Get Cynical

Tarantulas must be terribly nearsighted.

(via PoeTV)

Codpiece!!!

Kinkade production company Pacific Metro LLC of Morgan Hill, Calif., filed for Chapter 11 protection Wednesday in nearby San Jose, disclosing in court papers that it’s “in serious financial condition and is unable to continue without debt relief.” The filing came a day after Pacific Metro, formerly known as Thomas Kinkade Co. and Media Arts Group Inc., was supposed to make a $1 million payment to two former art gallery owners in connection with a lawsuit, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The filing will prevent Pacific Metro’s creditors, including Karen Hazlewood and Jeff Spinello, from demanding payment. Hazlewood and Spinello won a $3 million legal judgment against the company in a lawsuit they brought against Kinkade alleging that he used his Christian faith to fraudulently persuade them to open one of the artist’s “signature” galleries. As a result, Hazlewood and Spinello said they suffered such ills as being stuck with merchandise they couldn’t sell. In a long-running legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, Hazlewood and Spinello won a $2.8 million legal judgment against Pacific Metro, some of which the company already paid off and another portion of which came due this week.

What does The 2nd Chapter (The Cow) of the Qur’an say about disbelievers?

2:6 As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not.

2:7 Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.

2:39 But they who disbelieve, and deny Our revelations, such are rightful Peoples of the Fire. They will abide therein.

2:85 Believe ye in part of the Scripture and disbelieve ye in part thereof ? And what is the reward of those who do so save ignominy in the life of the world, and on the Day of Resurrection they will be consigned to the most grievous doom.

2:88 And they say: Our hearts are hardened. Nay, but Allah hath cursed them for their unbelief. Little is that which they believe.

2:89 The curse of Allah is on disbelievers.

2:90 Evil is that for which they sell their souls: that they should disbelieve in that which Allah hath revealed, grudging that Allah should reveal of His bounty unto whom He will of His slaves. They have incurred anger upon anger. For disbelievers is a shameful doom.

2:98 Who is an enemy to Allah, and His angels and His messengers, and Gabriel and Michael! Then, lo! Allah (Himself) is an enemy to the disbelievers.

2:99 Verily We have revealed unto thee clear tokens, and only miscreants will disbelieve in them.

2:104 O ye who believe, say not (unto the Prophet): “Listen to us” but say “Look upon us,” and be ye listeners. For disbelievers is a painful doom.

2:121 Those unto whom We have given the Scripture, who read it with the right reading, those believe in it. And whoso disbelieveth in it, those are they who are the losers.

2:126 As for him who disbelieveth, I shall leave him in contentment for a while, then I shall compel him to the doom of Fire – a hapless journey’s end!

2:161 Lo! Those who disbelieve, and die while they are disbelievers; on them is the curse of Allah and of angels and of men combined.

2:171 The likeness of those who disbelieve (in relation to the messenger) is as the likeness of one who calleth unto that which heareth naught except a shout and cry. Deaf, dumb, blind, therefore they have no sense.

2:254 O ye who believe! spend of that wherewith We have provided you ere a day come when there will be no trafficking, nor friendship, nor intercession. The disbelievers, they are the wrong-doers.

2:257 As for those who disbelieve, their patrons are false deities. They bring them out of light into darkness. Such are rightful owners of the Fire. They will abide therein.

2:286 Allah tasketh not a soul beyond its scope. For it (is only) that which it hath earned, and against it (only) that which it hath deserved. Our Lord! Condemn us not if we forget, or miss the mark! Our Lord! Lay not on us such a burden as thou didst lay on those before us! Our Lord! Impose not on us that which we have not the strength to bear! Pardon us, absolve us and have mercy on us, Thou, our Protector, and give us victory over the disbelieving folk.

From AOLNews:

Women in Saudi Arabia should give their breast milk to male colleagues and acquaintances in order to avoid breaking strict Islamic law forbidding mixing between the sexes, two powerful Saudi clerics have said. They are at odds, however, over precisely how the milk should be conveyed.

A fatwa issued recently about adult breast-feeding to establish “maternal relations” and preclude the possibility of sexual contact has resulted in a week’s worth of newspaper headlines in Saudi Arabia. Some have found the debate so bizarre that they’re calling for stricter regulations about how and when fatwas should be issued.

Sheikh Al Obeikan, an adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, set off a firestorm of controversy recently when he said on TV that women who come into regular contact with men who aren’t related to them ought to give them their breast milk so they will be considered relatives.

“The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman,” Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. “He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam’s rules about mixing.”

