The Weathermen
A bizarre ad for betting platform, Kalshi, that is best enjoyed as a diverting 4 minute short.
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Preposterously Persistent
A new spot for the Nissan Qashqai hybrid features an utterly absurd yet spectacular Hollywood-style chase in the quest to make a point about its battery life.
Woman’s forehead flesh bitten out in hate crime attack
To quote from a Seattle Police Department report:
The victim told police that she was walking to the convenience store at 3rd Avenue and Marion Street, near her work, when a random woman threw a food wrapper at her as she walked past. The victim asked the woman why she would do this and the woman yelled at her “You’re the inferior race” then called her a homophobic slur. The woman then stood up and spit on the victim before grabbing her and pulling her to the ground. While the two women were on the ground, the suspect sunk her teeth into the victim’s forehead and bit out a chunk of flesh about 1 inch in diameter, causing significant bleeding.
Officers who responded to the scene found a bloody sidewalk and a piece of the victim’s flesh that the suspect had spat into a grate.
A sound system ‘to puncture your calloused soul’
That’s from a new spot for audio equipment firm Sonos.
FBI chief’s Senate hearing gets into bestiality
As explained in a NBC News report:
FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday found himself defending a new policy at the bureau that does not immediately disqualify potential hires who have engaged in bestiality.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, some senators grilled Patel about the new standards, which he said were established so as not to discriminate against potential victims of sex trafficking who were forced to perform acts of bestiality.
His explanation elicited curious responses, one from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who asked Patel why he would “even get into bestiality.”
Patel quickly emphasized that “we’re not into bestiality,” to which Kennedy said, “I know you’re not,” prompting a chuckle from Patel, who said he was trying to explain the policy.
Kennedy asked, “If Joe participated in bestiality, not as animal but as the human, don’t you think he ought to be disqualified?”
“If he voluntarily did it, sure. But if he was trafficked into it ...,” Patel responded.
Kennedy went on to ask how a person would “involuntarily do it.” Patel said human traffickers forced people into types of conduct like bestiality and “degrading acts of all kinds” in “a lot of cases.”
He said people at the bureau who suggested the policy change “explained to me and showed me cases in which people were forced into it and had applied to the FBI, and so I thought they should be considered. It’s not an automatic disqualification.”
Patel said that the previous policy addressed prostitution, trafficking and bestiality and that for bestiality, the rules “automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it.”
“Either side of what? The bestiality?” Kennedy asked. “So you disqualified the animal?”
“Well, I don’t think — we have great canines, but we’re not going to disqualify them,” Patel said.
Cops search for trespasser ‘infatuated’ with rubber duck
To quote from a report by Chatham County Police Department in the state of Georgia in the USA:
He trespassed onto their property, used their hot tub, became obsessed with their rubber duck, then stole their pool towels. It's obviously not the biggest crime we've dealt with this month, but it has a lot of ick-factor. So, we'd like to find this guy so he doesn't do this to someone else.
Here's what happened:
Surveillance video from the home in the 9-thousand block of Whitefield Avenue shows the unidentified man trespassing between 2:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on September 1, 2026.
While at the home, video shows the suspect taking a dip in the pool and then using the hot tub.
While in the hot tub, the man is caught on video becoming infatuated with a rubber duck. The video shows the man spending more than 10 minutes intensely interacting with the duck. When the suspect finally left the home, he took numerous luxury beach towels valued at a total of $1,200 with him.
The man escaped by bicycle.
Pakistan cricket team mistaken for asylum seekers
As reported by The Guardian:
A group of masked agitators gathered outside a four-star hotel in Portsmouth after reports a group of asylum seekers had been taken there, when it was in fact Pakistan’s under-19 cricket team on a tour.
George Madgwick, a Reform councillor called to the hotel to mediate between staff and the assembled crowd, said it was a “massively unfortunate incident”.
Madgwick said he was at home on Tuesday evening when he was called and told that about 40 people had gathered outside the Marriott hotel, many wearing balaclavas or other face coverings, after reports that asylum seekers were staying there.
He went there and spoke to the hotel manager, who “explained the situation” – the hotel was hosting members of an under-21 cricket team from Pakistan, who are touring the south coast and using the Marriott as their base.
