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Archive for the 'Businesses' Category

19
Mar

Kirstie Alley Endorses $139 Weight-Loss Scientology Vitamins

By Holly Won't 10 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Crazy People, Scientology and Television Stars

Why does Kirstie Alley news always break on Fridays? Sometimes I feel bad for leaving you guys with photos like these over the weekend. (Though consider yourselves lucky that I couldn’t find an angle on that story about Heidi Montag firing her psychic for nonperformance.)

So you know Kirstie Alley’s latest “I’ma gonna show you how to lose weight for realz this time” plan? Yup, it turned out to be Scientologist voodoo all along:

How does Rescue Me work?

Rescue Me is the first ever USDA certified organic weight loss product. This special formula helps curb appetite, reduce cravings, boost energy, support the metabolism of fat, and gently cleanse the body, taking the “toxic” out and putting the healthy in. Instead of losing valuable vitamins and minerals when you reduce calories, Rescue Me provides your body with high-quality organic ingredients, including nutrients, essential vitamins and minerals, natural herbs, fiber and antioxidants. When you couple the Rescue Me system with a reduced calorie diet, rich with organic ingredients and adequate exercise, you will experience the benefits in weight loss and an overall feeling of great health. Feel rejuvenated with this healthy and effective addition to your daily diet.

The $139 pills reportedly contain large doses of calcium and magnesium, both main components of the L. Ron Hubbard-approved detox program to “remove toxins” from good little Scientologists.

Alley is keeping her lawyers busy by hitting out at anyone who dares to criticize this brainless diet plan. The media “is spreading lies about me and my new business,” she says. But come on — these insanely expensive vitamins don’t even work for her, and she’s the spokeswoman. You want to talk about spreading lies?

Again, I have to ask: Why would anyone take weight-loss advice from Kirstie Alley?

19
Mar

Malnourished Underwear Models Love Their Bodies — and So Should You!

By Sarah Jessica Snarker 32 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses and Fashionistas

This has been begging for a post for quite some time now.

So, in keeping with this week’s theme of the media’s mixed messages on body image, I thought it might be worthwhile to at least mention the absurdity of this horrifically ill-conceived campaign by Victoria’s Secret:

Not, of course, that your body looks anything like these bodies. Who cares. You should love it anyway.

But only if you put down that cookie and get your fat ass off to the gym!

This campaign doesn’t even pretend to care that 90 percent of the women viewing it look nothing like these scrawny supermodels. Nor does it seem to take into account the fact that, when attempting to hock a new line of bras that are supposed to fit all body types, it might behoove them to toss in one or two women who don’t resemble preying mantises.

Now, I could be wrong about this, but it has always been my understanding that the whole point of an ad campaign is to make the consumer feel good about going out and spending their hard-earned cash on something they probably don’t even need. Other Victoria’s Secret ads work because they’re selling women a fantasy: “Buy our underwear,” they seem to say, “and you’ll look like these hot chicks.” But this one makes the mistake of trying to be “real” by addressing the issue of body image, while attempting to keep on feeding us that same old fantasy line. And it just doesn’t work.

In fact, for me (and most other women I know) this ad only succeeds in accomplishing the following:

  1. making me hate my body
  2. making me switch channels or turn off the TV
  3. making me vow never to buy another piece of lingerie from Victoria’s Secret

So, although I hate the phrase and can’t believe I am about to type it, this ad leaves me no choice . . .

Epic Fail, V.S.

Epic Underwear Fail.

16
Mar

Making a Run for the Border? There’s an App for That!

By Sarah Jessica Snarker 15 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses, Legal Messes and Scientists

Now I must admit, I have a fondness for our nation’s institutions of higher education. Despite the fact that I learned little of any real use while attending college and am still unqualified to hold a wide variety of jobs even after earning more advanced degrees, I can’t help it — I am a fan of learning for the sake of learning.

That being said, this just isn’t going to work for me.

Fox News reports:

A cell phone application that will help illegal immigrants find water and key landmarks as they cross into the United States is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and an irresponsible use of technology, critics say.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), the brainchild of three faculty members at the University of California-San Diego and a colleague at the University of Michigan, is a software application that can be installed into a GPS-enabled cell phone. In addition to helping immigrants locate water and landmarks, it also could alert them to Border Patrol checkpoints. And to make the trek a little less arduous, it also plays recorded poetry.

Now, I get that there are a lot of fun ways to waste taxpayer dollars. And with the stimulus bill freeing up even more cash for crazies, this kind of thing was probably inevitable. But while I can’t really see the point in doing studies on the effects of cocaine on monkeys, or even squirrel sex, I can at least say with some degree of confidence that the U.S. government isn’t currently waging any large-scale battles to prevent monkeys from using cocaine or squirrels from having sex.

