CRUISING WITH BETTIE

Good morning, sinners.

If you haven’t made yr Halloween plans yet, may we suggest the following:



My first thought was, “A ship full of Bettie Page impersonators? EPIC WIN!”

Actually, it’s more like a 50s rockabilly/burlesque theme party. Not quite as awesome as a ship full of Betties. But a ship full of burlesque queens, pompadours, bowling shirts and riding crops ain’t a bad way to celebrate Halloween, either.

In theory, anyway.

THWACK!

Potential disappointment: no mention of any “punishment rooms” or rope-tying classes on the “entertainment” page. But if nothing else, they’ll have rockabilly bands and burlesque performers on hand for entertainment. So that’s something. Did I mention Olivia de Berardinis [NSFW] will be at the sail-away party?

And if you don’t have a thing to wear, the Internets provides.

CUSTOMER ADVISORY: Final payment date for the cruise is July 25. Must be 21 years of age or older at time of embarkation.

It’s martini time,

This is dF

SHOULD WE SEND THE KIDS TO JESUS CAMP OR SATAN CAMP THIS YEAR?

ITEM [via Team Def Agent garbagecanmusic]: A Satanist and his second Christian ex-wife are in court fighting for the legal right to share their religion with their three young children.

Ex-Wife 2 wants Dad’s visitation rights restricted so that he has to take them to church on Sundays whether he wants to or not, and says he’s embarrassing them by belonging to the Church Of Satan. His first ex-wife (with whom he also had a kid) says he’s screwing up that daughter’s life, too.

The main thrust of the story is that judges legally aren’t supposed to take a parent’s religious beliefs into account when ruling on custody rights, but are being increasingly asked to do so “as the frequency of interfaith marriages and religious conversions increases and fathers become more active in their kids' upbringing”.

And of course, when it’s Christianity vs SATAN!!!, the odds of an unbiased decision drop radically. If Roy Moore was hearing this case, Dad might as well settle out of court.

As someone who witnessed the “Rock Music Is Satanic” hysteria firsthand during his impressionable high school years when he was listening to LOTS of AC/DC, Dio-era Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, the irrational side of me hopes that this case will actually force the media to report that the Church Of Satan is more a structured lifestyle/philosophy than literally selling yr soul to Satan, and that the judge will actually make a ruling that being a Satanist doesn’t make you any less or more qualified to raise children than, say, parents who send their kids to Jesus Camp.

But who am I kidding?

Whatever happens, I feel bad for the kids having to be subject to indoctrination wars. It’s bad enough watching mom and dad scream and throw dishes at each other, let alone have them fight over yr soul and which god you should or shouldn’t worship.

I’d go on at length about indoctrinating gullible kids, but Richard Dawkins has already done it for me.

The only good side to it is that if you ever do stand-up comedy for a living, you’ll have plenty of material. It’s certainly worked for Dave Allen.

Religion ruined my life,

This is dF

MPAA’S NEW PIRATE WEAPON: RELEASE THE HOUNDS!

ITEM [via Threat Level]: The MPAA has trained dogs to hunt down pirate DVDs.



Technically, of course, the dogs can’t tell the difference between a legit DVD and a pirate copy, but they can find hidden caches of DVDs in warehouses or car boots in situations where the DVDs are likely to be counterfeit.

I mock the MPAA’s “Downloading is killing Hollywood” routine, but the idea of DVD sniffer dogs is actually a good idea – inasmuch that it targets people selling fake DVDs for profit, which is a legit (if arguably overblown) problem.

That said, I find it disingenuous that the MPAA is hoping that the DVD dogs will put a friendlier spin on the War On Piracy. As long as the studios continue to make no distinction between people selling pirate discs out of the back of a car for money and kids putting clips of the Sicilian scene from True Romance on YouTube for fun – all while crying poor yet somehow finding the hundreds of millions of dollars necessary to make more Rambo movies – the mockery from the Team Def Citadel will continue.

Good dog,

This is dF