One of the best opening paragraphs I’ve read in a long time…

Poor Big Brother. George Orwell’s famous symbol of intrusive security has acquired some frighteningly absurd lines in our time. Gone are ‘War Is Peace,’ ‘Freedom Is Slavery,’ and ‘Ignorance Is Strength.’ Instead we have warnings like ‘Do not iron clothes on body,’ ‘Caution, hot beverages are hot,’ ‘Remove occupants from stroller before folding,’ and ‘Do not attempt to stop chainsaw blade with hands.’

Wow.

This is not the punchline of a red-neck joke. Well, it is, but not in this case.

Stockholm hospital now calls him Manuel to avoid any confusion.

Bosses at a Stockholm hospital have asked a nurse called Jesus to change his name, after concerns that it might cause confusion among patients.

According to Jesus, an auxiliary nurse at Huddinge hospital, his superiors were worried that patients told “Jesus will be coming soon ,” might get the wrong idea.

“If they thought that Jesus was coming they might believe that they were already dead,” the nurse told The Local.

I’m offended by this.

Teachers at nursery schools in Oxfordshire, England, have asked children to change the words of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to “Baa, Baa, Rainbow Sheep” to avoid the possibility of offending anyone.

Just when you thought you had seen all sides of the arguments for and against allowing Dubai to handle the management of the ports this gem comes along. Dubai is offering driver’s license training in Braille.

But he can’t convince the Social Security Administration.

Katharine DeBrecht’s children’s book, Help Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed!, can be summed up in one word. Hilarious. Every page brought a new chuckle.

Tommy and Lou, two young boys, decide they want a swingset like all of their friends are getting. But Tommy and Lou’s mom suggests that the boys earn it instead of having it given to them, which leads ultimately to an entrepreneurial lemonade stand. The boys have a dream, in which the “liberals” one by one come in and take half their money in taxes (Ted Kennedy), require that they take down the picture of Jesus that is on their stand (the ACLU), require that they give out broccoli with each glass of lemonade sold and put caps on the amount of sugar per glass (Hillary). Eventually, in their dream, the lemonade stand is so weighed down with red tape that it begins to fail, and the liberals take over because it is now obvious that these two boys can’t run a lemonade stand on their own. There are press conferences and useless handouts to poor kids woven throughout as well.

The story, as others have noted, has great full color illustrations and is billed as a book for children ages 4-8, but realistically, it’s funnier as an adult. The message is dead on, despite the lampooning that this book has received from some of my more liberal friends. I highly recommend this book as a coffee table novelty item in addition to being a fun children’s introduction to the economics of taxation and regulation in a free market economy.

Others are commenting on this book as well.

Dan Phillips:

The ideas are very good. It felt as if the humor could have used a bit more polish and honing, the analogies a bit more work. My family observed that the title doesn’t actually work into the story at any point, clever though it is. Nonetheless, if the target is younger children, it was a total success with mine; and the back of the book suggests that more are on the way.

Taegan Goddard thought it was a joke.

Shakespeare’s Sister doesn’t appreciate the humor.

If only this were a joke, but it’s not. This adorable little book which recasts liberals as the monsters that children find under their beds is described as “a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism.” What are those valuable lessons, you ask? Namely, that liberals will ruin your life!

…

This book is recommended for children 4-8, which has apparently been identified by conservatives as the perfect age range to begin the indoctrination of children with hatemongering against their fellow Americans. Well decided, I say. You can’t start early enough helping children unlearn the intellectualism, logic, reason, and critical thinking skills that are foisted down their throats at that liberal brainwashing factory known as the public school system.

Likewise, Cookie Christine doesn’t find funny the obvious hyperbole.

Call me crazy, but when’s the last time a liberal demanded that a private enterprise couldn’t display a picture of Jesus or demanded that they sell something that they don’t want to sell? And since when are taxes half of a business’s revenue?

Andrew Sullivan got conned by fabricated pictures (ie. satire) from the book that were posted on the DU’s Top Ten Conservative Idiots list.

And Matt over at B4B thinks that the liberal reactions shown above are enough to make him want to buy it.

If that’s not enough to convince you to get this book, whether it be for your kids, your friend’s kids, expectant parents, or whomever, I am sure you can tell by the reaction of liberals that this is a book worth getting.

Note: I received this book as a gift from the publisher through Mind & Media.

It doesn’t get more ironic than this.

An arson trial was interrupted when sparks from an electrical fire showered the judge and his clerk while a fire chief was testifying.

UPDATE: This seems to fit the ironic theme too.

Dave Ross‘ “Fill in the Blanks: Another Load of Birdshot” is pretty funny.

UPDATE: Further down the Dave Ross site, this is a great rendition of This Land.

Oops.

Mourners realised a mistake had been made when Bogoljub rang his daughter on her cellphone during the funeral service to ask why no one had been to visit him for a few days

Gateway Pundit has come out in an early sign of support, urging fellow bloggers to support Cindy Sheehan’s run for the Senate.