This little TBT app on the other hand? This has to rank up there amongst the all time worst uses of government money — ever. Call me naive if you like, but I sure would like to think that there is someone on the “who should we give government grant money to” committee that would be looking out for, oh I don’t know, people using taxpayer dollars to develop a way to waste even more taxpayer dollars. But maybe that’s just me.

Continue reading ‘Making a Run for the Border? There’s an App for That!’

08
Mar

Déjà Screw: ABC Rejects Ad by Dating Website for Marrieds

By Holly Won't 24 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Bad Boys & Girls, Businesses, Movie Stars and Television Stars
YouTube Preview Image

Television advertising hypocrisy isn’t limited to CBS, it turns out. It’s an equal-opportunity affliction.

AdWeek.com is reporting that the Oscars organizers at ABC rejected the above ad from AshleyMadison.com, a dating website that targets infidelity-minded married men, because cheating on your spouse is bad. I love it when Hollywood gets all moral on us.

Let’s review some of the nominated films at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards, shall we? (Spoilers lie within.)

Continue reading ‘Déjà Screw: ABC Rejects Ad by Dating Website for Marrieds’

03
Mar

The Two Faces of Brazilian Television Standards

By Holly Won't 16 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Bad Boys & Girls, Businesses, Non-U.S. Politicos, Socialites and Television Stars

Courtesy of Celebritology comes a study in what’s acceptable for primetime television in Brazil.

The first contender? A Schincariol beer ad starring Paris Hilton slutting it up that has been criticized by the Brazilian government:

It’s confirmed: Paris Hilton is too hot for Brazil.

A sultry beer ad featuring the socialite has been pulled after consumer complaints and a watchdog agency’s investigation.

The television and Internet ad featured Hilton in a short black dress preening and rubbing a can of Devassa beer on herself, all to the delight of onlookers watching through her window.

Brewer Schincariol said in a statement Tuesday it will defend the commercial, but is pulling it in the meantime.

An ad watchdog group, Conar, asked last week that the ad be removed, noting that regulations don’t permit a beer commercial to treat women as overtly sensual objects. Brazil’s Secretariat for Women’s Affairs also said it had received complaints about the ad.

Color me surprised how the land that inspired the Brazilian wax is suddenly not comfortable with ads that treat women in a sexual manner. Little girls, on the other hand…

YouTube Preview Image

Yes, that’s a eight-year-old girl gyrating to Lady Gaga sans pants on a Brazilian television talent show. And not even a woof from the watchdogs?

I mean, at least you expect it from Paris.

22
Feb

Ultrarich Fashion Designer Condemns Consumerist Culture

By Holly Won't 22 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Bad Boys & Girls, Businesses, Environmentalists, Fashionistas and Television Stars

Vivienne Westwood, the grande dame of punk who has made gobs and gobs of money by designing everything from costumes for the Sex Pistols to Carrie Bradshaw’s $9,875 wedding dress in the Sex and the City movie, apparently has decided to piss off the very people who enable her to continue designing: her customers.

She had this to say following her runway show at London Fashion Week yesterday:

“Stop all this consumerism,” said Westwood, the former high priestess of punk who has increasingly used her catwalk shows to spotlight her concern about climate change.

“I just tell people, stop buying clothes. Why not protect this gift of life while we have it? I don’t take the attitude that destruction is inevitable. Some of us would like to stop that and help people survive,” she said.

I guess that makes sense. I mean, by hiring Pamela Anderson to be the busted face of her advertising campaign, Westwood essentially told everyone to stop buying her clothes. Mission accomplished.

16
Feb

Jessica Simpson: America’s Weight Obsession Is ‘Disgusting’

By Holly Won't 18 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Movie Stars and Musicians

Jessica Simpson is looking pretty toned again in her cover photoshoot for Allure, but she’s clearly not over the nasty comments she attracted last year about her weight. So she’s taken the opportunity to wax philosophical about America’s thinness obsession:

“When I think of America, it’s very diverse, but we do have the cookie-cutter way we’re supposed to look, and going to all these countries, it’s so completely different. I was fascinated going on that journey to discover that, even just for myself.” Spending time in Asia was particularly eye-opening: “In a lot of Asian cultures, the whiter you are, the more beautiful you are—and what I’m so used to is ‘The tanner you are, the thinner you look, the skinnier you feel.’” The 29 year-old, who declares, “I think I have great legs,” is growing more confident over time, and calls America’s obsession with weight is “disgusting.” The Texan says, “My job is to be creative. And I’m not weighing in for anybody.”

