The Real War on Christmas

Via the indispensable Overlawyered.com, The Times (London) reports on one British city's depressing and hilarious attempt to craft a Christmas tree "according to the principles of health and safety, circa 2009":

Thus it has no trunk so it won't blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone's head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye, no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal and no angel, presumably because it would need a dangerously long ladder to place it at the top.

Click here to see the "tree" from the safety of your home or office. Go here to find out why the War on Christmas is even less winnable than the War on Drugs.

Comments

[Jennifer]

And wrapping gifts is bad for the environment and puts people at risk of paper cuts.

[The Gobbler]

Why do you hate the Holiday Infant, Jennifer?

[briareus]

Holiday Infant, classic.

Thanks for that.

Merry Mithras!

[artificial grass california]

yeah, why? it seems cool to me.

[Mary STACK]

Jennifer, if you had seen/read New Moon you would know how dangerous paper cuts can be.

[Paul]

Don't even get me started on staplers...

[Mary STACK]

http://www.montrealmirror.com/....._news.html

[Rick]

Just forwarded that to our safety folks here at work. They need to get on this right away - can't be outdone by those Brits!

[John]

"Last year Poole boasted a Norwegian fir draped with strings of coloured lights. It cost ?500 and continued a decades-old tradition. The replacement, which is constructed on a metal frame overlaid with what appears to be artificial grass, cost ?14,000 and comes with built-in fairy lights and hidden speakers to play Christmas tunes that will put shoppers in the festive mood."

Britian is just tragic comedy.

[PapayaSF]

Yes, 28 times as expensive, plus it's uglier (like some sort of streamlined Bauhaus tree). And anyone want to bet there will still be some sort of complaint about it for its "lack of diversity" or whatever?

[BakedPenguin]

That comment is a hate crime.

[JB]

We are living in The Onion.

Peel back the layers and cry.

[Andrew Lynch]

The tree was commissioned by the Poole Town Centre Management Board because of fears that a real one would pose a hazard to shoppers.

I was waiting to get to the part where the well-meaning bureaucrats are revealed. Last year's Norwegian fir cost 500 pounds. The Nurse Diesel Bra Cup they got this year cost 14,000 pounds.

How do these things happen?

[Russ 2000]

Looks like a large, green, dunce cap.

[?]

When the polar bears fall from the sky (any minute now), they won't find that tree "safe." Plus, it's a minaret, or it's mocking one. Racist! And anything that brutally ass-reamy looking has to hate fags.

Bring out the Season Blob!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Look at the gap between the tree and the ground. I could definitely get my head stuck under there.

[Brandybuck]

What I find amazing is Great Britain used to have a globe spanning empire.

[dbcooper]

One of their skills was in exporting administration and order. Now that is all internally focused. Major problem.

[briareus]

Interesting point. So what they have now is, Suicide By Safety Committee.

[peachy]

It's important to recall that a lot of the administering in the old days was done by twenty-something aristocrats with a couple of semesters at Oxbridge and a carriage full of guns. Those old-timey colonial civil servants would be asking "is our traditional tree stupidly dangerous enough, and what can we do to make Christmas more fun in this hundred degree hellhole"? (The answer, by the way, is to shoot assorted large man-killing wildlife and then bang some native chicks.)

[Episiarch]

It's much more fun administering the wogs than fellow Englishmen, I take it?

[peachy]

The wogs begin at Calais, my good man - thrashing them and then administering them (and fucking the good-looking ones, naturally) is a gentleman's duty and pleasure. [adjusts monocle, checks cartridge box]

(Seriously - I grew up in various former colonies, British and French both, and unless you had an interest in antiquities, hunting and fucking would have been the major diversions. Fortunately those were the only diversions plenty of twenty-something aristocrats cared about, so it all worked out just fine.)

[R C Dean]

You left out the drinking, peachy. Although it pretty much goes without saying.

[Andrea]

They need to get out and start conquering again.

[Pro Libertate]

You know what? I love Christmas.

[brotherben]

It's getting to the point that my favorite part of christmas is seeing just how stupid the victimology on both sides gets.

