Food Fight: Who Gets to Cook Ethnic Dishes?

This is ridiculous. Give me a freaking break.

Hello Kitty Monstrosity of the Day: Hello NYPD

BUSTED.

Holy Movie Review Pretending To Be Asinine Commentary, Batman!

Apparently Thomas Friedman is now quoting from The Dark Knight in an attempt to explain ISIS and Boko Haram.  An entire quarter of  his "analysis" is just lines from the movie. Dude, seriously?

Still, here's a retort worth repeating:

@AntDeRosa I swear to Zod that Friedman likely hasn't even seen Nolan's Batman films. ISIS is clearly Bane, not the Joker.
— Nicholas Slayton (@NSlayton) October 5, 2014

The Fur Flies in Syrian Jihadist Catfight

You can't make this stuff up.

Best Commentary Yet On Obama's Messy ISIS Speech

"This speech is supposed to be about ISIS but idk Wtf I'm doing there so lemme talk about the economy and Ebola" #whatobamameant
— Emily (@EmilyChanda) September 10, 2014

@derekahunter "we are all dumber for having heard that"
— Mike Nelson (@mikenelson586) September 11, 2014

But How Could You Tell That From Normal MSNBC?

Technical difficulties fill MSNBC's news ticker with hilarious gibberish.

LOL: "Rainbow-Cake Recipe Inspires Comment Apocalypse"

Good grief, people, it's just a cake recipe.

Nerd News: Journalism School Misspells Own Diplomas

SPELL CHECK, YO!

Mind the Gap: Apparently Size Does Matter

As France's national rail company has found out to its chagrin.

How Not To Behave at Japan's Best Sushi Restaurant

Embarrassing.

Nerd News: Is March Madness in the Curriculum?

Sometimes the temptation is just too great.

Razing Arizona

The completely unnecessary mess in Arizona was an embarrassment to everyone.  This is as good an analysis as any:

In a doomed effort on a superfluous bill, Arizona legislators created a political disaster for themselves, short-term damage to the business community, massive fundraising and PR victories for the Left, and a national black eye for social conservatives. Not to mention a lovely media distraction from Obamacare. 

In fact, the whole thing was so awful that I'm tempted to hatch a conspiracy theory that those Arizona legislators were Democratic infiltrators and agents provocateurs.

Nerd News: Publishers Withdraw 120+ Fake Research Papers

Here's the sordid tale:

The publishers Springer and IEEE are removing more than 120 papers from their subscription services after a French researcher discovered that the works were computer-generated nonsense. 

Over the past two years, computer scientist Cyril Labbé of Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, has catalogued computer-generated papers that made it into more than 30 published conference proceedings between 2008 and 2013. 

The "nerds behaving badly" tag is for the publishers who clearly had sloppy vetting practices.  My response:

Nerd News: Rutgers Professor Is Suspended

And pray tell, WHY?  Because he admitted to the class that he was teaching a subject he knew nothing about and was not qualified to teach.   You might get a wry smile out of the topic of the class: Human Aggression.

Pajama Boy: What The Hell Is THIS?

The people entrusted with Obamacare publicity actually think this is a good idea?  Even left-wing shill MSNBC can't stop guffawing.  Rich Lowry calls this smug little hipster fool in a plaid onesie (a onesie!) "an insufferable man-child," and I can't agree more.  I finally survive finals and emerge into the land of the living and ... run smack into this insultingly infantilizing mess.  Hell, I think I would rather be drowning in my exam-week books and papers, where for two weeks I was too busy to notice the government's ongoing descent into oblivious self-parody.  

While we're on the topic, let me just say that nothing is a bigger turn-off than smug urban-cool hipster guys who think they're smarter and cuter than they really are.  Ugh.  If this is what "enlightened" guys are supposed to be like these days, give me a rugged, unreconstructed, unapologetic cowboy any day of the week.  You know, someone who actually has a confident definition for "self-reliance" and "masculinity." 

Sexist Driving Tips By Beijing Police Spark Outrage

I'll leave it up to you to make your own jokes.

The Summation Of Everything

Foreign policy snafus, domestic policy circuses, political nonsense, government shutdown, Obamacare, idiotic media, plus my "real life" (read: it's midterm exam time in Nerdworld and all hell's broken loose!) ... We're all short of time, money, energy, and patience.  I feel completely exhausted.  The whole kit and kaboodle can basically be summed up by this animated image from a favorite show:

Tweet of the Day: Idiocy On Display

Remember how I've been slamming the Obama Administration for being deeply, disturbingly, delusionally unserious about foreign policy?  That meant for a little while I wasn't looking very hard at domestic policy.  Well, guess what, I'm finding equally epic unseriousness there too.  This is an actual tweet from the official White House Twitter account. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FREAKING KIDDING ME.  

Obama and company are trying to peddle Obamacare to an increasingly skeptical nation, its initial boosters are now jumping ship, the government's having to delay piece after piece of this craptastic law's implementation, and the best you can do is caption a gorram mouse on a swing?!   And, NO, rising insurance premiums are NOT ADORABLE.  I want to slam my head against the wall.  I wish we could call for a big fat vote of no confidence.

Take it from this guy: Insurance companies can no longer put lifetime limits on your coverage (h/t @AdorableCareAct) pic.twitter.com/ToSlV7fz0l
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 26, 2013

Best Comment Yet on Assad-Obama-Putin

Short and sweet:

"If your foreign policy has to be rescued by a dictator, you are doing it wrong." 

The first runner-up is pretty good too:  "The Obama administration will do everything in its power to do nothing at all."

Besides, if you seriously think that Putin's plan to disarm Assad in the middle of a friggin' civil war can ever work, and I do mean ever, (and/or isn't a big scam), then I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.

Quote of the Day: Cereal Killer

Why, yes, let's make our already-ludicrous "case" for striking Syria even more ludicrous by infantilizing it with this metaphor:

"A second senior official, who has seen the most recent planning, offered this metaphor to describe such a strike: If Assad is eating Cheerios, we're going to take away his spoon and give him a fork. Will that degrade his ability to eat Cheerios? Yes. Will it deter him? Maybe. But he'll still be able to eat Cheerios."

Cheerios?  Silverware?  I guess the only up side is hoping that metaphorically Assad then stabs himself with the fork.  Or something.  What the hell is wrong with these people?  From the beginning, the Syrian mess has been characterized by folks from the president on down saying the stupidest things imaginable within earshot of ... oh, everybody.  

Let this be a lesson to you, my darlings: THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK. THEN THINK AGAIN.  AND A THIRD TIME BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR TRAP. Remember that timelessly relevant axiom: "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Speaking of ... Obama is giving his speech tonight.