Funniest News Stories of the Day
Line of the Day:
"President Barack Obama — Opinions on Coffee Salute… Split Half and Half." - Tweet by TMZ regarding a photograph of Barack Obama getting off an airplane and saluting two marines as he walked past them with a coffee in hand. Now we're just waiting for TMZ to release an extended video clip of the incident, in which case we'll see what happened inside the airplane.
Story of the Day
You Sound Like You're From London
For the first time since a company called Savills launched their "live/work index" in 2008, London has trumped Hong Kong as the world's most expensive city. Hong Kong has become more attractive due to the weakening Hong Kong dollar, whereas London's pound sterling has appreciated against the U.S. dollar. Sterling silver hit a rough patch earlier this year when NBA commissioner Adam Silver effectively kicked former L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling out of the league for making racist comments, but pretty much the entire world jumped on the "pound Sterling" bandwagon since he's an asshole, and the cost of living in London has apparently spiked as a result.
Top News
Killing Two Bad Birds with Some Big Stones
The United States launched a number of bombs and missiles into Syria on Tuesday, primarily aimed at crippling the Islamic State…or, in other words, turning ISIS into isis. U.S. officials are describing the attacks as successful and only the beginning of a long campaign to destroy the terrorist group. The strikes were led by the U.S., but also included bombers from Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Jordan. The U.S. took advantage of the incursion to also say hello to an old friend and wipe out the leadership of a Syrian-based Al Qaeda cell, known as the Khorasan. The Khorasan, now Khora-gone, was apparently planning an imminent airplane attack against the U.S. or Europe that would have involved lacing non-metallic items (e.g. toothpaste tubes) with explosive materials. Fortunately, unlike the Khorasan, the U.S. military had no problems getting explosives onto its planes.
Brown & Down
A UPS employee tragically shot and killed two other workers at a warehouse in Alabama on Tuesday morning before committing suicide at the scene. So, what can Brown do for you? Well maybe it could inspire some real national thought about why all of these Americans are deciding to kill random people and how we can make them not want to do that? Eh, who are we kidding, the media will probably give it a bunch of attention for a few days before losing interest, Obama might make a speech calling for gun control and then do nothing, and the NRA will definitely keep slipping $5's under the table to their favorite politicians.
Bottom News
Mumbai, We Have a Problem
In a classic show of one-upsmanship, on the heels of NASA's MAVEN spacecraft entering Mars' orbit this weekend, India's creatively named Mars Orbiter Mission is set to enter – you guessed it – Mars' orbit on Wednesday. If successful, India would become the first Asian nation to send a spacecraft to Mars, and would do so having spent a meager $74 million. That pales in comparison with the MAVEN's $671 million budget, as well as the $100 million spent to produce Academy Award-winning film "Gravity." The spacecraft still has to execute a series of tricky maneuvers on Wednesday in order to get into the orbit, so let's hope India didn't cheap out on anything just to curry flavor – er, favor – with taxpayers.
What's For Lunch?
In other Indian news, a New Delhi zoo-goer who jumped into the white tiger exhibit was mauled and killed by one of the tigers. Without even a hint of irony, the CNN report says that the attack occurred "around lunchtime." We would say that's a tasteless comment, but that doesn't quite feel like an appropriate choice of words either. So instead we'll take the, "if you can't beat them, join them" approach and pile on with an insensitive joke: sounds like "stupid person" is the white tiger's Delhi meat of choice.
Soda Companies Going Nonprofit?
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, otherwise known as the world's three largest soda/diabetes companies, have pledged to cut the number of sugary drink calories consumed by Americans by 20% in the next 10 years. Yes, you read that correctly. Next up: cable companies, cell providers, and dentists with big hands will be joining forces and pledging to decrease the horrible customer service consumed by Americans by 20% in the next 10 years. But first, please hold and wait for the next available representative.
Say Hello to My Little Friend
The FBI is investigating after a loaded shotgun was found in a bathroom in Terminal D at the Miami International Airport on Monday afternoon. The gun had not made it through security, as the bathroom was located outside of the checkpoint. Dogs were brought in to sweep the area but passengers were not evacuated from the terminal. While the dogs didn't find any other guns, they were in Miami, so they did find plenty of hair gel, steroids, and douchebags.
WTF Wednesday
Each Wednesday, we're going to take a deeper dive into a topic that's been grabbing headlines. Last week we asked WTF is Scotland doing? This week, we're wondering…
WTF is Going on with Ebola and Should We All Move into Bubbles?
How did this outbreak start in the first place? Experts believe the virus started with a lone bat in Guinea. They think the bat came in contact with a 2-year-old in Guinea, who contracted the disease and subsequently spread it to his family. The disease is transmitted via bodily fluids and direct contact, which makes corpses particularly dangerous, and it's widely believed that village traditions of washing the dead have contributed significantly to the outbreak. Thankfully, the disease is not airborne and scientists insist there's no evidence that it can become airborne. As for finding Bat Zero, authorities have contacted Ace Ventura.
Where are people getting infected? The vast majority of infections have originated in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia.
Where are Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia? We didn't know either. Turns out the three countries border each other on the very western coast of Africa. According to Kanye it's where diamonds come from.
I've heard of Ebola outbreaks before, why is this one so bad? The worst outbreak prior to this one took place in Uganda in 2001, and only involved 425 infections. So far, the WHO (World Health Organization) has reported more than 5,800 infections and 2,800 deaths from the current outbreak, but the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) thinks that the actual number of infections may be closer to 17,500.
How much worse can it get? The CDC released a report on Tuesday that said without substantial intervention, the disease could infect 1.4 million people in Sierra Leone and Liberia by the end of January.
So, will it be stopped? Experts have consistently said that with the right resources, the disease can be contained. CDC director Tom Frieden says, "A surge now can break the back of the epidemic, but delay is extremely costly…Once a sufficient number of Ebola cases are isolated, cases will decline very rapidly." Countries throughout the world are contributing to help stop the spread of the disease, with the U.S. allocating $750M to the effort and building 17 treatment centers in Liberia.
What else do I need to know? The WHO's director of strategy, Christopher Dye, has inspired confidence in the containment effort, primarily with his last name, but also with his words: "This is a bit like weather forecasting. We can do it a few days in advance, but looking a few weeks or months ahead is very difficult." Yeah, so relax everybody, just think of all those times the forecast called for rain during your tee time on Saturday and it ended up being nice…same thing here. Plus, the CDC consulted the Farmer's Almanac and it's only calling for a couple inches of Ebola this winter.
For more information (seriously): Here's an interesting 4-minute NPR interview with Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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