FLASHBULB SNAPSHOTS!! DATELINE -- HAAGEN DAZS! Those persnickety fuckers from the Center for Science in the Public Interest have issued a special alert bulletin to warn the public at large - and especially large members of the public - that so-called "premium brand" ice creams are really bad for you because they're full of empty calories and saturated fat. This ground-breaking report comes hot on the heels of the non-partisan think tank's previous public awareness campaigns: Fire is Hot and can Burn You, and Don't Put That In Your Mouth, You Don't Know Where It's Been. DATELINE -- HELL ON EARTH! According to reports out of central Africa, the number of people killed in the ongoing conflict in the Congo region recently exceeded the death toll of World War One. Now, yer old pal Jerky doesn't want to play armchair general, here, but wouldn't those people have been harder to kill if they hadn't all been dancing in a long line with their hands on each other's hips like that? You know… "Congo Congo Con-GO! Congo Congo Con-GO!" DATELINE -- PSYCHOTOWN! How do you make a roomful of grown idiots cry? Invite them to a special screening of a rough cut of your hyper-bloody, Aramaic-language, allegedly anti-Semitic, real-time cinematic depiction of the crucifixion death of their one-and-only Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ! Among those said to be inconsolably devastated after the private showing of Mel Gibson's film, The Passion, were such conservative luminaries as Peggy "Nooner" Noonan, Cal Thomas, Matt "Eggman" Drudge, Kate O'Beirne, Michael Novak, Linda Chavez and White House staffer David Kuo, deputy director of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (also known as Office of the Demolition of the Constitutionally-Mandated WALL Separating Church and State). And long-time MPAA chief Jack Valenti was there, too! And, of course, the auteur himself, Mel Gibson, was on hand to try to reassure everybody that he hadn't lost his fucking mind. Wow… to be a fly on the wall at THAT meeting of the minds! As for yer old pal Jerky, he'd love to see the boys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 take a crack at this ripe slice of Christaholic proselytization. I can picture it now… the messiah, battered and bleeding, his body grotesquely contorted as gravity and nails work their torture on his mortified flesh. He gasps in agony, and Tom Servo shouts: "Peter!" Now, Jesus gasps again, and Tom Servo shouts: "I can see your house from here!" Oh, the sacrilicious potentialities! DATELINE -- COME AND GONE! And speaking of movies that appeal to everybody's inner fanboy geek, how come nobody informed yer old pal Jerky that there was a Big Lebowski Festival going on down in Louisville, Kentucky last week?! And what's worse, it was the SECOND ANNUAL Big Lebowski Festival, which means I've already missed TWO of these goddamn things! You fuckers better let me know if there's a third one. I could stand to roll some rocks while talking a little cinema and partaking of that most elegant of cocktails… the Caucasian. Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com

ON THESE DAYS! July 24 On this day in 1847, the state of California dodges a bullet when West Coast-bound Brigham Young and his cult of Mormon followers stumble across Utah's Great Salt Lake and decide: "that's far enough." On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy said: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." On this day in 1969... mission accomplished.

THEY SAID IT! "I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not." - Thus spake... PNAC pontiff Paul Fucking Wolfowitz. Holy God-raping Pope-felating sweet Mother of FUCK!!! Can you believe the fucking NERVE of this scum-sucking streak of snake-shit?!? *** *** *** "It is genuinely incredible. The U.S. Treasury is empty, we are losing that stupid, fraudulent chickencrap war in Iraq, and every country in the world except a handful of corrupt Brits despises us. We are losers, and that is the one unforgivable sin in America. Big darkness, soon come. Take my word for it." - The venerable Hunter S. Thompson - yer old pal Jerky's biggest fan - predicts!

