Farmville infanticide

Recently, the Supreme Court has been debating suppressing violent games. There is clear evidence that they should be taking a closer look at the "innocent" Farmville (or, better yet, do nothing). We’re looking not only at Farmville, but also at South Korean game addictions and Supreme Comedy.

We do not believe that violent games cause violence anymore than so-called “click-games” the epitome of boredom and addiction on Facebook. As if to prove this assertion in the most vile manner, a Jacksonville Florida mother entered a guilty plea in the death of her son:

Alexandra V. Tobias, 22, was arrested after the January death of 3-month-old Dylan Lee Edmondson. She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website. She told investigators the baby cried loudly as she played the game, which prosecutor Richard Mantei identified as FarmVille, a simulation game in which players raise crops and livestock with the help of Facebook friends.

Furthermore,

Tobias then put the baby on the couch and stepped out for a cigarette to regain her composure, the arrest report says. When she came back in, the family dog knocked the baby off the couch. The crying started again and Tobias shook the baby a second time before calling for an ambulance, the arrest report says. (..) She told the judge she'd graduated from high school. Court papers say she went to Samuel W. Wolfson Senior High School in Jacksonville. The paperwork also said Tobias did not have a job. (..) According to court records, her child abuse arrest violated a six-month probation she began serving just a few weeks before after pleading no contest to a domestic battery charge.

Farmville may have had other, even more counterintuitive effects. A story from just a few days ago in SeattleWeekly suggests that 27 y.o. Gary A. Veldhuizen from Ferndale, FarmVille player, pleaded guilty to raping a goat (i.e., bestiality):

The billy buggering took place at a farm near Enterprise Road at Willeys Lake Road in May. Apparently a family member caught Veldhuizen in mid-shag and called sheriff's deputies who came and arrested him. Veldhuizen's Facebook page shows the pudgy Ferndalian's love of ranch life extends to the virtual world as well, as he is a big fan of the game FarmVille. One of the more recent posts says he wants to "share some grape bushels with you."

Incidentally, Farmville has also other similar “click” games, one involving Mafia and organized crime, but that game has yet to result in someone’s death.

South Korea Online

Sad as it may be, this is not the first time addictive, non-violent games were involved in the death of children. Only a few months earlier, in February-March 2010, a South-Korean couple was arrested for starving their 3-month-old prematurely born daughter.

Once a day, between 12-hour stretches at a neighborhood Internet cafe, they fed their baby.  Instead of nurturing their own daughter, they became obsessed with raising a virtual child in the popular role-playing game called Prius Online. The couple were arrested in Suwon, a suburb of Seoul, 5 months after reporting the death of their baby.  The baby’s autopsy showed that she’d died due to a long period of malnutrition. (..) This is the dirty underbelly of South Korea’s fast and cheap Internet connections.  Over the last ten years, there have been many stories of Internet addiction and compulsive gaming leading to serious consequences and even death. In 2007, South Korea established an Internet addiction camp to help people overcome their addiction to the Internet.

According to PBS, in the more than 20000 Korean “PC Bangs” (i.e., Internet cafes), the more time you spend playing, the less you pay:

• Roughly 50 percent of South Koreans play games regularly, and 75 percent of gamers prefer online games
• Currently, the most played game in Korean "PC bangs" (Internet cafes) is Aion, a massively multiplayer online role playing game. It is due for release in the U.S. in fall 2009.
• In December 2008, the Korean government announced it would invest $237 million in the game industry to help expand gaming exports, which topped $1 billion for the first time in 2008.
• The South Korean online games market is expected to exceed $1.7 billion by the end of 2009
• Korea hosted the first Global Online Game Awards in 2008
• One-third of South Korea's population of 48 million has registered to play the game KartRider at least once
• Video game consoles, such as Sony PlayStation or Nintendo Wii, are less popular than PC games, in part because of widely available broadband Internet and a previous ban on Japanese cultural imports.

In 2005, a 28-year-old Korean man died after playing Starcraft almost non-stop for 50 hours. He inspired (or was he inspired by) the South Park WoW episode. He had just been fired for playing games too much. The government solution is Jump Up Internet Rescue School, a boot camp to cure online gaming addiction. According to New York Times,

South Korea boasts of being the most wired nation on earth. In fact, perhaps no other country has so fully embraced the Internet. Ninety percent of homes connect to cheap, high-speed broadband, online gaming is a professional sport, and social life for the young revolves around the “PC bang,” dim Internet parlors that sit on practically every street corner. (..) Up to 30 percent of South Koreans under 18, or about 2.4 million people, are at risk of Internet addiction, said Ahn Dong-hyun, a child psychiatrist at Hanyang University in Seoul who just completed a three-year government-financed survey of the problem. (..) To address the problem, the government has built a network of 140 Internet-addiction counseling centers, in addition to treatment programs at almost 100 hospitals and, most recently, the Internet Rescue camp, which started this summer. Researchers have developed a checklist for diagnosing the addiction and determining its severity, the K-Scale. (The K is for Korea.)

