Liberal college considers becoming republican after paying taxes

"Fuck this shit!" said University of Washington junior Adam Young, a self-declared liberal, after mailing his taxes last night. "I'm voting republican!"

The news of Young's declared republicanism came as a shock to his roommate, Paul, an ROTC cadet who described Young as "a weak-kneed hippie liberal." "Maybe now he'll stop talking about all that health care crap," Paul explained.

Young, who didn't vote in the last election because he "didn't know about it until it was too late", was angered to discover that he wouldn't be getting a refund this year. "I tried everything, standard deduction, itemized deduction, and any way I did it I owed money!" the shocked student told reporters as he played Modern Warfare 2.

"I mean health care is good and all, but no one ever said it would cost money. This has really got me rethinking the whole thing."

Borat overthrows dictatorial regime in home country

Early reporting from the New York Times bureau in Central Asia has reported that Borat has overthrown the government of his home country in Kazakhstan. While reporting is limited due to the ongoing violence in the country, bystanders have reported over social media sites that Borat rallied thousands of protestors and marched on the Presidential palace, known as the White House.

"My name a Borat!" the revolutionary was reported as saying over a megaphone. Moments later, the gates of the White House were crushed and the mob began looting the elaborate compound. "I like coup! It's nice!"

Later, Borat, sporting his trademark yellow unitard spoke from the balcony waving his country's flag. "The dictator has fled the country. Now make happy sex time! Yes!"

Though dozens of protesters and riot police died in the violent clash, nothing could tarnish the spirit of the country's new de facto leader, who kept giving the thumbs up to video cameras on scene. "Very nice!" he said.

C-SPAN to be broadcast in 3D

Watchers of Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) will be putting on 3D glasses for the next Congressional session following news that the network is switching to 3D cameras to keep pace with newer technology.

"It's always been our mission to provide public access to Congressional hearings and various programs around the Hill. With 3D we'll be able to truly bring that experience to the viewer," wrote C-SPAN's president in a press release announcing the event.

3D filming techniques recently received a boost with the release of graphically intense films such as James Cameron's Avatar and Clash of the Titans. Many TVs are not yet equipped to support 3D shows, but C-SPAN is confident they've made the right move.

Focus groups sponsored by C-SPAN had generally positive things to say about the switch. "You can really feel just how hard it is for Barney Frank to breathe," said one viewer. "At one point I actually tried to reach out and slap Senator Reid," said another. "I'm convinced more than ever that Nancy Pelosi is a robot," reported a third, as they watched a Congressional and Senatorial debate over whether to moved National Boating Day from July 1st to July 3rd this year. The issue was ultimately resolved after heavy debate, and the day was switched to the 2nd at a cost of 4 billion dollars.

Americans shocked to discover people die in war

Following the release of video footage from an Apache gunship by the website wikileak.org, millions of Americans were shocked to discover that people die in warzones.

The video, which has received nearly a million hits on YouTube has sparked controversy across the airwaves as Americans realized US soldiers kill people in warzones. "I thought we just handed out backpacks," said a local resident when hearing about the video.

In the edited video titled "collateral murder", two Apache helicopters engage armed personnel. It was later discovered that two Reuters reporters were embedded with the insurgents and tragically died. Later, the video shows a vehicle picking up the wounded which was also engaged in violation of Geneva Conventions.

"its about killing civilians in cold blood," wrote ze3rebana, who has probably never been to a war zone.

"THERES MORE TO COME!!!! VIDEOS SHOWING THE TARGETING, ON PURPOSE, of WOMEN & CHILDREN USING BOMBS FROM A B1 BOMBER," wrote youchewb, an outraged viewer who posts videos of TuPac, the violent rapper, on his YouTube profile.

"this is so so wrong...." wrote rangsar, who was shocked to discover innocent people have died in Iraq.

"Death to America," wrote WoShiJoe, who didn't provide any contact information.

"I started crying around 8:40," wrote HeliosofSweden, a 22 year old male from Sweden who is into "vids and shit" according to his YouTube profile.

