Pimp My Wry

Large Fireball In Midwestern Sky Gives Pat Robertson First Orgasm In 50 Years

Okay, okay, Pat Robertson probably didn't orgasm when he got word of the large fireball that was seen by many in the Midwest last night; but he might have called his local screen printer and put a rush on his order for T-shirts that read: I TOLD YOU SO!

 From CNN:

Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said.

Big Beef, Little Conscience

We have to change the way we look at our meat.

Beef Packers, Incorporated (BPI) just announced its second major recall this year.  The reason?  Drug-resistant salmonella.  Again.

Rather than bait you with a lot of rational commentary before pulling the rug out from under you, I'm going to charge straight into the analogy.  Hopefully you're not in the mood for foreplay.

BPI is seriously like the scumbag who goes to a different bar each night, picks up random girls (or guys), has unprotected sex with them, and then, weeks later, calls them all to inform them that he's got an STD. Or three.  Then he goes right back out to the bars and does the whole dance over again.  Bastard.

But BPI isn't limiting itself to picking up people in bars, where you might expect this kind of thing. Beef Packers, Inc. is the kind of company that takes its disease-ridden meat to public schools:

A USA TODAY investigation published last week raised questions about whether orders the company made for the National School Lunch Program also should have been included in the summer recall. Although the orders made for schools tested negative for salmonella, food-safety experts and lawmakers say the beef produced for schools should have been rejected by the government. Instead, it was sent to schools.

So BPI's meat "should have been rejected by the government," but wasn't?  That's like if you are an unknowing girl from the bar scenario above, and your friend (who's supposed to be one of those motherly watchful types, but who's really a shithead) knows that the meat belonging to the scumbag hitting on you is putrid and diseased but lets him buy you a Cosmo anyway.  Then she leaves you two alone so that she can go dance with some jerks with popped collars instead of protecting you from toxic sausage.  That's the government for you — too busy catering to bailing out jerks to perform essential functions like regulating what we stuff down our throats.

Long-shot analogies aside, BPI was entrusted with providing meat for school lunch programs but didn't give enough of a damn (or didn't want to spend a little extra money) to quality-check a lot of its stock.  And the government regulators?  Where were they? Hoping that the salmonella would take out a few school kids before they could turn into ginger-beating bullies?

The good news is that since July BPI has been out of the school lunch business, because, as Cargill (BPI's parent company) spokesman Mark Klein said, "it has bid on no contracts."

The bad news: With its track record, BPI will be putting kids at risk again soon.  It's only a matter of time until lobbyists bribe  "donate funds to the re-election campaign of" the right official and pass government quality tests with flying colors.  Or maybe they won't even bother trying. After all, why make the effort if regulators will just look the other way?

Worse news: The beef lobby, as well as the chicken, pork, turkey and "miscellaneous species meat substances" (hot dog) lobbies, are quite powerful.  (Here's one example.)  BPI's transgressions are just a few of the many that occur every year.

Worst possible news (for me, specifically): All this writing about beef has got me jonesing for a hamburger.

Light The Way To A Sexy, Burning Bush

"While God Sees your heart, your date sees your face." 

Those are the words of Javina  Henderson, the administrator of Faith Flirter's Retreat at Magdalene Manor.

"If we were created in the image of God, then it's time to shake what your papa gave you," Javina teaches. 

One way you can get sexy for God and "lure the men you date to the Lord" is by getting a  "Messiah Makeover." It will "make you totally bone-able," Javina assures, "within the context of a Christian marriage, that is." 

Watch the video (from Funny or Die) below and decide for yourself. Magdalene Manor takes "personal checks ... and ethnics"!

How to be a Player God's Way - watch more funny videos

Pat Robertson: I Can (Still) Haz Crazy!

Oh, joy! Rapture! The man who once predicted that God would send a meteor to Orlando in response to Gay Days at Disneyworld is back!

On today's edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club, Pat Robertson told a viewer that her gay son is doomed to hell.

It all began when Pat's sidekick on the show, Terry Meeuswsen, read a letter from a concerned viewer named Theresa:

TERRY MEEUWSEN (co-host): This is Theresa. This is difficult. She says, "How should we, as parents of a homosexual son, handle the ongoing challenges facing us, such as staying true to our faith and following the commandment to 'love your neighbor as yourself'? This is very difficult for us."

