News You Can't Use: Goats Prefer to Interact with Humans who Look Happy

If you're like most healthy human units you probably spend a lot of time wondering how you can improve your interactions with goats. I remember when I was twelve my friends and I would run up on a goat kept by a local farmer, wave our arms and shout or whatever and than run off. What I'm trying to establish is that I'm an expert at wasting the precious gift of life. Fortunately, decades later, a solution has been reached by lying scientists. It turns out you can improve your time around the cloven-hoofed can-chewers that same way you connect with your fellow wise, wise men: by walking around with a rictus smile carved into your greasy bloated face.

Goats recognise and are attracted to happy humans, a study has found.

I'm not going to make the obvious joke, so don't even ask. The word choice in the very first sentence isn't helping, obviously.

Much like us, they seem to be drawn to smiling faces. But don’t expect to make friends with a goat if you scowl at it.

Time to win over this goat by making scary faces. Why isn't this working?

Scientists showed 20 goats unfamiliar photos of the same human face looking happy or angry.

A football team that went 4-8 and this nonsense is what your student loan debt is funding.

The research, conducted at Buttercups Sanctuary for Goats in Kent, demonstrated that the goats preferred to interact with the smiling face.

So we're going to enter a goat sanctuary and hold up pictures of faces. Sold! Here's your grant money.

Released from a distance of four metres (13ft) they generally made straight for the happy image, exploring it curiously with their snouts.

Snout exploration is a good basis for any quality relationship, just like how snout-counting is the best way to elect our rulers.

This suggested that goats use the left hemisphere of their brains to process positive emotion, said the team from Queen Mary, University of London.

I mean, sure! Anything could be going on here.

Dr Alan McElligott, who led the research, said: “The study has important implications for how we interact with livestock and other species, because the abilities of animals to perceive human emotions might be widespread and not just limited to pets.”

Now when you're doing backbreaking and disgusting agricultural labor we'll force you to smile the whole time for the benefit of the livestock.

Co-author Dr Christian Nawroth, a member of the Queen Mary team now based at the Leibniz Institute for Farm Animal Biology in Germany, said: “Here we show for the first time that goats do not only distinguish between these expressions, but they also prefer to interact with happy ones.”

Scratch a German and find precision.

 Now with scientifically accurate human emotion interaction DLC.

Sheep are known to possess a powerful visual memory and an ability to recognise human faces from photographs. 

Being called "sheeple" is actually a complement on your visual memory.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Out of Control Iguanas Infesting South Florida

South Florida’s not quite Jurassic Park, but it’s getting close.

This [societal problem and/or example of nature gone crazy] is sort of like [popular movie franchise].

Packs of green iguanas are swarming seawalls, roaming yards and parks, and leaving a path of destruction and filth in their wake.

Whenever you feel down and hopeless just take solace in the fact that you're currently not being terrorized by heartless reptiles who have zero respect for your precious seawalls and parks.

Like a shot of espresso, the hot summer sun has stoked activity in the cold-blooded creatures, which experts say may be at record numbers. 

Like an awkward simile this scaly plague is painful and annoying.

“This year is the most iguanas I’ve seen and I’ve been in business for nine years,” says Thomas Portuallo, owner of Fort Lauderdale-based Iguana Control.

I've been doing this for nine years, which is a long time, almost ten, and I can confirm that we are losing the Iguana control war that I foolishly volunteered for in my callow youth of nearly a decade ago.

The prehistoric populations are multiplying like rabbits, and causing internet, phone and power outages (barbecued lizard, anyone?), damaging landscapes, levees, seawalls, roofs and patios, and contaminating pools with poop.

Let's talk about how these critters have origins older than a few years ago (unlike their adversaries), mention the old lizard on a stick and maybe throw in some sort of reference to animal waste. Man, this journalism thing is a snap.

“There’s no real way to come up with a valid estimate of the number of green iguanas in Florida. But the number would be gigantic,” says Richard Engeman, a biologist for the National Wildlife Research Center.

We can't even get an ESTIMATE? Man, so-called science is thoroughly worthless. I have a doctorate in biology. The number is, like, totally huge, probably.

“You could put any number of zeros behind a number, and I would believe it.”

I mean, I went to college and nodded in bovine agreement while my professors were vomiting out one lie after another, so I'm not exactly the most rigorous thinker you'll ever meet.

In South Florida, iguanas are the second leading cause of power outages, behind squirrels. But that’s well behind power failures caused by vegetation, Beltran points out.

Before you get all nuts with your anti-iguana rhetoric let me remind you that lowly vegetation is the real criminal.