"Videos like [this] justify terrorist means against the USA. Simple as that," wrote pedritus2007, a 40 year old Portugeuse man who posts videos of World of Warcraft to his YouTube page and whose favorite videos include the "Free Hugs Campaign" video.

The video, which was shot in 2007 at the height of violence in Iraq when US forces were being attack 1,100 times a day across the country, later shows the soldiers who had just been shot at evacuating the wounded to American field hospitals.

Obama surprised to find Kumar on staff

In a strange turn of events over the weekend, the Obama administration realized it had accidentally hired Kal Penn, the actor who portrayed Kumar in the "Harold and Kumar" movies, when the actor announced he was quitting the administration.

"We didn't realize how hard Mr. Penn had been at work," explained a concerned Robert Gibbs to a crowded briefing room. Reports indicate that in his short tenure with the administration, Penn may have been the first politician to successfully negotiate a peace treaty with North Korea.

Shortly after the election, a swarm of Hollywood stars approached the administration requesting positions on the popular presidents staff. Many of the hiring decisions were delegated to junior members of the administration owing to the load of applicants. Documents obtained following a Freedom of Information request by the Fourth Corner reveal Mr. Paul Dixon, an unpaid intern, was responsible for hiring Kal Penn.

"I was working late and I saw this application for Kal Penn. I'm like, 'where have I heard that name?' and them I'm like, 'fucking Kumar! No fucking way!' So I called him up and said I'd find a job for him."

Mr. Dixon, who was responsible for staffing senior levels of foreign policy advisers, explains that there was only one position available by the time he reached Penn's application, that of senior policy director for North Korean relations. "It was the perfect job though. I know Kim Jong Il loves fucking Hollywood right, and if fucking Kumar couldn't make that guy laugh, then North Korea was fucked anyway."

In explaining his exit from the sensitive position, Penn stated, "I'd done all I could. I set up five-party talks with regional actors, excluding Japan after careful deliberations because of sensitivities over previous conflicts and highlighted that North Korea's 'Juche' policy applied to both sides of the peninsula, and parts of China as well.

"I carefully explained that to Mr. Il and he was receptive to it. He's really a very logical guy if you speak to him rationally," Penn stated. "Really, this is all pretty easy stuff. I got bored. I wanted the challenge of acting again, and was offered a lead role in a new Harold and Kumar movie, so I jumped at the opportunity."

When asked why no one knew about either the impending peace agreement Penn had brokered with North Korea, ending the half-century long war with the rogue nation, or that Penn worked in the White House, he simply said, "I'm Kumar. Would you believe me if I told you I worked here? The treaty has been on President Obama's desk for a week. I tried calling [Chief of Staff] Immanuel to tell him about it, but whenever I called he just kept asking if I wanted to take the Presidential Limo to go to White Castle."

Obama appoints Easter Bunny Czar

Today in Maine, President Obama announced the creation of a cabinet-level Easter Bunny Czar, in an effort to increase Easter egg accountability. "Now I know America. I know that lately eggs have been hard to find. Maybe they're behind that bush, or hidden inside that planter. Today, that changes, America!"

The speech came as the country entered the Easter holiday weekend. Conservatives immediately snapped back at the announcement. Pundit Rush Limbaugh said on his radio talk show that this was more "government takeover" of a private holiday. "Do you want the government telling you where you can or cannot hide your Easter Eggs? I'm hopping mad about this one, America, and you should be, too."

White house spokesman Robert Gibbs was quick to defend the President's new policy, however. "Recently there have been a lot of questions about the Easter Bunny's activities. Where is he getting eggs, for instance? Why is he hiding them in such difficult-to-find locations? These are questions that the czar will be able to answer for us."

Analysts at the Washington, DC, think-tank Economic Policies for America tie the new position to the 2008 and 2009 Easter holidays. "The nation was experiencing high rates of unemployment. 1 in 10 Americans were without a job, the stock market was floundering, states were going bankrupt, and there was a huge credit freeze in the banks, but somehow this bunny managed to buy millions of eggs, color them, distribute them, and occasionally fill them with candy? That's a pretty big operation," said policy expert John Weisenbach.

