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Downright Fruity: Swedish Official Demands Banana-free Rooms Due to Phobia

By Selwyn Duke

“Yes, We Have No Bananas” is the name of a famous old song. It’s also apparently what Sweden’s “gender equality minister,” Paulina Brandberg, wants to hear.

What’s that?

Well, here’s the story: The official actually demands that her staff clear rooms of all bananas before her arrival — owing, reportedly, to a phobia.

I know, I know, while some may crack, “You can’t make this stuff up,” someone must have. When I first heard the story, on social media, I thought the same: “Okay, this really could be satire.” So I did a bit of research and, well, hell’s bells, it’s as real as a monkey’s love for, uh…bananas.

Video: Don't Support Kamala! A Man Smarter Than She is Diagnoses Her Problem

By Selwyn Duke

If you want to know what's wrong with Kamala Harris, this video explains it. And wait till you see who's rendering the diagnosis!

The Rise of the Professional Slut

By Selwyn Duke

“There was a time when you knew who the bad girls were,” someone close to me once said. “Now you know who the good girls are.”

And I hear that all three of them are beside themselves over today’s state of affairs.

“Lena Dunham: I Was Raped By a ‘Campus Republican,’” the headline reads, introducing the “Girls” star’s story about an alleged sexual assault at the hands of a “mustachioed” conservative undergrad while a student at Ohio’s Oberlin College nearly a decade ago. It’s perhaps a fanciful story, the kind you might expect to read in the National Enquirer or The Sun right after “I Was Impregnated by a Space Alien” and “Loch Ness Monster Found Living in Central Park Lake.” I mean, really, are we supposed to believe this?

That there was a Republican at Oberlin College?

Archie Bunker in the White House?

By Selwyn Duke

Everyone who isn’t like Obama (i.e., uninformed) knows about Obama’s not-too-uncommon malapropisms and mistakes, such as when he pronounced “corpsman” “corpse-man” — three times in one speech. Early this year, the president called Oklahoma’s Choctaw Nation the “Cock-taw” Nation. And more recently, he mispronounced Ebola “Ebolee” during an October 2 speech in Illinois. Yup, don’t wanna catch that there Ebolee. That’d done be the death a’ yous guys.

Some will say here that anyone can make a mistake, that focusing on such gaffes is petty and unfair. But note the standard that has been established: One poorly timed moment of brain freeze scuttled Governor Rick Perry’s 2012 presidential aspirations. Sarah Palin was classified an airhead for, at least partially, something actually said by comedienne Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live. And “potatoe” was enough to do in former vice president Dan Quayle. The last example is especially apropos given that Obama would get (until recently, anyway) tremendous “r-s-p-e-c-t” — his misspelling of the word, mind you — for supposedly possessing intellectual heft.  An example of this was historian Michael Beschloss giddily saying in 2008 that Obama’s “I.Q. is off the charts,” though, in fairness and as writer Noemie Emery pointed out, “he didn’t specify which end of the chart it was off of.” 

Read the rest here.

Why I Hate Soccer

By Selwyn Duke

This article will be a departure from my usual fare. I will not claim there is some Absolute Truth deeming soccer the bane of humanity’s sports. I do not contend that some objective, divine standard places it in Dante’s ninth circle of athletic arenas, though I wish I could. Sport is a matter of taste, and, as G.K. Chesterton said (okay, so this isn’t a complete departure for me — I’m quoting Chesterton), “There are no uninteresting subjects, only uninterested people.” I get it. And I, I confess, like golf. So mock away. But in this piece I’ll ditch the Mr. Spock act, let my human side emote, may even contradict myself, and will say something.

I hate soccer.

I hear there’s something going on right now called the World Cup. I hear it’s in Brazil. I hear other pundits, such as Stephen Webb and Rick Moran, are commenting on it, taking opposing views. And I hear that the score between the two is 0-0 after 2000 words. But I won’t claim that soccer is un-American as did Webb or like Moran, claim it’s fun. I’ll say something truly intellectual.

Top Ten Things Putin Said to Obama about Ukraine

By Selwyn Duke

While Barack Obama’s recent telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin about the Crimean standoff has been widely reported, the exact substance of the discussion has remained a mystery.

