Kansas City News Blog

By CHRIS PACKHAM


Hey, Science! Gather observable, empirical and measurable evidence about THIS! Scientists in Geneva activated the Large Hadron Collider without actually destroying the Earth. Maybe it's, like, broken or something? For a couple of months now, I've relaxed my stiff facsimile of social propriety and stopped paying tabs at bars and restaurants, and also stopped attempting to remember my co-workers' names or returning rental cars. IT WAS THE END OF THE WORLD, people.

Now I have to try to remember where I left all those Avises, and I might actually have to show up for this bench warrant I got served over some beef about illegally dumping medical sharps in a public park. Just because a bunch of European smartypantses want to get a long, steamy look at a Higgs boson particle to confirm their stupid predictions about the standard model of physics. In first-person Rickey Henderson-speak, Chris Packham don't give a damn if particles have supersymmetric partners; it ain't putting no food on Chris Packham's table or plum-flavored brandy in the paper bag Chris Packham carries to the bus stop.

The best-case scenario was that the collider would form a micro black hole, which would plunge into the center of the Earth and grow exponentially, destroying the planet from inside like a stomach ulcer with an event horizon, and I'd never have to pay off all these maxed-out credit cards or answer for the EEOC complaint the managing editor at The Pitch filed against me for repeatedly calling him "Mammy." How is that offensive? For Christ's sake, he's white.

The bottom line is that planet Earth is a 6,768,838,943,539,200,000,000-ton ball of iron, and solutions for destroying it are pretty much limited to (A) smashing it with an asteroid or (B) a particle-physics mishap, and if these things happened every day, I wouldn't be sitting here right now in the bail bondsman's office writing this over the stolen Wi-Fi connection from the Bikram Yoga studio next door. After the jump, an election sleaze roundup and some stuff about Satan. Click here, or you can choose between hard, empirical science or irrational magic superstition:

Election sleaze roundup: Maverick tax-cutting strict constructionist fiscal conservative Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged taxpayers in Alaska for 312 nights spent at her own house — about $60 a night, which is so much more expensive than a Day's Inn if you're traveling off-season, but The Washington Post says that the Palin house has an awesome Continental breakfast. Meanwhile, John McCain puts his honor on the line with a pervy ad that actually depicts Barack Obama leering at a superimposed image of some white children. Seriously!

This completely honorable campaign ad is the result of Obama's support for an education bill in the Illinois Legislature that would have required age-appropriate instruction for children about avoiding sexual predators. Seriously: If you're against that bill the way it's written, you're explicitly endorsing child molesting. I know John McCain isn't supporting the predators, because the NAMBLA lobbyists aren't allowed on the Straight Talk Express except during very, very strict lobbyist access availabilities. Plus, I heard that McCain can remember a time when he didn't have access to child predator education for five and a half years. Anyway, McCain has totally lost the support of lusty smoocher of Republican ass Joe Klein as a result, who calls it "one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics."

Finally, after Obama accused McCain of wearing lipstick — which he totally does, along with the inch-thick layer of flesh-colored Duncan Hines frosting he was wearing during his acceptance speech — the McCain campaign pretzeled his words around and pretended he was calling Sarah Palin a pig. In other words, the McCain campaign has now explicitly put itself in the position of suggesting that its own vice presidential nominee is a pig. I hate it plenty when progressives use the baby-talk manipulative language of victimhood; when conservatives do it, it's like listening to your grandparents try to use slang. Instead of pointing out the obvious — that Barack Obama is too classy to call a nice lady a pig and that John McCain uses the "lipstick on a pig" line all the time — CNN actually refuses to take a position, posting the headline 'Lipstick on a pig': Attack on Palin or common line? Have I ever mentioned that I'm starting to hate question marks so much that I won't even dignify this sentence by ending it with one.

In event of rapture, this vehicle will be uncowed: A group of superstitious farmers terrified of Satan and integers and radio frequencies is challenging new federal regulations requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips because the devices are "The Mark of the Beast." HOLY COW EXCLAMATION POINT, would be the operative play on words that might be deployed by your smelly old Dave Barry, followed by I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP and then something unfunny about boogers.

Their lawsuit, WHICH WE ARE NOT MAKING UP, reads, "Use of a numbering system for their premises and/or electronic numbering system for their animals constitutes some form of a 'mark of the beast' and/or represents an infringement of their 'dominion over cattle and all living things' in violation of their fundamental religious beliefs..." So OK, I'm already going to burn for all eternity in hell's boiling ocean of hog entrails for learning the satanic Dewey decimal number system they used to use in libraries, and probably also for all the Ba'al worship and whatnot, because I am totally a sucker for golden calves. But seriously, Christians, are you really all that concerned about your cows not being raptured up into heaven during Armageddon? Leaving behind nothing but their cowbells and automatic milking machines? In fact, I think I'm now in favor of branding all cattle with a federally mandated 666 brand, because that would be really awesome and heavy metal, and it's been a long time since American agriculture fuckin' rocked.

DAILY BRIEFS ARCHIVES, you guys.