Old News: Vatican Corrupt

The world's smallest city-state is in the news once again and, once again, hopes its ridiculously inappropriate Foreign-Sovereign Immunity (which absolves it of all responsibility for child sexual abuse cases in the United States, fyi) will allow it to do whatever it wants while thumbing its nose at the peculiar secular world, where actions have consequences.

VATICAN CITY — Italian authorities seized euro23 million ($30 million) from a Vatican bank account Tuesday and said they have begun investigating top officials of the Vatican bank in connection with a money-laundering probe.

(courtesy HuffPo)

But don't worry, it's probably all a big misunderstanding--it's not like the Vatican has any history of highly-suspicious involvement with the mafia and/or catastrophic financial crimes:

The Vatican bank was famously implicated in a scandal over the collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano in the 1980s in one of Italy's largest fraud cases. Roberto Calvi, the head of Banco Ambrosiano, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 in circumstances that still remain mysterious.

London investigators first ruled that Calvi committed suicide, but his family pressed for further investigation. Eventually murder charges were filed against five defendants, including a major Mafia figure, and they were tried in Rome and acquitted in 2007.

Banco Ambrosiano collapsed following the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans the bank had made to several dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans. While denying any wrongdoing, the Vatican bank agreed to pay $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

(courtesy HuffPo)

Yikes! But soft--who runs the Vatican Bank? Its problems can most likely be blamed on greedy secular bankers operating outside the church's sphere of influence, right? The religious folk just made a few careless mistakes in who they hired to run their financial operations, right?

Wrong:

More after the jump...

Stupid Whore Class is in session

"Our backs ache, our skirts are too tight, we shake our booties from left to right."

This is the controversial cheer that a Michigan cheerleader's mother objected to recently. This objection got her daughter kicked off the squad and straight onto the stage of Good Morning America.

The kicker: The former cheerleader is only 6 years old.

SIX YEARS OLD!

For whom do six-year-olds cheer? Six-year-old football players? The Catholic Priests Charity Football League?

Even more importantly, however, how does this cheer make any sense? Who wants to hear about people's problems? Their backs ache? Whose doesn't. Their skirts are too tight? Stop getting so fat!

Boring...

Or are these cheerleaders trying to say they are always on their back getting it from football players and their skirts are intentionally too tight because they're trying to show off the hot bodies they spend all day creating by not eating and ditching class to do bikram yoga and smoking cigarettes across the street?

Oh, wait, I just got it--these six-year-old girls are CHEAP SLUTS who really, really, really want their football-playing sex-partners to win the game against their other football-playing sex-partners who go to first-grade at a nearby rival primary school.

Or so their coach wants us to think, for some reason--probably because she thinks it's "cute."

Makes total sense...this is, after all, the monstrous nation that created Miley Cyrus.


Dessert:
Our disease has been exported to China!

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The Dark Side of Youtube

For every Scarlet Takes a Tumble and Fat Dad Falls Off Skateboard, there is always a video that makes you stop laughing uncontrollably at the misfortunes of others and reminds you of the frightening power of the Dark Side.

This is one of those videos:

(Thanks, Videogum!)

Shock and awe, folks. Shock and awe.

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Who Doesn't Love a Psychologically-Damaged, Overly-Vain Mystery Bride?

The end is nigh, folks, as this will be coming to your television screen before you can stop it:

The [E!] network is set to announce "Bridalplasty," where brides-to-be compete in wedding-themed challenges to win extensive surgical procedures.

Each week, a group of women competes head-to-head in such challenges as writing wedding vows and planning honeymoons. The winner receives the chance to choose a plastic surgery procedure from her "wish list." She's given the procedure immediately, and results are shown at the start of the following week's episode.

One by one, the women are voted out by their competitors and, according to the show's description, "possibly walking away with nothing and losing [their] chance to be the perfect bride."

The last bride standing will receive a "dream wedding," where she will reveal her new appearance to friends, family and the groom. "Viewers will witness his emotional and possibly shocked reaction as they stand at the altar and he lifts her veil to see her for the first time following her extreme plastic surgery," E! said.

