Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.14

Modern Toss' Periodic Table of British Swearing. Click to embiggen you 71 with 76 and a 79.

Maybe you were clued into this fact when you went outside last week and your brain melted, your shirt soaked through, and you begged unsuccessfully for God to kill you immediately, but it was fucking hot. The hottest January to June in recorded history. If you were one of those douches who complain the global warming is a myth or hoax or were one of those shitbags who was yelling how there couldn't be global warming because there was so much snow over the winter, know this: next time it hits 90 and I have to listen to one of you jerkoffs spout off about Al Gore, I'm lighting you on fire. Spread the word.

In The World Is Full of Deadbeat Scum News, remember all that money every country pledged to Haiti and then patted themselves on the back for, it's citizens clapping and cheering for the gesture and then never bothering to ever check back on to see how Haiti was doing? Turns out only 1.9% of that money has made it to Haiti. Not that it matters. That money was about making us feel better, not Haiti. And we do feel better. What's Haiti? Haven't even thought about it in months. Mission accomplished.

Are you one of those people who thinks that a gas station sandwich is too luxurious a gastronomic delicacy to partake in? Good news, that's why science has created Candwich: the Sandwich in a can. Maybe the idea of eating a BBQ chicken sandwich in a Mountain Dew can doesn't seem appealing, but did I mention there was a candy surprise? On the bright side, this product is the result of SEC fraud and a real estate swindle, and how many awful foodstuffs can say that?

If you had to guess where the nexus of dumb parents, dumb school districts, fear of technology, misunderstanding of technology, misunderstanding of drugs, and fear of youth gone wild was, Oklahoma would have to come up early in the discussion right? That's where a school district is under the grip of kids downloading and listening to "digital drugs" and "i-dosers", sounds/songs that are supposed to create a drug like euphoria. *sighs* This sounds like a town ripe for the taking from a shady monorail salesman. Whatever happened to huffing gas and listing to Dark Side of the Moon? I think everyone should just abide by my one rule: technology is a witch, burn it. It is responsible for the Candwich after all.

As some of you are aware, the threat of robot attack is constant. But today I bring you news of an even greater threat: psychic warrior octopi. Of course we are referring to Paul, a German octopus who correctly predicted the last eight World Cup matches. Some might say that this is just random luck and that the octopus was probably just picking flags based on which one has more yellow in it. To them I say: octopi are probably color blind. I think it's much more likely it can see around the curvature of spacetime and into the future.

We all love Mel Gibson and his humorous awful misogyny and equal opportunity racism. Even if it did likely cost us a movie where he walked around with a beaver hand puppet and then committed suicide. But for those who didn't like Mel's various affronts to all human decency, would perhaps cute kittens saying his most heinous 20 quotes change your mind? C'mon, forgive him. Look at the beaver movie picture. That goddamn thing has to be allowed come out.

Picture of the day

Via Wired Science comes this look at weird animals from a recent University of Aberdeen study of the Atlantic. Aside from being freaky looking, their basic design and function is changing the way scientists think about deep-sea life. Or it will until the oil fully reaches these creatures and renders them extinct.

Gawk at the weirdness.

Northern Reticulated Jell-O Mold

Mid-Atlantic Eww You Can See It's Guts and Everything Sea Cucumber

Spiny Pee Hole Burrower

You don't want to know. Shit, it's locked on to your scent. Run. RUN!!

Broken News: World Cup plagued by giant insect attacks

Foreground: Diego Forlan runs for his life after his two goals in Uruguay's 3-0 defeat of South Africa attracts the attention of a group of wasps. Background: Giant fucking wasp.

CAPE TOWN-With the World Cup under way, the country has been simultaneously enthralled by the game played at its highest level and perplexed by an annoying series of buzzing noises emanating from the stands. While networks and media outlets have tried to play this off as noise coming from South African spectators, the truth is much more gruesome.

