ya wanna talk about "cults"?

How about those twitchy, bitchy shitbirds who infest the "influencer" space, but with only partial success. And only because of their most histrionic posts. The lowest sort of "cult" following.

For an example, consider Madilynn Cameron. She works in a hospital. She comes out and posts pathetic rants about how horrible the job is. She whines--constantly. Except when she goes to Disneyland. Then she has some fun, then whines some more.

Not a "cult"? She has 1 million followers on TikTok. But her YouTube channel is a total bust.

TikTok is some kind of "achievement".....the absolute worst of (under-30) humanity, assiduously followed by more of the worst of humanity. Why are creatures like this permitted to reproduce? Why does the internet suck a little harder every year?

Dave Adams (Mojo Sam) Has Died

From Meatball Fulton:

I just wanted to let you know that last Thursday, Dave Adams died.  I only heard about it yesterday.  It was a heart issue.  Most of you know Dave played Mojo Sam.

I’ll have more to say in the days to come.  But for now, I just wanted to say, “Here’s to good ol’ Dave.  So long, old friend.” 

ZBS Foundation broadcast this message in early July:

Mr. Fulton has been wishing he could get the actors back into the studio. He has a new series ready to record, Mojo’s Café for Lost Dreamers. The series has twelve short stories that take place in Mojo’s cordial little coffee shop. His café is really a refuge from reality.

This appears to the third and final attempt to give Mojo Sam the Yoodoo Man his own series. I greatly enjoyed The Land Of Enchantment and Mojo's Vest Pocket Voodoo Adventures but sadly they were never followed up.

I have an earlier post about Dave here. It contains more history and a recording of Dave that every ZBS fan should hear. In particular he reads letters sent by fans after Robert Lorick (Jack Flanders) died.

I may update this post later. I'm not awake enough right now to make things nice and tidy.

It's truly the end of an era. 

Oh, The Irony

I'm going to write a book. It's entitled What People Who Tell You What Doctors Won't Tell You Don't Tell You.

Don't worry. They'll think of something. Always do. 💩

Interview with Dave Adams (Mojo Sam)

ZBS Foundation just posted an interview with Jack Flander's friend, Mojo Sam. Or rather, Dave Adams who portrays Mojo.

We first encountered Mojo Sam the Yoodoo Man (a mixture of yoga and voodoo), in the second ZBS production Moon Over Morocco (1974). In later adventures Mojo becomes Jack's closest and wisest friend. Jack describes him as "...more paranoid than I am."

Dave Adams, December 2017

About two years ago, we were contacted by a fellow interested in making a documentary about ZBS.  Since this is our 48th year, we’ve accumulated a bit of history.  The idea was to start with the radio commune days of the 70s, then continue thru the 80s & 90s, into this century, and finally to where we are now.  He’ll be interviewing the original Zeebers, including Meatball Fulton & Tim Clark, as well as the actors, engineers, artists, and a few fans too. 

During a recent film shoot, Dave Adams (Mojo) came up from Philadelphia to be filmed in our studio.  Dave talked about working with Robert Lorick (Jack) over all these years, what it meant to him, and how deeply it affected him.  Before the interview began, Dave read a few of the letters we received after Robert’s passing.  It’s very touching.
In these days of slickness & hype & endless streams of bullcrap, it may seem rare to hear someone speak so honestly.  This is a powerful interview.  We hope you will listen, its about 15 minutes, its pretty special too.

The interview is here (MP3). It's great to see Dave after all these years and hours of hearing his voice. I have the exact same pair of headphones and use them to listen to Jack and Mojo every night before bed. 🎧


My post about the passing of Robert Lorick (Jack Flanders) is here. 😢

Mass hysteria is alive and well

'On October 13, 2017 the Associated Press released an eerie recording of a mysterious sound that was said to have been part of a “sonic attack” on American diplomats in Cuba. In August, State Department officials reported that several personnel at the Havana Embassy had been sickened by an unidentified acoustical weapon. The number of those affected in the sporadic, ongoing attacks is now at least two dozen. Several Canadian diplomats have reported similar health complaints. Symptoms include headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and remembering, insomnia, tinnitus, confusion, vertigo, hearing loss and “mild brain trauma.” Conspiracy theories abound with talk of secret military weapons from a foreign power or rogue agents, possibly Russian. But delve deeper, and the government’s claims begin to unravel. 

