News You Can't Use: Chinese Village Besieged by Hundreds of Macaques

I am one of those rare individuals who likes to have fun, a fact I make sure to note on my hundreds of online profiles. Having this unconventional and unique desire does raise certain issues, from the painful realization that almost everything is "boring" to attempting to measure the levels of fun actually occurring. On that particular frontier we are making woeful progress, reduced to using miniature candy bars as the main measuring stick. Well, that and monkeys stuffed in barrels. With that in mind a village in exotic Cathay decided that if one barrel worth is good than flooding the entire village with Macaques is sure to stimulate the local economy, create jobs and reduce the dependence on foreign simian imports. Unfortunately, this genius idea somehow led to unintended consequences like "There's monkeys everywhere!" I know, who could have guessed?

A village in China has been left overrun with hundreds of macaques after a plan to introduce them and increase tourism to the area backfired. 

That feeling when you realize the villagers love their monkey more than sensible and realistic long term planning.

Xianfeng village in south-west China's Sichuan province decided to give a boost to their visitor numbers in 2003 by introducing 73 of the monkeys to the area, reported the People's Daily Online. 

You probably remember the massive tourism boom experienced by Xianfeng, the celebrities, the unrehearsed testimony from Western randos, all of it. 13 years later, after all the glory has faded, there's only the crush of regret.

However over the past 13 years, the numbers have increased dramatically to 600 leaving the village swamped with the animals.  

I guess the "one child policy" (I'm aware it changed but let's pretend it didn't for the following joke) doesn't apply to our furry friends.

They were inspired by Emei Mountain, a famous tourist spot which is inhabited by wild macaques. 

I think that's where one of my Facebook friends went and posted hundreds of pictures. That or Paris, I'm not totally certain.

They spent 48 days transporting 73 apes to the area, reports CCTV News. 

Sounds like the set-up to one of those "word problems" from a common core math class that everyone hates. Please estimate how many hours it would take to move a single ape while trying not to pass out from hunger after ash-canning another Michelle Obama lunch.

In the beginning, the business model seemed to work with many people coming to the area to see the monkeys. 

Seriously, the business model was totally sound. It's almost like something out of an economics textbook. Sadly more monkeys = not only more money but also more problems. 

But things began to go wrong when Zhou Zhenggui, the main investor in the initiative passed away. The company supporting the tourist business then collapsed. 

Our tourism board is a cult of personality that collapses when the charismatic and ruthless leader is gone.

Locals were hoping the monkeys would disappear without food however the macaques seemed to like their new home. 

It's getting harder and harder to root for a village that cynically removes mega-fauna from its natural environment and then hopes they'll starve once they become inconvenient.

They wreaked havoc in the village, eating crops , causing damage to homes and even biting visitors. 

It's almost like these dumb beasts have enough of a glimmer of intelligence to exploit the situation.

This is what happened, more or less.

Macquaes are a class 2 national protected species and so the problem has to be treated delicately.  

Absolutely nothing about this story suggests that responsible and "delicate" behavior occurred to anyone, at any time.

Experts were brought in to trap 300 of the animals and send them away however the rest are determined to stay.  

Yeah, I guess that's what would probably happen.

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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: Riot Control Robot Can Zap Protesters

Is there any problem that can't be solved by removing all human elements and replacing them with ostensibly reliable robotic devices, up to and including kill droids that will zap recalcitrant peasants who have issue with the lack of food or whatever in our Worker's Paradise? The answer is obviously "no" and our reliable friend and money-changer China just made the next big leap forward with a cool 'bot that will be easily handling the soft protoplasm vectors that crop up in the riots that nation's repressive government make inevitable. This is a great time to be alive.

A riot control robot that can zap people with an electrical charge has been unveiled in China.

The wisdom in allowing the Middle Kingdom to strip our manufacturing base and then running up massive debt has been thoroughly confirmed. These are our moral, intellectual and spiritual superiors.

Hailed as the country's first "intelligent security robot", it has an "electrically charged riot control tool" and an SOS button for people to notify police.

