They did “The Slash”

It’s not easy to make today’s politics funny, but (1m 30s):

@corybooker
Some Halloween Humor amidst the Terrible Trump Truth. Incredible work by @Elle Cordova
♬ original sound – Cory

I was working in the lab late one night
when my eyes beheld an eerie sight.
Preventable diseases were on the rise
and suddenly, to my surprise
They did the slash — the monster slash!
The budget slash — and our missions were scrapped.
The science slash — turned our research to ash.
They did the slash — they did the monster slash!

Plus good news from Fix the News:

Scientists have used artificial intelligence to create an enzyme that can eat one of the toughest plastics on Earth: the kind used in foam mattresses and sneakers. The enzyme breaks polyurethane down into reusable chemicals in just 12 hours at 50°C, turning it back into raw materials. Truly circular recycling. Wild. We know it’s already in the headline, but did we mention they used AI to design this thing? Ars Technica

Plus an image from my collection… sigh:

Meaningless songs in very high voices

It’s the Hee Bee Gee Bees!

Meaningless songs in very high voices
In a pair of tight gold jeans
Meaningless songs in very high voices
And Aaaaah!… whatever that means

4 min 27 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlWqNl4Yips.

And good news from Fix the News

Swimmers dive into Chicago river after 98 years. Some 300 swimmers looped through downtown Chicago in the first official river swim since 1927, a milestone made possible by decades of cleanup, starting with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Water Act in the 1970s. Volunteers and new infrastructure revived the waterway, luring back fish, beavers, and even ‘Chonkosaurus,’ a giant snapping turtle. The Guardian

Plus an image from my collection:

Helmet ad

“Helmets have always been a good idea”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD-f45TbvEw. Two minutes 20 seconds.

Good news from Fix the News:

Ebola outbreak in the DRC met with absolutely off-the-charts public health capacity. The DRC just confirmed a new outbreak of Ebola, BUT in under 24 hours, the virus was isolated, sequenced and the sequence data made publicly available. Genuinely incredible to see this kind of resolution and turnaround go from sci-fi to feasible over the course of the last decade. Wow.

And for some reason, this picture is just super funny to me:

The cat mayoral race

Something light and easy this week: “In Somerville, Massachusetts, a community bike path has, in recent months, become a hotly contested political constituency.”

1,000 words: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/sep/05/the-cat-mayoral-race-meet-11-runners-and-riders-in-the-uss-most-furious-and-furriest-election. Apparently a ranked-choice ballot. Results soon. (And the winner is… Minerva, with the one-word campaign slogan “CRIME.” https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2025/09/16/somerville-has-a-new-cat-mayor-meet-minerva/)

And good news from Fix the News:

US prison population falls to its lowest in decades. America’s prison population has declined to its lowest level since 1992, with around 1.2 million people behind bars, down from a 2009 peak of 1.6 million. The shift reflects sentencing reforms, drug decriminalisation, diversion to treatment, and falling violent crime. The Atlantic

Plus one of my favorite pics from my collection:

Stray cat becomes guide dog trainer

This unemployed stray cat had no idea he was about to land a full-time job as a dog trainer when he walked into a building looking for shelter… When Sylvester first walked into the Leamington Guide Dogs facility he didn’t even bring a resume… He specializes in “Cat distraction training,” a critical component of guide dog training.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bm6kMsljmxE. One minute 20 seconds. If you want to use the timing slider to skip forward or backward, click this symbol

after starting the video to pop it into a separate video window, or this icon for full screen:

And good news from Fix the News:

Assam slashes child marriage by 81% in two years. Child marriage in the northeastern Indian state, home to over 30 million people, dropped by 81% between 2021 and 2024, following a statewide crackdown that included thousands of arrests, community outreach, and expanded education for girls. Authorities are now aiming for full elimination by 2026. The shift marks one of India’s sharpest ever reductions in child marriage, tackling a practice long considered socially entrenched. India Today

White and Nerdy

A song by Weird Al Yankovic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9qYF9DZPdw. 2 minutes 51 seconds. Lyrics and detailed explanation: https://genius.com/Weird-al-yankovic-white-and-nerdy-lyrics.

