Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.
* There’s some things you just don’t do. Ever. Off the top of my head, the top 5 things are…
#5 – Drink orange juice after brushing your teeth.
#4 – Ask an MMA fighter if his lace panties get bunched up when he’s getting smacked around on the mat.
#3 – Clone dinosaurs from mosquito DNA (and hire Newman as your IT guy).
#2 – Loudly cheer for the visiting team when you are sitting dead center on the home team’s side of the field.
#1 – You NEVER EVER EVER say anything even remotely related to “well, at least things can’t get any worse!”
Aaaaaand guess what Bloomberg just did? “Economy Avoids Recession Relapse as Data **Can’t Get Much Worse**” [BLOOMBERG]
* “New research shows that mentally stimulating activities such as crossword puzzles, reading and listening to the radio may, at first, slow the decline of thinking skills but speed up dementia later in old age.” Soooo my choices for the future are (a) to be smart and go nucking futs or (b) to be stoooopid but remain completely sane. Wow. Some choices there. Uh, how about (c) NOT GROW ANY OLDER? I think that would be the solution!! Now where did I leave that map to the fountain of youth? [PHYSORG]
* Cash for clunkers turned out to be, in extremely technical terms, a big ouchie owie boo-boo! People are needing new cars because their current cars are breaking down (the ouchie part), but since cash for clunkers bought all the old cars off the market and destroyed them (the owie part), there’s no cheap used cars for anyone to buy! (the boo-boo part). [BOSTON.COM]
* If anybody comes up to you and says your world view is “immensely simplistic”, don’t you think that’s a smack talkin’ pre-prizefighter bout kind of insult? Tony “Tiger” Blair said that about George “Granite” Bush this week! And Bush supposedly said it was funny! Damn! Bush! Come on, man! Bust Tony one in the face for that! He’s British, so nobody will know if you mess up his grill! Go for it! [CNN]
* Speakin’ of Georgie-Porgie, Obama called Bush before his big speech earlier this week, and the White House wont reveal the content of the conversation. Great. The big neon sign says “don’t feed the conspiracy nuts”, but the machine just keeps handing out big tasty pellets like this one! [CNN]
* Now the MPAA is showing some brains! They’re going after the advertisers on torrent sites for contributing to criminal delinquency and piracy! That’s pretty smart! Soon they’re going figure out that… wait, why should I help the MPAA and give them any more ammunition? Nevermind! Next news bit! [TORRENTFREAK]
* Johnny Knoxville is doing a serious film on the re-emerging Detriot? Saywha? When did Mr. “Jackass” go all 2-legit-to-quit on us? And, by the way, Detroit looks like an abandoned former warzone. Seriously. If it was upgraded to “hell on earth” at least it would at least be populated! [LEFT LANE NEWS]
* Now here’s a spiffy problem to have… the Netherlands are gonna’ close a lot of their prisons “for lack of criminals.” Either (a) they have no laws so nothing is criminal, (b) the population of the Netherlands is somewhere between 2 and 3 people total, (c) or they’re doing something right. [NRC]
* Here’s a perfect example of lawsuit abuse… 51-year-old Craig Smallwood is suing a videogame manufacturer because they didn’t warn him that their game would be addictive! Smallwood says the game “was so addictive that he is unable to bathe, dress himself, communicate with others and wake-up during the day.” Dude, anything is addictive if you don’t have the stones to control yourself! FOOD is addictive if you don’t control yourself! And it gives you the same symptoms! And what exactly is a fiddy one year old doing playing videogames all day? Sorry, Smallwood. No sympathy here. [STAR ADVERTISER]
* The nuclear fuel of the future eats it’s own radiation?! It’s plentiful?! It’s cheap?! And it’s here now?! Soooooo we’re not using it because… seriously? No reason? Nobody has built a nuclear power plant with this miracle rock yet? Dammit! Reason #355 why I need to be a millionaire billionaire… [TELEGRAPH.CO.UK]
* Good. Lord. This hurts so much it kicked what passes for funny right out of me… are you ready? “Eight Years of the Iraq War Cost Less Than the Stimulus Act” Oooof! [FOX NEWS]
* While the funny is attempting re-entry, let me throw in this other bit of grim news. The AP editor of editors posted a warning for all their reporters covering Iraq that reality is a tad different than the press releases coming outta’ Washington. “Combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months.” [POYNTER]
* Oh, and the real Libertarians (IE: NOT Glen BokBok) agree too, saying “President Obama needs to stop lying. In his speech, he repeated the ridiculous and false claim that the U.S. combat mission is over in Iraq. He seems to think that if he keeps talking about the war in a nice way, then the war isn’t really happening.” [SMALL GOV TIMES]
* Want even more proof nothing has changed in Iraq? “Pentagon officials want troops to know that the change from Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn will not affect combat and other hazardous duty entitlements they receive.” I was not aware the Pentagon gave out hazard pay for peaceful no-longer-combat-troop-occupied democratic countries! Oh, wait… [DOD LIVE]
