So it turns out I have this really nasty bug that my mom had a week ago. I'm consistently nauseous, I'm sleeping a lot, I'm short of breath, I'm fatigued to the point where it actually exhausts me to type too much. But I already took one day off from here for Thanksgiving and I've got to give you something to do.
So, here's Matt Peacock of ABC Australia talking about asbestos in India. Embedding was disabled on the clip; it runs 27 minutes.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Occupy Speedbumps
According to USA Today, the Occupy movement has opted to make themselves noticed on Black Friday, using a variety of tactics- perhaps shambling around the stores as 'zombies', perhaps trying to direct people to small businesses, perhaps creating a 'really, really free market' where people donate items for shoppers to just come and take so they don't have to spend any money anywhere, perhaps just straight-up protesting.
For their sake, they'd better not be standing anywhere near the front doors when the stores open. Outside this blog, I'm a retail worker, and that is a damn good way to get yourself trampled.
Black Friday, experienced at the opening stampede, is basically Christmas minus all the nice parts. There's no frolicking in the snow, no family togetherness, no gathering around a tree, not even really a 'oh, little Billy would love this!' that you'd think would happen here, seeing as it's shopping and all. Oh, no. You, on the retail end, are spending your Thanksgiving- the day prior- manning stations, setting up the set pieces (and the markers for them). We set up waiting lines at our store. We have bathroom passes. We give a manager- a predetermined, designated manager we know can handle things- a bullhorn. The cashiers are told to get out of the way when the doors open. Nobody unauthorized is to get anywhere near the doors, because when they open, it is a wave of humanity streaming at you, that at some point must keep moving simply because too many others behind them are moving as well. Keep pushing forward, or get run over by people that are.
On the shoppers' end, it's a straight-up military operation. All the disparate times the stores kick off their Black Friday sales are mapped out and combined into a daylong battle plan. You'll hit Store A at midnight. Then you'll hit Store B at 3 AM, Store C at 6 AM, Store D at 10 AM. Add in drastically reduced prices to the equation- plus, mind you, a lengthy economic downturn- and the result really rather sucks the Christmas spirit out of you in a hell of a hurry. Christmas is a lot of places, but it's not in those stores. All that's there is semi-panicked chaotic entitlement.
Those clips they run on the news about the opening stampede may look fun- maybe even funny- when you're a shopper or not participating, but when you're in retail, it dawns on you very quickly that there's someone whose job is to stand on the other end of that madness and maintain some sort of order, and that someone is you. The price for failure can be high. Everyone in the industry remembers the Walmart people greeter that died in a Black Friday stampede three years ago on Long Island. It's only the one death, but none of us in retail want to be the second and take every measure we deem necessary to keep it from happening.
Behave yourself out there Friday morning, and it won't.
Be in the thick of it protesting and adding bodies to the equation that don't have any other business being there, and you put yourself and everyone around you at risk.
For their sake, they'd better not be standing anywhere near the front doors when the stores open. Outside this blog, I'm a retail worker, and that is a damn good way to get yourself trampled.
Black Friday, experienced at the opening stampede, is basically Christmas minus all the nice parts. There's no frolicking in the snow, no family togetherness, no gathering around a tree, not even really a 'oh, little Billy would love this!' that you'd think would happen here, seeing as it's shopping and all. Oh, no. You, on the retail end, are spending your Thanksgiving- the day prior- manning stations, setting up the set pieces (and the markers for them). We set up waiting lines at our store. We have bathroom passes. We give a manager- a predetermined, designated manager we know can handle things- a bullhorn. The cashiers are told to get out of the way when the doors open. Nobody unauthorized is to get anywhere near the doors, because when they open, it is a wave of humanity streaming at you, that at some point must keep moving simply because too many others behind them are moving as well. Keep pushing forward, or get run over by people that are.
On the shoppers' end, it's a straight-up military operation. All the disparate times the stores kick off their Black Friday sales are mapped out and combined into a daylong battle plan. You'll hit Store A at midnight. Then you'll hit Store B at 3 AM, Store C at 6 AM, Store D at 10 AM. Add in drastically reduced prices to the equation- plus, mind you, a lengthy economic downturn- and the result really rather sucks the Christmas spirit out of you in a hell of a hurry. Christmas is a lot of places, but it's not in those stores. All that's there is semi-panicked chaotic entitlement.
