In other news... (humorous news items)

[Coyne]

Russian Roulette the Sergio Aragonés way

[Sableagle]

Trigger warning: Russian Roulette
Russian Roulette the Michael Cimino way

[Soupspoon]

This is how a more normal person rises above his own balloon effigy. And on his home turf too! Class.

Why here in Humorous News Items? Because of Sadiq Khan's response.

[addams]

This is how a more normal person rises above his own balloon effigy. And on his home turf too! Class.

Why here in Humorous News Items? Because of Sadiq Khan's response.

I am so pleased he rose above it.
Unlike our puffed up Baboon Balloon.

[sardia]

After reading that Nazis seized control of German streets for 2 days before order was restored, I need some happy news.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... -analysis/
Pistachios that are shelled for you (which on the surface costs more) are actually the same cost or better after removing the empty spaces and shells. If you count the time it takes to remove the Shell, you come out ahead. Assumptions:
Based on Shell on pistachios at 75 cents per ounce.
And Shell off pistachios at 150 cents per ounce.
Shirking them results in 2 cups of Shell on pistachios equals to 1 cup of shelled off pistachios.

Tldr buy Shell off pistachios unless you are really poor, and/or price exceeds 2:1 ratio. If Shell off pistachios cost twice as much, you're coming out ahead.

So I wasn't being lazy, now I can say how smart I am as I cram another bag of pistachios down my throat.

[ucim]

Nazis seized control of German streets for 2 days before order was restored...

When was this? EDIT: here.

Tldr buy Shell off pistachios unless you are really poor, and/or price exceeds 2:1 ratio.

Not so fast....

If the object is to cram as many pistachios down your pie hole as you can for the money, then yes (and rename your pie hole to pistachio hole). But if the aim is to get maximum enjoyment of pistachios per dollar, then consider slowing down. Personally I find that I enjoy pistachios by the ones and twos when I shell them to be just as satisfying as grabbing a handful at a time. Most of the extra pistachios are wasted, joy-wise. But when the company pre-shells them, people eat more, so people buy more, so the company makes more money while you don't reap any additional benefit. Or at least I don't.

And the act of shelling them (especially now that they aren't dyed) is entertaining too. Yeah, I'm a cheap date.

Jose

[JudeMorrigan]

I have never been more proud of my city:

BallCorps Inc., team owners of the minor league baseball team that will begin play in Madison in 2020, announced at a community event Wednesday night at Rocket Republic Brewery in Madison that the team would be known by the monikers that received the most votes in an online name-the-team contest.

...

Trash Pandas was the overwhelming choice as the nickname and Rocket City was the overwhelming choice as the team identifier, according to the announcement from the team.

https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/inde ... me_fo.html

[CorruptUser]

Wasn't that the name from GotG2?

[sardia]

Wasn't that the name from GotG2?

Congrats you got the joke.
Is this going to be Mcboatface all over again? Or is the city actually going to do this?

[JudeMorrigan]

I think this one's actually going to happen. I suspect the owners have dollar signs in their eyes when contemplating the merchandising opportunities, even if they may have to be careful to avoid the wrath of Disney.

I will note that while it would be silly to claim that the name as a whole's being evocative of GotG is a coincidence, "Rocket City" is a legitimate, long-standing nickname for the area that lots of local businesses use. So it does stand on its own as a minor league team name (which are frequently rather ridiculous).

[addams]

I have never been more proud of my city:

BallCorps Inc., team owners of the minor league baseball team that will begin play in Madison in 2020, announced at a community event Wednesday night at Rocket Republic Brewery in Madison that the team would be known by the monikers that received the most votes in an online name-the-team contest.

...

Trash Pandas was the overwhelming choice as the nickname and Rocket City was the overwhelming choice as the team identifier, according to the announcement from the team.

https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/inde ... me_fo.html

(Phew) It could easily have been Team McTeamface.

[Trebla]

North Carolina bans using science to inform policy decisions (regarding climate)

In 2012, the state now in the path of Hurricane Florence reacted to a prediction by its Coastal Resources Commission that sea levels could rise by 39in over the next century by passing a law that banned policies based on such forecasts.

Echoes of HHGTTG, find the laws of physics are at fault and hold them accountable.

[CorruptUser]

Truth is beauty, Life is not beautiful, therefore Life is not true, and should be removed from everyone in the courtroom.

[sardia]

North Carolina bans using science to inform policy decisions (regarding climate)

In 2012, the state now in the path of Hurricane Florence reacted to a prediction by its Coastal Resources Commission that sea levels could rise by 39in over the next century by passing a law that banned policies based on such forecasts.

Echoes of HHGTTG, find the laws of physics are at fault and hold them accountable.

You're taking the easy way out, and ignoring who's pushing for this law. Real estate developers are pushing for this because they're the biggest beneficiaries of redevelopment money after any disaster.
On top of that, water side lovers are essentially welfare queens, with the public eating losses, and private profits.

[Sableagle]

Real estate developers are pushing for this because they're the biggest beneficiaries of redevelopment money after any disaster.
On top of that, water side lovers are essentially welfare queens, with the public eating losses, and private profits.

