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Author Archive for The Oversneer

02
Jun

Chrissie Hynde is an Animal-Rights Pretender

By The Oversneer 32 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Musicians, PETA and The Washed Up

chrissie_hynde_5082763Pretenders screech-whore Chrissie Hynde is a big PETA backer. She can’t stand fur. Hates the rodeo. Even complains about the Running of the Bulls. (I always thought a half-ton side of beef could pretty much take care of itself…)

So I did a momentary WTF double-take yesterday when I saw that Hynde and her group will be doing an August 19 concert this summer — at the Minnesota Zoo.

PETA and its whole world of bunny huggers don’t like zoos. (Oops: I meant to say that they “don’t like institutionalized imprisonment of our wild animal friends.”)  And it’s not like Chrissie is unaware of this fact. Check out this snippet from a 2004 interview she gave to the Australian activist group “Animal Liberation”:

June: “I despise zoos and circuses with animals. What about you Chrissie?”
Chrissie: “The animals have got to be free.”

Oh, sure … the animals have got to be free. But the concert tickets? Not so much. The Star-Tribune notes:

The concert is commanding the highest zoo ticket price ever — $68. The previous high was $54 for Hootie and the Blowfish in 2008.

$68 to hear a washed-up PETA-worshiping rock band — at a zoo? For that kind of money, Chrissie Hynde had better personally meet me backstage draped in mink, riding a rodeo bull, and drinking the blood of an endangered marsupial.

Of course, for the right amount of money, perhaps her prohibition against supporting zoos is, shall we say, “flexible”? So I wouldn’t put the mink coat past her.

28
May

Since We’re Talking About Hunting Seals…

By The Oversneer 23 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists and Crazy People

I didn’t know beans about Canada’s annual seal hunt until our new bloggress Britney Smears brought my attention to it this afternoon. The only time I’d ever really encountered it was when a girl in my sixth-grade class had a “save the harp seals” pin that she wore everywhere. It showed a cute, flufy, pure white baby seal. I think I saw that same seal (or a similar one — they all look alike to me…) in a PETA fundraising letter some years later. Lord knows why they were trying to get money out of me. I guess everything’s worth trying once.

Anyway, I spent five minutes today with my research assistant, trying to learn something about the seal hunt that wasn’t filtered through PETA’s lens. And here’s what turned up:
Continue reading ‘Since We’re Talking About Hunting Seals…’

26
May

Our Twisted Little Family is Growing!

By The Oversneer 16 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Announcements

If there’s one complaint we’ve heard more than any other here at Deceiver, it’s that there’s something a little bit “off” about two men and just one woman writing a celebrity culture blog. Especially since none of us is gay.

But we’re fixing that today! (Not the gay part. Dammit, you know what I mean.)

How ’bout a warm Deceiver welcome for the second woman to join our bizarre little co-ed fraternity?

Say hello to Britney Smears!

britstylized

Brit-Brit will be covering an eclectic mix of famous hypocrites, just like the rest of us. But her snark is … well … a little different. You’ll see.

Watch this space as we haze the newbie!

22
May

A Brief Ahhnold Timeline on Violence

By The Oversneer 20 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Entertainment and Politicos

schwarzeneggerOctober 2005: California Governator Ahhnold signs a bill making it illegal to sell “violent” videogames to minors. The targeted games included those “in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.”

December 2005: Before the law can take effect, a federal judge issues a temporary restraining order against it. Judge Ronald Whyte writes that “games are protected by the First Amendment and … plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their argument that the Act violates the First Amendment.”

August 2007: The same U.S. District Court judge officially strikes the law down, ruling that “the evidence does not establish that video games, because of their interactive nature or otherwise, are any more harmful than violent television, movies, Internet sites or other speech-related exposures.”

February 2009: Responding to an appeal filed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, a federal appeals court agrees with Judge Whyte and refuses to reinstate the law. The unanimous ruling finds that “the government may not restrict speech in order to control a minor’s thoughts.”

May 2009: Along with California’s Attorney General (the once-and-future Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown), Ahhnold petitions the U.S. Supreme Court to toss out the appeals court ruling and restore the 2005 law.

Arnold Schwarzenegger seems really, really intent on protecting society from the violent ravages of “Grand Theft Auto IV.” We should all applaud his persistence, if not his level of Constitutional literacy, right?

