LOL: Life Imitates "Arrested Development"

First read this.

Then watch this.

Life Imitates the Onion On Every Front

A few days ago I thought I had found the perfect visual distillation of this deplorable year.  As so often happens in situations like this, the year has, within the span of a mere week, somehow managed to get even worse.

Today is a day in which these things exist in the universe (in no particular order and with no attempt at being comprehensive):

• This loopy argument about an utterly reprehensible human being somehow still makes a certain kind of sick sense if you want the news media to stop being the lapdog of the executive branch and go back to being a watchdog. (Sweet Christmas, did I just say that?)
• This fangirly writeup about Nigel Farage, one of the UK's most hated public figures, doesn't seem to be ironic.  I'll say this for him: he said he wanted the UK out of the EU, and he actually saw his once-quixotic dream come to pass.  How many politicians can say that?  I mean, really.
• Since we're talking about the Brits ... The Tories have descended into a rocket-powered roller coaster of backstabbing and power-grubbing, and last I looked, the two top contenders are embroiled in a catfight of hiss-terical proportions because one apparently said something of such grandiose stupidity that it can't be real ... can it? One of these two is supposed to be the heir of Maggie Thatcher?
• Meanwhile in Australia, some frightened French holidaymakers had to call the cops to save them from "spiders as big as dinner plates." Bonus Aussie goodness: the cops said offhandedly that the tourists really should have been more worried about the 6-foot-long snake that had crawled into in their camper without being noticed. Riiiiiiiiiight.
• Oh, well, we can escape the nonstop bad news and overheated political polarization by enjoying a little art, right? NOPE.
• Now from the bastions of cherished academic freedom ... Haha, just kidding! That's PROFESSOR Big Brother to you! 
• Hell, you can't even play the universe's hottest new game without running into corpses.
• Et tu?  ET TU?  The whole thing reeks of a tawdry publicity stunt showmance as paparazzi-bait, and I definitely thought you had better taste than to stoop to that.

So let me sum up the current state of everything: "dumpster fire."  I was going to go with "omnishambles" since there's so much Britishness in the word, but I think the image of a mountain of combusting trash is so much more evocative.  In fact, I'll even hit you with some linguistic factoids about the terminology for this epic dumpster fire of a world in which we all are living.

Oh, all right. Not everything is horrible. Some things are merely batcrap crazy. Behold my pick for Headline of the Day: "A Fleet of M&M-Shooting Drones is the Black-Footed Ferret's Last Hope." And you thought it was Obi-Wan. 

2015 Retrospective: Dave Barry's Year in Review

2015 was a crazy year, and it looks even crazier in humorist Dave Barry's zany, satirical retrospective.  Here's a bit of the section on January 2015:

In Paris, 1.5 million people march in a solidarity rally following the horrific terrorist attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Eyebrows are raised when not a single top U.S. official attends, but several days later, Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives in France with James Taylor, who — this really happened — performs the song “You’ve Got a Friend.” This bold action strikes fear into the hearts of terrorists, who realize that Secretary Kerry is fully capable, if necessary, of unleashing Barry Manilow.

Zing.

Nerd News: Harvard Headline of the Year

"Black Mass Cancelled Amid Uproar As Cultural Studies Club Withdraws Sponsorship." Seriously, this is the real headline!  Then again, some of us have always known that Hahvahd was of the Devil, hahaha!

By the way, here is the statement from Hahvahd President Drew Faust - FAUST!  Folks, I can't make this stuff up if I tried.  

Here's a piece of it (issued before the club withdrew its sponsorship):

"The decision by a student club to sponsor an enactment of this ritual is abhorrent; it represents a fundamental affront to the values of inclusion, belonging and mutual respect that must define our community. It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory.

Nevertheless, consistent with the University’s commitment to free expression, including expression that may deeply offend us, the decision to proceed is and will remain theirs. At the same time, we will vigorously protect the right of others to respond—and to address offensive expression with expression of their own. 