“The giant hornets… THEY RETURN!!!!,” came the screams from the masses outside of Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, pointing to the sky. “Man the horns and attempt to scare them away!”

Yes, over the past week and a half the nation of South Africa has been under attack from giant hornets, wasps, and bees the sizes of small cars.

“We sit in the stands and try to enjoy the world’s greatest sporting event and then… the hornets came,” said one harrowed spectator in the moments after a life or death battle against the eusocial wasps during Germany’s 4-0 victory against Australia. “We tried to fight them off, but they took so many back to their nests. I saw men run through with stingers the size of claymores…. And the game was a blowout as well.”

As of today there have been nearly 20 such instances of insect attacks, with as many as three to four a day expected until the end of group stage play on the 26th. While it is unsure why the hornets, wasps, and bees are attacking, they have been content to wage their battles in the upper decks of stadiums outside of traditional camera coverage but well within the range of microphones.

Only one of the attacks has happened on the lower decks, when a bumblebee the size of a Volkswagen swooped down and carried off Argentinean striker Carlos Tevez during an offensive counter-attack during their 1-0 victory against Nigeria. He is still currently missing and feared dead.

In a World Cup that has been plagued by complaints of almost laughably lax security, experts and spectators have wondered why the nation doesn’t have better defenses against large flying insects.

South African Minister for Sport Joseph Atinge was quick to defend his nation.

“Look, we may have spent most of our budget for this event of roads and stadium construction,” he said from a crouched position, swinging his arms wildly above his head. “So we forgot one or two things. We handed out large plastic horns so that our citizens might either beat the bugs away or attempt to mimic their sounds in the hopes that they will stumble onto a buzzing sounds that will repel the stinging beasts. What else do you want?”

“This is reason one that South Africa should have never been awarded the World Cup,” observed international ESPN soccer analyst Tommy Smith, himself barely recovered from having a stinger ran through his shoulder.

“We wouldn’t give the Cup to Japan for years because of fears of giant, irradiated moths and lizards. So why would be ignore the clear myths and tales surrounding these giant bees? So Africa could have its first World Cup? I’m sure that is of little concession to the thousands of spectators who are now being made into honey.”

Smith is of course referring to the stories of Perdebye, the hornet shaped Goddess of Temperance. Legend has it that she swore to the tribes of the Southern tip of Africa that she would return to cast her judgment on them in times of great frivolity and merriment.

Still, the media has been reluctant to fully tell the full story of what is happening across the country. Instead they have attempted to place blame on the spectators armed with vuvuzelas as a last line of defense and chalking up the noise as a quaint but annoying custom of the nation.

“Ah, this just goes to the general ignorance Americans have towards football,” observed Gary Linaker, a TV presenter for the BBC and former England forward.

“Maybe they’re just confused and think the hornets are part of the festivities or have something to do with why the players are allowed to touch the ball with their hands. I can tell you that getting a stinger in the jugular as a bloody great wasp carries off that lovely couple for Switzerland you were talking to is neither part of football or a South African cultural tradition. Well, not yet anyway.”

Linaker looked like he was about to continue speaking, but large ominous shadows from above and a loud humming sound on the horizon caused those in the surrounding area to seek shelter and affix crudely made body armor to themselves.

In the meantime, the South African Football Association and FIFA have advised that people keep blowing on their vuvuzelas in an attempt to finally crack the sonic code that will send the insects back to their slumber. Meanwhile spokesmen for the players have announced they will start erratically firing errant shots into the upper decks during lulls in the game in an attempt to drive some of the larger bees and wasps away. Spain has already taken the early initiative in that area.

“The blood, the buzzing, the airborne abductions, the fear, the passing…,” said Minister Atinge. “Ahh, the beautiful game.”

Su pronóstico es muy grave

Yeah, that's a bull giving a matador the ole "Timothy Dalton at the end of Hot Fuzz" treatment. Horn right up the windpipe, right out the mouth. Don't worry, the man is still alive... somehow, but he's described as being in critical condition. I'd say so. As one of the posters of Deadspin so astutely pointed out, I bet it was easy to intubate.

