Zombie Jesus candle will set your heart afire

Pax Arcana

So your cat horked up eggnog in your stocking and your tree spontaneously combusted. Your gifts did not arrive on time and the ones that did were met with shrugs. And your favorite basketball team not only lost for the first time in 20 games, but then lost again the next time out.

It’s times like these that you can take comfort in the zombie Jesus candle, and the fact that you were not the recipient of this particular gift:

May the bony hands of our undead savior creep you out for all eternity.

Watch out for fast-moving Nazi snow zombies

Pax Arcana

Most students of modern history know that Norway was occupied by Germany for much of World War II.

What you probably didn’t know is that fast-moving Nazi snow zombies still roam the fjordland, wreaking havoc on groups of young pleasure-seekers. Luckily — as contributor Fallen Angel discovered — there is a new documentary film on its way that promises to fill that knowledge gap.

Presenting, for your edification, Dead Snow:

This is a subject that hits close to home. My grandfather’s cousin Otto lives in an area with a very high concentration of murderous undead Nazi soldiers. He once had to fend them off armed only with a bucket full of frozen herring and a slingshot.

My army of sexy snipers has been discovered!

Pax Arcana

A whip-smart young reporter for Wired recently found something interesting in a Reuters report of Russian accounts of the recent border skirmish between that nation (full disclosure: a client of mine) and the nation of Georgia (also a client).

In the original report, a Russian general complains that the Georgians had used, in part, foreign fighters to provoke a military conflict.  “There were also two snipers … one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman,” according to the general.

This statement made the Wired reporter suspicious:

That sounds an awful lot like the mythical “white tights” — the exotic female snipers of Chechen war lore who were said to pick off hapless Russian conscripts. As the story had it, these stone-cold, blue eyed killers were said to be from the Baltics — or Ukraine. They were sometimes described as Olympic biathletes recruited as mercenary sharpshooters by Chechen commanders.

Typical liberal media incompetence.

For one thing, they are Scandinavian — not Ukrainian or Baltic. For another thing, The Army of Pax Arcana Sexy Snipers (TAPASS) wears whatever clothing best suits the mission at hand — whether that means white tights, black tights or bikinis.

And finally, the only thing the TAPASS hunts — whether here or abroad — is the army of soulless brain-craving undead that haunt the countryside. So I would appreciate it if you left them to their task.

The Return of ‘White Tights’: Mythical Female Snipers Stalk Russians [Wired]

German scientists unearth tribe of vengeful stone age cavemen zombies

Pax Arcana

If you’ve ever seen any movies about archaeology, you know that there are two primary rules to follow when poking around at an ancient burial site:

1. When approaching the burial mound or entering the crypt, do not be the bug-eyed native holding the torch at the front of the line. Your heavy breathing will only annoy the spiteful gods who guard the place, and you are guaranteed to be the first one killed as the warriors of the spirit world exact revenge on the human intruders.

2. Whatever you do, do not disturb the remains. The spiteful gods will settle for giving you a good fright if you refrain from touching the goods. Trying to take them home with you or otherwise futzing around in there is like signing your own death warrant.

According to this story in the New York Times, a bunch of German scientists completely ignored rule #2 by not only moving a group of 4,600 year old bones, but also running them through all sorts of spectrometers and seismographs and electron busbar rotoscopes and whatnot:

One of the graves contained a woman with three children, at least two of whom were not hers. The researchers suggest the woman might be their aunt or a stepmother. Another grave contained a family of four, according to the analysis — making it the oldest molecular genetic evidence of a nuclear family ever obtained.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying this type of science helps science piece together the long tapestry of human history by opening up advanced geneological techniques. The details of the social, biological, and migratory behavior of our ancient selves will undoubtedly come clearer in the wake of such groundbreaking research.

I say “Oh yeah? Well you suck.” Because these bodies weren’t just sad cave people who caught pneumonia at the same time.

These cave people were…

…MURDERED!

“Normally a family doesn’t die at the same time,” Dr. Haak said. So that was one clue to what happened. Others were found in bones: fractured skulls, an arrowhead in a spine and signs of defensive injuries to arms and hands.

Dr. Haak, who is now at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said the evidence suggested that the community was attacked. Adolescents and young adults were either not present — perhaps they were working in fields — or were able to escape, while younger children and older adults were killed. But then the survivors returned and, with intimate knowledge of the relationships among the dead, properly buried them.

Then a bunch of German scientists came along and stuck their lederhosen all up in the grave site, spurring the ghosts of the stone age warriors back into action. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a plan. I’m going to follow these German scientists around with a big sign with an arrow on it that says “THEY DID IT.” I bet you wish you thought of that.

Using a Variety of Tools, Researchers Unravel Tale of German Graves [NYT]

Dolphins agree: New Jersey is awesome

Pax Arcana

A few months ago, we wrote about a group of bottlenose dolphins who had sought refuge in the rivers of New Jersey to escape the clutches of underwater zombies.