Those clips they run on the news about the opening stampede may look fun- maybe even funny- when you're a shopper or not participating, but when you're in retail, it dawns on you very quickly that there's someone whose job is to stand on the other end of that madness and maintain some sort of order, and that someone is you. The price for failure can be high. Everyone in the industry remembers the Walmart people greeter that died in a Black Friday stampede three years ago on Long Island. It's only the one death, but none of us in retail want to be the second and take every measure we deem necessary to keep it from happening.
Behave yourself out there Friday morning, and it won't.
Be in the thick of it protesting and adding bodies to the equation that don't have any other business being there, and you put yourself and everyone around you at risk.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Your Thanksgiving Survival Guide
With Thanksgiving coming up this week, as happens with the major holidays, there are a number of articles popping up about 'how to survive whatever holiday this is'. Like this one, for example, about Thanksgiving travel.
But when you look through the article, there is not a single survival tip in there. It's just stuff about busy airports and gas prices. This more general 'survival' guide talks about things like how to compliment the cook afterwards.
Now, I'm all for helping people make Thanksgiving easier on themselves. Butterball has a helpline open every year for people who are having problems preparing dinner. But let's talk about that term, 'survival'.
'Survival' means to preserve one's life. We are not talking about anything close to that here. We are talking about making things less awkward and yelly. This is making a headline sing for the sake of a couple extra clicks.
So if we're going to have a Thanksgiving survival guide, let's be literal about it. I present some tips now on how to literally survive Thanksgiving.
RULE #1: Do not substitute yourself for the turkey.
I cannot stress this enough. Any role normally performed by the turkey is to be performed by the turkey. Do not feel sorry for the turkey. The turkey is dead. Do not have yourself basted (not fatal, but unpleasant and creepy). Do not have yourself basted in your own juices (more unpleasant and perhaps more harmful, depending on the juices, and perhaps even illegal). Do not jump into the oven. Do not dive into the deep-fryer, if you have one. Do not encourage people to 'stuff' you in the way one would stuff a turkey. Do not request that someone pull out your giblets. The police may regard these things as suicide attempts, or even homicide if someone else is involved.
And under no circumstances are you to be carved and eaten during a football game. That's just right out.
RULE #2: Only eat the food.
Preferably, only eat the prepared food, as someone worked to make that dinner, but that's just etiquette. In order to SURVIVE Thanksgiving, you must at least limit yourself to edible foodstuffs and potable beverages. Make sure all food to be eaten has not turned a strange and unusual color. (What is 'strange and unusual' depends on the food eaten. A color that is normal for cranberry sauce is not normal for the turkey.) Make sure you only eat food that has been intended to be food. Do not eat the plates. They are hard, may harm your teeth, and hard plastic shards can cut up your insides. Do not reach below the sink and eat all the rat poison. Do not head out to the driveway and drink out of your car's gas tank. Do not eat the carving knife. Do not make a valiant effort to eat the carving knife. If you are using plastic cutlery, eating a spork is generally not going to be fatal, unless you choke on a piece of plastic, but it will possibly result in a hospital stay.
RULE #3: Have common sense regarding extra activities.
Some people manage to burn down their house when deep-frying a turkey, so do be careful there. You definitely don't want to add any extra flair to the process; it is quite interesting to see on its own. Do not go out into space, find a turkey or turkey-like object 60% of the size of the Earth, and attempt to drop it into your deep fryer at escape velocity (e.g. the speed at which a large object would drop if placed barely within Earth's gravitational pull and left alone). The impact would potentially destroy the Earth, not to mention the difficulty of getting the turkey to fit inside of your deep fryer.
One other thing you must do is remember, if you play any football outside, not to take fantasies too far. Jerome Bettis may have been known as the 'Bus', but refrain from driving one when playing. When throwing a 'bomb', do not actually throw one. When 'blitzing' the quarterback, do not drop bombs on London while you do so.
RULE #4: Adhere to basic societal norms, except when it can no longer be helped.
These are family and friends you're having over for dinner. Please remember that. It is preferable that you be nice and personable, but that's merely etiquette. To SURVIVE Thanksgiving, you must refrain from permitting your family members to stab you with their knife, pouring gasoline all over the place, burning the house along with any survivors, and then going on a five-state killing spree where they make puppet shows from the intestines of their victims before finally succumbing to police in a violent shootout that leaves the nation shocked and horrified right in the middle of Christmas season.
