Higgs Boson Kills Ernest Borgnine, Chumbawamba; Funny-Name Link Suspected

New York City - It's still only days since scientists announced they had likely proven the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, but the particle has already shown it has a temper—and that it doesn't like things with funny names.

"Ernest Borgnine, the poor guy," said Stanford University physicist Peter Pieterschwanzel.

The iconic actor died yesterday at the age of 95.

"He probably didn't know anything about the Higgs—but it knew him—and you've got to admit he has a really funny name: Borgnine Borgnine Borgnine. And now Chumbawamba!"

Chumbawamba, the band known almost exclusively for the "I get knocked down, but I get up again"-song, announced just hours ago it has officially broken up.

Pieterschwanzel thinks the Higgs boson is responsible.

"Whoever decided to call the Higgs boson the 'Higgs boson' really screwed up," he said. "It's just such a silly name. Who wouldn't be angry about that? And then we find it, and in a matter of days we lose Ernest Borgnine and Chumbawumba? There has got to be a connection there."

Pieterschwanzel predicted that in the coming weeks, as the Higgs boson "gets its stride," we'd be seeing people and things with funny names dying off in droves.

"Hey, if I were Englebert Humperdinck's wife, I'd be buying life insurance by the convoy right about now. And Shia LeBeouf—oh my God, that poor schmuck's a goner."

Asked if he had any fear for his own safety, Pieterschwanzel replied, "What do you mean?"

John Updike, Cartoonist

I'm working on an article about notable Harvard Lampoon presidents (George Plimpton, Conan O'Brien), and came across this essay excerpt by John Updike:

A 1950 issue of the soon defunct magazine Flair contained, in its eccentric format, a booklet about the Harvard Lampoon, including photographs of the young, crew-cut editors, the curious mock-Flemish building, and some sample cartoons. Somewhere in the concatenation of aspirations and inadvertences that got me to Harvard, this story played a crucial part. Early in my freshman year, I carried a batch of my cartoons down to the Lampoon building, there where Mount Auburn Street meets Bow at an acute angle, an ornate little brick flatiron fronted by a tower with a sort of cartoon face and, on its hat of roof tiles, a much stolen copper ibis. In due course, some of my drawings were printed in the magazine, and I was accepted for membership. The Lampoon, I was too ignorant an outsider to realize, was a social club, with a strong flavor of Boston Brahminism and alcoholic intake; to me it was a magazine for which I wanted to work. This I was allowed to do, especially as the upperclassmen year by year graduated and the various editorial offices fell to me. Though Harvard did little to attract cartoonists, in fact there were four on the Lampoon in 1950 -- Fred Gwynne, Lew Gifford, Doug Bunce, and Charlie Robinson -- who seemed to me much my betters in skill and sophistication. Fred Gwynne, a multitalented giant who went on to become an actor, best known for Car 54, Where Are You? and The Munsters, drew with a Renaissance chiaroscuro and mastery of anatomy; Bunce had a fine line, and Gifford, who made his career in television animation, a carefree, flowing brush stroke years ahead of its time.

I tried to measure up to their examples, and cartooned abundantly for the Lampoon -- but the budding cartoonist in me, exposed to what I felt were superior talents, suffered a blight; my light verse and supposedly humorous prose felt more viable. By graduation, I had pretty well given up on becoming a cartoonist. It took too many ideas, and one walked in too many footsteps. Writing seemed, in my innocence of it, a relatively untrafficked terrain.

Updike and Gwynne—who most people know only from The Munsters, were both Lampoon presidents in their day.

• The full essay appeared in Best American Essays 1998.

• "John Updikes Harvard," Houghton Library, Harvard University.

"Wisconsin Lawmaker Introduces Law To Classify Single Parenthood As Child Abuse"

Sorry—not satire.

Probably the most important thing to note:

Grothman isn't just some fringe nut-job. He's the assistant majority leader and a staunch ally of Gov. Scott Walker.

TSA To Start Randomly Tasing People

WASHINGTON - U.S. Transportation Security Administration agents will begin randomly tasing people in airport security lines, the agency announced today. The new policy will begin in August.

"Every couple hours, or every couple days," explained TSA chief John Pistole, "an agent will pull out a taser and shoot the first passenger he sees in the neck, or other available area of exposed flesh. The person will then be restrained, taken away, and thoroughly checked out. If everything is in order, that person will be allowed to continued traveling."

According to the TSA website, the tasings will be completely safe—and hygienic—and will be applied at airports across the country.

Asked if there would be any age restrictions on who could be tased, Pistole said, "If a terrorist comes through holding a baby, are we going to ask the terrorist to put the baby down first?"

Pistole said parents should start telling their children that "getting tased is part of the fun of travel," to get them used to the procedure. "Just like they did with taking off their shoes and getting their privates fondled by strangers."  

Photo credit.

Republican School Teachers: "Holy Sh*t! We're F*cking Idiots!"

WASHINGTON - The National Republican Teachers Association (NRTA), the nation's largest organization of confused people, announced today that they will be holding a membership-wide conference to "figure out how in the hell we became so damn stupid."

"We're teachers," said Buffalo, New York, elementary-school teacher Judy Swivla, "we're supposed to be smart. And, well, looks at us—we're Republicans! Republicans hate teachers! We might as well be cows in the Burger King party!"