NYT offers even insight into how such addictions get started:

One participant, Lee Chang-hoon, 15, began using the computer to pass the time while his parents were working and he was home alone. He said he quickly came to prefer the virtual world, where he seemed to enjoy more success and popularity than in the real one. He spent 17 hours a day online, mostly looking at Japanese comics and playing a combat role-playing game called Sudden Attack. He played all night, and skipped school two or three times a week to catch up on sleep. When his parents told him he had to go to school, he reacted violently. Desperate, his mother, Kim Soon-yeol, sent him to the camp. “He didn’t seem to be able to control himself,” said Mrs. Kim, a hairdresser. “He used to be so passionate about his favorite subjects” at school. “Now, he gives up easily and gets even more absorbed in his games.” Her son was reluctant at first to give up his pastime. “I don’t have a problem,” Chang-hoon said in an interview three days after starting the camp. “Seventeen hours a day online is fine.” But later that day, he seemed to start changing his mind, if only slightly.

The Supremes

In USA and especially California, addiction is not seen as a problem. The “problem” is solely violent games. Recently, the Governator signed a strict law to control game violence, a law eventually appealed by a Game producers association all the way to the Supreme Court. The hearings were, according to the Hollywood reporter, cause for comedy:

1. Justice Alito getting a sly dig at his colleague over "original intent" in the U.S. Constitution: "I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games. Did he enjoy them?"
2. Justice Kagan, the junior member of the high court, trying to show she's hip: "You think Mortal Kombat is prohibited by this statute? It's a candidate, meaning, a reasonable jury could find that Mortal Kombat, which is an iconic game, which I am sure half of the clerks who work for us spent considerable amount of time in their adolescence playing."
3. Justice Breyer creating, excuse the pun, a tortured metaphor about a 13-year-old playing video games depicting violence: "I have tried to take as bad a [scenario] as I could think of, gratuitous torture of children. OK. Now, you can't buy a naked woman, but you can go and buy that, you say to the 13-year-old. Now, what sense is there to that?"
4. Justice Scalia muses about whether it would be a good thing to let juries act as censors: "Juries are not controllable. That's the wonderful thing about juries, also the worst thing about juries."
5. Just about anything out of the mouth of Justice Sotomayor, including these questions:

• "One of the studies, the Anderson study, says that the effect of violence is the same for a Bugs Bunny episode as it is for a violent video. So can the legislature now, because it has that study, say we can outlaw Bugs Bunny?"
• "Could you get rid of rap music? Have you heard some of the lyrics of some of the rap music...?"
• "Would a video game that portrayed a Vulcan as opposed to a human being, being maimed and tortured, would that be covered by the act?"
• "So if the video producer says this is not a human being, it's an android computer simulated person, then all they have to do is put a little artificial feature on the creature and they could sell the video game?"
• "What happens when the character gets maimed, head chopped off and immediately after it happens they spring back to life and they continue their battle? Is that covered by your act?"

It seems to me that Schwarzenegger, though not a big fan of such a law, signed it stating “children must be protected” not because he believes that, but rather because he thinks that reason is unconvincing for parents. All hopes that such ill-conceived legislation will be stopped so that it does not push game development to Asia rest now with the Supreme Court.

Video: PBS: Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, 1 Game Too Many, sp-mlnw, sp-s10e08-inside

Sources / More info: [yt-fv-parody], [yt-fv-tr], [yt-h8-fv], [yt-h8-fv], [yt-h8-fv], [yt-fv-prblm], [yt-h8-fv], [yt-h8-fv], [Supreme Court], SC-hearing, Jacksonville-mom, jacksonville-sentencing, huff-j, /.-exodus, /.-sc, atlantic-arnold, nxtwb-sk, st-kd, nyt-kbc, gzm-bsy, Kogia-study, wiki-lv,notwc, sw-veldhuizen, fb-veldhuizen, bbc-spanish-piglet

VerbaVolant, farmville, violence, game, games, online, online games, supreme court, supremes, mmog, mmorpg, massive multiplayer, massively multiplayer, schwartzenegger

Tyrants tyrannized by tyranesses

We keep on hearing lately girlfriends' perspectives on various criminals. The laughing loner Loughner's former girlfriends spoke up and he emerges from their memories as a normal person.

the breakup game

I’ve have never been good at saying good-bye of any kind, including funerals. And as a consequence, I have also avoided playing the break-up game as much as I could.

why you're still single and what to do about it

Recently, I came across an article about a woman's attempts to date successfully at 41. There's some advice from a "dating coach" that anyone could use.

funny insults car commercial

Aiming perhaps to increase ethnic acceptance through commerce, a seemingly British car commercial features a senior couple trying to bargain down the already low price of their dream car.

