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

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Our Wacky World—12/5/2012

Best spam subject I've seen in quite a while: "Be the king at the orgy"

Here's the scoop on how they've been torturing Bradley Manning.

What would Kickstarter be without woo? And what the hell is it with Michio Kaku? The man is not stupid but he keeps saying embarrassing things:
"At last, a serious and thoughtful book about this controversial subject. Skeptics and true believers will find a treasure trove of insightful and eye opening information. This book is bound to set the gold standard for UFO research."—Michio Kaku, Ph.D. Author of Physics of the Impossible and host of Sci Fi Science on the Science Channel
Note the quote from venerable fool-ee Harold Puthoff slightly lower down. You're now in great company, Michio. And this book is a game-changer, all right. It's the end of Leslie Kean's journalistic career and the start of a new, more bogus one. Check out Bob Sheaffer's review of it (if you see a bunch of weird characters in the text set your browser's text encoding to "ISO Latin 1").

"North Korea is as annoying and weird as it has always been, but getting nuclear weapons didn't transform it from an economic basket case into a mighty regional power and didn't make it more inclined to misbehave. In fact, what is most remarkable about North Korea's nuclear program is how little impact it has had on its neighbors. States like Japan and South Korea could go nuclear very quickly if they wanted to, but neither has done so in the six years since North Korea's first nuclear test.

"For some strange reason, however, the U.S. national security community seems to think that both logic and all this prior history does not apply to Iran."
Foreign Policy


I can't wait to see how this works out:
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he suggested last year. "Put all the trash together."
Telegraph


Tattoo face guy changes his mind (big fucking surprise):
"Hartsburg will be able to have subsequent sessions at offices around the country, so it won't slow down a professional wrestling career that he is hoping to transition into a role in the entertainment industry. After all is said and done, Hartsburg hopes ditching the tattoo won't hamper his rise to fame, instead allowing him to 'be more than just the tattoo face guy.'"
Yahoo

The Internet is forever. Good luck with your wrestling career. While I'm at it, here's another update from the last WWN...


She's now job hunting.


How Republican candidates pay off their staff:
"Basically he handed me a check with a condom in it, told me I was screwed," Gomes said. "That's the rudest gesture you can ever do to a person, it's like spitting in a person's face."
Booman Tribune

"By all accounts, the past month has been most difficult on Romney’s wife, Ann, who friends said believed up until the end that ascending to the White House was their destiny. They said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses."

"The son of Detroit — who boasted of the Cadillacs he owned as a sign of support for the U.S. auto industry during the campaign — was spotted driving a new black Audi Q7, a luxury sport-utility vehicle manufactured in Slovakia."
Washington Post


I've been highly bemused by the changes in evangelical charlatanry over the years. Prosperity Gospel™ is the most profitable scam yet, but just to make sure evangelists are now covering all the bases with quack medicines and gold investment schemes. Today I first heard about this:
“If you have shied away from profiting from the immense promise of stem cells to treat disease because of moral concern over extracting stem cells from fetal tissue, pay close attention. You can now invest with a clear conscience. An Israeli entrepreneur, Zami Aberman, has discovered ‘an oilfield in the placenta.’ His little company, Pluristem Life Systems (OTCBB: PLRS) has made a discovery which is potentially more valuable than Prudhoe Bay.”
Dispatches From The Culture Wars



Obama is a dog:
Another embarrassing picture
from his college days
“He suggests that he’s dogging it as president, faking it as an illegal president in a second way now with a stolen election. That he’s a real ‘dog’ for such deception. The image of a dog further suggests: a pet favored by the media and blind supporters who would not dare to explore his illegality by birth or unfair election; that he will dog or haunt America for another four years because a dog also bites especially a wounded one."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars


Fact checking, conservative style:
"They also unfairly tarnish Michele Bachmann as a liar, when anybody who follows her already understands that many of her statements aren’t meant to be truthful in the first place — she simply says what she feels."
Existential Crisis Factory


Tired of being gay? There's a treatment for that:
"Downing directed Levin to say one negative thing about himself, remove an article of clothing, then repeat the process. Although Levin protested and expressed discomfort, at Downing's insistence, Levin submitted and continued until he was fully naked. Downing then instructed Levin to touch his penis and then his buttocks. Levin, unsure what to do but trusting in and relying on Downing, followed the instructions, upon which Downing said 'good' and the session ended."