Normally there would be cause for consternation and condolences for the poor man getting a horn in the jugular. But, seeing as how he was engaged in slow, ritualized, artistic animal murder, it's only fair that the bull gets to put points on the board as well. Fuck him. Yay bull! Don't mess with mother nature, Spain.

And just in case you were wondering... yeah, that photo does enlarge. Click to embiggen.

Things you need to know

• Whether or not Smithers picked Mr. Burns the most statistically dominant team of the era to play softball for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant team. Perhaps he should have added Mordecai Three Finger Brown and scoured the Negro leagues a little harder, because that Steve Sax pick looks unforgivable even taking into account he was responsible for all the unsolved murders in New York.


• DJ Shadow has an internet radio station.


• Any street with the world Grape in it was probably a notorious road for prostitution and had it's name previously changed from the more advertising savvy and branding accurate Gropecunt Lane. Yes, the Middle Ages did entail a better class of street names.


• Birds are poisonous now. Possibly all birds, but definitely the Variable Pitohui, which secretes a poison similar to the Poison Dart Frog. And you thought the only danger from birds was them all going crazy and attacking Tippi Hedren. No, they can surreptitiously poison you now. DON'T TRUST BIRDS.


• The Director of Media Technology for the Penguins, Chris DeVivio, has a blog. As if I needed to tell you more than that, I will. It's called Backteching and goes into the process of the building of the new Consol Energy Arena and the kinds of technology and technological decisions that goes into building a modern sports complex.


• This is the kind of thing that would get your movie banned and you branded a purveyor of filth and lewdness in the 20's. Warning: there are female ankles... on full display.

Stay classy, Alaska

It's natural for states to advocate for and support the industries and businesses that take up residence within it's borders. It's expected. But sometimes a state will go so far overboard in advocacy that you sometimes wonder if the industry and government have merged into one entity, leaving one only able to just sit back in awe at the shady, corrupt seediness of it all. Such is the case with the free range meth lab, political corruption testing ground, and petro-socialist state that is Alaska.

Not merely content to turn their state over to oil companies in exchange for cash, the Alaskan state legislature feels the need to turn their government into a functioning public relations arm for big oil and the lucrative "Fuck polar bears" industry.

Seeking to protect the oil industry, the Alaska state legislature has appropriated $1.5 million to fund an astroturf campaign to weaken the Endangered Species Act and put on a conference questioning the listing of polar bears as a threatened species.

Over the objections of some members who warned of "PR damage" to the state, a group of lawmakers late last week decided to move ahead with reviewing bids from public relations firms for the polar bear contract, the Anchorage Daily Newsreported.
...
The primary purposes of the conference will be to challenge the listing of polar bears and to determine the best ways to lessen the impacts of the Endangered Species Act for the oil and gas industries.

To do that, a Harris aide told the Anchorage Daily News, the PR firm will "initiate a grass-roots movement" to go to Congress and demand reforms to the law.

Hmm, a grass-roots movement to pretend polar bears are thriving, weaken the Endangered Species Act, and advocate for more oil and gas development of Alaska. You know, I think if there were any true grassroots support for any of those three ideas, they would have shown up by now. But nowadays, the only thing better than actual grassroots support is fake grassroots support. I don't know, maybe I underestimate this country's hatred for white bears.

In the "every cloud..." department, it seems that Rudy Giuliani's firm might win the bid to get the contract. I'm not sure how this meshes with his goal to suck every available nickel out of 9/11 for himself, but I'm sure Rudy will be on Fox News to tell us real soon.

Anyway, I would just like to congratulate Alaska for wasting $1.5 million of the state's money to shill for bad science, gutting environmental protections, and your corporate masters. I'd say you were wasting the taxpayers' money, but your entire budget is essentially oil kickbacks. So you're probably doing exactly what the oil companies would have done anyway with the money. Well done then. Expert governance. Fuck those bears.