That was made clear in the article and in the much earlier article to which it linked.

Backed by real estate developers, the Republican-led General Assembly passed a law requiring that projected rates of sea level rise be calculated on historical trends and not include accelerated rates of increase.

North Carolina is among the state’s most vulnerable to sea level rise with its long coastline and thousands of square miles of low-lying land. A 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey says sea levels along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts are rising three to four times faster than the global average. Global sea level rise has been projected to rise two to three feet by the end of the 21st century, but in hot spots, the increase may be greater.

A panel of scientists that advises North Carolina’s Coastal Resources Commission, a state policy panel, said coastal communities should plan for about 39 inches of sea level rise by 2100 based on seven scientific studies.

That drew a backlash from a coastal economic development group called NC-20 that called it fake science. The group said making development take into account 39 inches of sea level rise could undermine the coastal economy, raise insurance costs and turn thousands of square miles of coastal property into flood plains that could not be developed.

During floor debate Tuesday, Rep. Pat McElraft, a Republican who sponsored the bill, questioned the scientific accuracy of climate change and said that sea level rise along North Carolina’s coast in the last century had averaged 8 inches.

Most of the guy's claims I can imagine made sense in a misanthropic, narcissistic kind of way. I can't figure out the logic behind the insurance one, though:

NC-20 ... said making development take into account 39 inches of sea level rise could ... raise insurance costs.

Building somewhere less likely to get flooded is going to make flood insurance more expensive? HOW?

[Dauric]

Most of the guy's claims I can imagine made sense in a misanthropic, narcissistic kind of way. I can't figure out the logic behind the insurance one, though:

NC-20 ... said making development take into account 39 inches of sea level rise could ... raise insurance costs.

Building somewhere less likely to get flooded is going to make flood insurance more expensive? HOW?

It's not "Building somewhere less likely to get flooded", it's building structures to "Take flooding in to account" IE: raised foundations, elevated living floors. Essentially the builder has to acknowledge that flooding happens there, so insurance is more expensive because that's one of the factors they look at to assess whether there's flooding risk.

The severe case of "Whatthefuck?!?" I have is that apparently insurance companies are using whether structures are built to flood standards to determine if flooding happens in a location, rather than examining where floods happen and providing discounts for houses designed to resist damage from one.

[CorruptUser]

Uh... last I checked, insurers in the US didn't cover floods; the US government did. And since it was guaranteed issue, the result was properties built in flood zones that otherwise never would've been built, subsidized by the taxpayer.

[Dauric]

Uh... last I checked, insurers in the US didn't cover floods; the US government did. And since it was guaranteed issue, the result was properties built in flood zones that otherwise never would've been built, subsidized by the taxpayer.

The taxpayers subsidize the insurance companies which administer the insurance.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film ... -disaster/

[sardia]

Uh... last I checked, insurers in the US didn't cover floods; the US government did. And since it was guaranteed issue, the result was properties built in flood zones that otherwise never would've been built, subsidized by the taxpayer.

The taxpayers subsidize the insurance companies which administer the insurance.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film ... -disaster/

Well duh, you can't let the government save money administering it's own program. Then people might think government is useful. Not to mention the profit from processing tax payer guaranteed insurance claims.

[Ranbot]

Uh... last I checked, insurers in the US didn't cover floods; the US government did. And since it was guaranteed issue, the result was properties built in flood zones that otherwise never would've been built, subsidized by the taxpayer.

The taxpayers subsidize the insurance companies which administer the insurance.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film ... -disaster/

In case you care, here's another good take on flood insurance and FEMA, from a more economic viewpoint (Planet Money podcast, ep. 797). As usual with large systems, it's complicated... https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017 ... lood-money

[Soupspoon]

Guerilla Advertising pair get a Golden (Arches) Thank-you for their efforts!

(For the link-averse: it's those two who made their own McDonalds poster to rectify a racial-void and like an episode of Mission: Impossible snuck it into a restaurant. Apparently McDonalds have decided they don't mind and that they'd like to reward them further - really the most genre-savvy thing to have done, but all credit to them for not going down the wrong path instead. And thus I think it's worth an appreciative laugh abput. (And a nicer one than that had at Trump's expense, today.))

[addams]

Good Story, Soupspoon!
Funny and Sweet; Thank You!

[Soupspoon]

This one comes from a dead-tree newspaper that I got a glance at (and a bad cameraphone photo of), with an article to which I can currently find no link, but I promise it's a faithful transcript. The story itself revolves around a 'riot' at a school where some internal incident/conflict within the grounds had spilled over and saw aggrieved parents arriving in droves, requiring the attendance of a number of police officers that included a dog unit. (That's not the funny bit. The story isn't funny. But the wording I've bolded is.)

[An eyewitness] said: I was here about 45 minutes ago and there were parents trying to get into the school with bats. There were dozens of people trying to climb the fences to get in.

"When they released the children there was a tussle and the dog handler let his dog on a parent which bit him in the hand."

