[Fox]

Niagara Falls town council today announced an ambitious plan to snag some of the upcoming wedding bonanza by turning the falls gay-for-pay. (This is the American side: the Canadian side hasn’t come out yet.) Unfortunately, as is obvious from the picture, no gay man was actually involved in designing the transformation.

When asked for his opinion, gay spokesperson Bruce Boner said, “Eww! I’m gay. Not Italian.”

“‘We cannot elevate nature above people,’ explained Edna Mattos, 63, leader of the Citrus County Tea Party Patriots, in an interview. ‘That’s against the Bible and the Bill of Rights.'” The cause of her ire? Manatee protection. [St. Petersburg Times, via JWMcSame]

Back in a previous life, under this graphic, we would post an occasional item about the utopian silliness of Wired magazine. Our favorite entry ran like this:

“You think Java is important — wait until we have a similar language for storytelling.” —Nicholas Negroponte, Wired, July 1996

FUNCTION Serpent(Gen_3:5) {

   IF (AdamRib == EatFruit) {
      EyeState = Open;
      KnowledgeState = GoodEvil;
      MortalState = SurelyDie;

   } ELSE {
      MortalState = LiveForever;
   }
}

DO SERPENT

Since we posted this to, y’know, a website, it wasn’t like we had a Luddite antagonism to the Internet. It wasn’t even like we weren’t then — and remain now — something of a digital utopian ourself, especially when it comes to the democratizing of mass communication.

But the nature of Wired’s utopian vision was just flat-out hilarious, seeing as it had no grounding in human nature. From the perspective of the Nineties, it was clear that the Internet would accomplish — or, more precisely, allow — Great Things. It wouldn’t, however, turn human beings into something else. Wherever you go in cyberspace, there you are.

Read more »

Rebekah Brooks gives herself up to the police and Margaret Drabble admits to having middle-class friends!

The prime minister is hopelessly comprised (even worse than before) and so is Scotland Yard!

Wait, is that an image of John Evrett Millais’ Ophelia that we’ve posted in announcing the arrest of Rupert Murdoch lackey Rebekah Brooks? Our bad. We thought it was portrait of the former News of the World editor relaxing at the local hot-springs. We certainly didn’t mean to imply that Ms. Brooks should bring any harm to herself now that it is becoming clearer by the day that she headed up what can only be described as a criminal enterprise in journalistic guise. And at any rate, it would certainly be premature for the henchwoman to drown herself while the criminal mastermind still walks the earth. And we suspect he will, for some time yet. As long as somebody, somewhere, is still practicing honest journalism, as long as an independent newspaper still rolls off the presses, Murdoch’s voracious appetites will remain unsated.

And when Rupert Murdoch saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no proud journalistic institutions left to debase and destroy.

Title: “Of Thee I Zing: America’s Cultural Decline from Muffin Tops to Body Shots”

Authors: Laura Ingraham and Raymond Arroyo

Rank: 48

Blurb: “While Laura Ingraham was walking through a Northern Virginia shopping mall one Saturday afternoon, it all became clear to her. Everywhere she turned, she saw signs of the impending disaster: zombie teens texting each other across a café table; a man having his eyebrows threaded at a kiosk; a fiftyish woman shoe-horned into a tube top and skinny jeans; and a storefront ad featuring a Victoria’s Secret model spilling out of her push-up bra and into the faces of young passersby.”

Review: “Watch any old movie from the 30’s, 40’s or 50’s and everyone is wearing dresses, suits, ties, etc. Very few flip-flops, tank tops and tattoo’s. And we are getting numb to vulgarity.”

Customers Also Bought: “After America: Get Ready for Armageddon”, by Mark Steyn

Footnote: Speaking from experience, we’re inclined to agree: Life was better before AM radio was polluted by the likes of Laura Ingraham.

Of Thee I Zing [Fuck Amazon]