* This next bit has “pimply ingrown-hairy butt-ugly” written all over it. Everybody is pulling their money out of Afghanistan banks, so “President Hamid Karzai told Afghans on Thursday not to panic shortly after his brother, a major shareholder in the beleaguered Kabul Bank, called for intervention by the United States to head off a financial meltdown.” Sooooo we’re about to be formally asked by the biggest bankers in Afghanistan to bail their country out. This is the same country that we’re going to be visiting with a few hundred thousand of our soldiers for the foreseeable future? Can we seriously say NO and keep the Afghans from taking out their anger of their financial collapse on our soldiers who are stuck over there? Can we seriously say YES and not have the entire US population get “gasoline on a bonfire” upset about it? Yeah. This is gonna end REAL well. [WASHINGTON POST]
* I always wondered how those Mardi Gras people spit fire after drinking something. They lied to me and said it was just pure alcohol! Ha! It turns out you can use regular tap water from Pennsylvania! It lights on fire just fine! Oh, and I also learned from reading this story that “fracking” is not a polite way to curse. It actually means “hydraulic fracturing”. Fracking hell, dude!! [WARNING : VIDEO LINK] [CNN]
* If one of your longtime rivals ever pulls you aside and tells you that your game is starting to suck, like Apollo Creed did for Rocky Balboa during the Rocky III movie, you really should listen to them. In this example, Rocky is the United States, and Apollo is Europe. Specifically, Apollo is Spiegel online. They recently said… “The Obama administration and the Federal Reserve want to fix the United States economy by spending more money. But while that approach might work for Europe, it is risky for the US. The nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.” and on the second page of the article… “The Obama administration’s current policies rely on more government rather than personal responsibility and self-determination. They are administering to the patient more, not less, of exactly those things that led to the crisis. The crash was partially caused by a policy of cheap money. If interest rates stay as low as they are, the state will get into more and more debt. One day these debts will have to be repaid, together with interest and compound interest. This will result in tax increases, which will reduce wages, the result of individuals’ hard work.” Yo, Adrian. Apollo has it right, y’know. [SPIEGEL] or with photos at [SPIEGEL 1] and [SPIEGEL 2]
* I just can’t improve on this headline… “One of the trapped Chilean miners is dreading his rescue after his wife met his secret mistress at the entrance to the San Jose mine. Yonni Barrios’ wife, Marta Salinas, and Barrios’ lover, Susana Valenzuela, were both holding vigils for him outside the mine.” D’oh!! And the rescue won’t be complete until December? Wow. I think this is the first time I’ve heard of a man getting dug out from under the ground just to get killed. [FOX NEWS]
* There’s a giant “app bubble” for the iPod/iPad/iPhone/iwhatever devices. It turns out they’re not profitable for anybody involved, there’s too many crap apps for the device, and there’s a giant problem of quantity overshadowing quality. Combine that with AT&T’s spectacularly ass-tastic service and it really is a miracle people buy the iPhone at all! I bet in a few years everyone will look back at the iPhone like they’re the modern day parachute pants and go “what the hell were we thinking?” [FAST COMPANY]
* And finally, “President Obama on Monday called for a “full-scale attack” to revive the struggling economy.” [FOX NEWS] Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! A “full-scale attack”? He had to use the phrase “a full-scale attack”? Allow me to quote a big, but important, comedy bit from the late, great (and very missed) George Carlin…
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“Where do we get our values from? I do not understand our values. By the way, speaking of American values, aren’t we about due to start bombing some small country that only has a marginally effective air-force? Seems to me like we’re weeks overdue to drop high explosives on helpless civilians. People who have no argument with us whatsoever. I think we oughta be out there doin’ what we do best, gang, making large holes in other people’s countries.
And I hate to be repetitious, but we are a war-like lot. We can’t stand it not to be fuckin’ with somebody. We couldn’t wait for that Cold War to be over, could we? Couldn’t wait for that Cold War to be over so we could go play with our toys in the sand. And when we’re not invading some sovereign nation, or setting it on fire from the air, which is more fun for our Nintendo pilots, then we’re usually declaring war on something here at home.
Did you ever notice that about us? We love to declare war on things here in America. Anything we don’t like about ourselves we declare war on. We don’t do anything about it; we just declare war on it. It’s the only metaphor we have in our public discourse for solving problems: declaring war. We have to declare war on everything. We have the war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on litter, the war on cancer, the war on drugs.
But did you ever notice, we got no war on homelessness? You know why? There’s no money in that problem! No money to be made off of the homeless. If you could find a solution to homelessness where the corporate swine and the politicians could steal a couple of million dollars each, you’d see the streets of America begin to clear up pretty god-damned quick, I’ll guarantee you that! ”
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That’s all I got for this week. Back TUESDAY (‘Cause Monday is an official day off! Booya!)