JOKES! Today's first joke was sent in by our old pal Junior Johnston. A man was walking down the street when he was accosted by a particularly dirty and shabby-looking homeless man who asked him for a couple of dollars for dinner. The man took out his wallet, extracted two dollars and asked, "If I gave you this money, will you buy some Budweiser with it instead?" "No, I had to stop drinking years ago," the homeless man replied. "Will you use it to gamble instead of buying food?" the man asked. "No, I don't gamble" the homeless man said. "I need everything I can get just to stay alive." "Will you spend the money on greens fees at a golf course instead of food?" the man asked. "Are you NUTS!" replied the homeless man. "I haven't played golf in 20 years!" "Well," said the man, "I'm not going to give you the two dollars. Instead, I'm going to take you home for a terrific dinner cooked by my wife." The homeless man was astounded. "Won't your wife be furious with you for doing that? I know I'm dirty, and I probably smell pretty bad." The man replied, "Hey, man, that's okay! I just want her to see what a man looks like who's given up Budweiser, gambling, and golf." *** *** *** Thanks to our old pal Roger Emerson for sending in today's second joke. One day the zoo-keeper noticed that the orang-utan was reading two books - the Bible and Darwin's The Origin of Species. Surprised, he asked the ape: "Why are you reading those books?" "Well," said the orang-utang, "I'm trying to figure out whether I'm my brother's keeper, or my keeper's brother!" WORST JOKE OF THE DAY Today's shitty joke was sent in by Will Rogers, and it proves that there's nothing funny about NASCAR. There were three NASCAR fans on their way to a race, when they see an accident on the side of the road so they pull over. They go to help the victim, but they realize she is naked, so they take off their hats. The first guy was a Earnhardt fan, and put his hat over her left breast. The second guy was a Elliot fan, and put it over her right breast. The last guy was a Gordon fan, and put his hat over her crotch. When the police arrives, the officer looks at the girl and goes to evaluate. He first picks up the Earnhardt hat, puts it back down and writes something down. He does the same with the Elliot hat. Then he picks up the Gordon hat and puts it down then picks it up again. He does this several times until the Gordon fan says, "What are you? Some kind of pervert?" The officer replies, "No, I just usually find an asshole under one of these hats."

ASK JERKY! Relationship troubles? Philosophical quandaries? Nagging doubts about your spouse? Jerky knows the answer! Send your letter to the feedback address at the bottom of the page: Dear Jerky; I was reading in the New York Times this morning about how easy it is to rig electronic voting machines. Intrigued, I decided to do a little research on this brewing scandal. I started at slashdot, which led me to the Black Box Voting site, which led me to a website run by "Reconstructionist Christians" who are somehow tangled up in all of this. There, I found this crazy article about the 2000 elections, and how "good Christian conservatives" should react to it. Jerky, I have never read anything so backwards, so upside-down or so opposite to reality in my entire adult life. I read this stuff, and my biggest fear is that my own kids might someday get sucked into something like this. I can only hope to instill tolerence and a sence of explorative thought in them. They can make their own choices, but I hope they at least do some fact finding to back them up. Signed: Birdman Dear Birdman; Unfortunately, there's a problem with relying on "facts." The task of actually finding things out for oneself is simply too goddamn time consuming. I would even go so far as to say that it's essentially impossible. We get the vast, vast majority of our information from second, third and fourth-hand sources. Unless we find a way to make ourselves omniscient, that's not going to change. Part of the trick to being able to think for ourselves is developing the ability to recognize the essential nature of the many filters through which we get our information. Just for an example, take a topic touched upon in your "crazy" article: the cherished conservative notion - now conventional wisdom - that Florida election law forced Katherine Harris to declare a winner in Florida within a specific number of days of the election. This seems, at first glance, to be a "fact." You hear it repeated over and over again, so why should you doubt it? After all, it says right there in black and white: "Declare the winner eight days after the election!" It's an open and shut case, right? Of course not. Nothing is ever really that simple. Truth is, there was NOTHING in Florida election law that prevented that so-called "deadline" from being extended. Over the years, there have been numerous instances where states with similar laws extended this so-called "deadline," for a variety of reasons. Where Florida election law is entirely unambiguous, however, is that it allows for hand recounts. So therein lies the conflict. How to judge the resolution? Look at it this way: Thanks to the multiple filters of corporate information control, journalistic sloth, a level of public apathy that the elites have spent decades cultivating, and the ever-dwindling American attention span, Katherine Harris (with a little help from the most ideologically doctrinaire Supreme Court in nearly a century) was able to use the excuse of having to stick to an arbitrary, meaningless "deadline" to break Florida's election laws by cutting short an ongoing recount process, subvert the heretofore sacrosanct foundational pillars of American democracy, and plant the crown of ultimate power upon the head of an incompetent and unworthy puppet for The Powers That Be. Conclusion? They think cleaving to an arbitrary, meaningless technicality of a deadline is more important than making sure the candidate who actually received the most votes wins the election. That's really all you need to know about the "conservative" position on the Florida Election 2000 fiasco.

