News You Can't Use: Burgers Outselling Classic Baguette Sandwiches in France

Forget the baguette. The French are going crazy for burgers.

As your number one source of news from The Hexagon, I'm pleased to report that the long and ugly "Freedom Fries" wars have ended with total victory for the good guys. We've got them eating our unhealthy garbage cuisine. When the time comes for the old "How about some war with Iran? You know, for freedom?" they'll just meekly go along with it as if they were the United Kingdom or something.

Figures released this week revealed that sales of the jambon-beurre – the ham and butter baguette sandwich, a classic of French snacking – have been surpassed by sales of American-style burgers.

In unrelated news, health care costs have exploded.

“Even the Americans are looking at us with wide-eyed amazement,” Bernard Boutboul, general director of Gira Conseil, told The Associated Press.

Honestly, my jaw is on the floor. "Amazement" doesn't seem like nearly a strong enough word for this incredible new revelation.

“Obviously the rise in popularity is not linked to sales at McDonald’s or other fast-food restaurants,” Boutboul said in a phone interview. “It’s due to the growing number of restaurants putting burgers on their menu.”

Before you get crazy ideas about Clown Burger overrunning the City of Lights you should be reminded that it's actually very classy top quality eating establishments were the item in question is called Le Royale Amer-Eee-Cann Steak.

“The French’s favorite sandwich is losing ground, slowly but steadily,” the study said.

You will be converted. All your (le) resistance is futile. International trash culture is unstoppable.

Boutboul said the burger frenzy started about a decade ago after three-star Michelin chef Yannick Alleno, based in Paris, won the New York Times’ award for the best burger in the world.

I'm guessing this guy doesn't cook tires, but what other conclusion remains?

Mon bras gauche pique.

“Despite a rise in the numbers of jambon-beurre consumed this year, long gone are the prosperous years,” the study said. “In 2012, the jambon-beurre market share was 62 percent. It lost more than 11 percent over five years.”

The golden age of the jambon-beurre is truly over. Be happy because it happened, not sad because it's over.

Full Story.

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

In the Hall of the Trumpen King

March 9
THE ANTHROPOPHAGUS HAS QUITTED HIS DEN

March 10
THE CORSICAN OGRE HAS LANDED AT CAPE JUAN

March 11
THE TIGER HAS ARRIVED AT CAP

March 12
THE MONSTER SLEPT AT GRENOBLE

March 13
THE TYRANT HAS PASSED THOUGH LYONS

March 14
THE USURPER IS DIRECTING HIS STEPS TOWARDS DIJON

March 18
BONAPARTE IS ONLY SIXTY LEAGUES FROM THE CAPITAL
He has been fortunate enough to escape his pursuers

March 19
BONAPARTE IS ADVANCING WITH RAPID STEPS, BUT HE WILL NEVER ENTER PARIS

March 20
NAPOLEON WILL, TOMORROW, BE UNDER OUR RAMPARTS

March 21
THE EMPEROR IS AT FONTAINEBLEAU

March 22
HIS IMPERIAL AND ROYAL MAJESTY arrived yesterday evening at the Tuileries, amid the joyful acclamation of his devoted and faithful subjects

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: America's Number One Prescription Sleep Aid Could Trigger 'Zombies,' Murder and Other Disturbing Behavior

Have you noticed the recent increase in "zombies," deadly violence and the general breakdown of normalcy? I'm going to pretend y'all didn't immediately answer "No, I'm busy watching football." It turns out that sleep aids are fueling these Mad Max scenarios, as crazed insomniacs are now a menace on par with being hit by a meteor or losing your soul to the pinball devil.

On March 29, 2009, Robert Stewart, 45,  stormed into the Pinelake Health and Rehab nursing home in Carthage, North Carolina and opened fire.

No Europe, this is not a commonplace event here. It really isn't.

Stewart’s defense team successfully argued that since he was under the influence of Ambien, a sleep aid, at the time of the shooting, he was not in control of his actions.

"Feel so drowsy...must kill..."

Ambien works by activating the neurotransmitter  GABA and binding it to the GABA receptors in the same location as the benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Valium.

Oh, right. The location the benzodiazepines go to. Of course. I was having a little trouble understanding the medical mumbo-jumbo, but that helpful reference cleared it all up.

In other words, it slows down the brain.

Think of it like television in pill form.

Although the Ambien prescribing information warned, in small print, that medications in the hypnotic class had occasional side effects including sleep walking, “abnormal thinking,” and “strange behavior,” these behaviors were listed as extremely rare

This is the part of the TeeVee ad where the smarmy narrator speaks faster than the Micro Machine man and lawyers begin to experience sexual arousal.