Good morning, here's some sheep

Here's the latest ad for Carly Fiorina's primary bid against Tom Campbell for the GOP nomination for the upcoming 2010 Senate race. In this little segment, which someone actually thought was a good idea, Fiorina attacks Campbell for not being sufficiently sheep-like in regards to tax pledges and GOP orthodoxy, knocks him for being an adult and trying to find solutions to California's massive budget problems, and then decides the ad should devolve into some Dadaist farming nightmare. Literally! I also think the sinister narrator guy lapses into a British accent at some point.

I can't believe someone paid money for this.

Headline of the day

Vermont Supreme Court To Decide What A Dog's Love Is Worth

Let me help: A dog's love is worth the price of whatever it is you're eating when said dog has stopped plotting against you and befouling your lawn long enough to pretend to like you in a naked attempt to get a piece of what you're eating, or at least a chance to lick the plate.

All things being equal, it's the cost of a moderately priced sandwich.

Picture of the day

A group of starlings shows just what they think of the assembled masses gawking at them and the human race in general.

Oh, some might say that this was just a random event at high speed that happened to be captured by a camera and that birds could have no way of understanding our rude hand gestures and swear words. Oh no, they knew. The birds knew what they were doing. The animals always know.

Headline of the day

Engineered Rabbit Penises Raise Human Hopes

And why wouldn't rabbit penises raise our hopes in these troubled times, am I right?

Broken In Brief: Man to market puppies based on cute breed name, unholy science

GREEN BAY—Today area dog breeder Stephen Walden announced that he was about to undertake an extensive operation to breed hundreds of dogs for the mass consumer market, based entirely on the cleverness of the breed name he thought up.

“It has become apparent to me that Americans are no longer satisfied with mere Labradors and retrievers,” said Walden in his announcement in the local Penny Saver. “No, they must have some breed name that is so cute and frilly and so sugary sweet that in damn near rots your teeth out. I am of course referring to labradoodles, yorkiepoos, schnoodles, poochons, and various and sundry abominations against God. It is in this vein that I would like to announce my newest creation: the Bagel. Orders will be taken at $500 bucks a puppy.”

When contacted for further comment, Walden was quick to admit that the proposed combination, that of the Lord’s two cruel jokes on dog-loving mankind, the basset and the beagle, didn’t sound in the least bit like a good idea. But he noted that in these tough economic times and with some new cutesy named “-oodle” breed cutting into his golden retriever puppy business every week, that simple marketing warranted this new step, creating a horrible new breed be damned.

Walden hopes to have the new dogs ready for sale after the gestational process is completed, “whenever that is”, and anticipates families regretting their purchase and lamenting their trend-based animal buying within a month after taking the dogs home, when the animals begin to exhibit symptoms of a long, painful series of debilitating genetic shortcomings.

Chart of the day

Because it's a slow news day for anyone who doesn't want to obsess over the governorship of states they don't live in, we'll look at this interesting chart from Wired Science. It's based around a recent study done in New Zealand that tried to calculate the ecological footprints of our pets. Why? Because eco-snobs need something else to sneer at. Plus, after society collapses large dogs are going to be the new SUV's, compact terriers are going to be the new hybrids, and we'll all cry ourselves to sleep at night, so it's best to figure out classifications and carbon footprints now.

What they did find out is that we use 294 thousand square miles of land to feed our pets in America, roughly bigger than the size of Texas. Now I know what you're saying, "Hey, we've finally found a use for Texas", but it isn't that simple. Since our elected betters, when they aren't busy humping a pile of coal or denying global warming's existence, have recently taken to knocking solar power because of the land it uses, Wired decided to measure how much land it would take to solve all of the United States' power needs using solar. The answer is 16,602 square miles of desert land, or 17 times less land than we use for pet food.

