For centuries the Catholic Church has had the market cornered on guilt, recent reports from Colorado Springs reveal that evangelicals are looking to get into the guilt business, though for different reasons.

“Sure, we make fun of Catholics. I mean, they do worship Mary and all, but no one can deny that their use of guilt as mind control revolutionized religion” said Dan Alterman, pastor of some church which members describe as “bible-based.” According to Alterman, guilt has long been used to control church-goers.

“It’s easy to throw a guilt trip at someone, and then ‘boom,’ you have your adult chaperon for your next mission trip to Guatemala.”

Catholics, Alterman says, have perfected the use of guilt, getting their followers worldwide to do crazy things like giving up chocolate during Lent or telling their deepest, darkest secrets to lonely, unmarried men.

“Statistics show that only 24% of the world’s usable guilt is being utilized as an energy source,” Alterman says, not citing any resources. “It’s time to bring guilt into the 21st century.” Read the full story

Popularity: 3% [?]

In those days a decree went out from the Department of Commerce, in accordance with a constitutional mandate, that a census should be taken of the entire American world.  This was the first census to take place when Arnold was Governator of California.  And all went to retrieve their census forms, each to his own mailbox.

And I also went up from my couch, in my living room, in apartment 113, to the mailboxes, which are over by the leasing office, to mailbox number 113 because I am of the apartment and mailbox #113.  Also, it was a Saturday and I wasn’t really doing anything else and whenever I don’t check my mailbox for a couple days it always fills up with junk mail until there’s hardly any room for important bills and stuff.

Arriving at mailbox 113, I discovered that the receptacle was indeed stuffed to the brim with Ralph’s coupons, credit card offers, Trader Joe’s flyers, and various other marketing miscellany.  The time had come to clear it out.  So I wrapped the junk mail together and stuffed a bunch of it in the outgoing mail slot, because there was no room for it in the trash can.  But before junking the junk mail, I was careful to extract the census form of which the Commerce Department had spoken.

And in the same region, later on that day, I was back on my couch keeping watch over the NCAA Tournament games at night.  When suddenly, a commercial from the government appeared before me and the sound of propaganda was all around me, and I was filled with confusion. Read the full story

Popularity: 6% [?]

By: The Fubar Journalist

As you may have noticed, airport screening measures have increased since the “underwear bomber” was arrested on December 25 at Detroit’s international airport.

Several clever Republicans bravely recommend all Muslims be profiled for special, more stringent flight screening. You know, cause non-Muslims never do anything wrong with airplanes.

But is this enough? Are they aware of the latest threat? Beware the most recent al Qaeda terrorist innovation: the anal cavity bomber.

It doesn’t sound plausible until you put on your swim shorts and jump head first down that slippery slope of logic.

Yup, your poop shoot is the last convenient place to hide a bomb. First it was baggage, but they nailed that one pretty quick. After 9/11, it was your shoes. Thanks Richard Reid. An extra minute removing the shoes solved that problem.

The next two places made terrorism downright sexy. Read the full story

Popularity: 5% [?]

While everyone else in the English-speaking world is busy compiling top 10 lists to encapsulate the essence of the last decade, we here at The Talking Mirror are forging on into the future.  We’re not concerned with who had the greatest album, athletic performance, or sexiest celebrity scandal in the past 10 years, we want to know what’s going to happen next (assuming health insurance executives, terrorists, or the Mayans don’t kill us all first). It’s true, 2010 technically “hasn’t happened yet” but we’ve never been ones to let things like facts, events, or reality get in the way of a good news story and we’re not about to start now.  And so, in a TTM exclusive, we are proud to bring you 20 headlines guaranteed to be filling newspapers and Perez Hilton’s Twitter feed over the next 12 months.  You can discount them for being made-up, far-fetched and unlikely to ever happen, but, hey, that’s good enough for 70 million Obama voters so it’s more than good enough for us.  Please enjoy responsibly.

