Category: Snark

I Carry Within Me the Threat of a Global Mass Extinction Event…

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Most people are unaware of this, but the extinction of the dinosaurs (except for the birds) was not the most massive extinction event.

In fact, the mass extinction that led to the dinosaurs was the largest of all time.

So, how does this involve me?

Well to those who know me, in particularly my relatives, will understand from the headline:

Did Giant Earth Fart Give Rise to the Dinosaurs?

A huge release of methane gas may have triggered the prehistoric mass extinctions that allowed dinosaurs to become the dominant life form on earth, according to a new study.

About 201 million years ago, half of known species vanished in an event that signaled the end of the Triassic period and created the lack of natural competition necessary for the ascendance of dinosaurs. The oldest known dinosaur fossiles date back to about 230 million years ago, but they do not take over until about 30 million years later.

Scientists had attributed the mass extinctions to 600,000 years of rampant volcanic activity, but a team of researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Nordic Center for Earth Evolution develop that theory further by arguing that a surge in volcanic activity released methane trapped in the sea floor, sending temperatures soaring.

“A small release of carbon monoxide from volcanism initiated global warming of the atmosphere, increasing temperatures in the oceans,” lead researcher Micha Ruhl told FoxNews.com. “Methane is stored in the sea floor — it’s a molecule which is caught in some kind of ice structure. As soon as the temperatures got above a certain threshold, the ice melted and that methane was released.”

Ruhl and his team studied the chemical remains of plants that had lived on the ocean floor and found a dramatic spike in carbon levels that lasted for a much shorter time than the period of volcanic eruptions, suggesting a shorter, more intense release of methane gases. Methane is more powerful than the carbon monoxide released by the volcanoes, and could have created a period of intense warming.

Be afraid, be very very afraid.

On a slightly less silly note, the idea that there is a tipping point where solid methane hydrate on the ocean floor (and in the tundra) would start outgassing at a ferocious rate, creating a horrific cascade.

Not The Onion…

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But this is satire:

In bid for attention, nation’s unemployed to launch failing investment bank

District of Columbia – In an effort to gain the support of political leaders, a coalition of unemployed Americans have filed paperwork to declare themselves the nation’s largest investment bank. Supporters of the planned financial institution hope the move will quickly curry Congressional favor, leading to a large-scale federal bailout of unemployed and underemployed workers.

…………

Read the rest, it is prize.

God Bless The Onion

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I really cannot add anything to the article, but it needs to be shared:

Budget Mix-Up Provides Nation’s Schools With Enough Money To Properly Educate Students

WASHINGTON—According to bewildered and contrite legislators, a major budgetary mix-up this week inadvertently provided the nation’s public schools with enough funding and resources to properly educate students.

Sources in the Congressional Budget Office reported that as a result of a clerical error, $80 billion earmarked for national defense was accidentally sent to the Department of Education, furnishing schools with the necessary funds to buy new textbooks, offer more academic resources, hire better teachers, promote student achievement, and foster educational excellence—an oversight that apologetic officials called a “huge mistake.”

…

Read the rest.

Quote of the Day

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From a discussion thread on Matthew Yglesias post:

Jasper_in_Boston 1 day ago

Matt: the president’s rhetoric about the economy has been off key since, er, February 2009. This is nothing new. Instead of conservatives worrying that he’s a secret Kenyan Shariast, I think liberals should be worrrying he’s a Grover Norquist deep implant.

DonxWilliams 1 day ago in reply to Jasper_in_Boston

Not really — there are strong differences between Obama and Norquist.

For example, Grover Norquist thinks we have too many black people locked up in prison:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/08/MNVK1IS92I.DTL

Heh.

No, I Did Not See Obama’s Interview on The Daily Show…

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I haven’t had time, or the inclination, though I have read excerpts.

The excerpts do not impress me, but then again, I’m not in the “Impressed by Barack Obama,” demographics, and and have not been since late 2007 (scroll down). I held my nose to vote for him in the general in 2008.

I just don’t feel any need to see it, though I probably will when the election passes.

Call it my own ‘enthusiasm gap’.

The Frothy Mix of Lube and Fecal Matter That Is Sometimes the Byproduct Of Anal Sex ……… *

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Former Pennsylvania Senator† Rick Santorum is looking at running for President in 2012.

Part of me is horrified at the prospect of his insanity and demagoguery polluting the Republican Presidential primary campaign, but another part does not believe that it’s possible for the cesspool known as the Republican Party can get any more polluted, and a third part of me is eager to comment on what is surely to be a first class clown show.
Snark Missile
Time to start stockpiling snark.

*If you don’t understand, you have been living under a rock, but the answer is only a Google away.
†While he lived in Virginia, and had no home in Pennsylvania, which is a neat trick.