Now I'm sure to the Natalie Portmans of the world, this just means we should burn our dogs for fuel instead of eating them. But I won't eat or burn my dog, Natalie, no matter how hot you are! But this, like the fact that we don't bat an eyelash on spending $680 billion a year on defense (without even factoring in our wars) but have a problem with $90 billion a year for health care, kind of puts a strange face on where Americans place their priorities. Now plow up that solar array, hippie, I'm buying two St. Bernard's.

Picture of the day

via FuckYeah4Chan

Take that, Natalie Portman.

Broken In Brief: Goddamn worthless fucking dog hears man, doesn't care

WILKES-BARRE—Oh for the love of God, area man and former pet lover Mark Gibbons cannot believe his fucking dog isn’t fucking listening to him. That goddamn mongrel, which Gibbons knows can fucking hear him, is just standing over there at the far corner of the yard, smelling its own piss spots or maybe chewing on a bunch of rabbit turds. Whatever that dimwitted fleabag is doing, it's obviously something that piece-of-shit animals are free to do when they don’t have to go to work at five in the fucking morning.

“Look at that shit! The fucker just looked at me when I said its name,” the exasperated man exclaimed as he counted off the minutes he was going to be late to work. “Oh! Now it’s gone back to walking in circles and sniffing the goddamned ground like there's some skier trapped in a cockin' avalanche. Fuck this shit! I know you can hear me!”

The dog, a rotten beagle mix named Tuffy from the fucking shelter who is clearly retarded or something, apparently doesn’t know how close it is to just getting left the fuck outside all day. The moronic creature apparently thinks it has he survival skills to brave a day in the suburbs, which it most assuredly does fucking not.

As of press time-- oh, mother of fucking bleeding baby Jesus, did you fucking see how that little shit walked further away as Gibbons approached its mangy, freeloading ass? According to area reports, this goddamned dog doesn’t know what kind of trouble it’s fucking in for.

Weekend video/Pandemic scare mongering

Via Wired Science and the sciencey sounding paper “Reconstructing the initial global spread of a human influenza pandemic: A Bayesian spatial-temporal model for the global spread of H1N1pdm” by Andrew Rambaut, Philippe Lemey and Marc Suchard, comes this look at how the global Mexican pig cabals spread their H1N1 Captain Trips-esque superflu. The videos could use some ominous music, perhaps the Imperial March, Flight of the Valkyries or something from the Omen. Still, this does teach us two important things. One: We're all going to die. Two: We need to stop pigs from purchasing airplane tickets.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 09.11

Sarah Palin Ebay Dinner Offered -- With Disclaimers
I know times are tough, but if you happen to have $25,000 sitting around in a bank account somewhere, or perhaps in non0sequential bills in a burlap sack with a dollar sign on it, you can afford the privilege of dinner with Sarah Palin. You and 4 friends will get to eat dinner with Wasilla's own Brad and Angelina: Sarah and Todd. Now she does reserve the right to refuse a winning bid, so you will have to maintain your lies about admiring her intellect up until the very end. So give her money, she's broke and doesn't have a job now.

Ohio Cheetah Clocks In At 36 MPH
Not content to let Usain Bolt get all that "fastest this" and "fastest that" hype for running 100 meters in 9.58 seconds, the good people at the Cincinnati Zoo went out and got a cheetah to run a 100 meter dash in 6 seconds. What does that mean? That in an international competition a cheetah would run down and devour the world's fastest man somewhere around the 50 meter mark, possibly sooner. This is good information to know.

Museum Scours World For New Videos Of 9/11 Attacks
How do you get people to a museum commemorating the deadliest terrorist attack in US history? New camera angles!!! And they need your help. So if you're sitting on any unseen footage of the towers falling or the plane's impact, send it in, they need it to "tell the story." Here let me help: planes crash, buildings fall, people die, country flushes mind, morals, laws, and money down large toilet in an as yet unsuccessful campaign of revenge and justice. It's not a great story, but that's why we need to dress it up with different camera angles.

