#notallmen

Animals make bad pets!

An editorial by Lennie

When pets attack: Remember Godzilla's tragic Dancing with the Stars appearance?

About the writer: Lennie is the author of Don’t Give to Charity – It Only Teaches People to Take and The Real Science Behind Unicorns. He’s also in the Lennie’s Book of World Records for “Coolest, most popular, best-looking guy.”

His uncle owns The Anvil.

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Like all humans, I don’t care what happens to anyone else, but some people are taking their selfish disregard for the world around them to new depths. Folks, animals are living creatures, not matchbox cars or decorative candles. In other words, they are not pets!

Don’t be lulled into a false sense of affection by their sad eyes and soft fur. Those are evolutionary adaptations specifically designed by God to get these creatures into your house.

Why? Because they are too lazy to build their own houses. I didn’t use my family connections to gain employment, cheat on my taxes to get a big refund, or date a woman with zero self-esteem who I browbeat into doing all my housework… just so some “rodent with fur” can steal my thunder. Seriously, is there a worse combination of traits than being conniving and lazy? That’s animals for ya.

Not to mention they are dangerous. Some scary animal facts:

1. In the movie Jaws, a huge great white shark eats a bunch of people. You may be thinking, “Lennie, ‘huge’ and ‘great’ are kind of redundant.” Well that’s how huge it was.

2. Polar bears can smell a pie cooling on your window sill from the North Pole. Don’t you feel violated? While we’re on the subject, maybe you should stop putting pies on your window sill. You’re not a cartoon character.

3. In Ohio in the 1980s, a woman named Medusa kept pet snakes that, no doubt, had soft fur and sad eyes. Despite warnings, she allowed them to sleep at the foot of her bed. Guess what? During the night, they planted eggs in her head and snakes eventually grew in place of hair. She could not get a date after that and died a lonely spinster 50 years later. It sounds like an urban legend, but it’s not, because my friend’s cousin’s neighbor knew her.

4. Cats and dogs have bacteria on them. Ew. You don’t want that stuff near your face, do you?

5. During a live animal show in San Diego last year that featured tigers and lions, a woman in the audience got food poisoning from eating an undercooked hamburger. A hamburger made of beef.

6. Kittens are cute and cuddly all right, but leave a baby unattended around one, and you’ll come back to find a cradle full of small bones. Fact.

7. Dog biscuits are made in sweat shops by underage foreign children working 12 hours a day. Meanwhile, our preteens are unemployed and wasting time!

Now that you know the facts, take the next step and drop your house animal off at the nearest pet recycling center before you forget. You can probably get rid of your spiders that way, too, but do it fast so no one gets suspicious.

Consider yourself informed.

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(Today’s image by Sandra Tarsitano)

New Enemy in the War on Christmas

TREES!

An editorial by Lennie

Is this how Christmas ends? Probably.

 

Bob Dylan once famously said, “We will bury you without firing a single shot.”

He was, of course, talking to his archrival, Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. And Dylan was right, for he went to become rock music’s most celebrated songwriter, while the Monkees are (barely) remembered for a couple of late 1960s bubble-gum pop songs and a lame, short-lived TV show.

Dylan’s point was that wars are not won with bombs and bullets. They are won by changing hearts and minds. And that’s exactly how our enemies are fighting a war we cannot afford to lose.

I’m talking about the War on Christmas. Although you probably knew that already, having read the headline. Damn you, headline.

There are many fronts on the War on Christmas. You’ll have to watch Bill O’Reilly to find out what they are, because I forget. But the most insidious enemy of all is one we’ve long believed to be our friend. I’m talking about The Tree. (But you knew that already too, again because of the headline. Why are editorials so hard?)

We think of our green, pointy-topped brothers as so innocent and naïve. And perhaps they were… before the Arbor Day cultists recruited them for their nefarious, Christmas-hating ambitions. Don’t look now America, but trees have found their way into our shopping malls, our car dealerships, our offices, and even our homes. They’ve prettied themselves up like cheap tarts, with their blinking lights and their shiny baubles, luring you in like a fly to a rotting fruit salad. You, an idiot who is dazzled by all that sparkles and tinsels. You water it. You gaze up at it. You worship it.

