Opinion
Three’s A Trend: Our Government Has A Porn Addiction
Gray Hurlburt :: Friday, July 23rd, 2010 9:30 pm
From its founding, life inside the beltway has always been a bit scuzzier than normal. Between illicit brothels and drug rings, vice sits like a moldy cornerstone in the foundation of our nation’s capital. And judging by a few scandals this year, the seedy perversion of government employees has trickled problematically into the workplace. In a story broken by The Boston Globe today, it reached a climax with the discovery that Pentagon workers and contractors have been downloading and paying for child pornography, using taxpayer time and equipment, to service themselves with the vilest of digital smut. MORE »
Break Ups, Celebrities, Opinion
Mel Gibson Polling Higher As Oksana Grigorieva Backlash Begins
Elisabeth Dickson :: Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 3:45 pm
Oksana Grigorieva, Mel Gibson‘s ex-girlfriend and owner of the dubious distinction of being the first link that comes up when you Google “cunt bitch golddigger cunt whore,” is now being investigated by LAPD detectives for an attempted extortion plot, said a spokesperson Wednesday.
For many, the news of Grigorieva’s attempted extortion plot have turned the tables in Gibson’s favor. The accusations of blackmail against Grigorieva have led to a rush of support for the actor, with 63% of those polled in a CBS News survey believing that Gibson was “set up” and a slew of LA Times commenters referring to her as a Russian gold digger.” Cue the finger-pointing and victim-blaming: the backlash against Mel Gibson’s ex-girlfriend has officially begun. MORE »
Nerd Alert, News, Opinion
Save Me Batman, The Westboro Baptist Church Is Coming!
Nick Nicoludis :: Thursday, July 15th, 2010 6:10 pm
Is it really a surprise that the infamous haters from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) are protesting something again? They’ve made headlines for their outlandish signs that tell pretty much everyone except themselves to go suck it.
The next target for the WBC is the annual geek-gathering Comic-Con, and they feel it’s time that comic book lovers around the world feel the wrath of their abhorrent signs. MORE »
News, Opinion, Really?
Study: Wide Hips Related to Women’s Memory Loss; Like “Memento” With Pints of Haagen-Dazs
Elisabeth Dickson :: Thursday, July 15th, 2010 2:15 pm
Bad news for hip-hop video vixens and fictional “Mad Men” secretaries: according to a recent Northwestern study, memory loss may be related to the curvaceousness of a woman’s body type.
CNN reports that post-menopausal “pear-shaped” women who carry excess weight in their hips are more likely to experience brain function deterioration than “apple-shaped women”, who gain weight in their waists. “Obesity is bad, but its effects are worse depending where the fat is located,” said Dr. Diana Kerwin, the lead author of the study. “The study tells us that if we have a woman in our office, and we know from her waist-to-hip ratio that she’s carrying excess fat in her hips, we need to be more aggressive with weight loss.” MORE »
Opinion, Politics
Big Brother Gets A Little Too Real
Nick Nicoludis :: Thursday, July 8th, 2010 4:30 pm
I used to be one of those weird kids in high school that believed the government is monitoring everything everyone does. I’ve somewhat grown out of that phase, but in light of the NSA’s announcement of the “Perfect Citizen” program, old paranoid feelings are starting to rise up in me again.
The point of the Perfect Citizen (Big Brother) project is to protect America’s vital infrastructure from cyber attacks that could possibly knock out our electricity grid or nuclear power plants, but I’m still wondering what that has to do with being a perfect citizen. MORE »
Opinion
BP Oil Spill Is No Three Mile Island - But Why?
David Rose :: Friday, July 2nd, 2010 9:00 am
“Do I think this BP spill is going to be the Three Mile Island of off-shore drilling? I don’t think so.”
- Mississippi governor Haley Barbour
1979 was a banner year for energy-industry disasters in the United States.
In the course of two months, two massive environment-wrecking events occurred that became the highlight of news reels all summer long. Public outrage reached a fevered pitch, culminating in a week-long concert series at Madison Square Garden by Musicians United for Safe Energy. Massive citywide protests erupted on both coasts and within the Beltway. One such protest in New York City attracted estimates of 200,000 citizens along with A-list movie stars like Jane Fonda and up-and-coming activists such as Ralph Nader.
Curiously, all this ire was directed at only one of the two culprits. The first of the two disasters of 1979 took the brunt of all the protest, was the focus of political rhetoric, and could be blamed for the decline of an entire industry for the next 30 years. The second disaster resulted in silence and was doomed to be repeated. MORE »
Opinion
An Avatar Review By Someone Who Took 6 Months to Watch It.