9/11 as a Lesson, Not a Memory
A nice reminder from the Washington Post that no matter how important people think an event is, schoolchildren who don't remember it or didn't live through it will always find the learning of said event to be an unbelievably boring dirge that is being unfairly foisted upon them. I think the best part is kids complaining about the length of the learning packet on flight plans and US/Afghan relations.

Pawlenty: It's "A Viable Option" To Invoke State Sovereignty, Keep Minnesota Out of Health Care Reform
Hey Minnesota, you elected this jerkoff, as well as his jerkoff counterpart Bachmann, and almost re-elected that jerkoff Coleman, so I guess you deserve to go through this. Invoking the 10th amendment to make sure citizens don't get access to cheaper health care, that's a good one. What's funny is that he's supposed to represent the "rational" and "moderate" factions of the Republican party and use that reputation as a springboard for his 2012 Presidential aspirations. Oh well, I guess he'll have to settle for signing his own political death warrant instead.

Headline of the day

Zambian Monkeys Evicted For Peeing On President Banda

Oh yes, there's video. Of course there's video. The people of Zambia will be feasting on monkey stew tonight.

....goddamnit Cleveland

Why do you make it this easy to mock you? For those of you who are interested: the real bear is still loose, the cardboard bear is safely locked in the utility closet of Fox 8 news.......for now. Some say when the full moon rises and it's a particularly dry night, the cardboard nightmare stalks the night, delivering papercuts and moving in its haunting, wavy pattern.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.27

Ted Kennedy On The Rocks
Michael Kelly's epic 1990 GQ profile of a thoroughly soused, jittery, puffy, red, whiskey soaked Ted Kennedy. Of note: numerous scenes of public drunkenness, a drunken back of the restaurant sex session, how Cape Cod really didn't consider it summer until Ted had driven his car on the sidewalk for the first time, and the work in the Senate and issues Kennedy was fighting for while carrying a blood alcohol level of .99. Great read.

Why Hunter Thompson passed on the O.J. trial
Jon Freidman talks to former San Francisco Examiner editor Phil Bronstein about one of the greatest things to ever not happen: Hunter S. Thompson covering the OJ Simpson trial with the official mandate of "try anything". It then devolves into a discussion as to why the newspaper industry is dying. Bah! This HST tidbit needs to be gone over in much more detail. Imagine the possibilities.

It's time to forgive Pete Rose for his sins against baseball
With Hall of Fame voting upcoming and the recent readmission of Michael Vick to the NFL, now comes the deluge of "Let Pete Rose into Cooperstown" columns. The premise this time? That making him wait 20 years to get into the hall after betting on baseball games he managed is punishment enough. Yes, mildly inconveniencing a man for violating the only rule that MLB posts up in locker rooms, is sufficient punishment. I think everyone underestimates baseball's wonderful reputation for grudge holding. Just ask Shoeless Joe Jackson, or, wait 40 years and ask Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa.

The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008
And what did we learn this year? That Hitler (#17) is always more popular than Vagina (#36) and the Twilight movie (#43), but not as popular as Lil Wayne (#16) and Transformers 2 (#14). We also learned that America isn't as childish enough, with only the aforementioned Vagina and Sex (#21) representing for all the giggling teenagers out there.

Aggressive fox bites 2 people, steals sweater
And you laughed when we tried to warn you about animal uprisings. Rest assured this is no viral marketing for the Fantastic Mr. Fox, the only virus going around is rabies. The sweater that fox stole is real people! We are all bearing witness to the animals' Fort Sumter. Beware, they are coming and they'll take our hoodies, our cardigans, and our windbreakers if we're not careful. Just remember if you see a fox wearing a sweater: he's the leader. Don't be a hero, call the authorities. I told you we shouldn't have banned fox hunts.

Late night cat video jamboree

Don't ever say we didn't enlighten your lives with cat related brilliance.

via/via