Uncle Scoopy's world-weary musings about naked celebrities, sports, humor and other important, manly things.
I was going to joke that the insanity defense is apparently no longer valid, but when I read the article I realized it may still apply.
Reasons for a lenient sentence:
He is an out-of-state resident, he is elderly, he has got some difficulties, physical and otherwise.
As the young ‘uns say, “No shit, Sherlock.”
According to the list:
Christians were prosecuted but were not meal for the lions: It is true that Christians only believed in one God, and saw Rome’s many gods as false idols and a disobedience of God’s command of “You shall have No Other Gods Before Me.” The Romans felt that their gods would be threatened by these Christians, and felt that their gods would not be merciful to Rome. If there was any punishment for Christians in Rome, it did not involve them being some lion’s dinner.
That’s not a scholarly view, but it is reinforced by legitimate scholarship. The famous novel Quo Vadis? and its movie adaptations, have made it a matter of general knowledge that the Roman emperors threw Christians to the lions in the Colosseum, but scholars have said that the stories require nuance. It is not possible to say that such things never happened, but they were never imperial policy, almost never happened in Rome (the provinces were a little wilder), and happened to non-Christians in similar proportion. Later Christian authors mythologized the prosecutions, and made rare instances seem like everyday occurrences.
Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that #10 is just plain wrong. (I missed it completely.) While it’s true that Italians once believed tomatoes to be poisonous, it’s a misconception that this belief dated back to ancient times. Tomatoes were introduced to Europe in the 16th century. They are native to South America and were completely unknown to the ancient Romans.
Baby, if you’ve ever wondered
Wondered whatever became of me
I’m livin’ on the air in Cincinnati
Cincinnati WKRP
And that she will continue to do, livin’ on the air in Cincinnati in re-runs and YouTube clips.
I wonder if Mr. Ferryman will do the funeral.
Where is where I would normally place a nudography, but to my knowledge, there is none for Loni. I think the closest she ever came was this scene in Stroker Ace (1983):
The list has an irregular format. It’s odd to call the least bloody #1 and the most #10.
But anyway –
The value of this list hinges on the distinction between a battle and a campaign. There is no hard and fast distinction. For example, this list considers the Battle of Normandy in the “battle” category and places it in the #1 spot, while other sources call it a campaign, and thus place it lower in that category.
Some say that the Battle of Baatan was the worst, with some 10,000 men dying only to result in a surrender. Counting surrendered soldiers, fatalities and other casualties, the American military and its Filipino allies finished the battle with 100,000 fewer soldiers. Thousands of the captured prisoners died in a forced march to POW camps, and more died in the camps. All of those fatalities could also be considered a result of this battle. This demoralizing defeat started just a month after Pearl Harbor, making many Americans wonder whether we could prevail in the war.
But …
The “Battle” of Bataan could also be considered a campaign, since it lasted three months and was fought in many different places.
Whichever battle was the worst, it is “fitting and proper,” as Lincoln said, to remember all these battles, and all that these soldiers did for us and for the world.
Sidebar: My dad claimed that Americans never doubted the outcome of the war, and that the only question was how long it would take. That was a fair assessment, because America had a vast capacity to build tanks, ships and planes, and was protected by two great oceans that prevented our enemies from bombing our factories. But I think my dad’s hindsight was probably blurred by a bit of patriotism and his knowledge of the eventual outcome. I have to think that some Americans must have considered the possibility of defeat after Pearl Harbor and Bataan.
One of the comments on the original post said:
Is there any way to contribute/donate to what you do other than by the subscription version of the Funhouse? I am essentially just an Other Crap viewer, which is all that I have the time for, but am very grateful for what you do.
My response:
Not really. Over the years I have considered monetizing Other Crap, but the site is like my child and I don’t want to fuck it up. I am proud of the fact that it’s all content. All of the people who contribute to the site – Charlie, Johnny Moronic, Aesthete and others – do so just for the love of the game.
I get offers every day from people who would like to pay to place articles on Other Crap. I’ve seen that some of my fellow celeb-oriented blogs do that, but I have two problems with it: (1) Articles have a short lifespan on the front page, and don’t get much traffic when they mosey on to page two. Therefore, I could not make it worthwhile for the paid articles unless I nailed them to the front page, which I would find disruptive of the flow; (2) Those articles don’t interest me, so I assume they would not interest you.
