From the mindset that brought you the idea that seceding from the United States was viable in any way, shape or form comes the first early contender for Stupidest News Story of 2009: libertarians spend large amounts of money to invent new ways to create independent floating countries.

Now, seaborne libertarian paradises are nothing new. The Republic of Minerva, for example, would have worked except for the fact that most libertarians, despite willing to talk a good game about government being slavery and casting off one’s chains, are pussies who in that particular case could not stand up to the dreaded army of Tonga, who have three patrol boats, two prop planes and a yacht as the bulk of their transport. The Tongan military is less than five hundred guys and the libertarians could not find enough Ayn Rand-loving gun fetishists to take on their dreaded royal military marching band (which Tonga indeed has), let alone the presumably-feared Tongan Royal Marines.

Of course there is also Sealand, which exists primarily to make money off illegal passports and novelty coin sales. Surprising that this independent micronation, who claim sovereignty over a twelve-mile radius of waters (that happens to be one-third coastal Britain, but hey, sometimes these details must be overlooked) would base its entire ability to exist on what amounts to extremely weenie-ish types of piracy, but at least they’re doing better than Rose Island, which only serves as a demonstration of Italy’s resolve to not allow any stupid libertarians to really get going lest they all turn into genetic monsters.

Still, the seasteaders have big dreams. For example, I note that one Vince Cate has designed “the WaterWalker,” which is a grandiose name for a tripod floating on soccer balls. (See it in “action” here.) And now the SeaSteading Institute estimates that you can have your own completely self-sustaining floating ocean home (well, except for the question of where you’d get food, considering that the vast majority of sea life – and certainly just about anything edible – swims around in the continental shelf areas which are already claimed by all the nations which recognize the United Nations Convention On The Law of the Sea) for a mere three million dollars, exactly the perfect cost for some computer engineering wank who just doesn’t get why all those poor people don’t learn to use computers like he did.

But what’s best about this story is the unintentional comedy. For example:

But in the end, the seasteaders may face an even more fundamental challenge. During an afternoon session, Friedman asks, “How many people here know how to sail?” Few hands go up.

Come on, that is exactly the plotline of Atlas Shrugged 2! And lest we forget this gem:

“You’ll get slavery. You’ll get drug dealing. Maybe there’ll be polygamous Mormons. The first people involved will inevitably be those who want to do things they can’t do on land, and we have to deal with that.”

…but I thought doing things you can’t legally do on land was the whole point! Man, these libertarians sure aren’t serious about their liberty! Maybe we should just let them all die when the world collapses while we survive in our magic underground bunkers. It would be kindest, wouldn’t it?

PETA – and just those four letters together should alert most people to the fact that this is gonna be a doozy – has decided that the best way to convince people to stop eating fish is to rename them “sea kittens.”

There are Sea Kitten Facts. Many male sea kittens woo potential partners by singing to them. While this is not particularly easy to do underwater coherently, female sea kittens don’t generally seem to mind. And so on.

There is even an interactive web toy that lets you “design your own sea kitten” by giving it a Fu Manchu moustache, sunglasses or an elephant disguise, which are of course all things one associates with kittens.

The problem is thus: How do you even begin to start making fun of this? And the answer is that it is impossible to do so. You just have to stand back and respect their total insanity for what it is.

So I’ve gotten a bit of mail about CUPE Ontario’s decision to recommend a “ban” on Israeli academics in Canadian universities, most likely because I’m currently attending Osgoode Hall Law School, which is at York, which is the subject of a prolonged strike on the part of CUPE.

And… well, what is there to say, really? Other than that CUPE remains seemingly determined to be the stupidest, most offensive cariacature of a union possible. Really, demanding that Israelis apologize for what’s happening in Gaza right now – I don’t see how that’s any different from going up to a Muslim and demanding that they apologize for (9/11 / terrorism / oil prices / et cetera). It’s the practice of applying collective guilt to a populace, which is both morally bankrupt and completely stupid at the same time, not to mentional fundamentally irresponsible.

It’s yet another laughable attempt at public relevance from the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. Fuck them.

Igor Panarin’s breakup scenario for the United States has been getting play in the media lately. It’s not particularly new; I remember reading about Panarin’s crackpot bullshit a couple of years ago. But it’s still extremely stupid. Seriously, take a look at this map:

That is some seriously stupid crap right there.

