Submitted by Andrew Boyd of Agit-Pop.com:

In January, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited $$ in our elections. In July, Target gave $150,000 to the anti-gay, anti-worker candidate for Gov. of MN. Last week, a quarter million people pledged to boycott Target.

Yesterday . . .

Learn more — Take Action — Sign the Petition at www.targetboycott.org

Double Negative

Ramsey Bros. Pictures pays tribute to Hollywood’s Golden Age. The Glitz. The Glamor. The Grammar.

thanks Erin

Submitted by Josh Jaspers:

Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers
by Paul Lewis
Guardian.co.uk
6 August 2010

Chris Atkins explains how he hoaxed the press into printing stories about urban fox hunters.

It was the internet video that sparked a media outcry: grainy footage that seemed to show four masked men drugging a fox and later beating it to death with cricket bats in a London park that was posted on YouTube and Facebook earlier this week.

But the Guardian can reveal that the new sport of “urban foxhunting” was an elaborate hoax. The film-makers, Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, said no real foxes were harmed in the film, which was intended as a satirical swipe at “media hysteria” over the danger of urban foxes.

Animal rights campaigners had expressed fury over the “bloodthirsty” huntsmen, eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by the Metropolitan police’s wildlife crime unit.

YouTube and Facebook removed the footage and the controversy was covered in news outlets including the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. The BBC was also duped, sending a reporter to Victoria Park, Hackney – the supposed scene of the crime. Amid a growing furore, the animal welfare group League Against Cruel Sports launched a campaign against urban foxhunting, while the RSPCA said it was investigating. (more…)

Submitted by Larry Croft:

Reykjavik Mayor gives Rudy Giuliani a run for his money…

Reykjavik mayor opens gay pride festival in drag
BBC News
6 August 2010

The mayor of Reykjavik has dressed up in drag to mark the opening of the Icelandic capital’s gay pride festival.

Jon Gnarr, a top comedian who became mayor in June, appeared on stage on Thursday night in a floral-print dress, blonde wig and bright red lipstick.

“The mayor unfortunately could not attend himself,” he told the crowd.

Mr Gnarr’s Best Party won the council elections after running on a platform that included free towels in swimming pools and a polar bear for the zoo. (more…)

Roman Danylo, star of “Comedy Inc.” on CTV and the Comedy Network, in the Tantric Sex Seminar sketch

thanks Linda

We were no longer “good society”…

Jane Austen’s Fight Club

Directed by Emily Janice Card & Keith Paugh, written by Emily Janice Card. © 2010 Relatively Badarse Productions

thanks Erin

John Callahan, Cartoonist, Dies at 59
by Bruce Weber
The New York Times
July 28, 2010

John Callahan, a quadriplegic, alcoholic cartoonist whose work in newspapers and magazines made irreverent, impolitic sport of both people with disabilities and diseases and those who would pity and condescend to them, died Saturday in Portland, Ore. He was 59 and lived in Portland.

The causes were complications of quadriplegia and respiratory problems, said his brother Tom.

Like his friend Gary Larson, the creator of “The Far Side,” Mr. Callahan made drawings with a gleeful appreciation of the macabre as it exists in everyday life. He was, however, a man who lived his whole life with disadvantages, some of them self-wrought, and he viewed the world through a dark and wicked lens.

“This is John, I’m a little too depressed to take your call today,” the message on his answering machine said. “Please leave your message at the gunshot.”

Bemused by the culture of confession and self-help fostered by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and others, he was uninclined, in his work, to be outwardly sympathetic to the afflicted or to respect the boundaries of racial and ethnic stereotyping, and his cartoons were often polarizing: some found them outrageously funny, others outrageously offensive.

“Shark” Eating Cardiff Surfer Statute is Removed
San Diego 6
July 27, 2010

Cardiff-by the-Sea – Encinitas city workers removed an artist’s addition to the city’s famed surfer statue Tuesday.

A bronze surfer statue has been the target of many gags.

