The Weekly Whatever: Better than 836AD
New year's traditions
-
Korean-American TV journalist mentions eating dumpling soup for new year's day. An angry viewer calls in to complain that "she was being very Asian".
-
The French celebrate the new year in their traditional way, by torching cars.
Spending priorities
-
Google says it won't increase employee salaries in line with inflation, but it will give several of its executives pay rises to take them from $650,000 to $1m a year.
-
Biden administration to carry out millions of dollars of upgrades to Guantánamo, which it previously claimed it wanted to close.
Seems reasonable
-
DEA publishes guide to emoji used as code for illegal drugs. Canadian maple leaf identified as "universal for drugs".
-
Pabst Blue Ribbon suggests that if you aren't drinking this month, you should "try eating ass".
-
Scotland to apologize to 3,837 people who were executed for witchcraft before the repeal of the Witchcraft Act around 300 years ago.
Judgement lapses
-
Person bitten by rabid bat refuses rabies vaccine out of general fear of vaccines.
-
Noted virgin says that refusing to have children is selfish and takes away our humanity.
-
Seattle-area police chief disciplined for posting SS insignia on his office door, shaving his facial hair into a Hitler mustache, giving a "Heil Hitler" salute while wearing lederhosen, going by the nickname "obergruppenfuhrer", and joking about the Holocaust. He claimed he was a fan of the TV series "The Man In The High Castle" and had no idea the SS insignia had anything to do with Nazis.
-
Police in Niger stop the mayor's official truck at a checkpoint and find that he was transporting 199 bricks of cocaine worth $8.7m.
Crapto
-
This week's multimillion dollar crapto scam: Arbix.
-
OpenSea can simply decide to take away your NFTs, even from your crapto wallet.
-
Reality TV star who made £38,000 a week selling her farts in a jar ends up in hospital after overdoing it with black bean soup and protein shakes. She has now pivoted to selling fart NFTs.
-
Norton 360 now has a built-in crapto mining feature so you can waste electricity generating Ethereum and hand over 15% to Symantec in fees.
This is fine
-
Maryland school district declares that schools will only transition to virtual classes if 5% of the entire student body comes down with COVID. Thanks to omicron, that happens at 126 out of 209 schools, so the 5% criterion is quietly abandoned in favor of "case-by-case basis" hand-waving.
-
Lufthansa flew 18,000 empty planes, but keep feeling guilty about your personal carbon footprint.
-
Beavers march north into the arctic and start destroying the remaining tundra.
-
Indianapolis life insurance CEO says that the death rate is up 40% from pre-pandemic levels; so many people died in Indianapolis last year that the coroners ran out of money.
For science!
-
Israeli scientists teach fish to drive on land in a wheeled fish tank.
-
Australian scientists working on stool transplants you can swallow.
Seems reasonable
-
DEA publishes guide to emoji used as code for illegal drugs. Canadian maple leaf identified as "universal for drugs".
-
Pabst Blue Ribbon suggests that if you aren't drinking this month, you should "try eating ass".
-
Scotland to apologize to 3,837 people executed for witchcraft before the .
Spending priorities
-
Google says it won't increase employee salaries in line with inflation, but it will give several of its executives pay rises to take them from $650,000 to $1m a year.
-
Biden administration to carry out millions of dollars of upgrades to Guantánamo.
Judgement lapses
-
Person bitten by rabid bat refuses rabies vaccine out of general fear of vaccines.
-
Noted virgin says that refusing to have children is selfish and takes away our humanity.
-
Seattle-area police chief disciplined for posting SS insignia on his office door, shaving his facial hair into a Hitler mustache, giving a "Heil Hitler" salute while wearing lederhosen, going by the nickname "obergruppenfuhrer", and joking about the Holocaust. He claimed he was a fan of the TV series "The Man In The High Castle" and had no idea the SS insignia had anything to do with Nazis.
-
Police in Niger stop the mayor's official truck at a checkpoint and find that he's transporting 199 bricks of cocaine worth $8.7m.
Crapto
-
This week's multimillion dollar crapto scam: Arbix.
-
OpenSea can simply decide to take away your NFTs, even from your crapto wallet.
-
Reality TV star who made £38,000 a week selling her farts in a jar ends up in hospital after overdoing it with black bean soup and protein shakes. She has now pivoted to selling fart NFTs.
-
Norton 360 now has a built-in crapto mining feature so you can waste electricity generating Ethereum — and hand over 15% to Symantec in fees.
This is fine
-
Maryland school district declares that schools will only transition to virtual classes if 5% of the entire student body comes down with COVID. Thanks to omicron, that happens at 126 out of 209 schools, so the 5% criterion is quietly abandoned in favor of "case-by-case basis" hand-waving.
-
Lufthansa flew 18,000 empty planes, but keep feeling guilty about your personal carbon footprint.
-
Beavers march north into the arctic and start destroying the remaining tundra. Et tu, castor?
-
Indianapolis life insurance CEO says that the death rate is up 40% from pre-pandemic levels; so many people died in Indianapolis last year that the coroners ran out of money.
For science!
-
Israeli scientists teach fish to drive on land in a wheeled fish tank; Palestinian fish look nervous.
-
Australian scientists working on stool transplants you can swallow; the marketing slogans will probably be the hard part.
Final thought
- It could be worse: Radiolab explores the question, what was the worst year in recorded human history?