Contributions? I just don’t like internet begging. I know that important sites like Wikipedia ask for contributions, so it’s an accepted practice, but I just don’t like it.
I would run ads if the products benefited both me and my readers, and I may do that some day, but the right product hasn’t come along yet. Perhaps in the future you may see ads for generic Viagra or some other male-oriented product, but only if the offer is superlative.
If you just want to help defer the cost of the site, the best way to do it is to sign up for one month of the Fun House and cancel immediately to prevent rebilling. When you cancel, the site continues to work until the end of the 30 days you paid for. So you spend only twenty bucks, and that gives you a month to go through all the pics, videos and back issues, viewing and/or downloading everything you want, with no worry about rebilling. That way you aren’t just contributing, but getting an unreal value for twenty bucks. If I were you I wouldn’t do that in summer. Enjoy your lives and your families. Get exercise. Enjoy the summer. Then sign up for a month when the weather traps you inside and you need some entertainment.
Somebody in the comments reminded me that you can also buy a copy of my book. Fair warning: it’s not horny and there’s nothing about celebrities. It traces how I my life got fucked-up by one disastrous year in my childhood. It’s kind of funny, but it’s also kind of serious and sometimes sad, sort of like Nabokov, except without the talent.
Of course, Other Crap is basically what I do to entertain myself and you, so the best contribution you can make is to visit often, enjoy the site, and tell me when you like the posts. If you know others who would like the site, tell them about it. If you can direct traffic to Other Crap somehow, do so. Otherwise, just have a good time.
That is all.
Anyway – now back to our regular programming …
The free version of the Funhouse contains additional material every day that does not appear in Other Crap.
Uncle Scoopy’s Ballpark includes in-depth baseball articles, focusing on some of baseball’s untold or rarely told stories.
Uncle Scoopy’s Movie House contains film reviews, and nudity reviews for those films.
Les Actrices Françaises Nues à l’Ecran is the bible of French film and TV nudity
All of those sites are free, and ad-free.
The subscription version of the Funhouse contains pretty much every word that I’ve written since the 1990s, including every video and every picture.
Female Frogs Fake Their Death To Avoid Mating With Males
I’m sure I’ve repeated this story as often as an Alzheimer’s patient, but for the record, I once faked my death to break up with a clingy girlfriend. My friends in that city tell me that she still places flowers on my grave.
Come to think of it, I also faked my death once to avoid a Celine Dion concert. Oh, and maybe a few other times. As I recall, there was a time when the biggest category in my expense budget was tombstones.
And last year I received an award for my contributions from the Society of American Florists. In the award presentation they revealed that I was single-handedly responsible for the “flowering” of their industry.
Japan Urgently Recalls 16,000 Toy Pistols Capable of Firing Real Ammunition
??? I’m not sure why a bunch of dead cows altered the race. Were they in the road?
The cows were … “culled,” as they wrote, because “slaughtered” is so direct.
That reminds me of the famous politically correct cowboy, Texas John Cull.
Texas John Slaughter had a theme song:
Texas John Slaughter
Made ’em do what they oughta
And if they didn’t, they died
Texas John Cull also had one:
Texas John Cull
His requests were quite dull
If if they refused, he asked again
Oh, sure, Texas John was a wimp who always dealt with problems obliquely, but he was the manly guy in his family. His brothers, Delaware Devon and Manhattan Merrick, always ended fights by running away, crying like little girls.
I Covered the Epstein Case for Decades. These Are 9 Questions We Actually Need Answered.
We’ve been listening to nonsense about this case for years from the right and left. We know that Trump doesn’t want the files revealed, but the current outrage from Democrats is absurd. The Biden administration had full control of the files for four years, right up to the beginning of this year, and did not release them or make any meaningful progress toward doing so. Now that they know Trump doesn’t want the files revealed, the Dems are just acting like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
Jake Tapper and others have been grilling the Dems on this point, but every time they are asked “Should Biden have released the files?” or “Why didn’t Biden release the files?” they give an off-topic answer and weasel out of answering.
