Hadouken

hadouken 🤜🏻 from r/funny

Top comment over there: The graphics in these games are getting so good. 

Georgia Voters Tell Trump To Oss-Off

Intercepted email from Hillary Clinton:

Tonight's hard fought victory shows three important things: First and foremost, outside contributions are and will be crucial going forward in taking back the House next year and, more importantly, returning the White House to its proper stewardship in 2020; Terry will be contacting you individually to tell you how you can help. Secondly, the results show that real men can and should stand up to braggadocious bigots. Third -- and my advisors tell me this is the most important point -- we did this in the South! We connected to African American voters!   

Onward Together!

KLEM FM

Overheard at Lem's:

Sixty Grit said...
This guy did 80's music correctly. Even all these years later I find the video cannot be resisted.
March 10, 2017 at 7:25 PM

linky poo

What really happened to the Hillary emails

Link to video

h/t AllenS

Don't Hug Me I'm Scared 5

So, you're familiar with Health and Human Services and U. S. Food and Drug Administration dietary guidelines.
Health.gov
Download report
Psych! Just kidding.

Joker's tattoos

Today I tried to force myself to think only of sensible things, of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, of cabbages and kings but you kept pulling me down, pulling me down like gravity and like I'm wearing cement shoes. Look at all those heavy entries down there.

That's sealing wax.

That would makes sense in a nonsensical poem. My version is better. Loftier. See how you keep dragging me down, dragging me down? 

Then I encountered this lofty video on this rarified subject and see it handled as I was thinking, as so many were thinking how ace this movie's Joker's tattoos are and why, except in reverse to show the absurd choices made for the show. It's not an insane criminal getting a tattoo, it's a regular guy having a regular tattoo the regular way by usual tattoo-logic. Reversed too because tattoos are already absurd so it's reversed to sensible so far as tattoos can be called such.

The Joker is insane so he will have insane tattoos. Random things all over the place. Well executed, but random. Not done all in one sitting. Inked in manic fits here and there, not all at once, so, inconsistent style with varying degrees of mania. I look at what they did with Jared Leto for the movie, or maybe this conception, and think, "Yes, this." 

The parody in the video relies on presenting the Joker as a regular guy having the tattoos done all at once and not over time and inconsistently in manic insane fits, and planned with a tattoo advisor, rather than self-inflicted as the Joker would do. But then, you'd expect "damaged" written backwards as if he did it himself. 

Remy: I need a #Hashtag

DPRK News Service

(screen shot)

Twitter is all so very amusing, but it is not the place that network news can rely for source material. Not without double checking. Every. Single. Word. 

DPRK News Service is a parody account. The parody account is run by Popehat, another twitter account, also a website. Popehat is run by a group of people, originally gamers. Several of them are attorneys or work in related fields. They are interested in legal matters, geek culture, popular culture, products, films, music, books, food, and general Tom foolery. 

Their DPRK parody account is obvious if you care to scroll down and take in the entries it becomes clear. But fail to do that and you risk being taken in. When news services rely on Twitter, their first mistake, then use a parody account for their information, second mistake, and fail to double check, third mistake, then misinformation spreads like wildfire.

Recently Greta Van Susteren of Fox News was taken in. She claims that her three visits to North Korea (and so her reading a lot of history on North Korea!) make her someone with unique insight. She believes North Korea's hack against Sony is actually directed at Japan. She provides historical reasoning. She uses DPRK News Service as her source of information without double checking. She publishes all this. It goes all too far. Finally Patrick Non-White of Popehat can take no more of it and reveals to Greta Van Susteren that NPRK News Service is a parody account, but she fails to take heed and persists with her insistence on her angle about North Korea's real aim being Japan, not the United States. This time. 

Perhaps her mail is too full. Perhaps she gets a lot of advice from crackpots. 

At length, Patrick Non-White tells Greta Van Susteren that he can predict with 100% accuracy the next thing that will appear on the DPRK News Service within the next 10 minutes. Something ridiculous.