Republicans in Congress complained that Obama was flip-flopping on his policies, referring to conservative efforts last December to launch a Senate investigation to subpoena Santa Claus' financial records, which was stymied by the White House. "Where was this concern for oversight when Santa Claus was trespassing into the homes of millions of Americans at night and leaving behind potentially lethal gifts? That includes the White House by the way. That's a serious national security issue, not to mention a tax issue--were those gifts under the table? Did Obama violate ethics rules by accepting the gifts even though he didn't ask for that Tyco Racing Car? Where are Santa's W2s or import tax records? We're not opposed to a Bunny Czar, but not before we regulate a foreign-born sleuthing red menace."

"I know about the Santa Claus issue," Gibbs said when confronted with the allegations. "We're looking into appointing a Santa Czar later in the year, but right now America wants action. There are health issues, financial issues and security issues that have to be handled immediately, and that's what this czar will be responsible for."

Bush Admits Global War on Terror Was Elaborate Hoax

In news that stunned a nation this morning, an enthusiastic former president George W. Bush addressed a small crowd of reporters outside his Texas home. "This morning I'd like to let you all in on all little secret: the G-Wot wasn't even real!"

Known for pulling the occasional White House prank, few suspected that the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and various hot-spots around the world were all elaborate hoaxes.

"Nah really, Muslims are all real nice. We just figured we hadn't had a war in a long time and Cheney said, 'hey Bush, why don't we just make up a war? We'll veil it in obscurity and say we can't tell things and we'll all get to keep a secret and get to play dress up for the cameras.' I thought it sounded like a good idea."

When asked to elaborate how long the hoax had been going on, Bush replied just a few days after 9/11. "Oh shit. Yeah, no. 9/11 was real. I mean, that was seriously fucked up. Come on. Who would make that up? The war in Afghanistan though? Total honky. Yeah we sent in troops but we took over that country and installed a democracy in about a month. Come on, y'all thought it was really taking us 9 years to win over there? We're America. Think about it."

Deployed troops, Bush explained, had actually been deployed to the foreign countries, but upon arrival they were handed sun tan lotion and ice cream cones. "The ice cream was my idea," Bush added in later statements. "Don't you think our troops deserve ice cream cones?"

"After Afghanistan we kept trying to think how we could up the ante. You know, how long y'all would go along with this. Then I was on the phone with my dad one day and he said, 'what about Iraq, George?' I said, 'Dad, no one in hell is going to tie 9/11 to Iraq.' But by that time the idea was in my mind. So, shock n' awe!

According to Bush, and later corroborated by other leading officials in the Bush administration, Saddam Hussein is actually a family-friend of the Bushs and owns the ranch next door to the family estate. "Saddy's a good guy. He really went along with the whole thing, even though he wasn't sure it was a smart idea."

The Associated Press later confirmed the former presidents story while at Fort Benning, Georgia. "You guys know now?" replied a Staff Sergeant who recently returned from his fifth deployment to Iraq, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity and looked slightly overweight with a healthy bronze tan. "My wife is going to be so pissed when she finds out."

"Who told you that?" said a Specialist who had not yet deployed, but was looking forward to his first deployment experience. "Was it Bush? It was wasn't it. That fucker can't keep a secret!"

Ahmed Wali Karzai: 'I am so high right now'

As the spotlight fell on Afghanistan this week with the visit of President Obama to Kabul, many are looking to the Karzai administration to stamp out corruption to build an effective government so US troops can go home. One of the largest challenges to this is President Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, a drug lord whose connections to the president make him a near untouchable in Kandahar.

The Fourth Corner found Mr. Karzai in a hazy opium den in downtown Kandahar City to ask him about the impending US invasion of Kandahar City and his ties to the CIA and the local drug trade. Upon entering the den, the author of this piece was offered a tolk of righteous hash.