Politics as usual.
I have no idea why the President is so desperate to hide the files, but I’ve never seen any indication that he was involved in any of Epstein’s dark crimes. I’m guessing it’s just a case of Trump’s natural instinct to cover up any embarrassing revelations at all costs, thus making them seem much worse than they are. I don’t think he will be exposed as anything other than Epstein’s very close friend before 2004, something we already know, but he doesn’t care to be reminded of. Trump behaved similarly in the Mueller case, where his only real crime was obstructing an investigation that would have produced nothing significant about him if he had just let it proceed. (Although some of his lickspittles would have had problems, as we know.)
Remember Watergate, where Nixon did nothing wrong until he started covering things up? Nixon could have blown the entire thing off by saying, “Some of my people committed some stupid and even criminal acts without my knowledge and consent. With the aid of an independent investigator, they will be fired and/or prosecuted as appropriate.” If he had said that and actually followed up honestly, he would have served out his term. I used to call this instinct – to cover up at all costs – “the Nixon Syndrome,” but maybe I should rename it.
At any rate, the people who have been studying Epstein for years are arguing that there are good reasons to release almost all of the Epstein files, and those reasons have little to do with Trump.
A quick overview:
No. 1: How did Epstein make his money, and how did he finance his sex trafficking over two decades?
It’s still not clear how Mr. Epstein amassed such a large fortune — or how he was able to fund such a complex trafficking scheme. Treasury Department files detail, among other things, 4,725 wire transfers adding up to nearly $1.1 billion associated with just one of Mr. Epstein’s bank accounts. Were rich and powerful men financing Epstein’s criminal activities, unintentionally or otherwise?
No. 2: Did Epstein really have any ties to spy agencies?
When asked to explain the decision to give Epstein a sweetheart plea deal, prosecutor Acosta reportedly said, “I was told Mr. Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone.” Attorney General Pam Bondi said this month that she did not know whether Mr. Epstein was an intelligence asset. The F.B.I. files could help resolve this matter.
No. 3: What are the references to Trump in the files?
Trump has never been accused by law enforcement of any wrongdoing related to Mr. Epstein. Bondi told Trump this spring that his name “appeared” in the Epstein files. So what? The two men were friends. Epstein considered Trump his best friend. Epstein was arguably the closest friend, possibly the only close friend, that Trump ever had. It would be shocking (and suspicious) if Trump’s name didn’t appear repeatedly throughout an investigation of Epstein’s life. Does that mean anything? We don’t know.
No. 4: What about Bill Clinton?
No. 5: Who were the clients implicated in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation?
The lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who joined Epstein’s legal team in 2005 when Mr. Epstein was first under investigation, said that young women and girls interviewed by the F.B.I. claimed to identify several of Epstein’s clients. The names of the victims should be redacted, but the names of clients should be revealed.
No. 6: Who helped Epstein overseas?
The U.S. Marshals Service recorded the names of passengers on Epstein’s planes when they arrived at airports in New York and the Virgin Islands. The Department of Homeland Security released some of those documents pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Herald, but the names were redacted, with the exception of Epstein’s.
No. 7: What did investigators find in Epstein’s safe, computers and other property?
No. 8: What do the videos show?
No. 9: What is in Epstein’s autopsy report?
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Back in the early 1900s, it was common for the cigarette companies to include some kind of collectible with a pack of smokes. Sports champions from many sports were pictured on card sets that targeted national or regional interests. In the USA, where baseball was king, some cigarette companies offered baseball cards with cigarettes. If you are a baseball fan you have heard of the rare Honus Wagner card that came with Piedmont and Sweet Caporal cigarettes. It became especially rare because Honus was the greatest player of his day, and he stopped the company from issuing the card. (That was once the most expensive baseball card to acquire. A Honus Wagner card sold for $7.25 million in a private sale in 2022. It is no longer the grand prize of collectors, however, having recently been relegated to second place by the Mickey Mantle rookie card, which has sold for more than $12 million.)
Other companies offered cigarette cards with different themes: famous people, locomotives, famous castles, animals, ocean liners, etc. A company called Gallaher’s created many sets of cards, including one that we would now call life hacks. Here are ten from that series.