Don't Panic! Lighten Up! -- Signs of the Times News

Don't Panic! Lighten Up!

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 … 225 226 Next »

Satire: Nation Demands Fresh Celebrity Meat

The Onion
Fri, 02 Oct 2009 09:55 EDT

Hollywood, California - Like famished dogs salivating before a warm and steaming carcass, a coalition of bloodthirsty Americans demanded this week that the entertainment industry provide them with newer, fresher celebrities to mercilessly devour.

"Our most sumptuous celebrities have been picked to the bone," a statement by the group, Citizens for Renewed Celebrity Consumption, read in part. "We can no longer subsist vicariously on the travails and public deteriorations of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. These fetid idols are mere shreds of their former selves, and we, the American entertainment consumers, grow ever hungrier for a new crop of stars on which to feast."

"We need meat!" the statement continued. "Raw, bloody meat!"

Gas mask bra traps Ig Nobel prize

Victoria Gill
BBC News
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:10 EDT

Designers of a bra that turns into gas masks and a team who found that named cows produce more milk were among the winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel prizes.

The aim of the awards is to honour achievements that "first make people laugh and then make them think".

The peace prize went to a Swiss research team who determined whether it is better to be hit over the head with a full or empty bottle of beer.

The ceremony was organised by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

Best of the Web: Everything is OK, Your Government is in Control

YouTube
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:54 EDT

Metro
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:00 EDT

This is the moment a tiny but very angry kingbird hitched a piggyback ride on a red tail hawk.

The feisty little flyer began attacking the bird of prey after it ventured too near its nest.

Pat Gaines, 41, captured the moment at Bonny Lake park in Colorado.

'I've never seen a hawk harassed so much. The kingbird pecked at its head as the hawk flew away screaming,' she said.

Gen. Ray Odierno
The Onion
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:47 EDT

Boy, how these last six years have flown by. Back in 2003, when we first arrived here in your country, we certainly didn't expect things to turn out the way they did. It seems like only yesterday we were marching into Baghdad, waiting to be greeted with shouts of gratitude and appreciation for saving you from the evil dictator who ruled your totalitarian state with an iron fist. Well, the surge is over and we're gonna roll pretty soon, so I just wanted to mention that it's not too late to greet us as liberators if you get the chance.

Honestly, there's still time. In fact, a spontaneous belated welcoming party right about now would feel pretty great.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "What about all those roadside bombs and beheading videos and what have you? Wouldn't it be a little awkward for us to shower you with kisses and chants of 'U.S.A.!' now, after all the blood and gore and amputations?" Not at all. Hey, that's all water under the bridge, as far as I'm concerned. I can see how you might feel a little bit nervous or shy about embracing us as beacons of liberty six years into our occupation of your country, especially after all those civilians we accidentally killed, but it's never too late to show a little gratitude.

Click Orlando/The Associated Press
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00 EDT

© The Keene Sentinel
Jane Bockstruck and instructor Paul E. Peckham Jr. soar through the sky above Jumptown in Orange, Mass., last weekend.

Grandma Trumps Last Oldest By 14 Years

A 92-year-old New Hampshire woman has celebrated her birthday by skydiving from a plane at 13,000 feet.

Swanzey resident Jane Bockstruck tells The Keene Sentinel newspaper she doesn't know what overcame her when she decided to take the parachute jump.

With a group of friends and relatives watching, Bockstruck leaped Sept. 19 at the Jumptown skydiving club in Orange, Mass., west of Boston. She says she doesn't remember jumping from the plane.

But tandem partner and jump instructor Paul Peckham Jr. says she had perfect form and landed without a hitch.

He says she's the oldest person he's taken on a jump. The second-oldest was 78.

Daily Mail
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:04 EDT

In an ultimate case of crossed wires, a tiny tree frog's bug-catching antics left it with a bellyful of bulb.

The Cuban tree frog took on an unnatural glow when it swallowed an entire fairy light in a botched bid to catch an insect.

The unlucky amphibian had been hunting in the back garden of wildlife photographer James Snyder when it made a bid for the snack.

James, who lives in Palm Beach, Florida, had decorated his back yard with colourful lights after noticing that frogs had worked out lights attracted bugs.