Okay, first off – the “Californian Republic” will be under Chinese influence? Really? Is this because of the teeming Chinese hordes along the Pacific coast who will no doubt rise up and demand the Pacific states swear fealty to the secret elder mandarins who run all China behind the scenes? (For some reason, they will also want Utah. Presumably Chinese people just love Mormons.) It’s not entirely unrealistic to suggest that Hawaii might revert to Japanese control (seeing as how it used to be under Japanese control, way back in the day), but there’s a reason Hawaii is American rather than Chinese: it’s twice as far from China as it is from the United States. Which is why the whole “Chinese control” idea is so ludicrous: the Pacific Rim states are over seven thousand kilometers away from China, so China can’t reasonably control or hope to protect them via conventional arms.

Secondly, I really love how he groups redneck conservative Appalachia – Tennessee and Kentucky and West Virginia – into the same condensed political grouping that includes Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. That is what we call planning. And, of course, these states will join the European Union, which is only five thousand kilometers away as the (very tired) crow flies.

Thirdly, speaking as a Canadian, I didn’t realize we had any influence over Kansas, Colorado or South Dakota. However, this gives us Mount Rushmore, so I totally approve and we will re-carve it so that it displays John A. MacDonald, Wilfred Laurier, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Pierre Trudeau. Then the NDP will complain, so we will replace Laurier with Tommy Douglas and everybody will be happy! Except Americans, but they won’t be Americans any more so hah on them, that’s what I say.

Of course, given that Panarin openly fantasizes about Russia reclaiming Alaska and that’s really the entire point of the article (yes, I’m sure they’d want to come back to Mother Russia, Igor), it doesn’t take a lot of smarts to recognize that this is nothing more than the academic equivalent of jerking off. What’s more worrisome is that this twat and his back-of-the-napkin pontifications are actually being taken seriously by far too much of the Russian political establishment. I just hope they have better things to do then to wait around for the collapse of the United States so they can actually pretend to be a superpower again.

Directly quoting Dennis Prager:

It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.

Also:

A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman.

And:

Likewise, a kind woman who is not sexual with her husband is not feminine. She is a kind roommate. Furthermore, a woman who denies the man she loves sex is not kind.

While we’re quoting:

But, to repeat the key point, rejection of sex should happen infrequently. And it should almost never be dependent on mood.

I want to mock this, but I am simply too amazed to know where to start.

Actually, no, wait. I do know where to start. Here is a picture of Dennis Prager.

Doesn’t he just look exactly like somebody who should be giving you sex advice, ladies? DOES HE NOT LOOK KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT MATTERS CARNAL? It is clear just by looking at him that Dennis Prager knows all too well the trauma of being turned down by his partner when he asks to play Hide Mister Winky. As well as the trauma of being turned down by prospective sexual partners. Oh, the humanity!

(Fuck it, it is the holidays. I’ll let you people finish the job for me.)

If you work in a fast food restaurant and wish to turn the restaurant’s giant sink into a hot tub after operating hours, do not put pictures of it up on your MySpace page.

It’s Frankendog.

Because shit like this makes me wish I had the requisite skill level to offer to represent them for free.

Seriously, what the hell.

Dear President Obama: Do everything I say you should do, which falls in line with my civic philosophy, or the American public will rise up and roundhouse kick you in the face collectively.

BONUS FUN CHUCK NORRIS FACT: Before internet nerds decided that the Vin Diesel Facts meme was funnier with Chuck Norris, he was Kirk Cameron with a beard.

“I will marry you if you bring me a shipful of corpses.”

Experts blame rise in violent offenses on kids being willing to mug people for iPods.

Choice line: “We propose that over the past two years, America may have experienced an iCrime wave.” (You just know that some thinktank dork came up with that and thought it was so clever.) Of course, you could just as easily correlate the last two years to the notable rise in child poverty or the suffering economy and with it falling incomes, all of which traditionally increase youth crime rates, but hey, let’s just blame those fancy doodads the kids like these days!

Hint: when people mug other people for iPods (like they did here), it’s not because they want an iPod – it’s because an iPod has a guaranteed resale value of $100 to $200 easy. Think of iPods as $100 bills. What mugger isn’t going to snatch a $100 bill? (Note that in that story the muggers also stole cellphones, which have the exact same obvious value isse as iPods do, but the study people didn’t say shit about cellphones.)

I would also like to point out that nobody ever mugs you for a Zune. ZUNE: like an iPod, except better in just about every conceivable way, not the least of which is not having to install fucking iTunes.

No, seriously, the designers of this game expect you to be able to “run” one hundred metres.

FUN FACT: If you somehow make it to 50 metres, there are hurdles.