The 5 Most Offensive Attempts to Cash in on Hurricane Sandy

5

Post Fake Photos of the Storm

You may have seen this photo making the rounds on Facebook in the hours leading up to Sandy making landfall in the States:

facebook.com/jotts3

Pretty scary stuff -- too bad it's fake. Well, not completely. The tornado is real, and the Statue of Liberty is certainly a thing that exists. It's just that this is two separate pictures of those things combined into one movie-poster-worthy image.

To be fair, the guy who made it viral didn't even know it was fake:

A strange twist on the hoax photo formula comes in the form of this shot of guards protecting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the rain:

smugmug.com

Inspiring, yes. Taken during Hurricane Sandy? Afraid not. As you can clearly see here, the photographer who took this picture did so back in September. So, if this picture is a sham, does that mean that the tomb went unguarded for the first time in forever? Nope. It's just that the rain looks far less dramatic in the real picture:

abcnews

4

"Newsjacking" (Mentioning Sandy in Order to Make Something Totally Unrelated Seem Topical)

Was your biggest concern about Hurricane Sandy how it was going to affect the date you had planned for that night? Then you're in luck, fictional-person-who-in-no-way-would-ever-exist, because the Date Report at HowAboutWe.com has you covered.

If shopping is more your speed, American Apparel offered up a 20 percent off sale for the 36 hours during which 50 people were killed in the Caribbean and United States.

abcnews

Or maybe it's possible that you just wanted to touch up your makeup, in which case InStyle.com came up with five beauty tips to keep you "occupied (and gorgeous) as you safely wait out the storm." Because if we stop being self-obsessed assholes for even one second, then the hurricane terrorists win.

3

Donald Trump's Twitter Rampage

Because he's nothing if not an attention-hungry conspiracy theorist, Donald Trump offered to donate $5 million to charity if Barack Obama could prove that he wasn't raised by wolves or whatever by 12 p.m. on Wednesday.

But Trump is no animal. He understands that Obama can't turn over these documents and manage a hurricane, so he extended the deadline ...

... and then got right back to the business of being a super-duper fuckwad ...

... and pretending that he could have saved Manhattan from that dangling crane:

Yeah, that hypothetical situation sure sucks for him. Unlike this real situation, which sucks for everyone who isn't him.

2

Taking Credit for the Storm

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According to the News Network of the Syrian Armed Forces, a pro-government group from Syria, Hurricane Sandy was caused by a new secret weapon from Iran. Or if you'd like that information served with a steaming side of crazy, here's the official word from their Facebook page:

"Sources confirmed to us that Hurricane Sandy that is slamming the U.S. was set off by highly advanced technologies developed by the heroic Iranian regime that supports the resistance, with coordination of our resistive Syrian regime."

But the religious lunatic fringe has no such delusions as to the real cause of Hurricane Sandy. They're blaming the same bogeyman they always do ...

1

Blaming the Hurricane on Homosexuals

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Isn't it amazing how the "homosexual agenda" seems to consist entirely of controlling the weather? Anyway, if you're going to make fun of reactionary hate-mongering shitheads (like we are right now), their lack of originality is a great talking point to start with. They're blaming Sandy on the gays this time around, but when Katrina was beating the shit out of New Orleans, gay people got the blame for that, too.

Call us crazy, but maybe forcing people to huddle together to stave off hypothermia from freezing cold flood waters isn't the best idea to break up a union.

J.F. Sargent is a Workshop Moderator for Cracked and has an awesome Twitter and a kinda mediocre blog, if we're being totally honest.