New Bra Gives Your Butt A Lift

You knew it had to happen.

In this, the dawning of the age of Kardashian (which is a little bit noisier, a lot more vacuous, and has more hair than the age of Aquarius), baby's gotta got back.

A new product developed by a California psychologist provides what every saggy-seated woman dreams of: a butt lift.

This sounds like the kind of farcical product to be featured in between Saturday Night Live skits, but it's actually a new fashion device that is getting a lot of attention among the fashionazis. 

The contraption looks like looped garters, with adjustable straps going around the outside of each buttock and rejoining between the legs.  The effect is to add a little J-Lo to every woman's backside.

The makers call it the "Biniki," referring to it as a bra for the butt.

It's hard to understand why fashionazis hate women so much.  The joke is that the fashion industry today is controlled by gay men, who compete to prove just how anti-woman they are by contriving the ugliest, most uncomfortable clothing possible.  That may or may not be true, but there's no denying that mid-century prisoners of war endured tortures that were far less painful than an eight-hour shift on seven-inch heels.  It's no wonder that men complain their women want to talk to them non-stop when they get home from work, since they've endured a full day of discomfort usually imposed by German SS officers insisting that their subject "talk, you swine!" 

Similarly, the only way the underwire on a woman's bra could be any more uncomfortable is if they connected it to a couple of 12-volt truck batteries and turned the amperage knob to "full."

Then you have the "Wonderbra," which improves the appearance of a woman's cleavage, but also leaves men to "wonder" why any woman would go through such extreme and uncomfortable lengths to perpetrate the hoax of an overstated ta-ta size on the public.

And that doesn't even include the liquid-filled bra, which is as close to water torture as the Geneva Convention will allow.

To its credit, the new butt bra is likely to attract a man's attention; not only because of the enhanced derriere illusion it provides, but because it's similarity to the lifting chains and straps of a car engine hoist is sure to intrigue every gearhead at bedtime.

The new device is getting a lot of attention and is sure to keep the California psychologist in cash for several lifetimes, leaving most former therapy patients desperate to ask the newly-enriched couch jockey "how does that make you feel?"

Since I'm big on bandwagon jumping, I've come up with a few inventions of my own, in hopes that one of them will catch on among the fashion firing squads, including:

• "The UPS" - this is a contraption that fits like men's underwear, but includes enormous and bulky padding in the front that will give women the impression that the wearer is sporting an impressive "package."
• "The Convertible Chest" - the early iterations of this product will be like a large sheet of smooth, flesh colored Band-Aid tape that a man can stick to his chest.  It will give the illusion of a smooth, hairless torso for women who are turned off by the hairy-chested Guido look, while allowing a man the option of maintaining his inner wildebeest for those female companions and cat lovers who like to have something tangled and matted to run their fingers through at bedtime.  A companion product, the "Convertible Back," applies the same theory to help men who have been mistaken for escaped zoo-dwellers when viewed from behind at the beach.  The only hang-up in early research development is that few Neanderthal types have been willing to put the no-hair-pulling adhesive to the test, especially after watching reruns of the waxing scene from "The 40-year-old Virgin."
• "The Maniki" - just like the Biniki, it is a device men wear which will make their butts protrude, filling out their Wranglers to Brett Favre proportions.  The truth is that the accoutrement is actually nothing more than a jock strap, which is the secret behind why women lust after NFL running backs, and adds credence to the rumor that Kim Kardashian actually dumped former boyfriend Reggie Bush because she realized that his butt looked better than hers whenever he trotted onto the field in his New Orleans Saints uniform.
• "The Rocktavia" - similar to Octavia dresses worn by curvy actresses like Kate Winslet that give the illusion of a slimmer waistline, the Rocktavia uses strategically placed reflective strips and holographic tape to hide a man's beer belly, while giving the illusion of a "six pack" with a series of a half-dozen bean bags sewn into the shirt's abdominal lining.

For now, these man-friendly ideas are still in the drawing board phase.  However, the Biniki is already a reality, and continuing to grow in popularity.  You'll know it has hit its peak when the Bravo Channel rolls out a new reality show this fall called "The Real Binikis of Orange County."

Pocket Protector Pit Crew At CERN Insists Einstein Was Wrong

CERN's Hadron Collider, where scientists claim they have
discovered neutrinos are faster than the speed of light, as
long as the light comes from a three-wheeled scooter. 

It gives me great pleasure to announce that genius extraordinaire Albert Einstein was wrong.

To me, it's not really important what the frizzy-haired whiz was wrong about.  It could be an errant answer in a game of Trivial Pursuit and I would celebrate his mistake.

I say this because the guy who turned the cryptic equation E=MC² into a successful t-shirt franchise was known as the smartest man on the planet until he died in 1955 from terminal stubbornness.  It was actually an aortal aneurism that laid him low, but it was a correctable malady even in 1955 when surgical tools still included leeches and chopsticks.  Einstein simply opted not to have the surgery.

