President and Michelle Obama took time out from their busy diplomatic schedule to meet with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and his wife Clio.

Although he confessed it was hard to take seriously a head of State who was named after that three-flavored ice cream and who had a wife named after an advertising award, Obama extended traditional American courtesy and offered to include the Italian President and First Lady in a TV commercial that will air later this year.

The commercial is believed to be the first by a sitting President.

Officials for the Democratic National Committee were thrilled with the results and hinted that the President and First Lady may be available for future AT&T commercials…

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That’s right, baby….
‘More bars in more places.’

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Image: Yahoo News

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Post from: Bizlevity

It was a crisis of epic proportions.

Well, of 38-24-36 proportions, anyway.

It seems the Design Review Board of Reading, Ohio took offense at a big-breasted mannequin dressed in a halter top and short shorts that was being used to advertise the finger lickin’ good ribs at KT’s Barbecue Restaurant.

The Design Review Board — which is a pretty fancy name for a group of uptight dickheads — felt the plastic store model was distracting the young folk of the town from more wholesome pursuits like cow tipping and sleeping with their cousins.

Restaurant owner Ken Tessel rushed to court to defend the honor and the attire of his advertising mascot, BarBe Q. (Miss BarBe Q, if you’re nasty.)

Tessel had a vested interest in allowing the mannequin to dress like a slut since sales had surged 40%, with a throbbing, pulsing, life of their own that could only be satisfied by a frenzied loss of inhibitions as customers gave into their desire for the sweet, tangy and, yes … they could admit it now to themselves … slightly dangerous and forbidden taste of slow, tender, smoked barbecue.

Uh, … anyway, sales were up big since BarBeQ started flaunting her cleavage.

Tessel took his case to the Reading Board of Zoning Appeals after the Design Board said he could keep the mannequin as long as he agreed to dress BarBe Q more demurely.

Luckily, the majority of the Zoning Board figured they had more important issues that needed to be addressed — since unemployment in the Rust Belt is only, oh .. I don’t know, like 85%.

Or maybe it was just that most of the Board members either had Cinemax, seen a Victoria’s Secret catalogue or had downloaded porn and figured an Old-Navy-bathing-suit-wearing mannequin wasn’t the best place to fight a skirmish in the Culture Wars.

In any event, the Zoning Board ruled that Ken Tressel could continue to live out his fantasies by dressing BarBe Q in a provocative manner … as long as he kept serving those DD-licious ribs!

All’s well that ends well.

The controversy has died down and the most excitement folks in Reading, Ohio get these days is when there’s Double Coupon Day down at the local supermarket.

KT’s Restaurant continues to do a booming business, the Design Board has moved on to more important things and BarBe Q got 17 marriage proposals after the most recent happy hour.

In a related story, Ken Tessel is seeking approval for his new advertising gimmick: serving barbecued ribs off the stomach of naked models.

But only if you order a full rack.

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Also proving to be a hit at KT’s Restaurant: The Annual Miss BarBe Q Contest.
Motto: They’re women you’d give your last rib to get with.

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Thanks and a wave from my inflatable doll to Phil Gerbyshak over at Slacker Manager for the head’s up (no jokes, please) on this story.

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

I’m just going to link to the best Hollywood site on the Net, What Would Tyler Durden Do, because it had the best line about Jackson’s funeral…

It would be awesome if those drums were Decepticons waiting to pounce on everyone involved with Michael Jackson’s memorial later this morning. Seems unlikely. Hopefully, you’re fascinated by all this because today is gonna be dominated by Michael Jackson like it was a drugged up little boy.

…and also because I’m way too tired of all the hoopla already.

Let’s try to pace ourselves here, people. For at least the next 50 years, we’re going to be reading about Jackson’s legacy, custody battles for his kids and Enquirer headlines about how he didn’t really die but is hiding out in a witness protection program from a group of Russian mobsters.

When will we learn that capitalizing on someone’s death is a marathon, not a sprint?

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False advertising

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

What do you get when you cross a group of ethnic “religion of peace” Muslims with a growing population of “harmonious society” Communist Chinese?

If you said, “A Quentin Tarantino movie … but without the cool soundtrack,” you’d be correct.

After a fight between two factory workers turned into a protest which turned into a melee, which turned into a riot, which turned into rampaging hordes of ethnic groups wielding meat cleavers, the local Chinese government declared a curfew and said it would stop Uma Thurman at the border.