Grace DeVita, of Hollywood, says she can’t escape iguanas at home or work. A few months ago, internet and phone service at her office went down after iguanas climbed power lines and chewed through cables.

I tried hiding under my bed, but they were already there, waiting.

Get it? Haw haw!

“There was an iguana with a piece of wire hanging out of his mouth,” DeVita says. It took two days for power to be restored the first time, and then it happened again two days later. 

We were defeated by herbivorous lizards. All that remains is discussing the terms of the surrender.

The creatures can grow up to five feet long and are fast on land and in water, making them difficult to catch. They have no natural predators.

There is literally no way you can win.

Full Article.

Komment Korner   

They are so cute though!

We hired a company to get rid of over 60 iguanas a few years ago. They were doing a great job of riding us of the iguanas, until one employee was caught letting some of the iguanas out of the trap on purpose.

Here's how stupid the politicians are

I would bet 1 in 20 pellet gun shots is instantly fatal.

We have plenty of Canadians left to pay our taxes.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Nationwide Paintball Wars Causing Concern For Baltimore Police

As a veteran of a thousand paintball wars my body is more wounds and splattered primary colors than flesh. Such is the sacrifice required by a coast-to-coast struggle that you probably weren't even aware of, but should be. It's even starting to become what might be considered a "concern" for law enforcement, I guess right up there with collecting revenue from people driving too fast in that one stretch where the speed limit is ridiculously low and all those unsolved murders.

Nationwide, police are tackling a new type of gun violence. Hundreds of paintball shootings have been reported in multiple states, and now it’s picking up in Baltimore.

When our founders granted us the right to use paint as a weapon of self-defense the most dangerous thing was a musket that vomited out a rainbow of pain and then took a minute to reload. They couldn't have anticipated the dangers of high-capacity ball holders.

“Guns Down, Paint Balls Up” is a movement that was intended to curb gun violence. 

The solution creates new problems, just like any good solution.

“It started in Atlanta, with a rapper who started putting things on YouTube and Instagram,” said Milwaukee Police Sgt. Melissa Franckowiak.

For those who were claiming modern rap is creatively bankrupt drivel, here's the irrefutable proof that it isn't.

Police say Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage’s campaign against firearms may have backfired — they’ve linked at least two deaths to paintball wars.

Maybe we shouldn't be using Dirty South rappers as a source of public policy. Also, it ain't funny, my brother died like that.

In April, 3-year-old T’Rhigi Diggs was shot while he slept in the back of his mother’s car in Milwaukee. Police say he was killed by a teen who fired a handgun at people shooting paintballs.

Please ignore how this paragraph is a total mess that makes zero sense.

“It’s something we want to get in front of, and let people know it is illegal, it is something we are taking seriously.”

I'm sure you'll be a lot more successful with this particular crusade than you've been with every single other one.

 There were no survivors.

People caught firing a paintball gun could face disorderly conduct or other criminal charges.

We'll come up with something, don't worry.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: School Deems Craigslist Prank a Threat

A senior at Truman High School will not be allowed to walk in his graduation because of a prank he pulled.

Instead he'll be facing a "Freedom Act" star chamber at the local Ministry of Love, which, when you think about it, is only slightly worse than sweating it out in goofy robes and listening to pretentious and sanctimonious speeches about your bright future.

Kylan Scheele, 18, admits to posting an ad on Craigslist on Friday that listed Truman High School for sale; he said it was meant to be a joke.

I consulted the tiny post-it note that lists all the things you can still tap for valuable yucks and it wasn't on there, sorry kid.

“Other people were going to release live mice or, you know, building a beach in the front lobby area, and I thought let’s do something more laid back, so I just decided to post the school for sale,” Scheele said.

The irony when my laid back and generally low-effort pranksterism earns a twenty year sentence in a Cuban prison camp.

The ad listed several amenities including the schools newly built athletic fields, plenty of parking and a “bigger than normal dining room.” The Independence School District took issue with Kylan’s reason for the sale, which he wrote was “due to the loss of students coming up.”

When kids say "adults are the suck," and they do, sorry delusional "I'm still cool!" boomers, this is why.

“I decided to say the reason we’re selling this is because of 'the loss of students,' because the senior class is graduating,” Scheele explained.

That seems pretty obvious, but we're dealing with petty bureaucrats, so good luck.

On Wednesday, Sheele, who told FOX4 he has a 3.9 GPA, was notified that he was suspended for the remainder of the school and would not walk in Saturday’s graduation.

Young man with successful future written all over him has life permanently destroyed because he pulled a boner to make people laugh. Really makes you think, man. Maybe all of this isn't really a good thing. Far out.