(Probably needs a comma!)

[Sableagle]

That one needs more than a comma. With or without the comma it still means the parent bit the handler on the hand.

"During a tussle, the dog handler released his dog, which then bit a parent on the hand."

[CorruptUser]

Commas, the difference between

"I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse"
and
"I helped my uncle jack off a horse"

Also...

"I like cooking, my mother, and my dog"
vs
"I like cooking my mother and my dog"

[Sableagle]

Also a kind of butterfly:





... which recently gave up on eating hop plants in southern England and started breeding on stinging nettles all the way up to Fife.

[Soupspoon]

In "news about two people I didn't even know about", but obviously interesting to some (like my addition just now to the last message in the Obituaries thread, that may get missed, except for the part about me not knowing about them) I thought it would go down well here.

Just announced, the Locke-Locke marriage. No arguments about whose surname is adopted by whom? (Maybe the order, though! Unless each have theirs first? But what about any children? Then they'll have to decide!)

[Zohar]

A former colleague has the same surname as her soon-to-be-husband. Her favorite joke is to tell people they met at a family reunion.

[CorruptUser]

I think that if you have the same surname, you shouldn't hyphenate it. But if both surnames are already hyphenated, it brings up a question. Anderson-Brooks marries Brooks-Carter, obviously becomes Anderson-Brooks-Carter, but if it's Brooks-=Anderson, should it be Brooks-Anderson-Brooks-Carter, Brooks-Anderson-Carter, or Anderson-Brooks-Carter?

Eh, it's too complicated. Just let people choose th last names they want. Except the Germans.

[Soupspoon]

(Saying that used to be one of my party-tricks. Obviously a very particular kind of party. I wasn't invited to many other kinds.)

Who said the camera never flies? - Drone-smugglers arrested after they crash and burn their own anonymity. The unkinderest cut of all?

[addams]

(Saying that used to be one of my party-tricks. Obviously a very particular kind of party. I wasn't invited to many other kinds.)

Who said the camera never flies? - Drone-smugglers arrested after they crash and burn their own anonymity. The unkinderest cut of all?

Ohhh....Brotherly love.
Sure it was a Wrong thing to do.
But, he was doing it for his Brother.

That's nice.
Goof-Balls; They probably broke their Christmas presents, together.
Are we hoping they get some quality time together in jail? I do.

[jewish_scientist]

Banksy destroys his own painting with a shredder he built into the frame seconds after it sells for over a million pounds.

[CorruptUser]

Oh please. There is no way the art house missed the shredder in the frame. It was all a publicity stunt, and a brilliant one at that.

[jewish_scientist]

When I first read the headline, I did not realize Banksy did more than graffiti on walls. I imagined a slab of concrete with C-4 or something inside of it. Now THAT would be a publicity stunt.

[elasto]

Oh please. There is no way the art house missed the shredder in the frame.

Why do you say that? The shredder had been inactive inside the frame for years on the off-chance the owner ever tried to sell it. Even if they recognised it as such, unless they were pre-warned they'd have no reason to expect it would turn itself on at the moment of the auction.

It was all a publicity stunt, and a brilliant one at that.

Well, where is the line between 'performance art' and 'publicity stunt' anyhow? Surely any performance art that goes sufficiently well will get labelled as a publicity stunt by some...

[Mutex]

It shouldn't have been too hard to make sure the shredder wasn't visible from the outside, and it's not like art house's routinely X-ray pieces of art to check if they're booby-trapped. This hasn't happened before, funnily enough.

[commodorejohn]

Well, where is the line between 'performance art' and 'publicity stunt' anyhow? Surely any performance art that goes sufficiently well will get labelled as a publicity stunt by some...

This. It's like the Poe's Law of art. Some day someone will do an extensive writeup on a brilliant new exhibit at the Tate where patrons line up to pay £5 to a smelly, incoherent man who then punches them in the face, and nobody will ever realize that it was actually just some homeless guy.

[orthogon]

It said on the wireless today (1:42:25) that there were specific instructions not to remove the painting from the frame, which apparently is something that is often done in order to inspect the condition of the canvas etc. They had an auctioneer on the programme saying that he should have realised something was amiss, both from this instruction and the uncharacteristically Victorian style of the frame. Rather brilliantly they also had engineer and Science Author Dr Lucy Rogers on to discuss how the shredder might have worked.

@commodorejohn: I remember going to the Modern Art Museum in Frankfurt many years ago. When I came out every waste bin and park bench looked like Art to me.

[ijuin]

What I would like to know is whether the shredder was remotely controlled, or whether it had some means of sensing that the picture was being sold. If it is the latter, then I would like to know how such a feat was accomplished.

[Soupspoon]

This. It's like the Poe's Law of art. Some day someone will do an extensive writeup on a brilliant new exhibit at the Tate where patrons line up to pay £5 to a smelly, incoherent man who then punches them in the face, and nobody will ever realize that it was actually just some homeless guy.

We're on the way., once we get such various pre-planned (often NSFW) artistic projects unwaveringly accepted, and confusion over others.