Jack Mioff

Pat McRotch

Ben Dover

Harry Johnson

Rubba Rubba

Phil McCrackin

Johnny Stroker

and

Gaylord Ferry

However, most experts believe he will just go with Michael Jackson.

I, Robot

As I was trying to post a comment to an article, I encountered this message:

First off, I don't really like a robot telling me I need to prove that I am not a robot. And apparently typing "Neither of those are words" does not prove that I am not not a robot. Mindlessly typing the characters would not prove anything. Stupid robot. 

Sharknado is here!



View trailer here

FILM REVIEW:
(Please leave your own reviews in the Comments section)


If you want to watch an action movie about man-eating sharks, you can always look to Deep Blue Sea. If you want to see one about tornadoes, there’s Twister. If you want to see a movie that combines the two, then you have some seriously questionable taste. Fortunately for you, so do the programmers at SyFy.

Ian Ziering (Fin) plays a bar owner and surfer as convincingly as he played a high school student at the age of 30 on 90210 twenty years ago. He hasn’t been seen much since then. Not sure what he’s been doing with his time, but it sure didn’t involve acting lessons. And he fake surfs about as well as he fake bartends. But enough about Ziering’s acting, because that’s really not the reason anyone is watching this. They’re watching it because they’re sadists.

Tara Reid, in her best performance since 2005’s Alone in the Dark, plays April, Fin’s ex who will not allow such nonsense as sharks swimming in the streets and falling from the skies to allow him to sneak in an extra custody visit with their daughter Claudia. Because Ziering looks just like he did when he was playing a high school student, and he was arguing over visitation with his daughter, I was surprised when Claudia made her first appearance. Instead of some toddler in pigtails, she looked to be in her early 20’s. Following in daddy’s footsteps for sure. Anyway, lots of heart-wrenching family issues to be dealt with here. It’s very similar to Kramer vs. Kramer, but with tornadoes and sharks!

The screenplay provides a series of uncompromising conversations that involve "This is crazy" and "Do you trust me?" There’s a lot of bad dubbing, poor CGI, shoddy editing and cheap production values. Most annoying is the shooting of scenes outdoors on an obviously beautiful sunny day and then darkening the entire picture so that it (supposedly) looks like the actors are in the middle of a storm. Or maybe it was a technique designed to hide the poor make-up effects of the shark victims. It worked because you couldn’t see a thing. But drop a middle-aged Cousin Oliver (from the final six episodes of The Brady Bunch) in for a brief appearance and it will buy you quite a bit of goodwill.

The film was directed by writer/producer/editor/make-up effects specialist Anthony C. Ferrante, known for such TV movies as Leprechaun’sRevenge and Para-Homeless Activity, who here oversees some of the best visual effects that a month’s worth of sperm bank visits can buy. He is attentive to the nuances and subtleties that a movie about sharks getting chainsawed out of the air has to embrace. The action in Sharknado is in just about the most perfect hands one could imagine. At the end of the film the credits roll just like they did in Gandhi. But also just like they did in Mansquito.

Get Well Soon

Country music icon and notorious wild man Randy Travis is recovering from brain surgery following a stroke that occurred during a hospitalization for heart failure. The surgery reportedly took longer than expected after doctors encountered an inordinate amount of skull during the procedure.

Travis' illness comes as he's been trying to put his life back together following a series of embarrassing public incidents involving alcohol. Travis pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in January following two arrests last year. During the first incident he was found sitting in a parked car in a church parking lot with an empty bottle of wine. The second arrest came after he wrecked his car, stripped down to his birthday suit (not necessarily in that order) and walked into a convenience store and attempted to buy cigarettes. He was required to spend at least 30 days at an alcohol treatment facility.

It’s not clear what type of stroke the singer suffered, but the most common type of stroke is caused by a blood clot that travels to the brain. Since alcohol is known to help heart disease by acting as a blood thinner, it is safe to assume that Travis’ health issues are likely a direct result of his recent sobriety. Hopefully Travis will have a speedy recovery and start hitting the bottle with a vengeance. Apparently, his life depends on it.