Archives for February 2011

Things have been a little depressing around the World News Center as of late. The last few days’ stories would seem to lead one to believe that humanity’s days are severely numbered. But, as it turns out, things aren’t that bleak. Massive overpopulation spilling out of India? I found the source. It’s a guy named Ziona Chana who has 39 wives and 167 kids. All we need to do is send over a small nuke, low yield of course since we want the land to revert to nature, and we’re good to go.

Aliens who love anal probes? Well, who doesn’t? Not a problem any more though. Even the UFO Congress, not to be confused with alien life forms in Washington, has finally got around to saying 95% of sightings are pure crap and the other 5% are simply unknown. And none of those 5% seem to have posed any threat at all, so we can just ignore them.

If you’ve been losing sleep worrying about the world being taken over by giant Irish people, worry no more. It turns out that they’re just regular folks with a pituitary problem. And now that it’s known, it can be cured.

In other words, like I said, we’re good to go.

And when faced with good news like this there’s only one thing to do; PAR-TAY HAR-DAY!

Dave Thier at AOL News reports that that’s exactly what’s happening in New Orleans as the, perennially rude, Krewe du Vieux ramps up another scatological parade.

The Mardi Gras parade season is getting under way in New Orleans, and for a region that weathered the massive environmental, political and economic implications of the BP oil spill, a little laughter isn’t such a bad idea.

Of course, disaster is nothing new to the Crescent City, and yet year after year the inhabitants display a remarkable ability to keep on partying. This Saturday, one krewe (a social club that revolves around its Mardi Gras parade) started the season, just as it does every year — weird. The Krewe de Vieux are New Orleans’ carnival pranksters — every year they do a parade, usually a very profane one, making fun of whatever politicians or disasters that wreaked havoc on their city that year.

“There’s no situation that doesn’t improve from taking a moment to step back and laugh a little bit,” former krewe captain and poo-bah of publicity Keith Twitchell told AOL News. “Shed off some tension, maybe clear your head, maybe fog your head, but either way you go back to it with a fresh perspective.”

Highlights from this year’s parade included the sub-krewe Spermes’ float, which was themed around a slightly altered version of HBO’s “Treme,” and Sarah Palin driving a sled in the “idiot-a-rod” race with none other than Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as the lead dog. Another sub-krewe, the Krewe Mondu, imagined New Orleans in the year 2025, broken off from the mainland.

“It appears that toplessness is standard in this island city,” reads Krewe De Vieux’s in-house publication, Le Monde de Merde. “Whether this is due to global warming or the omnipresent beads is unclear.”

Other highlights, published in Monde de Merde, are not entirely fit for republication.

Of course, the BP oil spill featured heavily into this year’s parade. The combination of government corruption, general ineptitude, mass confusion and near-apocalyptic implications presented a perfect target for the parading pranksters.

BP CEO Tony Hayward made more than one appearance, both as a crafty, smoke bomb wielding ninja and his alter ego Tony Haywimp. Twitchell went as a gigantic oil-eating microbe — the logic being that if the microbes had really been eating as much of the oil as some people suspected they did, they would have grown gigantic.

While they’ve become an oddball among the larger super-krewes in the celebration, in many ways, Krewe De Vieux is the most traditional of the Mardi Gras krewes. Not only do they make their floats themselves and pull them with mules once they’re ready, but their satirical bent carries historical significance as well. For centuries, Carnival has been a time when social distinctions melted away and lower classes had the chance to poke fun at the powers that were.

In 2005, Krewe De Vieux, like the rest of the city, faced what seemed like an insurmountable challenge. After Katrina, some people thought that the parade would have been in poor taste — just as some people thought about Mardi Gras itself. But between George W. Bush, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, Krewe De Vieux had its pick of satirical targets that year. And for Twitchell, not rolling would have been like giving up.

“We were the first parade to roll after Katrina,” Twitchell said. “If we don’t preserve our culture, why save any of the rest of it? I think we did a lot to make people feel better, even just for one night.”

This year, the Krewe had a less tragic disaster to deal with, but there will likely be hard times in New Orleans’ future again. And whatever comes their way, Krewe De Vieux will make disgusting jokes about it.