(via Boing Boing)

From Cinematical.com:

Wow. Truly, wow. I’m not exactly speechless (that’s a bad thing for a film critic to be), but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film quite like Chris Morris’ Four Lions. It’s a comedy. That much I know for sure. A political comedy, in a way, but more specifically I suppose, it’s a terrorism comedy. And, needless to say at this point, it’s a pitch-black satire the likes of which we rarely see. I’m certainly not making the comparison, but Four Lions has the balls of a Network, a Dr. Strangelove, and a M*A*S*H. Possibly all three films combined. Adjectives like provocative, incendiary, audacious, and shocking come immediately to mind.

Is the world (OK, is America) ready for a broad and witheringly trenchant farce about Al Qaeda aspirants who scheme and bumble their way into blowing up a London “fun run” marathon? A comedy that satirizes young terrorists like Police Academy lampooned stupid policemen? A slapstick farce in which suicide bombers are (for lack of a better word) the heroes?? I cannot offer an opinion on that, but I can say that I’m grateful to attend film festivals, which is sometimes the only place to find movies this outrageously “edgy” … yet powerfully intelligent. If Four Lions is not the best film I see at Sundance this year, then that’s good news for me: that means I’ll be seeing something awesome in the next three days.

As the film opens, we meet a group of London-based goofballs who desperately want to blow something up. They’re not sure what they should destroy, or even why, but they seem convinced that strapping themselves down with explosives is the appropriate thing for five young, radical Muslims to be excited about. There’s the charismatic leader Omar (Riz Ahmed), the powerfully obtuse sidekick Waj (Kayvan Novak, hilarious), the caucasian-yet-militant Barry (Nigel Lindsay), the musically-inclined Hassan (Arsher Ali), and the monumentally paranoid Faisal (Adeel Akhtar). The bad news is that the quintet is planning something bad. The good news is that the quintet is a generally clueless and consistently inept crew.

(via Talking Points Memo)

I was wondering what happened to Andy Dick.

(via Buzzfeed)

From Deadline.com:

For almost two decades, Hollywood has tried unsuccessfully to turn Ayn Rand’s 1100 page classic Atlas Shrugged into a feature film with actresses ranging from Angelina Jolie to Charlize Theron to Faye Dunaway. John Aglialoro, the entrepreneur who 17 years ago paid $1 million to option the book rights, is tired of the futility and is taking matters into his own hands. He’s announced that he is financing a June 11 production start in Los Angeles for the first of what he said will be four films made from the book.

Aglialoro, who had a hand in writing the script by Brian O’Tool, is taking on this ambitious plan with an unproven director, and is weeks away from production without stars to play Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, John Galt and the other roles. He’s moving forward despite the conventional wisdom that without stars, it could ultimately be the audience that shrugged.

Andrea Miller, CEO of some relationship website, explains how to date one of those Indian creatures:

Most Indians are innately gracious, social creatures; they highly value friends and family and have a calendar filled with various holidays and occasions to celebrate, which they typically do with gusto. Those endless jubilant dance numbers in Bollywood movies pretty much channel the Indian soul. Moreover, Indian men love to dance. If for no other reason other than you want someone to dance with you (or without you for that matter), date an Indian.

Ok, now that the stock for single Indians is up, you need to be on your game if you want to date one. If you are Indian, you can skip the rest of this post and spend the next four minutes savoring your desirability. If you are not Indian, keep reading to learn seven things that should ingratiate you with them. The first five have to do with Bollywood. Indians take Bollywood and their celebrities very seriously.

And The Awl answers back with How to Date a White Bitch.

Cherie Priest on the oil spill:

So I’m finding it hard to talk about the BP oil spill. It is horrible in the most literal sense — it instills within me a sense of true, deep, abject horror. It is creeping and (for the moment, at least) unstoppable. It is killing everything it touches, and it is huge, and it is trying to touch everything.

Jesus Christ. We broke the ocean.

(Yes, we. All of us who drive when we could walk or ride our bikes or use public transportation; those of us who pick up the marginally cheaper product when it comes to these things and many others when there are often more responsible options available. All of us who haven’t been paying attention while the protective laws and regulations have been gutted, eliminated, and ignored. We did this. We made these oil companies rich. We gave them the power to do this. And therefore, we too are responsible – and if that sounds terrible, good. It ought to.)

The Onion just has to report news at this point:

LONDON—As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.

The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has completely devastated the Gulf region, delaying cleanup efforts, affecting thousands of jobs, and endangering the lives of all nearby wildlife.

“Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest,” said BP CEO Tony Hayward, letting loose a colossal stream of undiluted bullshit. “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean, and the volume of oil we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total volume of water.”

According to sources, the sheer quantity of bullshit pouring out of Hayward is unprecedented, and it has thoroughly drenched the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, with no end in sight.

Though no one knows exactly how much of the dangerous bullshit is currently gushing from BP headquarters, estimates put the number at somewhere between 25,000 and 70,000 words a day.