Funny News (Also, Entertaining)

Because We All Need A Laugh

Tokyo Frogs
So there's been a bit of a kerfluffle in Japan, where the nationalist governor made some.. humorous?... remarks about French that weren't taken too well.

Tokyo's outspoken governor, who was taken to court for a jibe against the French language, insists that he in fact loves France -- and even once had a French girlfriend.

Governor Shintaro Ishihara, known for his nationalist views, said in 2004 that French was disqualified as an international language as it was impossible to count in it.

Twenty-one scholars, teachers and translators, including seven French people who live in Japan, sued Ishihara for damages, saying they were defamed and their careers hurt. A judge threw out the suit.

Ishihara, 75, an acclaimed novelist who majored in French in university, stood by his remarks in an interview with AFP.

"Even the French ambassador told me he couldn't count in French," he said with a laugh.

But he added: "I love France. I was really good at French back in the day."

The man's really not kidding; he *is* good at French, and even worked as a translator for bringing French works into Japanese at one point.

Ishihara said he was friends with French writer Andre Malraux and philosopher Raymond Aron. He was also the first to translate into Japanese some of the "Contes Cruels," or "Cruel Tales," by 19th-century author Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

Meanwhile, it seems that the French system for counting really is pretty retarded.

The French numbers 0 through 19 are easy enough, right?

For 20 through 69, counting is almost just like in English: the tens word (vingt, trente, quarante, etc.) followed by the ones word (un, deux, trois). The only difference is that for 21, 31, etc., the word et is introduced between the tens word and one: vingt-et-un, trente-et-un, quarante-et-un, etc.

70 to 79 is trickier. In French, 70 is soixante-dix, literally "sixty-ten." 71 is soixante et onze (sixty and eleven), 72 is soixante-douze (sixty-twelve), and so on, up to 79.

80 is quatre-vingts, literally four-twenties (think "four-score"). 81 is quatre-vingt-un (four-twenty-one), 82 is quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenty-two), and so on, all the way up to ninety. 90 is quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten), 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), etc.

100 to 999 work just like in English, except that when you have cent at the end of the number, it takes an s, but when cent is followed by another number, the s is dropped. Also, note that you cannot pause after the word cent.
200 = deux cents
500 = cinq cents
350 = trois cent cinquante
872 = huit cent soixante-douze

1,000+ are similar to English, except that the separator is a period or space, rather than a comma (learn more). When reciting a number, you can pause to take a breath at the separator (after mille, million, or milliard). Note that mille never takes an s.

So French has at least sex separate ways to organize their numbers, including four under 100.

I have to say, I'm with the Governor on this one.

Sources: Raw Story
About.com

HULK SING
SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

HULK TURN INTO BANNER

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY MAKE BANNER ANGRY

BANNER TURN INTO HULK

HULK SING

SONG MAKE HULK HAPPY

ERROR: RECURSION DETECTED

Source: Progressive Ruin

Schlussel Part Two
So, I tore Debbie Schlussel up a bit in the last post. Something about her being a colossal retard, I dunno. Just to be fair to the, ahem, lady, let's take a bit of a biographical look at her work, shall we?

Debbie Schlussel, 37 years old, supports her pundit habit by practicing commercial law in suburban Detroit. She is among the most proactive B-list pundits. Almost daily, she emails her appearance schedule, availability or sharp-elbowed conservative commentaries to 5,000 people in media and politics.

In the wake of North Korea's recent nuclear test, a hawkish Ms. Schlussel hit the radio circuit, saying U.S. officials responded too mildly in calling the test "a provocative act." "A Paris Hilton video is a provocative act," she said. "What North Korea did was an act of war." To get noticed, Ms. Schlussel says, "I've become the master of the confrontational sound bite."

...

Ask her to survey the punditry landscape, from the A-list on down, and she gets contemplative. "Who is good who does what I do?" she says out loud as she thinks. Soon enough, the answer comes to her. "Me!"

Ahh I see. She's a useless fame whore.

That explains a lot really.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (how's THAT for making my blog 'fair and balanced'?)

Half-Baked Reasoning
Sometimes you can make the right legal decision for the completely wrong reason.

Case in point, a Canadian court considering a traffic stop and drug search.

A Saskatchewan appeal's court upheld a decision that the smell of burnt marijuana is not evidence of illegal drug possession since by definition the proof has gone up in smoke, it said Wednesday.

"The smell of burnt marijuana does not reasonably support the inference that additional marijuana is present," the three-judge panel said in newly-released court filings.

Ok, ok, that sounds logical. We don't want a world where any cop can search any person on the basis of 'odors' that could be entirely in their minds, or better yet, fictitious.

Surely that's the logical reason that the Court used to reject this search, right? That the 'cause' for the search was a completely subjective 'I think it smelled like pot' excuse from a cop?

Wrong.

Archibald's lawyer Ronald Piche successfully argued the warrantless search and seizure were "unreasonable" because the aroma of burnt marijuana -- as opposed to raw marijuana -- infers that the drug has dissipated.

"How can you say you're in possession of something that doesn't exist," Piche told the daily Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

Interesting perspective. If you test positive for cocaine in a blood test after a traffic accident, can you then argue that the cocaine no longer exists, as it's been assimilated into your blood?

Probably not. Marijuana smoke is still marijuana, pointdexter.

Except in Canada.