"On one occasion, Downing instructed Unger to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket, as though killing her, and encouraged Unger to scream at his mother while beating her effigy"
CNN

"Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik accused prison officers of trying to drive him to suicide in conditions he describes as 'a mini Abu Ghraib.' ...he is frustrated that guards do not cooperate with his carefully planned daily schedule, where he times his various activities down to the minute."
Yahoo


What's wrong with the media today? Howard Kurtz gives us a shining example—himself. Strangely, he doesn't seem to be interested in getting at the truth of anything. All he wants is for everyone to "play nice". His post is chock full of the usual exercises in false equivalence. The article is supposed to be about the Petraeus debacle but instead we hear how much alike Alan Grayson and Allen West are. As if. Grayson is a blunt realist, West is a demonstrably batshit crazy, Tea Party looney who's a very poor loser. Kurtz succeeds in doing exactly the same thing as the hordes of hosts and guests on Fox News—reducing the world to black and white with the one subtle difference of hoping for some "gray" instead of touting "white". Kurtz would be the first to complain about the Leftists on MSNBC. Get rid of those few people and you have exactly zero balance on cable TV. To achieve the same "balance", Roger Ailes would have to fire everyone except Shepard Smith.

Is Kurtz really that oblivious? Is he some sort of tragic hippie? Do you think I really give a fuck?

Friday, November 23, 2012

Our Wacky World—12/23/2012

Rat News—Galapagos rats marked for death. Thanksgiving news—the usual bullshit:
"But James Mabe, the manager of that 800-worker House of Raeford plant in West Columbia, S.C that reported no musculoskeletal disorders over four years, had an explanation for the apparent immunity of the company’s employees from these injuries that are so common for everyone else in the industry.. 'Hispanics are very good with their hands and working with a knife. We’ve gotten less complaints,' and 'It’s more like a natural movement for them.'"
This Week In Christian Nationalism


Some interesting videos came my way recently. Here's one of Bigfoot talking. It's amazing how much it sounds like the sort of noises you can make with a toy mic and an old cassette tape recorder. They mis-spelled "existence" in the link, BTW. 

Check out the ice fishing in Finland.

Today is Black Friday. Here's the perfect Xmas gift. And Anonymous is claiming that they hacked Karl Rove's computer network and prevented voter fraud. If it's thats true it would be the perfect Xmas gift.

*facepalm*

Remember Tia Tequila? Neither do I, except as a name that floats by on the Interwebs at rare intervals. Regardless of whatever she was before, she is now a full-tilt flavor-ade drinker:

"FULL DISCLOSURE ON REPTILIAN BLOODLINE WHOM STILL RULE OUR WORLD TODAY! FIND OUT WHO AMONG US ARE OF STILL REPTILIAN!!TUNE IN MY RADIO SHOW AND THIS TIME IT IS NOT INTERRUPTED SINCE I PRE-RECORDED SO “THE OTHERS” CANNOT CUT ME OFF!!!! "

This is from her "temporary" blog (warning—woo central).  Here's her "new" blog. If the text on the second one is all fucked up and unreadable, yeah, that's what it looks like on my computer, too.


What happens in Arlington doesn't stay in Arlington:
"Lindsey Stone posted the picture of herself making the obscene gesture at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, next to a sign at the military cemetery that asks for 'Silence and Respect,' in October and the snapshot quickly went viral."
Good luck with the rest of your life. (Mail Online)

Along similar lines, remember when "the magic negro" first got elected and Rush Limbaugh said that that meant the end of racism in America? No, that didn't make any sense to me, either. And it sure as hell doesn't apply now:
"In case you were hopeful that Obama winning a second term was some kind of indication that racism doesn't really exist anymore, check out Twitter."
Look at the slideshow. (Jezebel)

Rememberthe Internet never forgets. And it will come back to bite you on the ass.