Maybe I need to remind you of the second amendment of the Declaration of Independence: Thou Shall Not Worship False Idols.

With that in mind, I call upon the two most holy figures in all Christendom, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, to join forces and stamp out false idols once and for all.

Santa, if you are reading this, I know we agree there is only one God, so please, use your unlimited supernatural powers to wipe out the arborealists who think otherwise. When you come down that chimney with your bag of gifts, destroy the foul tempter you find waiting for you in at the bottom. As for the people, snug in their beds, tired from a long day of consorting with the green devil… you must slay them. Kill them as they slumber! It’s the only way to save Christmas.

No one knows why the trees have decided to infiltrate the world of humans. Maybe it’s revenge for all the furniture. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they have infiltrated and that we have to fight back. Humans must not go gently into the endless night!

Weep not for the forest fire. Sure, it sucks for the little woodland creatures, but all wars have collateral damage.

Disclaimer: As far as I can tell, deciduous trees are perfectly innocent in all this. I’d hate for you to get all riled up and chop down a maple tree in your yard because of what I wrote. If I didn’t make myself clear… it’s the Pines.

About the writer: Lennie is so unlikeable, his orphanage once put him in a basket and left him on the front steps of an unwed teenage mother’s house.

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Foreclosure Crisis Too Boring for Fake News Journals?

By Lennie

Artist's rendition showing how people might appear when reading a fake news article about foreclosures

You’ve seen them on magazine covers, spread across the front pages of newspapers, and splashed all over the Internet: Articles about the Foreclosure Crisis, usually accompanied by a photograph of a lower-middle-class ranch home with a “foreclosed” sign posted on the front lawn. If you’re a self-styled fake news journalist with several pseudonyms, you may have even thought, for f**k’s sake! Are the news media so bereft of creativity that they can’t think of another way to illustrate an article on this subject?

Whether you’re a fake news writer or not, you probably haven’t said, “Damn, the foreclosure crisis is a goldmine of comedy. It’s like a sopping-wet humor sponge waiting to be squeezed.”

[And if you’re a fake news writer who created a simile using the phrase ‘sopping-wet humor sponge,’ you probably shouldn’t be allowed near a computer keyboard ever again – Ed.]

That’s right. Foreclosure crises and comedy go together like Bill O’Reilly and Whoopi Goldberg (how’s that for topical, boss?). [whatevs – Ed.]  In fact, the last funny person who had anything to do with foreclosures was the late, great Bernie Mac who, along with Fannie Mae, lent craploads of money to people for mortgages they couldn’t afford, or something like that.

“I wouldn’t do a foreclosure article,” says Eric J Baker, head writer for the online fake news journal, The Anvil. “Not even using a false name. Financial stuff is always dull.”

Angry Pink Bunny, head writer for rival fake news journal, The Avocado, agrees. “I’d write a freaking article on filibusters before I touch foreclosure humor, if there even were such a thing. Not only is it boring, but people are sick of hearing about it.”

But what about Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, whose popular fake news program, The Daily Show, has touched on the subject numerous times?

“Don’t mention that name in my presence ever again,” bristles Bunny. “He needs a staff of hundreds to do what I do by myself. And he steals my jokes. Is he reading this? HEY, STEWART! I’M GUNNING FOR YOU. DO YOU HEAR ME, HOT SHOT? I GOT YOU IN MY CROSS HARES. PUN FREAKING INTENDED!”

Baker takes a more philosophical view.

“Jon Stewart isn’t fake news,” he says. “The Onion is fake news. The Anvil is fake news, only a lot more clever. Jon Stewart is real news, done with humor.”

To test Baker’s assertion, I decided to watch a full week’s worth of The Daily Show broadcasts. My intention was to determine if Stewart makes up events and creates false quotes or merely mocks various news broadcasters and politicians by playing video clips and offering wry commentary afterward. Then I remembered I don’t have cable.

