Old Video Shows Stupid Idea: Big Cleveland Balloonfest Of 1986

Zillions of balloons rain down on
Cleveland during a 1986 ill-fated
attempt at a Guiness Book of World
Record attempt

The Atlantic recently featured a short film about a long forgotten, failed attempt at a Guinness Book of World Record balloon launch.

The city of Cleveland launched 1.5 million helium filled balloons. It looked spectacular, but the end result was kind of like that famous Thanksgiving turkey scene from the 1970s show "WKRP In Cincinnati." (In that episode, the radio station inadvertently bombarded Cincinnati with turkeys, with hilariously messy results.

Cleveland should have known that kind of fiction would come to life with their balloon launch. And unlike the sitcom, the result was not hilarious at all.

Hundreds of thousands of balloons littered the city and nearby Lake Erie.  The balloons weren't biodegradable, so they made a mess and an environmental hazard.

Worse, all the balloons interfered with a search and rescue mission on Lake Erie for two missing fishermen. There's no way they could be found amid all those balloons floating in the water.

Here's the short film on the doomed Cleveland balloon fest:

Country Time Lemonade To Pay Fines For Kids Who Set Up "Illegal" Lemonade Stands

Country Time Lemonade has started Lemon-Ade - a team that pays fines
and permit fees imposed by overzealous bureaucrats who shut down
kids' lemonade stands. 

It's an annual summertime outrage:

A kid sets up a lemonade stand, and some overzealous bureaucrat in some hoity-toity town shuts it down, saying the kid needs a business permit, a health permit, all kinds of permits to sell a couple 25 cent cups of lemonade.

You gotta enforce those rules!

Country Time, Lemonade has used this state of affairs for what I think is a pretty ingenious marketing plan. The company will help pay fines and permits for kids nationwide who run afoul of lemonade stand regulators. The whole idea is called, of course, Legal-Ade. 

Says the Country Time website: "Life doesn't always give you lemons, but when it does, you should be able to make and share lemonade with the neighborhood with legal implications..... That's why wer're here to take a stand for lemonade stands across the nation."

Of course, bureaucrats shutting down lemonade stands isn't the biggest crisis to hit the nation recently. And it's not even very common, Adweek reports. The publications says there have only been about 30 reported examples of municipalities trying to shut down kid-operated concession stands since 1983.

The fact checking site Snopes.com said most of the controversies involved demands that kids get permits for their lemonade stands, and not fines for operating them.

Still, the Country Time Legal-Ade campaign plays well with the outrage we feel when some bullying adults try to mess with kids' lemonade stands. So it's a good piece of promotion from Country Time. Give that marketing exec a raise!

Here's Country Time's video on the matter:

Bonkers Adminstration: People Had To Follow Trump To Tape Together Shredded Documents

Donald Trump apparently rips up every document
he touches, so somebody has to tape them all
together for National Archive records. I should
have invested in 3M, makers of Scotch Tape

As is obvious to (almost) everyone, we live in bonkers Trump world now. One in which he basically wants to start a way with Canada of all places, yet thinks Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un  are pretty much A-OK.

These mega issues are overwhelming, so I sometimes seek out the smaller, but even weirder absurdities in Trump World.

Politico recently had a doozy on this score.

When Trump finishes with a paper document (remember, he tends not to read them) he tears them into tiny shreds. The problem is, he's not supposed to.

As Politico points out, under the Presidential Records Act, the White House is required to preserve all memos, letters, emails and papers that the president touches. All the paperwork goes to the National Archives for safekeeping and to eventually become historical records.

So what they do with the shredded papers? For a period of time, it was the following, says Politico:

"Armed with rolls of clear Scotch tape (Solomon) Lartey and his colleagues would sift through large piles of shredded paper and put them back together, he said, 'like a jigsaw puzzle.' Sometimes the papers would just be split down the middle, but other times they would be torn into pieces so small they looked like confetti."

Presumably, somebody is still taping the ripped documents together, or at least I think so. But Lartey, 54 and his colleague Reginald Young Jr., 48, were abruptly shitcanned from their job. They were stripped of their badges and hauled off the White House grounds by the Secret Service, Politico reports. 

Nobody, as far as we can tell, knows why they were fired. This includes Lartey and Young, who were not told why they were fired.

Politico tried to get ahold of the woman who fired them, but she didn't respond to their emails. Neither did a White House spokesman.

My theory, of course, is Lartey and Young were preserving documents that Trump doesn't want preserved. That just seems to be his M.O.

The insanity goes on........