The AP reports those dolphins must have liked what they saw, because they ain’t leaving. And animal rescue types are getting nervous that they may turn into dolphinsicles if they don’t get back out to the ocean pronto:

Animal advocates have wanted for months to coax or shoo the animals back out to sea, citing several previous instances in which dolphins took a wrong turn, ended up in the river and died when weather got too cold.

They worry that waiting too long could invite a replay of a scenario that resulted in the deaths of four dolphins that lingered in the river in 1993. Ice eventually closed in on them and they drowned.

Researchers are also concerned that spending too much time at the Jersey Shore could cause the dolphins to devolve into a more primitive species, such as the guido dolphin:

Scientists aren’t sure why the dolphins haven’t left the rivers yet, but think it may have something to do with what they’re hearing. They suspect that noises from a nearby bridge project may be scaring the dolphins away from heading in the direction of the ocean.

In a related story, one underwater zombie said “BB(burble)RRRAAAAIA(burble)AAIIIINNSSS!!”

And of course we’d be breaking tradition at this point if we didn’t post this:

The Brotherhood of the Flying Shark Vikings is here to protect you, my dolphin friends! Swim for the ocean!!

Underwater recordings may hold clues to why wayward dolphins stay in 2 New Jersey rivers [AP]

Frozen zombie mice will come at you extra-slowly

Pax Arcana

Things have been quiet on the zombie front, as many foot soldiers in the army of the undead took a hiatus to campaign for their preferred presidential candidate — Mitt Zombie.

But this week we learned that the duplicitous horde of brain-eating corpses have once again hoodwinked modern science into serving its vile purposes. This time they’ve figured out a way to reanimate mice that have been dead for more than a decade.

Well, not really, but close enough:

Using cells from dead mice frozen for 16 years, a team of Japanese geneticists has successfully created healthy clones of the dead animals. The breakthrough could pave the way for resurrecting extinct animals, such as the woolly mammoth, from frozen remains, experts say.

“We have demonstrated that even frozen animal tissue can be used to produce clones,” said Teruhiko Wakayama, a geneticist at the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan.

OK, so I guess it’s not really like they’re reanimating frozen zombie mice. They’re just proving you can salvage living tissue from long dead…

Wait a minute.

What was that part about woolly mammoths again?

Li said Wakayama and his colleagues have made important progress toward the potential application of nuclear transfer in the cloning of animals frozen under natural conditions.

While the resurrection of extinct species may still be a long way off, Li said that, for the moment, Wakayama’s discovery indicates that valuable laboratory and farm animals can be thawed and cloned.

Sure, Wakayama. Lab and farm animals. And of course the zombiemammoth:

Watch out for this dude. He’s going to wake up cold and angry I think.

Mice Frozen 16 Years Ago “Resurrected” by Cloning [National Geographic]

Friday Random 10: Zombie Haiku Edition

Pax Arcana

Zombie-related poetry is an art form that suffered a cruel blow when I, Pax Arcana, failed to secure my rightful nomination as Poet Laureate for my poem “Death by Death.” But at least one brave soul is giving it another try.

Ryan Mecum is the author of Zombie Haiku, a new work of epic poetry told from the perspective of a brain-devouring undead corpse. According to the awesome Largehearted Boy, the book is a journal in which one zombie “shares his life via haiku, and is in turns filled with gore, humor, and a surprising amount of charm.”

Here’s a sample:

I loved my momma.
I eat her with my mouth closed,
how she would want it.

And now your ghoulish helping of songs:

Andy, You’re a Star — The Killers
Tread Water – De La Soul
Mr. Bojangles — Jerry Jeff Walker
In the Backseat — Arcade Fire
Heartbreak a Stranger — Bob Mould
Listening to Otis Redding During Christmas — Okkervil River
Hussel — M.I.A.
Squalor Victoria — The National
Sing, Little Birdie – Shearwater
Higher Ground — Stevie Wonder

Bonus HALLOWEEN Video:

A Night With the Jersey Devil — Bruce Springsteen

The Rules: The Friday Random 10 is exactly that — random. We open up our iTunes, set the thing on shuffle, and listen to 10 songs. We are not permitted to skip any out of embarrassment or fear of redundancy. Commenters are encouraged to post their own.

Kentucky cops thwart zombie threat

Pax Arcana

[Photo credit: Daniel Hollister -- www.danielhollister.com]

A Kentucky high school student named William Poole was arrested last week after the cops ransacked his room and found a journal in which Poole had described a vicious zombie attack against an unnamed high school.