This may require vigilance on your part. You never know what those people are thinking. Maybe they remember that time you swiped the last of the potato chips and it's just been festering and stewing within them for years. You may need to incapacitate them first. Chloroform and a rag works well, though only for the first target. After this, your remaining family will be appalled. They may move to restrain you. It's a trick. You must overpower them. If you know you cannot do so, your only hope is to trick them back. Ply them with sweet potatoes, throw them into the middle of the room, and escape while they are distracted.
Then run! Run for your life! Run for the hills! Run to SURVIVE THANKSGIVING!
But when you look through the article, there is not a single survival tip in there. It's just stuff about busy airports and gas prices. This more general 'survival' guide talks about things like how to compliment the cook afterwards.
Now, I'm all for helping people make Thanksgiving easier on themselves. Butterball has a helpline open every year for people who are having problems preparing dinner. But let's talk about that term, 'survival'.
'Survival' means to preserve one's life. We are not talking about anything close to that here. We are talking about making things less awkward and yelly. This is making a headline sing for the sake of a couple extra clicks.
So if we're going to have a Thanksgiving survival guide, let's be literal about it. I present some tips now on how to literally survive Thanksgiving.
RULE #1: Do not substitute yourself for the turkey.
I cannot stress this enough. Any role normally performed by the turkey is to be performed by the turkey. Do not feel sorry for the turkey. The turkey is dead. Do not have yourself basted (not fatal, but unpleasant and creepy). Do not have yourself basted in your own juices (more unpleasant and perhaps more harmful, depending on the juices, and perhaps even illegal). Do not jump into the oven. Do not dive into the deep-fryer, if you have one. Do not encourage people to 'stuff' you in the way one would stuff a turkey. Do not request that someone pull out your giblets. The police may regard these things as suicide attempts, or even homicide if someone else is involved.
And under no circumstances are you to be carved and eaten during a football game. That's just right out.
RULE #2: Only eat the food.
Preferably, only eat the prepared food, as someone worked to make that dinner, but that's just etiquette. In order to SURVIVE Thanksgiving, you must at least limit yourself to edible foodstuffs and potable beverages. Make sure all food to be eaten has not turned a strange and unusual color. (What is 'strange and unusual' depends on the food eaten. A color that is normal for cranberry sauce is not normal for the turkey.) Make sure you only eat food that has been intended to be food. Do not eat the plates. They are hard, may harm your teeth, and hard plastic shards can cut up your insides. Do not reach below the sink and eat all the rat poison. Do not head out to the driveway and drink out of your car's gas tank. Do not eat the carving knife. Do not make a valiant effort to eat the carving knife. If you are using plastic cutlery, eating a spork is generally not going to be fatal, unless you choke on a piece of plastic, but it will possibly result in a hospital stay.
RULE #3: Have common sense regarding extra activities.
Some people manage to burn down their house when deep-frying a turkey, so do be careful there. You definitely don't want to add any extra flair to the process; it is quite interesting to see on its own. Do not go out into space, find a turkey or turkey-like object 60% of the size of the Earth, and attempt to drop it into your deep fryer at escape velocity (e.g. the speed at which a large object would drop if placed barely within Earth's gravitational pull and left alone). The impact would potentially destroy the Earth, not to mention the difficulty of getting the turkey to fit inside of your deep fryer.
One other thing you must do is remember, if you play any football outside, not to take fantasies too far. Jerome Bettis may have been known as the 'Bus', but refrain from driving one when playing. When throwing a 'bomb', do not actually throw one. When 'blitzing' the quarterback, do not drop bombs on London while you do so.
RULE #4: Adhere to basic societal norms, except when it can no longer be helped.
These are family and friends you're having over for dinner. Please remember that. It is preferable that you be nice and personable, but that's merely etiquette. To SURVIVE Thanksgiving, you must refrain from permitting your family members to stab you with their knife, pouring gasoline all over the place, burning the house along with any survivors, and then going on a five-state killing spree where they make puppet shows from the intestines of their victims before finally succumbing to police in a violent shootout that leaves the nation shocked and horrified right in the middle of Christmas season.