Cindy has been to Washington DC before, but the US Senate needs Cindy now more than ever:

* To distribute wealth evenly
* To help set up a Department of Peace
* To set up a Department of History where Cindy will be the first Secretary!
* To get the occupiers out of New Orleans
* To fight the perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire
* To build a world in which the human being is really human
* To stop concealing torture camps in other countries allied to the empire
* To stop our government and corporatism from impoverishing or killing innocents
* To stop an invasion of Venezuela
* To stop US President George W. Bush of “terrorism against the world”
* To sing communist hymns with fists raised
* To teach our troops that “Hajis,” the brown skinned people of Iraq who clean their toilets, showers, and wash their clothes are NOT less than people

CindyForSenate. And Michelle Malkin picks Cindy and Hugo hugging as the picture of the day.

Taylor Marsh, who bills herself as “the antidote to Right-Wing talk,” thinks Cindy Sheehan has lost her mind.

She should have stuck to her anti-Iraq war platform and left the celebrity politicking to Sean Penn. But announcing a challenge to Senator Diane Feinstein, from Venezuela? This is weird in so many ways it’s impossible to recount them all.

…

Any reader of this blog knows that I’m not a fan of our pathetically incompetent president, but let’s get serious. George W. Bush “the biggest terrorist in the world”? Unfathomable. To say so is preposterous, not to mention that it blows Ms. Sheehan’s credibility out of the water. It’s impossible to take anyone seriously who uses this type of language against the president of the United States. You also don’t bash your country’s leadership, especially in a foreign country. I’m old fashioned that way. When on foreign soil you don’t denigrate your country or the president, regardless of who it is or how you feel, period.

But again, threatening to challenge Diane Feinstein while in Venezuela? Words escape me, almost.

Ms. Sheehan evidently believes in Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism,” as do a lot of other righteous far left activists. However, I completely disavow any association with this type of rhetoric, philosophy, or political goal. In my humble opinion, it is against everything on which the Founders built this republic, everything.

…

The last thing I want to see is a cat fight between Sheehan and Feinstein, which would be a political fodder fight of the first order. Since the most committed always wins, you’ve still got to wonder which of these women would have the most loyal supporters. The unknown answer to that question terrifies me.

Yes, a Senate run by Cindy Sheehan would be the best thing to happen to conservative politics in a while.

Heh.

Meanwhile, for those of us who are alumni of the Homer Simpson School of Romance (and thus won’t be thinking about any of this until Feb. 13), the article also offers some cautionary words of wisdom: “Valentine’s Day is not the time to give your lady anything that plugs into the kitchen wall.”

This one’s the best I’ve ever heard.

“My son accidentally fell asleep next to wet cement in our backyard. His foot fell in and we can’t get it out.”

Scott Ott has the story.

When Usama bin Laden, in his most recent threatening audiotape, recommended William Blum’s five year old book, The Rogue State, its sales rank on Amazon.com jumped from 209,000 to 20. That success has launched a new business for al Qaeda that could challenge the dominance of Oprah Winfrey in the book club industry.

Members of Usama’s Book Club will receive personal recommendations from the charismatic leader, as well as the opportunity to review the club’s latest featured selection every 30 days “at no risk to life or limb, as long as you keep the book and pay the invoice.”

Here’s a pretty funny and elaborate pheromone spoof from “Dr. Myra Vanderhood.”

One day, science will understand Pherotones and their awesome power to attract the opposite sex. In the meantime, the Auditory Institute, RTP is conducting rigorous research and fieldwork to better understand Pherotones and their impact on mating behavior. Intimacy expert Dr. Myra Vanderhood is currently looking for an exclusive distributor of Pherotones so that they will be widely available to the public. But before this can happen, Pherotone researchers need your help.

Heh.

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - Kaylee Reynolds had a problem when she recently received a summons to serve on a jury. She wasn’t old enough to read it.

The 2-year-old has quite a few years to go before she reaches the minimum age of 18 to serve on a state jury.

…

Besides her questionable understanding of the concepts of guilt or innocence, there are other reasons why it’s best to wait for Kaylee to serve. Her mother, Patricia, says Kaylee gets really cranky if she doesn’t get her noontime nap.NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - Kaylee Reynolds had a problem when she recently received a summons to serve on a jury. She wasn’t old

If you haven’t heard, Ted Kennedy has written a new children’s book (seriously). The Fark Photoshoppers are, of course, there.

It’s worth the click through to see ’shops of the following titles, and more…

Mad Libs
The Wonderful Wizard of Booze
Where the Wild Things Drive
Where the Highway Ends
One Face, Two Faced, Red Face, Blue Face
The Hardy Boys: Mystery at Chapaquidick
Bridge for Dummies
Where’s Waldo Mary Jo
Green Cash and Pork

One would think this is a joke, but apparently the AP doesn’t think so.

The flamboyant former congressman is selling a dozen paintings he created at a federal hospital prison in Minnesota. The works feature pastoral scenes and horses. They’re available for up to about 200 dollars on the Web..

It’s just like in the movies. But this time it was a woman with a minivan backing over a fire hydrant.