Friday, May 6, 2011

Our Wacky World—5/6/2011

"Even when the students eliminated political predictions and looked only at predictions for the economy and social issues, they found that liberals still do better than conservatives at prediction. ... those prognosticators with a law degree were more likely to be wrong."
Poynter


Ka-ching
This is a classic. Dr. Harriet Hall describes in detail what happened when she dared to criticize a bogus weight loss product/multi-level marketing scheme on-line. Cue the terminally clueless comments:
"It was as if no one had actually read what I wrote. No one bothered to address any of my specific criticisms. No one even tried to defend Isagenix's false claims... No one offered any evidence that “detoxification” improves human health. No one tried to identify any of the alleged toxins or show that they are actually removed... No one commented when I observed that the amount of vitamin A in these products is dangerous and goes against the recommendations of the Medical Letter... I offered some alternative explanations that might account for people believing that Isagenix is effective when it isn't; no one commented on that."

"...the Texas House has proposed slashing $27 billion from the budget, including huge cuts to education, nursing homes, and health care for the poor. Yet last Friday, the Texas House Ways and Means Committee approved a tax break for those who want to buy yachts costing $250,000 or more."
Think Progress


Headline: "Parents arrested after starved six-year-old is found trying to eat herself in cage - with remains of another child buried in garden" (bonus—it's in Virginia)

Mail Online

Sue me
'"The manager tried to repossess the computer because he mistakenly believed the Byrds hadn't paid off their rent-to-own agreement. When Brian Byrd showed the manager a signed receipt, the manager showed Byrd a picture of Byrd using the computer — taken by the computer's webcam.... Byrd demanded to know where the picture came from, and the manager "responded that he was not supposed to disclose that Aaron's had the photograph"'
AP

And the class-action lawsuit has already begun.


Black helicopters are real: "The helicopters that flew the Navy SEALs on the mission to kill Osama bin Laden were a radar-evading variant of the special operations MH-60 Black Hawk, according to a retired special operations aviator."

Army Times

"The wall that shielded Bishop Raymond Lahey's secret life of depravity collapsed in an instant after a simple question from an airport customs agent: do you have a laptop? ...his relaxed tone changed noticeably and he grew anxious when the specific question was asked — three times."
Winnipeg Free Press

The family that deludes together
'The most memorable case of delusions of parasitism I have seen was a patient who [sic] I saw in clinic who, while we talked, ate a raw garlic clove about every minute. “Why the garlic?” I asked. “To keep the parasites at bay,” he told me. I asked him to describe the parasite. He told me they floated in the air, fell on his skin, and then burrowed in. Then he later plucked them out of his nose. At this point he took out a large bottle that rattled as he shook it. “I keep them in here,” he said as he screwed off the lid and dumped about 3 cups with of dried boogers on the exam table.'
Science-based Medicine

Just for the record, I have skin problems. My skin peels like an onion. The itching is quite annoying. It's not parasites, it's not chemtrails, it's probably the heartbreak of psoriasis.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Chris Rodda is really fucking pissed off

How pissed off is she?:
"A lie can be told in a few words. Debunking that lie can take pages. That is why my book, (which is only the first volume of what will be a three volume series), is five hundred pages long. Nobody is going to be able to adequately prove to any audience that Barton's lies are lies in an interview like Jon Stewart did last night, and David Barton is never going to agree to debate anyone that he knows can defeat him."
 
'"Do well by doing good" -- the words of a man who could have become outrageously wealthy by patenting his inventions, but decided to just let everybody have them for the public good -- have now been stuck in my head for hours, and aren't going to leave until I do what I'm about to do -- give my book away for free.'
Dispatches From The Culture Wars (guest post)


Of course you can still buy it. I'm sure she could use the money. I'd give you the link but you should go to her site and click through the Amazon link there so she can make even more money.

Barton is already crowing about his Daily Show performance on his steaming pile of a website. What a Freudianly perfect name.

"Chris Rodda is someone who never intended to be a writer, but got pissed off enough at the rampant Christian nationalist revisionism of American history that she decided to write a book about it, which somehow led to her "day job" as Senior Research Director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. She is also a blogger on the Huffington Post and Talk2Action, writing about historical revisionism, religious issues in the military, and whatever else she feels like writing about."

Monday, May 2, 2011

Our Wacky World—5/2/2011

Click for reenactment
"My name is Tom OM and I Am a German Chiropractor, Spiritual Healer and Reiki Master... Did you realize that all problems in a particular field...always reoccur - whatever you try to get rid of them??? Well, my friend, the reason is that YOUR problems are deeply burried in your mis-aligned ancestral or Karmic Inheritance DNA lines. NOW, there is a NEW solution..."

'I asked Real Water about the treatment, but public information officer Xzavia Ross said: "Our process is proprietary so there really is no way we can disclose the process by which we add electrons to the water."'

Click for more on this startling devolopment
Here's a fine example of Scientologist parenting:
"In reality, this appears to mean Suri is allowed to rule the family. ‘She will throw temper tantrums when she’s out with Katie and Tom,’ says a source. One claims that after a trip to a restaurant last month, no amount of pleading to get in her car seat by Holmes could persuade Suri — and so she just didn’t. Child psychologist Vicki Panaccione warns against allowing a five-year-old to behave in this way: ‘Their reasoning abilities, nervous systems, decision-making processes and moral judgment are just not up to adult development.’"
Mail Online

"A Derby High School sophomore said Friday that he was hit by a Taser and had his arm broken by two school resource officers for refusing to pull up his pants... At one point as he tried to get up, Villarreal said he felt his arm break when he was pushed back down"
AZ Central

"The police started screaming at her to put the gun down with their guns pointing at the judge. It was only after much screaming that a high-ranking deputy recognized the judge and told everyone to put away their guns. When the deputy said his colleagues did not know her as he did, she reportedly responded “everyone of ya’ll know me. Ya’ll been before me’."
Turley's Blog

'Each of the kits Hydorn assembles by hand is a simple contraption designed for a single purpose: people kill themselves with it by encasing their head in a bag of helium, which is lethal in pure form... The Gladd Group’s estimated annual sales are $98,000. That means Sharlotte Hydorn sells more than 1,600 suicide kits every year. “I’m too busy to cash the bloody checks... I haven’t made a deposit in three months.”'
Daily Beast


Click here for what may be the shortest deposition in legal history (uncouth language).


President dead is tap dancing

No doubt Donald Trump will now demand Obama's, I mean Osama's death certificate.

"The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions just a statistic"--Marilyn Manson

Yeah, I know, Stalin said it first. But he didn't put it in a cool song.