The Idiom

Can You Grok It? Free Grokistan!

Friday, September 30, 2005

As Seen On TV!

New product alert.

The newest development in female condom technology...RAPEX! Delivering painful, uh, come-uppance to would be rapists everywhere!

A South African inventor unveiled a new anti-rape female condom on Wednesday that hooks onto an attacker’s penis and aims to cut one of the highest rates of sexual assault in the world.

...The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed from the man through surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police, she said.

...Ehlers, who showed off a prototype on Wednesday, said women had tried it for comfort and it had been tested on a plastic male model but not yet on a live man.

Who's lining up for that job?

Of course, Kid various thinks that they could come up with a better brand name than "RapeX." We think that market research would show that "Infinite Justice" would do better.

Vocab 101

Funny thing about foreign languages is that they have words for specific things that don't exist in english. This is a word that is becoming more important in American life.

SEIGNEUR-TERRASSE - Someone who spends time, but not money, at a café.

Ah, Kid Various remembers the years with Mr. Scriblerus and Mr. Surly spent pursuing careers as seigneur-terrasses at Cafe Newz in Hub City.

In fact, there were a whole lot of seigneur-terrasses there, king among them being Dope, who once asked for water "not in a bottle - but from the tap..."

No wonder Cafe Newz burned down, probably for the insurance money.

Ah, Cafe Newz, we sh*t on thee

and wipe our asses with the chart...

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Bible Study

Leviticus 2:13
Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.
Codified by God in Leviticus after ordering kolach in Katz's Delicatessen for the 40th fucking time and not being able to find a salt shaker.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Would you Believe Don Adams is Dead?



First Gilligan, now Maxwell Smart. My era's TV rerun icons are dropping like flies. I could not get enough of Get Smart when I was a kid, literally, since Get Smart was just not reun nearly as often as say Gilligan's Island (the color episodes anyway) was on the local New York television stations. I'm sure there are probably several episodes I have yet to see despite all the later Nick at Night airings. Get Smart was a terrific show that was at least a decade ahead of its time and its still pretty great today. Don Adams never achieved the same level of success he enjoyed with Get Smart later in his career. However, Don Adams does enjoy a special place in the hearts and minds of the editors of the Idiom. Prior to becoming Maxwell Smart, a role he would essentially inhabit for the rest of his life, Don Adams was the voice of Tennesee Tuxedo. Who's that you ask? Only one of the best charcters on the Underdog show and the greatest fictional penguin in history. Well, Opus the penguin from Bloom County is the greatest fictional penguin in history. Would you believe the second greatest?




Second Greatest Fictional Penguin

Yahoo, Google and Microsoft Should Burn In Hell

for kow-towing to Chinese despots.

Last year, assistant editors of Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News) held a staff meeting about a memo sent from national Communist Party headquarters ordering journalists how to cover the anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square murders, in which peaceful pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing were slaughtered by the Red Army.

Reporter Shi Tao wrote a summary of the meeting, and used his Yahoo! e-mail account to send it to the Asia Democracy Foundation, a group in New York State that supports Chinese democracy. The group published the report, anonymously, on the Web site Democracy Forum and their newsletter Democracy News.

The Chinese dictatorship asked Yahoo! to help them find the person who had sent the message. Yahoo!'s subsidiary in Hong Kong complied, and Shi Tao was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Yeah, Sure, We Do Requests, Cont'd

Personally Kid Various thinks it would be un-conch-unable to allow the greedy corporations to profit at the expense of needy hermit crabs during a housing shortage. This is a textbook case of how the contradictions in capitalism marginalize the opressed, creepy-crawly Other.

The Kid suggests a massive federal government program to build large, mulit-story crab projects along America's coastlines where the worker crabs could sing and dance around - because they know they can't be found.

A victim of the housing bubble.
Rampant activity by savage capitalist speculators
has priced all but the most wealthy crabs
out of the housing market, forcing regular
working crabs to rent pitiful discards.
These crustaceans need society's help!


We'd like to see,

Under the Sea,

A crustacean Cabrini Green

In the shade.


Thursday, September 22, 2005

Yeah, sure, we do requests

From an Idiom reader:



Hi Twisty,

I confess, I'm a devoted reader of "The Idiom" (and a big fan of Mr. Surly in particular :D )

I just had to send this over because I would love to know what spin "the boys" would take on this article: (Homeless Hermit Crabs), particularly the 2nd to last paragraph.

