Daily Science News Weekly: Maury Guests bested by Down’s Syndrome Ape

BOSTON, MA - The Senior Primate professor at the Yale school for primatology released a report yesterday based on a years worth of studies; a group of former Maury Povich guests lost a battery of intellect tests to a young orangutan with Down’s Syndrome.

To keep people from egging them, Professor G. Taylor has declined to release the names of the 30 daytime talk show guests, who simply go by descriptive monikers like “baby daddy” and “Friends call her ‘Slut’”. After a year of almost daily testing, Prof. Taylor and his team felt their research was conclusive.

“If you have ever appeared on Maury Povich’s show as a guest, our research indicates that a retarded monkey could easily beat you at checkers, 1rst grade writing, and peanut butter.” While Mr Povich officially declined to be involved in the experiment, research asst. Cornelius Z. pointed out that “he was never approached to be involved”, and that prof. Taylor said he was “dumber than his guests” and expressed fears that the aging talk show host might bring his wife, Connie Chung, along who the team unanimously agreed was a “bitch.”

The experiments, which ranged from being able to identify the difference between a basketball and a fork, to simple sentence structure, to being able to readily identify 3 out of a group of 30 people they had most recently fornicated with, were designed to test the cognitive and reasoning abilities of the subjects. The cognitive abilities of the 30 Maury guests were found to be “severely stunted”, while reasoning was “simply non-existent. Terrorists on a suicide mission have clearer understanding of the world around them.”

While there were no physical exams, there still managed to be some injuries. One lab assistant was “assaulted with gonorrhea” simply by being in the same room for an extended period of time, and two of the female post-grads helping with the project became spontaneously pregnant when they accidentally touched a man known simply as “F-Dawg.”

When reached for comment, F-Dawg replied “Them bitches is lyin’. Them ain’t my babies.” A new episode of Maury will reveal the results of F-Dawg’s lie detector and paternity tests regarding the previously promising students.

Professor Taylor said the results were “not unexpected, but strikingly conclusive.” One guest, a d “blonde” woman from Queens, was reported dead, but was later found to be alive and well; the machine that was monitoring her brain activity had simply never been calibrated to detect signals that faint.

“Simians with mental disorders may now rejoice.” The esteemed primatologist concluded. “At least they aren’t dumb enough to get on Maury.”

On My Way To St. Ives

You might remember this riddle from Die Hard: With a Vengeance

On my way to St. Ives,

I Met a man with seven wives,

The seven wives had seven sacks,

The seven sacks had seven cats,

The seven cats had seven kittens.

Kittens, cats, sacks, wives,

The man was arrested in Manchester for animal cruelty and polygamy.

The First Week of January: A Short Story

By Luis Prada

He unloaded the dump truck’s contents on to a growing pile of trash already a few feet tall. Hanging thick in the thin winter air was the stench of countless half eaten meals, dead rodents, the diapers of both the very young and decrepitly old, and countless other things that give off smells too nightmarish to recount.

Cutting through his nostrils was a distinctive sting – a refreshing kind of rot. He dug through the truck’s contents, quickly tossing bags and loose trash over his shoulder, searching for the source of the smell. If his boss were watching him he’d have thought he was making a strong case for Waste Management Employee of the Month.

Deep near the encrusted gunk that lined the truck’s hopper, under a pizza box and a partially shattered lamp, was a tree. Its trunk was dry, its needles had browned. Hanging from a branch was a small, ceramic snowman that held a sign reading, “Merry Christmas!” A few straggling strands of cheap tinsel clung beside the snowman’s branches, refusing to ever let go. The rest of the ornaments that once hung from the tree were replaced by a single used condom lazily flung on to a cluster of branches. Probably the result of a broken trash bag – hopefully.

Its state of decay would turn away any perspective buyer at a roadside tent.

