Category: Weird

The Onion to Shut Down and Lay off All Staff

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In a joint press conference today, editor Cole Bolton and CEO Steve Hannah have announced that The Onion will be ceasing publication immediately immediately, with all staff made redundant, and all assets put up for sale.

Bolton, shaking his head sadly, announced that following the in response to the declaration by the campaign for former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown for New Hampshire (this time) Senate that his opponent is, “A Senator from Massachusetts,” said that satire has been rendered obsolete by reality.

“I knew that it would be John Sununu who would destroy us,” said Bolton, the now former editor. “His continuous innovation in the area of unintentional self parody have always threatened us with obsolescence, and now he has finally made us completely irrelevant.”

John Sununu’s statement introducing Scott Brown at a campaign rally left the staff dumbstruck, with many in tears, even before the announced layoffs.

“We just gotta remind people that he’s coming back to his roots,” former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu told me after the Portsmouth rally. Sununu, in case you have forgotten, was one of Romney’s most ubiquitous and delightfully crotchety fsurrogates during the presidential campaign in 2012. In true Sununu fashion, he not only defended Brown’s alleged Live Free or Die bona fides; he’s gone on the attack. To him, it is Shaheen, not Brown, who’s the real outsider.

“She votes with Elizabeth Warren. She votes with [Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed] Markey. She is the third senator from Massachusetts,” Sununu told supporters at the Portsmouth rally before introducing Brown. “Scott’s happiest days as a young man were in New Hampshire. … So it’s going to be great to have a senator that was born virtually in the state of New Hampshire. Jean Shaheen, by the way, was born in Missouri!”

Did you catch how Sununu cleverly described Brown as “virtually” born in New Hampshire? He was actually born in Maine, which for Brown’s campaign is close enough for government work and has the great advantage of being closer than Missouri and not being Massachusetts. It is also rather audacious to paint Shaheen as a “senator from Massachusetts,” since Brown quite literally was, and very much wanted to remain, a senator from Massachusetts.

In related news, the General Manager and Editor-In-Chief of The Onion‘s AV Club, Josh Modell has announced, “I got nothing,” that they will shut down their studio, and cease producing satirical films, and simply re-broadcast cable news stories.

The Stupidest Political Scandal of the Season (So Far)

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Seriously, why the hell does anyone care if a candidate for the US Congress in Florida does vampire LARP?

An attorney challenging first-term Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) moonlights as a live-action vampire role-player, according to a Florida political news site.

 SaintPetersBlog on Tuesday detailed Jake Rush’s involvement in the Mind’s Eye Society, a national community of live-action role-players. Rush played a host of supernatural characters — “Chazz Darling” and “Staas van der Winst” were just two of his alter-egos — and kept up an active presence on the Camarilla Wiki Project, a Wikipedia-like website that allowed role-players to share content.

 Business Insider also reported that Rush appears to have held a prominent position with a Florida-based group called the “Covenant of the Poisoned Absinthe,” which stages “an assortment of games from White Wolf’s selection, including Vampire: The Masquerade, Changeling: The Lost, and Mage: The Awakening.” White Wolf publishes live-action role-playing games for the Mind’s Eye community.

Seriously.

Why does anyone give a f%$# about this?

I Do Not Know Whether to be Impressed or Horrified

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Scientists at the University of Michigan have developed a night vision contact lens:

The University of Michigan has developed a prototype contact lens that enhances night vision by placing a thin strip of graphene between layers of glass. The graphene — a form of carbon — reacts to photons, which makes dark images look brighter.

 The development of the lens still has quite a ways to go before soldiers can scrap those heavy goggles. Right now the graphene only absorbs 2.3 percent of the light. Those percentages have to rise before true night vision can be achieved.

It’s kind of neat, but wicked creepy.

Best Amazon Comment Ever

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Senator Ted Cruz, nutjob Joe McCarthy look alike, has written a coloring book.

No this is not The Onion. You can actually buy at Amazon.

