One of my more reactionary relatives forwarded this video with the note:

After you have viewed this, pass it on to every one in your address book and ask, that they do the same. This is some serious stuff and it needs to get around as quickly as possible. This is true, and is really scary….be prepared to let the rest of the world ride on your back.

Let the craziness begin! From the American Chronicle:

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we lost our national sovereignty long ago. If Mr. Obama were to sign a treaty creating a world government that would supersede the government of the United States it would be doing nothing except finally bringing out in the open what's been happening under the table for decades.

Where did we put those Alien and Sedition Acts?

(See non-crazy reporting on the Copenhagen climate-change summit at the NYT.)

So.

It begins with Troy Mink, local improviser and beloved character actor, who was in something called Andy Christie's The Liar Show—a variation on the venerable party game where four people tell a story, one is a lie, and the players/audience tries to suss out which one.

In Andy Christie's The Liar Show, the human lie-detector gets a prize.

Mink realizes this is a great idea and proposes a local version at Annex Theater called Hot Pants with a stellar lineup of storytellers: David Schmader, comedian Emmett Montgomery, solo performer Keira MacDonald, director/smut-writer Gillian Jorgensen, and others.

Mink's mistake: He and Bret Fetzer (artistic director of Annex Theater) send out a press release saying Hot Pants! was "conceived and curated" by Mink and Fetzer.

Andy Christie, of Andy Christie's The Liar Show blows his stack, claiming Fetzer and Mink are liars and thieves, using an army of commenters (or just a pile of aliases) to browbeat and insult them. See the firefight here. Sample comments:

This is directly stolen from Andy Christie's The Liar Show, which Troy Mink performed in as our guest in Seattle this May. The is an absolute low in artistic ethics.

Annex Theater: cancel this booking. If you don't, you're a party to the theft of intellectual property.

GROSS GROSS GROSS. YOU DESERVE A LONG SHAMEFUL CYBER-FLAMING DEATH!!!

people are being way too nice in their posts. go fuck yourself, you stealing prick!

Fetzer freely admits the mistake:

I, carelessly and clumsily, put 'Conceived and curated by' Troy and myself on the press release for Hot Pants. At the time, I was writing it hastily and casting in my mind for a press-jargon equivalent to "written and directed by", without thinking through the implications—it wasn't my intention to claim any ownership of this idea, but that's unquestionably how it reads. (I could say that I was so certain that the idea was public domain that I didn't think it would read that way, but in truth I was on autopilot and wasn't thinking at all.) While I'm agape at Andy Christie's hysteria and bullying, I fully recognize that this mistake fanned those flames.

It was pointed out to me that the press release said this while I was in e-mail to-and-fro with Andy Christie about all of this; I sent him an immediate apology for that, but at that point he'd already posted "These guys are thieves!" on my facebook page and the digital lynch mob was well under way on Broadwayworld.com.

Andy Christie demands a royalty, Fetzer issues an apology and seriously considers paying him a fee, but Andy Christie is such a tantrum-throwing prick, Annex Theater decides it'd rather cancel the show than do business with him.

Several things went wrong here.

The big, obvious numero uno: Andy Christie claiming intellectual property rights over a very popular party game people have been playing since before the fucking Flood. Christie sent emails to the participants suggesting that they boycott the show.

As Schmader responded: "I used to play 'the Liar Game' with my North Carolina School of the Arts classmates; this was 1988. I can understand your annoyance with Troy, but my connection to a liar game long pre-dates the Liar Show..."

If Andy Christie hadn't been such a tantrum-throwing prick, he could've gotten everything he wanted: a public apology, a royalty check he didn't deserve, and free press for Andy Christie's The Liar Show. Instead, he threw a prickish tantrum and gets nothing. (Except a burgeoning Google relationship between "Andy Christie" and "tantrum-throwing prick.")

Number two: Fetzer and Mink clearly shouldn't have claimed credit for "conceiving" the liar game. But they admitted their poor etiquette/mistake and everyone should've moved on with their lives. Instead: tantrum-throwing prickery.

Number three: Annex shouldn't have caved to Andy Christie's insane demands. I cannot imagine Andy Christie, tantrum-throwing prick, would try to convince a judge that he holds the intellectual property to a very popular party game people have been playing since before the fucking Flood.

I emailed Andy "tantrum-throwing prick" Christie and asked whether he was happy with this lose-lose situation he precipitated. He wrote:

Yes I was happy with the outcome. But also a little sad that it came to that. I think the speed with which this all developed might have caused things to get a little more heated than they might have otherwise. I like Troy, and he & Bret were both great about resolving the problem.

"A little more heated?"

You think, Andy? After the blast furnace you pointed at Mink and Fetzer—for specious and childish reasons—you deserve a little blowback.

I suggest Annex re-mount show with the name Andy Christie Is a Tantrum-Throwing Prick: The Game Show!. But I'll leave it up to you, Sloggers.

As always, Slog polls are legally binding.

(And for a trip down memory lane—this whole fiasco reminds me of the ridiculous WET vs. WET lawsuit that a New York company threatened a few years ago.)

h/t: Wired.com

The Remington Arms Company's factory in North Carolina is now working around the clock trying to supply insatiable demand for rifle, pistol and shotgun cartridges.

"We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7," Remington spokesman Al Russo told the news wire. "It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."

The shortages are so bad that retail globocorp Wal-Mart has been forced to introduce rationing at the ammo counter in many of its stores. Depending on calibre, customers may be limited to purchases of just 50 rounds at a time. Apparently, classic .45 ACP pistol ammunition is especially scarce - a fairly good indication that it is in fact conservative Middle America rather than, say, inner-city criminals buying up all the ammo.

According to the National Rifle Association, America's pro-guns lobby, the people of the USA normally buy about 7 billion cartridges a year (an average of 23 rounds per head). The past year has seen that figure jump to 9 billion. The FBI reports a 25 per cent climb in background checks made prior to gun sales.

The ammo rush has been dubbed the "Obama effect" by gun-industry people, but in fact there is no sign at present of any particularly aggressive move towards stricter federal gun laws.

H/T: the Register

Oh. My. God. I gotta go lay down. More clips from Skatetown USA (1979)—Scott Baio! Ruth Buzzi! Billy Barty! Flip Wilson! Marsha Brady! Horshack! The Unknown Comic!—after the jump.

The biggest obstacle is the egg-based technology used to develop all flu vaccines in the United States.

The process involves first growing the virus in chicken eggs, then harvesting it into vaccines.

Not only is this a time-consuming process, but Goldhammer points out that the quantity of the vaccine produced is limited to the egg's volume.

"It's only so fast that you can make a chicken lay eggs," said Goldhammer.

They repeated the best-known strategies for staying healthy: Stay home if sick, cover coughs, stay informed, and wash hands constantly and for a long enough period of time.

Are pandemics like this especially bad for recovering OCD hand-washers? Does it trigger backsliding?

Is there even such a thing as OCD backsliding?