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Category Archives: Humor
New “anonymous” controversy on the web: Supporting corporate greed.
Is it to laugh?
Guy Fawkes was a terrorist or a martyr—depending on your perspective—in England. In 1604, he was involved in a plot to blow up Parliament using kegs of gunpowder below the House of Lords in an attempt to restore the Catholic church to power in England. The plot completion was set for the normal meeting of July 28, 1605, but the present threat of the plague set the meeting back to November 5th. The plot was discovered, however, and Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes, was captured guarding the powder before the plot could materialize. The main target of the plot was King James I.
Interestingly, Fawkes used the pseudonym of John Johnson and the Tor Johnson Halloween mask reigned supreme in the late 1950s to early 1960s. Fawkes was subsequently tortured and convicted to hang. He fell from the gallows, however, cheating the hangman by breaking his neck. Each year on November 5th, he is burned in effigy.
The mask was first seen in a comic book series called V for Vendetta which was adapted into a movie in 2005—400 years after the plot to blow up the House of Lords. The man in the Guy Fawkes mask was “V,” shadowy rebel taking on the tyrannical government of his time.
The mask has recently become the face of “anonymous,” the face against the greed of the capitalist corporations. Hundreds of anonymous videos have taunting and threatening the rise of the corporate oligarchy.
Around November 5th of this year, however, Internet Business Times reported that a series of pictures have been published on the Internet showing a sweat shop factory in São Gonçalo, Brazil laboring to create the popular anonymous masks. The kicker? Since Time Warner adapted the comic book series, they own the rights to the image reaping huge profits from sale of the popular anonymous mask.
Ironic, isn’t it?
O-Thanksgiving!
Insanity Island presents the Thanksgiving day address of the president who nods off to dream of future government.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Jonny Carson (from 1977) reads letters from children on how to cook a turkey.
Wisconsin family opens 50-year old bomb shelter
Blast from the Past
NEEHAH, WISCONSIN—Although this is a story from May of this year, it represents another story of life imitating art. Sort of.
The Zwick family knew that the previous owner had built a bomb shelter when they moved in over ten years previous. It was not until 2010, however, that they decided to open the 50-year-old, eight-foot by ten-foot chamber to see what was inside. Unlike Blast From the Past, the family did not find a family living inside waiting for the fallout from the Cuban missile crisis to subside. Surely fortunate as well, they did not find the bodies of a family who were waiting for the fallout from the Cuban missile crisis to subside.
The Mail Online reported:
“We assumed it was just this empty space,” homeowner Carol Hollar-Zwick told the Appleton Post-Crescent.
The boxes, old military ammunition crates, contained markings that suggested there might be explosives inside, so the family called the local branch of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Agents opened the crates to find… Hawaiian Punch.
Goodies from the past.
“It was all of what you would expect to find in a 1960s fallout shelter. It was food, clothing, medical supplies, tools, flashlights, batteries – items that you would want to have in a shelter if you planned to live there for two weeks.”
Everything remained remarkably well-preserved, thanks to the airtight containers the supplies were kept in.
The items were donated to the Neehan Historical Society which just happens to have an exhibit about the cold war fear of the bomb.
Matinee was another comedy about the cold war era featuring a bomb shelter. It was set in Florida at the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
Source: Mail Online
Do the health care mash.
Not to be outdone by Saturday Night Live (after they were funny), Reason.TV produces an update on a classic Halloween song.
Happy Halloween
USDA Requires Magicians To Have “Disaster Plans” For Their Rabbits
To say that American businesses are over-regulated is a bit of an understatement. In very small print, the USDA spends 14 pages to spell out regulations specifically pertaining to rabbits and requirements that need to be met to keep one’s “rabbit license.”
A 1965 law required that labs obtain government licenses in order to use animals for testing purposes. But in 1970, that law was amended to include not just labs, but any entity that exhibits animals. Like zoos and circuses. But because the regulations written to enforce these laws are so vague and wordy like every other law and regulation we have, anything can be said to “exhibit” animals. Not just the big things like zoos.
Apparently, magicians who use rabbits as props for their tricks are not at all exempt. So, they too must obtain a license to “exhibit” their pet rabbits. And since they have to have the proper government license to do so, they must follow all the regs associated with maintaining that license. They have to pay $40 a year, give their animal regular vet care and submit to random house searches.
But now they’ve apparently got a new requirement needed in order for these magicians to hold on to their “rabbit licenses.” 54-year-old magician Marty Hahne knows about it, because he got a letter from the USDA asking him for a “disaster plan” for his rabbit, Casey. You know, like, “What does Marty the Magician plan on doing to make sure his rabbit is safe in case of a flood, a hurricane or an earthquake?” This is not a joke.
Read more at Last Resistance
Political Cartoons
