Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Clown Troupe attempted to take their traveling salivation show to England this week, where they planned to protest performances of a play about Matthew Shepard. But authorities were not amused by the rude mechanicals, putting them on the next flight back from Heathrow.

“Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities,” said a U.K. Border Agency mouthpiece. “The government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms.”

Instead, the bumptious buskers had to make do with a street performance Thursday outside a high school in Prairie Village, Kansas. Their new show, “With a Frog in My Throat,” drew an audience of hundreds.

British government bans Fred Phelps, daughter from entering U.K. [Kansas City Star]

We may live in Sandy Eggo, but at heart we’ll always be an Expat Oregonian — or more specifically, an Expat Eugenean.

We were born there, after all, around the corner from the structure used as the exterior for Animal House. Lived there almost forty years. Our parents still live in the house where we moved in 1964.

We go back.

And so does Our Congressman, Peter DeFazio. He’s been representing midwestern Oregon since 1987, after working for his predecessor Jim Weaver and sitting for a term on the Lane County Board of Commissioners. He got his master’s from the University of Oregon the year we entered as a freshman. He may live next door in Springfield, but he’s as Typical Eugene as you get. Just like us.

Read more »

• Birds overhead no longer fall from sky.
• Amelia Earhart found.
• Black hole removed from Naval Observatory’s view.
• Colin Powell’s balls discovered in atomic-clock case.
• Deer sacrifices decline.
• Flowers cease wilting upon bloom.
• Dementors return to Azkaban.
• TV no longer speaks in tongues.
• Flying monkeys grounded.
• Ewoks gather to dance and sing in celebration, only to be obliterated by the Death Star, because we still can’t fucking stand them.

Fuzz dissipates as Dick Cheney quits official residence [Sydney Morning Herald, via CheapBoy]

Another day, another outrage.  Today I’m having trouble picking just one, so let’s make a list:

1. Billy Joel – I have long held that he is deeply, bathetically awful.  Nice to see someone other than Joe Queenan agrees with me.  Just a snippet:

This must be prevented! No career re-evaluations please! No false contrarian rehabilitations! He was terrible, he is terrible, he always will be terrible. Anodyne, sappy, superficial, derivative, fraudulently rebellious. Joel’s famous song “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me”? Please. It never was rock ‘n’ roll. Billy Joel’s music elevates self-aggrandizing self-pity and contempt for others into its own new and awful genre: “Mock-Rock.”

The other five are after the jump.

Read more »

Anyone worrying that Talibunny will be taking the next mangled oath of office can rest easy: The world will come to an end a month before she has the chance.

The latest Endtimes Save-the-Date comes courtesy of the Mayan calendar, which rolls over on December 21, 2012.

Or, if you prefer: Completely stops.

Read more »

• Blago Taint Spreads to ‘Jim Hendry Way’ (Sporting News, 1/8/09)
• Terror link taint on ex-naik (Calcutta Telegraph, 1/13/09)
• A place where bribery, graft taint much of life (Boston Globe, 1/4/09)
• U.S. Retail Sales Taint Europe (Forbes, 1/14/09)
• Safety act won’t taint thrift store shopping (Akron Beacon Journal, 1/14/09)
• Clinton’s Decisions Don’t Taint Holder’s Integrity (Hartford Courant, 1/4/09)

Read more »

To a Contemporary Bunkshooter

You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist
and calling us all damn fools so fierce the froth slobbers
over your lips… always blabbing we’re all
going to hell straight off and you know all about it.

Ready to Kill

Ten minutes now I have been looking at this.
I have gone by here before and wondered about it.

Read more »