Charlie and the Tide Pod Challenge. Over at McSweeney's, there's some fine content (as usual) mocking the young kids who are sticking Tide pods in their mouths. 

Wonderful, weird photos. Everybody hates click-baity slideshows, don't they? Imagine a collection of amazing images that makes you want to click, and only click once. That's what The Atlantic has put together here, and they deserve all the time-on-site metrics they're going to get.

London's Top Restaurant was a fake! You'll recall last month we learned about how a VICE reporter duped TripAdvisor. Now, there's video, and it is some funny stuff. Be forewarned about crude language. Watch.

All hail corporate speech! Burger King weighs in on the Net Neutrality debate with a new attempt at a viral video. Reason's Nick Gillespie humorously critiques Burger King's attempt at viral publicity, with a dig at the Whopper for good measure. 

Another awful GOP candidate emerges. As a former Missourian, I pay close attention to the politics of the Show-Me state, and their GOP primary is going to be a doozy. Running is Instaglam candidate Courtland Sykes, who came onto the political stage with a bizarre YouTube video. Now, Sykes is under fire for a Facebook post regarding his views on women's rights. It reads, in part: "I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night at six." The stream of consciousness continues: 

“I don't want them to grow up into career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are [sic] think they could have leaped in a single bound — had men not been ‘suppressing them.’ It’s just nuts.”

If you're thinking: Gee, this man is not very thoughtful... you should see his defense of Roy Moore. But he went to Havard and studied government, didn't he? Well, the Harvard extension school, yes, but apparently even their fine teachers didn't make a dent, judging by some of his latest unfiltered thoughts on Twitter. If you're wondering why Claire McCaskill is so happy these days about her re-election prospects, look no further.

Speaking of crazy candidates, another update on Paul Nehlen from The Atlantic's Emma Green. I don't want to spoil her item for you, but her conclusion is on point:

And yet, Nehlen presents an impossible dilemma. To ignore his hate is to risk letting it spread and fester; to loudly denounce it is to risk allowing him to co-opt the outrage for his own ends. Once made, the phenomenon exists; once fed, the troll grows. It becomes impossible not to talk about him—and impossible not to hate doing so.

From where I sit, it's still a hard decision to give the crazies any pixels. But the nature of politics has changed, and the crazies are popping up like mushrooms after a rain storm. Conservatives should point out the loons among us, ostracize them and their supporters, and run them out of the heck out of the party. The time for ignoring them is over.

The last straw. California often leads the way in unpopular environmental policies, so whenever they come up with some zany idea, it's only a matter of time before it makes its way to other places. The latest? A war on plastic straws:

Calderon, the Democratic majority leader in California's lower house, has introduced a bill to stop sit-down restaurants from offering customers straws with their beverages unless they specifically request one. Under Calderon's law, a waiter who serves a drink with an unrequested straw in it would face up to 6 months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

"We need to create awareness around the issue of one-time use plastic straws and its detrimental effects on our landfills, waterways, and oceans," Calderon explained in a press release.

Jail time? For plastic straws? As Reason's Christian Britschgi observes: "This sucks." 

—Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editor

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