They've already deleted the disturbing video where a volunteer tried the "SOS button" and the kill-bot interpreted this as an act of aggression, peppering him with machine gun bullets. 

A photo posted to Twitter by The People's Daily Online news site was retweeted by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden with the sarcastic caption: "Surely this will end well."

What part of "What could possibly go wrong?" don't you understand?

It has a top speed of 11mph and can work for up to eight hours on a single charge.

As opposed to decadent Yankee worker who has speeds of slow and stop and can work for a few minutes before slipping out for a smoke.

One said it was like ED-209 from the 1987 movie Robocop, which fired twin machine guns into one of its manufacturer's board members, but was still put into police service.

First, stop stealing my jokes. Second, it's nothing like that. It will incinerate the board member with deadly lightning, not sloppy machine guns.

The most common comparison was to the Daleks from British television series Dr Who.

Maybe among the dateless wonder demographic, anyway.

 Stop rioting, comrades.

The Knightscope K5 security robot has been used in Silicon Valley since 2014 but has no offensive capabilities.

Great job, USA.

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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: Chinese Authorities 'Arrest' Ronald McDonald Statue

We have always been allies with EastAsia and because of this eternal friendship it makes sense to attempt to better understand our good buddies who generously loan us non-manipulated currency and take undesirable jobs off our hands. Our own culture of clowns, pink mystery burgers and epidemic obesity might in some ways clash with their benevolent good nature, so perhaps today's story will be instructive in insuring that our highly fulfilling equal partnership continues into the bright future that surely awaits.

Chinese authorities weren’t lovin’ Ronald McDonald this week, hauling away a statue of the clown that was blocking sidewalk foot traffic.

Nothing like a little goofy joking around to make a totalitarian state much more palatable to the sort of person who reads a newspaper that prints important stories like "Best Sex Ever." A few wacky modified burger slogans makes it all better. That entire student massacre, talk about bad time, bad taste. Did somebody say repressive dictatorship? We love to see you against a wall or in slave labor. There's something for everybody to love in that gulag. Have you had your two minutes hate today?

Uniformed code enforcement officers in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou ripped the Ronald McDonald figure off its base, leaving only his big red shoes behind, as shoppers in the Huadu District of commerce hub Guangzhou looked on in amazement Sunday.

I mean, we're used to you treating human beings in the most horrible fashion possible, but a statue of a clown mascot? What is the future, Winston? Imagine wacky clown shoes stomping on a human face, forever.

The city had been warning operators of this McDonald’s that its statue was hindering pedestrian traffic, according to state organ the People’s Daily.

People disappear for having unpopular thoughts, but on the other hand pedestrian rights are aggressively defended. Maybe I was wrong in my initial judgments.

“If the McDonald’s staff admit their violation and accept the punishment, they can have their statue back.”

If you'd just win that war over yourself we could put old Bad Ronald up again.

When capitalism and communism combine and retain all their worst elements.

Pictures of Ronald McDonald’s arrest have gone viral, and opened authorities up for mockery across China. 

Don't worry, it's nothing a series of summary punishments can't solve.

One user of the popular social media platform Sina Weibo wondered if Chinese authorities were acting under orders from a rival, powerful military figure named Col. Sanders.

Trampling on human rights is hilarious. If nothing else we've proven that.

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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: Tourists Flock to Experience Real-Life Cremation in ‘Death Simulator’ at Chinese Amusement Park

Nothing says psychological health and a general smooth running of the human machinery more than a fascination with your own mortality and the actual physical mechanics of the death process. Sadly, the ability to indulge this perfectly ordinary interest has been limited to totally indecipherable death metal lyrics, cemetery picnics and coffin window shopping. It's no surprise that in the realm of pretending to address the final mystery of life China is totally smoking our ass, just like in everything else. Now a fully functional death simulator has been produced by our money-loaning and lead toy importing friends and the tourists can't get enough of it.

Tourists around the world are being drawn to a bizarre 'death simulator' at a Chinese amusement park, that offers you the chance to experience cremation.

