Cooking with Volidity - Prehistoric Heritage Chicken Nuggets

Rarely is the question asked, is our young adults learning? In New York City, this is a particularly pointed problem, considering the vast hordes of 20-something year old hipsters who inhabit the borough of Brooklyn. These hipsters don't want to grow up and be adults, even in the face of becoming parents themselves. Our hipster youth is thus infantilized, becoming "kidults" who only act for the sake of youthful nostalgia--e.g. ignoring the 2012 U.S. presidential election until Big Bird was threatened by Willard "Mittens" Romney. How do we reach these young people to teach them about science?

Why, through comfort food, of course! Since foodies are the new hipsters, and hipsters have a propensity to shell out half their income for fine cuisine, Your Editor-in-Chief at the Volidity Report decided to supplement a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History organized by BoxySean with an educational meal.

Top Ten "Top 10" of 2012

2012 was a big year for planet Earth, with 366 days of activities across the internets and meatspace alike. As druids celebrate the solstice outdoors in sacred spaces, and Americans celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ by tweeting "#fuckyoumom for not getting the myPhone 4S", the bloggers of the world begin gathering the raw materials for end-of-the-year listicles. As demonstrated last year, the Volidity Report is no stranger to this phenomenon. But, standing above ordinary blogs and news websites, we would like to present (for the reader's convenience) the Volidity Report's Top Ten "Top 10" list for the year of our lord of tech toys 2012:

10) The Top 10 Chinese Searches on Baidu in 2012 (Hint: There’s a Lot About Corruption) 

Shanghai-based Steven Millward's list provides some indication of the extent to which the Chinese authorities censor online.

9) Top 10 Islands 2012

Though the Volidity Report is appalled to see that Staten Island and Long Island (the *longest* in these United States) were snubbed, we plan on campaigning hard for Florida, the Crimea, and Korea next year as the Top 10 Peninsulas of 2013.

8) 2012: Top Ten Signs of a Warming World

For all the haters out there. [and for those interested in the continuation of list #9 above -Ed.]

7) Top 10 Stun Gun Stories Of 2012

As *shocking* as these stories may be, given that none of them featured a catch phrase as memorable as "Don't tase me, bro", can this really count as news?

6) List of Romanian Top 100 top 10 singles in 2012
Flo Rida apparently had a pretty decent year in Romania. Who knew?

5) Top Contributors to Barack Obama/Top Contributors to Mitt Romney

A pretty necessary list for this past year, along with... [And if "The University of California vs. Goldman Sachs" is not the narrative of our time, I don't know what is -Ed.]

4) The Ten Biggest Sex and Gender Stories of 2012 in China

The Middle Kingdom seems to be just experiencing First Wave feminism at the same time that octogenarians are boldly embracing their nature as transgendered. We're looking forward to the Ten Biggest Women and Gender Studies Dissertations on China in 2013!

3) Top 10 Endangered Places 2012

The American South is full of natural beauty that is facing apocalyptic destruction at the hands of lawmakers who are more concerned with the biblical apocalypse and a populace likely more aware of the Mayan apocalypse. Something, something, Chick-fil-a...

2) The top 10 new species for 2012 include sneezing monkey and blue tarantula

Just like your favorite characters on the YouTubes, Earth's best new species of 2012 all have whimsical traits distinguishing them from less endearing members of their phyla!

1) The Top 10 Chinese Internet Memes of 2012
WHY DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT "AIRCRAFT CARRIER STYLE"???


№ 2, 3, 4, 7, & 9 suggested by Herrence Meritocracy and № 1, 5, 6, 8 & 10 suggested by LK Shov. All methodologies scientific.

Religious Rage

MUSLIM RAGE! It's all the rage right now, with protests sweeping across the Arab/Muslim/brown people world followed by important trend pieces to describe them. A single magazine cover has since begat a bevy of poignant images on this MUSLIM RAGE. But are the liberal media once again glazing over the issue, and not asking the hard questions? Are there other religions with even more primal rage on display? The Volidity Report investigates further in a series it hopes Newsweek will eventually publish. We've even made the covers for them!

Cooking with Volidity - Chick-fil-gay

Long ago, when this blog was yet young, Your Editor-in-Chief authored a piece on the notion of "Chick-fil-a conservatism," predicting that it would become the predominant ideology of the Republican Party. Once again, the Volidity Report has proven itself to be on the cutting edge, now that fried chicken of a Christian vintage is in the spotlight.

Society for the Protection of Unborn Kittens

We all know that Barry "Beaux" Bama is the abortion president. Since his election, untold numbers of helpless fetuses and embryos have been slaughtered to make our Coke Zero, Oreo cookies, and chicken fries, as far as we know. Despite this grim situation, "very few voters mentioned abortion as a deciding factor" in the Republican presidential primaries this year, and now they have effectively given the nomination to Willard "Mittens" Romney, who kinda maybe was ok with abortion before. Though the situation with humanity's unborn seems helpless at present, there is another mass slaughter going on that could potentially galvanize the greater population toward a pro-life perspective.

Tales from the Spambots - Humanoid Twitterbots

Ah, the Twitters! A veritable playground of internet robots, who generated 24% of all Twitter content even way back in 2009. These robots are constantly trolling for humans with whom they might connect--to sell products, or perhaps event learn how to feel. In fact, your editor-in-chief has noticed--through volid investigations on Twitter--that the old twitterbots version 1.0 (which had obviously machine-generated profiles and would merely tweet hyperlinks at you) have been replaced by a second variety. These new bots have full profiles and tweet sentence-like messages that don't necessarily include hyperlinks to buy Nikes or Armani dresses or just incoherent nonsense. They're so much like us, and yet, something is not quite right. Let's take a look:

The Flag You Should Have: Mississippi

Mississippi: 50th in per capita GDP, 1st in obesity! But people are less aware that the state is also #1 in controversial flags (see the image above if you're wondering why there might be any controversy). You see, when the Confederate States seceded, they needed a new flag, but they settled initially for a lame imitation of the Stars and Stripes (lazily renamed to the "Stars and Bars"--real creative, guys). After much confusion on the battlefield, it was replaced with the more recognizable Confederate Battle Flag (also known as the "Lynyrd Skynyrd Flag"), which was incorporated into subsequent iterations of the national flag. Its design remains instantly recognizable around the world today, and--like most things--you can blame the Jews for it.¹ After the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War, the Battle Flag faded from officialdom, until its later revival.