Which is just as well, because my editor said I am only allowed 513 words per article and if I go over that amount I have to pay 10 cents per word. I just hope I have enough words left to tell you who really shot John F Kennedy. You won’t believe this, but it was

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Editorial note: The Anvil wishes to apologize to our readers for today’s Angry Pink Bunny image, which looks more like an angry pink cat in a bunny costume. We promise to do better next time.

Aliens are stealing all the good jobs!

An editorial by Lennie

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As just another one of the countless ignorant masses*, you don’t have access to information that we, the media elite, are privy to. But unlike my brethren, I don’t hide the truth. I’m just going to say it:

Aliens are stealing our jobs.

You may not like what I’m about to tell you, but it must be explained, for the future of our nation depends on it.

I just found out there are about 8 million fewer jobs today than there were three years ago, and the government doesn’t know where they went. I looked on Yahoo and a lot of people were saying “Illegal aliens are taking all the good jobs!” At first I was like, duh. There’s no law on the books that says aliens are illegal. Besides, how could we arrest them if they were? They have spaceships that fly faster than light. We have cop cars. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do that math.

Seriously, rocket scientists have more important things to do than think about obvious stuff. Like building flying cops cars maybe?

But then I read on one of the Internets that a Youtube video of an alien ship in Brazil can’t possibly be fake. Now, I’m no rocket scientist (didn’t we go over that already?), but I’m starting to see a conspiracy. You should know I’m not one of those paranoid people who believes every little conspiracy that comes along, but there are a few we know to be true:

1. An alien spacecraft is being stored at Area 51 in Loch Ness, Scotland

2. The moon landing was filmed by aliens (who else could have held the camera for Neil Peart when he stepped off the Eagle Has Landed to set foot on the moon for the first time?)

3. Michael Jackson

Factor these elements in with 8,000,000 missing jobs; millions of erudite, informed, and not-the-least-bit-wacky Yahoo users saying aliens took those jobs; and aliens that come and go as they please, and there is only one inescapable conclusion:

It would have been pretty dramatic if I started this paragraph with “Aliens are stealing our jobs,” but I did that earlier in this story, and doing it twice would make me look kind of stupid [never – Ed.].

Even the entertainment business is suffering. Lindsay Lohan was just fired from the upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic. That makes the score: 8,000,001 jobs – Aliens, zero jobs – Humans.

What are these extraterrestrials doing with these jobs? There is only one inescapable conclusion:

Aliens are using our jobs for food.

Perhaps their planet has no food left and they eat jobs there. Sure, that seems weird, but stop being so close-minded and ignorant to the wonders of science. Just because we eat gummy bears and marshmallowy orange peanuts, it doesn’t mean aliens have to eat real food too.

I urge you all to write your local Secretary of Defense and demand the government spend more money to stop aliens from taking our jobs. As of right now, we have exactly one International Space Station protecting Earth from invasion.

Hi. The Earth has two sides. Any alien with half a brain (although that might be normal on their planet… keep an open mind!) will just sneak up from the other side.

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*There are 281,740,611 of you to be exact. Man, you guys are breeding like jackrabbits.

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Media Bias is invisible, but it’s real (because I can smell it)

Yes, it has a weird smell, just like my Uncle Moe. Not stinky, per se, just weird.

 

An Editorial by  Lennie

 

A hidden menace invading your home: Water!

A famous expression goes, “The news media don’t just tell you what to think, they tell you what to think while you’re driving.”

Well, I’m about to use the news media’s favorite tool against them, because I was driving yesterday and I started thinking about media bias. It happened when I was passing a store with a sign out front that said, “Buy 2, get 1 free.” I was going too fast to see what the item was, but I still thought, Hey, that’s a good deal.

But when I got home and turned on the TV, did I see any news coverage of it? No. It was day 40-whatever of talking about the oil spill in the Persian Gulf. DAY 40 WHATEVER! How long are we going to talk about something that happened such a long time ago? I’m beginning to think the news media aren’t fixing the leak just so they can keep talking about it. And maybe because they rented the underwater cameras for six months and want to get their money’s worth.