I guess I should learn to temper my high expectations when reading back page news, but this is a pretty serious bring-down. It's more a "getting set on fire" simulator than a chance to explore the dark crossing into whatever is or isn't there. You're deceptive, British online news source.

The ride, called 'The Cremator', offers the morbidly curious to opportunity to find out what it might feel like to be cremated using a system of hot air and light projections.

What we have here is a more extreme version of the buried alive experience, where somehow they skipped all the embalming goodness and are feeding your still living body into the high heat. I don't know if a heater and creative lighting can do justice to something that horrific, but it's one of those "I gots to know" situations, apparently.

But punters at the 'Window of the World' amusement park must first be settled into their temporary coffins, according to the People's Daily Online.

Here's what happens to the "punters" that can't reliably get the ball within the twenty yard line. Fair punishment, I think.

The Window of the World park is a 'cultural theme park' in Shenzhen that boasts an incredible range of attractions crammed into its 48 hectares.

The fun thing with getting your news from Airstrip One is all the words that I either don't understand or have no conception of their significance. We don't know 'bout no hectares here in Murrka, just high fat foods and gun violence.

Among these are an astonishing 130 models of the world's most famous landmark attractions in miniature, including Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Mount Rushmore.

Ok, we've seen the tiny version of the Kremlin. Let's go get cremated before the line gets ridiculous.

The experience begins with a journey through the 'morgue', following which they are placed in a coffin and put on a conveyor belt.

Beware any endeavor that begins with a trip to a simulated morgue.

Screams and shrieks echo through the chamber, and everyone who tries the ride comes out drenched in sweat.

This could be re-branded in the USA as the "mild cardiovascular exercise" simulator and it would probably be just as scary for most people.

Although whether the sweat is from fear or from the extreme heat has not been made clear.

Try tasting it. Terror sweat has that sickly sweetness.

Prepare to have your remaining dignity burned away.

'I am never coming back,' said a number of women on leaving the ride, while laughing nervously.

The people love it!

Staff at the ride said that the 'cremation' effect is actually a clever use of hot air machines, which pump out air at 40 degrees Celsius.

I just found out what a "hectare" is, now this. That's hot, I guess.

The staff explained that the customers who are passing through the ride feel a sudden blast of hot air, 'which makes them feel as though they are being cremated'.

You have to use your imagination a little.

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Komment Korner

Looks hi tech

what strange people.........40°C isn't anything close to being 'like a crematorium', crematorium ovens are 870 to 980 °C....

That culture is really starved for entertainment

I went to that place the year it opened and the models were fantastic, 5 yeas later & it looks like a dump Many of the models are broken and the miniature statues have been stolen.


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: Michelle O’s ‘Healthy’ Lunches Going to the Pigs - Literally

I knew this was gonna be a winner just from the headline. Scare quotes? The word literally, which according to the dictionary can mean almost anything? Yes, this is going to be an incredible story of what happens when a program to save our bloated nation fails miserably and must be reverted to swill. In a way it's brilliant: take the food no one wants and feed it to the most magically delicious animal in the entire world. Yucky vegetables and disgusting fruits transformed through digestive and butchering alchemy into delicious bacon, pork, sausage and who knows what other money meats. In another, more realistic way it's sad and pathetic, but let's take a glass half full attitude toward the current race to the bottom.

There’s one group of young eaters who like Michelle Obama’s school lunch program: pigs.

No, not you chubby. I mean literal (the first definition, not the one where it means it isn't literal) mud rolling sources of delicious stored calories. My mouth is already watering contemplating the inefficient transfer of potential energy when I bite into a First Lady fed swine product.

New Mexico’s Galloping Grace Youth Ranch is accepting fruits and vegetables thrown away by students at several elementary schools in the Rio Rancho area and collects some five tons per week.

Maybe the legendary efficiency and concern for detail of our federal government has been slightly exaggerated.

“It’s really whatever they don’t eat coming off of their trays, so when they get up to the trash cans they will scrape it into one of our buckets that we pick up on a daily basis,” ranch CEO Max Wade tells KRQE.