Madgwick said the group massed outside after reports that about 40 men who did not seem to be English had arrived at the hotel, and that the coach which took them was from the same company who moved the asylum seekers who came by boat.
2026 Ig Nobels
A few of the winner citations:
Economics Prize
“for amassing evidence that upper-class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior.”
Medicine Prize
“for the study called “How to Blow the Nose—An Aerodynamic Study of the Nose Blowing.”
Physics Prize
“for theoretical and experimental attempts to design a splash-free urinal.”
Peace Prize
“for documenting that we value friends who are vicious to people we dislike.
Why hasn’t ‘serial butt sniffer’ been stopped?
From California: a legal expert’s reported opinion on why Calese Cowder — dubbed as “the serial butt sniffer” — keeps getting released, only to be caught allegedly doing the same thing again:
Attorney and legal expert Dmitry Gorin said that’s because many of the charges connected to Crowder are misdemeanors.
“If there’s an actual touching, that’s a felony,” Gorin said. “But just sniffing somebody, it really doesn’t rise to a felony. As the law stands now, it is very hard to file a felony offense based on this conduct.”
Since Crowder’s most recent arrest is for a felony parole violation connected to a prior burglary case, Gorin said he may stay in custody longer, but it’s also unclear what new charges the district attorney might file.
Gorin said, ultimately, Crowder likely needs mental health treatment in addition to jail time.
“Yes, you can lock him up, but eventually he’s going to be out. And until he gets treatment, it’s just reoffending and reoffending and reoffending,” Gorin said.
Liquid Death’s ‘Relieving’ Campaigns
Two recent collaborations that reinforce the canned water brand’s status as a willing partner for bonkers promotions.
With goodwipes: Home Buttler
With Garage Beer: Pee Collection
Power cable diverted to avoid ‘Dobby’s grave’
As explained by The Guardian:
Harry Potter fans have forced a new multimillion-pound power cable between the UK and Ireland to be relocated after complaining it would desecrate the “grave” of Dobby, a fictional elf.
The character was laid to rest on Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Fans of the wizard series come to leave stones reading “Here Lies Dobby” despite being asked not to by the land owner, the National Trust, because the beach is an ecologically sensitive site.
The £430m Greenlink interconnector, which links the National Grid to Ireland, was initially going to pass through the site of the “grave”, the project manager Simon Ludlam told the Energy Revolution podcast.
Ludlam said he did not know who Dobby was, and became confused by the calls the company received, saying a colleague told him: “Apparently we’re going to go straight through Dobby’s grave”.
“I said: ‘Dobby, who’s Dobby? I don’t know Dobby?’ I said: ‘He’s a fictitious character in a fictitious book, the whole thing is fictitious, what are you talking about?’”
He said the colleague told him: “No it’s very, very serious.”
The firm then enlisted planners to find a new route that avoided the supposed grave. “A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby’s happy.”
Butt-spanking apology for ghost-spanking delay
Sort of. As reported on one games review website:
The solo Japanese developer behind the delayed Steam horror-comedy title Spanking Exorcist has released a free “apology game” that lets players spank his digital backside as compensation for missing the game’s original launch window. The developer, credited only as Actor, confirmed the stunt after Spanking Exorcist failed to clear Steam’s content review in time for its planned July 24 release, with Valve reportedly still weighing whether parts of the game are too sexual for the platform.
Restaurant owner faces jail over ant dessert
It isn’t because he sprinkled the dessert with ants—it’s because he didn’t seek approval for that.
As reported by The Guardian:
Prosecutors in South Korea have asked a court to sentence the owner of a Michelin-starred restaurant to one year in prison for serving a dessert topped with ants, an insect not approved for consumption under local food safety law.
The restaurant, which holds two Michelin stars and is located in Seoul’s upmarket district of Gangnam, is reported to have served a sorbet dessert sprinkled with ants for customers who wanted the flavour.
Under South Korean law, only 10 insect species, including grasshoppers, mealworms and silkworm pupae, are approved for use as food ingredients. Ants are not among them.
Businesses wishing to use an unapproved insect must first obtain temporary approval, a process the restaurant did not follow, the ministry said. Violating the law carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison or a 50m won fine.
