Sunday, October 4, 2015

Our Wacky World—10/4/2015

From the great and... well, the terrible Rush Limbaugh:
“Don't know how long it's going to take, but this news that there is flowing water on Mars is somehow going to find its way into a technique to advance the leftist agenda.”
Politico

Why stop there?:
"‘Dems and Leftists’ Want to Genetically Modify Us to Combat Climate Change”
Mediaite


Yogi Berra, great philosopher, dead at 90. "It ain't over 'till it's over” is one worthy of Sun Tzu. Rene Déscartes? Also-ran.

"The man charged in a California kidnapping that police initially dismissed as a hoax told a television news reporter he had a psychotic break and a side effect from a vaccine was to blame in part for his behavior"
Doubtful News (original article unavailable)


An historic breakthrough:
"An English historian has come across the word ‘fuck’ in a court case dating to the year 1310, making it the earliest known reference to the swear word.”
Swear word? I thought it was an obscenity. (Medievalists)

'At a council meeting this month, Goodman explained how drooping denim is “disrespectful,” a bad example to children, and bars the wearer from gainful employment. He told his colleagues what he told a Daily Beast reporter: “I prayed about this. I know that God would not go around with pants down.”'
Liberaland


Carly Fiorina’s HP legacy is costing her contributions—from former employees:
“I don’t care if she’s a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. I would not support her for president,” Soderstrom said. “I would not give her two cents.”
Daily Beast

"The Australian government is fighting back against the unrelenting terrorist threat that threatens to consume every Western nation. It, too, has noticed that youngsters and their SnapChats are particularly prone to radicalization from outside forces. As Richard Chirgwin of the Register points out, it has chosen to address this threat to Australian society in the way only a government agency can: with a blend of the bizarre and the tone deaf.”
Techdirt

‘...public interest organizations raised alarm over his company buying a long-used medicine, Daraprim, in the treatment of AIDS and immediately raised the price of $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. When a reporter asked him to explain the increase for a drug that has been on the market for 62 years, Shkreli called him a “moron” and refused to answer the question.’
Turley's Blog

Later:
"...hiking the price of a drug by 5,000 percent just because you can invites...government meddling, which is why the pharmaceutical industry isn't happy with Turing."
Chicago Tribune


How to torture your child:
'Although the patient was recovering, it appears that the team was at a loss until the child’s parents revealed a game-changing piece of information later in the admission. Six months before his pain and other worrisome symptoms began, they had sought treatment for his eczema from a “natural health practitioner.”'
Science-Based Medicine

"Donald Trump spoke at the Values Voters Summit on Friday...and told the crowd that if he’s elected president, people will damn well say Merry Christmas in department stores because, in the bizarro world he lives in, no one says that phrase anymore."
Dispatches From The Culture Wars

"If the goal of the pro-life movement actually were to end abortion, both tactics and results would be radically different. Imagine a fictional person whose chief life goal is to reduce abortion by, say, 90 percent over the next 20 years. It might come as a surprise to the audience of today’s antiabortion theater—but our protagonist’s goal is attainable. Armed with just the information and technologies available today, someone genuinely committed to reducing abortion by 90 percent in 20 years could map out a plan to get there—and even make people’s lives better in the process.”
But then that’s not what it’s about, is it? (Salon)


Let us once again visit one of my least favorite topicsthe shit that will not die:
“The fact that this asshole has the audacity to offer expert testimony today is amazing. Ultimately, an eight-year-old kid was murdered, and I feel the medical professionals involved in that case are culpable and they’ve never been held accountable.”

“Americans prefer black-and-white problems with simple answers… Part of the appeal of Satanic ritual abuse was that when someone we knew molested a child after our protection efforts had failed, it was easier to escape guilt by blaming it on an evil Satanist...”
So did a dingo ate the baby? Don’t even bother to Google that. (Pacific Standard)


FINALLY:
"Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that copyright holders like Universal must consider fair use before trying to remove content from the Internet. It also rejected Universal’s claim that a victim of takedown abuse cannot vindicate her rights if she cannot show actual monetary loss.”
EFF

'States that defended same-sex marriage bans...are now being asked to pay the legal fees for those litigants under a 40-year-old federal law that says the court “in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party … a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” Or as Michigan attorney Dana Nessel put it: “It’s the price governments pay for defending bigotry.”'
al Jazeera