Unknown predawn pranksters on Saturday surrounded the roadside statue in Cardiff-by-the-Sea with a papier mache model of a great white shark that appeared to be swallowing it whole.

Crowds of gawkers and photographers gathered around the 16-foot creation after the sun rose.

San Diego County sheriff’s Lt. Tony Ray said no criminal report was filed because there was no damage to the statue.

The $120,000 sculpture called “Magic Carpet Ride” was commissioned by the Cardiff Botanical Society in 2007.

The statue has been bedecked with bras, skirts and witch hats so many times that locals have come to call it “The Cardiff Kook.”

City workers showed up shortly before 8:00 Tuesday morning and started tearing down the shark addition.

photo: Chromotive

Street artists step it up with 3D
by Leslie Katz
CNET
July 26, 2010

You don’t need special glasses to view the 3D street art in the gallery below, but you do need to approach it from just the right vantage point to see or photograph the full effect.

The mind-bending images are inspired by anamorphism, a centuries-old technique used in frescoes and other drawings to create the illusion of height and width (as such, 3D street painting is sometimes called anamorphic or illusionistic).

Scroll through the pictures to view vivid imagery that turns 2D asphalt into amazing 3D art. (more…)

(more…)

thanks Linda

July 19, 2010 Updates:

Twitter Communiques From Fake French Foreign Ministry on Haiti Hoax
by Robert Mackey
The Lede Blog, NY Times
July 16, 2010

A group calling itself The Committee for the Immediate Reimbursement of Funds Taken From Haiti took credit on Friday for an elaborate hoax carried out this week in which an actor pretending to be a spokesperson for the French government announced that France would reimburse Haiti money it was forced to pay in exchange for its independence in the nineteenth century.

As The Lede explained on Thursday, the fake announcement was posted on a near replica of the French foreign ministry’s Web site on Wednesday in both video and text form.

In an update posted on a Twitter feed established this week, in the guise of France’s foreign ministry, the group, using the French form of its name, announced:

(more…)

By Paul Krassner, via Toni Dalton:

Tuli Kupferberg is better off dead.

My friend and countercultural icon had been suffering from a couple of strokes, hospitals, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, anemia, infections, blindness, catheter, hearing aids, wheelchairs, psychosis, memory loss, diapers, constipation, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, fatigue and a chronically bed-ridden life that seemed to be no life worth living.

Tuli was a dedicated truthseeker, and I’d like to honor that quality with a couple of truths.

There was a rumor that Phiip Roth had lifted the onanistically obsessed idea for Portnoy’s Complaint from a song by the Fugs–a band on the cusp of rock and punk, named after Norman Mailer’s euphemism for fuck in The Naked and the Dead–but this notion was disavowed by Fugs leader Ed Sanders, who assured me, “Philip Roth did not plagiarize a Fugs song. He came to a Fugs show in 1966, and I think he was inspired by Tuli, in top hat and cane, singing ‘Jack-Off Blues.’  Many times in reunion concerts, introducing Tuli singing that song, I have suggested that Roth got some of the impetus for Portnoy’s Complaint from that time he was inspired by the Tuli tune.” (more…)

What Women Want: Mel Gibson’s Recut Trailer
Slate
July 14, 2010

Following the release of Mel Gibson’s profane rants against his ex-girlfriend, Slate V conjures a new NSFW version of the trailer for “What Women Want.”

Prank leaves Justin Bieber facing tour of North Korea
by Daniel Emery
BBC News
July 7, 2010

Canadian singer Justin Bieber’s has become the target of a viral campaign to send him to North Korea.

A website polled users as to which country he should tour next, with no restrictions on the nations that could be voted on.

There are now almost half a million votes to send the singer to the secretive communist nation.

The contest, which ends at 0600 on 7 July, saw North Korea move from 24th to 1st place in less than two days.

Many of the votes are thought to originate from imageboard website 4chan, which has built a reputation for triggering online viral campaigns. (more…)