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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1126 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 22, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Can we talk about the bizarre cast of characters involved in the Hantavirus outbreak?

We've got:

  1. A Pitcairn Island resident. Pitcairn, population 35, is 400 miles away from the nearest inhabited island and is famous for being settled by mutineers from the HMS Bounty, the descendants of whom pass the time by molesting children. This woman went on a brief pacific tour before quarantining:

    The woman had flown from San Francisco on 7 May and travelled through the island of Tahiti and then Mangareva in French Polynesia, the French Polynesian government said.

    It's unclear to me how she ended up in SF to begin with.

  2. A Tristan da Cunha resident. Tristan is the most remote inhabited island in the world (population 221) and the UK military had to airdrop medical personnel and equipment to monitor the case.

  3. An American woman who "mostly lives in Ecuador".

Perhaps others?

Keep in mind there were about 150 passengers and crew total aboard the MV Hondius during the hantavirus cruise.

At this dangerous time We hope you appreciated this article. Before you close this tab, we want to ask if you could support the Guardian at this dangerous time for journalism in the US.

According to a leading global watchdog, American democracy is now more imperiled than at any point since the 1960s, marked by a precipitous decline in press freedom – driven by mounting pressure from the Trump administration in the form of threats, criminal investigations, politicized regulation, frivolous lawsuits and, for public media, catastrophic funding cuts. Meanwhile, organizations that are supposed to be independent like the FBI and the FCC, our radio and television regulator, have also been targeting press freedom under Trump-aligned leadership, with the FBI raiding a reporter’s home and the FCC threatening ABC’s TV licenses after Jimmy Kimmel made a joke about Melania Trump.

The response from some ultra-wealthy and corporate media owners, keen to appease the president, has been chilling: CBS News has been taken over by a Trump ally; CNN is poised to be taken over by the same billionaire; Jeff Bezos has continued to impose cuts and editorial interventions at the Washington Post; and multiple outlets have settled multimillion-dollar lawsuits from the administration to protect their business interests.

Democracy is best served by a robust, thriving free press. But when that freedom is under attack, it falls to a determined few news organizations to ensure the full truth still reaches the public. Owned neither by a billionaire nor a corporation, the Guardian remains dedicated to covering this administration with uncompromising moral and factual clarity – and to keeping trustworthy journalism paywall-free for the world.

What in the hell is this?

I have a hard time remembering anything so off putting that I’ve read prior, but it’s been an interesting past 12-15 years for me reading news articles.

They've been running a variant of that as their "donate to Wikipedia us here at The Guardian" appeal for years now. I don't recall for sure, but I think it's been getting more and more fearmongering over the years.

Still, it at least means they're honest about where their bias is, unlike some (read: most) news organizations.

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