Normally, I Do Not Give Investing Advice…

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“I’m beginning to think these are regular storms,” he added, “and we have a sh%$#y boat.”

But this proposed strategy actually sounds good:

It has been a profitable first half for Contrarian Partners. Our core investment strategy remains unchanged: to mine the research produced by investment banks every six months to establish consensus trading strategies. Then trade against them.

…………

In general, though, the advice was reassuringly poor. The markets continue to reward us for listening to the experts – then doing the opposite.

Needless to say, the proposal is tongue in cheek, but the the truth is in there.

The degree to which the “Masters of the Universe” have missed every warning out there, largely because their excessive salaries and bonuses depend on missing warnings, is stunning.

If we were to take the top 100,000 bankers in the world, and send them to North Korean reeducation camps, and pay the DPRK a million dollars to house each one, both the DPRK and the rest of the world would be far better off.

H/t Barry Ritholtz.

I Need Help With a Prank

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Renovation of the door is called for

I need a group of people who know how to handle themselves around tools, and can look like they know what they are doing.

What I am planning to do is generate a false work order and then install revolving doors at RNC headquarters:

The departures began in earnest about two months ago, shortly after reports of the RNC spending nearly $2,000 in donor money at a nightclub called Voyeur West Hollywood, an establishment where “impromptu bondage and S&M ‘scenes'” are “played out on an elevated platform by scantily clad performers throughout the night.”

The heads have been rolling ever since, even in departments that had nothing to do with the controversy.

It’s been tough to keep track of the staff shake-ups. The party’s finance chief and deputy finance director were recently forced out, as were three members of the RNC’s communications team. Those announcements came on the heels of departures from the party’s chief of staff, a top RNC strategist, and Alex Castellanos, who was brought on to help shape the party’s message. All of this has unfolded since late March.

The party may want to consider revolving doors at RNC headquarters.

Well, I saw that bit of snark, and decided that it’s time to make it reality.

I want a crack team to go there, show up with a work order, and install an actual revolving door.

Yes, I am really serious here, or, at least I think I am.

Hey kids, let’s put on a show in dad’s barn with mom’s costumes!

My guess is that we will get caught, and likely arrested, but if anyone knows a producer for The Daily Show, we can probably get on that.

The Ultimate Hitler/Downfall Parody

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I was thinking about putting up the Youtube (link), but by the time most of my readers saw this, it would be taken down.

There should be penalties for misusing takedown notices, something statutory, on an escalating scale, since this is only 3:50 of a movie, and a parody, and as such it should be fair use.

I am not suggesting that Youtube be sued, but I am suggesting that Constantin Film AG is breaking the law, and should be subject to sanctions, by issuing clearly illegal take-down notices.

In an interesting irony, this may be the best Hitler Parody ever.

Runners Up in the 2010 April Fools Competition

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I Call Best April Fools of the Season

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Click for full size

Gotta love the Grauniad*

Well, we now have a report that Labor is going to campaign on reports that Gordon Brown is violent and abusive with people:

In an audacious new election strategy, Labour is set to embrace Gordon Brown’s reputation for anger and physical aggression, presenting the prime minister as a hard man, unafraid of confrontation, who is willing to take on David Cameron in “a bare-knuckle fistfight for the future of Britain”, the Guardian has learned.

Following months of allegations about Brown’s explosive outbursts and bullying, Downing Street will seize the initiative this week with a national billboard campaign portraying him as “a sort of Dirty Harry figure”, in the words of a senior aide. One poster shows a glowering Brown alongside the caption “Step outside, posh boy,” while another asks “Do you want some of this?”

Brown aides had worried that his reputation for volatility might torpedo Labour’s hopes of re-election, but recent internal polls suggest that, on the contrary, stories of Brown’s testosterone-fuelled eruptions have been almost entirely responsible for a recent recovery in the party’s popularity. As a result, the aide said, Labour was “going all in”, staking the election on the hope that voters will be drawn to an alpha-male personality who “is prepared to pummel, punch or even headbutt the British economy into a new era of jobs and prosperity”.

………

It’s not real, but it should be, and Barack Obama might want to consider a similar course of action.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

I Must Condemn Matthew Yglesias in the Strongest Possible Terms

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This is just evil

Simply put, while I understand and appreciate his desire tosay, “In your face,” to Republicans, who have now appeared to lose the vote, this over-steps the basic bounds of humanity.

Seriously man, you use the music of ABBA to chastise Republicans?

You do know that doing so is but one step away from napalming baby kittens!

Baby Kittens, do you hear me, Napalming Baby Kittens!!!!

You’ve done enough! Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you NO sense of DECENCY?