Dog chews off man's toe

Some weird things happen in the world. But even what may appear vicious could actually be good. Like this dog saving his master by chewing off his toe.

It is one of those news you’ll have to read more than once to fully grasp..

In short, a man wakes up from drunken stupor to find his dog with a blood moustache and himself without a previously infected toe. Rushed to the hospital by his wife, he learns he had Type 2 diabetes and the rest of his digit is amputated.

His owners credit the dog with saving his man’s life. Inexplicably, the man had been postponing going to the doctor and his wife, a registered nurse, did not think it was important or could not convince him.

Sources / More info: flickr, star-dog

DETROIT—A Michigan man credited his dog with saving his life by chewing off his diseased big toe as he lay passed out in a drunken stupor.

Jerry Douthett, 48, woke up on a Saturday night in late July in his Rockford, Michigan home to find his Jack Russell Terrier, Kiko, had gnawed off his right big toe.

“The dog always lays with me on the bed,” said Douthett. “That night, I woke up and looked down at my foot, and it was wet. When I looked it was blood, and there was the dog looking at me with a blood mustache.”

Douthett’s wife, Rosee, rushed him to a hospital where doctors found he was suffering from Type 2 diabetes. His toe was badly infected and surgeons amputated the remainder of the digit.

Douthett’s wife, a registered nurse, had been urging him for weeks to have his infected toe examined by a doctor.

On the night Kiko ate his toe, Douthett said he had been out with his wife and drank about “six or seven beers” and a pair of giant margaritas “big enough to put goldfish in.”

“I was self-medicating at this point,” he said. “The moral of the story is that the dog saved my life, because otherwise I never would have gone in to see a doctor.”

The couple said they were amazed that Kiko appeared to know Douthett had an infection that needed treatment.

VerbaVolant, diabetes, dog, infection, amputation, toe, tip-toe, man's best friend

The State of the Nation’s gut

Not long ago we learned about a few prisons starting to refuse certain inmates because they were overcrowded and ill-equipped to deal with the morbidly obese (sic)k. Not long ago, such an inmate was able to smuggle a weapon inside the prison by hiding it inside his flabs.

It is a known feature of our era that just as we become fatter, we want to see thinner models. Kate Moss would’ve never been famous in times of lower average weight. Likewise, if corn wasn’t used in everything… actually, forget that, it’s a different topic altogether.

George Vera, 25, who had been charged with selling illegal copies of compact discs, was found to have been hiding a 9 mm gun in his 500-lbs flabs of fat. At that point, he had been transferred through several jails and searched multiple times, but nobody found his gun until he himself bragged about it.

Perhaps the biggest uproar was caused by Lizzie Miller, whose photo by Walter Chin appeared in US Glamour Photograph. Apparently, she’s considered too fat to model even for plus sizes..

Luckily, Lizzie has started receiving more work after the photo was published, and her agency told her that she does not need to lose any more weight.

Yet there are signs that things are changing in the fashion industry. Back in 2007, not long after a couple of models died from not eating enough, photos of a 27-year-old French model Isabelle Caro were blown up and shown to passers-by in a campaign by Nolita and having the blessing of the Italian ministry of health. As one could expect, the man behind the campaign is none other than our main man (as Ali G. would say), Oliver Toscani, the Benetton master.

The ad is shocking, but a necessary wake-up call in an industry where public opinion seems focused at the far end of the spectrum:

Designer Giorgio Armani queried the link between fashion and anorexia, commenting that "even people who take no notice of fashion get anorexic", while designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana described anorexia as a psychiatric problem with "nothing to do with fashion".

Luckily, there are models who are happy modelling plus sizes, though to you and me they still are thinner than most people. Crystal Renn’s career took off only after put some of the lost weight back and started modeling “plus” sizes.

Here’s what some designers think, as quoted by the Guardian:

Renn's agent, Gary Dakin, of New York's Ford Models, which represents models who are UK size 12 to 22, says that their novelty use is coming to an end. Instead they will be photographed for one simple reason: because they are beautiful.