READER'S SOAPBOX! DOUBLE-SIZED EDITION! Got a gripe? Pet peeve? Have your say in the Daily Dirt! Columns can pretty much be about anything, as long they meet the following criteria: 1) don't write shit that'll get us in trouble. 2) Keep it interesting. 3) Keep it short. 4) We don't edit your mistakes. Oh yeah! feel free to send a picture of yourself if you want. TOPIC: TWO NICE READERS TRY TO GET JERKY LAID!!! First up: Billie Jerky, I can help you with the getting laid thing. Not personally mind you, I am already four months pregnant. [That don't bother ME none! - Jerky] I am originally from Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island and we seem to have a bit of an issue there with ‘very friendly’ women. Sex is just a hobby there. You go to the bar, pick someone up, take them home and part the next morning. Summerside is the easiest place on the Island to pick up women. Just fly there, rent a high end car, go to the bar and flash some money (a bunch of $20’s) and you will have women. Actually it’s even worse than that. We made the national news a few years ago because of cargo ships coming in from the Philippines to take on loads of potatoes and every night the cops would have to go onto the boats and round up all the 15 and 16 year olds and herd them off the boats because they were screwing the guys for booze and smokes. These men were nasty, the whole crew together couldn’t come up with a complete set of teeth. That part is rather embarrassing actually. So is the fact that there are no hookers on PEI because they can’t make a living, too much for free. Plus it’s beautiful there. The beaches are amazing as is the scenery. There are all you can eat lobster suppers there and tons of other seafood (that’s diet food isn’t it?). Good exchange on your dollar. You let me know when you are going down there and I will start a rumour that there is a big shot from the porn industry coming into town to scout for potential stars. (Island girls pride themselves in being good lays) You will be up to your ears. Why would I do this? I hate to see anyone suffer without sex, it’s just not right. - Billie *** **** *** Next up: R.Campbell Junior MOPJ, I know a girl, 24, 4-11, 90 pounds, she's GREAT looking and she is looking for a husband. Dude, she likes fat guys too. The catch? Well, she's a virgin - she's never even kissed a guy. Yeah, sounds great, but at your age (I was baptized the day they took that picture in the sand) training a girl is HARD FUCKING WORK - especially being from the USA - where finding a nice young virgin is near impossible. I also know a 21 y/o in the same boat. She's a looker. Now these are "village" girls - backward to the ways we live. They've never used a microwave. What they offer is dedication - in the same breath, if not offered back after you get the "prize" is REVENGE, and you do sleep if you catch my drift. MOPJ, for godzilla's sake, for the honor of Katullah, go outside the box. I know 2 women dying to be devoted to a fat bastard like yourself, and even more are willing, you just gotta be willing to write them a letter. Then fly to see them. Yes, Jerky, these are Thai women. I do have some advice. First, lie about when you're leaving - then hit Bangkok at night and have the craziest fun you'll ever have. I mean 2 at once, 3 at once - whatever. Get it out of your system, because once she is in the US, to offer her virginity and hand in marriage, she is on you like a hawk. Yeah, as fat and ugly as you claim to be, you're her Movie Star. She thinks all women want you, little does she realize, your really a pathetic loser. Of course, there is nothing more fufilling then knowing in your heart you're a loser and your spouse believing 100% otherwise. Oh, the girls are liberal Buddhists. They think the Dalhi Lamma is a fraud and they don't grasp Christianity. - R. Campbell Junior [You guys... you guys rock the fuckin' house right off it's fuckin' foundations. *sniff* I don't deserve to have such good readers... - Jerky]

Send all Jokes, Letters and other stuff to Jerky: feedback@dailydirt.com