Creepiest Political Candidate Ever Favors Incest, Pedophilia

Nathan Larson is a longshot candidate for Congress but a frontrunner
for title of creepiest politician ever

In this weird age of Trump, people seem more and more encouraged to come out of the closet as racist, mysogynist, scary or worse.

So, unfortunately, I'm not entirely surprised by what I'm sure is the worst political candidate ever.

According to the Huffington Post, Nathan Larson, a 37 year old accountant from Charlottesville, Virginia, is running for Congress as an independent candidate.

Sounds safe enough, right? An accountant, so pretty low key. Probably a fiscal conservative, who would keep an eye on excess government spending. What's not to love?

A HUGE amount, it turns out. He is admitted pedophile who has almost gleefully bragged about raping his late ex-wife. (Who later committed suicide. I wonder why).

As reported in the Huffington Post:

"When asked whether he's a pedophile or just writes about pedophilia, he said, 'It's a mix of both. When people go over the top there's a grain of truth to what they say.'

Asked whether there was a 'grain of truth' in his essay about father-daughter incest, and another about raping his ex-wife repeatedly, he said yes, offering that plenty of women have rape fantasies."

Larson things this attitude is a plus that will endear voters to him. "A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it..... People prefer when there's an outsider who doesn't have anything to lose and is willing to say what's on a lot of people's minds."

OK, I suppose can see the rebellion against so-called political correctness. But I really don't believe people think about incest and rape and think, "What a great idea! Too bad those politically correct laws ban it."

At least I hope that's the case.

He also says he'll garner votes because "People are open minded."

Riiggght.

Yep, Larson's a real charmer. He would legalize child pornography and legalize incestuous marriage and favors "benevolent white supremacy."

Um, I don't think it's possible to be a "benevolent" white supremist.

Going on, Larson also thinks "we need to switch to a system that classifies women as property, initially of their fathers and later of their husbands."

Cripes, by comparison, he makes the world of "The Handmaids Tale" sound like something Gloria Steinem would embrace.

As if you needed more proof this guy is truly scary, he had a wiki page called Nathania.org, which has since been pulled down in which he wrote articles with the following titles:

"A Man Should Be Allowed To Choke His Wife To Death As Punishment for Cutting Her Hair Short Without Permission or Other Acts of Gross Insubordination."

"The Justifiability of an Incel's Kidnapping A Girl And Keeping Her As His Rape-Slave For Sex and Babymaking."

(The word Incel refers to mostly men who are virgins or not having sex because women aren't attracted to them, and the Incel blames the women and is angry at them for not submitting to them. Ugh.)

I'm frankly a little surprised Larson has not been arrested, since he seems to be admitting to crimes.

On the bright side, he is certainly considered a very long shot for that Congressional seat.  Which of course is a good thing.

Of course, there are other creeps out there running for office, too.  In Illinois, Arthur Jones, regarded as a Nazi, recently won the Republican primary in the state's Third Congressional District. Luckily, the district is heavily Democratic, so somebody more sane than Jones will end up in Congress from that district.

There are other wackos out there as well, but so far, they've been kept at bay. Let's hope that continues.

Surprise Double Proposal Adds Needed Joy To The Air

The video in this post has gone viral, and so you might have seen it, but since it's so joyous and so much fun, it's worth putting in this here blog thingy.

Two years ago, Jessa Gillaspie and Becky McCabe went on their first date at the Memphis Zoo's Zoo Brew event.

The pair fell in love and the rest is history.

When they recently heard the Zoo Brew event was happening again, they decided to go, with the friends they were with the first time.

McCabe thought the outing at the zoo would be the perfect time to propose marriage to Gillaspie. So she did so. Only Gillaspie had a bit of a surprise waiting for McCabe.

Watch:

High School Students Ordered To Smile All The Time - Or ELSE

Bert from Sesame Street would not do well in the Northern Lebanon School
District in Pennsylvania. 

My nominee for the most Orwellian high school in the nation goes to the Northern Lebanon School District in Pennsylvania.

Students there are required to smile at all times while in the hallways between classes, or else they get in trouble. If they don't, they must go to the guidance counselor to discuss their "problems" or get detention.  

So you're not allowed in the school to show any normal emotion other than benign (fake) happiness.

No anxiety over an upcoming tough test. No thoughtful contemplation over which colleges to apply. No anger or grief over the latest school shooting elsewhere in the nation. No thoughts of regrets over the argument with  Dad this morning over smart phone use.

Any normal thing like that is grounds for counseling or detention. It's just bizarre.

Meanwhile, according to the Lebanon Daily News in Pennsylvania, some parents are complaining that bullying incidents are being ignored by administrators. My guess is because the school district has some obsession with turning the school into some Stepford Wives perfect world.

Several teachers told the Lebanon Daily News said the smiling thing isn't a written rule in the school, Assistant Principal Benjamin Wenger has been enforcing this smiling "regulation."  I guess the fake smiling is more important than dealing with the real bullying in this school district.

After the "forced smiles" article came out, North Lebanon School District Superintendent Erik Bentzel denied that there is a "must smile" rule, but I suspect that's PR in the wake of the embarrassing news coverage.

So, if you ever go to this school for a visit, smile! You're on Orwellian camera!

Guy Clings To Free Housing At Parents House; Alex Jones Gets Him Out, DIscusses Nose Jobs

Michael Rotondo is being evicted from his parents' house, but
he is getting some help from some highly unlikely sources.

Talk about having no sense of personal pride!

As we learned in incessant news coverage this week, a 30-year-old guy in New York State really made a splash by refusing to leave his parents' house.

Mostly because it's free lodging and he really doesn't want to give up the great deal.  For the record, I moved out of my parents' house late - when I was 23 - but I did so with no prodding form my parents. I decided on my own.

Not like most adults who, you know, go out and get a job, find an apartment, pay the rent and otherwise support themselves like normal people.

I don't oppose people living with their parents if they do so for the right reasons.  Some adults live with their parents for years or decades. But most people who live with their parents assist them with health issues, or pay the bills, or generally stay helpful and productive. That's what normal people do.

Apparently, though, Michael Rotondo is not normal people.

Still,the great lengths he went to in attempts to prevent his parents from evicting him show a commitment to hard work. It just would have been easier, and more effective for him, to put that energy into finding an independent place to live.

Speaking of hard work, Rotondo's parents went through a lot of efforts get this bozo out of their house. It started in earnest in February, when Rodondo's parents wrote him this missive. (I guess face to face conversations weren't working.)

"After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision."

First of all, when your parents write such a strongly worded note, it's past the time to move out.

However, the parents' note didn't work. So they gave their son another note on March 15, demanding he move out. No movement.

On March 20, the parents tried another tack: They offered him $1,100 to help with moving expenses, and also offered advice. The advice was sensible enough, in my opinion. It's what normal people would think of in this situation, but as I said, Rotondo doesn't seem very normal to me.

The advice included:

--- Organize the things you need for work and to manage an apartment.
--- A reminder that "there are jobs available for those with a poor work history like you Get one - you have to work!"
---  Also: "Sell the other things you have that have any significant value (e.g. stereo, some tools, etc.) This is especially true for any weapons you may have. You need the money and will have no place for the stuff."

Wait, what? Weapons? Yikes! I know little of this guy, but what little I know makes me a little nervous about him having weapons. But I guess that's another story.

It turns out the judge quickly decided with the parents, and Rotondo needs to move out, pronto. But our ever persistent protagonist says he will appeal the judge's decision.

On the bright side, the online cam site  CamSoda offered Rotondo a paying gig in its "LifeStream" program, TMZ reports.

As TMZ points out, CamSoda is apparently a site where porn stars to online camming, but to our great relief, Rotondo will remain clothed if he takes the gig. The job pays $1,000 a month for six months.

The whole thing got even more bizarre if you can believe it on Thursday, when Rotondo appeared on wacko conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' InfoWars show. Jones gave Rotondo a check for $3,000 to move out of his parents' house.

A high point in the Jones/Rotondo conversation is when Jones asks if he's going to use the $3,000 to get a nose job.

"I don't think so," Rotondo said. "I like my nose the way it is."

As Vice continues this story, Jones, obsessed with noses, apparently, tells Rotondo he like his "noble nose" and that his wife's nose is so big she gets mistaken for a Jew, but he he also likes her nose a lot, so much so that he'd divorce her if she ever got a nose job.

Jones apparently meant the $3,000 check and the interview as a pep talk to encouage Rotondo's independence, but the interview, as we would expect from Jones, stayed weird.

Jones worried that Rotondo came off as "autistic" in other TV interviews, and warned him that he should move out of his parents' house immediately or risk being taken control of by "globalists."

In the end, I have to agree with Vice that Jones, for once in his life, actually sounded sensible at times.

Jones told Rotondo: "I think you should go back, no matter what your parents have done to you, and say, 'Thank you for life and I appreciate you and I'm going to figure out how to make money and be a part of society.'....From then, if you can do those basics, the big ideas will come.'"

How about that? Decent fatherly advice from one of the world's biggest wackos!  Black is white  and day is night now, I guess.