Click for even more unforgetable racism

In other Asshole News, here's Penn Jillette talking about being on Donald Trump's vanity TV show:
"I wasn’t even going to say anything about Trump’s hair. I live in a glass house. I’ve always had ugly, out-of-style hair. Trump’s hair is a lot better than mine—but as I sat there for hours half listening to Donald carry on, it struck me exactly what his hair looked like. It looks like cotton candy made of piss. That revelation came to me, and I had to type it here."
This one is serious comedy gold. A must-read. (Salon)


The election is over. Obama won. Heads are exploding all over the place. Some Republicans have seen the writing on the wall and are grudgingly embracing something remotely resembling reality. I could have made an entire post out of sour grapes and cries of "if only we'd been more conservative". But I won't even bother. Well, here's one stupid statement:
"We need someone like a Jerry Falwell to come back and resurrect the Moral Majority movement where you get people that have a moral background who are willing to come together and vote for moral issues that are important to this nation."
They're now at the point where they're praying for/to St. Falwell. As if he lead this nation to "victory" when he was still alive. All I ever heard the man do was complain. (Crooks & Liars)

No link, says it all

You may have heard that John McAfee is hiding out somewhere in Belize. The story gets more bizarre every day but this early post probably nails what's actually happening:
"McAfee's intensive use of psychosis-inducing hallucinogens would go a long way toward explaining his growing estrangement from his friends and from the community around him. If he was producing large quantities of these chemicals, as implied on Bluelight, that would also shed light on his decision to associate with some of Belize's most hardened drug-gang members."
"mdpv is serious shit. would explain his paranoia and erraticness. i've been thru that. i played with mdpv for about two weeks, then started seeing shadow people in the corner of my eye, and what amphetamine heads call 'tree-cops'... its essentially really, REALLY f-ed [fucked] up meth."
Gizmodo


After all of the above this is positively quaint:
"The United States Postal Service acknowledged on Friday that one of its mail carriers did not report a corpse at a Denver home because he mistook the body for a Halloween display."
Chicago Tribune


And finally, some good news:
"I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he's not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes"
Christian Post

A tattoo is forever, too

Friday, November 9, 2012

Karl Rove Has The Numbers

And yeh, as the election was nigh, Karl Rove spake the numbers, and they were good.


To watch the full Fox News meltdown see the November 7th episode of The Daily Show.

Notice the pattern here (updated to show final results in Florida):

2012

2008

Free vs. Slave States in 1860

The Wall Street Journal had a slight graphics glitch:


You are entitled to your opinion, pathetic as it may be

RavCave original


Thursday, November 8, 2012

Our Wacky World—11/8/2012

Shock-horror! Obama thanks Satan on live TV! (this is a must-see).

[Once again it is clear that I cannot rely on my 2.5 readers to point out incorrect links. While the video linked above is amusing, the correct one deserves a viewing as well.]

Well, the 'lection is over and Obama won. Heads are exploding all over the place. Take, for example, Donald Trump:
"Donald Trump, who has driven well past the last exit to relevance and veered into something closer to irresponsible here, is tweeting tonight. Here's a sampling..."
Mail Online

Mr. Irrelevant

But before that epochal hissy fit there was the matter of Obama's nose job:
"In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s challenge to Obama to release his college and passport records in exchange for a $5 million donation to Obama’s charities, here’s another secret from Obama’s life of mystery and make-believe."
WND

That's a very interesting sentence, BTW. It's sort of like saying "After someone accused you of being a fraud, here's a picture of you looking like your dog". But wait, I see a link to a piece by "Uncle" Ben Kinchlow, Pat Robertson's former Afro-American co-star. He's quoting an anonymous female acquaintance:
"Any woman who is so shallow as to not see through the disdain for her gender and disregard for her intelligence by the relentless push to fall in line with the ideology of the left are as blind as those black Americans who can’t see the perpetual racial slight-of-hand being foisted upon them, regardless of how much information is available pointing to truth; truth, I might add, of which they are both willingly ignorant. If those women don’t wake up and learn what a real man is before Nov. 6, then they can continue to anticipate being treated like the second class citizens the liberals so passionately claim they are."
You can sort of see why most women didn't go for Romney. Note the quack medical links (see StemTech below). (Ben Kinchlow Blog)