He pulled the dead decorated tree out of the truck and stood it on its base, admiring it. He removed the condom and flung it away with a quick flick. He spun it to examine it from all sides, breathing in the woodland air being whipped off the branches. He dug his nose deep in to a nest of needles and sucked in a lungful. He closed his eyes, trying to dilate time, extend the experience.

He pulled his face back and tossed the tree on to the growing pile of trash below his feet. The smell of garbage rot rushed back in to his nostrils – not that it bothered him much anymore. He knew this single disposed tree, once loved by its owners only a few days prior and now cast in to a trash grave, will soon be joined by dozens just like it to rot and die among the filth and give off their sweet, stingy, rarefied rot scent in unison, because it was the first week of January.

The Arctic Cruelty Tour! Volume 1

Author: David Dietle

The ACT was conceived years ago as I struggled to develop my web skills and watched as shows like Jackass became wildly popular. I seethed with jealousy; why did Johnny Knoxville and Steve O deserve to get paid to be stupid? I was an expert of doing dumb shit and had never seen a penny for it. I decided that I needed to harness my lack of reasoning and decision making skills, and couple them with my love of animals and nature.

I hated the idea of being lumped with wussy environmentalists and vegans, so I decided that going out and being nice to animals was a crock; let’s pester the little fuckers into saving themselves! That left just one thing; where to run my campaign? I had started recruiting others, mostly through Facebook. When that failed, I tried MySpace. When that failed I tried Yahoo personals. I got tired of pictures of fat hairy men’s junk so I finally asked some idiot coworkers of mine if they wanted to join my environmental movement, and once they finished giggling over my use of the word “movement”, they joined. One of them mentioned that he had always wanted to punch a penguin, so we settled on the Arctic. It was perfect; we had a goal, we had a team of 6, and we now had a name that made a cool acronym. We juggled the possibility of it being the Amazon cruelty tour, but when Jim found out that Amazon women were made up, he decided it was not worth the risk of piranha attack.

ACT 2008 gets off the ground!

In 2008, Jim, John, Dan, Derek, Russel and me all loaded on a ship and headed for Alaska! We were mostly funded by money Derek lifted from his parent’s yard; his dad had been hoarding money in jars and burying them in the yard since Derek was 5. The trip was long, and the oil tanker we hitched a ride on had no place to tie down our tents, so it was cold (the captain said it was against the law for him to accept money for passage if we went below deck). We set up camp after a week at sea. By this point, John kept crying and had to be subdued. We tied him into his sleeping bag, and he proceeded to crawl around for the rest of the tour like a large caterpillar. After the first day, he smelled, so we dumped him on the other side of a snowdrift. Derek spotted the first penguin, and wanting to be the first to strike a blow for mother nature, he charged the animal while Dan tried to look up the animal we were looking at with his iPhone. Derek managed to land one solid punch on the animal before it noticed him. Here’s a picture Dan took with his iPhone after we finally identified the creature:

We cancelled the trip after one day because it turns out the Arctic does not have penguins. We explained to Derek’s family that he had stolen all of his dad’s money and escaped to Alaska to start a cocaine farm, but that he had died on an ice floe battling a bear to save John, who had frozen to death in his own filth.

ACT 2009 Fares a little better than 2008

In 2009, we got our shit together and struck out for the Antarctic. Having figured out this is where the penguins live (thank you, Happy Feet!) we chose the frozen continent as our logo! Unfortunately, we had spent a pretty penny securing the Arctic Cruelty Tour name, so we kept it to minimize our losses. Being forward thinking, we chose to hold the expedition in the summer, so as to hit the Antarctic when there was less ice and maybe more penguins.

Plus, Jim had a lingering fear of losing his feet to frost bite, so summer it was! We flew down to Patagonia and then hopped a boat to the South Pole. We had invested the rest of Derek’s dad’s money and had accidentally received John’s life insurance check, so ACT had great funding to the tune of 6 figures! John’s widow had a decent job at Wendy’s, and his kids were too young to remember him, so we didn’t feel too bad; we were saving the world. Like I said, this one fared a little better. Here’s a fun fact; when it is summer in the northern hemisphere, it’s winter in the southern one. Who knew?! Here’s another picture from Dan’s iPhone; this is the vast field of emperor penguins we were going to lob golf balls into, but Jim wandered off and we have not seen him since.

