Obama proves his Osama-ness

The Bellend of the Month for July 2016 is Barack Hussain Obama, who has just signed the "DARK Act" into law. It is unfortunate that the President has sided with well-heeled lobbyists representing Monsanto and the rest of Big Food and against consumers and families. The Roberts-Stabenow "DARK Act" is a step backward; one that tramples on states rights and makes it more difficult for American mothers and fathers to know what's in the food they're purchasing for their children. We believe the free market will reject efforts by those in Congress, and the President, to make it more difficult for families to understand what is in the food being sold in America's grocery stores. While we are disappointed that huge campaign contributions from Big Ag and the food industry were sufficient to undermine what 89% of Americans clearly desire in the way of clearly understandable, on package labeling of GMOs, we know the truth will eventually win this debate. But thank you all of those Members of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives who were brave enough to vote against the Monsanto lobbyists and express disappointment that the President decided to side with lobbyists instead of the people. I would not be surprised if this is why the police are shooting black people for no reason. Seriously, what part of "veto" does that chimp not understand? America's first black president has already sold out, and that's before TPP ratification which is rumoured to be scheduled for right after the election in the lame duck session of Congress. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 but here in 2016, he has yet to earn it. So far, the hope he promised in his election campaign in 2008 has turned out to be false, and the lion's share of the change for the worse. I know at least one six-letter word beginning with "n" that describes Obama, but I won't say it here. Instead, I will say this: if the KKK got off their butts and did their job, there would be one less sell-out turning our planet into a toxic dystopian mess. I seriously hope someone cares about America enough to put a bullet in his thick skull. And if they can take care of Clinton and Trump as well, they would be doing their nation a great service.

Can you tell me how to get, how to get the cast back?

Sunny days may be here once again, as “Sesame Street” seems to be chasing some bad clouds away. For those of you who thought this meant Sesame Street is returning to New Zealand television after four weeks off the air, you thought wrong. I meant this: on the heels of the headline-grabbing, disastrous decision to fire three beloved actors with over 100 years of combined experience on the show, public pressure seems to be turning the tide. Good news, it seems, for Roscoe “Gordon” Orman, Bob “Bob” McGrath, and Emilio “Luis” Delgado — the latter of whom says the show has reached out to them about possibly remaining. “Due to your overwhelming reaction regarding the status of myself and others on the show, the new producers of ‘Sesame Street’ have reached out to us,” the 76-year-old Delgado, who joined “Sesame Street” in 1971, says in a message to Fox News Latino. “[They have expressed a] desire to continue our longstanding relationship, to be initiated with a meeting in September.” Since the news broke and fans began expressing support for the three men who played some part in the childhoods of millions of people from 4 to 44, there has been a lot of finger pointing. The official Sesame Street account tweeted an attempt to calm down the masses, explaining that the actors would appear at an undetermined number of public events; HBO, fans were told, had nothing to do with the decision. PBS CEO Paula Kerger, meanwhile, told Variety that she hadn’t been consulted on the controversial move. “Hopefully, this [September meeting] will result in the inclusion of veteran cast members in upcoming productions,” says Delgado, speaking for his co-stars with remarks that make it sound like they want to continue filming episodes with Big Bird, Elmo, Cookie Monster, and the rest. “I look forward to sharing with you, at such time, the results of that conversation. Thanks again for your loving support and devotion to ‘Sesame Street’ and to what it has meant to the children of the world.” Let's hope there will be another 47 years of sunny days chasing the clouds away, with or without those cast members. And speaking of members,

Just one name to remember: Jill Stein

Walker caught 'em all

Some cosplayers want to try everything even though they could fail

THE BIG REVIEW: Pokemon Go

Weed in the Water

More extensive testing during the weekend proved the town water in Hugo, Colorado does not contain any THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, as was reported by public officials last week. A shed covering a town wellhead was broken into, but the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department has not been able to determine when the break-in occurred and does not know who did it. Hugo residents were warned going into the weekend not to drink the town’s water because some tests showed the presence of THC in the water. Officials say those results were false positives. The warning was lifted on Saturday with a situation update that was posted on the sheriff’s Facebook page. Hugo, a town of 730, is located 110 miles southeast of Denver on the state’s Eastern Plains. Test kits that reported false positives are being returned to the manufacturer to determine why they were defective. “There never was THC in our water supply, “sheriff’s department Capt. Michael Yowell said. “We did get multiple tests showing the possibility of THC, but independent tests taken by different people at different times and places showed no evidence of THC.” Which is a shame, really, because weed would be a good addition to water. And it would be a good way to ramp up sales of food and reggae music.

I have just one thing to say about his campaign: you're fired!

And you wonder why America is behind the rest of the world

May the force be with you - and also with you

Her speech was 100% not original

The original is weak in this one

THE BIG REVIEW: Russian doping

Russia should be banned from Rio Olympics in the wake of a damning report from the World Anti-Doping Agency, says the head of High Performance Sport New Zealand Alex Bauman. The WADA report has detailed widespread state-sponsored doping and drug-test cheating, and the agency is now urging the International Olympic Committee to ban Russia from the Games. HPSNZ is the government funding arm for elite sport in New Zealand and Bauman, who was a double Olympic swimming champion for Canada during the East German state sponsored doping programme during the 1970's and 80's, says swift action needs to be taken. "There has to be a robust response - having been in sport and competed at a high level where there was sytematic doping I do feel personally there should be a ban," he said. The IOC though is in a difficult position in terms of looking at the collective responsibility of the country and the individual liability of the athletes, but ultimately we want to protect the international credibility of sport. And of course there will always be cheats - there will always be another Lance Armstrong or Ben Johnson who will get his moment at the expense of those who play fairly - but when it gets to the level of a state-run doping programme, it puts the credibility of international sport at stake.