That is, until now.

Owing to highly placed confidential sources, I’m pleased to report that I have become privy to some of the details of their talk. What follows are the top ten things Putin said to Obama:

10 Really Stupid Things Liberals Have Said

By Selwyn Duke

Liberals truly are fonts of sophistication and erudition. We know this because liberals tell us, and liberals are smart. They would never mangle words as does Dubya Bush or misspell “potato” like hapless Dan Quayle. But there are some things they would do, and what follows is a sampling.

1. The Four Chinese Pilots

San Francisco’s KTVU made news when reporting on the Asiana plane crash recently — but not in the way they intended. Mistaking an obvious Internet joke for legitimate information, the station reported, “KTVU has just learned the names of the four pilots who were aboard the flight. They are Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Low, Ho Lee Fuk and Bang Ding OW. The NTSB has confirmed that these are the names of the pilots onboard Flight 214 when it crashed. We are working to determine what roles each of them played during the landing.”

There’s Sum Ting Wong in the mainstream media, alright.

2. Dog Food Afternoon

But perhaps KTVU had graduated from the Patsy Schroeder School of Comedy. During a 1990s budget battle, the Democrats said that if the GOP got its way, the elderly would have to eat dog food to afford medicine. Radio host Rush Limbaugh then spoofed this demagoguery in a GOPAC speech, joking that he’d bought his mother a new can opener “so that she can get the dog food easier when she has to eat it.”

Enter liberal Congresswoman Schroeder. Taking Limbaugh’s comment seriously, she appeared on the House floor the next day to complain, emotionally and incredulously, that “this is what it’s come to! …Rush Limbaugh actually said he's going to buy his mother a can opener so she can have dog food. Wow!”

Yeah, wow. And they say conservatives have no sense of humor?

3. NBC: Nominal Brain Capacity

Read rest here.

The Debate: Obama’s Affirmative-action Performance

By Selwyn Duke

Hey, just blame it on Bush.

The consensus on the presidential debate last night is that Barack Obama could resurrect the Choom Gang and star in a remake of Dazed and Confused. Conservative pundits are all aflutter with praise and liberals are all on Twitter with groans. Andrew Sullivan wrote, “Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn't there.” A very upset Michael Moore tweeted, “This is what happens when u pick John Kerry as your debate coach.” And million-dollar-donor Bill Maher chimed in, “Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney.” Well, don’t feel too bad, guys. At least he did slightly better than when he debated Clint Eastwood.

Chris Matthews, clearly perturbed that he’s lost that tingling feelin’, asked, “Where was Obama tonight? … What was he doing…?” Chris, he was doing what he always does: nothing well. It’s just that you’ve finally noticed.

And now, after the Denver dose of reality, can we finally put to bed the myth of Obama the intellectually gifted? Yeah, I know, after eight years of a media narrative about Bush the cranially compromised, it was easy to say that, hey, now we’re getting the smart guy. As Joe Biden put it, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." Or, at least, that’s the story by the book — of cultural affirmative action (CAA).

Read the rest here.

Hokumhontas Warren's Stupid Horse Moment

By Selwyn Duke

Many critics have called Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren a "racist" for relating a family story about how her grandfather had "high cheekbones like all Indians do."  But they're wrong.  The comment wasn't "racist."

It was stupid.

In fact, it was childishly stupid.  Really, it reminds one of the copout Bill Clinton disgorged when addressing his marijuana use: "I tried it, but I didn't inhale."  And it should come as no surprise, either — leftists are childish.

In Praise of a Do-nothing Congress

By Selwyn Duke

Here's a question: how can we expect to have small government if we condemn Congress for not growing it?

It's always a disturbing experience when you're accosted with a picture of Harry Reid, as I was upon logging on to Drudge last Monday afternoon.  But at least his image bore a fitting caption: "MOST FUTILE EVER."  I then clicked the link and found myself at The Washington Times – normally a quite sane organ of the media – and learned the meaning of the caption: the Times was lamenting a do-nothing Congress and presented Reid as its poster boy.  Writes the paper, "It's official: Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills – fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947."  

Writes Duke, "It's official: conservatives are completely confused about what begets big government."