::: squawk channel ::: (via Mowser)

9.07.2008

These are my Cheetos that are broken for you... or something...

With youth attendance declining in recent years, church leaders may want to sample some of what this upstart denomination is cookin'.

Via religionnewsblog:

The founders of an Arizona church that deifies marijuana have pleaded guilty to two criminal charges and are now each facing up to 20 years in prison.

Turns out you can't just start a pot club in your basement and call it a religion. The members of the aptly named "Church of Cognizance" found that out in a hurry.

The sentence will depend on the discretion of the judge, said Dan Quaintance’s lawyer, J.D. Herrera .

Dan Quaintance believes freedom of religion will prevail, and predicts the case could go as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It was tough to plead guilty, but really we were just pleading to what we said we did. There is no doubt we had marijuana with us,” he said.

“We think ultimately the courts will see that we are just people using marijuana for our religion. It’s the First Amendment. We think we’ve got a pretty good case.”

Quaintance went on to add, "I mean, come on... like... Maaaaan... Just fuckin'... Come on, dude..."

The Church of Cognizance, which leaders say has “monasteries” in members’ homes nationwide, has this motto: “With good thoughts, good words and good deeds, we honor marijuana: as the teacher, the provider, the protector.”

Love the scare quotes around "monasteries." "Yeah, why don't you, uh, come up to my monastery and we'll commune with the saints..."

For those interested, the article links to more info about the "church."

I believe their headquarters is located right down the street from Fake Driver's License Methodist, Not Getting a Job Baptist, and The Church of Having Lots of Unprotected Sex. Their services consist of some dude who totally looks like a guy you kinda knew in high school who had this sister that was totally hot delivering a three hour sermon (recent topics have included "Whoa," "I Don't Know What's Going On," and "Ever Look at Your Hand for a Half Hour?"), and the ceremonial eating of the cookie dough straight out of the thing.

Go ahead, laugh. It still makes more fucking sense than Scientology.

9.05.2008

Your Music Says You Suck

BBC News recently posted a feature about research dealing with the link between musical preference and personality. The article includes a basic guide to the findings separated out by genre. Let's see, I picked "INDIE."

INDIE

Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Quite Possibly the Worst Thing Ever

Sure, it looks shitty, but wait until Christopher Nolan reboots it.

This page contained an embedded video. Click here to view it.

Note to Christians: You know you're suffering from a serious martyrdom complex when the most sinister villain you can conjure up is a fucking protester. What's his secret weapon, wishing people "Happy Holidays"? Holy steaming cow feces. I'd rather watch Arnold Schwarzenegger's portrayal of Mr. Freeze in Batman and Robin on a continuous loop.

Bibleman. Crap in a hat and call me Charlie.

Ten bucks at least one member of the graphics team that produced this game hung himself in a ratty motel room at 3 AM, leaving a suicide note written in blood: "The adventure continues..."

Game over, man. Game over.

9.04.2008

My boy Sam weighs in on The Vagina

Sam Harris lays into Madame Defarge something fierce this week in the Los Angeles Times:

The actuarial tables on the Social Security Administration website suggest that there is a better than 10% chance that McCain will die during his first term in office. Needless to say, the Reaper’s scything only grows more insistent thereafter. Should President McCain survive his first term and get elected to a second, there is a 27% chance that Palin will become the first female U.S. president by 2015. If we take into account McCain’s medical history and the pressures of the presidency, the odds probably increase considerably that this bright-eyed Alaskan will become the most powerful woman in history.

But really, what is the world but one giant PTA meeting?

Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.

This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages—and loses—both necessary and unnecessary wars.

Sam got raked over the coals for this op-ed, mainly for referring to Palin as "the girl next door." From the tone of the condemnations, you'd think he called her a "whining" non-victim of the totally not-sexist media. Oh wait, that's what Palin called Hillary Clinton, wasn't it?

I tried to listen to Palin's speech, I really did. But I couldn't hear it over the sound of Obama's awesomeness.

9.03.2008

Amy Winehouse: Buddhist

What is the sound of one pop star vomiting on the side of a hearse?

by Josh James, Squawk Channel Press

Somewhere in Britain - Fresh off her latest anachronistic medical diagnosis, singer Amy Winehouse says she's taken up Buddhism.

The relief couldn't have come at a better time. Last month Winehouse learned she has labia scurvy, a collapsed eyeball, and a vestigal tail made out of dried blood and chewing tobacco. But Winehouse's publicist claims the troubled Grammy winner is healthy and busy recording tracks for her new CD, tentatively titled WHAARGARBL.

Still rumors of continued drug use persist. Skeptics point to recent photographs which show Winehouse attempting to smoke a Huffy 10-speed and beating an elderly woman on the clavicle with a crucifix. Doctors who have examined the pictures say the singer appears to be suffering from the world's first known case of face syphilis, possibly a complication from an earlier bout with a South African disease known colloquially as "Charcoal Brain." The illness culminated in a five-hour long screaming match with a urinal cake in a Royal Albert Hall men's bathroom before police shot a potent horse tranquilizer into what they believe was probably her elbow.

But friends and family are hoping Amy's newfound spiritualism will guide her back to the straight and narrow.

A source said one of her musicians introduced Amy to Buddhist chanting, a practice the singer says is "filling her life with positivity while she is trying to sort herself out.” Winehouse made the comments sitting atop three 50 pound bricks of Pakistani hashish.

"I really think I'm on the rebound," she says, inhaling a cherry Pixy Stick through her left eye. "I'm down to two bathtubs of wine a day."

Winehouse's father expressed concern for his daughter last week after video surfaced of the singer molesting a ground squirrel with a stick of dynamite and a trebuchet. This despite warnings that too much exertion could aggravate her acute ass lung, a progressive disorder caused by long-term inhalation of certain outlawed Guatemalan pesticides.

"Amy is doing just fine," her father says cautiously. "We're optimistic she'll make a full recovery in the next couple weeks. Then maybe we can start treating the consumptive leprosy."

Ziptards

The bookstore where I work is currently conducting a survey which requires booksellers to ask for every customer's zip code. Simple enough.

Well, almost.

Each shift I can count on at least one Luddite from the fifth dimension flatly refusing to give me his zip code. Which is fine. No sweat off my balls. But it never ends there. The tinfoiler feels compelled to explain his reasons, which usually run the gamut from retarded to positively YouTubian.

Just once I'd like to sit said customer down and illuminate him as to the nature of the modern world, maybe something like, "Dude, Google Earth has a camera inside your wife's vagina right now."

9.07.2008

These are my Cheetos that are broken for you... or something...