ROBERTSON: Well, first of all, he's not your neighbor. He's your son; that's a different thing. You owe him, you know, advice and counsel and guidance. You're his parent. First of all, you didn't say how old he is. Secondly, I am not at all persuaded that so-called homosexuals are homosexuals because of biological problems. There may be a very few, but there are so many that have been made homosexuals because of a coach or a guidance counselor or some other male figure who has abused them and they think there's something wrong with their sexuality. So you need to get deep into why he is what he is, instead of just saying, "Well, he's a homosexual so how do I handle him, and how do I be Christian?" Well, I think you ought to tell him, "Listen, son, you know, here's what the Bible says about this, and it's called an abomination before God, so I've got to tell you the truth because I love you." That's what I think. All right, what else?

MEEUWSEN: And then you do that -- you love him.

ROBERTSON: You love him. Of course you love him. And you accept him. You love him, but at the same time, you can't let him just go, you know, he'll wind up --

MEEUWSEN: Without knowing truth, yeah.

ROBERTSON: Well, I mean, if somebody's on their way to hell, they'll -- I mean, you've got to love them to rescue them.

But first you'll need to make a pit stop in Crazyland.

Christwire.org Takes "Do Unto Others..." To Its Hilarious Extreme

If you've ever visited the outwardly homophobic and racist  Christwire.org, it's likely that within one minute of skimming the home page you asked yourself, "Is this site real?" But — and here's where it gets interesting —if you then hung around to read a few of the articles, you might not have been able to answer your own question with certainty, because when it comes to today's Christian conservative fight for moral righteousness, truth is almost always stranger than fiction.

The debate over the "truthiness" of this site has been going on for quite some time. Some readers, like me, believe that it's an offshoot of TheOnion.com, one of the finest (if not the finest) parody sites on the Web. Others are convinced that it's absolutely what it claims to be: A site promoting "Conservative Values for an Unsaved World." Those readers are so convinced, that they link to Christwire stories to support their arguments both for and against the Christian conservative movement. In other words, it's not only the fools that are fooled.

To get an idea of what's being said, read the comments on some of the articles on Christwire, or take a look at this Snopes.com message board conversation about a March 22 Christwire article called "Portia Di Rossi Apologizes For Being Gay Lesbian With Ellen Degeneres." 

The confusion over Christwire articles has a lot to do with the lack of a disclaimer. Nowhere on the pages of Christwire will you find words that come close to revealing that it's a parody site. The only clues provided as to its actual intent is the content — articles beneath headlines such as "Gay Homo Agenda Makes New Penis Toy For Children"  and "Are Your Children Dirty Little Easter Commies?"

But the main reason why it's hard for some to believe that this site is a joke is because alongside the unbelievable stories, like the ones linked to above, are reports spun from actual headlines.

For example, Christwire's '"Amazon Stands Up To The Gay Agenda," from last April, fed off of legitimate reports of Amazon.com's internal cataloging glitch that accidentally removed more than 57,000 books, mainly those focusing on gay themes, from its sales rankings and main search page. But, instead of reporting the truth, here's what Christwire published:

Amazon is removing sales rank numbers from Homo Agenda based books because they don’t want queer material showing up in searches and best seller lists. BRAVO!

One of the main books they are removing from sales ranking is the sin marinated book by Ellen DeGeneres. This book does nothing but promote lesbian love and gay “rights”. Good thing Amazon agrees with us and knows that gays don’t have any rights besides burning in the fires of hell.

I’m so happy to see Amazon standing up and saying no to hardcore porn books written by these queer demons to promote their sinful lifestyle onto our young children.

Amazon knows that if they are forced to post gay books, they will soon have to promote books like “How to Molest a Child” or “How to sin against God, by playing with another mans tinkle twattle.”

We applaud you Amazon. Keep up the great work and thanks for helping us putting a stop to these queers.

Although that report can be filed under ridiculous, it can't necessarily be filed under 'parody,'  because if you're aware of what some Christian conservatives have said about gay literature in the past, it's not at all far-fetched.

For example, take a look at this report posted on the non-satirical BrotherhoodNews.com (formerly GospelNews) last February about author Sheila Butt, a real woman with a real bad last name, who wrote a real book about homosexuality in response to "children’s books promoting [the homosexual] agenda, such as "Jennifer Has Two Daddies" (1983), "Daddy’s Roommate" (1991) ... and "Heather Has Two Mommies" (2000)." According to BrotherhoodNews.com, Butt's book "promote[s] God’s love for all people, while showing, in a loving way, that homosexuality is wrong." 

What's the title of Butt's book?  It is, unbelievably, this: "Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?" 

And therein lies the basis and beauty of Christwire — it's almost too real to be fake.

Isn't it ... almost, I mean?

