In Soviet Union, orgasm has you!

Last Week in Weird

A more perfect union

Long ago, in the halcyon days of January — specifically, on the halcyon day of January second — I boldly predicted that an utterly madcap editorial run by Slate would be the worst opinion piece of the year. That article, if you recall, was advocating that the government encourage a sufficient level of traffic fatalities to maintain the supply of "free" donor organs. Surely nothing would top that!

Your humble narrator is nothing if not humble, and is thus forced to admit that the ever-faithful, true-redblue New York Times has certainly given it the old college try. The Times has been running a regular column called "Red Century" for a few months now, in which the luminaries of the modern left wax poetical about (so help me) the Soviet Union and how wonderful life was there. So that’s already pretty stupid, but I am compelled to point out that this week’s "Red Century" column has finally vaulted into the heady stratosphere of stupidity occupied by Slate’s explicitly pro-traffic-fatalities glurge. It’s a bit of historical ignorance about how positively liberated Soviet women were compared to the stupid rubes in the Free World, but… well, just you wait. You won’t believe this one.

(more…)

Dear Tom Woods: Pink Floyd still stinks

Last Week in Weird

Putting his money where his mouth is

How the man finds the time to do all these things is beyond me, but, prior to his rather eventful evening in Berkeley, right-wing troublemaker and official Donald Trump #1 Fan Milo Yiannopoulos (whose name I can finally spell under my own power) headed to the southern border with a crew of shirtless musclemen to get started building that wall we’ve heard so much about.

No, that’s true.

(more…)

OG Trollface

Last Week in Weird

Trick or treat

It’s been a rough week for the future president of the United States Penitentiary Hazelton. It began with the comically phony ABC poll showing Her Majesty up by twelve points, which is just about bang-on twice Barack Obama’s advantage over John McCain when he won in a landslide in 2008, and would require an entirely impossible pattern of votes in order to be true. ABC walked this poll back in a hurry, and we were once again reassured that only horrible conspiracy theorists could possibly think anything was funny about it.

Then Wikileaks delivered this delightful gem from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s e-mails, in which the chairman and his associates discuss exactly how they intend to rig the polls. Turns out I was right all along!

(more…)

REAPERS GIMME A IVAN

Last Week in Weird

I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite auction on the internet

Last year, Kapersky reported on the existence of a secret, highly sophisticated hacking group they dubbed the Equation Group. The Equation Group was all but confirmed to be a part of the NSA, due to its frequent use of encryption techniques otherwise only observed to be used by the NSA, and was discovered to be responsible for a series of highly advanced hacks that could do things no other known malware could do (such as rewrite hard drive firmware). Clearly, this was evidence that the United States government employed the most terrifying, invincible hackers anywhere in the world!

And then last week the Shadow Brokers announced that they’d stolen the whole suite of hacking tools, and offered to sell it to the highest bidder.

(more…)

NEO-CONFEDERATE

Last Week in Weird

Hat speech

One of the most enduring symbols of the American liberty movement is the Gadsden Flag. Designed by Colonel Christopher Gadsden in 1775, it consists of a bold yellow field emblazoned with a coiled rattlesnake — which had been used as a symbol of the American colonies since the 1750s — and the legend "don’t tread on me." Though it was originally designed as the standard to be flown by Commodore Hopkins’ flagship in the brand-new continental navy, its striking design and powerful message made it popular with liberty-minded sorts, and it was frequently used in the revolutionary government, and has remained in use to this day among the people opposed to what that government has become.

I’m sure you’ll be startled to hear that it’s racist.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is reportedly investigating the issue surrounding the ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ snake logo after an African American employee of a federal agency complained they [sic] were racially harassed when a co-worker wore a cap showing the symbol.

The complainant said he found the cap racially offensive to African Americans because the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, who [sic] he described as a ‘slave trader & owner of slaves’.

(more…)