We figured he would find his way like the dogs in 8 Below starring the delightful Paul Walker. However, rumor has it that humans fare a lot worse in the freezing cold than huskies, so that brought the crew down to just me, Dan and Russel.

ACT 2010! Success smells sweet! Like penguins!

2010’s ACT was bittersweet; only 3 of us managed to live the dream. We finally made it during Antarctica’s summer, and man, the place was just bustling with life! We joined a team of environmentalists and scientists who were skeptical when they saw our array of golf equipment, baseball bats, a leotards.Russel assured them that they had distinct scientific purposes, and that they should not “be fags” and ask too many more questions.

Boy oh boy did we strike a blow for Nature and the cause of conservation last year! Russel dressed no less than 4 different species of penguin in leotards and whore makeup. He screamed “HOMOS!” at them while Dan laughed and snapped pictures with his phone.

I personally hit all manner of sea going creatures with well aimed golf balls, even scoring a hole in one with a blue whale! It was just like that episode of Seinfeld, where Kramer kit a golf ball into a whale! Except, in this case, there was no George Costanza to extract the ball. And no beach for the whale to land on in order to have the ball extracted by anyone. Moving on, but suffice to say, it ended badly. I am glad whales aren’t smart animals, otherwise I am sure some poor whale calf is missing his mother. (One of the biologists said the dead blue whale they found was likely a mother) Dan participated in more than just snapping pictures, let me tell you! He pretended to club a leopard seal, but it bit him.

Leopard seals are a lot less cuddly than baby harp seals, we learned.

He later pretended to club several smaller seals with a baseball bat, and they pretended to bleed. Animals have a sense of humor too! Unfortunately, I can’t show you any pictures. The ship’s captain confiscated it as “evidence” and left us there to, as he put it “rot if such a thing could happen that far south.”

We were rescued some days later by some nice Japanese fellows who informed us that our former ride had been capsized and the crew stranded on an ice berg a few days later; it turns out they rendezvoused with some eco-terrorists who found an iPhone with some disturbing images on it. So it turns out our captain wasn’t just an asshole, he probably had child porn or something on his phone. Serves him right to die in the middle of the ocean for it. Dick. We celebrated our success with some vodka, and the fine Japanese sailors shared some whale with us, which we figured was their word for “tuna”.

We’re gearing up for 2011’s ACT, and we hope this year we can get a film crew together. And maybe find Jim. Show your support for the ACT by digging this. Show your love of mother nature! If you are walking down the road and see a penguin, kick that little fucker to spread environmental awareness! Also, I will gladly accept submissions for a less sucky logo. Due to budgetary constraints (Derek’s family hired a PI) I can only offer you credit and gratitude in return.

Edit: Due to further budgetary problems, I can only offer credit.

Our Reaction To Richard Nixon Being a Possible Homosexual

Here’s a simple question we, Der Henchmen, want to ask the American people.

Richard Nixon was undeniably a prick, and now he’s dead.  He’s been dead for nearly twenty years.  It doesn’t matter if he was packing Bebe Rebozo’s fudge; we’ll never know for sure and frankly, we’re OK with that.

Seriously, why do you want to know this?  We doubt the secret homosexual cabal that runs the world fundamentalists are sure exists really wants to have “Nixon” and “huge homo” ever in the same sentence.  Just the image of Nixon mounting Rebozo like a saddle horse is enough to make iron stomachs empty their contents.  Seriously, have you seen these guys?  Who wants to imagine that?

Just, ew.  Leave this one alone.  If we have to imagine celebrities having gay sex, can they at least be attractive?