'For starters, there is no concrete evidence of an attack. Experts agree that what is being reported is not consistent with how sonic weaponry works. A leading figure in the field of psychoacoustics, former MIT researcher Joseph Pompei, is adamant that the State Department’s claims violate the laws of physics. “Brain damage and concussions, it’s not possible,” he said, noting that to produce such an effect “Somebody would have to submerge their head into a pool lined with very powerful ultrasound transducers.”'

Skeptic


It's all happened before:

"The panic played on the innate fears of many people in their beds at home at night: a prowler in the dark, unseen, with a terrible weapon. They were rendered paralyzed, helpless; unconscious and unaware; unable to call for help. It was Mattoon, Illinois, in the autumn of 1944. A number of residents reported waking in the middle of the night to a strange, sickly odor; experiencing various symptoms, including paralysis; and in some cases, seeing a prowler pumping some kind of gas into their house through an open window. The Mad Gasser of Mattoon was never caught, his victims never clearly diagnosed, his motives never revealed. Indeed, his very existence was never even proven. Some say it was merely mass hysteria, or some other skeptical claim."

Skeptoid


But this mass delusion is my all-time favorite:

"Koro is a culture-specific syndrome delusional disorder in which an individual has an overpowering belief that one's genitalia are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals. Koro is also known as shrinking penis, and it is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The syndrome occurs worldwide, and mass hysteria of genital-shrinkage anxiety has a history in Africa, Asia, and Europe. In the United States and Europe, the syndrome is commonly known as genital retraction syndrome."

Wikipedia

Richard Perle, Optimist

On this auspicious anniversary I feel it is a good time to take a break from all the hurricane porn on TV and look back...

Almost fourteen years ago, neo-conservative operative Richard Perle gave an historically significant—or at least worth noting—speech at an American Enterprise Institute event entitled "Turkey at the Crossroads." Perle's speech was largely but not entirely overlooked at the time.

The following paragraph sums up the enthusiastic mindset of the neo-conservatives, the Bush administration and its lap-dogs in the media, and a large chunk of the American electorate who fell for the whole scam:

"So the problems that affect Americans and Turks are, I think, largely behind us. The problems in Iraq are ahead of us, but we're doing better than people think. And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation. 

"Thanks. 

"[Applause.]" 

Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
September 22, 2003. (emphasis added)

MP3 of the quotation

Full Transcript of the Speech (for the sake of completeness) [link broken beyond my appetite to fix it]

Update: a functional link to the full transcript is finally available again.

I know you're not going to bother to read the entire transcript so I'll leave you with a section that also tickles the jaded funny bone:

"MS. : I have a question. I was reading [inaudible] a few days ago in the New York Times, and he said that the emphasis on our Ahmed Chelabi was too much. In fact, they tried to work with other Iraqis and build a post-war Iraq. But a great emphasis [inaudible] in Ahmed Chelabi, who is in exile. Did you read that article? What are your thoughts on that article? 

"MR. PERLE: The question was about Ahmed Chelabi and reference was to an article which I haven't read. But let me just say that the Iraqi people must choose their next government, their leaders. If they choose Ahmed Chelabi, I think they will have a very bright future. 

"I've known Ahmed Chelabi for more than a dozen years. He is a man, in my experience, of absolute integrity and courage, and he would be a great Iraqi leader. 

"I read stories all the time about how he has the backing of the Pentagon. Some of us who are connected one way or another to the Pentagon who know him have a high regard for him. But he doesn't have the backing of the Pentagon. Whatever he is able to accomplish in Iraq will be on the strength of his own abilities, his character, his intelligence, and his commitment to the freedom of the people of Iraq. 