At last it sinks in and Greta Van Susteren makes a minor adjustment to her page, "some say it's a hoax." Finally taking down the whole page as the hoax is fully exposed. No doubt embarrassing to her self-regarding expertise on North Korea derived from her three visits and her historical reading.  

Proving once again Americans as a general rule just flat do not get parody.

But, but, but, it has a North Korean flag!

How is America to possibly get parody when the whole nation, the whole world in fact, continually out-parodies parody itself? It gets down to double checking. It gets down to never trusting Twitter for anything at all. Except entertainment and even that is questionable. That's it. Occasionally genuine information peeps through. But not reliably so.

The story is mostly about Greta Van Susteren because she is the person Patrick Non-White writing for Popehat revealed himself. What a bummer to have to explain that your site is parody. She has the widest audience apparently, so does the greatest damage. But DPRK News Service site also took in Slate. To its credit Slate left up their page with a correction. The author claims it was a "misstatement" Patrick Non-White insists, no, it was a failure to read (through the rest of DPRK News Service to see and to process it is a parody site, meant to be amusing not meant to be believed.)

I would prefer he not reveal himself as parody and let the thing run. Allow news providers to further damage themselves.

The Washington Post is also taken in by DPRK News Service parody site.

Newsweek is also taken in by the parody site. 

Reuters also falls for the joke.

CNN also stumbles over DPRK News Service parody site.

Of them all, Newsweek can take a good joke. They invited Patrick Non-White for an interview. 

https://www.popehat.com/author/patrick/

If you choose to read through the 81 comments you see several instances of the terrible tormenting ass-bug that singles out FOX News as singularly bogus unreliable Network.

"Ten Hours of Princess Leia Walking in NYC"

KLEM FM

AprilApple linked to this chuckle-worthy parody:

 

Anything to prick Roger Waters' overinflated, pig-shaped balloon.

KLEM FM

Celebrity Lament

Boobs and rows of pubic hair and I scream hassles on the air
and feathered boas everywhere, I've looked that way on Cloud.
But now they only block the fun, they rain and snow on everyone.
So many things I could have done but Clouds got in my way.

I've looked at Clouds from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it's Cloud's intrusions I recall.
I really don't know Cloud at all.

Original:

KLEM FM

LL has a hilarious parody video at his blog Virtual Mirage which I want to link to give him some traffic.  L was a loyal fan and commenter at my blog El Pollo Real before I "moved" here.

Anyways, tonight's song (and parody) concern that phenomenally successful YouTube video in which everybody plays just one guitar.

"Only 1999 more parody accounts to go"

Mocking politicians on Twitter is apparently now a crime in Illinois http://t.co/2TFxMjncze h/t @instapundit
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) April 18, 2014

"I saw online that there was a Dumb Starbucks sign. One of my friends posted about it, and I live across the street, so I just walked over,"

"A store labeled as "Dumb Starbucks," using the Starbucks corporate logo and bearing an almost identical look to an actual Starbucks, opened up in Los Feliz on Friday, according to employees."

It's open until 6 p.m. Saturday, and the drinks are free as part of what a barista called a "grand opening," but it was unclear if they would remain free Sunday. The menu was limited."

Business was steady Saturday afternoon — although there was no business license or health code rating posted in the establishment. The baristas said they were hired from Craigslist."

Customers seemed confused about what exactly was going on."

Brown speculated that it might be either an art project or a TV prank show."

The @dumbstarbucks Twitter account was already picking up steam Saturday."

"I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies"

"But a well-stocked collection of selfies seems to get attention. And attention seems to be the name of the game when it comes to social networking. In this age of too much information at a click of a button, the power to attract viewers amid the sea of things to read and watch is power indeed. It’s what the movie studios want for their products, it’s what professional writers want for their work, it’s what newspapers want — hell, it’s what everyone wants: attention. Attention is power. And if you are someone people are interested in, then the selfie provides something very powerful, from the most privileged perspective possible."  Says James Franco, in a selfie parody for the New York Times.

***

Meanwhile, Slate has posted a cartoon from 20 years ago, it says to find "disturbingly prescient".