Oh, and I bet that the carpet they used would burn like a roman candle with a little incentive.

[Dagny T.]

Me too, Pro L! Although this year my holiday season will be oddly punctuated with a business trip to Orlando. Do you strange Floridians know it's Christmastime at all?

[Pro Libertate]

What's Christmas got to do with cold weather?

[Isaac Bartram]

Yep, in Australia Xmas is in the middle of summer.

Although there are many Chrismas mornings that you can look up and see snow on the top of the mountain above Hobart on Christmas day.

And then you can have a Christmas Day picnic at the beach in the afternoon.

[BakedPenguin]

Dude, she's Canadian. She'll probably stop in a bar here, complain that they aren't showing the Canucks vs. the Flames, say the beer tastes like piss, and then leave a 3% tip.

[joshua corning]

I here Bethlehem is ball freezing cold this time of year.

[Isaac Bartram]

Three years in Saskatchewan gave me enough memories of cold and snow to last a lifetime. 🙂

I haven't seen downtown Orlando yet but Winter Park and Altamonte Springs have all the Christmas lights and decorations out. And I was out somewhere the other night where they were playing Christmas tunes. Luckily, I'd left my gun at home.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, what was the weather like in the Middle East two thousand years ago? Winter wonderland?

[BakedPenguin]

Orlando can't pay for any decorations this year, Isaac. At least if the local news is to be believed.

[Pro Libertate]

And it can't educate children, maintain roads, keep people in prison, etc. Amazing the B.S. the government is capable of.

[Isaac Bartram]

You wouldn't have that problem if the Democrats were in charge...oh wait...

[Jennifer]

What really depresses me is knowing that whatever idiocy gains a foothold in Britain will migrate over to our side of the Atlantic soon. I wish the Brits would grow some balls and tell their government to shove off.

Of course, I wish my compatriots would do the same.

[Andrew S.]

Soon? As far as I can tell, it's already here.

[briareus]

Oh, it's here alright.

[Old Mexican]

I would ask where would one put the ornamnts on that Christmas artichoke...

[Dello]

The idiots should have erected a minerette...

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

I want one of my own. I'd leave it up all year.

[George]

Sounds like the Festivus pole.

[Pro Libertate]

The Festivus pole is too weapon-like for the UK.

[EJM]

I don't know if they ever did it on the UK version, but here's the 1981 (U.S.) edition of the "Blockbusters" Christmas tree. Maybe the city should consider something like it.

[robert]

I like it, but i'm not a real big christmas enthusiast anyway.

[Isaac Bartram]

This, from the coments to TFA, pretty much says it all.

I was thinking of bolding some points and adding some commentary but I decided to post the whole thing without embellishment.

Sarah Absalom wrote:
A member of our staff when into Poole on Thursday evening to film the Christmas tree and decoration and was follower around Poole Shopping Centre by 2 plan cloth police man from Poole police station who then followed her to the car park, she was stopped and asked for identification as she was considered to be a terrorist, the member of staff said she also noticed another group of uniformed police hanging around in the corner of the car park obviously looking for the rest of her terror cell.

There were others taking pictures with mobile phones, cameras, video but then everyone else had a white face so was not considered to be a terrorist.

The police handed her a Stop and Search document that reported that she was wearing pink wellys, pink wool top, and pink scarf.

Anyone wonting to see the Christmas tree terrorist video can find it on Youtub, search for Poole, Christmas, dorset, police, terrorist.

We like the Christmas tree and Decoration it a great improvement on the council's usual rubbish, and it is as eco-friendly as you can get.

November 27, 2009 9:46 PM GMT

[prolefeed]

Good of 'em to put a dunce cap up in public to remind everyone what idiots are running the show.

[Attorney]

Fools! This is obviously the hellish idol at the centre of a horrific Lovecraftian cult!

[MattXIV]

If nothing more attractive than that can stand up to the winds, it is reasonable to assume that Jesus doesn't want you to have a Christmas tree and putting that thing up is just going piss him off more.

[BakedPenguin]

Some compared it to a giant traffic cone, a witch's hat or a cheap special effect from an early episode of Doctor Who...