"I can't imagine a leader who more fully embodies the values that caused the Americans to believe we should liberate Iraq. He believes in democracy. He believes in individual freedom. He's a Shia who does not want a theocracy in Iraq. And it pains me to see some officials of this government make disparaging remarks about him. For the most part, the disparagement comes from people who don't know him, who have never met him, and it's based on jealousies and in some cases embarrassment. Chelabi was right over many years when they were wrong. 

"So it's been troubling to see the disparagement of this great man. But I have complete confidence that his qualities will lead him into a position of leadership in Iraq."

Let us give a big thanks to Archive.org and the Wayback Machine. The Internet never forgets. 🐘

What's the matter, bubeleh?

Are you feeling down in the dumps? Is the current political scene getting to you? Does the mere mention of the T-word make you wanna poopie in yer panties? Fear not old salt, other things are even worse.


Is Guest Of A Guest the most evil website of all time? A gossip site exclusively aimed at filthy-rich NYC A-list assholes.


If you live in a small town in the midwest with a water system fed by an elevated water tower, there’s a good chance your next glass of tap water will be full of bacteria and sediment. Plus this is a good reason to not live in Missouri.



“It seems to me this cocksucking, puritanical bureaucracy is more interested in protecting the president,” the memo states, “than in protecting our airwaves. How in the world did we not investigate the Access Hollywood ‘grab them by the pussy’ tape but we’re investigating jokes? How can we can we be targeting Colbert when Fox News has a well-documented past of outright lying and presenting it as news?” Yes, it’s a joke. No, it’s not funny.


Taser International has achieved something remarkable. It has subverted the Fourth Amendment, with the eager help of local police departments. Remember that your tax dollars are paying for this. Inevitably it will lead to a ruinous lawsuit.


A reporter was arrested for asking Secretary of Health Tom Price “rude questions”. And it was barely mentioned by the “mainstream media”. Because they are far more obsessed with trivial shit. IMO it’s literally amazing that journalists aren’t being gunned down in the streets of ‘Murica every day. Someday soon maybe we’ll finally reach that Brazil level of real chaos. You won’t like it.



And the TSA Shit Factory has now banned laptops on all flights from “certain countries”. Soon it will be a federal crime to take ANYTHING on a commercial flight. Imagine people being routinely stripped naked, cavity searched, and chained to their seats. And Your Fellow Americans will applaud it. Because T*E*R*R*O*R.



"I would say Google is as close to a natural monopoly as the Bell System was in 1956. If you came to me and said 'Hey, I want to start a company to compete with Google in search,' I would say you're out of your mind and don't waste your energy or your time or your money, there's just no way. Classic economics would say that if there's a business in which there are 35 percent net margins, that would attract a huge amount of new capital to capture some of that, and none of that has happened. That tells you there's something wrong."


See? Didn’t mention the T-word once….

Fake "Bomb Detectors"—Again

I've covered this issue more than once on this blog. I just learned about this recent story from the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer:

"For nearly a decade, anyone driving through one of Baghdad's many checkpoints was subjected to a search by a soldier pointing a security wand at their vehicle and watching the device intently to see if its antenna moved. If it pointed at the car, it had supposedly detected a possible bomb. 

"The wands were completely bogus. It had been proven years ago, even before 2013 when two British men were convicted in separate trials on fraud charges for selling the detectors... 

"Yet the Iraqi government continued to use the devices, spending nearly $60 million on them despite warnings by U.S. military commanders and the wands' proven failure to stop near-daily bombings in Baghdad. 

"It took a massive suicide bombing that killed almost 300 people in Baghdad on July 3 — the deadliest single attack in the capital in 13 years of war — for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to finally ban their use."

AP

What a load of shit. This in one of the many black holes into which the billions of US dollars disappeared.

And now back to the show...

We have a new contributor to my illustrious and inactive blog, Metasonix. You may find him/her/it to be even more cynical and jaded than I am but everyone needs a hobby.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Florence Henderson has gone to her Final Reward

Meanwhile, the rest of us have been commanded by Jesus (or something) to go forth on Black Friday, and murder each other in Wal-Mart parking lots. With guns. Plus! Rupert Murdoch properties will tell you "violence is breaking out all over Amerika" because fear sells.

