What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Martin World News




ITEM: First up, many of you have wondered what kind of reception my "motivational poster" had at work today:



This wonderful 8X10 glossy got a handful of reactions- mostly because most employees were too busy either causing or trying to deal with disasters to stop by.  I'm in a slightly out-of-the-way area of the plant.  But here are the reactions so far:

- three counts of chuckling, "Aw, that's cute!"
- one, "Heh heh heh, you got THAT right!"
- one, "Perfect!"
- one hearty laughter followed by, "Does he have something in his mouth, or is his tongue hanging out?"

I'm still waiting for a, "You do walk him a lot, right?  RIGHT??!!?"

ITEM:  Once again I will spare you the gorey details of the day except for two notes:

One, the engineering department covered itself in "glory" above and beyond their usual today.  And the corporate head of their department was here to witness it all.

Two, at the end of the day, I told my boss, "Y'know, usually we let the poor thing up after a while, but we screwed the pooch pretty much all day today."
I don't think I ever saw someone double over in laughter quite that quick.


ITEM:  I have my THIRD hockey champion of the year!  The Oilers of Stavanger won the Norwegian title for the fourth time, with their third triumph over arch rival Valerenga.  More details will be on the update next weekend on the NHFFL page.

ITEM:  My faithful yet wishing to be anonymous friend  e-mailed me a story I told her just HAD to make MWN. 


BERLIN — A German furniture store chain has apologized for selling coffee mugs featuring faint portraits of Adolf Hitler it had mistakenly ordered from a Chinese supplier, a news report said on Thursday.
The vintage-style ceramic cups feature a faint image of a Nazi-era postage stamp that shows a black-and-white profile of Hitler, postmarked with a swastika stamp, all obscured by other design elements including a rose and cursive script.
 
 
 


The owner blamed the “terrible” mistake on “a stupid chain of unfortunate circumstances” involving a Chinese designer who has mistakenly chosen the image of the Nazi leader, the news report said.


Gee, sounds like the typical day at my job for the last two weeks!  Apparently the store had already sold 175 out of the 5,000 piece lot before somebody noticed.  Cheer up, guys, the fabric WE get from China ain't much better....

(PS- This article courtesy Times Of Israel.  The rest, save for the one below, were from BBC.)


ITEM:  Speaking of China, I found an article that I really am left scratching my head at who to laugh at.  The article was an op-ed on China's Xinhua, taking the current Japanese government to task for "denying their crimes in WWII".  Now I know that this has come up before- it recently got fanned to a flame again after the newly appointed head of their National public TV network opened his mouth.  This time it was chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, who passed off the 35,000,000 number of Chinese casualties caused by Japanese soldiers during the war and the Nanking Massacre:

The secretary refused to recognize the number of the victims, saying that the Japanese government has yet to verify the "various views".


Uh, yeah, but if you've been around here long enough, you've read me mention a book called Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini which was a well-documented and damning profile of just what happened in Nanking and elsewhere.  For Japan to deny or quibble over numbers is as callous and sickening as listening to the Turks claim the Armenian Genocide never happened.  On the other hand...

Still, the Abe administration shamelessly denied the history to encourage the country's already growing rightist tilt, angering not only its victims but also every righteous nation in the world.
Were Tokyo a responsible player, it would nip in the bud the tilt which could jeopardize peace and stability of East Asia. Unluckily, its prime minister, carrying his family's "political DNA," become even a pioneer among the country's rightists.


Strong words from a country not all that willing to discuss the AT LEAST 18 million killed during the Great Leap Forward.  But just like the Left here, It seems evil is all the "rightists'" fault.


ITEM:  US Airways will probably want to watch who they give access to the company twitter account from here on.  Apparently, a lady sent several tweets to them regarding sitting on the tarmac for over an hour on a recent flight.  Eventually, they finally answered, and probably wished they hadn't...They sent a final tweet asking her to detail the trip and her complaints at what they INTENDED to be a web link.  Somehow, instead they posted the link to a picture that someone had sent to their twitter account that they "meant to delete..."


Now, you know me, I have no problem putting up pictures of the slightly risqué, but even the censored version don't make the cut here.  The pic was one of a lady with evidently loose morals, sitting naked and flying a model US Air jet into her coochie.  Buzzfeed learned that the image originally appeared in a German porn site.  How did it become the answer to a customer complaint?

We apologize for an inappropriate image recently shared as a link in one of our responses. We’ve removed the tweet and are investigating.



Uh-HUH.

ITEM:  Austria's Andreas Moellzer, a candidate for the European Parliament from the Freedom Party, has been asked and will withdraw from the upcoming elections to the body.


Moellzer, the old boy on the left, has lost favor, even for a legislator in a far-right party, for describing the EU as "a conglomerate of Negroes," and that the EU made the Third Reich look "informal and liberal."  So, why was it you were running, anyway?


ITEM:  The self-proclaimed "Robin Hood of Liechtenstein" has struck his last-or has he?  This man, a fund manager named Juergen Hermann, had been having a hate-hate relationship with Juergen Frick, head of Liechtenstein's Bank Frick.  That ended when Hermann murdered Frick in the parking garage of his bank.  Hermann's website, where he fought his campaign against Frick and other financial institutions, was taken down the night before; the police have found his car, his clothes, his passport, and a confession note- but no body, the trail leading to the Rhine where they THINK he drowned himself.  But they are still investigating, and they have INTERPOL on the lookout for what may be a soggy, naked man fleeing the Sheriff of Nottingham.