This may require vigilance on your part. You never know what those people are thinking. Maybe they remember that time you swiped the last of the potato chips and it's just been festering and stewing within them for years. You may need to incapacitate them first. Chloroform and a rag works well, though only for the first target. After this, your remaining family will be appalled. They may move to restrain you. It's a trick. You must overpower them. If you know you cannot do so, your only hope is to trick them back. Ply them with sweet potatoes, throw them into the middle of the room, and escape while they are distracted.
Then run! Run for your life! Run for the hills! Run to SURVIVE THANKSGIVING!
Monday, November 21, 2011
Random News Generator- United Arab Emirates
Third appearance of the UAE here; that ties them for first on the RNG leaderboard with Trinidad and Tobago. You know, for those scoring at home in your Random News Generator fantasy leagues. (At this point in the year, Senegal would be an awesome waiver wire pickup.)
Those of you who keep up on oil-related news might already know the significance of the Strait of Hormuz. For those who don't, the Strait- that little notch separating the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf; the northern tip of the UAE points to it- is the most crucial oil shipping lane in the world. Oil has to come through there if it's going to get from oil wells inland from the Gulf out to open sea. Close off the Strait, and you close off 17% of the world's oil supply, and a third of the world's seaborne oil. It handles about 15.5 million barrels a day.
The Strait of Hormuz is, for all intents and purposes, controlled by Iran; the Strait juts into their land. Considering Iran's reputation and demeanor, that fact leaves much of the rest of the world ill at ease; were someone ever to go to war with Iran, the Strait would be one of the places most at risk. The UAE, sitting across the Strait, would be severely impacted.
That's why they've recently completed- and have almost made operational- a bypass pipeline, running south of the Strait from Abu Dhabi and emerging outside of the chokepoint at the port of Fujairah, with a capacity of 2.5 million barrels a day. They hope to have it up and running by mid-December. They don't know how likely it is that anyone will actually bomb Iran or anything, but it's a better-safe-than-sorry proposition. They're also working on a refinery in Fujairah, which they hope to have running by 2016.
The pipeline will be operated, initially, by the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, which in turn is 60% owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
Those of you who keep up on oil-related news might already know the significance of the Strait of Hormuz. For those who don't, the Strait- that little notch separating the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf; the northern tip of the UAE points to it- is the most crucial oil shipping lane in the world. Oil has to come through there if it's going to get from oil wells inland from the Gulf out to open sea. Close off the Strait, and you close off 17% of the world's oil supply, and a third of the world's seaborne oil. It handles about 15.5 million barrels a day.
The Strait of Hormuz is, for all intents and purposes, controlled by Iran; the Strait juts into their land. Considering Iran's reputation and demeanor, that fact leaves much of the rest of the world ill at ease; were someone ever to go to war with Iran, the Strait would be one of the places most at risk. The UAE, sitting across the Strait, would be severely impacted.
That's why they've recently completed- and have almost made operational- a bypass pipeline, running south of the Strait from Abu Dhabi and emerging outside of the chokepoint at the port of Fujairah, with a capacity of 2.5 million barrels a day. They hope to have it up and running by mid-December. They don't know how likely it is that anyone will actually bomb Iran or anything, but it's a better-safe-than-sorry proposition. They're also working on a refinery in Fujairah, which they hope to have running by 2016.
The pipeline will be operated, initially, by the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, which in turn is 60% owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Mind-Blowing Scientific Discovery Of The Day
The invention of the world's lightest material, described as light enough to sit on a dandelion without crushing the seeds.
No, wait... it's this creation of a new class of molecules, with immediate usefulness in the search for new drugs.
No, wait... it's light from a vacuum.
No, wait, hang on... maybe it's an earlier experiment at the CERN labs in Switzerland showing particles going faster than the speed of light being successfully repeated. We'll need other groups to independently confirm the result, but excitement here growing.
Seriously, if science were NBA Jam, there would be a charred, flaming net and backboard fragments in the next state right now.
No, wait... it's this creation of a new class of molecules, with immediate usefulness in the search for new drugs.
No, wait... it's light from a vacuum.
No, wait, hang on... maybe it's an earlier experiment at the CERN labs in Switzerland showing particles going faster than the speed of light being successfully repeated. We'll need other groups to independently confirm the result, but excitement here growing.
Seriously, if science were NBA Jam, there would be a charred, flaming net and backboard fragments in the next state right now.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
So There I Was, As Far As You Know
From a favorable round of Wikipedia Roulette, we tell the story today of a guy going by the name of Oskar Daubmann.
