On Wednesday night, an anti-African race riot broke out in South Tel Aviv in Israel. It began as a protest against illegal immigrants from South Sudan, and spiralled into an orgy of violence in which the rioters attacked Africans or people who appeared to be Africans, and smashed up and looted shops owned by members of, or serving, the African-Israeli community.
I should be clear, right off the bat, that I don’t intend what I am writing here to be a slam on Israel. I have my issues with Israel, but that isn’t what this is about. The Tel Aviv race riot is only the most recent manifestation of the phenomenon that I want to discuss. Continue reading
Roughly four years ago, Zimbabwe experienced one of the worst cases of hyper-inflation in the history of the world. The country was experiencing 165,000% inflation in April of 2008. That’s an insane number. Typically, hyperinflation is said to occur when the monthly inflation rate exceeds 50%. We’re talking about 3300 times that amount. Say the USA was experiencing that rate of inflation. If you went to buy a pack of Marlboros for $7 today, tomorrow it would be worth $39, then next week it would be $221 dollars. A year later, that same pack of cigarettes would cost $11,557. Continue reading
Many of you have obviously enjoyed the stories of my daughter’s foray into internet shopping crime. I am unsure if you found her gumption or my rantings/ravings more amusing.
HollandaiseMess suggested that we trade our stupidity in a post. So please use this opportunity to regale us with your stupidity, cunning and deceit. Don’t forget to include if you were caught and what the consequences of your actions were. The mother in me is curious whether you decided to repeat the offense or if you learned your lesson. Continue reading
Happy Friday and welcome to Crass. Let’s get the weekend started. Continue reading
Now that we’ve discussed what things will make you gain weight, how about we also let some of the skinny out of those jeans, eh? Continue reading
The CDC has released this fun (scary!) new infographic that tells us that our grandparents would be shocked to know how much hamburger, fries, and cola we consume per fast-food restaurant stop. The average meal is four times larger than those consumed in the 1950’s, and in general adults are 26 pounds heavier. The size of fries has increased from 2.4 to 6.7 ounces and soft drinks have fattened up from 7 to 42 ounces. This is the scariest of all. I’m not sure what occasion really calls for 42 ounces of beverage in one sitting. That seems like enough sugar to launch you into outer space.
Boo, you whore. Continue reading
(POST UPDATED)
It started six days ago when Brooklyn band Here We Go Magic recognized a hitchhiker on Interstate 70 in Ohio. That hitchhiker was cult filmmaker John Waters. The band picked him up and documented their time with him in tweets and instagram photos before “tearfully leaving [him] on the side of the highway” in Indiana. Continue reading
So it’s not enough that the Brits make us seem ridiculous for pronouncing “schedule” with a hard “k” in the beginning, now they’ll probably ruin the Olympics for us (and the Australians unless this Aussie motivation video above helps.) We’re just flimsy pawns in their game of entire world Olympic domination, you see. They’ll know the outcome of all the major events we care about — Gymnastics, Swimming & Diving, Track & Field, and Beach Volleyball (We care about this? YES!)– before we do — and we bet they won’t hesitate to tell us. Continue reading