Poole says the whole affair is a misunderstanding, and that the story the cops found was written as a short story for his English class:

“My story is based on fiction,” said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. “It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”

Lucky for us, the police aren’t buying it. They recognize a threat when they see one:

Police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. “Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it’s a felony in the state of Kentucky,” said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

I, for one, am glad that the great state of Kentucky had the foresight to ban the “possession of matter involving a school or function.” Because that’s how zombie hordes are formed, you know.

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding [Lex 18]

An open letter to Andre Ethier

Pax Arcana

Dear Andre Ethier,

Like many baseball fans, I have greatly admired your talent since you broke into the big leagues in 2006.

You possess a rare combination of speed, hand-eye coordination, and power — and you seem to get better every year.

When you slugged .477 your rookie year, I was worried that your power numbers were a fluke. But then you went and slugged .507 in 132 games so far this year — an impressive statistic considering your place in the batting order leaves you with little protection behind you. Your OPS+ of 124 is also most impressive, as it puts you among the top young outfielders in the National League in that category. By all accounts, you are also a superb defensive player.

But this is not why I write to you today.

You see, while your baseball abilities are most formidable, they pale in comparison to the might of your army of loyal fans.

Nine days ago, I penned a satirical piece on this blog in which I lashed out at you for daring to write silly things on the Internet. Adopting a tone of outrage, I mockingly scolded you — a young and handsome Major League Baseball player — for encroaching on the world of losers that is the Internet.

“Blogging about stupid crap is our refuge from the pain of our epic failure to have your life, you throbbing hairy ball sack,” I wrote, figuring that anyone with more than a handful of brain cells to rub together would realize that I was making fun of myself and not you.

But like so many National League pitchers, I underestimated the power of Andre Ethier.

My satirical post was linked to on a number of Dodgers message boards, where it was promptly tethered to a sturdy post and swatted at with rusty yard tools. On this blog, people left comments encouraging me to “shut the fuck up,” and advising me that I “fucken suck at life.”

I have even been accused of sinnisism, which is almost as bad as being accused of cynicism.

That my original post was clearly a jab at those, like me, who write about trivial things on the Internet — and was not, by any possible definition, an actual criticism of you — did not matter. Your army of loyal Ethierites were not deterred. They attacked and they attacked and they attacked. I fear they will not stop until I am a wilted husk of a man, cowering beneath my desk, afraid to venture back out into the maelstrom of failure that is my life.

As I have already explained to Coolio, Pax Arcana is a blog with but one enemy — zombies. The shuffling hordes of the undead will not stop until they have devoured the brains of each and every one of us.

Pax Arcana, and our army of Flying Shark Vikings, has led the fight against these slow-moving ghouls for more than a year — and I believe your army of devoted fans would make a valuable asset to our side. Their blind devotion to you is clear. They will follow you anywhere and will do your bidding.

Join us, Andre Ethier. Join us, and we — and maybe Coolio, we haven’t heard back yet — will fight these miserable plodding zombies side-by-side. We will fight them with baseball bats, and with other heavy things, and with Internet flames.

I eagerly await your reply.

Sincerely,

Pax Arcana

P.S. As a token of my sincerity, please heed the following advice as you continue your adventure in food writing — if you see something on the menu called butterfish, do not order it. Sometimes it makes orange oil shoot out of your ass.

BRAAAAAIIINNNNS!!!!

Pax Arcana

There is probably no surer sign of traumatic brain injury than voluntarily submitting to the will of the evil axis of zombies and scientists — yet that’s exactly what happened when 12 of the world’s top athletes willfully donated their brains to Boston University.

We’ve already chronicled the nefarious intentions of the world’s scientists, who seek to destroy humankind either by sucking us through manmade black holes or letting loose radioactive fungi into our bowls of cream of mushroom soup. The threat of zombies should be self-evident by now.

But all this information wasn’t enough to stop former Patriots player Ted Johnson, and others, from falling prey to smooth-talking charms of the scientific community. The athletes have vowed to donate their brains to help researchers study the long-term effects of concussions. The issue has come to the forefront in recent years, in part due to the well-publicized depression — and in the case of former Dolphins player John Grimsley, suicide — of some former NFL players:

Of the six former N.F.L. players’ brains that have been examined in this manner, Grimsley’s was the fifth to be found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, joining the former Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Andre Waters and the former Pittsburgh Steelers Mike Webster, Terry Long and Justin Strzelczyk. (The condition can be confirmed only by post-mortem tissue analysis; X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging tests cannot yet detect it.) Because each player died relatively young, from 36 to 50, they provided an opportunity to examine brain abnormalities that are exceedingly rare in someone of that age without a history of repetitive brain injury.

This is all very sad. Especially since the scientists allowed the zombies to draft the agreement paperwork stipulating that the brains be donated not “at the time of death of the party of the first part,” as originally agreed, but instead “BRRAAAAAAAAINNS NNNOOWWWWW .”

12 Athletes Leaving Brains to Concussion Study [NYT]