Political Hay
Here’s the Skinny
Guantanamo Bay to close after Renee Zellweger escape.
WASHINGTON — The White House announced today that it was closing the controversial U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the escape of a shockingly emaciated prisoner, Hollywood actress Renee Zellweger, caused widespread outrage among plump young American women nationwide and raised concerns that the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee would lose that demographic to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.
“We’re shuttin’ her down,” President Bush said in a press conference this morning. “You can hogtie and horsewhip a jihadi and the ‘Merican people will just go on shoppin’ like nothin’ happened. But mess with the self-image of lonely single women, and buddy, you’d better start sleepin’ with one eye open.”
Thousands of single women aged 16 to 39 converged upon the mall in Washington this past weekend to demand the prison’s closure after photographs of a once curvy Zellweger, now bony and gaunt, surfaced on the Internet.
“Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Guantanamo has got to go!” they chanted as they trooped from one end of the mall to the other, leaving a field of half-read Helen Fielding novels and Godiva chocolate bars in their wake.
“Renee Zellweger was my hero!” 37-year-old secretary Nancy Jodoin of Bethesda, Md., said. “She looked like a real woman, giving me hope that some day I, too, might sleep with Hugh Grant. But look what those beasts have done to her! She could turn sideways and pass through a locked door! Now I’ll have to lose 30 pounds just to feel good about myself again!”
Zellweger had been held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being a terrorist because of her uncanny ability to speak with an English accent despite being a Texan.
“Real Texans just don’t talk like that,” Bush is reported to have said when ordering her detainment.
But Zellweger was in prison only a few months when she escaped, apparently by turning sideways and sliding between a door jamb and a locked prison door, then climbing atop a parapet and letting the wind blow her all the way to Florida.
President Bush did not say where the prison’s roughly 375 other detainees would be housed. But he said that despite constant appeals from the adult film industry, the administrations had no plans to set free cultural terrorist Paris Hilton, whom Bush described as “doing to American culture what al-Qaida is trying to do to our economic and military infrastructure.”
Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader and editor of the humor blog www.gunsnbutter.com.
About the Author
Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader. His Twitter ID is @Drewhampshire.
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Crystal Jacquez | 11.13.09 @ 10:20AM
San Francisco, CA
50 Million Americans Can’t Be Wrong – Or Can They?
Advertising materials from some of the largest online dating services – Match, eHarmony, True.com and Yahoo Personals – suggest that over 50 million Americans are now using such services.
Internet dating has been portrayed mostly with "success stories", because many of those who have had bad experiences are too embarrassed to talk about them openly, thinking they are the rarity, or the "unlucky one". Movies and T.V. have also focused on the lighter side of internet dating and dating websites as opposed to the darker side.
Unfortunately, the online search for true love has often led to a broken heart and a depleted bank account.
The dark side of the story is that the anonymity of internet dating has afforded con artists a new playground for scams, and has allowed people to be anyone they think you want them to be.
Both women and men lie on dating sites, but about different things. According to a recent study conducted jointly by researchers for the University of Chicago and MIT, women on dating sites lie mostly about heights, weights, and ages. Women appear to understate their weight more and more as they get older: by five pounds when they are in their 20’s, 17 pounds in their 30’s and 19 pounds in their 40’s.
Men also lie about their heights, weights and ages – but, more insidiously, their lying is concentrated on their marital status (“Who me? Married!?), their occupations (Oh yes – I’m a famous brain surgeon…), their educations, and their incomes.
Why do men lie about more things than women do? Because it pays off for them – big time! Take education: The study indicates that men reporting a college degree, relative to those reporting only a high school degree, is associated with a 35% increase in the number of first contacts they receive from women.
Occupations? Holding everything else constant, the biggest improvement in outcomes is observed for men in legal professions (77% outcome premium), followed by the military (49%), fire fighters (45%), and health related professions (42%). Manufacturing jobs, on the other hand, are associated with an about 10% penalty.
And finally, the effects of reported income on the success of men online: While there is no apparent effect for anything below an annual income of $50,000, outcomes begin to quickly improve for income levels above $50,000. Above $50,000, the increase in the expected number of first contacts is at least 32%, and as large as 156% for incomes in excess of $250,000.
Does it pay for women to lie online about education, occupation, or income? Apparently not - women’s education, occupations, and income apparently have little effect on their online success.
So what’s a poor girl to do about getting the truth about a guy she’s met online? Until recently, other than perhaps a quick Googling of the guy’s name (and Google was never designed for deep personal back-grounding), nothing. Nothing, that is, until the advent of Guys and Lies.com.
The new Guys That Lie site (www.guysthatlie.com) is essentially an online lie detector designed for women looking to check out men they’ve met online.
According to Crystal Jacquez, managing editor of Guys That Lie , the site enables women to query any of 32 highly personal questions about a guy that she may want to have answered – First she clicks on the question she wants answered - then she types in his name – then she clicks again and gets the real story, instantly! Covered are such basic questions as marital status, age, occupation, education, financial status, criminal background records, and much more.
Where does all this information come from?
“Well, if the guy has ever paid taxes,” says Jacquez, “state, local, or federal – or If he’s ever paid a gas or electric bill, or a telephone or cell phone bill, or a cable bill. If he’s ever owned property, including a home or condo. if he’s ever used a credit card or even applied for credit, or ever brought anything on credit, if he’s ever sued anybody or been sued, we know about him.”
“In short,” she continues, “we have in-depth information on this guy unless he’s recently moved here from another galaxy – or – unless he’s operating under you a phony name. Actually, if he’s operating under a phony name, we have a section that will expose him. The “galaxy” part we’re still working on.”
“And one more thing, Guys That Lie.com,” according to Jacquez, “is apparently also being widely used to check out friends and relations, neighbors, co-workers, bosses, in-laws, teachers, enemies, people in the news, whoever… Who knew?”
Contact:
Crystal Jacquez, managing editor
Guys That Lie.com
415 678-8610
Crystal03@guysthatlie.com
http://www.guysthatlie.com