“A three-day suspension, sure, but denying me the ability to walk, that’s a lifetime moment,” Scheele said. “I think they’re overreacting.”

Trust me, you're not missing anything.

 Turn in your used school for cash right now!

“He went and apologized and tried to make things right and in return they give him the harshest punishment possible,” Kylan’s mom, Denetra Clark said.

There's actually worse punishments. I'm just saying. Room 101, that sort of thing.

While Sheele and his mom are hoping the district will reverse its decision, the district’s spokeswoman said it “won’t be reconsidered.”

The actions of a district carry a grim finality.

“He’s already put the effort in,” said Clark. “He’s going to get his diploma no matter what but maybe the party will start sooner.”

If you consider being blindfolded with a sack and left lying handcuffed on gravel in the scorching midday sun for hours before finally being taken to a holding cell a "party," than yeah, woooooo.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Scientists Plan DNA Hunt for Loch Ness Monster Next Month

If there's one good thing that came from the proliferation of camera phones, it's the destruction of goofy myths like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and politicians who actually care about you in any meaningful way. This almost offsets the thousands of negative aspects of living in a society where people take in reality through a filter that could also, at least theoretically, be used to make phone calls. Despite this, the "Nessie" true believers are not about to go quietly into the good night of "people like to make up stories and our five senses can be unreliable." No, we must scour every inch of Scottish water to find the shocking truth, namely "the results were inconclusive."

A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist. 

After spending millions, we found this old wine bottle.

The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks.

The technology is completely legit, even if its current deployment isn't.

Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine.

Nature sure is disgusting, am I right? Pave over everything.

“This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms,” said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand. 

I'm a little disappointed you didn't use the phrase "multiple organisms."

The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century.

How the Irish saved civilization. Using my monk powers I confined the creature to the water. Where it lives. No, really, I totally kicked its ass.

The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the “surgeon’s photo”, was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine.

Time for the surgeon to operate. *attaches two toys together for low-energy hoax*

Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch.

Well, there's always room for one more good one.

I'm from a monastery, I'll handle this.

Gemmell’s team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt. 

We might learn a lot about fish excrement, but that's not how you convince a University to fund your monster hunt.

“While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness,” Gemmell said on his university website.

Unlike Murphy Lee, the lying scientists do need a fudging hook on this beat.

He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon.

When the pacific sends their salmon, they're not sending us their best, reveals study.

Full Article. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Storm-Chasing Tours Become Big—and Risky—Business

When residents of this remote rural area were warned to take cover from an approaching severe storm, tour director Bill Reid aimed his vanload of six giddy passengers into its path.

When shooting cloned dinosaurs or taking the tag off a mattress in blatant defiance of the instructions no longer can provide any thrills for your jaded, empty existence I've got a new drug. It's called driving into severe weather and it's the most fun you can have with your pants on.

“It’s going to get crazy,” said Mr. Reid of Tempest Tours, which takes visitors on excursions into some of the wildest weather on the continent, amid reports of torrential rain, baseball-sized hail and possible tornadic activity.

Wow, cool it with the stigmatizing language. Next time say "It's going to get mentally ill." Also, I never really considered "rain" to be "extreme," but then again I'm not making sick bank with Tempest Tours. Oh brave new world, that has such people in't!

As the U.S.’s tornado season kicks into high gear, so does the booming-but-risky business of taking paying passengers on storm-chasing tours in the nation’s tornado alley.

We've finally found a use for Middle America other than remembering they exist every four years on election night.

The 1996 movie, “Twister,” and the 2007-2011 Discovery Channel reality TV series, “Storm Chasers” have helped to fuel the growing popularity of the tours—in a trend that worries some safety experts.

Forgotten garbage culture from several years ago is responsible for this thrilling, cutting-edge fad.

Although the storm tour companies offer no guarantees, spotting—and taking photos of—twisters is the Holy Grail for storm chasers and tourists alike.

This better not turn out to be another trick bag like my big Hollow Earth vacation.

But that hasn’t stopped Tempest Tours, among others, from selling out its storm-chase tours, which can last from a day to 11 days and run $300 to $3,850. 

I mean, I can just drive you around for an hour or whatever for three Franklins, but to be honest I really hold back on those cheap ones and it isn't all that much fun. You want to spend four figures, minimum. 

The company started in 2000 with 20 tourists now hosts about 200 passengers a season who come from around the country and world, said founder Martin Lisius.

He's like a successful and well-adjusted version of that scumbag from Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows.