FC: Mr Karzai ....
AWK: Please, call me Ahmed. Mr. Karzai is my father's name.
FC: Ahmed, there are allegations you've been involved in the drug trade here in Kandahar City? Is that true?
AWK: In K-Town? Pshh, no. What? No. I'm a government official. If I were in the drug trade do you think they'd let me be a government official?
FC: Well, there have been a lot of accusations about nepotism in the government, and your brother is the president.
AWK: Half-brother. He's my half-brother. What a dick.
FC: So you're not in the drug trade?
AWK: No, this is recreational only [indicating the opium pipe in hand].
FC: Are you concerned that in the upcoming offensive the Taliban will target you as a government official.
AWK: (laughs)
FC: What's so funny?
AWK: Nothing, nothing. Ahh. No. (chuckles) I'm not worried.
FC: Are you worried the US forces might target you?
AWK: (laughs)
FC: What now?
AWK: Nothing, nothing. I just have a nice arrangement with some people. I am not worried.
FC: The CIA?
AWK: Shhhhhh....
FC: So the CIA lets you, a corrupt official involved in the drug trade, stay in power so they can capture other corrupt officials involved in the drug trade?
AWK: Whoa. That is deep.
FC: Do you think that's in the best interests of the people you represent in Kandahar?
AWK: K-Town represent!!
FC: No really. Do you? Does that sound like a good strategy for the CIA to pay to rat on the drug trade you're masterminding?
AWK: ...
FC: Ahmed?
AWK: What?
FC: I asked if you agreed with the CIA's strategy of using you to undermine your own drug trade sounded like a good idea.
AWK: (laughs) What drug trade?
FC: You're smoking opium in front of me.
AWK: I know. I am so high right now.

Sarah Palin revokes use of term 'tea bagging'

Conservative political activist Sarah Palin asked followers to cease using the term 'tea-bagging' after discovering the term refers to a pornographic maneuver wherein a man dips his reproductive organs in the mouth of another person.

"Hey Americans, if you want real change to come to Washington in 2010 then we're gonna have to stop talking about men's testicles by accident," Palin said to a large crowd in Nevada.

"I really wish I'd Googled that before I put it on my sign," said Maurine Henderson, a mother of three who was blacking out "proud to be a tea-bagging mom" on a large picket sign.

Palin explained later that it was Levi who had told her about the original meaning of the term, which he learned while performing the position in a recent Playgirl photo spread. "He said 'ma, I don't think that's the sort of message you want to convey to all those over-taxed Americans out there.'"

Conservative talk shows were abuzz with the recent revelation. Glenn Beck issued an early apology saying that he did not mean to offend the tens of millions of people who knew what the term meant years ago. "I really, really, really, wish I had Googled this," Beck said. He later alleged that liberals were behind the mess, and that the term had probably been hijacked by the ultra-liberal porn industry to undermine the conservative movement. "It fits nicely with their socialist agenda of free love and ball-in-mouth dipping," he said in an Internet statement.

After a hurried town hall meeting in Ohio, one of the state's with the highest per capita numbers of Tea Party members it was decided to rebrand the movement to something less morally scandalous. In an announcement originally appearing on www.taxdayteaparty.com, and echoed throughout the social media community, it was decided to change the party name to the Cleveland Steamers "in honor of the momentus change and progress that the steam engine brought to all of America, and which we will bring to Congress in 2010. We are all Cleveland steaming mad about what's going on in Washington!"

Scientists discover being a woman sucks

Research released this week shows that women have to work out more than previously thought to keep that weight off, pissing off women everywhere. The 13-year Harvard study of tens of thousands of women shows that only those who worked out seven hours a week shed pounds, far more than the government advised 30 minutes of exercise 5 times a week.

"Are you fucking serious?" said Joanna Lyttle from her treadmill at the local YMCA. "God fucking dammit!"

The study went on to explain the importance of keeping weight off, especially from the age of 25-55 when the average woman puts on a pound and a half a year.

"What about guys? What the fuck do they do? Oh right. Jack shit," Lyttle went on to say. "We give birth. We menstruate. And now thanks to fucking women's lib, we have to work, too. And now this. Swear to god. I wish I was a fucking dude."

In related news, psychiatrist Louanne Brizendine recently defended the male desire to look at women's breasts in her new book "The Male Brain", giving tacit permission to men everywhere to stare at the luscious lady parts.

"Really? Who is this bitch?" said Lyttle between sit-ups.

Republicans throw temper tantrum

Late into the morning hours last night, senate democrats tried to calm down GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) after he locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out unless the health care amendments were dropped.