The Chinese government has promoted internal migration to the Western region of the country which has angered the minority Muslim Uighurs who live in the area and contributed to simmering hostilities between the Uighurs and the Han Chinese who also inhabit the province.

In response to the government crackdown in China, the Uighurs did the only reasonable thing — they attacked embassies in Turkey, Germany and Norway.

Because those damn Norwegians are always stirring up trouble.

I’m hard pressed to think of anything you could even get upset with Norway about unless it’s flooding the world with too many blondes or a bad piece of smoked salmon.

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“Unless that’s a Hattori Honzo meat cleaver, you’d best back off…”

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

Vassup?! The global center of haute couture may be shifting from Paris to … Afghanistan?

Reuters News reports that sales of burqas in Afghanistan have dropped 50% at some stores since the Taliban was ousted from power in 2001.

It seems women in Afghanistan, reveling in their new found freedom, have decided dressing like a sock puppet in 110 degree heat is just sooo 13th century.

In an effort to dress more trendy than ever before — and by “more trendy” I mean like a cloistered nun in the Middle Ages — Afghani women are embracing the chador namaz which is just like the burqa except it has an opening for your face.

In the decadent capital of Kabul, it’s been reported women have even taken to sporting the mantau chalvar, a long coat worn over pants and accompanied by a mandatory head scarf.

How up-to-the-minute is the mantau chalvar? It’s so right now it doesn’t even come up on a Google picture search — making it even rarer than pre-release photos of the iPhone.

Shopkeeper Nehmatullah Yusefy is not new to the fashion industry, but still struggles to keep up with the fast pace of change in an industry that seems to come out with new styles every seven or eight centuries.

“I think, God willing, the sales of burqas will decrease, then I will sell chador namaz and even maybe mantau chalvar,” said the shopkeeper.

“Of course, we’re also looking to diversify into the lucrative Halloween market in the U.S.,” noted Yusefy.

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“Is too early for … how do you say … ‘trick or treat?’”
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“We tailor-make every burqa to create a much more realistic ghost costume than just a plain bedsheet with eye-holes,” explained Yusefy. “We even had one customer ask us to hand-stitch real goat hair to the burqa so their kid could go as Cousin It from the Addams Family.”

“There’s just no end to the fun you can have,” the shopkeeper continued. “One lady was so creative she crazy-glued a large tree branch to the back of the burqa and went as a cocoon.”

In a related story, Reebok has announced that spokes-model Kendra Wilkinson has no plans to visit Kabul in the near future.

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Sexier than the chador namaz? You make the call…

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

Amid reports that Jackie Kennedy had a torrid affair with Robert Kennedy and also slept with Marlon Brando, a new book is due out with new, startling revelations of famous people Jackie did not sleep with.

The book, Hey! What About Me, Jackie? is written by renowned celebrity biographer, former paparazzo and twice-convicted Peeping Tom, Orson Buggy.

Buggy’s new book promises to be quick reading since it’s only 25 pages long but the book goes into great detail about the sex that Jackie did not have with Johnny Carson, Paul McCartney and Pope Paul VI.

“It’s well known that Jackie was a huge Beatles fan and felt her reputation might suffer if people found out she slept with Ringo but not McCartney,” explained Mr. Buggy.

“Carson had fame but hadn’t signed a really big contract yet when Jackie was in her prime and it was notoriously difficult to get Pope John VI to pick up a check, so Jackie decided it would be easier to ‘keep it in the family’ and just work her way through the Kennedys. There was even a rumor that she had a lesbian affair with one of the Shrivers.”

“I couldn’t confirm the ‘lesbian fling’ but I included it anyway since that’s pretty much standard procedure when writing about Jackie,” Orson went on to say.

Rich and powerful men in the Sixties and Seventies found the combination of Jackie’s third grade voice and Stepford-Wife-like manner to be virtually irresistible, according to the author.

Hey! What About Me, Jackie? is a cautionary tale about the virtues of being a celebrity and having your sex life combed over like Donald Trump’s hairdo.

The most important thing about being a famous person, Mr. Buggy concludes, is to remain discreet about your sexual liasons.

“And don’t die, either,” says the author, “Because then a whole cottage industry will spring up dedicated to all kinds of wild speculation about your sex life.”

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And you thought the “O” stood for “Onassis”…

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

A television station in Turkey has announced a new twist on reality TV that is sure to draw tens of viewers. The new show will feature a diverse group of religious figures attempting to convert atheists to their particular religion.

