10. It’s so expensive, gas stations now have a concierge service

9. It’s so expensive, oil companies have actually started inspecting their offshore rigs

8. It’s so expensive, SUV now stands for Stationary Unused Vehicle

7. It’s so expensive, drivers are shooting themselves instead of each other

6. It’s so expensive, Oprah’s audience gave their cars back

5. It’s so expensive, if you ask for five dollars worth, the attendant will just fart, and then ask if you want a receipt

4. It’s so expensive, clowns are now cramming themselves onto a bicycle

3. It’s so expensive, a gallon of Starbucks is cheaper

2. It’s so expensive, the Indy 500 is now a foot race

1. It’s so expensive, the Amish are carrying signs that say “We Told You So!”

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, money, trusted media & news by Bob Sullivan
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Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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Ah, the unpredictable world of the dictator. One minute you’re a living god with a gold toilet, multiple palaces and a personal bodyguard of nubile female ninjas, and then the next it’s all over, as if all that splendor was nothing more than a very long – and mostly quite pleasant – dream.

Such is the reality Muammar Gaddafi finds himself inhabiting right now. Until recently he was not only the planet’s most famous colonel (after the guy who makes fried chicken, of course) but also Africa’s longest reigning head of state. Less than nine months ago he was still being feted by world leaders and fawned over by a prestigious English university hungry for oil money. His children enjoyed expensive educations at European and American institutions. And what about those tender, personal moments spent leafing through his album of Condoleezza Rice portraits? [Read more →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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The other night I was working in my backyard when I caught a whiff of smoke on the wind: a barbecue? I wondered. But there were no smoke trails coming from behind my neighbor’s fences; nor could I smell sizzling meat.

I checked the green belt behind my house- no tongues of flame there either. Furthermore, the odor was different, not a wood fire, but rather…. Ah that’s it! It was the same burning plastic/chemical/metal aroma that had hovered over my Austin apartment last year after an angry man had flown a plane into the local tax office, hoping to inflict a mini 9/11 on the IRS (He got there too early, before most of the staff were at their desks, and so killed only himself and one other person). [Read more →]

Tags: environment & nature, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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I think it might be this one, from The Daily Beast, a website run by a formerly successful magazine editor of some renown:

Obama Trumps Libya Critics

A bit early for drawing that conclusion, wouldn’t you say? Apparently not.  After a few paragraphs of preamble, reminding us of the criticisms of the president (such as his failure to seek approval for this war from Congress, well who cares about that?) we arrive at this stunning piece of analysis:

Now that Libya seems to have turned out all right, with the rebels controlling most of Tripoli and Gaddafi barely clinging to power, the critics look overly cautious, if not plain wrong. But none of them are saying that they are sorry. [Read more →]

Tags: travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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In June, I wrote an overview of Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential nomination, and concluded with the suggestion that readers keep a close watch on Rick Perry, governor of Texas. Well, last weekend Perry declared his candidacy and immediately leaped into second place, behind Mitt Romney (who is a Mormon). That’s what happens when you run against such obvious losers. Now we are swamped with critical articles about Perry and Texas, most of them by people who knew very little about the state or its governor until a few days ago. Today, I will analyze the effectiveness of these criticisms, and once I’m finished you won’t need to read any more articles about Perry (unless I write them, of course).

CRITICISM 1: PERRY IS A MORON [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Men’s Health and Yahoo! Health conspired to produce an hilariously misleading set of “9 Scariest Food Facts” that aren’t scary, and aren’t actually facts, either. The piece was written by a couple of assholes called “David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding,” apparently as a promotional tool for their pushy book with the yammering title Eat This, Not That! (has there ever been a book with an exclamation point in the title that wasn’t crap? I really don’t know; I’m not trying to be snide).  The piece is almost worth reading as an example of the effective use of unsourced half truths and lies to promote an agenda.

The first “fact”?

1. Nutritious food costs 10 times more than junk food.
University of Washington researchers calculated the cost discrepancy between healthy food and junk foods and found that 2,000 calories of junk food rings up at a measly $3.52 a day. Yet for 2,000 calories of nutritious grub, the researchers plunked down $36.

The asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, do not include a link to the study to which they are alluding. (They do, however, include a link to a promotional webpage for their fingerwaving screed Buy This, Not That! excuse me I mean Eat This, Not That!) So I had to google it for myself, because I don’t trust a couple of bluenosing jerks just because they say something alarming. And it turns out that the “study” in question does not say what the asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, claim it does. In fact, it says nothing of the sort. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we haven’t had any global health scares like Swine Flu, Avian Flu or SARS recently. Why? Well, with all the economic misery in the United States and Europe, revolutionary unrest in the Middle East, rioting mobs in the UK plus the usual war and famine elsewhere, things are so awful right now that apparently we do not need hallucinatory fears to stimulate the collective nervous system. We have enough actual worries of our own. [Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Alexander Thorburn Hoffman
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What was the central lesson that the Great Powers learned from the carnage of World War II? I firmly believe it was “never again”- that is, “never again will we fight a country that has even remotely comparable military strength to our own.” Even so, beating the crap out of weak nations is not always as straightforward as one would imagine.

[Read more →]

Tags: terror & war, travel & foreign lands, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Our country is clearly suffering from severe dysfunction. The economy keeps getting worse by the day. Unemployment numbers are sky high. The stock market is falling. Our debt has never been higher. Even under the rosiest scenarios, our deficits are projected to get significantly worse. We are entangled in who knows how many wars against people in the Middle East.

But, at least we can all take solace from the fact that the president still thinks we’re a “triple-A” country, all the way. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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When I was young, droughts were something that happened elsewhere: as a punishment from God in the Bible, or in far off Africa, where unfortunate babies with distended bellies would die in the scorching heat of an evil sun. In Scotland, by contrast, there was never a shortage of rain – quite the opposite, in fact: We hardly ever saw the sun, and might have thought its existence a mere rumor were it not for those people who came back from holidays in Spain burnt red, toy donkeys under their arms.

Flash forward a few decades and suddenly I find myself living in Texas where droughts are a regular occurrence. Currently we are enduring our ninth month of epic dryness, my second drought in five years, which – depending on which website I consult – is either the worst or third worst in the history of the state. [Read more →]

Tags: environment & nature, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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Our country is currently being held hostage by the partisan bickering that is going on in our nation’s capital. This is just another dog and pony show, to be sure, but nevertheless the stakes have never been higher. We are in an unprecedented crisis, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. And still, while Rome burns, our elected officials fiddle, refusing to accept the reality of our situation and do what is necessary to ensure our country’s survival.

We must raise our debt limit by the completely hard and fast August 2nd deadline. If we do not, the United States will default on all of its obligations, and our nation — and, indeed, the entire world — shall be thrown into chaos. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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The debt ceiling, the debt ceiling, everybody says the debt ceiling. Apparently Obama has to raise it if Uncle Sam is to pay his bills. The big issue is the question of how to get more money so America doesn’t have to keep borrowing cash from foreigners: cut spending and cut taxes? Or keep spending and raise taxes? The answer depends on which baseball team you support. I mean, political party.

Well anyway for a long time I dismissed all this debt ceiling talk as the usual shenanigans from the plutocrats in Congress. But then I read that if an agreement could not be reached between the Blue Team and the Red Team then America would default on its loans. Pensions would go unpaid! Babies would be forced to shovel coal! And so on! Apparently Moody’s – an organization possibly related to the burger joint of the same name at the end of my street – is threatening to downgrade America’s “Triple A rating” (which I believe describes the quality of its hotels). [Read more →]

Tags: money, trusted media & news by Daniel Kalder
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If you were not stunned by the verdict in the Casey Anthony case, then you must have a heart of stone, if indeed you have a heart at all. When Casey Anthony was found to be “innocent” of the “crime” of “murdering her own daughter,” I myself was stunned. How could such a terrible crime be allowed to go unpunished?, I thought to myself. The fact that I didn’t do anything about it other than give it a few minutes’ thought and then move on with my life only proves how callous I have become, in the face of injustice and the suffering of others.

