Monday, September 17, 2018

Sunspots on My Shoulders


Obelisk much?

Well, the mysterious closing of the Sunspot Observatory in New Mexico has been followed by an equally mysterious reopening. It's not every day a Federal installation is evacuated under military orders and left deserted for several days. 

But this is 2018 and the rulebooks for normal have been delisted, shadowbanned and deleted.




Luckily, intrepid Aussie Paul Seaburn is on the case and is pointing out the gaping chasms in what passes for an official explanation of the closing.


So an entire installation is evacuated due to the alleged crime of a single individual? That make sense to anyone?
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And what exactly are these crimes? I guess we have to take their word for it. The government would never lie about something like this, right?



Well, I guess that entire episode wasn't creepy enough so I guess they had to outdo themselves. There's definitely a headline I thought I'd never read outside of an old episode of The X-Files.
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Quite literally, in fact. I think Millennium had a similar storyline back in Season Two. If memory serves, that particular subplot didn't work out all that well.


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And the Republic of Georgia, eh? What do you think that might be about?  Huh.
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And what's the big fascination with blood lately? Is Bathory-chic the next hot trend?


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So I'm pretty sure this headline here is a MADLib joke that went too far. But it also kind of reminds me of that episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show when Mary and Murray write gag headlines to amuse each other but somehow they land on Ted's desk and he reads them on-air.
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Hilarity ensued.


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But this? This is an assembly of words that should never have been used to construct a single sentence. I mean, is it just me or are you picturing the reactor room scene in Aliens too?

Maybe there was a contest at ScienceAlert to see who could come up with the most revolting headline ever.
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So in other words, a random boner pill has to undergo far more rigorous legal review than a technology that could literally create Hell on Earth.
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Growing brains in labs leads to ethical dilemmas, eh? Next you're going to tell me that diplomats carting around dangerous pathogens and the military collecting racially-targeted DNA samples do so as well.

Chill the fuck out, Nostradamus.
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Yes, it's called "they've been growing human organs in pigs for decades now." Works pretty good, so I hear.


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So I had this dream where there were a bunch of crappy mumble-hop rappers with day-glo hair and tattooed faces. But the dream got really weird...
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...because one of them went on TV and told the world he was a clone of another garbage rapper and that Gucci Mane was cloned from Michael Jackson's DNA.

Then I woke up and realized it wasn't a dream. Worse, I realized he's probably telling the truth.
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Great idea. I mean, it's not like mosquitoes are a vital part of the food chain or anything, right?

I think this is just a shot across the bow, though. What they really meant to say is "Exterminate Humanity for the Sake of Mosquitoes."
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Like I was saying.

Didn't I see this headline in the opening credit sequence of I Am Legend? Or am I thinking Phase IV? Maybe Where Have All the People Gone? My memory isn't what it used to be.
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Man, what a bummer, huh? Almost as bad as that flesh-eating STD that popped up a few weeks back.

In more cheerful news, there's a new dating app called BootECall that scores users on a point system for each confirmed hookup. You can use the points to win fun prizes at the end of every month. Those with the most conquests at the end of each calendar year are eligible to win an all-expenses paid trip to Ibiza.


In a related story, rain is falling as things get wet.
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In a saner world this would read, "OxyContin makers given multiple consecutive life sentences for crimes against humanity at the World Court in The Hague."
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Hmm...you think Oxy maybe has something to do with this phenomena? I think someone should order a 20-year study on the topic. Just make sure its findings stay sealed.


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Here's a more encouraging bit of news. I hope so, at least.
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I don't suppose Antarctica warming has anything to do with all those new and active volcanoes they're finding there, do you?


Well, I guess they can't tell since they have better maps of Mars than Antarctica.



Apparently not of Greenland, however.

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In a totally-unrelated story, "NASA CGI department gets whole new bundle of Photoshop filters." 



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Yes, because these are Gnostic times. Don't worry though, lawmakers. Next time vids leak out of you having sex with a horse or stuffing dead hookers and/or bundles of coke into your Beamer you can just tell the press they're "deep fakes." Don't worry, the press is stupid. Plus, extremely trend conscious, especially when it comes to high tech
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Finally, another weird beaching in Massachusetts Bay. I know Cohasset extremely well and this is quite odd. But it's 2018, innit? 

This tragedy in turn was followed by the horrific killing of a boogie-boarder by a great white shark at a beach in Wellfleet, the first such death since 1936. That gave me chills because my boys and I used to boogie-board a few hundred feet south at Marconi.