A recent issue of Monde de Merde included articles ranging from how to enjoy a Dr. John album (bourbon is a must), fun things to do with flammable liquids in your anus and, naturally, how to exorcise demons from a mayor. Certainly all worthwhile things to know.

Word to the wise, it would be best to shave your buttocks first before trying some of the more daring ideas. I’m just saying.

In the meantime, you can certainly take a few minutes out of your day to watch topless women go shopping before the real party begins.

If that’s a touch racy for your current personal space, then just remember that Endicott works from 9 to 5, doesn’t fool around with loose women and doesn’t touch alcohol. Don’t be like Endicott. Not when it’s time to get your Cajun groove on.

In 1973 Richard Fleischer released a little film called Soylent Green which posited that the food shortage is so bad in 2022 that people end up eating processed people. The processed people looked, and tasted, like crackers so folks on the street didn’t realize exactly what they were eating. We all know how well crackers go with cheese and veggies and all sorts of delicious stuff. In fact they can even be used to make a lovely pie. And who doesn’t like pie?

As it turns out though he may have been prescient. While he may have been off by a few years, it nevertheless appears he got most everything else right.

Gee, what a cheerful way to start your week.

There is one other thing to consider in Fleischer’s dystopian fantasy, in the movie garbage trucks are retrofitted to scoop up random people off the street and kill them. When they’re scooped up, they’re crushed. Just like a nice pie filling. And, as we already know, everyone likes pie.

That was considered to be the logical solution to over crowding.

YAHOO! News is citing a report from an AFP story which details how the world’s food supply could so denigrated by 2050 (that’s 6 apocalypses from now for those keeping score at home), we will finally be forced to eat each other.

And not in a good way.

A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an “unrecognizable” world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday.

The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, “with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia,” said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, “we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000,” said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

“By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable” if current trends continue, Clay said.

The swelling population will exacerbate problems, such as resource depletion, said John Casterline, director of the Initiative in Population Research at Ohio State University.

But incomes are also expected to rise over the next 40 years — tripling globally and quintupling in developing nations — and add more strain to global food supplies.

People tend to move up the food chain as their incomes rise, consuming more meat than they might have when they made less money, the experts said.

It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP.

“More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet,” Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.

Population experts, meanwhile, called for more funding for family planning programs to help control the growth in the number of humans, especially in developing nations.

“For 20 years, there’s been very little investment in family planning, but there’s a return of interest now, partly because of the environmental factors like global warming and food prices,” said Bongaarts.

“We want to minimize population growth, and the only viable way to do that is through more effective family planning,” said Casterline.

While that bit of apocalyptic news may seem depressing, it’s certainly avoidable. We can still have all the sex we want, perhaps even more, we just have to wrap that sucker before we … try our lucker.

More importantly, if we’re having lots of sex we’re getting lots of exercise. And a healthier populace is always a good thing. Plus, since we all know that the rich tend to live idle lives, they’ll be slow and easy to hunt if worst does actually come to worse.

In other words, don’t worry. All you have to do is go out and have lots of well protected sex, enjoy a tasty meat pie from time to time and make sure to keep your ammo cool and dry.

When Americans stop to think about elephants at all we usually envision a circus or a zoo. One of the first phrases a child learns when visiting either locale is “playful pachyderm” and not “plundering predator.” It is because of their cute and benign image that we tend to equate these multi-ton behemoths with teddy bears, frolicking nude hippos and bikers who like kittens. They just seem too cute to be menacing.

But in the real world, bears, hippos and bikers are not cute and cuddly. They can be downright deadly. As it turns out, so can elephants.

Jeremy Hubbard, Natasha Singh and Lauren Effron of ABC News report on a disturbing development; Indian elephants are killing and eating people.

Humans aren’t natural prey for elephants and tigers, but in the Sundarban islands of West Bengal, India, an alarming number of people have been attacked — even eaten — by these wild beasts.

In one part of the country, there have been reports of elephants going on a rampage, trampling homes and killing around 200 people in the past year. In one bizarre case, this typically plant-eating animal reportedly ate a human.

In another part of the country, tigers, who have developed an appetite for human flesh, reportedly killed 14 people in one village alone last year.