But one woman from Oklahoma saw that verdict and actually did something about it, drafting an online petition to encourage “a new federal law created called Caylee’s Law that will make it a federal offense for a parent or guardian to not notify law enforcement of a child going missing in a timely manner.” Here is some of the powerful prose of the proposed law:

I’m writing to propose that a new law be put into effect making it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the death of their child, accidental or otherwise, within 1 hour of said death being discovered. This way there will be no more cases like Casey Anthony’s in the courts, and no more innocent children will have to go without justice.

Also, make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the disappearance of a child within 24 hours, so proper steps can be taken to find that child before it’s too late.

[Read more →]

Tags: on the law, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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Gimme your cash, bitch so we can shoot up da screet!

Gimme your cash, bitch so we can buy some more heat!

Gimme your cash, ho so we can get out da pen!

Gimme some cash, ho cuz we back in again!

As rap songs go, that’s pretty tame by existing standards, as is the video. The artists call themselves Splack Pack, and the hook is a straight sample from their breakout hit Shake That Ass, Bitch from their album, Big Booty Hits. And there is a bit of controversy. So, is it Phyllis Schlafly and Tipper Gore complaining about the exploitation/glorification of gang culture with its violence and misogyny? That would be a no. This infectious jam is actually a political ad aimed at one Janice Hahn running in a presumably safe Democratic district in Los Angeles. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ken Watson
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Some unseen and unforeseen harmonic convergence has put the state of Georgia into a prominent position in national politics she has not occupied since the Carter years. The insurgent Cain is a homeboy well known to other crackers. Media conceit that he has “come from nowhere” is somewhat insulting. The Fair Tax is a baroque scheme, probably preferable to our current tax system, that has been a local hobbyhorse for a decade. Only now are Cain and its other champions bringing it to the country at large. Our new immigration laws which are typical of those sweeping through state legislatures have drawn international litigation and news scrutiny. Our media market, a piffle compared to the coastal giants has never the less birthed some prominent voices like Hannity (sorry, America) and the croaking Libertarian Neal Boortz who are now heard and (thankfully, less often) seen on ubiquitous airwaves. But our most famous export has been a clinker. That is a garden gnome cast in the fires of Kennesaw Mountain by what hand we know not. Of course this is that fellow with the Smeagol smile whose mother called Newt. [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ken Watson
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As Registered Genii go, you can’t get much more Registered or much more Genius than Nick Kristof. While his blood is not as blue as one could hope, his resume’ is otherwise impeccable comprising all the right schools and all the right gigs that have culminated with his perch at the highest level in respected media: a New York Times columnist. If after the suspiciously re-scheduled Rapture you need further proof that we are in the final days certainly this gentleman’s most recent column is a paradox of biblical proportions. [Read more →]

Tags: race & culture, trusted media & news by Ken Watson
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And so it comes to a close, at least for now. The Congressman bows out after a few weeks of endless humiliation. Was it the porn star? Was it the cross-dressing, vintage though it was? Was it simply, as the gentleman early on implied, merely that his name was ripe for bawdy jokes? The question is pertinent because, as we all know, what he actually did was scarcely an infraction of any sort (excepting his marriage vows) especially compared to the man he was compelled to apologize to publicly, one Bill Clinton.

Of all the gall Tony now must swallow, certainly this is the most bitter cup. As Jon Stewart put it so well, what is he apologizing to Clinton for? Copyright infringement? [Read more →]

Tags: politics & government, trusted media & news by Ken Watson
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10. A honeymoon bed with handrails

9. A defibrillator

8. A subscription to Penthouse

7. That new STD iPhone app

6. A copy of Kama Sutra for the Infirm

5. A collection of naked TSA photos

4. A tuxedo with a built-in adult diaper

3. A Viagra Pez dispenser

2. A Playboy calendar with only May and December in it

1. A Rascal scooter with a “Just Married” sign and tin cans tied to the back
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, getting older, trusted media & news by Bob Sullivan
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