Oh yeah, because the production values on the middle and later ones will just blow you away...

[Episiarch]

Look, BP, Tom Baker went through a lot of scarves. That ain't cheap.

[Stacia Cosner]

I think we'll see a Christmas-free America before we see a Drug-free America. That's how well the war on drugs is working.

[BakedPenguin]

Epi, I'm willing to bet his wardrobe was a significant part of their budget. I mean, Star Trek: TOS could at least afford styrofoam rocks and bleached ape suits with horns attached to them. Also, lighting gels

Here's more evidence of the WoC, from Jersey.

[BakedPenguin]

Stacia, while I agree that what you said is true, those who oppose the WoD should watch how they phrase their arguments. As far as I'm concerned, it's good that throwing people in cages and allowing them to be raped and brutalized is not an effective method to stop others from ingesting substances some moralist twats have deemed unacceptable.

In other words, the fact that the War on Drugs can never work is far less important than the fact that it's none of anyone's goddamn business what a person takes, except for voluntary contracts.

[Warty]

Holy shit, BP, someone else in this godforsaken shithole has enough good taste to enjoy Monster Magnet? I had no idea this place wasn't exclusively populated by sodomites with terrible taste. You win the prize.

[dbcooper]

Dude, there are many of his here who own, at least, Dopes to Infinity.

[dbcooper]

Video is classic BTW.

[BakedPenguin]

Warty - I just hope Wyndorf's OD doesn't make him "sensitive" or whatever.

[stubby]

Sigh. Day by day Britain becomes what Kage Baker envisioned in the Company series - her future Britain is a land of veganism, no vices, ubiquitous social monitors, almost no private space, animal rights fully on a par with human rights, a population that no longer thinks for itself or tries to (the richer you are, the less likely it is that you can read), and so on. there's nothing funny or parodical (parodical? parodyish?) about it.

[joshua corning]

I actually like the tree. It is something out of a cartoon fairy tale....which pretty much sums up that last little bit of remains of what i like of Christmas anymore.

bah humbug

[MJ]

It's like the metal trees that depress the hell out of Charlie Brown before he finds his little, scraggly real tree.

[Steve Mitton]

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

...Part Duex

2009

EVERY WHO DOWN IN WHOVILLE LIKED CHRISTMAS A LOT,

BUT THE GRINCH, WHO LIVED JUST NORTH OF WHOVILLE, DID NOT.

THE GRINCH HATED CHRISTMAS THE WHOLE CHRISTMAS SEASON

NO ONE KNOWS WHY, NO ONE KNOWS QUITE THE REASON.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN THAT THE GRINCH WAS JEW,

BUT HE WASN'T THE GRINCH SIMPLY HATED EACH WHO.

HE HATED THEM ALL SINCE THEY ALL SEEMED SO HAPPY

AND THE GRINCH'S POOR LIFE WAS COMPARATIVELY CRAPPY.

THE GRINCH WAS AN ATHIEST, GAY, AND A COMMIE

(SOMETHING HE'D LEARNED FROM HIS DAD AND HIS MOMMIE).

HE DIDN'T MIND WINTER SOLSTICE OR KWANZAA

BUT THE "CHRIST" NAME IN CHRISTMAS DROVE THAT GRUMPY GRINCH GONZA.

BECAUSE JESUS TAUGHT LOVE, GOODNESS, MORALS, AND SUCH

THINGS THAT THE GRINCH DIDN'T PRACTICE THAT MUCH.

BUT YOU KNOW THAT OLD GRINCH WAS SO SMOOTH AND SO SLICK

THAT HE THOUGHT UP A PLAN AND HE THOUGHT IT UP QUICK.

THIS YEAR NO SANTA SUIT, NO TASTY ROAST BEAST

NO TRUSTY DOG MAX OR CRASHING THE FEAST

NO MORE BROODING IN SILENCE, NO CINDY LOU WHO

NO?. THIS YEAR THE GRINCH WOULD CALL the ACLU .

