- Roadkill mystery solved? Biology professor 95% sure it’s a badger – No, that is not an Onion headline. From jes3ica.
- Religious people are nerds – From Tort.
- MTV’s Real World contract: You might be raped
- Petition calls for Bert and Ernie to marry – But then it’d be weird for them to each have their own little bed.
Since when were Bert and Ernie adults?
They don’t live with guardians in their own apartment in New York City … if they’re not adults, Big Bird better call NY’s Administration for Children’s Services! Of course, they’re muppets, so the whole ‘adulthood’ thing may not apply.
Dave Hoppe, fellow UMM professor, is always a voice of reason. That badger story was really overblown.
I loved his comment of “It’s probably not an alien, since it’s got all the characteristics of a badger.”
Ah, but how does he know that it is an American badger?
Because Minnesota is in America?
It could be one o’ them commie Candadian (Ka-nah-dee-ahn) badgers.
I absolutely LOVED this quote: “The interest people have in that which might be abnormal is normal in itself.”
I was under the impression that Sesame Street ran a lot like the Peanuts’ world: highly independent children with technically present, but invisible parents.
That was my impression, but, having, to my shame, spent more than the appropriate 2 seconds thinking about this petition, I have realized that Elmo is a baby monster, with parents, hence the other monsters and muppets must be fully mature.
But wait – Big Bird is a baby condor, yet lives in his own independent nest…
Wonder why they didn’t send the roadkill down to the veterinary path lab at UMN in St. Paul. They may be able to determine a cause of death and could evaluate a skin biopsy for demodex (mange mites).
Aren’t Bert and Ernie Brothers?
And for the badge, I have never seen a real badger before, and my 1st guess was that it was a badger. It has the little black stripes on its nose, like Bucky does.
Yeah, I agree. I always thought Bert and Ernie were brothers.
sorry but it’s prejudiced to insist that two men must be gay simply because they have live together for a long time.
CTW has been quite clear many times in stating that Ernie and Bert are not gay.
I’m all for more gay characters on TV but I’m tired of gay caricatures.
You are right, of course. It is an offensive petition, if people are actually serious about it. I had assumed it was a joke.
Today’s petition is brought to you by the word ‘Avenue’ and the letter ‘Q’.
MTV is not only skeevy but they don’t know the differnce between scabies and crabs.
“skeevy” is entirely too inadequate for this. Way to fail, MTV.
I agree. Screw them in the ass with a hot poker.
Or is that too much?
Just make sure you get them to sign a waiver, first.
I figured it for a CYA from MTV… one of the early Real Worlds had an incident that wasn’t penetrative rape, but would likely be classed sexual assault (IIRC, one of the guys was trying to take away a blanket one of the girls had covered herself with). A waiver absolving them of responsibility for things like that.
I think Bert and Ernie should marry D.B. Cooper and join the SuperCongress.
It makes as much sense as most of the word-salad being passed off as news.
And hunt chupacabras?
With an iPhone 4.
Glow-Orb: Sending it away to a sciency-laboratory thingy is wayyy to sensible for the cryptozoology crowd.
The religion as nerds things is not new although that’s one of the funniest depictions of it I have seen. It does however miss a small point: the religious individuals think that their personal fandom is real. In that context it makes sense. If Star Wars and Star Trek were both real then figuring out whether an Imperial Star Destroyer or the Enterprise would win a fight is a question about reality. In a similar context, if the evangelical Christians are correct then it does make sense to try to save people since they will go burn in hell for eternity otherwise. I respect a religious individual who takes that sort of belief seriously a lot more than I respect a person who is all “oh, man, believe what you want. It’s chill” or worse a religious person who thinks that the irreligious will burn in hell but makes no attempt to convert us. If you really believe that I’m going to suffer eternally if I don’t accept your religion, and you stand by and do nothing, then you are a terrible human being.
Hell is what we leave behind us on earth if we’re all horrible to each other. That rather obvious observation that I would think every generation makes has been expressed in the metaphor of hell and heaven. I think religion is an invention, so it must have influences, and the legacy truth would already have respect and it’s own metaphors from which to invent the new supernatural crowd control device of heaven and hell. Like stocks human cultural intelligence over time can go down as well as up :)
The contract is liability-limitation boilerplate. If a contestant rapes another contestant, MTV doesn’t want to get sued over it.
EULAs and waivers routinely contain all kinds of bizarre shit like that — companies don’t want to be liable if their product kills or dismembers you. But almost nobody actually reads such contracts.
Possibly, Microsoft’s End User Lincence Agreement has the exact same paragraph in it somewhere …
Lol :)
Or Apple ala the Human CentiPad South Park episode.