That's... the high life.

Elephants

TUCSON, AZ—Cheers, laughter, and applause filled the big top tent at the Ringling Bros. Circus Saturday as children of all ages were captivated by the savage enslavement of Topsy the elephant.

Whether young or just young at heart, thrilled audience members watched with glee as a circus trainer forced the frightened Topsy to perform tricks by brutally poking and prodding the traumatized 4-year-old pachyderm.

"He's such a funny happy elephant," said 8-year-old Madison Helms, referring to the abused creature that spends the majority of his time chained up in a cramped, feces-covered enclosure. "He loves being in the circus!"

The crowd reportedly let out loud gasps and vigorously clapped when Topsy stood up on his hind legs, an unnatural and excruciatingly painful movement that stresses and permanently damages the 8,000-pound elephant's joints.

Children Of All Ages Delighted By Enslavement Of Topsy The Elephant

Tiny

Look at this Little Thing!

Intellectual property rights

This Tuesday, millions of eyes will be glued to the season finale of Glee — a popular musical comedy airing on Fox. Excitement is building among the show’s viewership, but my own enthusiasm for Glee has recently given way to confusion over its message.

The fictional high school chorus at the center of the show has a huge problem, you see — nearly a million dollars in potential legal liability. For a show that regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned. But it does, and week after week, those zany Glee kids rack up the potential to pay higher and higher fines.

In one recent episode, the AV Club helps cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester film a near-exact copy of Madonna’s Vogue music video (the real-life fine for copying Madonna’s original? up to $150,000). Just a few episodes later, a video of Sue dancing to Olivia Newton-John’s 1981 hit Physical is posted online (damages for recording the entirety of Physical on Sue’s camcorder: up to $300,000). And let’s not forget the glee club’s many mash-ups — songs created by mixing together two other musical pieces. Each mash-up is a “preparation of a derivative work” of the original two songs’ compositions – an action for which there is no compulsory license available, meaning (in plain English) that if the Glee kids were a real group of teenagers, they could not feasibly ask for — or hope to get — the copyright permissions they would need to make their songs, and their actions, legal under copyright law. Punishment for making each mash-up? Up to another $150,000 — times two.

Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club

Vexillological World Cup: Final

Slovakia wins.

It looks like the Big XII is dead

Sorry, Kansas.

a series of links for the cap

MST3K! one two

soccer! one two three

UPDATE soccer four

better the urge song

why wasn't The Urge more popular?

hit the flooooor

Dragon

This thing is pretty cool, but I just really wanted to point out that it's Grand Illusions selling their most popular item, Dragon Illusion, making this a Grand Dragon Illusion.

Vexillological World Cup: Semis

England 2 - 2 Denmark
(Denmark wins 4 - 3 on penalties)


Germany 1 - 3 Slovakia

SUSPENSE!

warms my cold black heart

this just in

Holy crap

Occasionally, if you're a bull fighter, you get what you deserve.

I think I like the a capella version better

You decide!

Vexillological World Cup: Quarters

Aw shit. Surrious.

Uruguay 0 - 3 England

Is England really that good? No!

Denmark 2 - 1 Switzerland

Yeah, we like crossy type flags. BUT TOUCH THE EDGES.

Argentina 2 - 3 Germany

Fuck you, jews.

Slovakia 3 - 1 Honduras

Again, we hang it on our wall.


Semifinals:

England
Denmark

Germany
Slovakia

It was always going to be Eurocentric unless Botswana or Trinidad somehow made it this far.

Yahoo! Answers is consistently terrible

More

Tha Captainz Chamber

Play your cards right and you could be bunking in style, Sailor.

Two math links

a. One

b. Two

And one numbers puzzle:

In what order is the following sequence of numbers?
8 5 4 9 1 7 6 10 3 2 0