Weird Universe Archive
December 2011
December 20, 2011
Cannibal TV
Dutch TV show hosts of a show called Proefkonijnen, guinea pig in English, became each others dinner on live television. Both men had a piece of flesh surgically removed then, on live TV, a chef sauteed the meat and the men ate each other. Chianti and fava beans were conspicuously absent.UPDATE: The Dutch television network this show airs on has admitted it was a hoax.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 20, 2011 -
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News of the Weird / Pro Edition Addendum (December 20, 2011)
News of the Weird/Pro EditionYou're Still Not Cynical Enough
December 20, 2011
(datelines December 10-December 17) (links correct as of December 19)
Weird 2.0
"To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle"—George Orwell
"That's good enough for government work"—unknown
"Nero Fiddles While Rome Burns"—Rome Daily Inquirer, 7-18-64A.D.
Predator drones, in Afghanistan, in Iran, in . . . Nelson County, N.D., to help the local authorities solve a cattle-rustling case. Department of Homeland Security bought a fleet of them to spot border-jumpers and says it helps out local law enforcement from time to time. Fargo Forum
First there were government-employee pensions. Then, politicians rightly concluded that "government employees" who dodge bullets and run into burning buildings ought to be treated better than paper-pushers and granted them early retirement (age 50 or 55). Since that happened, though, all manner of other employees have pleaded for police-firefighter-type privileges, including forestry workers, lifeguards, coroners, museum guards, and highway laborers (slow down! men at work!). Now that so many can retire early, and then pump up pension payouts by loading up overtime in their last years on the job . . well, they've got theirs, and you had your chance to be a forestry worker, too (in California, a pension of $64,000 a year)! USA Today
What happens if 24 Marines in Haditha, Iraq, are plausibly accused of murdering civilians, and the USMC investigates at length, and then buries any findings it made, and, finally, hey, it's time to pull out of Iraq, and the orders from Washington are to get rid of all the extraneous files, and voilà! In this case, however, a New York Times reporter stumbled upon 400 pages of discarded hardcopy at a dump in Baghdad, where the paper was being used for cooking smoked carp for dinner. Awkward. New York Times
Because 3 percent of Planned Parenthood's work consists of providing abortion services, the Southern Baptist Convention abruptly pulled its co-branded Pink Bibles, which were to be handed out in support of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast-cancer organization. Associated Press via Fox News
When no one was looking, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's Finance Director paid for the facility's new, state-of-the-art sound system with his own Visa cards, to claim the reward points, and then billed the Coliseum back. Win-win! Los Angeles Times
The Americanization of Iran: Parviz Sorouri, a member of the national-security committee of the Iranian Parliament, announced that the government (after peeling all the intel it can from that downed drone) should file a lawsuit against the U.S. for trespassing. BBC News
Also . . . Atheists in Santa Monica, Calif., and Leesburg, Va., commandeered fair and square the towns' Nativity-scene properties (and in the latter appeared the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's creche "Touched By An Angelhair"!) [Los Angeles Times] [Washington Post] . . . . . The European Food Safety Authority ruled definitively that prunes are not laxatives and can't be so advertised [Daily Telegraph] [ed.: One way to prove it--lock down the restrooms and make the EFSA commissioners gobble a bunch of 'em] . . . . . TSA revealed that, so far this year, its agents have caught travelers with 1,100 firearms [CNN].
Posted By: Chuck - Tue Dec 20, 2011 -
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Johnson Smith Catalog Item #16
I want to see some joker wearing all of these at once!
From the 1930s catalog.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 20, 2011 -
Comments (2)
Category: Body Modifications, Disguises, Impersonations, Mimics and Forgeries, Johnson Smith Catalog, 1930s, Pranks
December 19, 2011
Church of Aphrodite
How far back do the roots of New Age wackiness go? Probably all the way to the 1800s, when spiritualism first broke.
But surely one of the 20th century landmarks is the establishment of the Church of Aphrodite in 1939.
Original news here.
Wikipedia info here.
Posted By: Paul - Mon Dec 19, 2011 -
Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, New Age, Religion, 1930s
News of the Weird / Pro Edition (December 19, 2011)
News of the Weird/Pro EditionYou're Still Not Cynical Enough
Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
December 19, 2011
(datelines December 9-December 17) (links correct as of December 19)
[NOTE: Yr Editor descends to his annual Holiday Stupor today and will not return with a fresh Pro Edition until Tuesday morning, January 3rd. Next Monday, I shall post the standard News of the Weird column of December 25th (with links enabled). You will have seen some of those stories previously in Pro Edition.]
Slow Down, You Move Too Fast, plus More Things to Worry About
★ ★ ★ ★!
Antidote to Our Frenzied World: A British outfit is planning a world championship for competitive watching-paint-dry. Send them a photo of yourself in "action." They'll pick a short list. There'll be a final wall-stare-down of the six most promising human slugs. Metro (London) /// LocalTraders.com
A woman doing the "Valsalva" Pilates maneuver [ed.: which sounds a lot like a potty-sitting maneuver of Yr Editor's if I've eaten too much cheese] looked down and realized one of her breast implants had disappeared. Actually, doctors reported later, it had migrated between her ribs and into the space between her lungs, which could only have happened because recent surgery had left the tissue vulnerable. Still, she reported zero pain. New England Journal of Medicine
The Hon. Marion Barry (unofficially, the king of Washington, District of Calamity; officially, city councilman) made it 9-for-12 (years he has failed to file U.S. or D.C. income tax returns and for which he always, always, receives a sentence of probation and a stern warning not to screw up again). As of 2007, he was down $195,000 (and having his Council paycheck garnisheed, though he kept his seat on the Council's finance and tax committee). (And speaking of people who are still being kept down by the confusing tax policies of The Man, Al Sharpton's constantly having trouble explaining himself, too.) Washington Post /// New York Post
We have a winner for the Least Explicable News of 2011: The girls varsity basketball team at Kenmore (N.Y.) East High, composed this season of a bunch of white gals and one A-A, for some reason has this as its solidarity locker-room huddle-breaking cheer: "One, two, three, [n-word]s!" They explained truthfully that the girls' team has been doing the cheer for years, as a tradition, that no one had ever complained about it, and that this year's A-A didn't, either, until she got into some trouble on the side. Buffalo News
More in extended >>
Posted By: Chuck - Mon Dec 19, 2011 -
Comments (4)
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December 18, 2011
That Doesn’t Belong There
Just goes to show, no good can come of excessive exercise!
Posted By: Alex - Sun Dec 18, 2011 -
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Ulcer at Work
The angst, treachery, ennui, hatred, jealousy, disdain, remorse-- It's as if Alfred Hitchcock had directed a PSA.....
And to think that we now know the condition is caused by a bacterium.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 18, 2011 -
Comments (5)
Category: Medicine, PSA’s, Psychology, Stomach
December 17, 2011
One Great Comedian Deserves Another
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 17, 2011 -
Comments (3)
Category: Disguises, Impersonations, Mimics and Forgeries, Movies, 1950s, Comedians
Postcard Gallery of Circus Fat People
Why is it that nowadays obese people merit no special sideshow attention? Oh, right....
Gallery here.
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 17, 2011 -
Comments (12)
Category: Freaks, Oddities, Quirks of Nature
Janus Piglet
This piglet with 2 snouts and 1 eye was born in China.
Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 17, 2011 -
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
