Sunday, December 23, 2012

Our Wacky World—12/23/2012

Well it's the 23rd of December. Looks like we dodged the bullet again, eschatologically-speaking. Outside of Connecticut, at least. In honor of the latest slaughter it's time once again to bestow the coveted Most Fucked Argument/Excuse/Explanation/Completely Irrelevant Aside Award™.

And who will have the honors? The NRA for blaming a lack of guns in schools? Bryan "Douche" Fischer blaming the lack of "god" in schools? The anti-vaxers blaming the lack of unvaccinated children in schools? All deserving souls but the winner of the MFAEECIA™ award is... Charlotte Allen:
"There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students...all the personnel...were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees."
"Unfortunately, the idea of being an 'adult' and a 'man' once one has reached physical maturity seems to have faded out of our coddling culture."
Crooks & Liars

Note that the previous winner, Mike Adams of "Natural" News, took the opportunity to pile on as well with more of his conspiracy bullshit but it was too much of the same bitching. Nice try, Mike.

Make that 46 holes of ass
Obama's post-shooting speech interrupted coverage of a football game—shock, horror:
"Obama can eat shit, trying to make a speech during the football game. Unacceptable"
"Obama you stupid sand nigger get off my tv. Your just making the families hurt and miss their kids more and I want to watch football" 
"WOOW THEY TOOK OFF SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL!! TO WATCH THIS NIGGER!! OBAMA TALK ABOUT THE SHOOTING NIGGA IDGAF! THE PATROITS PLAYING!!!"
Dead Spin (lots more)


Now here's an instant classic, one of the most entertaining things I've read in a while:
"There is one thing I feel absolutely secure in saying after spending the last forty-four years of my life conducting parapsychological research; that the paranormal attracts more emotionally disturbed people than any other area of human interest or endeavor."
Barry Taff

Along similar lines:
"The most remarkable thing about these stories [is] the meticulousness of the observations. 'About seven minutes into my pacing, I saw a tall, fat figure scurry away about 20 feet away from me,' writes one observer. Another describes 'a man in a red suit with white beard and white fur around his suit with black boots,' adding, 'He was around 5’8” or 5’9”. ' While such clarity isn’t evident in all of these reports—one person recalls seeing '9 little shining splodges in the sky as well as a big splodge at the back of them'— the overall tone is of people giving courtroom testimony."
Boston Globe

"In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world's most expensive coffee."
IOL News

"FEEL LIKE YOU WERE BORN THE WRONG SEX? MAYBE JUST TIRED OF DEALING WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX? THIS SPELL CAN HELP TO TRANSFORM YOUR BODY & MIND FROM MALE TO FEMALE OR FEMALE TO MALE! (CAN ALSO BE USED AS A REVENGE SPELL IF YOU WISH A BLACK MAGICK VERSION BE PERFORMED AGAINST SOMEONE)"
Etsy



Oliver Sacks, M.D., has a new book out—Hallucinations:
"I was flying forwards. Bewildered. I looked around. I saw my own body on the ground. I said to myself, 'Oh shit, I'm dead.'"
They just keep getting better. (Atlantic)


"Alien Mug Shots: The Ten Best (or Worst) Photos of Aliens"

CSI

"Now Alvarez has added to her rather notorious reputation with a bizarre claim as part of a 60 Minutes piece on a litany of wrongful convictions by her office. She suggests that the fact that a serial rapist’s DNA was found on the body was not proof of the innocence of five teens because he might have come across the girl’s dead body later and had sex with it."
Turley's Blog

"Today, the military claims to operate a mere 172 golf courses worldwide, suggesting that over thirty years after Proxmire's criticisms [in 1975], a modicum of reform has taken place... In actuality, the military has cooked the books."
Alternet

Click for story
"Oakland, California is in the midst of a crime wave... Nevertheless, the city fired one-fourth of its police department... in the latest example of the lunacy of public subsidies for professional football and baseball teams, the city is forking over $17.3 million for the National Football League’s Oakland Raiders and Major League Baseball’s Athletics."
Turley's Blog


This is why I don't watch TV:
"But Hester, who has been waging war with the network over trademarks even before Tuesday's lawsuit, says this is a "lie" -- that many of the scenes are staged, that interviews with cast members are scripted in advance and that producers have shot footage when no real auctions are taking place. Hester even says that the defendants have asked him to provide valuable items to be planted."
It isn't that this show (and probably all the rest of them) is rigged, it's that these shows suck in general. (the Clicker) You might also want to look at this.


It looks like Rossi is still trying hard to sell his cold fusion scheme (pdf):
"Several people commented that if Rossi has cracked cold fusion and is seeking an Australian representative, why he is dealing with a retired hippy in New Age-land, instead of a major energy company."
Australian Skeptics

"Sure enough, last week NASA was forced to admit that an employee at the agency’s offices in Washington DC had left a laptop computer containing all that newly acquired personal information on its employees in his car on Halloween night, and it had been stolen. Worse yet, further validating the concerns of JPL scientists, the data on the computer had not even been encrypted!"
Counterpunch

Click for info

Some good news from NYC:
"Prosecution of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox community has been hampered in the past by the intimidation of witnesses. In this case, Mr. Hynes’s office brought charges against several men for allegedly trying to interfere with the case, through bribery and threats. Then, during the trial, three other men were charged for taking cellphone pictures of the victim, in violation of court rules. And, although supporters of accused abusers have dominated the gallery at previous trials involving prominent ultra-Orthodox Jewish men, on many days at this trial, supporters of the accuser and advocates for abuse victims were in the majority."
Butterflies And Wheels

And:
"New York police have arrested a man for throwing a chemical, believed to be bleach, on a rabbi who advocates for sexual abuse victims."
CNN

It has begun.


Meanwhile, on a small island in the Pacific that no one's ever heard of, a familiar pattern unfolds:
"Yet to anthropologists, it appears the Kritsi are the warlike ones. Paradoxically, even in the midst of Kritsi claims of their own peacefulness and Syenz aggression, both the Kritsi and the Syenz have lore that clearly describes Kritsi raids and killings on the Syenz side, with raids in reverse apparently nonexistent. The Syenz tribe has for generations gone peacefully about its business, and the Kritsi literally have nothing the Syenz want. The Kritsi seem blissfully unaware of the conflict between their peace-loving rhetoric and their own warlike actions."
Blue Collar Atheist

"The practice of buying Twitter followers (or Facebook fans, Instagram followers, etc.) is as old as social media itself, hinged on the archaic notion that quantity trumps all in the social interaction sphere. Some of the most well-known politicians and celebrities in our social strata are accused of puffing up their own numbers with these followers" 
“Did you pay for your followers with a credit card? If so, a hacker who makes fake followers now has your credit card number.”
The Next Web

That settles it