But one night he discovered that one of the little beasts had bitten off far more than it could chew.

Is President Obama really a robot?

Eric Spiegelman
Timesonline/Vimeo
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:27 EDT

Think back to how you felt during the last family photo. Then imagine holding that smile through 130 snaps with foreign dignitaries. Would it waver? Crumble? Disappear altogether?

Not if you're Barack Obama. Our thanks go to Eric Spiegelman who invested what must have been a significant amount of effort in proving that the US President really is an automaton.

Watch this.

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Samantha Henry
The Associated Press
Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:56 EDT

© AP Photo/Rich Schultz
Astrid Thoening celebrates her 100th birthday while working as the receptionist for the Thornton Agency in Parsippany, N.J., Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009. Thoening has worked for the same company for the last 32 years.

Astrid Thoenig got dressed, went to work and sat at her desk smiling Thursday as she slid her finger gently under the envelope flap of yet another identical birthday card. They don't make that many that say "Happy 100th."

Thoenig was interrupted by a steady stream of deliverymen bringing bouquets, chocolate-dipped strawberries and stacks of cards to the Thornton Insurance Co. in Parsippany where she's been answering phones, keeping financial records, handling payroll and typing up documents for more than 30 years.

"It's another day - it's hard to explain," Thoenig said of turning 100. "I don't feel old, and I don't think old."

Born Sept. 24, 1909, in Bloomfield, N.J., Thoenig's earliest memories start in 1918, when she witnessed something so traumatic, "it erased all memories of my childhood before that."

"I remember coming down the stairs from my bedroom and saw these two coffins in the living room: one white, for my sister, and the other for the grown person," she said, recalling how the flu pandemic of 1918 killed her father and her 10-year-old sister within hours of one another. "To see my father and sister - of all the things I can't remember - that's very vivid in my mind."

RIA Novosti
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:47 EDT

Ireland on Thursday will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country's most famous export beer, Guinness, the Irish Times has reported.

Arthur Guinness, the founder of the brewery, signed a 9,000-year lease on the brewery at St. James's Gate in Dublin on September 24, 1759. The company has called the day Arthur's Day and has asked everyone to lift a pint of brew at exactly 5:59 p.m. (or 17:59) to celebrate the signing of the lease.

At the main brewery in Dublin, artists like Tom Jones and Boyzone frontman Ronan Keating will be performing. In honor of the occasion, artists such as reggae star Sean Paul will play in Lagos, Nigeria, and the Black Eyed Peas will perform in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Irish Times reported.

« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 … 225 226 Next »

123,175 people have viewed this page since Fri, 26 Jan 2007

Donate once - or every month! Click here to learn how you can help!

Emails sent to Signs of the Times, Ark, Laura, or Cassiopaea become the property of Quantum Future Group, Inc and may be republished without notice.

Some icons appearing on this site were taken from KDE-look.org, Afterglow, Mayosoft, Everaldo, IconDrawer, VisualPharm, IconFactory, Klukeart, Icons-land, TpdkDesign.net, and IconShock.com.

Remember, we need your help to collect information on what is going on in your part of the world!
Send your article suggestions to: email

Original content © 2009 by SOTT.net/Signs of the Times.
See: Fair Use Policy (http://www.sott.net/signs/signs-fair-use.htm)

NEW! Available now!

Featured Book:

NEW! Available Now!

Over 1 BILLION Served!

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Donate once - or every month!
Click here to learn how you can help!

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The free press is the mother of all our liberties and of our progress under liberty" Adlai E. Stevenson

"There is no more important struggle for American democracy than ensuring a diverse, independent and free media. Free Press is at the heart of that struggle." Bill Moyers

"This is, in theory, still a free country, but our politically correct, censorious times are such that many of us tremble to give vent to perfectly acceptable views for fear of condemnation. Freedom of speech is thereby imperiled, big questions go undebated, and great lies become accepted, unequivocally as great truths." Simon Heffer in The Daily Mail, 7 June 2000

"The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823

"A cantankerous press, an obstinate press, a ubiquitous press, must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the right of the people to know.": Murray I. Gurfein

One of the shrewdest ways for human predators to conquer their stronger victims is to steadily convince them with propaganda that they're still free. N.A. Scott