Yeah, sure, we do requests.

Finally corporate America can harness those otherwise useless crabs for capitalist purposes. I mean the entire animal kingdom has been so underutilized for marketing purposes.

This might be a way to protect endangered species too - slap a Tide (TM) logo on a rhino? Shave the Sir Speedy (TM) brandmark on a cheetah? This sea turtle has been brought to you by Exxon-Mobil (TM), this panda is sponsored by Crest (R). Just avoid the Target (R) symbol, it would help poachers aim.

You could even show how broad-minded you were by advertising on the so-called "alternative lifestyle" animals like the gay penguins and the hippie chimps.

Well that work? Surly have a go at it?

Anyone else?

Freebird!?! Freebird!!!

Looks Like I Picked The Wrong Week To Quit Watching Joe Scarborough

Kid Various loves Jet Blue airways. Not necessarily because their planes, or food, or whatnot are any better - but rather because each seatback has a video monitor connected to DirectTV. That's right, you can watch TV for the whole flight, and that's all The Kid wants.

Of course, we never realized that there could be a downside as well...
A JetBlue airliner with its front landing gear stuck sideways safely landed Wednesday, balancing on its back wheels as it slowed on the runway at Los Angeles International Airport. The flight, with 140 passengers and six crew members on board, landed at 6:19 p.m. PT, after being diverted to Los Angeles for its emergency landing, officials said.

The flight developed a problem with its landing gear and was diverted to Los Angeles International Airport for an emergency landing on Wednesday, officials said.

...Television images showed the jet circling with the front landing gear turned at a 90-degree angle from its normal position. Those TV images watched by people around the country were also likely watched by passengers on the JetBlue flight; the airline features television sets mounted in the headrests of all its flights, allowing passengers to watch live DirecTV programming in flight.

That couldn't have been good for passenger morale with the inevitable, over the top, 24 hour cable news coverage - "Jet RED: Blood on the Tarmac!!"

Maybe the pilots should have cut the feed.

"Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to make our descent into LAX. Please assume the crash position. It'll get a little bumpy but we'll see you on the ground in a few minutes..."

"OH YEAH? WELL ANDERSON COOPER SAYS WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE, ASSHAT!!!"

Wow, we are truly living in Farenheit 451...

Whoa! Those people are f*cked!
Holy sh*t! That's us!!!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Flash 'Em For Hurricane Relief

Those New Orleanians! In their own inimitable style they have taken a drunken Mardi Gras tradition and found a way to put it to use for victims of Hurricane Katrina. SHOW US YOUR TITS! Hat Tip Andrew Sullivan

Also, not to be outdone in the making a joke out of human tragedy department, you can get one of these hysterical t-shirts from T-shirt Hell.

Simon Wiesenthal No Longer Technically "Survivor"

Simon Wiesenthal, who managed to escape death in 5 concentration camps and spent the remainder of his life bringing to justice escaped Nazis, died anyway yesterday at the age of 96.

Wiesenthal, who helped find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the policeman who arrested Anne Frank, died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

"I think he'll be remembered as the conscience of the Holocaust. In a way he became the permanent representative of the victims of the Holocaust, determined to bring the perpetrators of the greatest crime to justice," Hier told The Associated Press.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Zellweger, Chesney split

Because she could no longer deny her secret love for Kid Various! Come here, Renee baby... The Kid will make everything alright...

Thursday, September 15, 2005

It's A Boy!

It's A Boy! Welcome a new little Scriblerus to the world!

Scriblerus fils was born this morning, he and Mom are resting and doing well.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Kid Various Finally Has An In!

And they aren't even Russian mail order brides!Hat tip Neuromantic

Sunday, September 11, 2005

1460 Days


The United States of America has been at war for 1460 days.

It is the duty of every American to do whatever they can to help win the War.

America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.

-Martin Treptow (1894-1917)

Friday, September 09, 2005

The “Man” Seeks Extinction of “Hippies of the Jungle”, Hippies

According to primatologist Claudine Andre, activities of humans (or “Man” for short) are responsible for the near extinction of Bonobo chimpanzees, sometime referred to as the “hippies of the jungle.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Pygmy chimpanzees dubbed "hippies of the forest" for resolving conflicts through sex rather than violence are dying out faster than ever in post- Democratic Republic of Congo, a conservationist said on Tuesday.