Well I agree with her now, but this is a decidedly different tune from a couple of years ago when she was endorsing the 5-Factor Diet and starring in her own workout video. (It was never released, but you can watch a clip of its awesomeness here.)

So which is it? America is unhealthily obsessed with weight, or why not try to make a buck off of people who would pay good money to look like you?

16
Feb

Hooters CEO Appalled by Manager’s Treatment of Women

By Holly Won't 21 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses and Television Stars

Coby Brooks, the CEO of Hooters Inc., appeared last night on Undercover Boss as he spent a day in the life of a Hooters girl. And he was utterly shocked — shocked! — that the pimp manager of one of his restaurants, nicknamed “Jimbo,” treated the women workers in a degrading way.

As Mediaite.com recaps:

One thing Jimbo does understand, as Brooks points out, is the Hooters “brand.” (Tits.) He has the girls line up for inspection and sneers at their nails, quipping to one girl to “get another tattoo.” Brooks is only a bit fazed by Jimbo’s execution.

Then come the “reindeer games.” (Jimbo can’t even think of a decent Ben Affleck movie to reference.) He forces the girls to eat plates of beans without using their hands, to cries of “No!” and “This isn’t right.” He explains to Brooks, with accompanying pantomime, that he wants to “shove their faces down in the beans” because the girls are “prima donnas.”

Brooks, to his credit, really wants to do something, but he doesn’t want to “break cover.” Really? Does he think he’s Jack Bauer? Is the whole “op” gonna go south if he compromises himself?

What Brooks seems to have forgotten is the entrenched sexism that is indeed the selling point of his illustrious brand. If he “really wants to do something,” he can always revise the employee handbook and take out the part where the waitresses are asked to acknowledge, in writing, that “the work environment is one in which joking and innuendo based on female sex appeal is commonplace.”

Because what’s the point of removing one bad apple if the whole barrel is rotting?

15
Feb

Captain America Not Welcome at This Tea Party

By Sarah Jessica Snarker 38 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Businesses, Entertainment, Politicos, U.S. Right-Wing Politicos and Writers

So, is it just me or do some people have trouble — a lot of trouble — with the whole concept of the First Amendment? ‘Cause from where I’m standing, we shouldn’t even be having this discussion. But then again, I feel like that a lot.

What by all rights shouldn’t even have ranked as a skirmish in the endless war between (choose your epithet) Liberals and (choose your epithet) Conservatives has grown into a full-fledged battle. At the center of the debate? Not health care, education, energy, taxes, or anything else that matters, but the latest edition of Marvel Comics’ Captain America.

True/Slant’s Rick Ungar explains:

For those who may not have followed the brouhaha, Marvel got in trouble with the Tea Party this week as a result of a Captain America episode where Cap and his sidekick, The Falcon, are investigating a right wing, anti-government militia group called “The Watchdogs.”

In the offending scene, the two heroes are watching an all-white, anti-tax rally taking place below their vantage point high above the crowd. Captain America wants to send The Falcon, who is African American, into the crowd by posing as an IRS agent. Falcon isn’t too keen on the idea, saying “I don’t exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks.”

Meanwhile, a panel revealing the crowd shows them holding signs very much like those we see at Tea Party rallies.

Now, you just know that ain’t going to go over well with a certain demographic.

Continue reading ‘Captain America Not Welcome at This Tea Party’

12
Feb

James Cameron Lives on Another Planet (Not Pandora)

By Holly Won't 20 Comments Digg! Digg this
Categories: Activists, Businesses, Environmentalists, Movie Stars, U.S. Left-wing Politicos and U.S. Right-Wing Politicos

Cocky-as-ever James Cameron wants you to know he doesn’t give a rat’s ass if he wins enough Oscars to play chess with on March 7, because Avatar is about more than that, you know.

And he has this to say to his “right-wing” critics:

“Let me put it this way. I’m happy to piss those guys off. I don’t agree with their worldview.” As for his detractors’ contempt for his environmental consciousness, dramatized in the film by the callous destruction of the Na’vi’s pastoral world, Cameron says that the film’s environmental message is a lesson for all moviegoers to digest. He explains that our planet “will be a dying world if we don’t make some fundamental changes about how we view ourselves and how we view wealth …. We’re going to have to live with less.”

Says the guy who lives in a 6-bedroom, 7-bath 8,272 square foot Malibu dream house.

Look, I enjoyed Avatar as a work of fiction. But for reals, James Cameron? Is this new way to “view wealth” why you’ve obviously given away all the money you’ve made from Terminator, Terminator 2, Titanic, and Avatar? I mean, the least he could do is donate his hair to Locks of Love.

The real message of Avatar? People in glass mansions shouldn’t throw stones.

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