Environmental wipe out

Environmentalists have finally decided who to blame for the planet’s ecological devastation. Here’s a clue: You’re sitting on it.

The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.” Making toilet paper has a significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting down forests.

Porn-again

A recent study of online pornography consumption reveals that states that vote Republican consume the most porn. Why does this not surprise me?

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.

To get a better handle on other associations between social attitudes and pornography consumption, Edelman melded his data with a previous study on public attitudes toward religion.

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage,” bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behaviour.”

Home of the Whopper

Bobby Jindal may be boring, but at least he tells cool lies. That’s right. The only thing interesting about his response Tuesday night, his redneck sheriff story was sorta made up. Gee, and I thought we could trust people. Maybe, it is government that we should trust after all. People lie.

Apology dead on arrival

Okay, Rupert Murdoch has apologized to those people who found his paper’s political cartoon a little racist. Right. How about an apology for those of us who found advocating the violent assassination of our president as outside the bounds of propriety. Just a little bit? Seriously.

Nobody messes with Joe but the Jesus

Either it’s Ash Wednesday or the hole in Biden’s head is becoming more conspicuous.

The State of the GOP Address

Bobby Jindal launched his bid for president last night. Good luck with that one. His Republican team mates say he was off his game. Too rushed, distracted by the mike, lacking in rhetorical flourish––that sort of thing. Try “Out of his mind.” It wasn’t his style that was off the mark, it was his content. “Tonto say government bad.” Right, government needs to butt out. Things are going just swimmingly without it. Yeeeah. People need less government. Fewer restrictions. Clearly! Oh and the Republicans are ready to fix healthcare. So what’s been keeping them? Nice response, Governor. Almost as nice as FEMA’s.

Instant Oscar

Jack Black revealed his strategy for making money in animated features: Voice three Dreamworks films a year then bet the money on Pixar to fetch the Oscar. It turns out Kate Winslett has an Oscar strategy of her own. Enjoy.

Put on a happy face

Bill Clinton no longer thinks Obama is a happy-talk hope-monger. He thinks Obama needs to smile more. Maureen Dowd loves the irony:

“It’s worth reminding the American people that for more than 230 years everyone who bet against America lost money,” Clinton told Chris Cuomo on “Good Morning America.” “I just want him to embody that and to share that.”

It’s rich. The Man from Hope whose Missus castigated Candidate Obama for raising “false hopes” is now criticizing President Obama for not peddling more gauzy hope.

Instead, he implies, the president’s warnings of calamity, designed to gin up support for borrowing and printing trillions to shore up the sagging economy, might actually be dragging down our already sagging self-esteem.

Just a reminder…

Political cartoons with presidents and chimpanzees aren’t necesarily racist.

Nothing personal

The Pope had a message for a member of his flock: “Abortion isn’t a personal decision. It’s a sin.” This message was delivered to Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, while visiting the Vatican this week. All Catholics, especially legislators, need to be on the right side of this issue. Or so the Pope says. Let’s see if Nancy repents of her Pro-Choice ways.

Interesting Chart

Either it shows that Republicans are more partisan than Democrats; That Republicans are more philosophically consistent than Democrats; Better at garnering bipartisan support when in power than Democrats; Better at playing politics than Democrats; Or just better at paying attention than Democrats.

We have a winner!

A survey of historians has ranked Abraham Lincoln as the best President in US history. They have ranked George W. Bush as 36th. Just below Herbert Hoover. Dubya is still waiting on the long view of history rather than the short view of historians. After all, Lincoln wasn’t doing all that well a hundred years ago.

Who’s that behind those Foster Grants?

My vote for the next Secretary of Commerce is an Independent. No more under-investigation Democrats or partisan-supply-side Republicans. A good Independent with no Washington inside-the-beltway miopia. Someone like Joaquin Phoenix. Unabomber good looks, and not someone that likes to hear himself talk. Any other ideas?

Campaigner-in-Chief

When congress was slow to do the President’s bidding, Ronald Reagan would take to the air and let his acting ability and some visual aids rally the aid of John Q. Public. Obama has a similar trick up his sleeve. It appears he jumps on Air Force One and starts campaigning again. Like they say, the guy’s the Tiger Woods of politics. A couple days later we have a Stimulus Package. Who says Conservatives can’t be good role models? Yes they can!