Copenhagen U. Study Finds That Children of Lesbians Have A Lower Risk Of Mental Illness

A recent study by the University of Copenhagen in  Denmark has found that children with lesbian mothers have a lower risk of developing psychological illnesses than children growing up with a father and a mother. Denmark, by the way, was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex unions in 1989. 

The Copenhagen Post reported the following today:

The study found that while five percent of children from traditional families developed conditions such as depression or anorexia between 1992 and 2008, the number was two percent among the 387 children of lesbian parents participating in the study.

The findings, according to Merete Lauberg, of the University Of Copenhagen Department Of Public Health, suggest that concerns that alternative families have a negative effect on child development are over.

One reason for the lower rate could be that their mothers have encountered more resistance in their lives than heterosexual parents have.

"Resistance makes you stronger, and that could be passed on to their children," Lauberg said.
Another reason, according to psychiatrist Per Hove Thomsen are the efforts the parents had to make to conceive the child.

"A lot of other parents have challenges having children, but children with lesbian mothers face particular challenges," he said. "The women have had to make an extra effort to get pregnant, and that could have an effect on the child."

It will be interesting to see how the 'traditional family values' crowd spins this one. Film of Tony Perkins finger-painting "God Hates Denmark" signs with third graders at 11? Sure, why not.

But while we wait for that, let's take a trip down memory lane with the video below (taped last year) of John McCain explaining to George Stephanopoulos why gay adoption is wrong:

Pretty Girl Palin, Revisited

Remember a while back when I wrote about the study which found that Sarah Palin's looks may have cost the GOP the Presidential race? Sure you do! 

Turns out that other people noticed, too. Including one of the actual researchers who conducted that study. And the researcher in question—Nathan Heflick—wrote to clarify a couple of questions raised by me and PMW readers. 

Since you're as unlikely to scroll on back through the archives as I would be, here's the link to the original post (Skin Deep) and here's what Nathan Heflick had to say about it: 

"As a researcher of this study....

1. The design was actually write about jolie or palin's appearance or write about their personality (people were randomly assigned to one of those 4 groups). People who were assigned to write about Palin or Jolie's appearance rated them as less competent and human than people who were assigned to write about their personalities (after writing about one of them, participants rated them on several traits).

2. We didn't do McCain and Obama because we were interested in women and how objectification effects perceptions of them.

3. We are doing the same study as we speak, however, with Michelle and Barack Obama.

4. We also are doing a similar study with attractive and unattractive people.

5. Just to emphasize again, it wasn't about attractiveness per say. Palin and Jolie were equally physically attractive in both conditions (self writing or appearance wrting). The only difference was APPEARANCE FOCUS.

Thanks for the coverage. It is way better than most we recieved. 

Nathan Heflick

(Dear Nathan: Thanks! And you're welcome! EH) 

Bennie and the Hets

Last week, a Portuguese Roman Catholic Bishop by the name of Manuel Clemente said something that we don't often hear from high-ranking Catholics. Speaking to journalists, he said that people with AIDS must use condoms to prevent the spread of the disease. Condoms are "not only recommendable," he said, "they can be ethically obligatory." 

His was a ballsy move, given that his boss is Pope Benedict XVI, the man who on a trip to Africa earlier this month told reporters, "You can't solve (the AIDS crisis) with the distribution of condoms ... On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Plenty of people agree with Clemente, so it was no surprise that criticism of the pope's take on the matter came fast and furious.

Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, called the comment “irresponsible and dangerous." "Instead of spreading ignorance," he added, "the pope should use his global position of leadership to encourage young people, who are our future, to protect themselves and others from HIV infection using all the tools we have at our disposal, including condoms."

In France,  Rama Yade, the French human rights minister, said she was "dumbfounded" by the pope's comments, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner called the Pontiff's words, "the opposite of tolerance and understanding." The governments of Germany and Belgium released statements that echoed the sentiments of France, and UNAIDS and the World Health Organization released a statement updating their position on HIV prevention and condoms, which said that “the male latex condom is the single, most efficient, available technology to reduce the sexual transmission of HIV”.

Those opinions prompted the Vatican's chief spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, to clarify, saying that the pope intended to emphasize that the focus on condom distribution takes away from the focus on sexual conduct. He also said the church's "essential principles" in its commitment against AIDS were "education about people's responsibility in the use of sexuality" and the "essential role of marriage and family."

Punctuating that clarification, Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Sant'Egidio community, which fights AIDS in Africa, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, "As soon as [the Pope] speaks, people say he is wrong and as soon as he says something, people look for the mistake."

"The mistake" in this case, you might agree, isn't exactly hard to find.