I plan to attend a Eucharistic Holy Hour and Benediction at St. Paul's Church on our campus on Monday evening in order to join others in reaffirming our respect for the Catholic faith at Harvard and to demonstrate that the most powerful response to offensive speech is not censorship, but reasoned discourse and robust dissent."

Life Imitates Satire: Putin in the New York Times

Wait a minute: Did Putin seriously write an op-ed ...  in the New York Times ... on the anniversary of 9/11 ... mocking American exceptionalism?  Putin who famously runs around shooting tigers and wrestling polar bears and doing all that "look at me" macho-man BS to make himself look exceptional?  (While also persecuting gay people and girl punk bands?)  Is this real life or is this fantasy?  Caught in a landslide ... no escape from reality ... Whaaaaaaaaaaat? 

This is, I think, only the beginning of the fallout from the Syria-Russia fiasco.  I repost the image I made on that day.  Thanks to the Obama Administration's utterly incompetent handling of Syria that has made the president an international laughingstock, I think we'll all be getting a lot more use out of it in days to come.

Troll.

Life Imitates the Onion: Kerry's "Unbelievably Small" Strike

SERIOUSLY?  Geez, I need to stop paying attention to the Unserious Syrian Silliness because our so-called leadership is apparently patently full of officious incompetents.   You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh (bitterly).  OK, let the song play in your head but with these new and improved lyrics!

Quote of the Day: War and Therapy

This whole Syria debacle is turning out to be a huge pain in the Assad:

War used to be the pursuit of politics by other means. Today, if the statements made by the Western politicos and observers who want to bomb Syria are anything to go by, it’s the pursuit of therapy by other means. The most startling and unsettling thing about the clamour among some Westerners for a quick, violent punishment of the Assad regime is its nakedly narcissistic nature.  

... Easily the most notable thing in the debate about bombing Syria in response to Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians is the absence of geopolitical considerations, or of any semi-serious thought about what the regional or international consequences of dropping bombs into an already hellish warzone might be. Instead, all the talk is of making a quick moral gesture about ourselves by firing a few missiles at wickedness. In the words of a Democratic member of the US Foreign Affairs Committee, there might be ‘very complex issues’ in Syria, but ‘we, as Americans, have a moral obligation to step in without delay’. Who cares about complexity when there’s an opportunity to show off our own moral decency? 

All the discussion so far has focused, not on the potential moral consequences of bombing Syria, but on the moral needs of those who would do the bombing.

Hell, there's not even a clear objective here.  This is supposed to be satire, but I can't really discern the difference between its substance and the actual expression of purpose from the Obama Administration.  Can you?

Oh, I can't help adding that Brendan O'Neill wins the palm of hono(u)r from me for riffing on Carly Simon as he lambastes the Syria bombification fanboys: "They’re so vain they think someone else’s war is all about them."

The Washington Post Jumps the Shark

You all know that I appreciate beautiful shoes as much as the next girl, but really, Washington Post?  When we have Scandal-a-palooza blowing up all around us on multiple fronts, with ramifications for everything from press freedom to foreign policy, this is what you print?  

I personally don't give a good gorram if this person, as the news story drools, "wears Manolo Blahniks and Christian Louboutins into the Oval Office."   She is not Carrie Bradshaw, and this is not Sex and the City: White House Edition.

I am pleased to note, though, that when I read the story, the very first reader comment on the bottom was this:

6:55 PM EDT
Without a doubt, the stupidest piece I've ever read in the Washington Post.

Stupid with a side of sexism.  All together now to the WaPo: PFFFFFFFTTTTTTT!!!!!

State Dept. Addresses Dennis Rodman's Norkophilia

I don't know what's more ridiculous: ex-basketball player and full-time freak show Dennis Rodman, Rodman's bromance with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, or the fact that some guy from State actually had to say this at a press briefing:

"Dennis Rodman has never been a player in our diplomacy, he does not represent the views of the United States, he is a private American."

Meanwhile in the real world, apparently a top Chinese Communist wants China to abandon North Korea.