Man arrested for ‘rubbing genitals’ on a car
Well, that’s probably the most striking among the list of reasons for which the arrest was made. To quote from a post by the Rochelle Park Police Department in New Jersey:
Tyler Lee, 27, was arrested & now faces numerous criminal charges. Lee had jumped behind the counter of our local Wingstop, stole food, rubbed his genitals on a vehicle parked outside & attempted to get into another occupied vehicle before attempting to flee from our officers. After a brief foot pursuit, he was taken into custody & taken to the hospital for his injuries prior to processing. He also attempted to bite our officers & EMT personnel.
Court affirms prisoner’s right to send sperm-stained letters
From the coverage by The Sun, of a news story out of Germany:
A prisoner has won the right to send letters to his fiancée from jail splattered with his semen, a German court has ruled.
The prison administration punished the inmate over the correspondence, after the jailhouse letters were found to be a health hazard.
But the drug felon serving a multi-year sentence challenged the decision to punish him by filing a lawsuit.
He reportedly claimed the ban suppressed his sexual fantasies and violated his fundamental right to free development of his personality, German legal journal Beck Aktuell said.
The prisoner also argued in the lawsuit that if prison staff felt disgusted when searching the letters, they could wear gloves during the search.
He also countered that it was not a criminal offence to send the fluids in the mail.
The Hagen Regional Court ruled in favour of the prisoner and found there was “no legal basis” for the disciplinary measure to have been taken against him.
The court found the man had not breached his duty to support health and hygiene measures inside the jail, because this requirement was intended to ensure the health and safety of prisoners not staff.
The prisoner was found to have committed one violation; by including the semen, the mail was found to be a package rather than a letter, the legal journal said.
Inmates are required to obtain permission before sending packages under German law.
Woman caught smuggling python… in her bra
To quote from a news report out of Amsterdam:
You truly never know what headline you’ll read next. A Canadian woman has been caught at Schiphol trying to smuggle a ball python onto a plane.
Thankfully, before Schiphol passengers could experience a real life version of “Snakes on a plane”, the woman was caught.
According to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the snake was discovered during a safety check, RTL Nieuws reports.
How did she attempt to hide the animal? By stuffing it into her bra… Unfortunately for her, it seems that the cupsize wasn’t enough to disguise a living snake.
Man tries to rob bank… with a stolen kitten
To quote from a report out of Maryland:
A man grabbed a kitten from the adoption area of a Maryland pet store, then allegedly tried to use her to rob a nearby bank.
But it was far from the purr-fect crime — police were on the scene in minutes, and the kitten, named Magnolia, came through it all unharmed.
Security camera video shows a man wearing a light-colored t-shirt and black beanie walking into Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, Maryland. Seconds later, he ran out clutching a black and white kitten.
Witnesses said he kept running straight for the PNC Bank in the same shopping center.
Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats rescue was nearby when she got a call from a very alarmed store employee around 10:30 a.m. They said someone used the key hanging nearby to open the cat adoption area and take 3-month-old Magnolia..
Stullich drove over immediately.
“Immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’ but then I realized they all were going down to the bank,” she said. “[…] They came back out a few minutes later and said, ‘Yes, there is a cat inside the bank.’ Apparently he went into the bank with the cat in his arms, and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’ And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.”
Instructor-pilot commits suicide… midair
As reported by CNN:
A pilot jumped out of the door of a moving plane to his death, leaving the student he was teaching to fly to land the aircraft by herself.
Flight instructor Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, 42, was found dead following the incident, which took place in Toledo, central Argentina, on Saturday, according to a statement from the country’s public prosecutor, published Tuesday.
Bertazzo was on board the Cessna 150 aircraft with a 22-year-old student named Rosario, CNN affiliate TN reported.
The student said Bertazzo told her, “You know what you have to do, carry on,” before taking off his headset and seatbelt, opening the door and jumping out of the plane, TN reported.
Eduardo Álvarez, director of the Flying Parrot Córdoba flying school where Bertazzo worked, told TN that there were no signs that the pilot was planning to throw himself from the plane.
A nutritional take on cannibalism
As reported by Reuters, quoting from a statement released about a study by scientists from Poland and the Czech Republic:
From a caloric perspective, a person turns out to be an average meal ... The key problem, however, lies elsewhere: the risk of infection. Pathogens have an easier task because they end up in an organism with almost identical physiology.