You're a looney
"Yet, lawyer and Fox News Anchor Greta Van Susteren has defended the threats against international monitors: 'The election is none of their business. We ought to be able to police our own election.' Of course, that is precisely the same argument used in Iran, China, and other countries. It is another example of what is often referred to as 'American Exceptionalism' that we are simply unique and above the rules that we apply to other nations."
Turley's Blog

vote for Jesus was one less vote for Mitt Romney. They racked up over 2 million pledges. And Obama won by how many votes? Scary, huh?


*** End Politics ***

"When the child refused to take the antibiotics and continued to have problems eating, the doctor reportedly advised the Staats to take the child to another medical professional or a hospital, according to the police report. The doctor reportedly described the boy's condition as critical. Michelle Staats allegedly told police she prayed about whether she should take the child to a hospital... When she thought about taking the boy to the hospital, she got an upset stomach. She allegedly interpreted the upset stomach as a sign from God she should continue trying to treat the child herself."
Columbia Basin Herald

"They called police which came right over . . . and arrested the couple in front of their nine-year-old child. They say it was the local Clayton police who were abusive — grabbing their phone and yelling at them. They told Keeley to stop lying and that they knew no one broke into the home. It is not clear why Keeley would call to report his own drugs."
Turley's Blog


As promised above, yet another woo company with a multi-level marketing scheme:
"StemEnhance is an important part of daily adult stem cell nutrition and works best when used in tandem with StemFlo®, which supports the healthy circulation of adult stem cells and nutrients, and ST-5 with MigraStem™, which supports the ability of adult stem cells to migrate into tissue.* 
"*This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA."
StemTech

Also:
"In 2001, a citizen's group filed a suit in California objecting to 30 claims Cell Tech had made in brochures or on its Web site. In February 2003, the judge ruled that all of the challenged statements were deceptive. He banned their further use in California and ordered Cell Tech to refund the full purchase price to California consumers who purchased its algae products between October 1997 and September 2002"
MLM Watch

So what they're selling is potentially toxic algae. BTW, a list that I'm on was recently invaded by some bizarroid with a StemTech email domain. He proceeded to annoy me and everyone else. Do you suppose there's a connection?


Election over. Nothing else to see here. Cue the campaign for 2016...


Friday, October 26, 2012

Our Wacky World—10/26/2012

I wonder what happened to all those fake news sites selling Acai berries?

Here's some asshole doing the feeble Christian "The gays are taking my rights away" speech. Oh wait, he isn't an asshole after all (watch it all the way to the end). Now that's how it's done.

Top of the list
Here's a real hole-of-ass, Bryan "Douche" Fischer, getting the boot on live TV. I guess he'll go Mike Huckabee's radio show to complain. Elsewhere in wingnut land, conservative "scholar" Dinesh D’Souza has lost his cozy job. Even more amusing, here's what his (now ex) fiance has to say about women in America:
"In one blog post...she argued, amongst other things, that women’s suffrage was a terrible mistake. Well, 'argued' might be stretching it: the post is a long, barely coherent, free-associational rant laced not only with internalized misogyny but with racism and homophobia to boot."
Manboobz

Asked by reporters after the debate if he was saying that it’s never medically necessary to conduct an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded, “Absolutely. With modern technology and science, you can't find one instance... There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.”
WGN

"Using the same PhD tested theological method I successfully defended in my PhD dissertation, I have developed a way to help you see the invisible spirits ruling in the heart of the 44th President."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars

PhD tested? Is that something like UL listed only with more circular reasoning?


