Category: Weird

Osama Who Ever Is In Charge of al-Qaeda , Take Me Now!!!

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MTV is making a casting call for The Real World occupy Wall Street:

MTV has made an industry this year of recycling its vintage content, from Beavis & Butthead to Liquid Television.

Now the network appears to be updating or at least remixing its Real World franchise with a tip of the hat to the Occupy generation.

Casting calls in Los Angeles and New York this week are looking for …

Is there nothing that our society does not cheapen?

But Vegemite Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

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It appears that Australia’s Foreign Minister Paul Rudd was rather put off when homeland security wanted to prevent him from taking the brown food like substance on a commercial flight:

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd had to talk himself out of trouble after airport officials flagged up a suspicious liquid in his cabin baggage – a jar of Vegemite.

Mr Rudd was heading to New York from Mexico City when he attracted the authorities’ attention.

He explained that the dark brown paste was his breakfast and, with help from local diplomats, was allowed through.

Vegemite, a savoury paste made from yeast extract, is popular in Australia.

It is similar to Marmite, which is widely eaten in the UK, but is hard to buy in many countries.

“Only problem travelling to NY is that they tried to confiscate our Vegemite at the airport. Needed Foreign Ministerial intervention,” Mr Rudd tweeted.

“Airport staff were surprised when I said it is good for you and I ate it for breakfast. They then waved me through,” he said.

One bit of meta here, if you object to my using the the tag “Food” on this post, I understand completely.

It was a tough call for me.

I’ve Had it With These Motherf%$#ing Republicans on This Motherf%$#ing Plane!M

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Alligator 0, Snake 0, Let’s call it a tie.

The latest regulation that the Republicans are objecting to and trying to repeal, is one that literally forbids snakes on a plane.

I’m not kidding here. They are literally trying to roll back regulations on the transportation of snakes on airplanes:

Democrats and Republicans all agree that the nation needs to move on a jobs agenda. And Republicans have a new plan: unleash the reins of snake commerce.

GOP members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today called attention to a proposed regulation that would restrict the transportation and importation of nine types of snakes, including the Burmese Python.

In a new report entitled “Broken Government: How the Administrative State has Broken President Obama’s Promise of Regulatory Reform,” GOP members cited the proposed snake ban as one of seven examples of red tape choking off job growth in an already ailing economy.

One witness invited to testify, snake breeder David Barke, told lawmakers that the rules “threatens as many as a million law-abiding American citizens and their families with the penalty of a felony conviction for pursuing their livelihoods, for pursuing their hobby, or for simply moving with their pet to new state.”

Politico reports that Florida officials, led by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), are pushing for the new rules because the Everglades are under attack by 100,000 gigantic Burmese pythons who have been accidentally introduced by negligent pet owners. The outside invaders have been on a rampage, devouring native birds and other creatures. One python grew so big that it managed to devour a six-foot alligator before exploding. No really. This actually happened. There’s a photo.

No, this is not The Onion, and I wish that I didn’t live in a world where I cannot tell the difference between reality and satire.

I Didn’t Know that Moose Went to UMass

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Because this story brings back some memories:

A man in western Sweden came home from work Tuesday night to find a drunken moose stuck in his neighbor’s tree.

The moose had apparently climbed part way up into the tree to reach an apple where it became stuck with only one hoof on the ground and the other three up in the tree, tangled in the limbs and branches of the tree.

When Per Johansson arrived home from work, he told reporters that he heard a bellowing noise coming from his neighbor’s yard.

I don’t think that I ever got that drunk at UMass, I was medically prohibited from drinking during my sojourn there, but I certainly dealt with people who were that drunk.

H/t Littledog at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

If You Think That This is Bad, Just Wait for the AI Toasters

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First, they get you to let down their guard, and then they strike!

Neck massagers are not strangling people, as shown by the case of the Shoulderfles (Shudderflex?):

Let’s all be thankful that the pictured woman enjoying her Shoulderflex isn’t wearing a necklace or much in the way of clothing, and also that her hair is tied neatly atop her head. It turns out that necklaces, clothing, and hair have the potential to turn that peaceful look on her face into something else entirely.
(Credit: Shoulderflex)

No, seriously. One person was strangled to death after her necklace became caught in the personal massager’s rotating component, while another was almost killed when a piece of clothing was caught. Still more have been injured when their hair became entangled in the device.

It’s like Rise of the Planet of the Apes in silicon.

Not a Big Fan of Apple Products…

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But I have to give props to some of the people who makes cases for the iPhone.
Here we have:

Among others.

It’s amusing, but the iPhone is still an over-priced, over-restricted product of a control freak who wants to tell its user community just how they are supposed to use their own phones.

Because of the uniformity of the product, Android phones come in all shapes and sizes, it’s something that you will find the variety of accessories of this type in a phone ecosystem that is freer.

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.