Thank you for explaining this complicated process, I was really struggling to form a mental image. Generation Nothing fills the can with wasted food, off to the pig farm. Got it.

Speaking of the pigs, goats and chickens gobbling up the students’ castaways, Wade says, “If you think about it, it’s a fresh salad bar every day. Fruits and vegetables and they love it.”

With enough rationalization the coming meltdown seems like a blessing. If you think about it, stealing the copper wires from derelict industry is a form of recycling! If you think about it, lying to receive benefits is a sort of karmic adjustment!

To underscore the point, he’s talking about the farm animals, not the school children.

Yeah, we got it. I guess it's my fault for still wearing that "Traditional Conservative, Please Use Small Words and Repeat Yourself Often" sign around my neck.

The goats prefer romaine lettuce, some pigs like grapes while others will eat “anything.” The chickens like the dinner rolls.

When not eating rusted tin cans goats are the food snobs of the animal kingdom.

It left me too weak to resist common core math.

Earlier this year, a New York district estimated its students throw away 85 percent of their fruits and vegetables.

How well the imitation wadded beef is doing remains unknown.

“If we cut up 20 pounds of cucumbers, we guess that 17 pounds get thrown away. I’ve watched kids take their cup of vegetables or fruit they’re required to take and just throw it away.”

"Man, that global starvation is like so not cool, dude. Let me go throw away some food now."

The Nebraska Farmers Union was working to partner with Lincoln-area schools to collect discarded food to fuel a worm farm, known as vermiculture.

Yet another worm farm success story.

Some 3,000 pigs at a Rhode Island hog farm scarf up uneaten fruits and vegetables, too.

I think I've given you enough isolated anecdotes to make the point.

Two Rhode Island districts – North Smithfield and Burrillville – that are sending their scraps to My Blue Heaven Farm. Both districts are participants in the National School Lunch Program, which is implementing the hated federal lunch rules.

Not to be confused with My Blue Heaven fantasy camp, where I went last year and had a great time pretending to be a mob informant relocated to a small California town. 

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Komment Korner  

anything government puts their hands on gets destroyed... ruined...

Naaahhhh, those are just your peon kids, they will eat whatever their Dear Leader tells them to eat.

Perhaps they should move to Russia or China to see how well things work there.

To see what BHO has in mind for America google the 'Holodomor"

Just to clarify, we at Galloping Grace Youth Ranch do not feed the cafeteria scraps to the pigs, only to the chickens. The Federal Swine Act states that any meat products must be recooked prior to feeding pigs. We do collect fruit and vegetable discards from local grocery stores and food banks and feed this to them. In the end, we donate the pork back to local food banks and food pantries.

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: Hong Kong Leader Tells People to Act Like ‘Sheep’

Happy Kung Hei Fat Choy, everyone! Just as I was getting used to writing "Horse" on official documents it's time for a new animal, one that so totally embodies positive characteristics that Great Leader might even suggest you emulate it. Yes, as we kick off the first day of the (great) year, it's time to consider the virtues of grazing wool-makers and how they can help you be a better human unit number within your glorious collective.

Hong Kong’s unpopular chief executive has infuriated pro-democracy campaigners by using a Chinese New Year message to urge the former colony's citizens to act more "like sheep".

Leave it to our unpopular leader to do something unpopular. 1 = 1, in other words. Can't get enough of that reflexive property in journalism, no sir.

In a brief video address commemorating the start of Year of the Sheep, CY Leung said sheep-like behavior was required in the wake of the turbulence caused by last year’s street protests.

Well, that or "corpse-like behavior" depending on how fast you were able to run.

“Last year was no easy ride for Hong Kong. Our society was rife with differences and conflicts,” the chief executive of the former British colony said.

Hopefully this next year for Hong Kong will be a slow ride, take it easy. Appease me, appease me! Slow ride dictatorship, you're so fine.

Also, I get that it once was a colony, you don't have to keep bringing it up because finding other ways to say "Hong Kong" is difficult.

“In the coming year, I hope that all people in Hong Kong will take inspiration from the sheep's character and pull together in an accommodating manner to work for Hong Kong's future.”

