Iraq Saddam Hussein (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From the Museum of Hoaxes:

Saddam Hussein and his sons may have been ruthless, power-hungry dictators, but that didn't stop them from trying to give the people of Iraq a good chuckle every April Fool's Day. On April 1, 1998 the Babil newspaper, owned by Hussein's son Uday, informed its readers that President Clinton had decided to lift sanctions against Iraq, only to admit later that it was just joking. One can imagine the knee-slapping guffaws when readers realized how they'd been taken for a ride.

Check out the definitive list.

Source: GAS via PJ

And thanks to Allie for the lulz!

The goal was as simple as it was ambitious; as beautiful as it was grotesque; as awesome as it was … so freakishly awesome!  A crowdsourced version of Star Wars Episode IV (A New Hope) in 15-second blocks, open-sourced and using any creative media you happen to have nearby.  Less than a year later, the results are in.

I, for one, will never wash my eyeballs again!

Enjoy it now before the MPAA tries to shut it down:

Image by woody1778a via Flickr

Nice.

ghet·to (gt)

n. pl. ghet·tos or ghet·toes

1. A usually poor section of a city inhabited primarily by people of the same race, religion, or social background, often because of discrimination.

2. An often walled quarter in a European city to which Jews were restricted beginning in the Middle Ages.

3. Something that resembles the restriction or isolation of a city ghetto: "trapped in ethnic or pink-collar managerial job ghettoes" (Diane Weathers).

Image via Wikipedia

So guess what haters, that time I soiled my drawers in the 2nd grade – never happened!

Physicists from Cornell University have made another step towards turning science fiction into reality when they successfully implemented a time masker, which works by altering the flow of light. This feat is based on a basic principle: humans see things happening around us via the light that reaches our eyes. By speeding up one part of the light and slowing down another part, the physicists were able to make it appear as if an event didn’t happen!

Kudos to the author for the Robert Jordan reference to Balefire!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Right on.

The bill, which has drawn 29 co-sponsors in the few weeks since it was introduced, would prohibit any TSA employee "who has not received federal law enforcement training or is not eligible for federal law enforcement benefits from using the official job title of officer, or wearing a metal badge resembling a police badge or a uniform resembling the uniform of a federal law enforcement officer.

Admittedly, this is another one of those dog-whistle bills that have no chance of leaving committee, but the spirit is sound and hopefully a sign of growing distaste for low-level functionaries pretending to be law enforcement.

With the stroke of his talented larynx, Obama bids adieu to the Iraqi occupation by declaring that “those days are over.”  Aside from the physical relocation of America’s armed expression from one base to another, I’m not entirely sure what days he means.  Of course, all but his most fervent ideologues know that this is more of a pre-election year holiday salve than substantial shift in foreign policy.  A steaming pile of ho-ho-ho to maybe help forget this shameful conquest so we can go on pretending that we do not provide the mechanism for multi-national corporations to endlessly divert capital from periphery to core. 

But hey, score one for the bumper-magnet ribbon crowd who can now rejoice over years of straddling some imaginary line between abhorring the war yet supporting the troops. 

As per youzsh, XKCD is the kink of visualizations and has done it again with the newest chart on money.  The teeny-tiny version below really needs to be viewed in full size to have any sort of grasp on how perverse pervasive the income gap has become. 

I though this made a timely contrast with Dan Gillmor’s recent insistence on rejecting the term ‘earn’ when it comes to the income of the 1%:

To be sure, one of the meanings of "to earn" is "to profit financially" – but it is not the only one. The other major meaning is related to whether someone has deserved his or her gain, which may or may not be about money. Because the word has both connotations, we tend to attach both when the topic is about financial profits.

If we know anything about the recent income and accumulated assets of the now notorious 1%, it is that much of this wealth, by any rational standard, is undeserved. This applies especially to the Wall Street bankers who looted the global economy with sleazy tactics and, sadly, also with impunity.

That is why, if I was the editor in charge of any news organisation, I would flatly ban the use of the word "earned", when "profited" or "made" (as in money) would be much more accurate, or at least neutral. I would not try to say who "deserved" profits; only that profits were made.

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."