How to make millions off of idiots:
"He had invented a pseudo-scientific theory he called 'global scaling', which he said allowed him to use gravitational waves to prevent electronic smog, use novel methods of scanning to be applied in medicine, and transmit 'information without any limits in quantity, quality or time'."
BBC


Climate Trolls—An Illustrated Bestiary:
"Some will pray [sic] on your admitted ignorance or uncertainty. Some will pray [sic] on your subconscious wish that climate change not be real or if it is, it will be benign. Some will seem to engage sincerely but seek only to lure you so deep into the rabbit hole you will be unable to return. Some will dazzle you with words so long and unfamiliar and thoughts so obscure and eccentric that you’ll feel you must believe. Some will simply badger and harass you until you can take no more. It is a harsh and dangerous world. This is why I wish to provide you a guide to these many and varied beings you will surely come across as you venture ever deeper into their native realm."
A Few Things Ill Considered


So Reddit's biggest troll got outed. Cue the inevitable howls of hypocrisy:
"All of a sudden, defense of 'free speech' became a secondary concern for Reddit management and they banned linking to Gawker from the site. Leaked text of Reddit moderator chats discussing the situation make it very clear that even those who don't think Gawker should be banned agree that the Gawker reporter did an awful thing. This deep hypocrisy in Reddit's position that posting names of child predators should be banned, but child predation should be protected by Reddit as 'free speech' is so blatantly obvious that one could almost stop there"
Fortunately, it doesn't stop there: the whole thing is excellent. (Almost Diamonds)

"Ronald Eugene Robinson...is accused of using enemas and then returning the “pre-packaged CVS Pharmacy Ready-to-Use enemas” to the shelves of a CVS pharmacy."
Turley's Blog

"Because California’s anti-pollution laws make it necessary to refine special gas for California alone, the oil companies have deliberately kept their refining capacity just barely above the minimum, so any short-term disruption means a huge price spike. This allows them to charge 30 cents per gallon more than in other states, since it is not in their interest to make the price of gas in California competitive.... Not surprisingly, oil companies have reported that their California refineries are consistently the most profitable in the U.S."
Skeptic Blog

"Yet another lawsuit has been filed against a Scientology-linked Oklahoma rehabilitation center in the wake of recent deaths at the facility... 32-year-old Gabriel Graves, of Claremore, was found dead in his room at the Pittsburg County facility."
KJRH


Click...
Feel like losing some? You could end up dead:
"Botanical Slimming Capsule is specially designed to effectively absorb the oil from food, discharge of the body, stop the grease ingress, prevent the fat accumulation comprehensively, accelerate the excess fat decompounds and consumption, rapidly drive the trash and toxin away, get slim in short time by body purification and detex."
Doubtful News


Consumption of chowmein leads to rape in India:
"To my understanding, consumption of fast food contributes to such incidents. Chowmein leads to hormonal imbalance evoking an urge to indulge in such acts..."
Times Of India


How to increase profits—pay the musicians a lot less:
"Pandora is crying to congress for help because they can’t turn a profit by giving away content to users for free with limited exposure to advertising, and because they can’t get enough paying subscribers from their extensive base of 'free' listeners. If I were an investor, I’d sell immediately just like the insiders have been doing en masse, or at the very least I would demand some real answers from Tim Westergren on why he can’t make this business model 'work'."
And they bitch about people wanting everything for free. (The Register)


And Linsay Lohan is voting for...

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)

Click for more info

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

Shipping shipping

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Our Wacky World—10/4/2012

I'm trying not to bore you with politics this election cycle, but MItt Romney's freefall-at-terminal-velocity of a campaign (by all accounts he did a better job of lying at last night's debate and Obama let him get away with it) is a continuing source of high comedy. Here's how Fox News is handling it:
"Stylistically, the O'Reilly quartet may be on to something new. We've had mainstream journalism, alternative journalism, conservative journalism. This appears to be vaudeville journalism. "
CNN

"'Grassy-knoll' statistics". Remember when Karl Rove said he had the "real numbers?" Heh.
"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem."
Gawker