(courtesy Hollywood Reporter)

Oh, my God! I can't wait for the bitchy cat fights as these women maneuver to have their foes eliminated one-by-one! And the daily sobbing as they talk about how their noses/chins/cheekbones/butts/breasts/un-rejuvenated vaginas have conspired to ruin their lives!

But mostly I can't wait to see the looks on those husbands' faces when they lift up the veil on their wedding day and realize they just married a perfect stranger who used to be a crazy person they loved for some reason!

It just doesn't get much better than that, if you are looking for one perfect moment that defines a new low in the Global Corporate Village known as the Western World. The ascent of Beck/Palin and the Double Down were just foreshocks and now we must brace ourselves for the mighty quake.

As far as aftershocks go, we also have these three turds to look forward to avoiding this fall:

The Defenders - Jim Belushi (!) and Jerry O'Connell (!)...together at last! Not since DeNiro and Pacino in Heat has America been this excited about an actor pairing. For those of you who are confused, Jim is John Belushi's less-talented brother and Jerry O'Connell is the kid who was in Stand By Me who is married to Rebecca Romijn. Two of the finest examples of the new American dream--failing upward.

Undercovers - The tired Mr. and Mrs. Smith dynamic all over again, but worse. The catchy twist: They're black this time!

Mike & Molly - Two fat people (read: relatable!) fall in love in Middle America while performing endearingly working-class jobs. From wikipedia: "The series, set in Chicago, follows two obese people, Mike Biggs [Get it! -Ed.], a police officer who wants to shed some pounds, and Molly Flynn, a fourth-grade teacher wanting to embrace her curves, who meet at an Overeaters anonymous group and become an unlikely pair. However, they also have to deal with the comments, jokes, and criticism from Mike's fast-talking partner Carl McMillan; Molly's slim sister Victoria and mother Joyce; and Samuel, a Senegalese waiter at the cops' favorite restaurant."

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United States v. Muslims: By the Numbers

(courtesy The Atlantic)

Just goes to show you that, despite our wealth and military muscle, we are but a moon orbiting the Muslim planet, and we should remember that as we spend trillions of dollars and end tens of thousands of lives chasing down the smallest enemy fighting force we have ever faced.

So take a step back, warmongers, hide your misspelled vitriol for a moment, and start taking up a collection to bribe your Congressional representatives to get us the hell out of Afghanistan, Michael Moore-style:

Let's dig a few thousand wells in Afghanistan, build a few free mosques, leave behind some food and clothing, fix their electrical grid, issue an apology and set up a Facebook page so they can stay in touch with us -- and then let's get the hell out. Your own National Security Advisor and your CIA Director have told you there are less than 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country. 100???                           (courtesy HuffPo)

As long as our unemployed serf brethren pony up more than Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Halliburton, and Xe Services (nee Blackwater) combined, it should be easy enough to transform the United States into a slightly more sensible world power.

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AIDS = Hitler

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Lower-Class Twit of the Year Competition Results Are In

The votes are in, folks, and the twittiest of the lower-class twits from across this gorgeous globe have been identified and ranked in a highly scientific process know as a "boondoggle."

Here are the results to share with your friends:


Gold Medal -

That is one disturbed belly-button/cat

 Silver Medal -

This guy's girlfriend must never let him take his shirt off at pool parties.

Oh, wait--he's never had one.

 Bronze Medal (with special commendation for supreme idiocy) -

Jolene must be so proud of her little skinhead

Kids at home, please take note--this is what you either should or should not do, depending on how you want your life to turn out. Good luck figuring that shit out!

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I Can't Stop Laughing

At the first half of the video in this link.

Thanks, Videogum!

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Republican Party Nominates 3 Newcomers to Defuse Tea Party Insurgency

Tired of losing ground to the Tea Party in the battle for who is the most irrationally conservative, the Republicans have decided to drag three newcomers--longtime listeners, first-time callers--into the political ring to avoid having the rug pulled out from underneath them this November.