Right?

Continue reading ‘A Brief Ahhnold Timeline on Violence’

07
May

PETA is Too Chicken to Grill Oprah

By The Oversneer 27 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Foodies, PETA and Television Stars

oprahkfcchicken_l

UPDATE: PETA has sent the Ecorazzi blog a tepid statement suggesting that Oprah was duped by KFC. But there’s no press release on PETA’s website, and “Oprah” doesn’t appear on its home page anywhere.So there you have it. The all-powerful Oprah is actually a helpless victim of KFC’s 11-herb-and-spices-assistde Svengali act.

PETA is clearly calculating that Oprah can hurt them more than KFC can. And I agree: If KFC were capable of crushing PETA, I think they’d have found a way to do it by now.

—————–

Over at Civil Eats, Paula Crossfield has her organic panties in a wad about Oprah Winfrey’s big KFC grilled chicken giveaway yesterday. (If you heard about chicken riots in New York, we’re still waiting to see proof.) While the chicken chain was giving away countless millions in poultry parts, Crossfield and others were throwing stones at The Oprah for being a hypocrite.

Says Paula:

[B]ecause Oprah has marketed herself as one who cares about animals, even getting a ‘Person of the Year’ award last year from PETA, this KFC campaign is a serious disappointment.

True enough. the Queen of Chicago was indeed PETA’s Person of the Year for 2008.

My favorite newly minted hand-wringing Oprah hater is U.S. News environment blogger Maura Judkis. She’s actually suggesting that Opra’s hypocrisy about animal rights is contributing to the spread of swine flu. (Judkis, you may want to know, is a long-time veteran “journalist” who was writing for the student newspaper at George Washington University just two years ago.)

Judkis also predicts that “PETA will have some choice words for Oprah, to say the least.” But so far? Nada.

Sure, PETA is still hassling KFC for daring to, you know … sell fried chicken. (Call me crazy, but Kentucky Fried Seitan just doesn’t make my mouth water.) But so far, PETA has been completely mum about how Oprah totally pwned them.

Can you imagine if Pam Anderson started helping steakhouses with their grand openings? Or if Stella McCartney started designing with a fabric made from the protective homes of millions of boiled-alive creatures? Or if Khloe Kardashian started selling the sewn-together skins of dead cows?

Surely they would issue furious press releases and make Hollywood feel their vegan wrath, right?

Riiiight?

Ah … I get it now. PETA’s not criticizing Ms. Vajayjay because she has the power to crush them. It’s the same reason you always hear about PETArds harassing old ladies in fur coats, but they never seem to have time to mess with Hell’s Angels bikers in their leather jackets.

Ecorazzi asks: “Will the real PETA please stand up?” I think it just did.

Image from E.W.

21
Apr

Gordon Ramsay’s Real Kitchen Nightmare

By The Oversneer 27 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Foodies and Television Stars

hells_kitchen_posterSydney’s Sunday Telegraph says London super-chef Gordon Ramsay has been serving his customers pre-prepared meals cooked in an off-site “food factory,” and sold with a 586-percent markup.

Which, by itself, is no big deal really. How many Wolfgang Puck airport bistros do you really think are cooking in the ten square feet of kitchen space they have? Although, I suppose Burger King wouldn’t dream of building a fast-food joint without a grill.

But this is Gordon The Great we’re talking about. So it’s a little different when a newspaper (even if it is The Sun) publishes a photo slide show of people sneaking in the back door of a Gordon Ramsay gourmet pub with prepared dishes ready to serve customers.

Ramsay told the London Times one week ago: “My food hell is any ready meal. It’s so easy to prepare a quick meal using fresh produce, such as a simple stir-fry, but people still resort to ready meals that all taste exactly the same.’”

So imagine The Sun’s surprise to find out that nothing was actually cooked in the restaurant. Even though the waiter insisted that everything was “freshly made” and that the “slow roasted pork belly” took 20 minutes to cook!

The reliably fussy gastro-dweb set is predictably perturbed. Jamie Oliver, for starters,  is “a bit shocked.”

Richard Harden of Harden’s restaurant guides, told The Daily Mail: ‘The problem with Ramsay doing this is that it contradicts everything he says he stands for. It does seem hypocritical. Ramsay is extremely good at saying exactly what people want to hear, but this suggests that what he has said is not based on deep convictions or what he himself does.”

