Month: November 2005

In honor of the “promotion of the plight of lemurs in the movie Fierce Creatures and documentary Operation Lemur with John Cleese,” a new species of lemur has been named after John Cleese:

The avahi cleesei, which weighs less than two pounds and eats leaves, was discovered in Western Madagascar in 1990 by a team led by anthropologist Urs Thalmann and his colleague Thomas Geissman of Zurich University.
…
The lemur’s long legs are the only physical attribute it shares with Cleese, Thalmann told New Scientist magazine. “Woolly lemurs can’t really walk — but they do enjoy silly jumps,” he said.

Hopefully you all got the Silly Walks reference… 😉

The paper On the Effectiveness of Aluminium Foil Helmets:
An Empirical Study comes to the surprising conclusion that “Tin-Foil Hats” or “Aluminum Helmets” are not nearly as effective as has been assumed:

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government’s invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

No way…

The “Blue Dog Coalition” made a press release claiming that W’s administration has “borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks than the previous 42 U.S. presidents combined.”

Throughout the first 224 years (1776-2000) of our nation’s history, 42 U.S. presidents borrowed a combined $1.01 trillion from foreign governments and financial institutions according to the U.S. Treasury Department. In the past four years alone (2001-2005), the Bush Administration has borrowed a staggering $1.05 trillion.

As The J-Walk Blog notes, at least [W will] be remembered for something.“ If only it was just this…

“Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry threatened legal action on Monday against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport.” Baron Cohen’s character “Borat” is one of the many hilarious personages in Da Ali G Show, and frankly I’m surprised that he’s gotten away with as much as he has. Still, if you ever have the opportunity to catch the show on HBO, you should definitely take it.

Star Wars Transformers are coming out in January. Cool…

Cafepress has apparently banned products featuring the drug Panexa over copyright issues. However, apparently they didn’t realize that Panexa is totally fictional, created to serve as a parody of recent drug marketing efforts. Quite funny…

George Clooney has always been known as a prankster, both on and off the set. One particular prank on his best friend that took over a year to pull off is too good not to share…

Carlton Draught’s Big Ad is pretty good…

The Onion once again makes my day with its article Long-Awaited Beer With Bush Really Awkward, Voter Reports:

“We were sitting there watching the game, and some cheerleaders were up there waving their pompoms,” Reinard said. “Then George mentioned that he used to be a cheerleader at Yale. I didn’t know what to say to that one, so I just drank the rest of my beer real fast.”

Too funny…

A “ridiculously obsessed Star Wars fan” took it upon himself to rip all six Star Wars movies from DVD and overlay them into a grid together, the results of which are presented on the site Watching all six Star Wars movies simultaneously.

They’re my favorite movies, all six of them, including the special editions, and I don’t care what you think. No, I wasn’t looking for any amazing insight, I know it’s all coincidences, and some of them are kind of uninteresting coincidences, it’s just fun,and (apparently) it’s making me popular. People have been doing this with The Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon for a long time.

Just go look…