How to spin an eclipse on a slow news day

There are a million ways to report on an eclipse. And we thought we saw every last one of them in the build-up to last year’s total solar eclipse. Leave it to Fox News and other right-wing media outlets to find one more: by framing the upcoming lunar “eclipse of the century” as snubbing the United States of America.

It’s important to note that, Fox News did not write the original piece, which was originally titled “Prepare for an extended blood moon” on news.com.au. Fox News did, however, write a new headline guaranteed to force Trump to draft an Executive Order to formally withdraw the U.S. from the solar system.

And, taking a short break from calling anyone left of Mussolini a “bozo,” The New York Post followed suit:

Thanks a lot, guys. Because it’s a slow news day for right-wing media (“no immigration crisis to see, move along”), now Trump’s going to spend trillions so the Space Force can move the moon.

Kraft Mac and Cheese gives Internet moms the blues

Mm, real cheesy goodness that you can cook on either a stove-top range or in a spoon for intravenous consumption.
Mm, real cheesy goodness that you can cook either on a stove-top range or in a spoon for intravenous consumption.

Two very courageous mommy bloggers are taking on Big Macaroni. (We’d abbreviate that to “Big Mac,” but The Guys blew our legal services budget on whole grain alcohol.)

The authors, one of which writes a blog called “100 Days of Real Food,” posted a petition on Change.org to make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese — a product containing powdered cheese and 35 percent of your daily sodium — more “real” by taking out food dyes Yellow #5 and #6.

Meanwhile, at the grocery store: rows of actual cheese and pasta remain unsold.

Thieves steal tons of now cheap consoles

Thieves! Stealers! Potential hoarders! All of these words describe the culprits behind a theft in SeaTac where 7000 Wii consoles were stolen from a warehouse. Seven thousand! That’s enough to create your own artificial shortage of the consoles and be very effective about it…if it were the year 2006 again. Nintendo created their own artificial shortage of the console during the entire first year that the Wii was out.

Now, in the year 2012, a Wii console can be purchased for between 120 and 130 dollars. So, have fun sitting on that giant number of Wii units, guys!

Canada is officially full of rich and ridiculous morons

Let’s say you have a little bit of scratch to your name. Maybe an amount around the tune of, oh, enough to buy the 430 thousand dollar 2012 Lamborghini Aventador. It’s a super car, but despite that, since you live in a civilized country, you’re smart enough to also know the rules and regulations regarding having a car: front license plates, seat belt laws and having the vehicle insured.

Oh, what’s that? You’re only 22 years old? You find that insuring a Lamborghini is too costly? And when you’re pulled over, you think that the ticket for driving around an uninsured vehicle is too high?

Maybe you shouldn’t be driving around a Lamborghini.

Leroy Jenkins not a credible reference for politicians

Colleen Lachowicz is a democrat running for state senate in Waterville, Maine and she also happens to play a lot of World of Warcraft. As per Maine Republicans, this means that she is more than unfit for office, and as such, the Maine Republican Party has set up an entire website dedicated to digging up old forum posts made by Lachowicz.

“Colleen Lachowicz is a Democrat candidate for Maine State Senate. In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below. Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.”

Yes, this is an actual website set up by the Maine Republican Party.

This whole situation is hilarious in the “you can’t believe it’s actually real” hilarious, kind of like in the beginning for the replacement refs for the NFL. To use the fact that she plays World of Warcraft as a political dig against her? It’d only be an understandable claim if the woman played Second Life.

Human health NOW valued at 1.7 billion dollars

Life. We all need it (well, most of us). However, what we don’t need to know, typically, is the amount that it’s worth.

Well, thanks to a lawsuit that’s been filed in Santa Monica, we now know an approximation: 1.7 billion dollars.

At least, this is how much Denise Barton thinks her life is worth. She’s filed the suit, claiming that the wireless parking meters used in the city have interfered and ruined her life. Apparently some people think you can fight city hall. Sometime back, the World Health Organization stated that low-level radiation may cause cancer and maladies in humans. Extrapolating from this, Barton thinks that the city is trying to kill her. Tin-foils hats ON.

The thing, what happens if she wins the lawsuit? Just how much would her life be worth if the parking meters were removed? More? Less? These are the intriguing thoughts we have that aren’t morbid at all and don’t imply a termination contract for her. Nope. Not at all. No. Ummm … next subject!

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?

Japan hates Youtube people

It’s easy to shorthand Japan as “Crazy Japan,” mainly because it’s fairly accurate most of the time. But every so often Glorious Nippon severely tests that “Glorious” part, and prove the characterization spot-on. This is one of those times.

Japan’s government has just passed a law that would outlaw the act of “ripping” copyrighted material of any kind to users’ computers, and the knowing downloading of such material from any internet source. Naturally, this is targeted towards folks who record TV shows and DVDs/Blu-rays for sharing, archiving, and of course piracy. That part of the law is a good thing. Punishment ranges from hefty fines to jail time. The law goes into effect this October.

But wait, there’s more.

The broad, vague wording of the law opens the potential to prosecute users with the temerity to view copyrighted material on such innocuous sites as Youtube, because those sites upload data to users’ computers. And it potentially covers international viewers of Japanese copyrighted material. What’s more, analysts suggest that the law could be used to suppress material that the government finds uncomfortable.

This bears all the hallmarks of a law written by fearful companies and legislators who would rather destroy that which they don’t understand and can’t adapt to. Of course, natural challenges over enforcement, scope and freedom of speech will rise up, but truthfully, it doesn’t seem really feasible that the Japanese public will muster the kind of intense resistance that Americans raised over SOPA and PIPA.

Prove me wrong, Japan. Prove me wrong.

Heart attacks, being shivved, sandwiches, all the proper reasons for calling 911

A man in East Hartford decided that the best way to get his sandwiches made the exact way he wanted was by calling 911.

Yup.

“I specifically asked for a little turkey and a little ham and a lot of cheese and a lot of mayonnaise and they’re giving me a hard time,” Rother McLennon told a 911 dispatcher Wednesday.

The dispatcher, Heather Clayton, incredulously asked, “You’re calling 911 because you don’t like the way that they’re making your sandwich?”

While at a deli, the man asked for 14 sandwiches to be made with a lesser amount of meat, but adding on the cheese, hopefully lessening the price. This resulted in him requesting to use the in-deli phone to call emergency services over it. Despite this, no charges were filed. I feel like the cops may be missing out on an easy way to fatten the city’s pockets and teach someone a lesson.

There’s pro-life, and then there’s pro-looking busy at work

Some people kill time at work by playing Minesweeper. Republican congressmen do it by introducing anti-abortion measures into every single bill, relevance be damned.

The House GOP approved a Homeland Security spending bill that includes an attachment by Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala, which prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement from funding abortions for illegal immigrants. You hear that, ICE? Your days of aborting anchor babies are over!

… Except, as ICE spokesperson Barbara Gonzalez said, they have never funded or provided an abortion. Ever. Not even in that Planned Parenthood, “never with government money” way, but “even when we really wanted to because that baby was a terrorist.” (ICE already had a policy in place based on the Justice Department’s rule for the Bureau of Prisons that bars willy-nilly abortions.)

But, at least nobody can say Rep. Aderholt has never worked a day in his 15 years in the House. Technically, he’s worked at least one now.