NY Post


The old joke about "all hat and no cattle" was invented either by Texans or Montanans (no one is really sure) and was often applied to George W. Bush. However, this is 2016, and the term seems to apply to this Christmas tree ornament. It is "popular" apparently.

Amazon


The All-American Boy has been found competent to stand trial. NY TImes  And if that is not disgusting enough, The Internet Archive has saved a copy of his very disgusting website.

"A council has been swamped with suggestions after asking the public to give its new gritting machine a name. The local authority tweeted a picture of the brand new Mitsubishi Fuso and invited suggestions for a name.The idea came after the Natural Environment Research Council asked for ideas for a name for their new vessel - and Boaty McBoatface emerged as a clear favourite.

"Now Oldham Council has received ideas including Gritter Garbo after the classic Hollywood actress, Gritty Gritty Bang Bang after the classic Disney film, Gritney Spears, and of course Gritty McGritface.
Among others are I’m a Celebrity, Grit Me Out of Here, Usain Salt and Grit Expectations."


Mirror.co.uk


But no headline for today wins quite as gloriously as this one.

"Truck hits bridge; bridge wins"


(Posted by a fiend who is filling in for the St. Dr. temporarily. The really disgusting and disturbing stuff goeth on my blog, blessed and sanctified therefore. Have a nice day and kill me.)

An obvious lack of activity

If you're one of the 2.5 people who actually look at this blog on a semi-regular basis you may have noticed that nothing is happening. This is largely due to a medication change which has drastically altered my regular schedule. At this point there will be no updates in the foreseeable future. If you would like to be notified in case I happen to post something subscribe or send me your email address.

Or kill me.

Nixon's War On Hippies And Negroes

John Ehrlichman, 1994: 

'“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”'

 What a fucking surprise. (Huffington Post)

"...recruiting angry southern whites would not be enough for the Republicans to take the south. In many southern states more than 40% of potential voters were black. If they were allowed to vote, and if their votes were actually counted, all the reconstructed Democrat Party would need to hold the south would be a sliver of moderate white support. 

"That’s where the Drug War came in."

Columbus Free Press

On a related note, remember the day Elvis gave Nixon a pistol and Nixon gave Elvis a badge?

"The National Archives gets more requests for a copy of this photo of Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley posing in the Oval Office than for anything else in their archives — that includes the Bill of Rights and the Constitution."

Buzzfeed

Our Wacky World—2/29/2016

Yeah, Yeah, I'm way behind. Thanks to some major changes (mostly medication-related) the December 2015 OWW was never finished.  Some/A lot/Everything in this post is out of date and/or superseded by later events. Carly Fiorina has been out of the race for some time but she's still a priceless gift.

Curiously, reading over this again for the first time in what seemed like an eternity but was actually only two months, it's remarkable how fresh it still is. Shit never goes out of style....

☃ Merry Holidays ☃

Dispatches From The Culture Wars

Meadowlark Lemon dead at 83:

ESPN

Lemmy killed by death at 70:

Guardian


Glenn Frey died, too. "Dirty Laundry" was a good song. Oh wait, that was Don Henley.


Kent Hovind is the winner of the first MFAEECIA™ Award of 2016!

“I would write the [bible] in such a way that those who don’t want to believe in me anyway would think they found something. ‘Aha, here’s why I don’t believe.' I would put things in there that would appear without digging to be contradictions. I don’t think that’s deceptive, I think that’s wise for the Heavenly Father to weed out those who are really serious.”

Raw Story

A legend in his own mind. Of course god put those dinosaur bones there to fool... wait a minute, Hovind believes in dinosaurs. Oh well.


Speaking of contradictions in the bible, did you know that men and women have the same number of ribs after all?:

"The theory...suggests God made Eve from Adam’s baculum, or penis bone. Professor Zevit said this explains why man has no baculum, unlike most mammals, and why men don’t have an uneven number of ribs compared to women."

Singham's blog


Family Research Council President and chief assclown Tony Perkins is upset with our recent diplomatic successes with Iran, so much so that he is losing his memory:

“Long gone are the days of Ronald Reagan when we said, ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists.’ Now we make all kinds of deals and it just appears that America comes out on the short end of the deal."