Bonobos, the rarest of all the great apes, are being killed in large numbers by bands of gunmen two years after the vast central African country's most recent war officially ended.

…Only found in remote corners of Congo -- a vast and inaccessible country that has been torn apart by a decade of war -- the "forgotten ape" is said by scientists to be one of the least hostile primates.

"The bonobo's outlook is to search for peace," Andre said. "All their conflicts are resolved peacefully, often through sex. They are the hippies of the forest."



Two bonobos vigorously “resolving conflict”
over the Iranian nuclear program.

Similarly, due to actions of The Man and increasingly cultural irrelevance, extinction is also likely for *actual* hippies, who with their hairy and unkempt appearance sometimes are actually confused with bonobos.

Although they once roamed the American landscape in great numbers, the hippie population has dwindled greatly over the past 30 years and is now centered in specially preserved enclaves such as Berkeley and Santa Monica.

Evolutionary scientists theorize that the hippie population began to decline due to an inability to adapt to a changing environment and the maladaptive nature of certain evolutionary adaptations.

“Basically, they are not well evolutionarily suited to their environment,” said Darth Roger, PhD. “Their evolutionary adaptations of smoking dope, free love and holding large, open air rock concerts did not do much to enhance their survival value in the cold, unforgiving world of nature. Long story short – they’re much too easy prey.”


The re-election of President Bush is seen as a blow for
the survival prospects of both bonobos and hippies.

The imminent extinction of Bonobos is seen as direct consequence of President Bush’s racist & genocidal policies which is why locals often refer to bonobo flesh as “Bush Meat”

Rallying to prevent their imminent demise, a group of Bonobos, some carrying signs reading “Bush Meat = Hitler” and some sporting shirts that read “Eat My Bush!” with arrows pointing to their groins held a press conference today with Dr. Andre.
A well-organised bush meat trade and crippling poverty in the forests compound the threat to the apes.

"(Bush meat) is demanded by the urban population and as the people in the forests have no option, they are chopping down trees to make charcoal and trapping animals for bush meat," Andre said.
The obscenely profitable “Bush Meat” trade is dominated by the Halliburton Corporation, whose former CEO is current Vice-President Dick Cheney. Halliburton has used the poverty of locals as an excuse to ramp up production of their corporate goods.

Andre continued with a dire warning that the bonobos would not be the last species targeted by “The Man.”
"If man destroys his closest cousin, he might destroy all animal species," she added, as a group of young bonobos drank from a bottle, ate bananas and had sex in a cage behind her.
Unfortunately, like real hippies, pacifist, dope-smoking bonobos with signs are no match for angry, gun-toting men ready to do violence. And, unlike real hippies, bonobos do not have the US Marines standing between them and the violent men.

Almost certain to go extinct at the hands of The Man without outside assistance, plans are being made to help the bonobos by holding a large, open air rock concert organized by Bono (bo). Studies are also being conducted concerning the feasibility of relocating the remaining bonobo population to Burning Man.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Let's Roll

A memorial design has been chosen to honor the passengers of Flight 93 who rose up on September 11th against their hijackers and foiled an attack on Washington, DC.

The "Crescent of Embrace" memorial, created by a team of designers led by Paul Murdoch Architects of Los Angeles, was chosen Wednesday by the Flight 93 Advisory Commission. The aim of the one-year competition was to honor the 40 passengers and crew who died after their plane was hijacked and crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.

The chapel, featuring 40 chimes symbolizing each of the victims, will stand at the entryway to the vast park.

"The idea is, as the wind continues through the site, there will be sounds generated that will act as a living memory to those who died," Murdoch said.

Murdoch's design just slightly edged out a design submitted by The Idiom's Kid Various which envisoned a tableaux of bronze sculptures depicting 40 ordinary Americans kicking the living shit out a pack of sub-human terrorists.

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Someone Ask Infinity Broadcasting

Hey, has Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" been taken out of rotation on the classic rock channels or what?

Ginger's Next...

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be!
Do not forget, stay out of debt.
Think twice, and take this good advice from me,
Guard that ole sovereign-tee!
There's just one other thing, you ought to do,
To thine own self be true!

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

HOLY SHIT! GILLIGAN IS DEAD!