UPDATE: N.S.A. Phone Surveillance Is Lawful, Federal Judge Rules

The Grand Inquisitrix

'For now' (she is speaking of the Inquisition, of course) 'for the first time it has become possible to think of the happiness of men. Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Thou wast warned,' she says to Him. 'Thou hast had no lack of admonitions and warnings, but Thou didst not listen to those warnings; Thou didst reject the only way by which men might be made happy. But, fortunately, departing Thou didst hand on the work to us, the DNC. Thou hast promised, Thou hast established by Thy word, Thou hast given to us the right to tax and to untax, to bind and to unbind, to feed, to clothe, and to heal. Man does not live by blog alone.  And now, of course, Thou canst not think of taking it away. Why, then, hast Thou come to hinder us?' 

~Excerpted from "The Brother's Karma's Off" by Inga DoesPee'offsky

Another Parable of a Madman

THE MADMAN----Have you not heard of that madman who logged into Blogger in the bright morning hours, clicked over to Lem's, and cried incessantly: "I seek GOP! I seek GOP!"---As many of those who believed in GOP were hanging around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has GOP gotten lost? wrote one. Has he fallen ill without insurance? snarked another. Or is he cowering in Washington, D.C.? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a Cruz? immigrated?---Thus they snarked and laughed...

Shooting The Elephant

I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posturing dummy, the very figure of "The Man." For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "native born," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had to go shoot the GOP elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle, even though I abhorred guns and supported PETA. A man has got to act like The Man; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand Manhattanites marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life on the East Coast, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. 

~The future mémoires of Andrew Sullivan  (h/t: Althouse)

"In a French-ass restaurant/Hurry up with my damn croissants."

UPDATED: The letter penned to West was a parody, written by W. David Marx.

Regarding Croissants in "I am a God"
Association of French Bakers
900 Rue Vielle du Temple
Paris FRANCE
To Monsieur Kanye West:
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter, Nord! This is a truly auspicious time for you — and so it is with great sadness that we must lodge a formal complaint against the song "I am a God" from your new album Yeezus.

Our organization represents bakers across France, many of whom have taken great offense at this particular rhyming couplet:

In a French-ass restaurant
Hurry up with my damn croissants

Assuming you, as a man of means, dine exclusively at high-end restaurants and boulangeries during your voyages to Paris, it could not be possible that the delay of your "damn" croissants originated from slow service. And certainly, you are not a man to be satisfied with pre-made croissants from the baked goods case reheated and tossed out on a small platter. No — you had demanded your croissants freshly baked, to be delivered to your table straight out of the oven piping hot.

And it was with great joy you ordered croissants  — not crêpes or brioches — because only croissants can proudly claim that exquisite combination of flaky crust and a succulent center. The croissant is dignified — not vulgar like a piece of toast, simply popped into a mechanical device to be browned. No — the croissant is born of tender care and craftsmanship. Bakers must carefully layer the dough, paint on perfect proportions of butter, and then roll and fold this trembling croissant embryo with the precision of a Japanese origami master.

This process, as you can understand, takes much time. And we implore the patience of all those who order croissants. You may be familiar with the famous French expression, "A great croissant is worth waiting a lifetime for." We know you are a busy man, M. West, but we believe that your patience for croissants will always be rewarded.

We could easily let this water pass under the bridge, as they say, but we take your lyrics very seriously. From the other lines in the song, we have come to understand that you may in fact be a "God." Yet if this were the case — and we, of course, take you at your word — we wonder why you do not more frequently employ your omnipotence to change time and space to better suit your own personal whims. For us mere mortals, we must wait the time required for the croissant to come to perfect fruition, but as a deity, you can surely alter the bread's molecular structure faster than the speed of light, no? And with your omniscience, perhaps you have something to teach us about the perfect croissant. We await your guidance and insights.

We appreciate your continued patronage of French culture. (Your frequent references to menage perhaps speak an interest in the structure of the French household?) We hope from the deepest recesses of our hearts, however, that in the future you give croissants the time they need to fully mature before you partake. With that, we say, adieu. And our member Louis Malpass from Le Havre wants you to know that he loves "Black Skinhead."

Salutations cordiales

Bernard Aydelotte
Association of French Bakers