ITEM:  In Sao Paulo, Brazil, it's bad enough that motorists need to watch out for falling soccer stadiums.  Now, the latest way the government has tried to ease traffic "by expanding the area where motorists can turn or wait at lights" really has them confused:


The drivers can't explain it.  I can't explain it... 


...But Sao Paulo's transit authority, the CET, says the road markings are normal and meet regulations. Correspondents say Sao Paulo's lane dividers sometimes expand to give turning drivers some extra room, but they admit the lines on Avenida Dr Francisco Ranieri in the city's north zone are rather odd.

Uh, yeah...


ITEM:  A UN "special rapporteur"  by the name of Rashida Manjoo has accused the UK of being especially sexist.

She said sexism was worse in the UK than in other places, and warned that the government's austerity measures were having a "disproportionate impact" on women's risk of violence.
She said sexism in the UK was more "in your face" than in other countries, and raised serious concerns about the portrayal of women and girls in the media.


It might just be me, but I would have thought she might have been safe...



(Crap.  She'll be after me next!)

ITEM:  And finally, one I know you'll love.  North Korean officials showed up at London's M&M Hair Academy wanting to know just what was so funny about this ad:




Apparently the owner of the salon didn't know the North Korean embassy was just "a 10 minutes walk" from the academy.  Nor did they know this little tidbit:

Last month it was reported by Radio Free Asia that male university students in North Korea were now required to get the same haircut as their leader.

Or did they?  As the old Clairol ads went, "Only the hairdresser knows for sure..."





 

14 comments:

  1. So there are at least two (three if you count the one hanging the poster) people at your work who could potentially fit the profile of an office shooter. Not saying it's going to happen, but I'd be REAL friendly to those two who were a little too excited about the poster.
    I have to defend myself and anyone who recognizes shades of grey (which I hope and pray is the majority of the population), not all lefties think that the right is responsible for all the evil. This is true for both sides, which, I hope will be the uniting factor for reasonable people against anyone who deals in "us vs. them" rhetoric, or believe that the nutty people that sensationalistic media outlets parade around as examples of "the other side" actually represent anyone but the fringes.
    We're all just people and need to relate on that level instead of devolving into shouting stereotypes of political affiliations. (Oh no, I just wanted to punch my own hippie face for that. There is no hope.)
    On a different note, what is up with Sao Paolo's street system? In the words of no one who created that mug, Oy Vey. Also, though he parts his hair differently, doesn't Adam Levine of "The Voice" have the same haircut?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Wow, that's a mouthful!

      I'd first say I agree with your main premise. I will however, go after the "lefties" that try to attack the right as evil- just Ias I went after the "rightie" from Austria. Both extremes can be moronic. But unfortunately there are far too many non-extremists listening to garbage from their side's extremists. One of my occasional commenters is a reasonable liberal sort, but gets taken in a lot by all the nonsense haters spout about the Tea Party. I wonder if the age of internet and Facebook has made it impossible for us to "relate on that level" anymore. Perhaps what we need is a good EMP and bring it all down...

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  2. That haircut is hideous and i will refrain from commenting about the Adam Levine comment made above. I am a fan of Adam.

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    1. IDK Adam, so I had to look him up. The one picture it was similar in hairstyle... but since he was nekkid from about three inches below the beltline up, you can be forgiven for not noticing.

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  3. I wish I could say I thought the person who worked at US Airways would truly be fired for posting the picture. But, in this day in age, it was probably some form of viral advertising. Cheap, effective and who cares if it's offensive.

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    1. I think somebody got his personal account and the airline account confused while on the clock.

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  4. Uh . . . I'm very glad I don't live in Sao Paolo. At first I though perhaps a drunkard painted the lines and then realized that they wouldn't be so sharp. Reminds of that old nursery rhyme about the crooked man who lived in a crooked house . . . lol

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    1. Hah! Now you have me singing the song... "Uh-oh (uh-oh) don't let the rain come down... my roof's got a hole in it, I might drown..."

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  5. Chris:
    I don't know whether to laugh my butt off at these stories...or shake my head in disgust.
    (note?: I tried doing BOTH at once...NOT for the squeamish!)
    Talk about a Doppler effect AND a cheap head-rush...now I KNOW why Stevie Wonder moves his head from side to side...LOL)

    Good reporting on ALL the unusual stuff.
    And that Brazil deal?
    Musta been some hung over guy on Monday in the streets department.
    (we may have a job for HIM in Ft. Wayne...with that diverging diamond gig...LMAO)

    Stay safe up there.

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    1. I'm with JDay- the lines were too sharp to be a mere Monday fail. I'm guessing it's what happens when an OCD can't draw a straight line.

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  6. I'd love to have some of those Hitler mugs. Such fun when I have guests over.

    In defense of the Chinese, they probably didn't recognize the picture as being Hitler since to them all Aryans look alike.

    Lee
    An A to Z Co-Host
    Tossing It Out

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    1. They said that it was taken from a stamp with a swastika postmark. I think they had a clue...

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    2. The swastika is a long venerated symbol that has been used for ages. I think it's also a Chinese character for "Good Luck" or "Honorable Aryan".

      (I don't know why I'm defending the Chinese. Surely there's enough of them to defend themselves)

      Lee
      Wrote By Rote
      An A to Z Co-host blog

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    3. "Honorable Aryan"? Boy, they missed the boat on THAT one, lol!

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