Operation Global Media Domination: Lost in Translation

TIAWhen raincoaster checks the ol' raincoaster stats, she looks for many things: total hit count, most popular blog entry, signs of the coming Apocalypse…it's like necromancy, but you don't have to wash your hands afterwards unless you get very excited. Among the things that she looks for are links through which readers have clicked to arrive at raincoaster, the blog. And this one from yesterday particularly caught her eye.

It appears to be a Google translation of this post, a roundup of search engine terms that brought people to the blog. This is known as a feedback loop, and is sneakily effective in gaining new readers and hooking back the old ones, even if they were only looking for Narnia Mango Somali Porn.

Oops, I did it again!

Anywhoooo, the words on this page that were beyond Google's ability to translate were quite interesting. In the interests of creating a new, more selective feedback loop, and in the interest of confusing the Chinese, I will here list all terms in that raincoaster post found untranslatable by Google:

Narnia, Ian McKellen, Fatman, pervs, snotflower, creamer, ventibrevemocha, lattes, buggers, cholesteral, patchouli, eggnog latte, decaf, comin', Pablo, Sandford Tuey, raincoaster, voyeur, appy, tiaras, 9.11, WhiteSpot, Hogwarts, Deuel, Cates, vagina, spankin', Conference, shebeen, Wuthering, screencaps, jocari, Doktari, sumpin', slimin', spay, watchin'.

Did you ever do those assignments in school where you were supposed to use each of a whole snotload of words in a sentence? I was terribly literalminded, and always tried to get them all into one sentence, which drove my teachers nuts, but even I would have to admit defeat when faced with the above list.

FYI Here are today's search engine items that led here. I must say, we're getting better. Classier, weirder, and less Somali-porn-based. Some Somali trivia: You know Iman? When she left Somalia she took everything worth looking at with her.

beautiful agony, shit eating, dorks, eagle cam in Vancouver, Canada, Juvénal Habyarimana -site:africadatabas, Celebrity Censorship, jesus lego, birthday animation, cocaine corner, Giant Squid

Peter Pan vs the Knight Rider

 

Yes, we've all seen it a billion times, but it's still funny.

Those have to be his own fat, crossbred dachsunds; if you were hiring dachsunds and you walked into a showbiz dog rental agency and you said, "I'm making a ridonkulous music video called 'Hooked on a Feeling' and I need a coupla weiner dogs schnell!" and they handed you these, wouldn't you hand them right back and tell them to get with the bulimia, this is Hollywood, baby!

Damn right you would.

Anyway, from the Backbencher column in the Politics section of the Guardian (where else, I ask you) comes news that The Hoff, in possibly the penultimate move of late-career-downward-out-of-control-spiralling, will appear later this year in a suburban Christmas Pantomime.

"He was keen to work in theatre over here to entertain his legions of Baywatch fans," gushes a press officer, who is sadly unable to confirm or deny speculation that Pamela Anderson will play Tinkerbell.

The Two Towers, the heavy Spanish accents

Who cares if you can't understand them; they're hot! A fan-made recreation of The Two Towers, from a group of twentysomething Spaniards.

Bush: Achievement and Entitlement

Bush's Great Moment

There have been many memorable moments in George Bush's career – invading Iraq, declaring the war "accomplished", Hurricane Katrina. But the US president recalled that his greatest moment in office had come not on the field of battle but while out fishing.

Asked by Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper what he considered to be his greatest triumph, President Bush replied: "I've experienced many great moments. It's hard for me to name the greatest." He went on: "I would say that the best moment of all came when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound perch while fishing on my lake."

From The Guardian. And you know, I don't doubt for a second that it was the high point of his life so far. Failed oilman, failed businessman, cokehead and alcoholic, a man who nearly lost the battle for his life to a pretzel, George W. Bush is indeed the worst, most embarassing leader that the United States has ever had to endure.

On May 1, International Worker's Day, May Day, Sploid published a tender retrospective of the man the world has come to know as "that dumbass."

It remains one of the proudest moments in American history, and it was only three years ago today. On May 1, 2003, the president piloted a military jet onto an aircraft carrier and told a cheering crowd that we had won the war in Iraq.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," President George W. Bush said to wild applause.

But in this crazy world we live in where "victory" so often means "pathetic failure," winning the war in Iraq somehow ended up meaning losing the war in Iraq.

On May 1 of 2003, America had lost 139 troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Today that number stands at 2,400. In the three years since we won the war, 17,000 more soldiers have been wounded — many of them mangled beyond recognition and doomed to live their remaining days without arms or legs.

The victory pushed "insurgent attacks" up from eight per day back in 2003 to 75 per day in 2006.

Three years after the war was won, the American price tag has risen from about $80 billion to more than $320 billion, and the commander in chief has dropped from a 70% approval rate to disapproval ratings unseen since the last criminal days of Richard Nixon's presidency.

Almost all Americans now believe the president intentionally lied about every aspect of the Iraq invasion and occupation. And a dismal 9% believes the mission was accomplished, according to a new CNN poll.

But there's some good news for the president on this third anniversary of the victory in Iraq: Despite everything that's happened and everything that's known, he remains a free man and still occupies the White House. Amazingly, Bush and his team have yet to be removed from office, prosecuted, convicted of treason, imprisoned or executed.

And that's a victory, too.

Operation Pathetic Fansite

My Travel Swedish SpoonIn our ongoing quest to find the fansite of the most pathetically non-fansite-deserving thing or entity in the world, we have come across, thanks to BoingBoing, a uniquely strong contender.

The only real quibble is it's not technically a site, but rather a Flickr tag.

Still, a strong showing nonetheless, for something it's almost impossible to imagine someone actually giving a rat's ass about.

Flickr photos of airline spoons.

Spoon?