And because it Amazon, there are reader comments, and the negative reviews are amusing, but I like this one the best:

So, after reading many reviews that mentioned what good toilet paper this book made, I was super excited to order my copy. Unfortunately, after receiving mine in the mail I was immediately disappointed. I don’t know, perhaps I accidentally received a used copy, but mine was completely worthless for this purpose as every single page was already completely covered with crap…

It’s juvenile, but so is a United States Senator writing a f%$#ing coloring book.

H/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Out Like a Lamb, My Ass!

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They are predicting snow tomorrow.

Seriously.  It’s the Spring, and it’s f%$3ing Baltimore!!!

WWUS41 KLWX 250030
WSWLWX
URGENT – WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
830 PM EDT MON MAR 24 2014

 DCZ001-MDZ004>007-009>011-013-014-016-VAZ030-031-040-042-050>056-
501-502-WVZ053-250830-
/O.NEW.KLWX.WW.Y.0020.140325T1000Z-140325T1900Z/
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA-FREDERICK MD-CARROLL-NORTHERN BALTIMORE-
HARFORD-MONTGOMERY-HOWARD-SOUTHERN BALTIMORE-PRINCE GEORGES-
ANNE ARUNDEL-CHARLES-WARREN-CLARKE-RAPPAHANNOCK-LOUDOUN-ORANGE-
CULPEPER-PRINCE WILLIAM/MANASSAS/MANASSAS PARK-FAIRFAX-
ARLINGTON/FALLS CHURCH/ALEXANDRIA-STAFFORD-SPOTSYLVANIA-
NORTHERN FAUQUIER-SOUTHERN FAUQUIER-JEFFERSON-
INCLUDING THE CITIES OF…WASHINGTON…FREDERICK…WESTMINSTER…
GAITHERSBURG…COLUMBIA…BALTIMORE…ANNAPOLIS…WALDORF…
FRONT ROYAL…LEESBURG…CULPEPER…MANASSAS…MANASSAS PARK…
FAIRFAX…ALEXANDRIA…FALLS CHURCH…FREDERICKSBURG…
WARRENTON…CHARLES TOWN
830 PM EDT MON MAR 24 2014

 WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM TO 3 PM EDT
TUESDAY
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON HAS
ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW… WHICH IS IN EFFECT
FROM 6 AM TO 3 PM EDT TUESDAY.
* PRECIPITATION TYPE…SNOW.
* ACCUMULATIONS…1 TO 3 INCHES. THE HIGHEST AMOUNTS WILL BE NORTH
AND WEST OF INTERSTATE 95 TOWARD THE BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS.
* TIMING…SNOW WILL BEGIN EARLY TUESDAY MORNING. THE HEAVIEST
SNOW IS EXPECTED TUESDAY MORNING BEFORE TAPERING OFF DURING THE
AFTERNOON AND EARLY EVENING.
* TEMPERATURES…LOW TEMPERATURES TONIGHT IN THE MID TO UPPER 20S.
HIGH TEMPERATURES TUESDAY WILL BE IN THE MID TO UPPER 30S.
* WINDS…BECOMING SOUTHEAST AROUND 5 MPH.
* IMPACTS…ROADS WILL BE SNOW COVERED AND SLIPPERY TUESDAY
MORNING AND TRAVEL WILL BE DIFFICULT DURING THE MORNING COMMUTE.
MOST SURFACES WILL BECOME WET TUESDAY AFTERNOON WITH
TEMPERATURES RISING ABOVE FREEZING.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE
TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED
VISIBILITIES…AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING.
&&

This is completely whack!

Rupert Murdoch is Insane

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I am not referring to Murdoch’s recent meltdown over the sponsors dropping the St. Patrick’s day parade for their gay ban. (The fact that the quintessential Irish brewer, Guinness, has dropped the parade amuses me.)

Rather I am referring to the fact that Matt Groening has revealed that Murdoch was considering suing the producers of The Simpsons over their parody of a Fox News crawl:

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel threatened to sue the makers of the Simpsons over a spoof news ticker, the show’s creator Matt Groening has claimed.