"I have been in this business for 11 years and I have seen this debate ripple through the fashion world a number of times," he said. "This time, though, the momentum of the debate feels different." Style arbiter Stephen Bayley agrees. Bayley's book, Women as Design, is published this week and looks at how definitions of female beauty have changed over the centuries. "In periods when we are impoverished, as now, there is a vogue for voluptuous women," he said. "

But designers are, slowly, beginning to agree that larger models have a role. Antonio Berardi has talked of the trouble he has finding girls with a womanly shape. "We have to spend days altering things," he complained. "We add padding and pieces that work inside the clothes to exaggerate their bodies into a more female form. I don't want all those girls with pale skin who look the same. My family is Italian – I am inspired by a womanly aesthetic."

Roland Mouret agrees: "I see advertising going back to that powerful 1980s mentality, when girls like Linda [Evangelista] were ideal. Back in the 80s, when supermodels were several sizes larger than top models today, the clothes worked on bigger bodies," he added. "They were bright, bold, curve-enhancing."

Kate Smith, a size 16 and the highest earner at Hughes Models, said: "The number of plus-size models in the industry has quadrupled in the past few years, but we're still a tiny percentage of the whole modelling business.

"What does my head in is that I'm a model but I can't buy designer clothes that fit me. Everything is crawl-walk-run. We'll get to the point where every shape and size will be represented on the runway, but maybe not in my lifetime."

Sources / More info: glamour-lizzie, guardian-big-beautiful, guardian-the-pic, huff-vera, msnbc-vera, drivesunuts-vera,

Verba Volant,obese, overweight, fat, fat of the land, crime, weight, weight-problem

Funniest jokes in the world from RD

To be honest, not only that most jokes found by RD to be funniest were rather old, but I felt I know quite a few much funnier. Yet this is rather a confirmation / sign that my sense of humour is off-the-wall. Something I already knew. Recently, Readers Digest completed its top of the best jokes in the world. Though you might have already heard most of them already, here they are..

WINNER

SWEDEN
Visiting the countryside on a hunting trip, the well-dressed man from Stockholm takes aim and shoots a duck. But the fowl drops into a farmer's field, and the farmer claims it. Since both want it, the farmer suggests settling the dispute with an old fashioned hick-kick. "I kick you as hard as I can in the crotch, then you do the same to me," he explains. "Whoever screams the least gets the bird."
The city man agrees. So the farmer winds up and delivers a crushing blow to the man's privates, and he collapses to the ground. Twenty minutes later, when he finally manages to stand, he gasps, "My turn."
"Nah," says the farmer, turning away. "You can keep the duck."

RUNNERS UP
ARGENTINA
An elderly couple goes to Burger King, where they carefully split a burger and fries. A trucker takes pity on them and offers to buy the wife her own meal. "It's all right," says the husband. "We share everything."
A few minutes later, the trucker notices that the wife hasn't taken a bite. "I really wouldn't mind buying your wife her own meal," he insists. "She'll eat," the husband assures him. "We share everything."
Unconvinced, the trucker implores the wife, "Why aren't you eating?"
The wife snaps, "Because I'm waiting for the teeth!"
AUSTRALIA
A polar bear walks into a bar and says, "Give me a scotch and … Coke."
"Why the long pause?" asks the bartender.
"I don't know," says the bear. "I've always had them."
BRAZIL
Tired of waiting in the back of the line to get on Noah's Ark, a flea jumps from one animal to another as she moves closer to the front. She leaps and leaps until she lands on the back of an elephant. The pachyderm turns to its mate and says testily, "I knew it! Here they go with the pushing and shoving!"
CANADA
A man says to a friend, "My wife is on a three-week diet."
"Oh, yeah? How much has she lost so far?"
"Two weeks."

CHINA
My cousin always "borrows" money from her older brother's piggy bank, which drives him crazy. One day, she found the piggy in, of all places, the refrigerator. Inside was this note: "Dear sister, I hope you'll understand, but my capital has been frozen."
CROATIA
A concerned police officer approaches a boy crying in front of a newsstand.
"What's wrong?" he asks.
"Superman isn't out yet!"
"I'll handle it," the cop assures him. "Hey, Superman!" he shouts. "Come on out! We won't hurt you!"
CZECH REPUBLIC
A man calls a radio deejay and says, "I've found a wallet with a hundred thousand koruny inside. There's also a card that says ‘Jan Ziegler, Seifert Street 3, Prague.' " "So?" says the deejay. "What do you want us to do?"
"Would you be so kind as to play the man a song?"