SO THE GRINCH GRABBED HIS CELL PHONE, HE GOT ON THE HORN

AND CALLED ON THE MOST VILE LAWYERS E'ER BORN.

ATTORNEYS AMORAL, AGGRESSIVE AND MEAN

WHO WORK IN THE WHOLE "HATE AMERICA" SCENE.

AND YES ALL THESE LAWYERS WERE ALL CLOSET COMMIES

(SOMETHING THEY'D LEARNED FROM THEIR DADDIES AND MOMMIES).

AND THOUGH THEY WERE BAD FROM SHOELACES TO FACES

THEY'D ALL BECOME RICH ON A CONTINGENCY BASIS.

THEN HE CALLED MICHAEL NEWDOW, WHO REALLY HATES GOD

AND SOME MUSLIM LAWYER NAMED TAWFIQ HADAD.

WITH HIS DEVILS IN PLACE AND READY TO SUE

THE GRINCH NOW WAS READY TO SCREW EVERY WHO

ALL THE WINDOWS WERE DARK, QUIET SNOW FILLED THE AIR

ALL THE WHOS WERE ALL DREAMING SWEET DREAMS WITHOUT CARE.

WHEN HE CAME TO THE BRIGHT LIGHTS RIGHT THERE ON THE SQUARE.

THE GRINCH SAID, "THIS BANNER SIMPLY MUST GO

IT SAYS 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' IT CLEARLY SAYS SO.

I DON'T BELIEVE IN THIS JESUS CHRIST FELLOW."

THEN THE ACLU GUYS ALL STARTED TO BELLOW,

"THIS BANNER'S ILLEGAL, INTOLERANT, INTRUSIVE.

THE WHOS MUST REPLACE IT WITH SOMETHING INCLUSIVE."

SO THE BANNER CAME DOWN AND THE WHOS HAD SOME MEETINGS

AND PUT UP A NEW ONE THAT SAID "SEASONS GREETINGS."

WITH THE BANNER NOW HISTORY, THE GRINCH STARTED ON

THE SWEET MANGER SCENE ON THE CITY HALL LAWN.

THE ACLU GUYS SAID, "THIS TOO MUST GO.

PUT A KWANZAA DISPLAY UP RIGHT THERE IN THE SNOW!"

MIKE NEWDOW THEN SAID,"WE'VE GOT THESE WHOS OVER BARRELS,

SO IN ALL THE WHOS SCHOOLS WE'LL ELIMINATE CAROLS!

AND WHILE ALL THIS WAS HAPPENING WHAT DID THE WHOS DO?

WHY THEY DID NOTHING BUT CRY BOO-HOO-HOO

WE DON'T HAVE THE MONEY. WE DON'T HAVE THE TIME.

THE COURTS ARE AGAINST US. IT'S SUCH A TOUGH CLIMB.

I GUESS WE'LL JUST LUMP IT. THIS MUST BE OUR FATE.

AND THEY CRIED AND THEY WHINED UNTIL ALL WAS TOO LATE.

THEN THE GRINCH AND THE LAWYERS RAN RAMPANT THROUGH TOWN.

TEARING EVERY REFERENCE TO JESUS CHRIST DOWN.

NOW ITS MANY YEARS LATER AND CHRIST IS ALL GONE

AND THE WHOS ARE ALL WONDERING WHERE DID WE GO WRONG.

OH, SURE, SANTA'S STILL THERE WITH HIS REINDEER AND ELVES

BUT AS THE WHOS SNOOZED THEY LOST PART OF THEMSELVES.

WITH CHRIST GONE FROM CHRISTMAS THE SPIRIT LEFT, TOO

AND LEFT A BIG, GAPING HOLE IN EACH SOUL IN EACH WHO.

AND WHAT OF THE GRINCH, NO, HE, STILL IS UNHAPPY

BUT IT MAKES HIM FEEL BETTER NOW THAT EVERYONE'S CRAPPY.

SO, NOW CHRISTMAS TIME'S JUST A MEM'RY FOR WHOS

WHO LET IT ALL GO TO THE ACLU'S.

by

Steve Mitton

With apologies to Dr. Seuss

http://www.stevesradio.com