Friday, July 6, 2012

Our Wacky World—7/6/2012

Andy Griffith died. I will forever remember him in this movie. Too bad he was a flaming communist.

FAIL
Remember that "drug bust gone bad" a few years back? (yeah, I know, there have been so many). The "informant" speaks:
"Now in the living room, the TV reporter was saying how a 92-year-old woman had died in the incident, and people were suggesting that the police had shot her. Two and two came together in White’s mind. They did it, he suddenly knew. They messed up. They killed that old lady. Now his heart pounded as the implications became clear. And they want me to cover for them."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars


Heard about the "Fast & Furious" scandal? No, you haven't—until now:
"Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. 
"Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies."
Fortune

It's long. Read it. This is the best indictment of the gun lobby yet.


So much for the famous National Geographic Society:
"A team of trained investigators sets out to uncover the truth about UFOs. But they’re not just looking for more stories on extraterrestrial activity—they want answers. Risking it all, this team of scientists and UFO researchers investigate and dissect some of the most mysterious sightings on the planet to unearth stunning new evidence. The data they collect on these adventures paints an entirely new picture of what we know about these strange lights in the sky."
Bad UFOs

And people raised their eyebrows because Henry Rollins hosted a show? At least that one was honest. And what the fuck is a "Skeliever"? Some sort of weasel?

FAIL
The president of the country’s best-known Christian ministry dedicated to helping people repress same-sex attraction through prayer is trying to distance the group from the idea that gay people’s sexual orientation can be permanently changed or “cured.” “I do not believe that cure is a word that is applicable to really any struggle, homosexuality included..." For someone to put out a shingle and say, ‘I can cure homosexuality’ — that to me is as bizarre as someone saying they can cure any other common temptation or struggle that anyone faces on Planet Earth.”
Dispatches From The Culture Wars


Just a couple of tourists in Tokyo:
"...I decided I’d just do a few artful shots of the electric blowjob machine and the chains hanging from the walls but then I was all 'Hang on. I need someone to take a picture of me on the pony' and Victor was very grumpy about it so I threatened to call the bellboy to help me and so he huffed noisily and did it but quite angrily and that’s when I noticed the giant mirrored wall in the dungeon, which didn’t seem to fit the rest of the brick-and-mortar look of the place and that’s when I realized that it was probably a two-way mirror and that the room next door to us was probably the voyeur room and that those poor people were clearly going to be very disappointed."
Eden Fantasys

"If a tooth develops decay and another doesn't, this isn't just a case of poor nutrition and bad bushing. Your teeth reflect your physical as well as your emotional conditions. If you look after your teeth well and yet a tooth starts to decay, there could be an emotional issue needing to be resolved."
Dr. Elmar Jung

Be sure to play around with the interactive tooth chart. I'm missing several teeth. Does that mean my pancreas doesn't function any more? A couple are chipped—is that because of psoriasis?

Toothache My Eye
"... A Tampa rape victim can sue the Hillsborough County Sheriff for allowing a jail guard to refuse to give her a prescribed emergency contraception pill because it was against the guard's religious beliefs"
Courthouse News

"The woman claims that the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, then president of Front Royal-based Human Life International Inc., made her repeatedly take off her clothes and then caressed and kissed her — saying that he was 'blowing the Holy Spirit' into her. She said it gradually dawned on her that this was not your standard exorcism."
Turley's Blog

"Well, friends, after four days of not eating and three days of laxative misuse, my body called it quits. I found myself lightheaded, distracted, and in pain (though less pain) even after I stopped using the horrible blue pills I have come to hate. I now harbor suspicions of those who claim they have done this “cleanse” for five or ten or forty days, especially if they are taking the laxatives as they go."
JREF


Bill Gates tries his hand at education reform by using M$ as a model:
...“stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees”
Crooks & Liars

It's long been a joke that any hardware made by M$ has to have Windoze running on it. They bought WebTV, which ran great with Linux, and turned it into crapware by forcing it to run Windows. True Story. But wait, it gets better—read the linked article.