Source: Raw Story

They Were 11
They Were 11 sounds good. A psychodrama about 10 people who are supposed to spend 50something days alone on a survival expedition in space as a final exam for school entry... only 11 people show up on the ship, and then things start to go terribly wrong.

Duh duh DUH

Ok, this isn't so much funny. It's more entertaining.

Source: Anime News Network

Random Item Alert

Best of the Interwebs? Worst of the Interwebs?

Commentaries
First up, a lengthy examination of the merits of various superheroes and their powers. The verdict?

The Flash has the greatest powers of all time. (A bit surprising I know).

Source: Mushroomblock.com

Next up, The Onion takes on the Patriots' Perfect Season -- Perfect for Everyone Else, at least.

FOXBOROUGH, MA—As the once-invincible, still-insufferable Patriots attempt to come to grips with their 17-14 Super Bowl loss to the Giants, the death of their dream to go undefeated, and the possible end of their dynasty, almost every other person in America is reveling in what they consider the perfect ending to New England's season.

"I just couldn't imagine a better ending to the Patriots odyssey," said Simon Williams, a Kansas City-area football fan who usually watches the college game but found himself caught up in the Patriots' sheer loathsomeness during the season. "The utter lack of humility they displayed alongside an equal lack of any joy in the game, that toad of a coach, and that cologne-ad quarterback… If they have to act that badly while playing that well, you really want to see them fail in the biggest way possible. Thank God almighty, that's what we got."

I feel that way about all pro-football players, myself, but it's nice to see it in print. Thank you, Onion.

Source: The Onion

British Store Sells A Great Model
Would look great in many a bedroom.

Source: The Register

Spidey vs Lead Pipes!
Newspaper Spiderman is notoriously lousy at the actual superheroic game, but he is also, apparently, a lot less powerful than his large format self.

His previous interaction with a falling brick to the back of the head (and subsequent amnesia) is well known among a certain class of internet snarks, but twice over the last two years he has been felled by an ordinary human swinging an ordinary lead pipe.

How can the most agile and alert superhero of all time be hit by mere mortals with a bludgeoning tool? Is this an example of lame writing and terrible, terrible inconsistency in the newspaper strip? I say Nay, friends. Paper-Spidey is secretly weak against LEAD PIPES. They must block his Spidey-sense, which could indicate that it is in fact merely a form of harmful ionizing radiation that his body emits as part of his superpowers.

Thus giving everyone close to him cancer... no... wait, sorry, that's from an Alan Moore comic.

Hmm. I still say it's the pipes. Maybe the ancient Roman god of Plumbing hates Spiderman?

Source: joshreads.com
joshreads.com

MSNBC-Misogyny
Amanda Marcotte takes apart a hilariously outmoded opinion piece written by a bitter single woman about how it's better to settle for an unhappy marriage than be... a bitter single woman.

"To the outside world, of course, we still call ourselves feminists and insist — vehemently, even — that we’re independent and self-sufficient and don’t believe in any of that damsel-in-distress stuff, but in reality, we aren’t fish who can do without a bicycle, we’re women who want a traditional family. And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know — no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure — feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

Oh, I know — I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about."

Thanks for doing my work for me! In exchange, I’ll be generous enough to point out that my lack of desperation to get married and have kids has a lot to do with a general unwillingness to get married and have kids. Some people are allergic to cat hair. I’m allergic to strollers. Tragic, I know.

Me, I have a pathological aversion to screaming, wailing, and disgusting dirty diapers. So I definitely get where she's coming from there.

Seriously, read the whole thing. This is classic.

Source: Pandagon

Necking
So Hockey is showing its gruesome, crimson true color.

Florida Panthers left wing Richard Zednik was recovering in hospital Monday after he was gashed in the neck by a skate blade, the National Hockey League team said.

In a statement posted on the team website, the Panthers said the Slovakian born player continued to recover, but gave no further information on his condition.

Sportsnet of Canada reported that Zednik underwent a two-hour emergency operation Sunday night to repair a cut to his carotid artery.

Zednik was inadvertently slashed in the neck by the skate blade of teammate Olli Jokinen of Finland in a game against the Buffalo Sabres.

Oooh... nasty.

And here's the part where I say, "It gets worse"

It gets worse:

Zednik bled profusely from his neck but was able to skate toward his bench where he was met by the trainer and taken to the locker room.

The game was delayed as blood was cleaned from the ice and both coaches waited to hear if the player was all right.

Only when they were informed Zednik was in stable condition and on his way to the hospital did they decide to continue with the game which was eventually won by Buffalo 5-3.

This has happened before in Buffalo, it seems.

The play brought back memories of when then-Buffalo netminder Clint Malarchuk had his jugular vein sliced in a 1989 game against the St. Louis Blues.

BUFFALO IS CURSED

Then again, maybe it's hockey.. a sport where every player is armed with a blunt object and sails around hard ice at 30 mph on sharpened serrated knives..

This is the second skate cut incident for the National Hockey League in two days.

Veteran NHL linesman Pat Dapuzzo was injured when Philadelphia Flyer's Steve Downie inadvertently struck Dapuzzo in the face with his skate in a game between Philadelphia and New York on Saturday.

The 25-year veteran suffered cuts to his nose, cheek and jaw requiring dozens of stitches.

I *KNEW* hockey had potential.

Those Canadians know how to live, man. Violence Ball is their Kingdom's Number One activity.

(AKA, Hockey)

Source: Raw Story