And a fellow chef who got the royal ream-out treatment on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is gloating: “I bet Gordon wishes he hadn’t talked quite so much about fresh food cooked on the premises. These things have a habit of coming back to haunt you. His staff said food is cooked fresh, then they van it in — it just doesn’t look good, does it”

Nope.

Bonus points: Gordo demonstrating how to properly chop hhhhhherbs. Which, apparently, no one in his restaurants actually does anymore.

18
Apr

Coming up next: Rush Limbaugh endorses NAMBLA. (Hey — it could happen.)

By The Oversneer 52 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

limbaugh-cartoon

Back when right-wing radio talker Rush Limbaugh was facing a criminal investigation into his prescription drug abuse, he found an unlikely ally: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Limbaugh’s position that his medical records should not be subject to government seizure.

Limbaugh hadn’t exactly been the ACLU’s biggest supporter. Okay, let’s be honest: There was a specific level of white-hot hatred that he reserved for the ACLU and … oh, I don’t know… the Clintons. But as soon as the group was in a position to help him get what he wanted, it was suddenly all smiles and nicey-nice and mega-dittos. Whatever the heck those are.

Four years later, Limbaugh is grasping at straws, trying to hang something negative — anything, really — on Barack Obama. He doesn’t like the President. He’s already on record saying, famously, “I hope he fails.” And in the week when the biggest news story coming out of the White House is the arrival of “Bo” the dog, along comes the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), offering Limbaugh the chance to one-up the President. Dangling it right in front of his smoke-tickled chompers, really.

So amid a sea of accusations that the Obamas committed a mortal sin by getting a purebred Portuguese water dog from a breeder (instead of a “rescue” dog from a shelter, as the President promised during his campaign), Limbaugh recorded two strong endorsements of HSUS this week. And just like that, he must have thought, he out-”Humaned” the Obamas. Point scored. Or maybe not.

Continue reading ‘Coming up next: Rush Limbaugh endorses NAMBLA. (Hey — it could happen.)’

14
Apr

Deceiver is Twitterific!

By The Oversneer 12 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Announcements

twitter_deceiver

As of this morning, we’re officially joining the Twitterverse. Click here to visit our Twitter page, and click “follow” to add us to your friends list.

Easy? Yep. And don’t forget to “Tweet” our stories to all your friends!

13
Apr

Fix-a-Hypocrite Exercise #1: “Help the Slumdogs”

By The Oversneer 26 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses and Movie Stars

azhar-and-rubina

Help the Slumdog kids!

On April 13, 2009, my co-blogger Holly wrote a scathing article about how the Slumdog Millionaire producers apparently bailed on their very public promises to elevate the standard of living of Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail, the film’s youngest child actors.

What really steamed me was the pained commentary from the father of one of the kids:

“We have been abandoned by Danny Boyle and his associates,” said Rafiq Qureshi, the father of Rubina. “He promised us a lot when the film won at the Oscars but since then no one has come to visit us.

“We’ve been given no money and no house. There is no trust fund that I’ve been told about. The monthly allowance promised to Rubina and Azhar stopped before they even went to the Oscars.

“I feel betrayed and hurt. All these promises came to nothing.”

And then one of our commenters asked this question: “If it really bothers people that much, why aren’t they putting together a charity drive of their own?”

That’s a damn fine idea.

Continue reading ‘Fix-a-Hypocrite Exercise #1: “Help the Slumdogs”’

10
Apr

Britney Spears Wants to be the new White House Drug Czar

By The Oversneer 34 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Crazy People, Legal Messes and Musicians

During a Wednesday night concert in Vancouver, pop tart Britney Spears stopped the show for 40 minutes — complaining that people in the crowd were (*gasp*) smoking weed. She refused to come out and finish the show until the air in the arena had cleared.

I’m not making this up. And I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Britney, better known as “that crazy chick who did loads of drugs, shaved her head shortly after leaving rehab, and pissed off a judge by endangering her children,” has suddenly decided that she’s too good to breathe in any secondhand Mary Jane fumes. Mmmmm-kay.

If she’s afraid the contact high will mess with her court-ordered random drug tests, I think she’s in the wrong business.

Continue reading ‘Britney Spears Wants to be the new White House Drug Czar’

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