Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Monday, June 16, 2008

Vatican Bans Filming Of "Da Vinci Code" Sequel

By Cernig



The Vatican has banned moviemakers working on "Angels and Demons" from filming in the Holy See or any church in Rome - and they didn't even read the script first.

Father Marco Fibbi, a spokesman, said: "Usually we read the script but in this case it wasn't necessary. Just the name Dan Brown was enough. "



He added that most films are given permission, as long as they respect the "traditions of the Church". Father Fibbi said: "Angels and Demons peddles a type of fantasy that damages our common religious beliefs, just like The Da Vinci Code did."



The Catholic Church is still angry over The Da Vinci Code, which suggested that Jesus may have been secretly married to Mary Magdalene. When the movie came out, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said: "Boycotting this film is the least we can do. The book and the film are a pot pourri of nonsense, a phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions."

The scenes in Rome churches will now be shot in mock-ups on a soundstage. At which point filming will be interupted by Bobby Jindal and four others looking to exorcise Dan Brown and Tom Hanks while yelling something about no-one expecting them...



8 comments:

  1. Throwing in a little Monty Python for us, C?

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  2. "The book and the film are a pot pourri of nonsense, a phantasmagorical cocktail of inventions."
    Just like the Roman church and its doctrines.

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  3. Well, I would exorcise Dan Brown, but for entirely different reasons. Have you read the man's work? Appalling.

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  4. my family and i were just talking about how strange it was that the vatican allowed the "Da Vinci Code" to be released seeing how it offered new and unwanted theories about the church. this just adds fuel to the fire that the church REALLY doesn't want anything other than their story to be released. i wonder why... maybe those countless books and scrolls in the vatican archives explain the story more along Dan Browns thought process.

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  5. HAHAHA!! You know, when the church bans something, that there is some truth behind it.

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  6. If everyone's stories about jesus, the begining etc is such bullshit, why is the vatican hiding books in its archives that no one can see? May it shed some light on the truth? Will it prove that God doesn't care about what building you pray in or that you don't need to give money to go to heaven.
    Like the guy from scientology said, if you wanna become rich, start a religion.
    so %!@# you Vatican

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  7. Opiate for the massesJune 18, 2008 at 5:36 AM

    wow, this reminds me of south park.... "Mom, the pope won't come out of the closet!!!"

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