Mr Groening said Fox News raised the unlikely prospect of suing a show broadcast by its sister channel, Fox Entertainment, because it wanted to stop the Simpsons parodying its famously anti-Democratic party agenda.

The alleged row centred on a parody of Fox News’ rolling news ticker, which included headlines such as “Do Democrats cause cancer?”

Mr Groening said the news channel backed down because it would have caused Fox to bring a lawsuit against itself.

“Fox said they would sue the show and we called their bluff because we didn’t think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it,” Mr Groening told National Public Radio in the US.

“But now Fox has a new rule that we can’t do those little fake news crawls [tickers] on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it’s real news,” he added on NPR’s Fresh Air programme.

I am so reassured that a media magnate billionaire who is one white Persian cat away from being a Bond villain is wasting his time on this sh%$.

I Don’t Know Sh%$ About This

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I am referring, of course, to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

I do not know what happened. I cannot separate the wheat from the chaff from the various reports.

So, unlike many blogs, as well as Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, I’m going to keep my f%$#ing mouth shut, as opposed to speculating on what happened.

Once there is a report, I may have some thoughts, but right now I admit that I am without a clue on this.

You Sure Picked the Wrong Guy to go All ‘Roid Rage On, Representative Grimm………

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After the State of the Union Address, a NY1reporter Michael Scotto asked Congressman Michael Grimm about his fundraising scandal.

Grimm, expecting questions about the SOTU address, was upset and walked off.

Then he walked back, and threatened to break reporter Scotto in half and throw him off of the Congressional Balcony.

This does make the persisistent rumors of anabolic steroid abuse more credible.

But he picked the wrong reporter to threaten.

You see Michael Scotto is the nephew of Anthony Scotto, a former head of the Brooklyn longshoremen’s union and a former boss in the Gambino crime family.

Grim went postal, and, to my non-lawyer eyes, it was technically assault, on the nephew of a Gambino crime bus.

Sucks to be you.

BTW, before he was a Congressman, he was an FBI agent, and I have to agree with Alex Pareene when he says, “We shouldn’t let people like him have badges and guns.”

The only thing worse than a goon is a goon with a gun and a badge.

Supertramp?!?!?!? Let Me Get This Straight, 911 & ……… Supertramp?

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As my son is wont to say, What the F%$#ing F%$#?

“Breakfast in America” is a 1979 record by the British rock group Supertramp. Its cover artwork features a smiling waitress who is standing in for the Statue of Liberty.* Behind her stands the New York City skyline, including the twin towers. It’s weird.

According to the latest theory from the 9/11 truther community, however, Supertramp’s album cover was never just a jokey little piece of absurdist art. What was it instead? A prophecy of doom.

Try to follow us on this one, because as one might suspect from a new 9/11 truth theory provided today (some 10-plus years after the attacks), things get a bit complicated.

The Supertramp theory, if we can call it that, is derived from the brain of one member of an online forum for David Icke (he of the evil lizard overlords theory) named “Eve.”

It gets even weirder and pathetic.

Things that I Really Did Not Want to Know

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Philadelphia police are looking for a scofflaw they call the Swiss Cheese Masturbator:

The cops are looking for him, and now a Philadelphia Magazine writer may have actually tracked down the man who’s been exposing himself in front of “a number” of Philadelphia women and asking them to jerk him off with a slice of swiss cheese.

According to reports, the overweight cheese aficionado likes to drive up next to women in parking lots, show them his genitals, and then offer them money to masturbate him with a slice of swiss. Other Philadelphia women have reported receiving similar messages from him on dating sites like OKCupid.

I should have taken the blue pill.

Cows on Beano™

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Scientists are working to develop a flatulence free cow:

A new research project looks into the possibilities of adapting every aspect of cattle husbandry and selection processes to lower their greenhouse gas emissions.

You may think that climate change is being caused by burning oil, coal and gas. But not so fast! The emission of methane from cattle is a surprisingly important factor. Methane from cows — a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide — makes up 20% of greenhouse emissions from agriculture, or about 1% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases. That’s according to Phil Garnsworthy, professor of dairy science at the University of Nottingham in the UK. He is also one of the project scientists of an EU-funded research project, called Ruminomics, which is using cutting-edge science to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cattle.

