Thursday, November 20, 2014

Our Wacky World—11/20/2014

Headline O' The Week: "Authorities Have No Idea How Family Bought LSD-Contaminated Beef At Walmart"


Shorter Richard Dawkins—"Help, help, I'm being repressed":
I feel muzzled, and a lot of other people do as well,” [Dawkins] continued. “There is a climate of bullying, a climate of intransigent thought police which is highly influential in the sense that it suppresses people like me.”
Dispatches From The Culture Wars


$6.75 million in judgement and settlements to family fingered by "facilitated communication":
'...a controversial method known as "facilitated communication," had been widely debunked in the last two decades. Nevertheless, Oakland County [prosecutors] pressed on...even as news reports showed the method was unreliable. 
'Ian...was interrogated for two hours by West Bloomfield police who told him they had videotape of his father assaulting his sister. Police never had such a tape and the claim was a lie that a psychologist would later testify left the boy traumatized. Jurors did watch a video showing Ian's interrogation, in which the boy, then 13, doubled over in tears.'
Only took seven years. [Detroit Free Press]


Glenn Beck "reveals" that he had a mystery "illness" that made him "crazy"; was "cured" by "chiropractic neurologist":
"Most harrowingly, Beck said that at one point he took a traumatic brain injury test at a hospital in New York City and scored in the bottom 10 percent. Doctors told him he would have between 5 and 10 years before he would no longer be able to function. He then began to search for a successor at TheBlaze."
So I guess now he'll be shilling for Ted Carrick as well as gold and silver dealers. [Crooks & Liars]


'An anti-gay US pastor has warned his flock against drinking Starbucks coffee, claiming it is flavoured with the "semen of sodomites… They're putting it into the blends of coffees that they sell".
IBTimes


Worried about reinforcing stereotypes online? Don't call yourself the "Food Babe" and give brainless advice about, say, travel:
"The air you are breathing on an airplane is recycled from directly outside of your window. That means you are breathing everything that the airplanes gives off and is flying through. The air that is pumped in isn’t pure oxygen either, it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50%. To pump a greater amount of oxygen in costs money in terms of fuel and the airlines know this! The nitrogen may affect the times and dosages of medications, make you feel bloated and cause your ankles and joints swell."
Jesus christ, I'm breathing 78% nitrogen right now! No wonder I feel like shit. [NeuroLogica]

"I have autism-induced breast cancer (AIBC). While I am not absolutely certain that the 1.9 centimeter lump that grew in my left breast is the result of the stress of raising two autistic children, all indications point in that direction. There is virtually no cancer in my family, I eat organically, I exercise, I’m a good weight. OK, so I live in the toxic dump known as New Jersey, but that is the only other major risk factor. No, the drop in cortisol levels whenever one kid’s school calls or the other kid has a public “flare up” is enough for the cancer to take root."
 Stress causes a drop in cortisol levels? [Respectful Insolence]


Oxygen helps anti-oxidants?
"Oxygen is a miracle, an anti aging miracle! Oxygen therapy can help to jump start the body’s antioxidant defenses and ability to fight free radicals, boost metabolism, and counteract the hypoxia (low oxygen level) that leads to slower cell activity and oxidative stress. Research has shown that oxygen therapy can help to improve the efficiency of hemoglobin in transporting oxygen around the body, improve blood flow by helping to keep cell membranes flexible, and detoxify and fight infection by destroying bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that thrive in low-oxygen environments and don’t have the antioxidant resources to fight back. 
"However, none of these benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy has been clinically proven."
Science Based Medicine

'Ultimately, the claim involving a 666 on Monster energy drink cans relies on the incorrect assumption the three claw marks comprising the logo represent three iterations of the Hebrew symbol "Vav," resulting in a Hebrew equivalent of "666." But "666" in Hebrew would be written "Samech Resh Tav Vav," or "six hundred sixty-six.'
The author of Revelation did not know about place notation. It hadn't been invented yet. [Snopes]