Funny Vids

A Literalist Christians Views

The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree... yeah, makes perfect sense.
-- Anonymous.

Peter Griffin: A Mosaic of Punctuation

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Conservatives Pick Soft Target: A Cartoon Sponge

From the New York Times:

"On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results. (...)

Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."

The video's creator, Nile Rodgers, who wrote the disco hit "We Are Family," said Mr. Dobson's objection stemmed from a misunderstanding. Mr. Rodgers said he founded the We Are Family Foundation after the Sept. 11 attacks to create a music video to teach children about multiculturalism. The video has appeared on television networks, and nothing in it or its accompanying materials refers to sexual identity. The pledge, borrowed from the Southern Poverty Law Center, is not mentioned on the video and is available only on the group's Web site.

Mr. Rodgers suggested that Dr. Dobson and the American Family Association, the conservative Christian group that first sounded the alarm, might have been confused because of an unrelated Web site belonging to another group called "We Are Family," which supports gay youth.

"The fact that some people may be upset with each other peoples' lifestyles, that is O.K.," Mr. Rodgers said. "We are just talking about respect."

Mark Barondess, the foundation's lawyer, said the critics "need medication.""

Reading this, I am reminded of an essay in a wonderfully funny book, The Pooh Perplex, in which an imaginary literary critic read all sorts of things into the works of AA Milne ("God bless Mummy! I know that's right/ Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?") But that was a parody. When real live adults, in all seriousness, allege that Sponge-Bob Square Pants is a tool of the radical homosexual agenda, we have gone way past the line that separates mere eccentricity from lunacy. And as someone who has a deep respect for Christianity, albeit from the outside, I really, really wish its prominent spokespersons would stay on the right side of that line. This is a religion that counted among its adherents the likes of Saint Augustine and Dante, neither of them idiots; its adherents should treat it, and the intellects that (in their view) God gave them, with more respect.

MadTV: MacDumpsters

Sachertorte: A Classic

Ingredients:Batter:
130 grams (4.59 ounces) butter
130 grams (4.59 ounces) dark chocolate
100 grams (3.53 ounces) powdered sugar
6 eggs
80 grams (2.82 ounces) white sugar
130 grams (4.59 ounces) flour
apricot marmalade

Icing:
150 grams (5.29 ounces) chocolate
75 grams (2.65 ounces) coconut shortening

Recipe

Batter:
Preheat the oven to 180-200°C.
Melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler over hot water (Bain Marie, "im Wasserbad"). If you do not have a double boiler you can also use a normal pan filled with water and with a smaller pan in it. Remove from heat and let the mass cool.
Add the powdered sugar and the egg yolks little by little while carefully stirring.
Beat the egg whites and add the white sugar. Mix into the batter and add the flour gradually while constantly stirring.
Pour batter into a greased spring form pan. Bake at 165°C for 50 to 60 minutes.
Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from pan and before icing.
Once cool remove the cake from pan then slice horizontally. Insert a filling of pureed jam between the layers.

Icing:
Melt chocolate and coconut shortening in a double boiler over hot water and cover the top and sides of the cake with the warm (not hot) icing.

Strawberry millefeuille with strawberry sauce

Ingredients
For the strawberry millefeuille:
½ sheet ready-rolled puff pastry
icing sugar, to dust
150ml/¼ pint double cream, lightly whipped
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out, pod discarded
1 tbsp icing sugar
75g/2½oz strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced

For the strawberry sauce:
100g/3½oz strawberries, hulled
2 tbsp icing sugar
splash water
mint sprig, to garnish



Method
1. Preheat the oven to 220C/425F.
2. For the millefeuille, cut two 6cm/2½in circles of puff pastry and place onto a sheet of baking paper on a baking sheet. Dust heavily with icing sugar.
3. Transfer to the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until risen and golden-brown. Remove the pastry circles from the oven and leave to cool.
4. For the filling, place the whipped cream, vanilla seeds and icing sugar into a bowl and mix gently.
5. Spread two spoonfuls of the filling over one pastry disc, top with some sliced strawberries and place the other pastry disc on top. Top with some more of the filling mixture and sliced strawberries.
6. For the strawberry sauce, place the strawberries, icing sugar and water into a blender and blend until smooth.