It wasn’t until Patrick Kennedy’s 2006 middle-of-the-night car accident and subsequent explanation to arriving officers that he was running late for a vote that the bizarre side effects of Ambien began to receive national attention.

Yes. I'll never forget how every 2006 conversation was dominated by Patrick Kennedy and his "Got to go vote!" antics. It really captured the national imagination, that's for sure.

I think you might have gotten the side-effects of Ambien confused with the side-effects of alcohol, another medicinal substance that may have secret ingredients capable of causing poorly understood "strange behavior." We need more research and litigation before we'll know for sure.

Ambien’s French manufacturer, made $2 billion in sales at its peak.

"Surrender to a good night's sleep!"

Shortly after the Kennedy incident, Ambien users sued Sanofi because of bizarre sleep-eating behaviors while on the drugs.

Yes Europe, this is an accurate depiction of Americans.

people were eating things like buttered cigarettes and eggs complete with the shells, while under the influence of Ambien.

Not a lot of vitamins in these Marlboros.

Lask called people in this state “Ambien zombies.”

Because lame pop-culture references make everything better. I would have gone with "I popped an Amber, I'm sweating and eating cigarettes, woo."

As a result of the lawsuit, and of increasing reports coming in about “sleep driving,” the FDA ordered all hypnotics to issue stronger warnings on their labels.

No more using "comic sans" font for those labels. This is serious, now.

In March of 2011, Lindsey Schweigert took one Ambien before getting into bed at 6pm. Hours later, she woke up in custody with no idea how she’d gotten there.

I wanna party with you, Lindsey.

The smart money is on the plants.

She started driving to a local restaurant but crashed into another car soon after leaving her house. Police described her as swaying and glassy-eyed. She failed a sobriety test and was charged with DWI and running a stoplight.

Believe it or not taking powerful sleeping pills may impair your driving. Thank you for sharing this revelation, I feel we've learned a lot here today.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

 
Maybe this is the reason Obama doesn't remember anything with Fast & Furious, Benghazi, CIA and NSA.

I've taken it for seven years with no ill effects. I will be very upset if the Nanny State bans this.

Does the author of this article not know that public nuisance, Patrick Kennedy and his weasel attorneys made up the Ambien story?

Dammn why didn't they have this stuff when I was a kid?

Is anyone else getting tire of this?

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.

News You Can't Use: Fork Vibrates When You Eat Too Quickly

The stagnation in fork technology, especially when compared to the dynamic and exciting field of the knife, has been a troubling indictment of modern society. Why are we still using tined eating implements that would not have been out of place in 1900? Where is the innovation? And most importantly, how can it strip the joy out of stuffing garbage straight from a chemistry lab into the old sarcasm hole? Well, someone finally stepped up. For the first time since the introduction of the spork the dinner table landscape has changed, perhaps irrevocably.

Looks at fork, looks at toothbrush, looks at marital aid...an invention is born!

 

An electronic fork that vibrates when you eat too quickly has hit the marketplace. It's called the HAPIfork. It's makers say it allows the consumer to quickly monitor and reduce the speed at which they eat.

The average modern person is completely helpless without various electronic devices beeping and buzzing and generally giving orders. No longer will we have to rely on indicators like "my mouth is currently full" or "man, my stomach hurts" when a simple, expensive as all hell, device can do the job for us. The next logical step is putting a phone and internet connection into it. Maybe an app that makes a map on how to get from the plate to the big hole in your head.

The French inventors hope it can help combat obesity.

This intolerant fork is guilty of fat shaming! Hate crime! Fatophobia! Shame! Shame! Shame!

Body Type: Average. Nationality: American.

 

If someone is deemed to be eating too fast, HAPIfork alerts them with a gentle vibration and indicator light to remind them to slow down.

Don't go getting any weird ideas, ladies.

The company is trying to raise money via the crowd funding site Kickstarter.  People who pledge $99 to the company get one of the forks.

What a brilliant idea "Kickstarter" is. It's like an initial public offering with all expectations of "return on investment" neatly removed. $99 for a vibrating fork. Give $98 and you get the warm inner satisfaction of funding an idea so profoundly stupid that it almost beggars belief.

All the amazing details.

Komment Korner

Michael Moore could use his as a jackhammer.

If Limbaugh had one, would be shaking like Madonna's nightstand....

Only the French could be this stupid!

Now you will be told how fast you can eat, then next on the list will be how fast you should breathe, because as Bloomberg said, we know better then you do, what's best for you. You're too stupid.

Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in e-book format at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.