FINLAND
Hannu wants everything to be perfect for his anniversary trip to the hotel where he and his wife honeymooned 30 years earlier. So he gets there a day early to make all the arrangements. That night, he e-mails her but misspells the address and it goes to a recent widow. The next day, the widow's son finds his mother passed out in front of her computer. On the screen is this e-mail: "My darling wife, I've just gotten here and everything's set for your arrival tomorrow. I hope your trip down here will be as pleasant as mine. "P.S. It's really hot!"
FRANCE
President Sarkozy visits a steel factory. To the boss's surprise, the president greets an employee, Morton, with a warm hug. The same thing happens when Barack Obama visits, and again during Vladimir Putin's tour. Unimpressed, the boss says to Morton, "I bet you don't know the pope."
Morton shrugs. "We play golf together."
The gauntlet has been tossed, and the boss pays their way to the Vatican. During the Benediction, Morton slips away. Sure enough, he reappears—side by side with the pope. Two Chinese tourists tap the boss on the shoulder and ask, "Who's the guy in white standing with Morton?"
GERMANY
Wandering around a fairgrounds, a man enters a fortune-teller's tent for a laugh. "I see you're the father of two," says the seer, gazing into her crystal ball. "Ha! That's what you think," says the man scornfully. "I'm the father of three."
"Ha!" says the fortune-teller. "That's what you think."

HUNGARY
Doctor: Have you taken my advice and slept with the window open?
Patient: Yes.
Doctor: So your asthma disappeared completely?
Patient: No, but my watch, TV, iPod, and laptop have.
INDIA
A business executive visits his dear Chinese friend in the hospital. "Li kai yang qi guan," says the sick man feebly. The executive desperately wants to help him, but he doesn't speak Mandarin. "Li kai yang qi guan!" says the patient, as he draws his last breath. Later that year, the executive is in Shanghai on business when he finally learns the meaning of Li kai yang qi guan: "Get off my oxygen tube."
KOREA
A fortune-teller advised me, "Do everything your boss says." Sage advice, I thought, as I was working on an important project. As if I needed more proof of just how good the psychic was, that night, as I read the newspaper, I noticed my horoscope: "Do everything your boss says."
MEXICO
Indians ask their new chief whether the winter will be cold or mild. Since the young chief never learned the ways of his ancestors, he tells them to collect firewood, then he goes off and calls the National Weather Service. "Will the winter be bad?" he asks.
"Looks like it," is the answer.
So the chief tells his people to gather more firewood. A week later, he calls again. "Are you positive the winter will be very cold?" "Absolutely."
The chief tells his people to gather even more firewood, then calls the Weather Service again: "Are you sure?" "I'm telling you, it's going to be the coldest winter on record."
"How do you know?"
"Because the Indians are gathering firewood like crazy!"
NETHERLANDS
A starlet is seated next to a lawyer on a long flight. She craves her sleep, but he keeps waking her up. "Let's play a trivia game," he suggests. "If I answer wrong, I'll pay you $50. If you answer wrong, you owe me $5." The starlet agrees, and the lawyer goes first. "What's the distance between the earth and the moon?"
The starlet hands the lawyer $5. Now it's her turn. "What goes up a mountain on three legs and comes down on four?"
The lawyer is dumbstruck. He scans the Internet, flips through his pocket encyclopedia, and texts every scientist he can find. No dice. Hours later, he wakes up the starlet, hands her $50, and asks, "So what's the answer?" Without a word, she hands him $5 and goes back to sleep.
NORWAY
A woman rubs a lamp and out pops a genie. "You're a kind lady, so I'll grant you one wish," the genie tells her.
"See this cat? I'd rather have a strong, handsome man," she says.
The genie agrees and—poof!—the cat turns into a Brad Pitt clone. The woman leaps into his lap.
"Do you have anything to say before we make love?" she asks.
"Yes," he says. "I bet you wish you hadn't had me neutered last week."
PHILIPPINES
Joe, Mike, Mary, and Tom were talking about their dream jobs. "I want to be a lawyer," Joe began, "so that I can defend my countrymen."
"I want to be a congressman," said Mike, "so I can draft laws to benefit my countrymen."
"I want to be a doctor," said Mary, "so that I can cure my countrymen."
"How about you, Tom? What would you like to be?" asked Joe.
Tom thought a moment and replied, "I'd like to be a countryman."
POLAND
Nearing the end, Stanislaw is surrounded by loved ones. As the final moment approaches, he gathers all his strength and whispers, "I must tell you my greatest secret." His family urges him to go on.
"Before I got married, I had it all," Stanislaw explains. "Fast cars, cute girls, and plenty of money. But a good friend warned me, ‘Get married and start a family. Otherwise, no one will be there to give you a glass of water to drink when you're on your deathbed.' So I took his advice. I traded the girls for a wife, beer for baby food. I sold my Ferrari and invested in college funds. And now here we are. And you know what?"
"What?"
"I'm not even thirsty!"
PORTUGAL
A man is visiting an old friend when a little girl races through the room.
"Diploma," the friend calls after her, "bring us two cups of coffee."
"Diploma? What an odd name," says the visitor. "How did she get it?"
The friend sighs. "I sent my daughter to study at the university in Lisbon, and that's what she came back with."
ROMANIA
Vlad gets pulled over after a high-speed car chase. "I'm going to help you out," says the police officer. "Give me a good excuse and I won't write you a ticket." "Three weeks ago, my wife left me for a cop," Vlad explains. "So when I saw your car coming, I thought you were trying to bring her back."
RUSSIA
Due to the recession, to save on energy costs, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off.
—God
SERBIA
A neighbor finds a young boy sitting on the stairs crying. "What's the matter, honey?" she asks him. "It's my father," the boy sobs. "He hit his finger with a hammer."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Because first I laughed!"
SLOVENIA
As they leave the courthouse, a lawyer turns to his grim-looking client and says, "Janez, what's wrong? You were acquitted." "I know, but now I'm really in trouble," says Janez. "I just rented out my apartment for three years."
SPAIN
A beggar approaches a grandmother at the beach with his hands out. "Please, señora," the poor man pleads, "I haven't eaten all day." "Good," says the grandmother. "Now you won't have to worry about cramps when you go for a swim."
SWITZERLAND
Wife: Honey, did you notice? I bought a new toilet brush.
Husband: Yes, I did. But I still prefer the paper.
TAIWAN
Papa Turtle is telling his son a bedtime story. "Once upon a time, there was a white bunny."
"Aw, c'mon, Dad," says the boy. "That's kid stuff. What about some science fiction?"
"All right. Once upon a time, there was a bunny in outer space …"
"Dad! Make it more grown-up."
"Okay, okay. Promise you won't tell Mom."
"I swear."
"Once upon a time, there was a naked bunny …"
THAILAND
"Hurry up or we'll be late!" shouts a teacher to her kindergarten class.
"What's the rush?" a tot asks coolly.
"If we're late, we'll miss your next class!" the teacher reminds him.
The kid shrugs. "If you're in such a hurry, go on without us."
UNITED KINGDOM
"About a month before he died, my grandmother covered my grandfather's back with lard. After that, he went downhill very quickly."
--Comic Milton Jones
UNITED STATES
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see who's best at his job. So they each go into the woods, find a bear, and attempt to convert it. Later they get together. The priest begins: "When I found the bear, I read to him from the Catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his First Communion." "I found a bear by the stream," says the minister, "and preached God's Holy Word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him." They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. "Looking back," he says, "maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision." --Submitted by Mitchell Hauser

