You Missed It: Alien invasion edition

It’s hot. There, it’s been acknowledged. It’s over 100 here in the Washington, D.C. area, and considering how much of the country is on fire or in a drought, it’s probably hot where you are, too. It gets hot and suddenly that’s all that people talk about. Yes, I punch people who say “Hot enough for ya?” If you were busy announcing your divorce from Tom Cruise, odds are you missed it.

Easy on immigration, tough on aliens
A recent National Geographic poll found that American believe that Obama would be better able to deal with an extraterrestrial invasion than Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Analysts say this is a clear sign that the Obama campaign’s message is resounding strongly with the tinfoil-hat crowd, previously the domain of Ron Paul. However, they are all wrong. Bill Pullman would be the best president to handle such an invasion. This fall, remember his campaign slogan: “I saw its thoughts. I saw what they’re planning to do. They’re like locusts. They’re moving from planet to planet … their whole civilization. After they’ve consumed every natural resource they move on … and we’re next. Nuke ’em. Let’s nuke the bastards.”

Will anyone move to Canada?
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” if you listen to talk radio, is constitutional. But because of the confusing format of the written decision, both CNN and Fox News initially reported the opposite. President Barack Obama initially got the incorrect message that it was struck down, and was sad for a few minutes. Sad Obama needs to be the next Internet meme.

Pot: More dangerous than we thought
The autopsy of Rudy Eugene, the man who chewed off the face of another man in Miami, found that he had only marijuana in his system, not bath salts, as some first thought. That makes sense. How many times in college did you rock the ganja so hard you got naked and ate someone’s face?

Jewish parents? How did he Nazi that coming?

You know how, whenever somebody comes out against gay rights, it’s only a matter of time before they’re caught with a rent boy? Europe has a similar problem.

Csanad Szegedi, the regional leader of Hungary’s anti-semitic, far-right Jobbik party, had to hold a very serious interview, in which he confessed to having parents of Jewish origin. (What Szegedi meant to say is that he has Jewish origins because that’s how parentage f–king works.) He concluded his statement with this heartwarming sentiment:

“Knowing who is a pure-race Hungarian is not what counts. The important thing is the way one behaves as a Hungarian. [You know, because I’m Jewish now.]”

Ironically, it is because of far-right leaders like Szededi that Jewish Hungarians like his family hid their Jewish origins. But, let’s not end on such a downer. Instead, let’s learn how to dismiss a sheepish Nazi with class. Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF, the umbrella group of France’s Jewish community, the podium is yours:

“We can but offer our sympathies in light of the terrible discovery. In different circumstances, the appropriate solution would be hara-kiri. Having not chosen this option, the unfortunate Szegedi is forced to embark on philosophical pursuits superior to his intellectual capacity.”

Animal escapees take wild ride, no explosions

Missouri was on high alert earlier this week, because thousands of dangerous convicts escaped from their captors.

Like a late 90s action flick, 2,000 lab mice were locked up in a tractor-trailer, which the drivers carelessly left in a hotel parking lot. The mice had their own plans of getting our and exacting their revenge, but then two dudes on heroin decided to steal the whole truck and cook up a plan to turn it into cash for drugs.

It didn’t work out that way, because all trucks like that have GPS tracking devices for their everyday jobs, tracking down the vehicle and letting the police know is a simple task. If this was really a 90s action flick, Keanu Reeves would have been dropped on top of the truck by helicopter and dealt with the situation. If only.

MasterChugs Theater: ‘Adventureland’

Though it’s set at a low-rent amusement park, Adventureland is essentially a summer camp movie, a nostalgia-tinged look back at the balmy nights and summer flings you may or may not have had in your youth. Nothing in the movie really justifies its setting in 1987, despite some laughs about Falco’s “Rock Me Amadeus” and trendy fashion, but it does help add a retro-cool sheen to what’s essentially a very standard coming-of-age dramedy. Coming off Superbad, director and writer Greg Mottola is dialing up the sentimentality and realism here, and what he achieves is admirable if a little ho-hum. Continue reading MasterChugs Theater: ‘Adventureland’

This is why we will never win the War On Robots

Scientists at the University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Laboratory have invented a robot that never loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors. (Or “Roshambo,” if you were raised by wolves.) The Janken robot cannot be bargained or negotiated with or fooled by doing that little trick where you start to make scissors and then flatten your palm out, middle and index fingers last.

You can’t cheat this machine with your human brain, because its computer brain is doing the exact same thing, just faster. It watches your hand and then reacts a millisecond later, appearing to make its selection simulataneously with you. In other words, you were right: your older brother is a cyborg.

The war against the machines may not have been over before it started. Just so immediately after it that it seems like it.

Animals hinder, rather than help, the economy

We all know that animals are NOT our friends. They should be our servants, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we should task them with jobs. Nonetheless, the UK feels otherwise. A warehouse in Southampton has hired a cat to be its security guard. Rather than stimulate the world economy, much less their own, by creating a new job, the people in charge of Bandai’s warehouse feel it would be better to have a four legged creature make the rounds.

REASONS WHY THIS IS A BAD IDEA

  • There are people out there allergic to animal fur, potentially children. By having a cat prowl around the toys, these children have been given a death sentence.
  • By paying the cat in fish and cat food, you’ve prevented families and hobos, respectively, from eating. Thus, the families and hobos have been given a death sentence.
  • Where are the checks and balances for Millie? When everyone goes home, who monitors the warehouse to make sure that the cat’s not letting in any of its destructive friends and planting them inside the toy boxes? You’ve now given the children an additional death sentence.

How do you sleep at night, Bandai toy warehouse?

Forget guns, will travel

You may have heard of something called the Rio +20 Summit over the past couple weeks. It’s nothing big, just world leaders getting together to figure out a plan to clean up the air.

Among those in attendance was newly-installed French President Francois Hollande. Naturally, his security team went with him. Unlike their American counterparts, the security team didn’t buy prostitutes, instead, they forgot to pack their guns, which is pretty much the only thing they really need to pack.

So throughout the whole conference, the French security team had either fake guns or empty holsters.