This just makes English sound rather ghoti-y

For every positive, there's a negative

This is what I have to say about this Pokemon Go crap

This is much more disturbing than what happened in Nice

Courts, Queenstown Style

A High Court has been forced to answer a very specific question: is Wanaka closer to Dunedin or Invercargill? A legal wrangle over just where a lawsuit should be heard left Associate Justice Rob Osborne making a decision about geography using Google Maps and suggesting Queenstown needs its own High Court. The plaintiff in a lawsuit, Michael Mountz, filed his case at the registry in Dunedin. But the three defendants argued Invercargill was closer to one of their Wanaka homes and was more convenient for everyone. To answer the question of which was actually closer, Justice Osborne at the High Court in Dunedin decided "nearest" would have to mean the shortest driving route - rather than a straight line on a map. The defendants presented Google Maps data which showed the Wanaka to Dunedin drive was 276km and would take three hours and 20 minutes - that compared to the 242km Wanaka to Invercargill trip, which was also six minutes faster. Mr Mountz argued parts of the latter route were often closed due to bad weather and it wasn't actually more practical. But Justice Osborne wasn't convinced, ruling Invercargill was, in fact, the nearer option, moving the case there and ordering Mr Mountz to pay costs. The judge said that the case also highlighted that despite a population of nearly 30,000 in the Wanaka-Queenstown area, there was no nearby High Court, leaving locals driving hundreds of kilometres for cases. But it's not just the local population that could benefit from a closer venue - a new court in Queenstown would also help areas such as Haast, where people have to travel 316km to Greymouth to get to hearings.

Argue not lest ye be argued

THE BIG REVIEW: Cracking the Saturn

When it was released 20 years ago, the Sega Saturn was by far the most powerful video game console available. It was a revolutionary device, had incredible (for the time) graphics, and a huge library of IP Sega could draw from. The Saturn was quickly overshadowed by the Sony Playstation, and soon these devices found themselves unused, unloved, and fetching high prices on the collectors market. After finding a Sega Saturn on a trip to Japan, [jhl] decided he would like to write some code for this machine. Unlike earlier consoles, where Flash cartridges are readily available, or later consoles, where writing directly to the on-board storage is easy, bringing up a development environment for the Saturn isn’t easy. The best method is installing a mod chip and working off of burned CDs. Instead of writing a game or two for the Saturn, [jhl] got distracted for a few years and developed an optical drive emulator. According to [jhl], the design of the Sega Saturn is tremendously complicated. There’s an entire chip dedicated to controlling the CD drive, and after some serious reverse engineering work, [jhl] had it pretty much figured out. The question then was how to load data onto the Saturn. For that. [jhl] turned to the internal expansion port on the Saturn. This internal expansion port was designed to accept an MPEG decoder card for playing video CDs on the Saturn, but the connector presents the entire bus. By attaching a Game Boy Flash cartridge, [jhl] was able to dump the ROM on the CD controller. With a little bit of work, a fast ARM microcontroller, and a CPLD for all the logic glue, [jhl] was built an adapter to push CD data to the Saturn through this internal expansion port. Not only is this a boon for homebrew Saturn development, but this build also completely replaces the CD drive in the Saturn – a common failure point in this 20-year-old machine. The formal release for this ultimate Saturn crack isn’t out yet, but it’s coming shortly, allowing anyone who still has a Saturn to enjoy all those very blocky games and develop their own games. You can check out a short, amateur documentary made on [jhl]’s efforts at https://youtu.be/jOyfZex7B3E.

Bike, bike, bike your boat

In honour of the greatest headbutt of all time

To boldly gay what no man has gayed before

John Cho's helmsman will come out of the closet in this month's 'Star Trek Beyond.' With the release of the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, the long-lived sci-fi franchise is going to boldly go where it's never gone before with the revelation that Hikaru Sulu — the helmsman of the Starship Enterprise played by John Cho — is gay. Sulu's becoming the first LGBTQ lead character in Star Trek history arrives just in time for the franchise's half-century anniversary. The long-overdue moment will come in this month's Beyond, where it will be established that Sulu is not only in a committed relationship with another man, but that the two have a daughter together. One can safely say that the love of penis is strong in this one.

Pistorius could Blade Run out in time for Tokyo 2020

Oscar Pistorius could compete in the 2020 Olympics after a top South African sports official said the killer would have 'paid his debt' to society and should be free to take part. The disgraced sprinter may serve just one more year in jail for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, which would give him time to train and qualify for the Tokyo games, the country’s senior Olympics official said. Tubby Reddy, CEO of South Africa’s Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, said he had ‘no problem’ with the idea of the 'Blade Runner' returning to the national team and representing his country at the highest level – despite widespread condemnation of Pistorius’ crime and six year sentence. That's white privilege for you - not only could Pistorius be back in action in time for Tokyo 2020,

Winter is not coming

Don't shoot the messenger, Game of Thrones fans, but we've got some bad news. Not only will season seven of the HBO hit be shorter than usual, but co-creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have revealed that it's going to take a bit longer for the season to make its way to our TVs, too. In an interview on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, they explained that the major development in the final episode of season six (think about Sansa's grim weather forecast) will necessitate a delay in production on the shortened season. "We don't have an air date yet," Benioff and Weiss said. "We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here'—and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more. So we kind of pushed everything down the line, so we could get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot." In the meantime, there is a new Iron Man - a black teenage girl named Riri Williams.

This computer is ruined

THE BIG REVIEW: 70 years of revealing swimwear

That's right, the bikini turns 70 today, as does this, the first ever photo of a girl in one.

This is what the American dream looks like 240 years on

Italian menu with German puns

Best. Advice. Ever.

This was what Cruz and Sanders fought against. WHY DIDN'T AMERICA LISTEN?