How did RD choose these jokes? Good question.

In January, RD localized editions from around the world asked their readers to submit their favourite jokes, which were then trimmed to 10. Then readers voted the best. Hopefully, the elections weren’t stolen and / or run on Diebold machines.

In USA, the jury was comprised of:

• Sid Caesar: His 1950s TV hit, Your Show of Shows, introduced America to Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, and Woody Allen.
• Monty Hall: Television producer and host of Let’s Make a Deal.
• Arthur Hiller: Directed comedies like The In-Laws and Silver Streak.
• Rocky Kalish: Wrote for All in the Family, Maude, and Good Times.
• Hal Kanter: Bob Hope’s chief gag writer. Wrote Road to Bali for Hope and Bing Crosby.
• Gary Owens: The voice of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.
• John Rappaport: Writer and producer for M*A*S*H.
• Matty Simmons: Founder of National Lampoon; producer of Animal House and Vacation.

Here are the top 10 clean jokes in the USA, chosen using a similar approach:

Winner: A Priest, a Minister and a Rabbi
A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see who’s best at his job. So they each go into the woods, find a bear, and attempt to convert it. Later they get together. The priest begins: "When I found the bear, I read to him from the Catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his First Communion."
"I found a bear by the stream," says the minister, "and preached God’s holy word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him."
They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. "Looking back," he says, "maybe I shouldn’t have started with the circumcision."
Submitted by Mitchell Hauser
Crime and Punishment
A man, shocked by how his buddy is dressed, asks him, "How long have you been wearing that bra?" The friend replies, "Ever since my wife found it in the glove compartment."
Submitted by Braeden Silvermist
Conflict
A ventriloquist is performing with his dummy on his lap. He’s telling a dumb- blonde joke when a young platinum-haired beauty jumps to her feet.
"What gives you the right to stereotype blondes that way?" she demands. "What does hair color have to do with my worth as a human being?" Flustered, the ventriloquist begins to stammer out an apology.
"You keep out of this!" she yells. "I’m talking to that little jerk on your knee!"
Submitted by Nancy Gomes