So now we're aware of the German-born scientist making two mistakes in his life.  The second one was outed recently by the guys with the big electron race car track called CERN near Geneva.

According to Einstein, nothing in the universe is faster than the speed of light.  Unfortunately, that's because Old Al lived in the first half of the 20th century.  Since then, there have been a lot of things shown to be faster than that, including:

• A Kardashian marriage
• A Lindsay Lohan jail stay
• The length of an American Idol winner's career
• The shelf life of a Hostess Twinkie at Rosie O'Donnell's house
• The time spent on Jessica Simpson's deepest thought
• How long after election it takes a new Congressman to accept his first bribe

According to the guys at CERN, Einstein was incorrect.  They claim that recent tests at their Hadron Collider prove that a particle called a neutrino is actually 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light.

I find it hilarious and telling that you can take a collection of mostly men with diplomas listing more advanced degrees than a Redman tobacco thermometer, give them a couple of billion dollars, and the first thing they do is build a 17-mile oval race track and start holding races and time trials.  I guess the white coats help really set off the red of their necks.

However, I'm not sure I buy their hypothesis.

How long is a nanosecond?  Who knows.  Not even Bulova can make a watch that will measure such a minute (pronounced "my-newt," not "min-nut," which is my ghastly attempt at a pun) fraction of time.  But it seems to get the guys in white lab coats all excited like Tony Stewart's crew chief following a 12-second pit stop.

The bigger question remains, "what is a neutrino?"

I got out my biggest Egghead-to-English translation dictionary only to find that it basically means "little neutral one" in Italian.  It's allegedly like an electron, but without being electrically charged.  It's neither positive nor negative. 

In other words, it's as completely politically correct as they come. 

But I believe that those guys are as wrong as Einstein.  As Congress has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt for more than three decades, nothing in nature is completely neutral.

However, the brainiacs in Switzerland insist that neutrinos exist.  The skeptical newspaper man in me suspects that the neutrinos also have an exquisite wardrobe made with the finest thread that only those with superior IQ's can see and appreciate (which would lead me to label them "emperor neutrinos").

I find it fascinating that people have been seeing actual ghosts for centuries, including documented and photographed proof of their antics.  Yet scientists continue to insist that ghosts don't exist, but that we should believe in these mystical neutrinos despite the fact that you could take all the PhD's in the world who claim to have "seen" a neutrino, and they could comfortably fit into the space of a single Spock Ears booth at a Des Moines Star Trek convention.

Who would have thought that the Mensa crowd would glom onto a phrase that used car salesmen wore out a quarter-century ago: "Trust me."

But to me the important thing remains the fact that a collection of virginal electron nerds armored with pocket protectors on both sides of their shirts insist that the smartest guy ever to walk the planet was wrong. 

If I had a nickel for every time someone pointed out a mistake in my writing with the suffix "Workman, you're no Einstein," I could now cash them in and be a millionaire.  But more importantly thanks to the new claim by the pit crew at the CERN race track, that Einstein was also occasionally wrong, I now have a flawless retort:

Apparently, yes I am.

Race Between Christmas And Politics

The race is on, and the two competitors couldn't be more different.

It's what some might call a "hurry up" race.  Others might refer to it as "the race to prematurity."

I'm talking about the insistence on starting earlier and earlier to hawk some event.

On the holiday side, it's no secret that Santa images started popping up about the same time Freddy Kruger knocked on your door.

People say it every year, and every year they're more correct: The Christmas season seems to start earlier and earlier.

This year, my e-mail box has been flooded with various stores and businesses helping me prepare for "Black Friday," that day of shopping madness that usually comes the day after Thanksgiving.

Probably the best evidence that incrementalism has helped the Ho-Ho holiday creep up earlier is the announcement by Walmart that their Black Friday will actually begin at 10 p.m. on Thursday.  That's right, for those who can still move after a day of epicurean excess, Walmart will be holding their first big blowout of the Christmas season with a sale on toys and video games at 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night. Then at midnight comes the one that usually results in somebody getting a ride in an ambulance thanks to trampling injuries - the sale on electronics.

I always thought the Black Friday thing was indicative of the worst in our consumer society, ramping up our shopping fanaticism a full month before Rudolph needed to get his nose shined up.  Sneaking that starting pistol to Thursday night, infringing on the Thanksgiving holiday's territory, is simply wrong.

The arrival of TV ads and Christmas themed music also comes earlier and earlier.  In fact, and I'm not kidding, I actually came across the movie "The Santa Clause" playing on TV over the weekend.  (For those reading this in the future, I'm talking about Nov. 12.)

We used to joke every January that instead of taking down our holiday decorations, we should just go ahead and leave them up year round.

Thanks to the folks on Madison Avenue, that joke gets less funny each season. 