But in fact Reagan did make a hostage deal with Iran:

'...the Reagan administration “got zero net hostages released, and one dead hostage’s body dumped,” by Iranian-linked terrorist groups in Lebanon “in return for 2,512 TOW anti-tank missiles, 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and more than 240 Hawk spare parts"'

I remember all that. Where was Tony at the time? Up Reagan's asshole? (Right Wing Watch)


I "know" you're there:

"Wathey takes the reader on a scientific journey to find the sources of religious feeling and the illusion of God’s presence. His book delves into the biological origins of this compelling feeling, attributing it to innate neural circuitry that evolved to promote the mother-child bond. Dr. Wathey, a veteran neuroscientist, argues that evolution has programmed the infant brain to expect the presence of a loving being who responds to the child’s needs."

Dispatches From The Culture Wars

"Q-tips are one of the most perplexing things for sale in America. Plenty of consumer products are widely used in ways other than their core function — books for leveling tables, newspapers for keeping fires aflame, seltzer for removing stains, coffee tables for resting legs — but these cotton swabs are distinct. Q-tips are one of the only, if not the only, major consumer products whose main purpose is precisely the one the manufacturer explicitly warns against."

Washington Post


The psychopathology of Carly Fiorina is becoming increasingly clear (read all of this; it’s short and grimly hilarious):

"Carly Fiorina is unique among all the candidates in the Republican presidential field for her visceral, aggressive hatred for anything resembling truth. Other candidates lie, of course, but they at least go to the trouble of dressing up their lies with weasel words and other forms of qualifying language that allow them to squirm their way out of fact checks. Fiorina doesn’t care about any of that. She makes firm, declarative statements that are unquestionably inaccurate, and when confronted with inarguable facts that prove her wrong, she insists against all evidence that she is correct and bristles at the very notion that anyone might challenger her. She does not care. She does not pretend to care. As far as Fiorina’s concerned, the fact that she said it is what makes it true."

What's the difference between Steve Jobs and Carly Fiorina? He turned Apple around, HP didn’t have a prayer. (Salon)

‘...a Trump supporter shouted, “Light that motherf[u]cker on fire!” a reporter from MSNBC said a large middle-aged man shouted, “Sieg heil!”— while one protester was hauled away.’

Raw Story

Ed Brayton goes to a Trump rally:

‘...they were playing Christmas carols. When “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” came on, that seemed entirely appropriate to me. I’m still not entirely clear whether “Oh Come Let Us Adore Him” was about Jesus or Trump.” The whole thing really does have the feel of those 1930s news reels from Germany.’

Dispatches From The Culture Wars

‘...a Trump supporter shouted, “Light that motherf[u]cker on fire!” a reporter from MSNBC said a large middle-aged man shouted, “Sieg heil!”— while one protester was hauled away.’

Raw Story

Meanwhile, in Sarah Palin's world (watch the sanity-challenging word salad video):

'...on The 700 Club host Wendy Griffith asked Sarah Palin the question we’ve all been begging her to answer: “What would you do to defeat ISIS?” 

“You have to quit being this namby-pamby, kind of milquetoast, ‘let’s discuss things with them, let’s reach out and try to understand them,’ no, they’re the enemy, they’re evil”

They're ain't human they ain't. (Right Wing Watch)

It’s official:

"Sony announced on Tuesday that after four decades, it will stop shipping Betamax(or Beta) and MicroMV video cassette tapes next March.”

Prices on eBay will now skyrocket. I’ve already made my lifetime purchase of Hi8 and miniDV cassettes. (Rocket News)

"Jane Mann, a retired science teacher, said she was concerned the [solar] panels would prevent plants in the area from photosynthesizing, stopping them from growing. Ms Mann said she had seen areas near solar panels where plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight. She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her solar panels didn't cause cancer.”