“Tigers generally aren’t man eaters,” said Dave Salmoni. “It’s anomaly when an animal decides to start eating people.”

Salmoni is a zoologist and an animal trainer who specializes in predators. The host of several Animal Planet shows, Salmoni will also appear on the upcoming Animal Planet special, “World’s Deadliest Towns,” on Feb. 21.

A tiger that can weigh up to 650 pounds and grow up to 11 feet long is clearly at the top of the food chain, and Salmoni explained that these fierce animals have overtaken the land in the Sundarban islands.

“It’s the only place in the world I’ve ever been in the bush…I feel like I’m being hunted,” he said.

The World Wildlife Fund estimated that only about 3,200 tigers are left in the world. At the same time, the number of tiger attacks in this part of India is up 30 percent over the past decade, according to Salmoni.

Some experts believe environmental issues and a rapidly growing human population in the region are reducing their habitat and their natural food supply, and forcing them into villages.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change announced in 2007 that rising sea levels could submerge 17 percent of Bangladesh by 2050, which would completely flood the mangrove forests that are the natural habitat for the Bengal species.

Thousands more humans are also going into the Sundarban forests to hunt and clear more land for farming, which further encroaches on the tigers’ and elephants’ territories, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

As food becomes scarcer, Salmoni explained, these large animals might turn on humans because they are easy prey.

“A place like the Sundarban, that’s happened,” Salmoni explained. “They’re creating a culture of man-eating where moms are teaching cubs, people are easy prey.”

Humans are also easy targets for elephants. Once revered as peaceful animals, elephants are becoming more aggressive and wandering onto farms looking for food. Salmoni explained that villagers will try to chase the elephants away — some will even use fireworks — which only make the elephants angry.

“That’s exactly what’s going to get someone killed,” Salmoni said. “This is absolute suicide right now.”

People are little competition for a four-ton behemoth. Salmoni explained how an elephant will use its whole body during an attack.

“She’ll just backhand you,” he said. “She’ll knock you miles and you could die. The other thing she’ll do is she gets you down by hitting you with the trunk … she’ll ram you into the ground.”

Salmoni also pointed out that mother elephants will do whatever it takes to protect their young, and charge if they feel threatened.

“I was petrified when I was there,” he said. “It’s really more heartbreaking than petrifying. These guys (the villagers) are saying, ‘Yes I’m scared of these elephants … I either get trampled to death by an elephant or starve to death because he eats my food.'”

These villagers are also unable to protect themselves because as Hindus, they worship elephants and can’t kill them. However, Salmoni said that local wildlife officials were granted special permission to take out one particularly violent female elephant that reportedly killed 17 people.

Her necropsy revealed that this herbivore had consumed human remains. Shocked, animal specialists believed that this elephant had been driven over the edge when her young calf was being chased in a rice field by villagers.

“I think maternal instinct is something we all relate to,” Salmoni said. “We all know how a human mother would react if she has to protect her baby.”

The best long-term solution would be to give these animals space to roam without being encumbered by the growing onslaught of humans. It’s a difficult task in a country like India, where the population is a whopping 1.3 billion people.

This is the most extreme case of “something’s gotta give” I’ve ever seen. In 1972 India drafted, and enacted, it’s Wildlife Protection Act which made it a crime to harm wild animals except in very specific circumstances. The problem they face now is that, with greatly reduced acreage for the animals to roam and a population that is spiraling out of control, if they rescind the act all those animals will quickly become extinct. If they move the people out, then already overcrowded cities will become necropolises.

Another, obvious, solution would be for families to have less children. While there is no theological basis preventing the use of birth control in the Hindu religion, there are centuries of traditions which exalt large families. It is darn near impossible to overcome that kind of inertia. In America the problem was solved through capitalism. Families simply couldn’t afford ten kids any more. China solved the problem by government edict and strict fines. India has no history of either and is unlikely to embrace anything like them any time soon.

So the problems persist and the solutions remain elusive.

While I know that many people enjoy the fun videos I post at the end of my blogs, this one is not fun. It is the ABC Nightline video that shows elephants and tigers attacking people. It is very graphic and not meant for our more sensitive readers.

Don’t worry, I’ll be funny tomorrow.

