Cheap Blogging Crutch 01.26

Why Some Comics Aren’t Laughing at Jay Leno (Essay)
Nathan Rabin of the Onion AV club looks into the most important issue of our time, the Coco/Leno feud, and analyzes why everyone seemed to take Conan's side and heaped unending vitriol on Leno. Essentially he's boring, not funny anymore, tries to play the innocent guy shtick while he's stabbing people in the back, he isn't funny, he never wrote one single monorail related Simpsons episode, and he isn't funny.

In audio message, bin Laden says he endorsed Dec. 25 airline bomb plot
I'm not in the business of giving advice to terrorists. Well, not for free anyway. But Osama, you're starting to lose your terror cache. There use to be a time when we'd fear your proclamations of Jew hate and promises of fiery death from the sky. Now? You're repeating old material and trying to take credit for a guy who staged the greatest public groin singeing in the US... outside of the rural south. Get your shit together man, all we have to fear nowadays is the complete idiocy of our legislative branch. It's just not the same.

Slime Mold Grows Network Just Like Tokyo Rail System
You know how me and Sean are always saying that Japanese engineers are as smart as pond scum? Turns out it's not a racist remark anymore, it's a complement. When mold is allowed to grow on a grid the shape of Tokyo, they end up laying out nutrient channeling tubes much in the same manner as the Tokyo rail system, one of the best designed rail systems in the world. Looks like all those people who protested at our offices for our Japanese slime mold jokes owe us an apology. We still refuse to apologize for the Bulgarian physicist jokes.

US to lift 21-year ban on haggis
Finally, our senseless ban on haggis is ended. I know you haggistotalers wanted this delicious concoction banned from American life, but all your meddling laws did was empower the mob and the haggisrunners. Hell, we've all dabbled in a little haggisrunning, brewing up some bathtub minced sheep offal and selling it in underground speakeasys. Now we're finally allowed to come out into the light of day and enjoy haggis out in the open as God intended. Our long national nightmare is over.

NASA Reveals New Batch Of Space Program Artifacts
If any of you are in the market for some slightly used spacesuits, lunar landers, or a space shuttle or two, NASA is being kind enough to auction some of these items off to the highest bidder in the next coming months. Why build your own spacesuit when you can just drop a couple grand on an Apollo or Mercury era one? If you want the ultimate front lawn centerpiece forget a garden gnome and get a decommissioned shuttle. Only $28 million and the shipping is free. Help them out and buy a goddamn rocket or two. Science is expensive and their budget just got frozen for petty political reasons.

The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures
Dating site OK Cupid is not only a sit for hipsters to meet other hipsters for the purpose of discussing Vampire Weekend at tapas bars, it's also a site where statistics nerds analyze pictures and response rates of it's members to create mathematical and statistical breakdowns of what does and doesn't work online if you're trying to meet another human. Girls making that annoying duck face in a profile shot? Bad. Guys looking away in their profile shot? Good. The Myspace shot? Winner winner chicken dinner. In addition they also have studies done on how different races interact online, the receptive response rates/cruelty of men and women in relation to perceived attractiveness, and what responses work best when human contact is attempted. Check it out, it's sociologically interesting.