“People kept asking if they could go storm chasing with us, so we decided to create this company so they could book a tour like a cruise,” said Mr. Lisius of Arlington, Texas, a veteran storm chaser.

People kept asking me to beat them in an erotic fashion with a flogger while I call them scum, so I decided to create a company based out of my basement "dungeon."

Over the past two decades, at least a dozen other companies have sprung up around Texas and the Midwest, including Silver Lining Tours, Extreme Tornado Tours and Extreme Chase Tours, which hauls about 80 passengers a season in its vans compared with just five when it started in 1999, said owner Lanny Dean.

What I give you is top value, unlike those con-artists from Silver Lining. Yeah, I cost more, but there's a reason for that.

Though storm-chasing companies say they don’t know of any tourists who have died or been seriously injured so far, the trips can be dangerous.

I like the "don't know." I mean, high winds picked him up and propelled him off into the hemorrhaging sky, but I'm sure he was fine. I never found a body or nothing, honest.

Three storm chasers died in 2017 when their vehicles collided while chasing a twister in Texas.

Oh. This kind of plays havoc with that whole "Ignorance as an excuse" line we just got.

We offer no guarantees you'll see anything resembling decent college football.

In 2013, three other chasers were killed when a tornado they had been following turned on them in El Reno, Okla. In both cases, the storm chasers weren’t leading tours.

The funnel seemed cool, then it just turned on me, man. Who could have predicted this?

Even some storm chasers think the tours are a bit much. “It puts more cars on the road,” said Greg Robbin, a 42-year-old storm chaser from Mountain View, Calif., as he patrolled for tornadoes on the Oklahoma prairie recently.

I don't like sharing the road with what I call "normals."

Mr. Alba was joining his first storm tour this month because “seeing a tornado is on my bucket list,” he said.

You might kick said "bucket" immediately after, so that's convenient.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

I saw tornadoes several times when I lived in Ohio.

So the main danger is getting hit by another car of storm-chasers?  

Storm chaser, so what happens when they catch them?

A great alternative for terminally ill individuals in states where there isn’t a “right to die” law.   

I do love the idiocy of at least one half of the American public.  


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Facebook Disabled 1 Billion Fake Accounts in the Last Year

Hey everyone, did you here about the internet site where you can post all your personal information and embarrassing pictures? This data will then be used against you by everyone from your country's Though Police, predatory advertisers, con-artists and ordinary people who don't like you. This is really a great idea, you'd be a fool not to voluntarily participate in this honey-trap. Besides, think of all the "likes." That's a virtual thumbs up, the most precious of all commodities, in case you didn't know.

Facebook continued to give the public a peek behind the curtain, releasing a major report on Tuesday that announced the Silicon Valley company removed more than one billion fake accounts.

You mean that extremely open-minded model who expressed interest in my profile out of nowhere might not be entirely on the level?

Facebook also said it purged millions of posts that violate its rules in the last year.

"Purged." Whoever wrote this knows what's up.

The first-ever “Community Standards Enforcement Report,” a robust 81 pages, details the company’s efforts to weed out unsavory content, including violence and terrorist propaganda.  

Your next big target should be duckfaces and pictures of food.

Facebook disabled 583 million fake accounts during the Q1 of 2018, and 694 million the quarter before.

This obviously made-up name and the ridiculous account that goes with it must be deleted. See ya, "Barack Obama."

Facebook’s relationship with nudity is tricky. The company restricts sexual content and nudity because some users “may be sensitive to this type of content,” according to its guidelines.  

I have extremely puritanical beliefs about the evils of the human body, but I'm also on my sex box, non-stop.

There are some allowances, however, including protests and works of art.

I was showing my completely flaccid member in protest of Tibet or whatever. This is art.

“We aim to reduce violations to the point that our community doesn’t regularly experience them,” said Facebook VPs Guy Rosen and Alex Schultz in the report.

We'll shield the marks from reality.

Facebook removed 2.5 million comments that violate its hate speech rules so far this year — up from 1.6 million at the end of 2017.

If you ask what those rules actually are, that's also "hate speech."

The report comes on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica data leak, where up to 87 million users had their profiles unknowingly compromised.

Yeah. Whoopsie. Sorry about that.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

For the eight years we were saddled with obama

Pointing out that Obama visited gay bath houses in Chicago needs to be protected.

Facebook users are essentially pissing on the graves of all those who fought and died for privacy rights. Facebook is a carrot and stick for undeserving people.

'Consensus Reality' Is Ever-Changing, And Always Incorrect.

I wasn't aware that anybody other than complete imbeciles were still using Farcebook.


Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.