Apparently Mr. Romney never saw Goldfinger. Some people think he was joking. How can you tell? The man is a $17 bill.
The most important issue
"So how did Romney choose this non-epidemic of a non-illness as an issue? ...he says...he would 'provide local physicians with protection from lawsuits to ensure that they can treat the disease with the aggressive antibiotics that are required.' Two weeks ago Romney spoke with Michael Farris about Lyme. Farris is, among other things, a creationist who founded Patrick Henry College [Purcellville, VA], and who says that his wife and all seven of their children suffer from 'chronic' Lyme disease. The Washington Post has reported that Farris’s wife has received treatment from Dr. Joseph Jemsek. Dr. Jemsek moved his practice to Washington after being disciplined by the North Carolina Medical Board for treating patients with long-term antibiotics."
New Yorker

You'll be glad to know that Virginia Governor Bob McDonell is on-board with Romney on this critical issue. Meanwhile:
"A Virginia man allegedly killed himself and his family earlier this week in part because he was upset by the thought of President Barack Obama being re-elected."
Raw Story


Enough politics—the rest of the world is still full of wackiness:
"But come on, nobody’s going to fall for the old canned air routine, right? Wrong, 'Chen Guangbiao: Nice Guy' air cans were flying off the shelves from the first day they were introduced, and they sold out in a matter of days."
Oddity Central

"A German liquor company called G-Spirits is promising customers that “every drop” of its line of alcoholic beverages has been poured on the naked breasts of a certified model"
NY Daily News

"Retired New Jersey locksmith Daniel Ferraris, 69, is hawking what he calls a 'firemen’s key ring' — and what a terrorist might call a dream come true. The set consists of five keys that would allow control of virtually any elevator in the city, could knock out power to municipal buildings and skyscrapers, darken city streets, open subway gates and some firehouse doors and provide full access to 1 World Trade Center and other construction sites."
NY Post


Here's an old story that just won't go away; anxiety disorder and OCD run amuck:
Anatomy FAIL (click)
"Several times a day, Barbara Lewis slips off her organic cotton slippers and relaxes on her tidy twin-sized bed. She slides a mask onto her face and turns on a steady stream of oxygen from a nearby tank. 'I have cast iron tanks — not aluminum,' she’s careful to point out. For entertainment, she stuffs a book inside a cellophane bag. (Plastic is strictly forbidden in her small apartment.) 'It blocks out the volatile organic compounds from the ink,' she offers as an explanation for the bag covering her book. It’s a tedious exercise Lewis repeats daily in her ongoing battle to lead a 'clean' life — convinced that nearly everything in the modern world is making her sick."
WFAA

"Workers had picked the highly unstable ordnance off the conveyor lines and stored them in a bucket of water in the basement. The munitions that they did not spot had been first plunged into conditioning tanks with the live clams, passed through steam cookers, and then raked across an industrial shucker that violently shakes the cooked meat from the shells. From there, the ordnance was picked up by Perry Butler, hidden in containers of empty clamshells, who passed them through a grinder that pulverised the shells into gravel before selling the fill on to various downstate residents. That none of the munitions exploded at any point was nothing short of miraculous."
Science Punk

“Fong also told Ho that it's ‘very bad’ for Amber Village to book ‘gay parties’ and that big groups of ‘gay partyers’ are especially bad for feng shui.”
NY Daily News


Here's a really excellent article:
"A pedophile...is someone adept not just at preying on children but at confusing, deceiving, and charming the adults responsible for those children—which is something to keep in mind in the case of the scandal at Penn State and the conviction, earlier this year, of the former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky on child-molestation charges."
New Yorker

"This is a clear conflict of interest. The worse the platform performs, the more advertisers need to use Sponsored Stories. In a way, it means that Facebook is broken, on purpose, in order to extract more money from users. In the case of Sponsored Stories, it has meant raking in nearly $1M a day."
Observer

"Gary Rossington, the only original member left in the band, told CNN that Lynyrd Skynyrd will stop using the Confederate flag as a stage decoration because it could be misconstrued as racist."
No shit. (Salon)

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

Retail cycle