This guy = Not crazy enough

The candidates for the new ruling committee known as the First Triumvirate of Idiocy--which would yield supreme legislative power over all three branches of the popularly-elected puppet government--are known only as the Three Horsemen of the Corporatocracy (their real names/identities will never be known) and are shown below in a photo taken at the stark press conference announcing both their candidacy and inescapable victory:

Where did these handsome young chaps come from and how is their victory assured, you ask?

Well, they came from nowhere, probably some place really remote, never listened in school, have the craziest ideas you have ever heard, and couldn't run a 7-11 on their own, but that is exactly why they will be elected--THEY ARE SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT.

Besides, it's inevitable, right? You might as well just email them your ATM pin and jump headfirst into the party of the people before they force you to at gunpoint.

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What a Stupid C*nt

She's laughing at you, Arizonans, because she thinks you'll vote for her no matter what she says (or doesn't say). Jan Doofus can ask all she wants, but let's hope she doesn't get any of your votes this fall, despite the fact that she has did done fixed everything.

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The Last Two Feet are the Hardest

Tales from the Front:

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A doctor involved in an "on-again, off-again" relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend's home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit "to avoid a confrontation," authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an "on-again, off-again" relationship.

The man's identity was not revealed by police, but the man who resides in the home is William Moodie, 58.

Moodie, who runs an engineering consulting firm, said Kotarac was a superb internist who often provided service and medication free of charge to her patients.

Kotarac apparently died in the chimney, but her body was not discovered until a house-sitter noticed a stench and fluids coming from the fireplace Saturday, according to a police statement. The house-sitter and her son investigated with a flashlight and found Kotarac dead, wedged about two feet above the top of the interior fireplace opening.

Firefighters spent five hours late Saturday dismantling the chimney and flue from outside the home to extract Kotarac's body, DeGeare said.

Officials said Kotarac's office staff reported her missing two days prior when she failed to show for work. Her car and belongings remained near the man's house.

A cause of death has not been determined, and an autopsy was scheduled or Tuesday. Foul play is not suspected, though investigators have been looking into the incident as suspicious.

(courtesy Huffington Post) 

Let me get this straight--a man hears his girlfriend trying to get into his house by crawling down the chimney, leaves for three days--in order "to avoid a confrontation," and hires a housesitter (over the phone?) who eventually smells something funny / sees stuff dripping into the fireplace?

What sort of person's first two choices for forced entry into a residence are a shovel and the chimney? Was this Moody guy holed up in some kind of impenetrable fortress? Were there not windows that could have been broken? I mean, the houses in Bakersfield were not exactly built to last...

And where did this guy go all of a sudden, anyway? Was he across town, in bed with some other broad, making this poor sap the laughing-stock of the community, as she breathes her last breath in his chimney--no doubt immediately post-vow to haunt him for eternity?

Probably.

Also, why does it matter that the woman was a doctor? If she were a garbagewoman [Do those even exist? Why are women not forced to represent 50% of the garbage collectors? -Ed], would this article have read "Garbagewoman Dies in Chimney Trying to Break into Boyfriend's Home?"

I think not. You see, we expect that kind of behavior from garbagewomen--when doctors do it, it's newsworthy. It sells papers.

"A doctor did it? Hmmm...well, there must be some kind of juicy story behind this...doctors are usually so put-together and never have to worry about money...oh, look, it says here she was a 'superb internist'..."

-Woman reading aloud to her cat while eating her third bowl of Kix

Meanwhile, the carcasses of her last twelve cats decompose in the nearby chimney, totally unnoticed by the world until Hoarders comes through and turns that ole garbagewoman's life right-side-up in thirty minutes of too-hot-for-TV, soul-crushing depression and feigned re-birth.

Don't miss it!

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Senator Palpatine Living in New Jersey

86-years-young Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), aka Darth Sidious

Sure, he may look bone-chillingly evil, but Senator Frank Lautenberg is actually pretty liberal.

He supports the gays, the women, the poor, the sick...WTF, right? Is the Dark Side in the throes of some generations-long, total-mind-fuck takeover scheme that will crush our spirit forever?

Probably. They've always been more cunning than the good guys...

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