"NoNoNoNoNoNoNO!" McConnell told reporters through the door, "I don't WANNA have health care!"

"Mitch, it's OK, the bill already passed. These are just amendments," Harry Reid (D-NV) explained in a calm, motherly tone. "This bill can't hurt you anymore." According to C-SPAN footage, sniffles were heard, and Mitch finally unlocked the door. "Really?" he asked Reid.

The footage shows Mitch had started to exit the lavatory until he saw Vice President Biden entering the hallway when he slammed the door. "I'm never coming out!!!"

"Jesus fucking Christ guys. Mitch, HEY MITCH. Don't you shut that door. Don't you SHUT that DOOR!!"

After Reid escorted Biden back to the Senate chamber he successfully extricated McConnell from the bathroom. The final amendment was voted on around 3 am. When asked how he got McConnell out, Reid declined to comment. One source who spoke the Fourth Corner on condition of anonymity states Reid said he would let McConnell call him an unspecified name, possibly poopy-pants or baby-killer, in the upcoming election.


[Editor's Note: The circus was (literally) in town during the health care vote]

Google's Chrome Balls

Following Google's announcement yesterday that it had removed the censor filters from its search engine, millions of Chinese users immediately logged onto previously-blocked pornography sites. "I'd always wondered what two girls and a cup was, and now I know!" said a user of the new search engine who spoke to the Fourth Corner on condition of anonymity.

YouTube, also previously blocked in China, is now open to users through Google's uncensored search engine. "I always knew step one was to get a box, and that step two was to cut a hole in the box, but I never knew what the third step was! This is so exciting," said a teenage Nguyen at an internet cafe. Said his friend, "I thought it was going to be a regular wedding video, and then they all started dancing down the aisle. American weddings are so crazy!"

While YouTube received a large boost to its numbers following Google's removal of the government-mandated blocks, the social networking site Facebook was so inundated with requests for help in joining Mafia Wars and Farmville that servers in many parts of the country crashed. "My crops are failing and all of my children died after brushing with tainted toothpaste. Farmville really helps me escape," said Boqin Chang, who was later disappeared.

Maryland most GPS'd state in the union

A study published by TeleNav and reported in the Baltimore Sun, shows that Maryland drivers use GPS devices more than drivers in any other state. While the Baltimore Sun argued Maryland's high GPS use may be due to the state's relative affluence and hi-tech defense industry, most accept it's because Maryland roads are harder to navigate than Jareth the Goblin King's Labyrinth.

Other interesting results from the study: DC earned the second place spot for most-dependent GPS drivers, probably because of how often its residents have to go to Maryland. Virginia placed seventh.

As for the most-searched item on GPS: Walmart took the cake. Pizza was the most searched for food, which is odd, because it's not particularly a fast food.

FreeCreditReport.com Guy Gets Axed

Congress is fighting back against that guy in that pirate hat, the FreeCreditReport.com guy, you know, the one working at the renaissance fair, or at the restaurant wearing flare, or in his girlfriend's basement lair. Yes, that one.

FreeCreditReport.com has been paying over a million dollars in fines a year for misleading the public that they're the go-to website for no-strings-attached credit reporting. But the recent credit consumer protection act will hit the site even harder. Not only does it require a large disclaimer on the site stating that AnnualCreditReport.com is the only true source for a free credit report, but the Federal Trade Commission is even launching a few parody ads of its own.



For more FTC parodies see the Federal Trade Commission YouTube page.

The Snuggie for Dogs

Why mass transit won't work

As one of the fortunate Americans who lives in a city with mass rail transit, I can zip around the District of Columbia with relative ease, so long as I never detour more than a mile from any metro stop, assuming that metro stop is in a safe location with sidewalks and lighting.

For the most part, the metro suits my needs as the city has built around supporting commuters like myself. As an old city with many historic buildings, there's less room for parking, and the roads ... lord, the roads.

But an interesting article in the Economist has recently shed light on how mass transit will just never win over the pleasure of one's own transport, bad traffic or not. The article looked at trees.