Right off the bat, let's repeat that: going by the name of Oskar Daubmann. The real Daubmann had been killed in World War 1; if the Polish translation from here is to be trusted, he died in 1916 in Grandcourt, France; it is, however, possible that this isn't totally correct and Daubmann had simply been rendered one more unknown body among the hundreds of thousands killed. His soldier's passport, however, had found its way into a second-hand jacket, where in a shop in Offenbach, a petty thief named Ignaz Karl Hummel noticed it in 1932. An alias was always good to have, so he grabbed it.
To match the ID, Hummel concocted a story where he was captured at the Somme and spent the next 16 years in POW camps in France and Algeria while being tortured, starved, and kept in solitary. On his second escape attempt, according to his claims, he walked for 3,000 miles before coming across an Italian steamer headed to Naples. Once in Italy, to add the small bit of credibility to the backstory, he sent a letter from Italy to Daubmann's parents asking if they could get someone to help pick him up.
Now, had he just grabbed the ID of some random guy, that'd be the end of the story. But Hummel had grabbed the ID of a World War 1 soldier whose whereabouts weren't definitively known. In addition, France had told Germany that the last of their POW's had been released back to Germany in 1930. Daubmann's sudden appearance in 1932 would contradict this story, and with the Nazis building their power at the time, this could only help them build German anxiety towards their neighbors. So they ran with it.
There was a little hitch, though. Daubmann and Hummel didn't have matching eye colors. In addition, Daubmann had a facial scar whereas Hummel, even after supposedly spending 16 years as a POW and having been tortured, did not. So when Daubmann's parents got a good look at Hummel, they of course...
...wait, this can't be right. It says here they accepted him as their son. Really? They did? Wow. Well then.
Well, if they didn't have a problem, that was the green light to really make hay of Daubmann. There were lectures, awards, talk of a movie, one soldier who had served with the actual Daubmann either accepting him as well or just shrugging his shoulders and cashing in on his association, other soldiers who served with Daubmann somehow accepting him as well, and the Nazis using the appearance as part of their platform to take minority control of parliament in the July 1932 elections.
France, meanwhile, was insistent that this person was not Daubmann, and while they were dismissed by many Germans, others more sympathetic decided to at least look into it. From here, two versions of the story diverge, differing on how Hummel was ultimately caught. One version is rather mundane, with the local police running checks, fingerprinting Hummel, identifying him as Hummel- a career criminal known to German authorities, remember- and taking him into custody. The other version is rather more dramatic, with Hummel's actual father showing up at one Daubmann event and calling Hummel out right then and there.
Either way, he was caught in October 1932-- very close to the next elections in November, as the Nazis were unable to form a government after the July elections. It was a literal October Surprise. They kept control, but lost ground. (The results are almost irrelevant to the larger scope of history, as between then and the next election, the Reichstag burned and everybody knows the story from there. But for sake of reference.)
Hummel was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but his real punishment came later on. After taking full control of Germany, the Nazis remembered the guy who embarrassed them on a national scale back when they were rising to power. In 1938, Hummel was shipped to Schwabisch Hall, where he would stay in preventive detention until liberated by American forces in 1945. He would remain in town after his release, living there until his death in 1954.
He got a job as a tailor. No word on if that fateful jacket had anything to do with that choice.
Right off the bat, let's repeat that: going by the name of Oskar Daubmann. The real Daubmann had been killed in World War 1; if the Polish translation from here is to be trusted, he died in 1916 in Grandcourt, France; it is, however, possible that this isn't totally correct and Daubmann had simply been rendered one more unknown body among the hundreds of thousands killed. His soldier's passport, however, had found its way into a second-hand jacket, where in a shop in Offenbach, a petty thief named Ignaz Karl Hummel noticed it in 1932. An alias was always good to have, so he grabbed it.
To match the ID, Hummel concocted a story where he was captured at the Somme and spent the next 16 years in POW camps in France and Algeria while being tortured, starved, and kept in solitary. On his second escape attempt, according to his claims, he walked for 3,000 miles before coming across an Italian steamer headed to Naples. Once in Italy, to add the small bit of credibility to the backstory, he sent a letter from Italy to Daubmann's parents asking if they could get someone to help pick him up.