Bob Denver, beloved by millions of couch potatoes, shuffled off this mortal coil to the big island in the sky on September 2. His death is something Mr. Surly has a hard time contemplating. How can someone who has lived for so long in reruns and the collective imagination of my generation be irretrievably gone? It tears at one's heart when the flesh and blood analog of a fictional character who has so profoundly influenced my peers passes.

Gilligan's Island will always remind me of my childhood and a safer, simpler time -- a time when there were only three television networks and you and all your friends all watched the same shows, not because you liked them necessarily, but because there was nothing else on. Everybody watched reruns of Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, Land of the Lost, Happy Days, the Munsters, the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals and probably a hundred others, creating a kind of forced community. Don't think so? Do you remember the episode where theatrical producer Harold Hecuba comes to the island and the castaways stage a musical version of Hamlet? Can you sing a few bars of "Neither a Borrower or Lender Be." If you're under 40, I bet you can. Bob Denver's death though is another reminder to me that childish things are now past for even my generation with its extended adolescence and a sure sign that my own mortality is waiting to meet me sometime in the future.

Though shared knowledge of bad television reruns is pretty lame foundation for any community, it is not the only thing that binds my peers together, it is simply the most common. If it were the only thing to bind us together though, I would defend it as better than nothing. Teens growing up today I suspect may have nothing that they ALL share. I sense that children who have the opportunity to pursue thousands of different competing niche interests, whose associations are determined by carefully arranged "playdates" are likely to share very little with the majority of children in their town, not even mentioning the nation. So I don't see today's teens shedding too many tears say when Ashton Kuthcher buys it (sooner rather than later would be OK with me) -- I don't think "Punk'd" is going to punctuate anyone's formative years. What does that bode for the future though? Is there still a common culture in America around which national communities can unite? Are we all just going to stay at home and watch pay per view, disconnected from the rest of society? I really don't know.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Dig Deep Folx

Yeah, we know that we made some jokes at the expense of the horror that is Hurricane Katrina. There can be no boundaries in comedy (Kid Various specializes in holocaust humour.)

But this is about Americans helping Americans. The editors here at The Idiom have ponied up. Click on the Red Cross button in the sidebar to donate money for the hurricane victims along the Gulf Coast. (It's better than trying to send supplies - and easier..)

Do They or Don't They?

This is interesting. In this article from the AP concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program, the lead runs like this:

VIENNA, Austria - Iran faced a deadline Saturday to freeze work that could enable it to make an atomic weapon.
European Union representatives warned Tehran had just weeks before a likely referral to the Security Council.

The probability of Security Council referral grew after an IAEA report revealed Friday that Tehran had pumped out about seven tons of the gas it needs for uranium enrichment since restarting the conversion process last month.

Key European nations awaited the results of the report, setting Saturday as an informal deadline for Tehran to reimpose its freeze or face the threat of referral to Council.
Ooooooh! Kid Various bets that the Iranians are shakin' now!!! An informal deadline to stop the enrichment process which could enable them to make a nuclear weapon...

Of course, in the AP story, posted by the same writer 2 hours earlier and located in the same location on the internet, the lead ran something like this:

VIENNA, Austria -Iran has pumped out about seven tons of the gas it needs for uranium enrichment since it restarted the process last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Friday. A former U.N. nuclear inspector said that would be enough for an atomic weapon.

In unusually strong language, an IAEA report also said despite its investigation, questions remain about key aspects of Iran's 18 years of clandestine nuclear activity and that it still was unable "to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."
Hmmmm....

THAT sound a skeech more important doesn't it? You know, the fact that Iran is on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons?

The old article continues:

"Iran's full transparency is indispensable and overdue," said the confidential document obtained by The Associated Press. The document listed perceived Iranian failings and called for "access to individuals, documentation related to procurement ... certain military-owned workshops and research and development locations."

Among the unanswered questions, according to the report, were gaps in the documented development of Iran's centrifuge program used in uranium enrichment — and in what was received, and when, from the black market network headed by the Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan.

...But the key issue in the report was uranium conversion — changing raw uranium into gas that then is spun by centrifuges into enriched uranium.

The report, prepared by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, said Iran had produced about 15,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feed stock that is spun by centrifuge into enriched uranium. Depending on the level of enrichment, that substance can be used either as a source of power or as the core of nuclear weapons.

But David Albright, a former IAEA nuclear inspector, said that were Tehran to use the material for weapons purposes, it would be enough for one atomic bomb.

Kid Various wonders why THAT information no longer relevant to the story?