Matt Kiebus :: Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 4:45 pm
First off I’d like to make it known that I’ve never fully watched a James Cameron movie — that is until last night. I’ve never been hanging out and said, “Hey, I could really go for a seven-hour flick right now.” I’ve never watched more than 25 minutes of a Terminator movie, I can’t even explain to you who Sarah Conner or the actual Terminator are. The ten or so minutes I saw of The Abyss on the WB11 Saturday afternoon movie when I was 8 years old gave me nightmares. True Lies? I only know Jamie Lee Curtis and the Cameron favorite Governator make up the cast. Don’t even get me into Titanic, too many 5th grade female classmates swooned Leo Dicaprio for me to ever care. MORE »
News, Opinion
Gulf Oil Spill: Who’s To Blame? Look In The Mirror
Travis Walter Donovan :: Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 4:45 pm
Massive amounts of oil continue to flood into the Gulf of Mexico at an incalculably disastrous rate following the explosion that destroyed BP’s offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, on April 20. The world looks on as corporations and governments alike stumble over themselves in a clumsy effort to put a band-aid on what quickly became the United States’ most catastrophic environmental disaster, now growing to veritable unprecedented eco-pocalypse status. MORE »
Comebacks?, Opinion
Tom Cruise: A How-To Guide on Accepting Being Crazy with Class
Matt Kiebus :: Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 6:45 pm
He was Maverick, fucked a prostitute, completed impossible missions, and mixed drinks with expert precision. He also jumped up and down on a couch like a man possessed and almost challenged Matt Lauer to a steel caged death match. Tom Cruise has been on quite the journey the past five years going from the most bankable star in Hollywood to an unstable maniac. It’s been an interesting change of events. But over the past couple years Cruise figured out how to stop his career from spiraling out of control: embrace being crazy. MORE »
Opinion
Sarah Palin Blames BP Oil Spill on Fussy Environmentalists
Gray Hurlburt :: Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 5:15 pm
Just where Sarah Palin’s logic generates from is a nebulous, national mystery, one on par with understanding the lofty arrogance of BP CEO Tony Haywood. Here’s a comparison for you: the latter “would like his life back”: the former blames the spill on environmentalists. It’s as though we’re being spoken to by martians with only a primer on the present reality of human beings.
And so it played out yesterday with Alaska’s paranoid chatterbox. True to her MO, Palin took to Facebook again, this time with an open letter to “extreme ‘environmentalists’ who hypocritically protest domestic energy production onshore and offshore.” In short, she remarks that it’s environmentalists’ fault the rig explosion happened in the first place. MORE »
Opinion
Coming to Grips with Forever Being Lost
Matt Kiebus :: Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 4:30 pm
It’s taken a few days to finally sink in, but after Tuesday night came and went without a bald man turning into a smoke monster or a Scotsman driving his car over people in wheelchairs I came to grips with Lost ending. The two and a half hour finale was vintage Lost – great action sequences, human emotion, a lot of questions, a couple answers, a reunion, and a shit load of rain. MORE »
News, Opinion
Duane Reade Corporate-Creeps Its Way Into Williamsburg
Amy Rose Spiegel :: Friday, May 21st, 2010 1:00 pm
We’ve all witnessed bullying by this point in our lives, although maybe we’ve forgotten what it looks like since our schoolyard days. Here’s a reminder: Bullies intimidate, threaten, and act aggressively toward people who really don’t deserve it. This behavior sounds suspiciously like that of Duane Reade, the enormous drugstore chain, as it prepares to open its Bedford Avenue location directly across the street from Kings Pharmacy in Williamsburg. The company is clearly trying to push out the smaller, locally-owned pharmacy and usurp its customers, and the residents of Williamsburg are none too pleased about it. MORE »
Opinion
Worst Week Ever (For CD Sales)
Johnny Sanford :: Thursday, May 20th, 2010 12:30 pm
In a world that has a shitload of free torrents, it’s only natural that this week was the worst week for cd sales since 1991 (New York Times). Justin Bieber came out with a strong 60,000 this week, barely beating out the Lowest Selling Soundscan Album in History, which was the Dreamgirls Soundtrack in 2007. But do such sour sales say anything more about pop culture than the fact that we like free music? Yes. It’s the fact that people don’t like the music that is considered “popular” anymore. More and more, people are moving away from shitty, shitty music. Yes, this is going to be a rant. MORE »
Opinion, Shit Going On In The World
Olympic Mascot Or Giant Penis?
Nick Nicoludis :: Thursday, May 20th, 2010 12:15 pm
Olympic mascots may be as inconsequential as any equestrian event at the games, but London’s mascot choice for the 2012 Olympics is nothing short of a ill-advised marketing snafu. I don’t know if it’s just me or do they look like a couple of a giant penises? MORE »
Opinion
Have You Ever Noticed Andy Rooney Complains… A Lot?
Matt Kiebus :: Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 5:00 pm
I can’t stand Andy Rooney. I’m willing to go out on a limb and say I’m not alone in that respect. Each Sunday night on 60 Minutes the old cranky man will, without fail, manage to make my want to throw my shoe through the television. He is bitter about everything in today’s culture. His segment of the show is about a minute and a half of airtime to discuss his grievances with the most minute and inconsequential aspects of his everyday life. He somehow believes that he is an “average American,” and therefore people care about his observations on life. The last time I checked the average Americans haven’t been giving their social commentary every Sunday on national television for the past 32 years. MORE »