New Lease on Life
In surgery for a heart attack, a middle- aged woman has a vision of God by her bedside. "Will I die?" she asks.
God says, "No. You have 30 more years to live."
With 30 years to look forward to, she decides to make the best of it. So since she’s in the hospital, she gets breast implants, liposuction, a tummy tuck, hair transplants, and collagen injections in her lips. She looks great!
The day she’s discharged, she exits the hospital with a swagger, crosses the street, and is immediately hit by an ambulance and killed.
Up in heaven, she sees God. "You said I had 30 more years to live," she complains. "That’s true," says God.
"So what happened?"
God shrugs. "I didn’t recognize you."
Submitted by Hank Chawansky
Vow of Silence
Every ten years, the monks in the monastery are allowed to break their vow of silence to speak two words. Ten years go by and it’s one monk’s first chance. He thinks for a second before saying, "Food bad."
Ten years later, he says, "Bed hard."
It’s the big day, a decade later. He gives the head monk a long stare and says, "I quit."
"I’m not surprised," the head monk says. "You’ve been complaining ever since you got here."
Submitted by Alan Lynch
Talking Dog
A guy spots a sign outside a house that reads "Talking Dog for Sale." Intrigued, he walks in.
"So what have you done with your life?" he asks the dog.
"I’ve led a very full life," says the dog. "I lived in the Alps rescuing avalanche victims. Then I served my country in Iraq. And now I spend my days reading to the residents of a retirement home."
The guy is flabbergasted. He asks the dog’s owner, "Why on earth would you want to get rid of an incredible dog like that?"
The owner says, "Because he’s a liar! He never did any of that!"
Submitted by Harry Nelson
Making Sure
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He’s not breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911.
"I think my friend is dead!" he yells. "What can I do?"
The operator says, "Calm down. First, let’s make sure he’s dead."
There’s a silence, then a shot. Back on the phone, the guy says, "Okay, now what?"
Submitted by Gerald Doka
Power of Perception
A turtle is crossing the road when he’s mugged by two snails. When the police show up, they ask him what happened. The shaken turtle replies, "I don’t know. It all happened so fast."
Submitted by Debby Carter
Ghostly Music
A man is walking in a graveyard when he hears the Third Symphony played backward. When it’s over, the Second Symphony starts playing, also backward, and then the First. "What’s going on?" he asks a cemetery worker. "It’s Beethoven," says the worker. "He’s decomposing."
Submitted by Jeremy Hone
A Dog's Life
A poodle and a collie are walking together when the poodle suddenly unloads on his friend. "My life is a mess," he says. "My owner is mean, my girlfriend ran away with a schnauzer, and I’m as jittery as a cat."
"Why don’t you go see a psychiatrist?" suggests the collie.
"I can’t," says the poodle. "I’m not allowed on the couch."
Submitted by L. B. Weinstein

As we know from Jean de Santeuil (not Moliere), castigat ridendo mores, which could be the slogan of Satire, Inc.

Sources / More info: rd-bj, rd-bj-ch, rd-t10-usa, rd bj @ scribd, flags from google

VerbaVolant, humour, humor, fun, joke, jokes, hilarious, hillarious, funny, ha-ha, collection, rd, readers digest, reders digest, reader's digest

2010 Darwin Awards

The Darwin website has published the results of the annual vote and accordingly gave out its prizes. As almost every year, there’s also a book: Chlorinating the Gene Pool.

The prizes are given each year to commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it:

DOUBLE DIP (2009 runner up - 7.4, 2074 votes)

For the first time ever, a woman--yes, a member of the safer sex--made it into the year's Top Darwin Awards Contenders! 2009 Antepenultimate Winner is the North Carolina woman who jumped into a swollen creek to rescue her drowning...moped.