PELOSI’S BILL FOR FEDERALLY FUNDED TOILET PAPER OPTION INCLUDES FINES FOR NOT WIPING ASS

POLL SHOWS MAJORITY OF AMERICANS DON’T TRUST POLLS

TEN MILLION CHINESE TROOPS “JUST VISITING,” SAYS OBAMA

WANDA SYKES SHOW IN SECOND SEASON – AMERICANS BAFFLED

15 MORE WOMEN, 6 MEN, 3 HORSES, 4 SHEEP, AND AN END TABLE CLAIM TO HAVE HAD AFFAIR WITH TIGER WOODS

GLOBAL WARMING NOW PERVASIVE, CATASTROPHIC; CHICAGO A TROPICAL PARADISE

CATHOLIC PRIEST CLAIMS TIGER WOODS MOLESTED HIM

OBAMA OFFERS CALIFORNIA TO CHINA AS DEBT REPAYMENT, “NO THANK YOU” THEY RESPOND

AMERICA INVADES IRAN, OBAMA WINS SECOND NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

JIMMY FALLON STILL TELLING JOKES ABOUT PRESIDENT BUSH

PALIN ANNOUNCES RUN FOR PRESIDENCY IN 2012, BABY JESUS CRIES

ILLINOIS SELLS OBAMA’S SENATE SEAT TO MARK CUBAN TO COMBAT RISING BUDGETARY DEFICIT

OBAMA BECOMES FIRST BLACK PERSON TO GIVE “STATE OF THE UNION” ADDRESS

WORLD CUP MAKES AFRICA SEEM ALMOST BEARABLE

WINTER OLYMPICS A SUCCESS, NO ONE NOTICES

FURBY ARRESTED FOR PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS, SAYS, “I USED TO BE ON TOP.”

“SEXT” RAPIST GETS DEATH SENTENCE; JURY SAYS, “C YA”

ABC’S “BIGGEST LOSER: RELAPSE” CANCELLED, AMERICA LOSES HOPE

LOST’S SMOKE MONSTER REVEALED, OBAMA TO GUEST STAR

KANYE INTERRUPTS OBAMA’S NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY, SAYS “DESMOND TUTU WAS BETTER”

Thanks to Christian Gonzalez and Kent for contributing headlines to the list.

Popularity: 6% [?]

I have a friend who is in the process of obtaining a student visa in order to attend an a university here in Chicago. The hoops that they require you to jump through are extensive and often ludicrous, but nothing has been quite as amusing in its absurdity as the questions on a mandatory questionnaire. I’ve included some of my favorites:

Do you have a communicable disease of public health significance such as tuberculosis (TB)?

Have you ever violated, or engaged in a conspiracy to violate, any law relating to controlled substances?

Are you coming to the United States to engage in prostitution or unlawful commercialized vice or have you been engaged in prostitution or procuring prostitutes within the past 10 years?

Do you seek to engage in espionage, sabotage, export control violations, or any other illegal activity while in the United States?
Read the full story

Popularity: 5% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about liberal bumper stickers?  Actually, I just want to talk about one.  I’ve only asked for five minutes of your time so I’ll have to save “Not my President”, “Meat is Murder”, and “The blood of New Orleans is on Republican hands” for another day.  I’m going to give up my ranting rights with those stickers to talk about another one that is more infectious than all other liberal stickers combined (probably because it has lots of pictures and only one word).  Indeed, the only thing liberals enjoy putting on their cars more than this sticker is a Subaru logo and Oregon plates.

I’m sure you’ve seen this sticker.  It was probably plastered to the ass end of a Prius outside a farmer’s market or college book store or abortion clinic in Vermont and you probably didn’t even look twice at it.  Maybe you thought it was clever.  Maybe you were dimly accepting of its message.  Well you were wrong.  It’s not clever, it’s not cute, it’s not creative.  It’s ignorant.  It also happens to be one of the three things a human being can do to make me instantly dislike them and discount everything they say from that point further:

1)      They can talk during an episode of LOST.

2)      They can say (during LOST or at any other time), “You know, George Lopez is actually pretty funny.”

3)      They can put a “Coexist” sticker on the bumper of their car.

Read the full story

Popularity: 18% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about California, or, to quote 30 Rock’s Jack Donaghy, The Gaypublic of Drugifornia?  There was once a dream that was California. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish… it was so fragile.  At the edge of the continent, past the purple mountains and fruity plains, was to be a found a sanctuary where America’s huddled masses could forget about breathing free and indulge their true passions: fame, frappuccinos, and fornication.  This was not a state.  It was a shining beacon to beaches, bikinis, biker gangs, burritos, boob jobs, bongs, and the other cornerstones of a developed society.

Unfortunately, Californians are as bad at whispering as they are at putting out wild fires or being straight.  They peddled their dream through teen soap operas, Colin Hanks movies, and pop/punk songs to a waiting world and it died quicker than a security guard at a Raiders game.  What remains is the bombed out shell of a state that has all the charm of Miami in the 80s except with higher taxes and slightly less cocaine.