I’m just too white and nerdy
Really, really white and nerdy

It’s a parody of Charmillionaire’s Ridin’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwJvgPJ9xw):

They see me rollin’, they hatin’
Patrollin’ and tryna catch me ridin’ dirty…

I particularly like at 24 seconds, where Key and Peele lock the car door… of an open convertible. Also Donny Osmond’s dancing is excellent:

And the fake Trivial Pursuit card at 1:10 (for about 1 second):

And good news from Fix the News:

“The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.” Bill Gates has announced plans to give away nearly $200 billion between now and 2045, after which the Gates Foundation will permanently close its doors. In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Times (gift link), he explains why this is the time to go all in given Trump’s assault on global health, the promise of more lifesaving innovations in the near future, and the potential impact of AI.

Movie bloopers

…by extras, that somehow made it into the final film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVLq3xSClQA (8 min 25 seconds plus grrr commercials). Includes the famous Storm Trooper hitting the top of a door frame with his helmet:

And good news from Fix the News:

In the past five years, over 100 million people in Africa have gained access to electricity. Liberia has seen access go from 5% in 2017 to 35% today, Rwanda has gone from 6% in 2009 to 75% today, Nigeria is now at 70%, up from 50% a decade ago, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have reached 90%, and Rwanda, Senegal and Kenya are all targeting universal access by 2030. Global Energy Prize

⚡ Those may seem like dry numbers but it’s life-changing stuff; for a vivid look at how lives change when people gain access to electric power, check out Robert Caro’s piece on pre- and post-electricity life in 1930s rural Texas in “The Sad Irons.”

Grammar for grownups

Scatalogical ditties for those with a fondness for grammar…or those who need an attention getting device to help move their minds along!!

Start at this Youtube link. For example, You Don’t Need a F***ing Apostrophe There, WTF is That?, I’m Dreaming of a Strunk and White Christmas.

And good news from Fix the News:

America’s radical experiment in emptying youth prisons worked
In 2000, over 100,000 young Americans were locked up in juvenile detention facilities. By 2022, that number had plummeted by 75%, with 29 states experiencing even greater declines. The reduction came alongside major drops in youth crime – arrests for serious violent crimes by juveniles have fallen 78% from their peak in the 90s. New York Times

Dave Barry Year in Review 2024

Excerpts (it’s worth reading the entire 6,000 words):

January
In a troubling aviation incident, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 flying at 16,000 feet suddenly develops a refrigerator-size hole in the fuselage when an improperly attached panel blows off, terrifying passengers who have reason to wonder whether the airline crew, instead of making a big deal about the position of everybody’s tray table, should maybe be checking to see whether the plane has been correctly bolted together. As a safety precaution, the Federal Aviation Administration grounds all Max 9s and advises passengers on other Boeing aircraft to “avoid sitting near windows.” For its part, Boeing states that “at least the plane didn’t lose a really important part, like one of the whaddycallits, wings.”
February
Tucker Carlson conducts a two-hour interview with Vladimir Putin, offering Westerners a rare opportunity to find out what the Russian leader really thinks. It turns out he thinks Carlson is a useful idiot.
April
… the nation is enthralled by a total eclipse, a rare celestial occurrence in which the Earth, sun and moon align in such a way as to cause a large number of people to deliberately travel to Indianapolis. Huge crowds in the path of the totality watch excitedly as the sky gradually turns completely dark — a spectacular sight that most people will never witness again in their lifetimes, unless they’re still around at sunset.
December
…While we’re hoping, let’s hope that 2025 will be a better year. How could it be worse?

Try not to think about it.

https://archive.ph/20250102205458/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/30/dave-barry-2024-year-review/. Send me a note if you can’t access this.

Boat trails and Dam Busters

Just found this funny item. Why are the media not reporting on boat trails??? Must be a conspiracy!!!

Also, I ran across this somewhere: the famous “attack the Death Star” scene in Star Wars was deliberately a close copy of a similar scene in the movie The Dam Busters from 1955: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNdb03Hw18M (2 min 37 sec).

And good news from a recent Fix the News:

Deaths from air pollution falling worldwide
The Lancet has found that the number of people killed by air pollution from fossil fuels fell by almost 7% between 2016 and 2021, from 2.25 million to 2.09 million people. Researchers have attributed this to the closure of coal-fired power stations; $1.8 trillion went into clean energy last year, versus $1.1 trillion into fossil fuels. The Times

Despite world population increasing over that time period!