On June 3, Greensboro was inundated and cars were stranded on flooded roads. Rosanne T., 50, hopped on her moped and drove the convenience store where she “possibly had a beer,”, according to her mother, to whom she said on the phone “my moped has two rubber wheels, Mom, I'll be fine”. Ms T had acquired her moped 2 years ago after a DUI conviction suspended her driving license. The roads were blocked, but she drove right past the Highway Patrol and road blocks then promptly fell into the creek. The officer rescued her, then she jumped again never to resurface. Her mother thought that it was the moped’s fault: "She loved that thing." (da)

DYING TO GO (2009 runner up - 7.8, 247 votes)

We've all been in his shoes, taking that fateful whiz at the side of the road. After all, "You don't buy beer, you just rent it." Wanting to take a leak while stuck in traffic, Shawn M. got out of the car on that fateful April 12, 2008 day near Pompano Beach, Fla. He then proceeded to jump over the low concrete wall and fell 65 feet to his death, as the car was idling on an overpass above the railroad. "Shawn didn't do a whole lot for a living. He got along on his charm, just like his father" explained his mother. Look before you leak! (da)

CRUSHING DEBT (2009 Darwin award winner - 7.7, 202 votes)

And the winner is... deceased! The city of Dinant, Belgium on September 26 is the backdrop for this rare Double Darwin Award involving two bank robbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM. Overestimating the amount of dynamite needed, they actually demolished the bank building and perished in the event. In hindsight, a debit card would have been safer.(da)

PRIEST VISITS BOSS (2008 Darwin award winner)

Finally, we retroactively announce a new Darwin Award Winner from 2008, posted too late to earn that year's top spot. The most popular story of the year 2008, beloved by millions of fans, presenting the ludicrous case of the Balloon Priest, Adelir Antonio. He wanted to publicize his plan to build spiritual rest stops for truck drivers where no hookers are allowed so he tried to set a record for clustered balloon flight. Though he packed a survival suit, used a buoyant chair, had a satellite phone and GPS and could have parachuted while over land, he did not manage to set his record, as you have to survive in order to be considered. He could have parachuted while over land but didn’t. He eventually called the coast guard, but his cell phone died while he fiddled with the GPS unit. He probably did the same shortly thereafter. (da)

 

The actual votes and marks seem to be slightly different than the above:

Sparkleberry Lane 7.8 (297 votes) July 31, South Carolina

• 23-y.o. James T. painted his face gold to rob a store. He died from pain toxicity.

Saw It Coming! 7.7 (2136 votes) June 27, New York (possible urban story)

• Miecyskaw Mil, 64, angry over a power brownout, decided to cut a live powerline with his circular saw. Police and firefighters guarding it tried to stop him, but he “won”.

Tennessee Pee 7.7 (736 votes) mid-80s, Middle T State Univ

• A young frat boy gained entry to an electrical installation and seeing a wasp nest hanging from a transformer, climbed on top of it and peed. (possible urban story)

Painkiller 7.6 (574 votes) October 26, 17 - Minnesota

• Lucas William Stenning, 32, avoided registration –required for predatory offenders- by leaping from a moving vehicle and dying. He was trying to get hospitalized in order to get painkillers.

Trifecta Electra 7.4 (995 votes) October 12, Florida

• A Palm Bay couple and their 15-y.o son were putting up a ham radio antenna one evening and hit a power line lurking on top.

She Talks Faster Than She Walks 7.3 (2313 votes) May 30, Louisiana

• Tamera B, 22, claimed that he BF wasn’t driving fast enough, so she opened the door and stuck her foot out while the vehicle was on the highway at normal speed.

Wetting The Bed 6.5 (307 votes) October 27, Arkansas

• Devan LeAnn, 31 decided to “float” on a swelling lake on a egg-crate style mattress which is non-buoyant, “vanishing from sight” shortly thereafter.

Fool's Gold 6.5 (566 votes) February 5, India

• Pravin Kuse dreamed that a pot of gold is buried under his house, an abandoned 100-year-old building. He dug a 15 feet tunnel in a rather long time, which eventually caved in, burying him alive.

Race To The Bottooommm 6.2 (1578 votes) September 5, Oregon

• Jake, 18, went down Saddle Mountain in a “controlled slide” down the cliff face. His body came to rest in a steep ravine 1000 feet below.

Missed (But Not Missed By) The Bus 6.2 (280 votes) August 13, Quebec

• A 24-y.o. woman tried to flag down a bus she had just missed by jumping into a restricted area of a bus terminal. She did not succeed.

Collateral Damage 5.6 (2462 votes) April 30, York, UK

• A 41-y.o. attempted to demolish a large brick garden and succombed to a cement slab.

Nutty Putty Cave 5.5 (385 votes)

• Made of soft brown clay, this naturally formed thermal cave is 1400 feet long. John J., a veteran spelunker, went into a small cavity head-first and never came out, despite 137 trying to save him. He died after 27 painful hours.

Sources / More info: www.darwinawards.com, amazon-darwin, yt-DA-puku, yt-DA-gnooble

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Prostitutes and female crime

There seems to be a flood of sex crime coming out of Romania which is - lest we forget - the number one exporter of prostitutes to Western Europe. If we are to believe the latest news, Romania is also the number one exporter of Gypsies. Coincidence?