Now, had he just grabbed the ID of some random guy, that'd be the end of the story. But Hummel had grabbed the ID of a World War 1 soldier whose whereabouts weren't definitively known. In addition, France had told Germany that the last of their POW's had been released back to Germany in 1930. Daubmann's sudden appearance in 1932 would contradict this story, and with the Nazis building their power at the time, this could only help them build German anxiety towards their neighbors. So they ran with it.
There was a little hitch, though. Daubmann and Hummel didn't have matching eye colors. In addition, Daubmann had a facial scar whereas Hummel, even after supposedly spending 16 years as a POW and having been tortured, did not. So when Daubmann's parents got a good look at Hummel, they of course...
...wait, this can't be right. It says here they accepted him as their son. Really? They did? Wow. Well then.
Well, if they didn't have a problem, that was the green light to really make hay of Daubmann. There were lectures, awards, talk of a movie, one soldier who had served with the actual Daubmann either accepting him as well or just shrugging his shoulders and cashing in on his association, other soldiers who served with Daubmann somehow accepting him as well, and the Nazis using the appearance as part of their platform to take minority control of parliament in the July 1932 elections.
France, meanwhile, was insistent that this person was not Daubmann, and while they were dismissed by many Germans, others more sympathetic decided to at least look into it. From here, two versions of the story diverge, differing on how Hummel was ultimately caught. One version is rather mundane, with the local police running checks, fingerprinting Hummel, identifying him as Hummel- a career criminal known to German authorities, remember- and taking him into custody. The other version is rather more dramatic, with Hummel's actual father showing up at one Daubmann event and calling Hummel out right then and there.
Either way, he was caught in October 1932-- very close to the next elections in November, as the Nazis were unable to form a government after the July elections. It was a literal October Surprise. They kept control, but lost ground. (The results are almost irrelevant to the larger scope of history, as between then and the next election, the Reichstag burned and everybody knows the story from there. But for sake of reference.)
Hummel was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but his real punishment came later on. After taking full control of Germany, the Nazis remembered the guy who embarrassed them on a national scale back when they were rising to power. In 1938, Hummel was shipped to Schwabisch Hall, where he would stay in preventive detention until liberated by American forces in 1945. He would remain in town after his release, living there until his death in 1954.
He got a job as a tailor. No word on if that fateful jacket had anything to do with that choice.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Global Warming, or: None Like It Hot!
(Suzie walks outside with an ice cream cone. The ice cream melts. Suzie cries.)
You're probably wondering why your ice cream went away. Well, Suzie, the culprit isn't foreigners, it's global warming!
"Gwobal wappa?"
Uh, yeah. Meet Mr. Sunbeam. He comes all the way from the sun to visit Earth.
"Hello, Earth! Just poppin' in to brighten your day! [He hums.] And now I'll be on my way!"
"Not so fast, Sunbeam! We're greenhouse gases. You ain't goin' nowhere! [Mr. Sunbeam is beaten up.]
"Ooh! Ah! Oh, God, it hurts!"
Pretty soon, Earth is chock-full of sunbeams, their rotting corpses heating our atmosphere.
"How do we get wid of the gweenhouse grasses?"
Fortunately, our handsomest Mongolian politicians came up with a cheap, last-minute way to combat global warming. Ever since 2011, they put some giant ice cubes around Ulanbataar now and then.
"Just like Daddy puts in his drink every morning. And then he gets mad."
Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
"But--"
ONCE AND FOR ALL!
THE END
You're probably wondering why your ice cream went away. Well, Suzie, the culprit isn't foreigners, it's global warming!
"Gwobal wappa?"
Uh, yeah. Meet Mr. Sunbeam. He comes all the way from the sun to visit Earth.
"Hello, Earth! Just poppin' in to brighten your day! [He hums.] And now I'll be on my way!"
"Not so fast, Sunbeam! We're greenhouse gases. You ain't goin' nowhere! [Mr. Sunbeam is beaten up.]
"Ooh! Ah! Oh, God, it hurts!"
Pretty soon, Earth is chock-full of sunbeams, their rotting corpses heating our atmosphere.
"How do we get wid of the gweenhouse grasses?"
Fortunately, our handsomest Mongolian politicians came up with a cheap, last-minute way to combat global warming. Ever since 2011, they put some giant ice cubes around Ulanbataar now and then.
"Just like Daddy puts in his drink every morning. And then he gets mad."
Of course, since the greenhouse gases are still building up, it takes more and more ice each time. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
"But--"
ONCE AND FOR ALL!
THE END
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