NRTA president Ed Wilkins, a ninth-grade math teacher in Omaha, Nebraska, said many Republican teachers he'd talked to expressed similar sentiments. "We're social conservatives," he said, "so naturally we're members of the Republican Party. But we're also teachers, and lately we've realized that it's kind like African-Americans being members of the Ku Klux Klan Party because they're into nifty hats. I mean it just doesn't make a lot of sense."

Wilkins said he and other Republican teachers were "sick of being called 'thugs'" by people like Rush Limbaugh. "Rush Limbaugh calls us thugs," he said. "Good Lord. Good, good Lord."

Obama Kills Small Business Owner

Wait for it - you'll hear it soon!

Update - 2 hours or so later: I'm not getting hits from people googling "Obama kills small business owner." Awesome.

Fox's John Stossel: "I Only Pledge Allegiance to Wealthy America"

WASHINGTON - Fox News creepy person John Stossel announced on the morning show "Fox & Friends of Creepy People" that he doesn't pledge allegiance to "the whole America," because "that would be kind of communistic."

"The idea that we should feel allegiance to all of our fellow citizens," Stossel said, "is just some Lefty peace-and-love idea. It's straight out of Marx. Just like we shouldn't socialize our money, or our health care, we shouldn't socialize our allegiance. If, for example, Al Qaeda attacks us again, but this time they wipe out some city where there's nothing but a bunch of people on welfare—am I going to feel the same kind of loss and anger like I felt the day they attacked Wall Street? Hardly. "

"They'd be kinda doing us a favor there," co-host Brian Kilmeade said, to laughs.

"The 'Pledge of Allegiance' needs to be rewritten," Stossel continued. "It should say, 'I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the wealthy people that make it the greatest country in the world, and not all the lazy poor people all over the place who are constantly asking for handouts like unemployment insurance and minimum wage and on and on and on - why don't you just get a good job like rich people do? - with liberty and justice for the hard-working rich people who deserve it."

"Amen," added Kilmeade emphatically.

Photo credit.

Sarah Palin: Countries With Universal, Affordable Health Care "Don't Actually Exist"

WASHINGTON - Failed governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin told fans in a FaceBook announcement today that stories they may have heard about countries with affordable and universal health care programs were lies.

An excerpt from the post, dated 12:24 PM (EDT) this afternoon:

"All those other so-called nation countries with their so-called cheap health care programming for everyone that the Leftstream media keeps harping down our throats about—well, guess what? The DON'T ACTUALLY EXIST. It's totally a made up lie. It actually costs MORE to get sick in every other country in the world than the United States of America. I CHECKED."

Ms. Palin did not elaborate on where she "checked."

The posting received 75 million "likes," and hundreds of thousands of positive responses, including these examples:

"I. KNEW. IT. Libs - so busted."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they made up whole countries. 'Belgium'? SRSLY?"

"Sarah, I was just going to go to Europe to study this myself - you saved me a trip! Thank you so much! (And thank God - I would have had to get passport! And you can only get them at a UN office! Ick!) 

At least one commenter took issue with the posting, writing, "Uh, dumbass, I live in a country that provides universal affordable health care (Australia). I've (unfortunately) had to use that health care to deal with serious health issues. I was very well taken care of - for very little cost. I mean - do you think I'm from another dimension or something?"

That post was deleted by someone associated with Ms. Palin's FaceBook page shortly after it appeared.

Photo credit.

For-Profit Probation Companies Putting the Poor in Jail

No such thing as class warfare:

In Georgia, three dozen for-profit probation companies operate in hundreds of courts, and there have been similar lawsuits. In one, Randy Miller, 39, an Iraq war veteran who had lost his job, was jailed after failing to make child support payments of $860 a month. In another, Hills McGee, with a monthly income of $243 in veterans benefits, was charged with public drunkenness, assessed $270 by a court and put on probation through a private company. The company added a $15 enrollment fee and $39 in monthly fees. That put his total for a year above $700, which Mr. McGee, 53, struggled to meet before being jailed for failing to pay it all.

For-profit probation companies, like for-profit prisons, are as perfect a breeding ground for corruption as could possibly be imagined. (In a democratic society their very existence should be considered a form of corruption. But that's practically communistic thinking...)

Aussie MPs Get ANOTHER Pay Rise

A note from little old me to Australian MPs: You are out of your freaking minds:

Federal MPs have reportedly received a $5550 pay rise, just three months after pocketing a $44,000 salary boost. 

You read that right: Three months ago the Australian government executed sweeping changes in MP pay and benefit packages (some benefits were actually cut), resulting in backbencher pay going up $44, 090 a year, from $140,910 to $185,000.

That was backbenchers: Opposition Leader (Tony Abbott presently) got a $81,564 a year boost, upping his salary from $260,684 to $342,250.

And the Prime Minister: Ms. Gillard's salary jumped by an incredible $114,000, from $366,366 to $481,000.

And now, three months later, they're getting another raise.

Holy shit. I mean just holy damn shit. (Yes, this is decided by the "Independent Renumeration Tribunal," but it's not like the MPs couldn't do something about it, if they wished.)

Crush children's testicles or give them healthcare?

It's a tough one, isn't it?

A couple years ago Republicans were arguing that crushing a child’s testicles was constitutional. Now they want to argue that denying your child health care when he has leukemia is constitutional. Go in for the fucking kill, liberals.

Damn striaght.