Friday, October 12, 2012

Our Wacky World—10/12/2012

Feeling let down after ebay banished ghosts and woo? Fear not, there's a new auction site for that. And it's raining chicken in Assowoman, VA.

Remember all that bad stuff that happened after Obama was elected?:
  • "homosexuals are now given special bonuses for enlisting in military service (to attempt to compensate for past discrimination)"
  • "In mid-2010, Iran launched a nuclear bomb that exploded in the middle of Tel Aviv, destroying much of that city."
  • "The waiting list for prostate cancer surgery is 3 years. The waiting list for ovarian cancer is 2 years... Because medical resources must be rationed carefully by the government, people older than 80 have essentially no access to hospitals or surgical procedures. Their 'duty' is increasingly thought to be to go home to die"
  • "Gas costs more than $7 per gallon"
No, I don't, either. That last part actually has a chance of happening.  (Love, Joy, Feminism)

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So what do card-carrying Republicans really think about Obamacare?:
"Weaver, 52, knows it would be difficult if not impossible to buy insurance on her own because of her disease, but she said she's not worried because she has good insurance through her job as a public school teacher in Dallas, where she's worked for 20 years. 'It's very hard to get rid of teachers,' she said. 'I'm very protective of my job. I document everything I do.'"
Oh the irony. Unions in Texas must be chock full of conservatives. (Crooks & Liars)


Linda McMahon, head honcho of World Wrestling Entertainment, has a fundamental problem with engaging on the issues during a debate:
"She stumbled through an answer in which she affirmed her support for 'America’s same sex marriage law.' There is, of course, no such thing, unless she means DOMA, which is sort of the opposite. And then she just stopped, with probably more than a minute left on her clock... She seemed inexplicably rattled by this benign, predictable and routine question. (This is what happens when you spend your whole campaign dodging the press. You turn into the kind of candidate who can’t improvise.)"
Crooks & Liars


Jerry Sandusky has decided to blame the real victims. This is a true predator's brain at work:
"Jerry and Dottie Sandusky did not ask the judge for mercy. They did not try to extol Jerry's virtues, list good deeds or express regret. Instead, they depicted the boys he sexually assaulted as ungrateful and called them liars... In letters to the judge who would sentence the former coach, the Sanduskys portrayed themselves as virtuous victims of a vast conspiracy. They blamed powerful, image-conscious forces at Penn State University, lying cops, ambitious prosecutors and a scandal-hungry news media."
Up until now there was still that million-to-one shot that Sandusky would admit his guilt or show some empathy. His own words have now clinched the diagnosis of classic psychopath entirely. His wife is, of course, the good enabler. (CNN)


The IRS has come calling with Kent Hovind's final tax bill:
"The main issue was about whipsawing. Mr. and Mrs. Hovind did not file returns. They were both involved in the financial transactions of the enterprises and they lived together. That makes it hard for the IRS to sort out which of them should be taxed on the unreported income. They are married, but filing a joint return is an election. The solution is for the IRS to send a deficiency notice to each of them for 100% of the tax. With interest and penalties the balance for the years 1998 to 2006 is over $3,000,000."
I love the fact that he went to the trouble of explaining who Hovind is, as most of his readers probably never heard of him. Spread the news. (Forbes)

"A teenage girl who had her stomach removed and 'nearly died' after drinking a cocktail containing liquid nitrogen was the victim of a 'irresponsible alcohol industry'"
Mail Online

"A 32-year-old man downed dozens of roaches and worms [probably mealworm larvae] to win a python at a Florida reptile store, then collapsed and died outside minutes later."
CNN

"...Lacks urged his employees to 'vote to improve your standard of living' in a letter notifying them of their sixth bonus in almost three years thanks to the good times his automotive parts company has enjoyed. But Lacks was not about to give Obama any credit for the auto industry’s recovery. He told his employees the Affordable Care Act, which he called Obama Care, will raise his company’s health insurance costs by 2 percent a year."
Michigan Live

"So powerful is the allure of gays...that if society approves that gay people, more and more heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn into homosexuality. 'People in homosexuality are incredibly evangelical... It's pure sexuality. It's almost like pure heroin. It's such a rush. They are committed in almost a religious way. And they'll take enormous risks, do anything.' 'Martial sex tends toward the boring end...' 'Generally, it doesn't deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does'"
Crommunist

Also:
"The American Center for Law and Justice, Pat Robertson’s legal wing, has fired James Henderson, a senior attorney for the organization and a professor at Regent University law school, after a pair of blogs showed evidence that he was involved in two gay relationships."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars


That New Age sells—and people with more money than brains are buying:
"In his book The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves, author and philosopher Andrew Potter alleges that the urge to seek out increasingly alternative ways of living – of being – is the result of a deep-seated discomfort with being a part of society – with conforming. For Potter, the increasingly bizarre social movements, fads, and ‘counter-cultural’ expressions of identity reflect a sort of dissatisfaction with contemporary society, and are the manifestation of a desire to ‘opt out’.
 ✂...
"We tear out our hardwood floors and replace it with Amazonian river mud, or we embrace our new shamanic existence by dropping a few thousand dollars on a spiritual retreat. In short, we declare our rejection of consumer culture by choosing to employ a new pattern of consumption. We consume the trappings and accoutrements of our new alternative lifestyle, and while doing so consume the fantasy that we’ve left consumerism behind."
Crommunist

Meanwhile, Dr. Andrew Weil is still going, poorly:
"Weil stumbled out on stage. He was hobbled over, flabby, and he looked as though he was in pain. He coughed throughout the performance. He was hardly a picture of health for a talk about health, although the talk was an afterthought. Weil waxed freeform about nutrition, healthy aging and breathing. When he stuck to medicine, he made some sense, offering some sensible advice about preventative healthcare, nutrition, and exercise. But the 'devil' mixes lies with truth."
JREF

"...the parents were required to take their children to a court of law and lay out their case...and let the judicial authority determine if the child should be put to death. I know of many cases of rebellious children, however, I cannot think of one case where I believe that a parent had given up on their child to the point that they...asked the court to rule that the child be put to death. Even though this procedure would rarely be used, if it were the law of land, it would give parents authority. Children would know that their parents had authority and it would be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents."
That'll teach the little bastards. (Arkansas Times)

"The radical Christians have replaced the Apple logo with a cross, claiming that the current Apple logo – well-known around the world and often voted one of the world's most popular logos – symbolises the original sin of Adam and Eve and is generally insulting to the Christian faith."
Don't buy Apple products, then. (The Register)


You might be so jaded at this point that this sentence doesn't even make you want to click the link. Trust me, it gets much wackier:
“We think that the public – even those members of the public who register the lowest scores on the sensitivity index – do not expect their judges to be conducting photo sessions featuring the judicial penis and then to be sending the photos over the electronic airwaves to another person.”
Turley's Blog


I guess I won't be buying a car from this dealer:
"He said his staff erred when they sold the SUV to Sawyer for about $5,600 too little and erred again when they went to police. He said Sawyer should not have been arrested and definitely should not have spent four hours in jail."
Pilot Online


What could possibly go wrong with this?
"In Brazil, a new regulation requires drivers to add radio ID tags to their car windshields, which broadcast 'vehicle year or fabrication, make, model, combustible, engine power and license plate number.' This will be read by checkpoints throughout the country, and centrally processed and retained, in a system called Siniav. The administration claims that this system will be 'confidential and secure' because its contractors will sign confidentiality agreements."
BoingBoing

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