Saturday, September 15, 2012

Our Wacky World—9/15/2012

Creationists are boosting Dr. Pepper sales. "Airplane" is now oficially the funniest movie of all time. Speaking of comedy...

*Special election coverage* (skip this section if you're bored already)

The entire world has been baffled by Clint Eastwood's speech at the RNC (right before Romney's acceptance speech). Leave it to film critic Roger Ebert to give the best review:
Click to enlarge
"Two days later, not a word of Romney's acceptance speech has entered the public discourse. But Eastwood's dialog with a chair has entered forever into political legend, and it's amusing to read reports that his viewers from around the world were mystified. Iranian Facebook pages 'treated it with suspicious befuddlement,' an Atlantic blog reports, and in China the speech is being used to teach English on a web site. The headline says, 'Gelivable English Langauge Teaching: Exchange Cooperation Model Innovation,' says the Atlantic's Max Fisher, who adds: 'I don't know what that means, either.'"
Roger Ebert

The inevitable chorus of losers turn up in the comments. The first thing I thought of was how pissed they all were after the Eastwood's Superbowl commercial. Amnesia is an amazing thing to watch.
"They gave him a time limit and flashed a blinking red light that told him his time was up. He ignored both. The actor’s decision to use a chair as a prop was last-minute, and his own.... 'The prop person probably thought he was going to sit in it,' a baffled senior aide said on Thursday night."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars

Can't make this stuff up
Then the Democrats had their convention. This review by Peggy Noonan reveals a great deal about how it was perceived by Beltway Insiders™:
"The sheer strangeness of all the talk about abortion, abortion, contraception, contraception. I am too old to get pregnant old enough to know a wedge issue when I see one, but I've never seen a great party build its entire public persona around one."
Shit
Really? This is the first time that, at your advanced age, you've ever seen it happen? It's never happened to, say, Republicans? Never? Not Once? The Tea Party perhaps? How about "intelligent" design?

WSJ

And it's Sandra Fluke who's a narcissist. Right. This coming from a professional operative who lives to hear the sound of her own voice. Speaking of which, Sarah Palin didn't get mentioned at the RNC so she's complaining about being mentioned at the DNC:

Crooks & Liars

*End Politics*

Enough politics, here's an excerpt from one of the finest pieces of science writing I've seen in ages:
“Who gave you the right to control my life? 
“You've got it the wrong way round. You gave the right to control your life away. You're the one who chose to ignore the way the world works.” 
“Hah!” said Sacha. “The way the world works! Bloody scientists. You think the world is all numbers and machines and levers. You don't understand anything about the soul or spirit.” 
“Of course I do,” said James. “I've been happily married for 20 years. I have two children that I love. I play the piano, I enjoy reading. It's just that I have additional ways of looking at things.”
Nature

"The Wet Cell Battery is mentioned in over 600 Edgar Cayce readings as a system to enhance the body's natural healing tendencies. This level of current, according to Cayce, seems to imitate the "electrical conditions" in the body. Passing this current through various "healing" solutions enhances the benefits of the Baar Wet Cell therapy. Even though Cayce first described this unit and process over 60 years ago, it appears to tap into much of the healing wisdom current vibrational medicine researchers are discovering. 
"This system is offered for those researching the Edgar Cayce readings that reference "M.S." [i.e., it's for people who have M.S.] We offer this system for personal research, only and do not make medical claims for its application. This system is not intended to replace qualified medical care."
"Price: $584.35"
They have variations of the exact same product for a variety of other ills so if you're so unlucky as to not be suffering from M.S., you're not out of luck.
Barr Products [not to be confused with Barr Engineering]

"So when he started talking about boobs I didn't really care. When he started showing me pictures of boobs of girls at the party that he had taken I thought 'okay that's weird whatever maybe he asked beforehand.' At some point he raised a concern about being Asian and women not wanting him cause of some stereotypical view of penis size, and I was like "most women will agree size doesn't matter" and went back to my phone... Then he grabbed my free wrist and put it on his crotch and asked 'Is this big enough?'"
Exploded Soda


No, no, Margaret Thatcher said it was the hooligans:
"British police and medics whose failures contributed to the deaths of 96 soccer fans in the country's worst sports disaster unfairly blamed the dead for the 1989 tragedy and sought to cover up their actions, newly disclosed documents revealed Wednesday. 
"The documents vindicated efforts by the victims' families, who had spent 23 years demanding a full accounting of the events at Hillsborough stadium that killed fans of the Liverpool soccer team. Most of the victims were crushed and suffocated in a standing-only section after they were herded there by police."
SeattlePi

"Jeffrey LaPorta traveled more than a quarter of a mile through multiple storm sewer pipes, at times completely submerged water, before finding enough breathing room to await rescue. He was eventually pulled out of the sewer in less than an hour, with only scrapes and bruises."
MSNBC


See kids, it really does happen:
"A Northern California mixed-martial artist accused of ripping out his friend's heart and removing his tongue while the two were on hallucinogenic drugs has pleaded guilty to murder and mayhem charges."
MSNBC

I'll take one in 2X, please. Love the sleeves.
"A debate continues about how much damage will ultimately result from the ill-conceived use of vaccinators by the CIA. Pakistan's leading vaccine expert, Zulfiqar Bhutta, has tried to remain optimistic about polio elimination in Pakistan. And the World Health Organization, whose polio campaign in Nigeria encountered many years of opposition from religious fundamentalists, remains uncertain about just how long the setback in Pakistan will last and whether it will spread to other countries."
Journal of Public Health Policy

"An unlicensed acupuncturist and self-proclaimed 'healer' in Switzerland is being accused of intentionally infecting 16 people with the HIV virus in cases going back for more than a decade"
Medical Daily

Along similar lines:
"Nelson knew that she had exceeded the limits of her expertise and that Maine needed advice from another practitioner, but she did not appropriately communicate that or discontinue her treatment, and she gave Maine information which accentuated the woman's fear of conventional treatment."
Stuff

Also:
"A Sydney doctor who is a member of the Exclusive Brethren Christian sect has been banned from practising as a GP after he prescribed chemical castration to a young man who sought a ''cure'' for homosexuality."
Sydney Morning Herald

"The Todd Akin thing was so blown out of proportion -- it's a joke," Jackson said at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., when interviewed for my SiriusXM OutQ radio program. "How many times do people get pregnant from rape? It's point zero zero one percent. It's a joke. I read lots of articles. I know people, because I'm 53. I've know a lot of people, and I've actually never known anyone who got pregnant from being raped."
Huffinton Post

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