Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby 82_28 » Mon Feb 27, 2017 3:14 pm

They also said it was Matt Damon possibly. I think it was just some prankster. I doubt either of those dudes would have fucked around with their reputation. It's like a game of Clue. Something definitely does not add up.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby conniption » Mon Feb 27, 2017 7:34 pm

MoA
(embedded links)

February 27, 2017

Al-Qaeda Gets An Oscar


Hollywood is all about fake. That is what movies are - fake depictions of a fake reality that only exist in the mind of scriptwriters, directors and a usually gullible audience. (Disclosure: I do like some movies.)

Hollywood has never been shy of plagiarizing. Every idea, tale of cinematographic trick that made a splash somewhere - and is thereby a potential money generator - will get copied again and again. Every successful make gets a remake. And another one.

In 2015 the promoting host of the Miss Universe franchise "misread" the name of the winner. He announced "Columbia" when the chosen winner was "Philippines". After he few minutes he "corrected" himself. That "mistake" brought a lot of additional media attention - and financial value - to the event owner.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the U.S. marketing and lobby organization of the movie makers, hands out some yearly rewards arranged to promote specific movies or persons in the movie business. The academy award ceremony is a rather boring event but it gets a lot of hype and media attention (and thereby generates lots of advertisement revenue).

To further increase its value this years event plagiarized the idea of the Miss Universe promoters. One of the hosts announced the wrong winning movie for some category and then reversed himself to announce a different "real" winner. It was a "mistake" just as surely as Hollywood's latest movie was a description of real life.

Those without memory went into the desired frenzy, the insiders yawned. "Oh, that clumsy fake again."

One of this years prices went to a fake "documentary" about a fake "rescuer" group which makes and distributes fake videos, staged photos and fake victims of the war on Syria. These al-Qaeda propaganda sidekicks, the White Helmets, are a British disinformation operation that is financed by more than $100 million of U.S. and UK taxpayer money. Its general task is to convince the "western" public that the war on Syria is justified because of the "cruelty of the Syrian government" which the fakes intend to establish in the mind of its consumers.

Hollywood never was shy of taking government money to promote war on this or that country or "enemy". The Pentagon's liaison office in Hollywood finances many movies. If there are some tanks needed and military heroes in a script the Pentagon will organize the props, real tanks and soldiers, at no cost - provided of course that it can read and "correct" the script the way it sees fit. The makers of "Top Gun" need planes, air craft carriers and lots of explosions? No problem at all and at no costs to the producers. In exchange military recruitment staff will wait to trap moviegoers when they leave the theaters. Congress will happily pass the money for more useless planes.

An Academy Award reinforces the message a production carries and gives the people behind the message additional value. The marketing companies that create and run the "White Helmets" will surely receive a few extra millions for yesterday's Oscar promotion.

Hollywood is all fake. The wrong winner is announced and al-Qaeda gets an Oscar. "No harm done," the promoters of such fakes might say.

Except to the people of Syria. For them the destruction and death promoted by the fancy people in Los Angeles is all too real.

Posted by b on February 27, 2017

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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby SonicG » Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:53 pm

Let's not forget Casey Affleck and the end of Mel Gibson's exile...
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Mar 09, 2017 6:49 pm

Florida lawyer's pants catch fire during arson trial
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-law ... son-trial/
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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or should be an SNL sketch

Postby Iamwhomiam » Thu Mar 09, 2017 6:58 pm



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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:01 am

Texas bill would fine men $100 each time they masturbate
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/13/health/ab ... aker-trnd/


and while we are on the subject


Vibrator maker ordered to pay out C$4m for tracking users' sexual activity
Canadian manufacturer We-Vibe collected data about temperature and vibration intensity, revealing intimate information without customers’ knowledge

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ual-habits


microwaves and now vibrators ...who can you trust these days :P
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby Iamwhomiam » Wed Mar 15, 2017 3:25 pm

^^^ Ha! Oh, my!
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby Elvis » Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:56 pm

Ngram_post-truth.jpg
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“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:02 pm

The odd, awful downfall of the school librarian of the year

Image
Deven Black holds his Bam!E prize for top school librarian in the country at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2013.

The path that took Deven Black to his gritty death in a rundown homeless shelter was as baffling as it was tragic.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/awful-odd-downfall-school-librarian-year-46697090
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby SonicG » Tue Apr 11, 2017 10:26 am

I am sure this belongs in some fascism thread but Florida just went from tragically funny to tragically scary...

Florida Sheriff Films ISIS-Style Video Starring Deputies in Ski Masks

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/lake- ... es-9267394


Just watch the vid...It is still on their FB page for now...see how long it lasts
https://www.facebook.com/pg/LakeCountySO/videos/
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue Apr 11, 2017 2:10 pm

^^^ I caught that. Nothing like having the most deadly serious SWAT team members become the laughing stock of the men in black and blues and everyone else who's unfortunate to live where this jackass enforces the laws for justice.

Anyway, here's some more 'holy shit' news:

Ancient Manure is Latest Clue in Biblical Mystery
April 10, 2017 By Sarah Pruitt

Image
The Timna Valley, Israel. (Credit: DEA / C. SAPPA/Getty Images)

A team of archaeologists in Israel’s Timna Valley has uncovered evidence that appears to shed light on the biblical story of King Solomon, known for both his great wisdom and his enormous fortune. Their discovery of 3,000-year-old manure in an ancient mining camp suggests the site may have housed extensive operations in the 10th century B.C.—right around when King Solomon is believed to have harnessed just such industrial-scale metal production to build his famous Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Archaeologists in the Timna Valley of Israel began excavating the site of the mining camp, perched atop a sandstone mesa dubbed Slaves’ Hill, in 2013. Last year, the team led by Erez Ben-Yosef of the University of Tel Aviv was digging up the remains of several walled structures, including a fortified gate, when they discovered what looked like animal dung. It appeared to be of relatively recent origin, and Ben-Yosef and his colleagues assumed nomads must have camped at the site decades earlier, along with their goats.