Despite sounding like the set-up to a joke your father tells at Thanksgiving — (”A rabbi, a priest, a Muslim imam and a Buddhist monk walk into a reality TV set…”) — producers are busy interviewing would-be contestants for the 10 atheist spots on the show.

The prize for the winner is “a pilgrimage to a holy site of their chosen religion — Mecca for Muslims, the Vatican for Christians, Jerusalem for Jews and Tibet for Buddhists.”

The lucky winner will also receive other gifts such as spiritual peace, everlasting life, sexual guilt and enough hypocrisy and muddled thinking to last a lifetime.

Losers will either be stoned or locked in a room with a big screen TV which only plays Joel Osteen broadcasts.

The reality show is entitled Penitents Compete but only because Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? was already taken.

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“No, really … this will be fun..”

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

With the usual tip of the hat and apologies to Bob Dylan…

Sarah

I laid on my couch and I sat watching Fox,
You made an announcement, you said, “I resign.”
You called it advancing, thinking out of the box,
Your sights on the White House as President this time.

Sarah, Sarah
Whatever made you wanna change your mind
Sarah, Sarah
So easy to look at, so hard to define.

I can still see them cheering, as you walked to the stage,
They flocked to your speeches, you sounded so glib,
A female with charisma, your were all the rage,
You’ll do just fine unless you have to ad lib.

Sarah, Sarah
Alaskan sensation, new love of the Right,
Sarah, Sarah
Tina Fey glasses, gun-totin’ wife.

Chatting with Katie on TV that night,
We all tuned in, to hear what you’d say,
What you did to syntax, it was such a fright,
You set grammar back decades that day.

Sarah, Sarah
It wasn’t so clear, what you tried to project
Sarah, Oh Sarah
McCain may have wished he had more time to vet.

But seven months later you can still draw a crowd,
Droppin’ your “g”s and winkin’ at folks,
You’re anti-abortion, pro-life you’ve avowed,
Still can’t believe how Bristol got coaxed.

Sarah, Oh Sarah
Whatever the issue, you’ve got a view,
Sarah, Oh Sarah
It’s standard right-wing, just the packaging’s new.

Why are you the front-runner? I don’t know,
So hard to believe the GOP is that thin,
That dust-up with Letterman? Just let it go,
If you’re running for President, you’ll need thicker skin.

Sarah, Oh Sarah,
So often the victim, so often maligned,
Sarah, Oh Sarah,
It’s four long years, you need a new line.

Now you’ll pick advisors and reach out for help,
As you ready your bid for the ultimate prize,
You’ll no doubt carry the whole Bible belt,
It’s the rest of the country, where problems arise.

Sarah, Oh Sarah,
One last request, from a blogger I know,
Sarah, Oh Sara,
You’re always such fun, don’t ever go.

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A campaign song for the ages…

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Post from: Bizlevity

“America is the land of the uncommon man. It is the land where man is free to develop his genius — and to get its just rewards.” ~ Ayn Rand

Joseph Kellard reminds us it is often takes those who have immigrated to our country to remind us of how fortunate we are:

A Russian Immigrant’s Lesson In American Patriotism

Have a happy and safe Independence Day, everyone.

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With thanks to the Founding Fathers…

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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity

In a stunning move, Sarah Palin today announced she was planning to resign the governorship of Alaska in a few weeks in order to concentrate her efforts on a second career as a product pitch person for such well-known products as Oxy-Clean and the ShamWow.

Either that or she’s going to run for President in 2012.

Palin made the announcement at press conference held in her Wasilla home in a surprise move sure to delight Democrats and Republicans alike.

Republicans are said to be overjoyed that the most exciting personality they have will be able to devote more time toward a Presidential bid and have a full four years to learn to string together coherent sentences.

Democrats are tickled pink that Palin will be a loose cannon criss-crossing the country and Tina Fey will remain on Saturday Night Live for the foreseeable future.

Palin has announced plans to travel the country by helicopter and take potshots at roving herds of animals and gatherings of more than six registered Democrats.

In a couple of related stories, Katie Couric’s contract has been extended and Hillary Clinton has announced plans to hang herself.

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“Gotcha! And I’m tellin’ ya, I’m gonna be surprisin’ ya on a more regular basis goin’ forward…”
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Image: Zuma Press

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Post from: Bizlevity