You'll know the race to start Christmas shopping early has gone too far the day you see Santa and the Easter Bunny duking it out in your front yard some April.

But it's not just the retailers with an impatience bone.

It's not just an illusion that the race for president is starting earlier and earlier.

The next president of the United States won't be sworn in until Jan. 20, 2013.  Yet here we are, in the early part of November, 2011, and we've already been forced to endure no less than a dozen televised presidential debates.  (And I use the term loosely, since I've yet to see any "debating" take place at one of these events; it's actually just a compilation of candidates taking turns offering carefully crafted competing 120-second sound bites.)

I remember the good old days, when people didn't get sick of presidential politics until the national conventions fired up in the summer.

Here it is only November of 2011, a full year before the election, and I'm already tired of hearing from and about the candidates.  Even as protracted and fake-dramatic as American Idol can be, the nonsense and final voting are wrapped up in less than two months.

You used to have to wait until the spring of an election year for political scandals to erupt.  Now we have the Herman Cain sexual harassment claims getting front page publicity at the same time Santa is making his first appearances in the Sunday newspaper.

The first primary is yet to be held, and we've already had people dropping out of the race.  It's like holding the time qualification laps for February's Daytona 500 sometime around July.

The TV personalities and political junkies were wetting themselves over the Iowa straw poll in August.  A testament to just how meaningless these early straw polls can be is the fact that the winner of the Ames straw poll just three months ago is now about one "debate" away from going back to selling Avon.

It's ridiculous how early these presidential campaigns are starting these days, and rivals the early-Christmas dope pushers for impatient stupidity.

Personally, I'm hoping to solve both problems at the same time.

If I'm able to keep my eyes open long enough to continue paying attention, I'm going to listen very carefully to the next 30 or 40 televised debates.  The first candidate to state that they will support legislation prohibiting the mention of the words "Christmas" or "Holiday Shopping" between January and November, or who promises to change the Constitution to restrict presidential campaigns to only be permitted in an actual election year, will get my support and vote.

Provided, of course, that candidate is still in the race when the next babbling, cooing, drooling, caca-producing, gibberish-spouting political twins are born at the national conventions nine months from now.

Missing Andy Rooney

You know what really bugs me?  Writing heroes who die before I'm ready.

That would be a perfect opening for one of Andy Rooney's patented "60 Minutes" pieces.

His topics on TV made him famous, but I admire him because the CBS gig was actually like a side job for him.

Andy Rooney, at his core, was a writer.

In addition to his weekly TV appearances, he also wrote for numerous TV shows, including Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts," an early precursor to American Idol in which the studio audience chose the winners with applause instead of texts.

He was also a newspaper columnist, and wrote a few books.  In his younger years, he served as a war correspondent for Stars and Stripes in World War II.

In fact, he often described himself as "a writer who happens to be on TV," instead of the other way around.

I've often thought that, if I could design my perfect job, it would be his.  In fact, I've caught myself on occasion writing articles that had a distinct Rooney feel while railing about one thing or another.  He was able to walk a fine line, offering views on topical issues without actually becoming a critic or political commentator.  His stuff wasn't particularly hard hitting, but it also wasn't fluff.  It was always, however, entertaining.

The irascible observationist didn't shy away from his unofficial title as "curmudgeon."  But despite his diatribes, I never felt he was truly mean.  In fact, he once commented that he hadn't said anything on "60 Minutes" that people didn't already know or hadn't thought.

According to a Washington Post piece, Rooney once said "A writer's job is to tell the truth."

I've always subscribed to that philosophy, and was always pleased that his fame didn't corrupt that approach.

He was a principled man.  When CBS refused to run a piece he had written about the Vietnam War in 1970, he quit the network.  He later returned in 1973. 

He spoke his mind and didn't apologize for being politically incorrect.  However, when he was wrong, he was man enough to admit it, as he did when a remark made about homosexuals resulted in his month-long suspension at CBS.  (Incidentally it was supposed to be a two-month suspension, but after viewership dropped 20%, he was reinstated early.)  In his televised apology in which he talked about trying to do good things for most of his life, he said "Now, I was to be known for having done, not good, but bad. I'd be known for the rest of my life as a racist bigot and as someone who had made life a little more difficult for homosexuals. I felt terrible about that and I've learned a lot."

Rooney also stated frequently that "writers don't retire." He lived that statement, continuing to do his "60 Minutes" segments right up until Oct. 2.  Like Alabama football coaching legend Paul "Bear" Bryant who died barely a month after coaching his last game, Rooney died almost exactly one month after his last "60 Minutes" segment aired.  He was 92.

While the writer and TV personality said he didn't believe in God, I'm sure he has found plenty of great writers to keep him company on the other side of the veil, including brilliant columnists like Lewis Grizzard and author Michael Crichton. 

On this side, he'll be missed.  As much as I've dreamed of being like him in some of my writings, I know that there will never be another Andy Rooney.