They were in for a shock, however, when the highly precise radiocarbon dating results came back from the lab. The manure they found actually dated to the 10th century B.C., and came from donkeys and other livestock. The region’s arid climate had preserved the animals’ droppings—including seeds and pollen that allowed scientists to identify their last meal—over some 3,000 years.

The discovery has transformed the way archaeologists view the Slaves’ Hill site. The mesa is located in an area dotted with copper mines and smelting camps, where ancient people heated the ore and transformed it into metal.

“Until we started the project in 2013, this was considered to be a late Bronze Age site related to the New Kingdom of Egypt in the 13th and early 12th centuries B.C.,” Ben-Yosef told National Geographic. But the radiocarbon dating of the manure, textiles and other materials found at the site suggested the camp’s heyday was actually later, during the era of the famous Israelite kings David and Solomon.

Little about King Solomon is known for certain, and some scholars have even expressed doubt that he existed at all. According to the biblical books of Kings I and Chronicles II, the son of King David and Bathsheba succeeded his father as king of Israel around 970 B.C. He was famous for his great wisdom, his numerous wives (he was said to have some 700 of them, and more than 300 mistresses) and his tremendous wealth.

Image
A painting depicting the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon.
(Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

During the 40 years of his reign, Solomon launched an ambitious building campaign, including a temple in Jerusalem filled with gold and bronze objects. Constructing and outfitting such a temple would have required large amounts of metal from an industrial-sized mining operation, somewhere in the Middle East. But the scriptures don’t divulge the location of such an operation.

Back in the 1930s, the archaeologist Nelson Glueck claimed to have found the long-lost mines of Solomon during his explorations of the Arabah, the copper-rich region south of the Dead Sea basin that forms part of the Israel-Jordan border today. But later archaeologists took issue with Glueck’s findings, arguing that David and Solomon were small-scale chieftains, rather than the powerhouses the Bible makes them out to be, and wouldn’t have been capable of commanding such a massive mining operation and long-distance transportation of resources. Such critics also questioned the chronology given in the Bible, which placed the two kings’ reigns in the 10th century B.C.

More recent discoveries, however, have lent support to the biblical version of events, and restored some of Glueck’s reputation in scholarly circles. Thomas Levy, professor of archaeology at the University of California, San Diego, began excavations at Khirbat en-Nahas in southern Jordan, which Glueck had claimed was an ancient center of copper production, in 1997. To reach virgin soil, his team had to dig through 20 meters of copper slag waste, suggesting the site had been used for large-scale metal production–just as Glueck had argued.

The discovery of the ancient manure in the Timna Valley also helps vindicate Glueck, who discovered and named the Slaves’ Hill site in 1934. So far, archaeologists have found more than 1,000 tons of smelting debris at the site, suggesting production on an industrial scale. This mining operation has not explicitly been linked to King Solomon—at least not yet. But the archaeologists’ findings, which they published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, do suggest the site was home to a complex society.

The most likely suspects? Israel’s sworn enemies, the Edomites. According to the Bible, King David marched his armies into the desert to fight (and defeat) the Edomites. Though skeptics have long questioned the veracity of this account, the fortified walls that Ben-Yosef’s team found around the smelting camp at Slaves’ Hill indicate the site was likely of some military importance, and may have been a target of such an attack. With a military victory, King David might have exacted a tribute from the Edomites, which might have continued during the reign of his son. As Ben-Yosef notes, “There’s a serious possibility that Jerusalem got its wealth from taxing these mining operations.”

http://www.history.com/news/hunt-for-king-solomons-mine-yields-new-clues
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Apr 12, 2017 9:16 am

WTF Sean Spicer Just Said About Hitler Not Gassing the Jews During Passover
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... er-w476183


Ben Carson visits Miami public housing development — and gets stuck in elevator
http://www.miamiherald.com/real-estate/ ... rylink=cpy
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby MacCruiskeen » Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:09 am

:ohno:

Bana al-Abed, seven-year-old Syrian peace campaigner, to publish memoir

Dear World, which will recount the young Twitter activist’s experience of war and flight from her war-torn home, is scheduled for autumn release

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/ ... ish-memoir


"peace campaigner"... "young activist"... "aided by her English-speaking mother"... "memoir", ffs...

I predict she'll be nominated for a Nobel Prize, probably for Peace but possibly for Literature.
"Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte." - Max Liebermann,, Berlin, 1933

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman, NYC, 1966

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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby SonicG » Tue Apr 18, 2017 8:35 am

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald- ... it-n747641

White Nationalist Blames Trump in Campaign Rally Assault Suit
"a poiminint tidal wave in a notion of dynamite"
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Re: Stories that should come from The Onion but don't

Postby Iamwhomiam » Tue May 02, 2017 8:03 pm

EXCLUSIVE: Widow of hedge fund executive who jumped to his death from Times Square hotel is comforted by his billionaire boss

Image
Annabella Murphy, the widow of a New York financier who committed suicide this week was comforted on Wednesday by John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire he worked for

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4361810/Hudge-fund-billionaire-comforts-widow-suicide-executive.html
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