Eventually the news channel switched to a story about North Korea sinking a South Korean warship with a torpedo. I remember thinking, Hey, you never hear about North Dakota sinking a warship from South Dakota with a torpedo. Those folks from the Dakotas sure know how to get along, I said. Good for them.

Next story was about some Israeli pirates stealing a Turkish ship or something.

And that’s when it hit me. It hit me so hard I almost pooped my pants (which might make me smell a little more like Uncle Moe, if you know what I mean). I realized it’s all part of a vast conspiracy, the sudden knowledge of which flooded my thoughts like a tsunami of awareness: The news media only cover stories that happen on the water! Oils spills. Ships sinking. Pirates. It’s all right in front of you, folks.

Think about it. Water, like media bias, is invisible, except when it has things floating in it, like oil blobs, for example. Water tastes like nothing, looks like nothing, and goes unnoticed most of the time. It’s even in your body, like a massive parasite that takes up 70 percent of the space your body gets to displace, forcing the rest of you into a cramped 30 percent area.

Media bias IS water!

I’m not sure if that’s a metaphor or a simile, but it means media bias is everywhere, unnoticed yet pervasive. Why, even the phrase “mainstream media” has “stream” in it.

Streams are made of water, in case you didn’t get that connection.

For this reason I have decided to follow Uncle Moe’s example and stop bathing. That might explain his weird smell, now that I think about it. Kind of like cigar breath mixed with burnt plastic and the foot odor of an old blues guitarist.

America, you can count on me to report the truth. I’ll be patrolling the borders of North and South Dakota to record every ship sinking the mainstream media refuses to tell you about. That is… if the conspirators don’t get to me first. [No such luck – Ed.]

Facts about Media Bias:

• “The News Media” is plural, making it sound weird in a sentence.
• The singular of “media” is either “medium” or “median” (your choice), both of which have something to do with average or being in the middle. Considering how biased the news media are, maybe we should come up with a different word. Like “lying scum” for example.
• You can tell someone is giving you the straight dope when she calls the mainstream media something funny like “lame-stream” media, or when she refuses to answer questions posed by a media attack dog like Katie Couric, even if they’re questions a baby can handle.

 

About the writer: Lennie is the only person in history to fail a Rorschach test, and he thinks you can’t see him when his eyes are closed.

Editorial: 3 Reasons Why Elena Kagan is Dangerous for America

OBAMA IS A DRAFT DODGER!

OR DID THE DODGERS DRAFT OBAMA? WHATEVER!

By Lennie

 

President Obama introduces Elena Kagan to a bunch of reporters who probably hate baseball and apple pie but love Josef Stalin

President Obama has just faced one of the most important decisions a dictator can make: Who to nominate for the Supreme Court. And he failed miserably, just like he did during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the recession in 2008 (nice bumper stickers by the way, ‘Obama 08’ people. I wouldn’t brag about that year).

Considering the person who fills the role of Supreme Court Justice is in office for 75 years, one would expect a president to put at least a little thought into it. But today’s MTV watching, Nintendo-obsessed generation has no patience for analysis and critical judgment, so this president, in his quest for instant gratification, clearly picked the first name that came across his desk. I’ll illustrate my point using what I call “a list.”

1. Elena Kagan is too short for the court

Sure, Justice John Stevens is 99 years old and his knees are gimpy, but he had one of the best three-point shots in history. And we know, come playoff time, he’ll make the sacrifices necessary to win.

Kagan, on the other hand, is about five feet tall. That doesn’t work in today’s game. She might have a few inside moves, but if she is forced into a perimeter game, it’s all over. Not only does this screw up my fantasy league, but the court will become a laughing stock.

I’m sorry to rely on these two overused words, Mr. President, but: This is Epic Fail (“This” and “is” are way overused. They’re like, all over books and dictionaries).

2. Elena Kagan is using the Supreme Court as a stepping stone

With her big white teeth and fake-friendly smile, Judge Kagan is clearly jockeying for attention from Hollywood producers. You know what other judge she reminds me of? Judge Reinhold. He preferred acting in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Beverly Hills Cop to interpreting the rule of law. In fact, I can’t even remember when he was on the Supreme Court.