Thanks to California, we now know the answer to the age-old quandary: what would happen if 30 million addicts, war protesters, child actors and sex offenders banded together and took over a country?  What happens is a deficit of $26.3 billion, an unemployment rate of 9.3%, humans breeding with goats, and a thousand other maladies born from a populace that is heavy on opinions and light on fully-functioning brains. Read the full story

Popularity: 7% [?]

Ah, FoxNews. I’m a conservative. I really am. And an evangelical. You’d think I’d have Glenn Beck on my TiVo, a bookshelf filled with volumes with O’Reilly on their spines, and “No F’ing Spin Zone” on my bumper. You’d be wrong, my friends.

It’s not because I wholeheartedly hate or vehemently disagree with everything FN does. On the contrary, their coverage of the ACORN debacle was significantly more comprehensive than any of the other networks commonly labeled as “liberal.” A government funded agency is advising people how to start a brothel, do it under the government’s radar, and maybe even get it funded by the government? And they’re doing it on tape? In multiple cities? How the hell is that a partisan issue? Kudos to FN for blowing the lid off of that one.

Then there are front page headlines like this one. Thanks to Kent for sending me this screenshot he took from his work computer.

Dammit, FN. Just dammit. This is why people think we’re dumb. It’s an article about how the USDA has confirmed that a pig has swineflu. That’s a front page headline on their website. How stupid this is, let me count the ways. Read the full story

Popularity: 19% [?]

This article was originally written for www.gapersblock.com. You can see the article there also.

So I was at the post office the other day, mailing something to my special lady friend. It’s long distance so you really have to send letters and what not to keep points on the scoreboard, so to speak. I had tried FedEx and UPS, but their prices were astronomical – $60 bucks when USPS was $10 – $20.

There I was, putting some stuff in a box and filling out all the appropriate forms, when some girl came in to ship something. It was only the two of us there at the Post Office, so I could easily hear her conversation with the USPS employee. The girl was trying to pay for her purchase with a credit card that said “See I.D.” where the signature bar is on the back. The USPS employee was not down with that. You see, their policy is that you have to sign your cards. “You can sign your card right now, but we won’t take it if it’s not signed,” the employee told the young lady – the damsel in distress, you might say.

Logic isn't in their policy.

“I work at a bank,” the girl protested. “We tell all of our customers to write ‘See I.D’ on the back of their cards because it’s more secure. Your I.D. has your signature and your picture on it. It helps protect against theft.”

“Hard to argue against that logic,” I affirmed her silently in my mind. This was, after all, the same policy that I myself practiced.

“Our policy says that you have to sign the card,” the employee persisted.

“But you can just see my I.D.” the girl continued in futility.

“Ma’am you can either sign the card now or pay with cash,” repeated the error message, reminiscent of the infuriating experiences we’ve all had with some type of electronics that malfunction despite all forms of reason. The customer yielded, her white flag waving as she handed over the cash for her purchase. Her head hung low as she marched out of the building, defeated. Read the full story

Popularity: 14% [?]

Can I talk to you for five minutes about health care?  Last night, while I was trying to find Frankie Muniz’s E! True Hollywood Story, I accidentally stumbled upon MSNBC and was deeply disturbed by what I found there.  If Keith Olbermann and the channel’s other intolerable lesbian are to believed, it seems a healthy percentage of the American populace spent the final month of their summer at community centers heaping invective on the government overlords responsible for their respective townships.  The cause of their ire is, from what I could ascertain, a strong affinity for or hatred of doctors.

For me, the MSNBC report raised two immediate questions.  One, hasn’t the invention of the television made “Town Hall” meetings obsolete? Two, isn’t it time someone punched that smirk off Rachel Maddow’s face? When I got done thinking about those questions, I thought of a third: What?

Since politics is one of the few subjects that confuse me more than the work of Tyler Perry, I usually make it a point to stay out of it and make fun of the people who care.  However, when it comes to health care, I feel I have a valuable perspective that can help clarify this convoluted issue.  During their broadcasts, I heard Mrs. Olbermann and Mr. Maddow implore their viewers to imagine what it must feel like to be one of the 40 million uninsured Americans who live each day with one foot in the Walgreens and one foot in the grave.  Well I don’t have to imagine what it’s like, I live it every day.  I am one of those uninsured Americans.  You want to know what it’s like?  It’s awesome. Read the full story

Popularity: 11% [?]