Our Wacky World—2/22/2014

This was on the CNN front page the other day:

"The 13 Most Influential Candy Bars of All Time--We interviewed candy experts and historians to determine which bars made the biggest impact on the chocolate-bar industry—and the world at large."

So Bill Nye "debated" Ken Ham about evolution. Everyone predicted a disaster for science based on past experience (hint: creationists never "debate," they just do a Gish Gallop). And the winner was...

"Ham’s own Answers in Genesis website so far has not posted anything crowing about their great victory–just a bland recounting of the points Ken raised without a summation of who they think was the winner! The PR-savvy Discovery Institute website, which always comes back the next day after a debate bragging about how they 'won', instead is criticizing Ham for making them look bad with all his ridiculous YEC ["young earth creationist", i.e., the Earth is is only 6000 years old blah blah] nonsense. Now they have a post redirecting our attention to their own Stephen Meyer debating Charles Marshall, trying to steer away from what they call 'Ham’s fiasco'. Even Pat Robertson scolded Ham for making Christianity look stupid! But the real clincher was a poll on Christian Today, a site that should favor Ham. As of their last posting, their poll shows Nye won 92% to 8%!"

Unlike Sarah Palin, Bill allowed himself to be coached. Please note that this is not the end of the bitchfest. There are plenty of people who are still pissed off at him and the commentators supporting him, although the initial furor seems to be dissipating into "well, it could have been worse" if not outright admission that maybe it was a good thing after all—for once. (Skepticblog)

"Norwegian convicted mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik has threatened a hunger strike if prison authorities don't upgrade his video game system to a PlayStation 3, among other demands. 'You've put me in hell...and I won't manage to survive that long. You are killing me.'"

He's had trouble settling in all along as I mentioned in an earlier post. (The Register)

"The $10 bill, as everyone knows, features President Alexander Hamilton -- undeniably one of our greatest presidents [sic] and most widely recognized for establishing the country's financial system"

The last part of that statement is correct. The rest is not. (CNN)

Click and read the bigfoot article

It's that time of the year again— the sheer comedy gold that is the annual UFO conference:

'"Patty Greer was a professional musician for decades, playing the harp and piano and singing with bands. In 2004 she trusted the wrong dentist and was poisoned severely by mercury fillings. For years she was seeking a healing miracle, and when everything failed she headed to the UK Crop Circles. Laying in Crop Circles day after day she developed (what appeared to be) a telepathic communication with the Circlemakers." With no previous training or experience in film making, she says that she became a filmmaker when she had an out-of-body experience in a crop circle in 2007, and she has visited over 100 crop circles. She later found out that the first Crop Circle she visited was fake, but she had extraordinary experiences in it, anyway.'

It just gets better from there. Note that this is merely day three of a four day convention so there are more posts on the blog. (BadUFOs)

We have a winner for the most clueless enthusiast award—a hemp oil fanatic:

"Cell phones are just one of the culprits. Look at studies of cancer rates of people who live near and around high tension power lines. I myself did not understand the importance of all this until a friend of mine cured his heart condition by having two electrical problems in his home repaired." 

"Can someone out there give me a rational explanation as to why fluoride seems to be in everything these days and please do not call me and try to tell me it’s to prevent tooth decay? Did Hitler not use fluoride in his death camps to keep the inmates calm so they would not try to escape or revolt?" 

"After studying all this scientific jargon, I had learned what amounted to nothing. But the [hemp] oil continued to work the miracles so who was I to question it."

Anything that defies logic is true. And there's a lot more of it on that page. (Phoenix Tears)

Oh ye of little faith:

"Jamie Coots died of a bite during a snake-handling ceremony. Coots was...one of the stars of National Geographic’s reality TV show Snake Salvation."

JREF

"Japanese zookeepers successfully capture fake gorilla"

CNN

"Parents killed girl by making her drink too much grape soda"

CNN

"Pennsylvania Man Wins $5 Million After Relatives Push Him Over in Portable Toilet Leaving Him A Quadriplegic"

Turley's Blog

"Bills was arrested in Indiana and police say that the video camera showed him splashing the dog cages with kerosene. However, the sprinkler system quickly put out the fire. Between the video camera and the sprinkler system, this does not seem like a particularly well-thought out arson conspiracy."

Turley's Blog

And here I thought only Glenn Beck did this sort of thing (snort):

"Subscribers to CNN host Newt Gingrich's email list are receiving supposed insider information about cancer 'cures,' the Illuminati, Obama's 'Secret Mistress', a 'weird' Social Security 'trick,' and Fort Knox being 'empty.' While Gingrich's team has previously claimed that they work hard to 'vet' the organizations they rent the email list to, they have repeatedly violated their own apparently low standards. 

"Gingrich Productions has sent at least 15 sponsored emails for Stansberry & Associates...a disgraced financial firm that was fined $1.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for engaging in 'deliberate fraud' and profiting from 'false statements.' The firm sells financial products by pushing conspiracies about the Obama administration. Founder Porter Stansberry recently said it's 'fucking bullshit' that people get upset at him for using slurs like 'nigger' and 'fag' when he's 'not the least bit bigoted.'

BTW, Newt demanded that secretary of state resign after saying that global warming was the greatest threat to America or some such crap. (Media Matters)