I know a Supreme Court justice probably does something important, so maybe Kagan should, I don’t know, take it seriously.

3. Elena Kagan has a law degree from Harvard, or maybe she worked there

My uncle Moe says you don’t need no fancy law degree from a hoity-toity school to know right from wrong, and that’s good enough for me.

Of course, if Obama hadn’t laid off Justice Stevens in the first place, we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. A president has the power to create millions of jobs at the stroke of a pen, yet we sit idle while good judges are sent packing in favor of some wannabe starlet.

What we need is a government with checks and balances like they have in England. But I suppose that makes me a Socialist.

Supreme Court facts:

Taco Bell honors the Supreme Court everyday by offering the “Chalupa Supreme.”  I’m not sure what kind of court the “Baja” is. Maybe that’s Mexican for Supreme.

Supreme Court justices dress in black to honor those killed in the War of 1812, when the Germans bombed Washington DC.

The seven-member court is evenly split between men and women. The men vote on men things like guns and sports while the women vote on women things like children and cats.

About the writer: Lennie is a complete idiot whose depths of stupidity defy description

Editorial: It’s time to embrace Global Warning

AL GORE CAN SUCK IT

 

By Lennie

Al Gore thinks he's hiding in Canada, but it's only a MAP of Canada. Duh.

World, wake up. While we all squabble over petty issues like wars, joblessness, and, most ridiculously, the environment (What is an environment anyway? Can you tell me what one is shaped like or what color it is? Didn’t think so), a giant rock is floating out there in space somewhere with Earth’s name on it.

Note: I don’t mean the asteroid is called “Earth.” That would be dumb. And confusing.

When that rock hits, it will make… something really big that happened seem insignificant by comparison. Remember the movie Armageddon? Imagine that, only (SPOILER ALERT) the good guys don’t destroy the asteroid at the end. It. Destroys. Us.

Yet, somehow, most of the world’s scientists are against Global Warning! That makes science the lamest thing ever. In fact, they warn us about it. If that’s not irony, I don’t know what is.

Note: Is it irony? I’m seriously asking, because I’m not sure.

My uncle Moe says there is a 114% chance the Earth will be struck by an asteroid sometime in the next 100 years, because they hit us once every 65 million years, and that’s exactly how long ago the dinosaurs were killed by the last one. But Uncle Moe isn’t a scientist, so we shouldn’t listen to him and just let the asteroid hit us. Right?

Sure, Global Warning will be expensive (at least a hundred bucks), but think of the benefits. Obviously, if the whole world knows an asteroid is coming, we can band together and build a giant missile to shoot it down before it’s too late. Hell, you can have the parts from my Chevy if that’ll help (the one in the barn, the ‘79 Nova, not my Cobalt).

Some may think this far fetched, but I saw a movie once (Invasion of the Astro Monster) about a planet, called X (really, it was called X. That’s not a placeholder I forgot to take out), that was right behind Jupiter, but we couldn’t see it because Jupiter is so big. Though, to tell the truth, Jupiter doesn’t look that big in photographs. Maybe if they had someone stand next to it… Anyway, the seemingly friendly aliens from X ended up invading Earth. Wouldn’t Global Warning give us a fighting chance at least?

I tried to contact former presidential candidate Al Gore, public enemy number one, and offer him the chance to write a counterpoint but, not surprisingly, he did not take my call (because he’s chickenpoop).

Anyway, write your local senator and demand Global Warning today!

Opinionoid: Asteroids travel at 10 times the speed of light, obliterating everything in their paths

Opinionoid: The cost of Global Warning is easily offset if you do some math

Opinionoid: The moon is there to block asteroids, and it’s done a pretty damn good job so far, don’t you think? Look at all the craters. That could have been your face.

Note: My editor tells me that it’s called Global Warming, but I told him there’s no such thing. He said he was going to run my editorial anyway, to show the world what a idoit I am. Well, who’s the idoit now, boss?

About the writer: Lennie is a moron who runs a one-man commercial dandelion farm and waits for the postal truck to come every day so he can ask for a free rubber band.