There’s quite a bit of bacteria on a donkey’s penis. // She has pneumatic wings. (h/t, Darleen) // Starlings at 200 frames per second. // Low pass. // Grandma caterpillar putting on lipstick. // Vertical planters. // Dots, tendrils and laminate glass. // At last, classical action figures. // Why cats don’t rule the Earth. // Cardboard Lincoln Continental. // Ocean drifters. // Real treasure. (h/t, Damian) // There’s something to be said for thoroughness. // Elstree 1976. // Emu insemination is harder than you’d think. // This. (h/t, Franklin) // Star Wars trilogy redubbed. // Meanwhile, in art restoration news, man taking dump discovered. // For hardcore Whiskey drinkers. // For all your underwater drilling needs. // And finally, never look directly at the Sun in high definition.

In other Earth-rumbling news,

Twitter is struggling. Its disappointing financial results, mass layoffs and declining user experience show things aren’t well for the little blue bird. And now this: the replacement of the beloved “fav” star with a heart.

Dark days.

The hearts are the final straw: it’s time to nationalise Twitter.

Yes, it’s the Guardian. How did you guess? Specifically, the musings of Mr Osman Faruqi, a “Sydney-based writer and activist” who wants someone else – apparently, taxpayers on the other side of the world – to pay for his leisure activities.

It’s infrastructure for basic communication, which is why people are so upset over the change to hearts: imagine if, instead of saying “OK” on the phone to a relative stranger, you were forced to say “I love you.” It’s that basic.

Such are the horrors facing today’s Twitter user. It’s New Coke all over again.

So how do you monetise an intangible combination of excitement and trepidation sparked by the overwhelming awe of talking to the whole world?

Or perhaps more likely, a vanishingly tiny part of it. With almost half of “users” having never sent a Tweet, and the overwhelming majority of those who have boasting fewer than 200 followers, with the majority of their tweets, around 70%, attracting no acknowledgment whatsoever. However, the stakes are high and according to Mr Faruqi, “casual social interaction,” which is good, is “anathema to the desire for profit,” which is bad, obviously. This is, after all, the Guardian. And as Twitter’s modishness is, it seems, fading, it therefore must be nationalised and paid for by the taxpayer. To keep it hip and happening, and to prevent more icon changes. Until the next thing comes along. And then, presumably, we must nationalise that too.

On Twitter, Mr Faruqi is currently struggling with the news that many readers had assumed his article was “taking the piss.” Apparently, this failure to appreciate his seriousness and insight merely “shows how right-wing our political debate has become.”

Update, via the comments:

Of that “oppressive document,” the United States Constitution:  

When this idea came up in our newsroom about campus administrators shredding the Constitution because it’s a trigger against students, we didn’t think people would actually fall for it. We underestimated just how stupid and politically correct these people are.

The impossibly fretful and neurotic student featured in the video is actually a journalist playing a role. The obliging administrators, including an Assistant Director of Equal Opportunity at Vassar College and a Director of Feminist Studies at Oberlin College, are quite real. 

Patrons are reminded that this rickety barge is kept afloat by the kindness of strangers. If you’d like to help it remain buoyant for a while longer, there’s an orange button below with which to monetise any love for this low establishment. Debit and credit cards are of course accepted. For those wishing to express their love regularly, there’s a monthly subscription option top left. Additionally, any Amazon shopping done via this link or the search widget top right, or for Amazon US via this link, results in a small fee for your host at no extra cost to you.

For newcomers wishing to know more about what’s been going on here for the last eight years or so, the reheated series and greatest hits are good places to start. There you’ll find wonderfully neurotic tips on interracial dating; a not-at-all-racist Guardian columnist complaining that living among white people is a “psychic burden” and worse than being mugged; and a Marxoid academic attempting to make you feel guilty for reading to your children and thereby causing “unfair disadvantage.” You’ll also find some unconvincing nostalgia for collective parenting in an Islington squat, some bizarre misremembering of a popular 70s sitcom, and a terribly radical artist who’s subverting “oppressive discourses” by, er, amplifying his trousers.   

If you can, do take a moment to poke through the discussion threads. The posts are intended as starting points, not full stops, and the comments are where much of the good stuff is waiting to be found. And do please join in. 

Again, thanks for the support, the comments, and the company. 

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The site tempts readers with a number of charming case studies involving unsolved murders, serial killing, meth lab mishaps, ladies belatedly found in chimneys, and decomposing occupants who did not in fact “move to Mexico.”

Well, it is Hallowe’en.