"You might find that not asking questions is an enjoyable past time."

In case his message had been missed, Mr Leung noted that the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac had 12 individual "character types".

Sorry if the obvious symbolism was lost on your pea brain. Here, let me really break this thing down.

"Sheep are widely seen to be mild and gentle animals living peacefully in groups," he said.

Yes, that's the usual implication. This is why "Sheeple" is a compliment.

“He has every intention of gobbling up Hong Kong for his Beijing master,” said Claudia Mo, a pro-democracy legislator, noting how Mr Leung’s detractors knew him as “the wolf”.

Whoa, there Claudia. Ask yourself how a lovable sheep would handle this.

Celebrate by watching lots of television!

Mr Leung had a track record of tactlessness, Ms Mo added. “Once he told his supporters that if others have different opinions [they should] go and shout at them.”

Yeah baby, mmmmmmm, you got some different opinions on you, aw yeah. Let me holler at you, get all Mr. Leung up in here with you.

Ma Ngok, a political scientist, told the South China Morning Post, the comment was “not smart”.

Next time just call them the Chinese language equivalent of "folks" and insist that your megalomaniac plans are "The right thing to do."

“He seems like he wants the people to blindly follow what he says like sheep following the shepherd. And CY Leung preaching more peace is kind of ironic because many people see him as the guy causing a lot of conflicts in Hong Kong."

Calls for peace but causes conflicts. That really is ironic, Alanis.

The pro-Beijing leader’s impoverished childhood instilled in him “the importance of determination and perseverance,” the profile said.

See, this is why electing silver-spoon plutocrats is the wise course of action.

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: Human Unexpectedly Beats Robot in Epic Ping Pong Battle

We'll gladly surrender our jobs, dignity and free will, but when it comes to goofy pseudo-sports we're not yet ready to let robots step in and take over. No, the continued human dominance of the miniaturized Wimbledon simulator must be protected, if only to guard the national self-esteem of Indonesia and so on. This powerful force naturally results in snark-laden "techie" articles about the modern day John Henry and his tiny ball driving hammer.

Good news, humanfolk: we don’t have to prepare ourselves for the inevitable robot apocalypse quite yet, because a ping pong pro beat a super powerful robot at table tennis yesterday.

You just know that the winner of this match is going to end up being murdered two years ago by a time traveling robot assassin.

As we noted last month, robot manufacturing company KUKA Robotics decided to celebrate the opening of its first plant in Shanghai, China, with a battle royale between ping pong champ Timo Boll and the company’s own “Agilus” robot.

A factory...opening? As an American I recognize those words, but that particular combination makes no sense to me.

Also, any educated person knows that a battle royale is an all against all war featuring many competitors, while this was clearly just a one-on-one match. Does anyone even fact check this shit? If you can't even get basic pro wrestling terminology correct I doubt you have much of substance to say about anything else.

We predicted the result might determine whether humans or robots would ultimately win the race for total world domination.

"We have never felt the touch of a woman."

Thankfully Mr. Boll emerged on top, winning the game 11-9, the Mirror reported.

It was his proudest moment since that Olympic qualifying match where both he and his opponent were trying to lose.

The victory was somewhat bittersweet, since later that day he was defeated by a concrete wall. Meanwhile the robot fell to 0-2 after losing to one of those "prove you're not a robot" letter jumbles.

"You're going down, net bot!"

Judging by the heavily-edited YouTube footage of the face-off and the catchy “Not the best in table tennis. But probably the best in robotics” catchphrase, the whole thing looks pretty staged, but we’re fine with it — as long as they didn’t let the robot win.

It was all fake b.s. but I'm fine with it - as long I get paid to vomit out an article almost completely bereft of any value.

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Komment Korner  

And keep in mind the human brain is also balancing the body, digesting food, controlling the circulation of blood, regulating breathing and heartbeat

Comments have since been disabled on youtube and thousands of unlikes because of it...

The difference is, humans are capable of determining their weaknesses, not so with robotics.

One thing I realized, this is a hoax.

Worst insult so far this year.

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.