The anatomy of trees has always been pitched as an effective means for distributing nutrients, from roots to trunks to main arteries to increasingly smaller ones as the mass of the tree gets thinner and the demand for nutrients is less. In mass transit parlance, this would be a central train station with a spoke of rail lines running out from it, providing increasingly less service as the population decreases.

But research has shown that one aspect of the tree is distinctly different in its structure. Long thought to be a replication of its larger self, leaves, it turns out, aren't structured along that pattern at all. Instead, they have a series of interconnecting routes so that when one portion of the leaf is damaged, nutrients can still travel freely. This is the same as a driver finding a traffic jam and detouring through a side street to avoid the wait.

Mass transit has few options like this. While rail and bus remain predominant, there is no continuous flow through them. Getting those nutrients--that's us--to the right place is often a difficult task because the infrastructure doesn't exist to get us there. Trains take you to a stop where you wait for a bus and when the bus stops you walk the rest of the way. Cumbersome as it is, that is the only alternative.

Cars, or personal means of travel, offer a multitude of routes to arrive at the same location. They are structured like the leaf, less dependent on large arteries and more adaptable to changing situations. Mass transit, by definition, cannot be so agile on account of its, well, mass.

With gas on the rise, and car manufacturers in the red something has to be done. A recent look at Google's route finder told me it would take 22 minutes to travel into the District's Adams Morgan area by car (getting there has often taken 45 minutes in heavy traffic). Mass transit, it said, would take 2 hours and 5 minutes (if I used only buses, which is all that most American cities offer). Walking the 8 miles it happily informed me, would only take fifteen minutes more.

It's not that mass transit is entirely ineffective. But the system does need an overhaul--more rails, more redundancy and more reliability. Why do I mention this? Because I just spent the better part of four hours traveling less than twenty miles by foot, then bus, then rail with a hobo that smelled like sour cheese. Surely there is a better way. For my sake.

Fuel Cells explained to an English major

With the upcoming release of Bloom Energy's mind-blowing, life-altering fuel cell system that will bring our country's climate and energy crisis to an end, the Fourth Corner went looking for an explanation of what the hell a fuel cell is. We turned to our friend and contributor, Gene, who is a science engineering buff who can explain things in terms that even our Editor-in-Chief, Rob understands. So, for those of you without an advanced degree, here is what a fuel cell is for the layman. (Note: Bloom Energy is supposed to change the world, just like the segway was supposed to change the world. Both inventions were financed by the same guy.)

The Sex Lives of Hydrogen

I'm also no expert in chemistry or material science, but I'll explain the basics of what I know. So, when you normally want to use fuel, you burn it, right? Hydrogen and carbon atoms make up molecules in the fuel that break down, reacting with oxygen in the air, producing H20 and CO2, and a lot of heat. As these hydrogen and carbon atoms leave each other to go hook up with sexy
oxygen molecules, they take their electrons with them. The useful energy you get is in the form of heat and expanding gasses. There's no electrical component to it.

In a fuel cell, there's a similar process going on where hydrogen hooks up with oxygen. However, it's not done by lighting it on fire. What you do is keep your hydrogen and oxygen separated by a fancy wall. You then force your hydrogen nuclei (single protons) to squeeze through tiny holes in that fancy wall so that they can get jiggy with oxygen atoms on the other side of the wall. Being a very fancy wall, it will let the hydrogen protons through, but it won't allow through the electrons that once orbited those hydrogen nuclei. So, on the side of the fancy wall with the oxygen, you end up with a lot of extra hydrogen protons (positive charge). On the hydrogen-only side, you end up with a lot of extra electrons (negative charge). By electrically connecting the two sides, you create a path for electron flow, and thus you get electrical current! And between the two side, you can make those electrons go through whatever circuit you want to run a motor, power a computer, etc. Make sense? So a fuel cell can turn chemical energy (like the oxidation of hydrogen) into electrical energy very efficiently because you're directly getting use of the movement of the electrons involved in the chemical reaction. I hope this helps.

The Rise of the Superpowerless

Here at the Fourth Corner we've discussed how horror movies are a reflection of our collective fears (see "Saw VI is just a metaphor for Osama Bin Laden"). If the spate of movies coming out in the next few months are also an indicator of our collective mood, then things have looked better.