I sometimes wonder why I even bother. I rant and rave about the brewing death of humanity at the hands of its impending robot overlords and how our children can be replaced by mechanical equivalents. What thanks do I get in return? A big flipping finger in my face. Are people out looking for ways to better themselves and remove the, ever tightening, technological yoke? Of course not. They’re out taking really bad pictures of imaginary lake creatures and dialing their psychic friend network to find out how they’re supposed to behave today.

But, as if that’s not bad enough, residents of Detroit are now going to build a statue to a robot. I guess they’re tying to get ahead of the curve.

“Oh look, glorious robot overlords, we love you! Please don’t hurt us, wonderful robot overlords! We’ll do anything you want. See the nice statue we built? We can build you more nice statues!”

That’s the spirit.

Get right down on your knees and start polishing those knobs … and dials.

As Rueters reports, RoboCop is being honored with his own metal simulacrum.

Plans for a statue honoring RoboCop, the half-man, half-machine crimefighter of the 1987 movie, are moving ahead after a group of artists and entrepreneurs in Detroit, Michigan raised more than $50,000 via Facebook and an online fund-raising site.

“It hit a sweet spot. It’s a fun and funny idea to build a statue of RoboCop,” said Jeff Paffendorf, who helped lead the project inspired by a whimsical suggestion sent to Detroit Mayor Dave Bing via Twitter last week.

Bing tweeted back at the time that there were no plans for a RoboCop statue, an off-hand remark that bounced around the Internet and generated calls for him to reconsider.

“There’s violence in ‘RoboCop,’ but through the film RoboCop tries to do the right thing,” Paffendorf said.

Bing’s office is still not convinced, but a spokeswoman said the city is studying how it could accept and display a gift RoboCop statue.

“We know there are a lot of people that care deeply about the issue, and we respect that,” said Karen Dumas of Bing’s office. “But I’m still not sure that RoboCop is the best message for the city of Detroit.”

Paffendorf said the RoboCop statue could go somewhere downtown if the city approves, perhaps near the landmark fist statue honoring legendary boxer Joe Louis.

But if Detroit will not allow RoboCop on city-owned land, a nonprofit arts group plans to display the statue, he said.

Paffendorf said a sculptor and a metal artist have been chosen to complete the job.

At this rate there’ll soon be a statue in D.C. dedicated to Gort.

Jimminy Crickets people, have you no shame?

Apparently not. As is being reported in NCBuy, Chinese restaurants no longer need Chinese people to make Chinese food. They’ve outsourced their jobs to robots.

Move over all the renowned chefs in the world–robotic chefs are here to serve you better. China may not have a dearth of quality chefs, but that has not stopped the inventors in the country from building robots that can cook gastronomic delights.

A fast-food restaurant, Wishdoing, located on Shanghai’s upmarket Nanjing Road has recently acquired two robots that can cook Chinese delicacies. Among the popular oriental dishes the robots can serve are spicy diced chicken with peanuts, Kung Pao chicken and Mapo Tofu (bean curd with chilli sauce).

“All one needs to do is press the button on the robots to choose a dish and they will display the name of the ingredients and their quantities,” a restaurant release said.

Appearance-wise they might not even come close to human beings–they are more like massive kitchen surfaces equipped with iron pots–but they are workaholics nonetheless. The robots only take three minutes to wash the pots from a previous order, mix the ingredients, finish the cooking and then place the food onto a plate for serving.

With a price tag of $30,350 per robot, they are not exactly cheap, but the fast-food chain has plans to install them at all its 100-out outlets across the country. The parent company of the fast-food chain, Shanghai Qi Ding Food Development Co., said in a statement that, “We believe the cooking robots will become a trend in the future for the fast-food industry as they guarantee low-carbon emission, food safety and standard tastes that don’t change from one outlet to another.”

And, of course, the company doesn’t have to pay them either. The company, however, doesn’t plan to layoff its kitchen staff.

Why should they let the staff go? The robots will still need someone to clean and maintain their gears until they learn to be completely self sufficient.

Obviously no one in China has ever seen To Serve Man.

IT’S A COOK BOOK PEOPLE!!!!!

Okay, maybe I’m overreacting a tad. After all, they’ll need to keep some of us alive to entertain them.

Right?