The key to the project, Garnsworthy says, is that cattle vary by a factor of two or three in the amount of methane their stomachs produce. It is therefore possible to imagine a dairy herd producing the same volume of milk for lower greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, different diets mean that cows can produce the same amount of milk with lower emissions. “It is possible to imagine cutting emissions from cattle by a fifth, using a combination approach in which you would breed from lower-emitting cattle as well as changing their diets,” Garnsworthy said.

Different genetic strains of cow emit different amounts of methane. “There are three issues: diet, genetics, and the microbiology of the cow’s rumen. We think that animal genetics may well influence their gut microbiology. However, this link has not been proved and we are still in the data collection phase,” explains Lorenzo Morelli, director of the faculty of agriculture at the Catholic University of Sacred Heart in Piacenza, Italy, who is a microbiologist and a project scientist.

Until now, the European cattle industry was mainly interested in improving aspects of livestock such as their fertility and their overall shape. But Morelli thinks that the market will soon add lower methane production to the list of desired cattle characteristics. Indeed, a herd that emits less methane is likely to be more productive. “The methane is lost energy that could go into producing milk. So if we can find the right genetic mix, we can find cattle that are less polluting, more productive, and more profitable for the famer,” Morelli said.

I, for one, welcome this effort to push back against bovine tyranny.

Kewlest School Bus Ever!* (Updated)

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Updated Pic. Starfleet Transportation

We were driving to an SCA event in DC, and I drove by a school bus, and saw this.

I pointed it put to Natalie, who then snapped these pix.

[on update]

There were issues with the photographs, etc.  because of the mobile posting app.

So I have updated this to include:

  • Proper superscripting.
  • Replaced two identical pictures with two different ones.

BTW, in case you missed it, the bus is from Starfleet Transportation.

*Obviously, I am limiting my set “School Bus” to those vehicles that are actually colored school bus colors.

Posted via mobile.

Jon Stewart Thinks that Chris Christie’s Problem is that he is Caught Up In a Piss-Poor, 3rd Rate Quality of Corruption

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Part 1


Part Deux

Jon Stewart brought on The Daily Show‘s New Jersey correspondent ……… Jon Stewart, who excoriated Christie on the scandal:

I’m ashamed of the state I grew up. Political payback through traffic congestion? To see New Jersey sink to such a piss-poor, 3rd-rate quality of corruption… this is New Jersey. A state renowned for its piss-rich, first-rate quality of corruption!

Rather surprisingly, he is gentle about all this to Christie, by the standards of Jon Stewart, anyway.  (Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?)

Watch both vids.  They are some of his best work.

Of rather more interest is Rachael Maddow’s theory of motivation, which has nothing to do with endorsement for the Governor’s race.

Maddow suggests that the issue was actually driven by a conflict over appointing state Supreme Court Judges, and that this was not directed at the mayor, but rather at the Democratic leader of the New Jersey Senate, who represents Fort Lee, was the actual target.

The video is not available yet, but I will try to post it tomorrow.

F%$#ing Civil Liberties, How Do They Work?

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Insane Clown Posse – Miracles, (Completely NSFW) it explains the reference in the post title

It’s not odd that a group would object to being characterized as a criminal gang by the FBI.

What is odd when a the group in question are fans of music group.

Here’s a hint to the FBI, if you are being accused of being over the top by a a group called Insane Clown Posse, and they are making cogent arguments that the response is excessive and an unconstitutional violation of the constitutional right to free assembly, perhaps it is time for some self examination:

The Michigan rap group Insane Clown Posse filed suit on Wednesday against the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, saying that the United States government had made the “unwarranted and unlawful decision” to classify fans of the band as criminal gang members, leading to their harassment by law enforcement and causing them “significant harm.”

The lawsuit was filed in Federal District Court in Detroit by lawyers for the band and for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. Plaintiffs include the Insane Clown Posse founders Joseph Bruce and Joseph Utsler, who perform as Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, and whose fans call themselves Juggalos.

Also listed as plaintiffs are four Juggalos from Nevada, California, North Carolina and Iowa, who offered details of incidents in which they said they had been subjected to police harassment or other punishments for identifying with Insane Clown Posse.

………

The seeds of this lawsuit were sown in 2011, when the F.B.I.’s National Gang Intelligence Center published a report that described Juggalos as “a loosely organized hybrid gang” whose members were “expanding into many U.S. communities.”

The report, titled “National Gang Threat Assessment: Emerging Trends,” cited a 2011 incident in which “two suspected Juggalo associates were charged with beating and robbing an elderly homeless man,” and another in 2010 in which “a suspected Juggalo member” shot and wounded two other people.

The report also included a photograph of a woman described as a “Juggalo member,” wearing face paint similar to the kind used by Insane Clown Posse and pointing a gun at the camera.

………

The lawsuit asks the court to set aside the findings of the 2011 F.B.I. gang assessment, order the elimination of “criminal intelligence information” on Juggalos from government and law-enforcement databases and prohibit the gathering of further information without “sufficient facts” of a “definable criminal activity or enterprise.”

Mark Parsons, a Juggalo from Las Vegas and one of the plaintiffs listed in the suit, said in the complaint that he had been detained in July by state troopers outside Knoxville, Tenn., for displaying Insane Clown Posse’s insignia, known as “the hatchet man,” on his semi truck.

………

Jeff Engstrom, a lawyer and blogger who writes at Abovethelaw.com under the pseudonym Juggalo Law, said in an email that the government’s actions were “laughably off base” and “the equivalent of placing Phish fans on a terrorist watch list.” He added, “It elevates an Internet punch line into something even more absurd.”

You’ve seen this FBI report used to cancel concerts, refuse enlistments in the military, and deny custody in divorces.

This is not just a bit of silliness. This is a McCarthyesque abuse of power, and I hope that ICP, and the ACLU get their case to court, get the full story, and discover which nut job did this.

Whoever did this should not be in law enforcement.

Dafuque?!?!?!?

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This is a sign of the apocalypse

I went to UMass from 1983 to 1987.

I got my degree there.

There was a fair amount of weirdness there when I went there.  I imagine that there is still a fair amount of weirdness there now.

At least, there is symmetry.

Still, nothing could prepare me fopr tne news that UMass was rated as having the best college food in the nation.*

I remember eating there.

I remember when my friends ordered pizza delivered to the cafeteria.

I remember when they served chicken pucks.  I remember when they served chicken pucks with tomato sauce and mystery cheese, and they called it “chicken parmesan.”  (I called it “scabs”, which my table partners did not appreciate.)

What the f%$# has happened to my alma mater?

*And yes, “having the best college food in the nation,” is a lot like being the, “World’s tallest midget,” or being the, “Nation’s most ethical Republican.”

Winner of This Week’s Award for Stupid Motherf%$#er With a Gun Is………

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 Jerome M. Hauer, commissioner of the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services,  who pulled his loaded Glock in a state office building and used the laser sight to point at locations on a map:

Jerome M. Hauer, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of homeland security, took out his handgun and used the laser sighting device attached to the barrel as a pointer in a presentation to a foreign delegation, according to public officials. It happened Oct. 24 in Albany at the highly secure state emergency operations center below State Police headquarters.

These officials, one of whom claimed to be an eyewitness, said that three Swedish emergency managers in the delegation were rattled when the gun’s laser tracked across one of their heads before Hauer found the map of New York, at which he wanted to point.

Hauer, commissioner of the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, was disabled by a stroke a few years ago and can be unsteady. He isn’t a law enforcement official. He carries the loaded 9-millimeter Glock in a holster into state buildings, an apparent violation of state law barring state employees from bringing weapons to the workplace, several witnesses say.

So, you have a guy who, “can be unsteady” from a stroke waving a gun around in a meeting in order to use it as a laser pointer.

Am I the only one to think that maybe this guy not only should not have a gun permit, but that he should not cut his own steak, because he is too out of it to use a sharp knife?

H/T Talking Points Memo.