Worst Op-ed of 2012 Is ... *Drum Roll* ...

TA-DA!!  Coming in at the last possible minute, this thing takes the cake.  Honestly, at first I thought this had to be something by the Onion.  I mean, a constitutional law professor saying we should chuck the Constitution.  Hahaha - Oh, you're serious. I am further bemused/amused to see this. (Scroll down to realize that Glenn Greenwald and I are actually on the same page. LOL!)  Anyway:

Just in under the wire, a clear winner for dumbest and most incoherent NYT Op-ed of 2012:is.gd/DCMMbp
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald)

Life Imitates the Onion: Kim Jong Un

The Onion. The results of a recent Time magazine reader poll.  (How many of those votes do you think were cast by trolls and other snarky Internet agents provocateurs?)

Headline of the Day + Best Use of Scare Quotes

Ah, British humour! The Telegraph can barely contain the gleeful disdain: "North Korea 'archaeologists' report quite unbelievable discovery of unicorn lair." 

I love the use of scare quotes around the word 'archaeologists.' Note the brilliant choice of accompanying image. Well played, Telegraph.  The only thing you could do to improve it would be to Photoshop Kim Jong Un into the mix so that he's riding that unicorn ... or perhaps do something like this.

I think I'll also nominate this tale as "worst/dumbest propaganda of the year." 

Quote of the Day: Sen. Rand Paul and A New Standard

This is too hilarious not to post even though I should be working:

I will tell you, since I know this record of this debate will be widely read, that I want to make formal objection to the "crazy bastards standard." I don’t really think that if we’re going to have a "crazy bastards standard" that we shouldn’t have a right to trial by jury, because if we’re going to lock up all the crazy bastards, for goodness sakes would you not want if you’re a crazy bastard to have a right to trial by jury?

All right. For using the term "crazy bastard" repeatedly in an actual Congressional debate about terrorism, you get your own blog tag, snarky Rand.

Here's the video:

 

Chinese Paper Falls for Onion Joke

You might remember me giggling about the Onion's take on People magazine's annual silliness.  Even funnier?  Two Asian newspapers thought the Onion was real news and in all seriousness published stories about the unbearable hawtness of Kim Jong-Un. I laughed out loud.  The gaffe is now all over the international news whenever you care to look.  Even better: the Onion has amended its original story to include the following:

For more coverage on The Onion's Sexiest Man Alive 2012, Kim Jong-Un, please visit our friends at the People's Daily in China, a proud Communist subsidiary of The Onion, Inc. Exemplary reportage, comrades.

Well played, Onion.  Well played.

UPDATE: Plenty of other people have been fooled by the Onion too.

In Soviet Russia, Books Read You!

Geez, the joke becomes reality?

Life Imitates Satire: Taliban Accidentally CC's Everybody On Its Mailing List

Hitting "reply all" is apparently a universal office communications hazard, whether you're a mild-mannered software engineer or a bloody-minded evil terrorist.

Nobel Peace Prize Ever Bigger Joke Than Previously Thought

This year it goes to ... *drum roll* the EU.  Really. Insert your own jokes here.  The other prizes and winners are more substantive, especially the prize in medicine.

Yet Another Fool Confirms Foolishness via Twitter

My, my, my, Twitter's turning out to be a really convenient way to figure out if certain individuals are idiots or not.  I'm not even going to explain the latest revelation.  Just read this.

LOL: Hitting Below the Belt in the Chicago Teachers' Strike

Somebody brought a wicked sense of humor to the otherwise angry strike and focused a laser-like wit on mayor Rahm Emanuel, who's "the bad guy" in the scenario:

Ouch.

The Emanuel camp even responded that no, the mayor doesn't like that much-aligned bunch of musicians.  Then, not content with this, that teacher kicked Emanuel while he was down with this even uglier accusation.  Now that's one heck of a smear, even for Chicago.  

Best Protest Sign Ever?

Via Buzzfeed, this LOLworthy effort: