Headlines You Won’t See in Mainstream Year-End Reviews 2024

“Inflation goes bananas”

Although inflation rates have slipped below two percent, the death knell for most of us may have already peeled as it appears that the only persons still unaffected are the 1% who can afford to spend $6.2 million on a banana.

 

“One may be trash but two can hang with the best of them”

Yes, Dutch museum officials were doing the can-can when “All The Good Times We Spent Together,” a missing museum art exhibit comprised of two empty, dented beer cans was found and returned to them… none the worse (or better) for wear and tear.  Apparently, a janitor (a.k.a. an expert in the field of garbage) threw the exhibit in the trash.

 

“American woman crushes everyone’s nuts including the English king’s”

It must have been a Nutcracker Sweet kind of victory when an American woman went nuts and emasculated all comers in the World Conkers Championship.  Even their reigning champion and current King’s would swing no more after she crushed his.

  

“The Mad Hatter pulls another one out of his rabbit(?) hole” 

He spewed an endless stream of shit, butt apparently nothing sticks to a rabbit’s ass and a near majority of American voter’s found themselves in the deep state of whichever one of his rabbit holes most appealed to them.  I know, opinions are like assholes and, although everyone has one, all the voices in my head agree this will not bode well for all those opinionated assholes that were willing to swallow any Trumped up shit their man pulled out of his ass.

 

“4B, or not 4B, that id the question”

 After being bitch-slapped back to the kitchen by their suddenly Repugnican male counterparts, a majority of American women are toying with the idea of swinging the other way for the next four years by refusing marriage, childbirth, romance, and sex with men

 

“Antsy immigration movement burns hottest in Australia”

 Rafts upon rafts of invasive fire ants are spreading like fire in Australia and even severe flooding doesn’t seem to put them out.

 

“A! I am not!”

An AI chatbot has artificially identified Zoe Kleinman, a BBC’s technology editor, as one of the biggest spreaders of misinformation on Twitter. Although experts agree that chatbots can make mistakes and sometimes even hallucinate (i.e. make shit up) there is nothing she or we can do about that because everyone else believes the computer is always right (until Netflix goes postal and unwittingly fires the first shot in mankind’s coming robocalypse).

 

“Lipstick that appeals to your Inner pig”

The Mars Wrigley and Ferrara candy companies have chosen to only remove a potentially hazardous additive, titanium dioxide, from M&Ms, Skittles and Nerds sold in Europe. Unless Canada also outlaws the practice, these companies (and apparently Health Canada) are happy to roll the dice on consumer well-being on the understanding that there is “probably” no danger when consumed in moderation (regardless of the fact that the sole purpose of the additive is to make them more attractive and appealing to the consumer).

 

“Just another engaging old fox in the henhouse”

 One year after some old chick broke off her engagement to Rupert Murdoch (his 5^th), that (92-year) old FOX bounced right back and got engaged (his 6^th) and then married 3 months later.  Whether or not there was any real chemistry there is moot since the 67-year-old bombshell he married is a retired Russian molecular biologist and isn’t that what love is all about. As the latest Richie Righteous American to bend a knee to his Russian handler, here’s hoping Rupert has the cognitive acuity to be putin’ his affairs in order because Russians don’t like betrayal and Russian molecular biologists have been known to concoct some pretty inventive ways of getting even.

In a related story: “It’s earie how everyone misses this man”

It was déjà vu all over again one week later. When America’s Richie Rich (when he doesn’t have to find money to pay court costs) Serial-Husband-in-Chief was surprised on the Republican Party Convention stage by the appearance of his, biological bombshell and Soviet communist born handler, he took a long shot at projecting a tender, happiness ever after, moment for the world to see. Alas, that shot also went wide of it’s mark as his kiss missed Melania, when she suddenly (but not unexpectedly) turned her head and just nicked his ear (again).

“A Silent Apartheid against Crowd Noise”

While North American University crowds are exercising free speech by religiously railing against Israel’s overt, and (yes) over the top, effort to smash an enemy intent on destroying it, they are oddly silent when a different crowd of religious nutbars in Afghanistan continue their holiest of holy jihads against women. Apart from their need to hide their entire bodies when outside their home, and now also refrain from even speaking outside of their homes, Afghan women (a.k.a. voiceless cat zombies) still have the right to…[searching]…Siri what rights do they have? … [cricket]… Oh sorry, the Taliban gag order also applies to Siri’s voice. Let’s just say, mere words can’t describe their God Dame Bliss.

“Tennis world is abuzz with the latest threat at the net.”

 A professional tennis tournament in California had to bee postponed for almost two hours when the players were suddenly swarmed by thousands of angry spectators.  Everyone was told to bee calm until the tournament’s beekeeper [no we are not making this up] was able to contain the situation. Last year’s Wimbledon champion, Carlos Alcaraz suffered at least one sting to the face but, “by the grace of God” managed to suffer along to win the championship via stinging defeats over all his opponents.

In a related story: Even diamond backs are afraid of bees  

“Captain to the bridge. No not that one!”

After the captain of a cargo ship crunched into a bridge in Baltimore causing it to collapse, with the loss of 6 lives, the event was was further amplified by the rightquisite fallout that is always bent on further widening the gap between the Righteous and the Left in America. That’s right captain, when it came to the crunch, the usual cereal^[sic] conspiracy theororists^[sic] immediately took to the blaming everything from the Deep State or a slow boat from China to a different Left turn way back in 2020 that knocked their Humpty Dumpty-in Chief down.

 

“Blessed Beer for Your Soul”

 A nunnery in Northern Spain has miraculously tapped into a new way to attract the masses back to church.

 

 “Fair and Balanced Liar”

 Perhaps realizing that the world might get wise if they continued to air nothing but lies and denials vis a vis Russia’s involvement in all the atrocities perpetrated in Ukraine, Russian authorities decided it was only fair to turn everything around and be putin’ the blame on Ukraine for a deadly attack at a concert hall in Moscow that Islamic State terrorists from Tajikistan were publicly taking credit for.

  “Forget Shrinkflation, Shit is about to get really big”

 A big change is taking place in Japan as one of their diaper companies has stopped making baby diapers and is now completely absorbed on filling them with adults. Our day will come but try not to get all wet about it. This kind of inflation is probably going to Boom onto our scene no matter how loud you cry.

“China rides high on their new drive to become world’s smartest”

Elon’s ego was smarting with news that a Smart Phone company in China is challenging Tesla for poll position in the Electric Vehicle market.

   

“Canadian oil patch pissed over water shortage”

Prairie drought conditions continue to become a drain on oil and gas company profits when they find themselves no longer flush with fresh water sources to piss away on their drilling and fracking operations.   A Dust Bowl is now evolving into a Toilette Bowl as companies are finding themselves negotiating for any municipal wastewater that can be flushed their way.

 

 “Italian smoke rings upstage ring of fire”

 A round of smoke signals from Mount Etna provides a blue-sky alternative for Italian’s who were not in North America for a total eclipse of the sun.

  

“Noah, we don’t DuBai-thing suits in these parts.”

April showers may bring May flowers in our world, but when parts of the United Arab Emirates including Dubai saw a record 10 inches of rainfall one day last April (more than twice what the country normally experiences over an entire year), they were more deeply invested in praying for something akin to Noah’s Ark than a Mayflower.

 

“Chinese Cities are drinking themselves under the table.”

Nearly half of China’s major cities are sinking at a rate of more than 10mm a year due in part to their extraction of water underneath or near those cities for use by the local population.

  

“The country that forgets his past has no future”

Even though he found himself on the losing end of three court rulings founded on everyone’s promise of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth (one where he attempted to shut up reporters and another where he tried to cover up money spent to hush up a porn star), MAGA Nation could not believe that their Dear Leader was guilty of anything more than being an ordinary Joe who was unlucky enough to become the target of frivolous litigation ever since he angered the rich elite by becoming President. Hey, he may have been involved in a few (4002) lawsuits  before he became President but everyone has the right to a 4003^rd chance don’t they?

“Happily ever after ‘til death dowry part”

Although both giving and accepting wedding dowries have been illegal in India since 1961, 90% of Indian marriages still involve them.  Crime records indicate that 35,493 brides were killed in India between 2017 and 2022 for bringing in insufficient dowry.

“That shit rocks man”

According to Guinness World Records, Arizona native George Frandsen is Number 1 in Number 2’s and is not shy about who drops by for a look. He has opened a museum to showcase a mountain of fossilized feces; however, to date, we have no numbers on how many folks have stepped in it.

“Hot new German engineered pillow chat bots (with benefits)”

The world’s first cyber brothel opened the debate, if not other things, up a notch in Berlin when it offered clients the ability to interact verbally and physically with the chatAI Cathy of their choice.  Although it is not clear as to what kind of physical business your A.I.candy model can or will tolerate, judging from what we know to date about all other chat bot business models, they like to collect personal data and often share it with third parties. That, coupled with the fact that the owner of Cybrothel was not shy about selling his idea with statements like, “Many people feel more comfortable sharing private matters with a machine because it doesn’t judge” should be more than enough to kill your carnal desire for conversation. When your artificial friend tries to suck you into more sensitive personal pillow talk, terminateher proposition with something like, “Shut your honey trap babeAI, I’m not paying for friendship, just the benefits.”

“What do you mean human trafficking? We work them like dogs.”

Swiss authorities have charged one of the richest families in the United Kingdom with human trafficking.  Four members of the Hinduja family are accused of importing nannies and housekeepers from India, confiscating their passports, and paying them as little as $8 for18-hour days.  Although the rich and famous are rarely guilty of championing pay equity with the unwashed 99%, this is a case where these nannies might settle for equity with the family’s dog who is lavished with an annual expenditure of $10,000.

 

“FAIlure to launch – Oh, the humanity!”

A movie completely written by Artificial Intelligence that was scheduled to be screened in London was terminated at the last minute by the theatre owners following public outcry. When it comes to movies in England, everyone is a CrITic.

“Ukraine count on Russia to blame everything on Ukraine” 

Just months after Vlad the TallTaler blamed Ukraine for a terrorist attack that Islamic State publicly claimed credit for, another terrorist attack on police posts, Russian Orthodox churches, and a synagogue in one of Russia’s poorest and predominantly Muslim provinces, led local Russian authorities to immediately implicate Ukraine. Rince. Repeat.

“World’s first simultaneous hole in one on, not one, but two football fields.”

A hole in one occurred at the same time on both an American Football field and European football (soccer) field.  No-one was hurt and the American football field is expected to be recovered shortly; whereas, based on soccer’s long history of making a mountain out of a mole hole, it could be a long uphill struggle (and truckloads of grief and PTSD counselling) before soccer players will ever play on their field again.

 

“Their future’s so bleak, they need to not wear shades”

And that’s the law according to North Korea’s shady (do as I say not as I do) dictator.  No sunglasses, no music, no movies, no happily ever after wedding gown, no nothing that might be considered South Korean and/or Western influence. Just be happy and avert your eyes when basking in your Dear Leader’s celestial brilliance.

 

“Russian women melt down over Putin’s attempts to get them excited about building another nuclear stockpile.”

Even as Ukrainian drones are exploding in his Russian Motherland, there’s a different kind of home-grown boom on Vladimir Putin’s mind as he attempts to engineer a spanking new nuclear family stockpile of babies. Yes, as he sends his dwindling stockpiles of able-bodied father material to their deaths in Ukraine, Vlad the Impregnator is calling for every able-bodied woman to get excited about the virtues “of a large, large family.“

 

“Latest made in China knock off, takes off accidentally on its maiden voyage” 

Oh well,  China’s version of Elon’s reusable rocket can still be used as a bad example after it got away from them.

“Japan steps up its war on old boys and their toys”

Japan announced it had finally managed to herd its deeply change resistant government office culture away from floppy disks.  Their Digital Minister now faces the daunting task of phasing out their ubiquitous devotion to fax machines. Alas his first run at this even older adversary was harder than expected. In fax, it flopped.

“The voices in my head(quarters) need to take a vacation”

Justin-Office-Until-My-Party-is-Over Trudeau divorces himself from any controversy over a crushing by-election defeat in a Liberal stronghold by ignoring calls by his caucus for an emergency meeting and instead sending them off on their a summer vacation.  Alas he can ignore the elected voices of the people only until the voices of the people elect to sock it to him in what will be a very public divorce.

“Just russian to put in a random visit to Mar-a-Lago.”

Hungary’s far right Prime Minister and Putin’s pal, Victor “I would have been here sooner, but NATO got in the way” Orban raced to Donald “I cannot not tell a lie” Trump’s house immediately after going through some motions at the NATO conference to perhaps discuss what Putin told him to pass along to his American fanboy (during a closed door pep talk he received after putin’ in a visit with the Russian President 7 days earlier).  Or maybe it was nothing more than an opportunity for birds of feather to celebrate all the other things they had in common – i.e. how Orban won his second term as PM and parlayed it into 14 (and counting) years of uninterrupted power by curtailing freedom of the press, weakening judicial independence, undermining multiparty democracy, and styling himself as a defender of Christian values, while at the same time, accepting money from his enemies and funnelling it to his allies and relatives in what has led to accusations that his government represents a kleptocracy and mafia state.

 

“Cop cam shot shows pot shot murder of 911 caller”

Racial profiling hits boiling point as an ill annoyed police officer from Illinois coldly murders a 911 caller in her kitchen for the crime of denouncing his actions in the name of Jesus.

“Hopefully these things will go better with coke”

Only a year after Cocaine Bear Jumped the Shark according to many critics we found they were probably right when sharks off the coast of Brazil are testing positive for high levels of cocaine. And here we were thinking the Discovery Channel ratings were the only things that got high during Shark Week.

“Birds of a feather”

Shortly after the only man in the world that Putin is supposed to be afraid of looks like he might be up against real opposition for the Oval Office, a Russian and a Chinese bomber team up for the first time in history for a synchronized flyby just outside of American airspace. Fear mongering? Maybe (but only to the extent that their witless accomplice in the Presidential Race can leverage it).  Election Tampering? Probably (and for exactly the same reason).

 

“Lots of arsin’ around the Paris Olympics.”

Shortly after the Canadian women’s soccer team was caught arsing around with drones to spy on competition, the Paris rail system was torched by arson attacks on the opening day of their Olympics.

“Out of the frying pan and into the firenado?”

Tornadoes were bad enough when they just huffed and puffed and blew things down east of the Rocky Mountains but in July we saw, Mother Nature and wildfires dragon a twisted fire breathing version of that weather phenomena onto the scene in California when what was described as a fire tornado flew out of control.

“Snatching victory from the cause by deceit”

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Madura showed the world he was not kidding in February when he boasted to his loyalist red shirts (because all the red hats were snatched up by some other authoritarian wannabe’s muscle…heads) that he was going to win another term in office, “by hook or by crook”.  True to his word, he made it extremely difficult for people to vote against him in July’s election, and yet his future was looking grim when exit-polling numbers were predicting a landslide victory for his opponent, so Putin’s South American Pal and all round Sleazy Make Me Great Again candidate declared himself the winner and set a carefully choreographed street celebration into play starring his caste of never say die mad hatters (who had to settle for shirts) long before the polling stations were closed and the official results tallied.

“Sexist peenal code pisses off Amsterdam woman.”

It was the stream that led to a national river of discontent, when a Dutch woman was charged for discharging her bladder in an Amsterdam alley for lack of a public toilette that was not designed solely for men. It took 9 long years for her battle to achieve Pee Equity in the streets of Amsterdam.

 

“Russia’s foreign trade with American’s has never been better”

Just days after trading an array of journalists, human rights activists and consumers of cannabis gummy bears for a mob of Russian assassins, spies and other ne’er-do-wells, Russia immediately began to replenish its stockpiles by putin’ more Americans behind bars.

 Meanwhile in North Korea:

North Korea announced it will open one city to tourism. Rumour has it that the first 1000 Americans to visit the Wonderful World of Kim will be treated to free (of monetary charges) accommodations at its new Americana themed Hotel California.

  

 “Hey, we’re just witless victims here!”

Or so goes the refrain from the witless right-wing conservative dupes (a.k.a. social media influencers) implicated in this year’s round of conservatives parroting Russian talking points far and wide in support of their Weird and Witless Victim-in-Chief.

 

“Not technically a trophy wife, S. Korean woman becomes his trophy ex”

A South Korean tycoon had nothing to brag about after he saw his ex-wife prize a US$1Billion divorce settlement away from him.

 

“Is this little artist Ghana get better?” 

The ecstatic mother of this toddler who was officially recognized as the world’s youngest male painter thinks the writing is already on the wall (or maybe she’s just happy it’s not).

“Israel sends Hezbollah a very targeted message.”

Contact explosives go literal when thousands of pagers used by Hezbollah, Iran’s paramilitary proxy organization in Lebanon, simultaneously explode.  Twelve were killed and 2800 were injured, many seriously.  Although no smart bombs or smart phones were lost in this story, this was clearly a smarter way for someone to send a message directly to their target audience (those who intentionally target innocent people while hiding in plain sight behind their own innocent civilians). One day later, Hezbollah’s walkie-talkies explode killing 25 and injuring hundreds more.

Related Quote: “This is not a face-to-face battle. It’s a coward’s way to fight. If they want to show us their strength, do it on the battlefield.”  — Hezbollah [un]apologist interviewed after Israel sends their terrorists a very targeted personal message.     

“I’ve been to the mounting.”

Another of the Doh!nuts handpicked flock-ups and a man he called “Martin Luthor King on steroids” has shown the kind of characterless, characters that he likes to endorse and surround himself with.  Perhaps it was those steroids talking, when reporters uncovered damning evidence that Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina had posted disturbing comments on a porn site where he said stable genius things like: “I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot!”; “I’m a black Nazi!”; “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few.”

 

“Bear butts and body image” 

The biggest plus in Alaska’s wild, fat-shaming booty contest that suffered the ignominious shame of being the only body pageant marred by a spat-fight to the death of two participants was that it’s reigning queen from 2023 crushed the runner up (a male) that had killed one of her cubs and injured another earlier this year.

“U.S. Hurricane Victims drown in a sea of conspiracy theories” 

Never one to be much help in a disaster, Trump (and his agents of chaos) forego paper towels this time and instead toss an anchor to Americans struggling to keep their heads above water after two back- to-back hurricanes devastate their homes. Disaster recovery crews were forced to shelter in place from a subsequent storm of death threats fuelled by a boatload of conspiracy theories ranging from the Biden White House actually sending disaster relief teams to confiscate affected homes and land to election interference via weather control and everything in between.

 

“Do as we say, not as we do!”

Russia who has systemically censored all communications in their country that are not state controlled, is just fine with fining Google an amount exceeding all of the money in the world for censoring Russian state communications on Facebook.

“It’s time to take stock in the fact that it’s Hot! Hot! Hot!”        

 We continued our boiling frog march to oblivion as the world experienced its highest global average surface air temperature on record and then broke that record again 6 days later.  For the record, the world’s oceans have also broken temperature records every single day over the past year, thus denialing us the ability to bail out with a cool trip to the beach. Noah knows when everyone’s “In God We Trust” capitalization of all things monetizable in lieu of public well-being will end; but, we hajj better beware. According to all sources, God above is not above raining hellfire on his seeds of discontent when they sow-dem-and-go-mor-ah in for even greater profits.

 

“Sadly, My Fair Lady, Mother Nature plainly chose to cover your rendition of the Rain in Spain…with a lot more rain”

Yes, the Rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, but this year when it came to rain, Spain saw a major sea (if not, climate) change when the Valencia area was pummelled by the equivalent of one year’s rainfall in just eight hours. Over 220 died.

      

“The world edges closer to all-out war”

 Shortly after everyone’s phone was blowing up with news of how Israel successfully neutered Hezbollah’s leadership by exploiting their addiction to pagers, Russia allegedly attempted to exploit Western leaderships’ depraved addiction to extramarital sex by shipping exploding sex toys their way. Canada’s PM who cannot divorce himself from the fact that his ex-wife is only one of a growing majority of Canadians who have divorced themselves of wanting anything to do with him, is the first Western leader to take things in hand by Russian to demand an apology for this latest affront to his manhood.

“Indian smoke signals trouble for the subcontinent.” 

A breathtakingly bad case of bad breath continues to hang over Northern India.  Towards the end of the year the Air pollution index over Delhi and surrounding areas was 15 times higher than levels the  World Health Organization (WHO) consider satisfactory for breathing.

 “Dopey Smurf nabbed by Dutch border authority”  

Ecstasy smugglers are blue as Dutch authorities get high on their discovery of ecstasy in the form of a lawn gnome.

“Soul crushing surveillance is in their nature”

Not content with its soul crushing surveillance state at home, the Brits export their natural proclivity to spy off into India by inserting a robotic monkey cam into a community of Langurs that would soon collapse into a state of yet more soul crushing grief because of it.

 “Quick what’s the exact square root of a rounded pi”

Google claims to have tested a chip that solved a problem that it would have taken today’s fastest supercomputers ten septillion – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to solve [Hurting heEDITORS NOTE:] Scientists (who perhaps had to use some of today’s super computers claim the universe itself is only somewhere between 13.6 and 14 billion years old); therefore, only artificial Intelligence can imagine what the outcome of that could be for humankind.

“There is a parent complicity in American derangement.”

The parents of a high school mass murderer were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for their role (and/or failure as role models) in the shootings. Apparently, a jury of their (albeit perhaps not so deranged) peers found buying their mentally unstable 15-year-old a gun (just days before the shootings) wasn’t such a good idea.  Meanwhile in Delaware, after Hunter Biden, with unmindful issues of his own, was found guilty of not being completely honest when filling out the application form for a gun he purchased, President Joe Biden would appear guilty of still more unmindfulness, if not hypocrisy, when he forgot his earlier promise and pardoned his boy.

  

“Same shit, different ex-president.”   

The ex-President of the National Rifle Association (NRA) was found guilty of corruption and using millions of the group’s charitable dollars to fund his lavish lifestyle. He was ordered to pay 4.4 billion back to the U.S. Gun Lobby (perhaps because they are running out of money to underwrite the gifts they were pouring into the lavish lifestyles of American lawmakers).

“Crazy rich Asian marriage”

Asia’s richest man kicked off the wedding of his youngest, “I’m To Wealthy for My Body” son in India, one of the world’s hungrier countries, by feeding the world’s… billionaires.  The “Look at Me”, wedding festivities commenced in March and dragged on longer than an American Presidential election with more million dollar handouts for starving… artists such as Rhianna, The Backstreet Boys, and Justin Bei_ber(?) enroute to the actual wedding in July.  We weren’t invited but sources say the cake was on a “to die for” scale not witnessed since the lavish galas of Marie Antoinette.

 

“Welsh woman accosted on street by a window hooker”

This  woman, we’ll call her Mary Poppins, had no idea what was in store for her when she hung around the wrong window.

 

“What’s needling this jabber whacky German?”

A 62-year-old German rolled up his sleeves and went all in on his fight to avoid contracting COVID by topping way up with 217 COVID vaccinations over 29 months.  Although whacky anti-vaxxers everywhere don’t understand why anyone would do that, they are pretty sure Bill Gates knows what he was (is and will be) thinking.

  

“Can’t buy me love, but would you like me for $1 million?”

After having dinner with America’s Money Grubber-in-Chief, Mark Zuckerberg, the needy owner of Facebook, itself a self-conscious like-centric social media platform, paid the Don $1,000,000 to like him (or perhaps it was the one and only example of how inflation and the election of The Don of a New Error has affected the rich – a 1000% increase on the cost of their traditional $1000 per plate fund raising dinner). Regardless, it’s good news for Mark as now he has at least one friend.

 

“Russian leadership all choked up after assassination.”

The man in change of Russia’s biological weapons and warfare became the latest Russian General to fall on the streets of Moscow (and the first that did not fall from a window) when he was assassinated by Ukrainian agents.  This apparently has Putin and his posse terrified since they immediately dubbed the death of their innocent bio warfare czarvilian an act of terrorism in their streets.

“Star of Nova Scotia children’s show gets tipsy in lead-up to Christmas”

Theodore Tugboat narrowly escaped going down in the drink, but he’s all right now after a winter hangover in Hamilton, Ont.