In the next few months, there are a litany of movies coming out about superheroes that aren't superheroes at all. Instead, the heroes are average joes whose only real power is will power, and that doesn't tend to stop bullets. They're mainly laughable, and, if past movies in the same genre are any indication they'll probably stumble upon an actual bad guy and somehow defeat them because Americans just love happy endings.

There's a charming bit of hope in movies like these, and it's a delightful sign of our times. In the case of Woody Harrelson's "Defendor" the bumbling hero takes on his villain Captain Industry (or tries to). Wrapped up in that is a thinly veiled statement that, when all other 'real' heroes (Congress, Wall Street regulators) are incapable of taking on bad guys (Corporate profits, environmental disasters, etc.) it's up to the average American to defeat them. Put in political parlance, these movies are all about Main Street taking on Wall Street because no one else will. If doing that requires us to use a jar of wasps and lime juice, so be it.

It makes sense that such movies are coming out. With a stagnant Congress, recession, those huge profits on a bailed-out Wall Street, increasing disparities between the country's rich and the country's poor, it's no surprise that the average Joe is getting ready to take up arms to right the wrongs of his nation.

That he gives us a chuckle on the big screen is nice, but politicians should take note that even if Hollywood gives us a happy ending, reality may not. An Average Joe in a cape is much less threatening that a frustrated man who flies a plane into an IRS building.

The most terrifying bit of any superhero movie--superpowers or not--is that a city or country's infrastructure has failed to such a desperate degree that people think they need a superhero in the first place. Let's hope we don't.

SnOMFG 2010: The Snowiest DC in History

SnOMFG 2010 as defined by the Urban Dictionary:

The massive snow storm that hit the Mid-Atlantic region of the US, specifcially
Northern Virginia, D.C., Maryland, West Virgina and Pennslyvania.

The first wave hit Feb 6, Saturday Morning, dropping a record 32.4 inches at Dulles
International Airport in a two day period. The second wave fell on Feb 9,
Tuesday morning and brought another 10-20 inches to the effected areas.

Yes, the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, namely, the Fourth Corner world headquarters has been socked by snow, yet again. As previously reported in December during the Great Virginia Blizzard of 2009, it's been a wholloping season for the DC region as we break record after record of snowfall. December 2009 hit the record for most snowfall in that month
since the record books existed. February is shaping up to be no different.

As reported by the micro-blog Outside the Beltway this winter the Washington DC region has had more snowfall than the past four winters combined. If we get hit again tonight with another storm in DC, then we'll have broken every single snow record on the books since, well, ever.

Did you hear the one about the 85 million Iraq spent on fake bomb detecting equipment?

As news of another coordinated bomb attack comes on the day Ba'athist Chemical Ali is killed, Americans and Iraqis alike are wondering how insurgents can continue to outsmart millions in training and bomb detecting equipment.

The answer? Very, very easily.

The Iraqi government recently spent $85 million dollars on the latest evolution in bomb detecting equipment. The British manufactured ADE 651 consists of a black plastic handle, a radio-styled antenna, and requires no battery or energy source whatsoever beyond the static electricity generated by soldiers shuffling their feet on the ground. Really. Millions watched an Iraqi shuffling his feet to generate the static electricity on CBS' Nightly News last night.

The trouble is, the device is a total, total hoax. Adding insult to injury, Iraqis paid about $60,000 for each device in a no-bid contract, though the manufacturer normally sells them for $18,500. According to the New York Times, five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for the price Iraqis paid for one ADE 651.

The story, originally reported by the BBC, is exploding across papers and has led to an export restriction of the device by Britain and an arrest of its manufacturer, parent company-ATSC's Jim McCormick. The export restriction initially angered Iraqi soldiers who claim the device works. Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives, told the New York Times “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs.”

In the face of increasing evidence to the contrary, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki launched a probe into the reliability of the bomb detecting equipment this morning. Let's hope he uses something a bit more reliable to uncover the truth.

Certainly the only thing more entertaining (and tragic) than this story, is the ADE 651's promotional video. Let's all hope Mr. McCormick gets his just desserts.