Independent

'However in August this year, a French court ruled that electromagnetic hypersensitivity to mobile and wifi waves is a "serious handicap", setting a legal precedent that lawyers say could lead to "thousands" of claims. Although France does not recognise EHS as a medical problem, a court in Toulouse decided that claimant Marine Richard should be awarded £500 a month in disability allowance as she displayed “irrefutable clinical signs” of suffering from a syndrome linked to electromagnetic waves.'

 I see “irrefutable" clinical signs of an anxiety disorder. This is soooo easy to disprove. (Telegraph)

'A gay-to-straight “conversion therapy” provider found by a New Jersey jury to have violated the state’s consumer fraud protections will permanently cease operations and dissolve its corporate entity as part of a settlement that precludes an appeal of a jury’s verdict in the landmark lawsuit.’

SPLC


Deepak Chopra revises his earlier work à la Hal Lindsey:

'In the bibliography of the earlier printings of the book, [Deepak] Chopra writes “I enthusiastically recommend the following eleven books, all of which entered into my own education on these fascinating subjects.” Two of those eleven books are by Maharishi [Mahesh Yogi]. In the bibliography of the 16th printing, he also recommends eleven books, but he lists only nine! You can guess which two are missing. Chopra must have been in such a hurry to erase all traces of Maharishi’s name that he forgot to count the number of the remaining books in his bibliography!

The Late Great Planet Earth and the publications of the Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) have received similar treatment over the years, erasing the embarrassing bits. (Rescue Science)

Thanks to that recent false flag operation in France even Democrats in the US are suddenly afraid, very afraid of helpless women and children. There have been calls for interment of refugees in camps à la native-born Japanese-Americans in WWII (with not a spy or terrorist among them). Congressmen, Governors and Mayors across the nation are vowing to refuse refugees outright. This presents a legal problem because George W. Bush (remember him?) signed a bill limiting the power to accept or reject refugees to the President alone.

One person has replied succinctly:

"JESUS CHRIST THE SYRIAN REFUGEES AREN'T COMING TO WHATEVER GLORIFIED TRAILER PARK / FEMA CAMP / OPEN AIR METH LAB OR DYSTOPIAN INNER RING TRACT HOUSING AND STRIP MALL FART-FUCK OF A SUBURB YOU CALL HOME, THEY WOULD TAKE ONE LOOK AT YOUR SAD EXCUSE FOR A LIFE AND THINK "I'LL GO BACK AND TAKE MY CHANCES, DID YOU SEE THAT WOMAN WITH THE 'BAD BITCH' TATTOO HER TORSO LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE WAS BAKING BREAD IN A HALTER TOP." THE FACT THAT YOU GOT A SECOND HARDEES (NEXT TO THE PELLAGRA CLINIC) DOES NOT MAKE PIGSKNUCKLE COUNTY AN APPEALING TERRORIST TARGET, IF ISIS ATTACKS THEY WILL ATTACK A CITY BECAUSE CITIES HAVE LANDMARKS AND PEOPLE WHO WALK PLACES. WHY WOULD ANYONE EVEN BOTHER TRYING TO KILL YOU WHEN THEY COULD SIT BACK AND LET CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE DO THE JOB, BE SURE TO BUY MORE GUNS THOUGH THEY'RE REALLY KEEPING YOUR VINYL SIDED RANCH HOUSE SAFE. YES THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT TO GET YOU BUT THEY'RE NOT CALLED "ISIS" THEY'RE CALLED THE COLLECTION AGENCY AND YOUR GUNS WILL ONLY IMPRESS THEM TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY WILL FETCH SOMETHING AT AUCTION WHEN YOUR PROPERTY IS SEIZED TO PAY THE MEDICAL BILLS FOR YOUR LAST SIX ANGIOPLASTIES BUT YOU REALLY SHOWED OBUMMER BY NOT SIGNING UP FOR INSURANCE YOU DANIEL FUCKIN' BOONE RUGGED INDIVIDUALIST YOU.”

Stop holding back. Tell us how you really feel. (FaceBook)


Meanwhile, somewhere over Syria:

“...astrophysicists Tom van Doorsslaere and Giovanni Lapenta of the Belgian KU Leuven used some simple Newtonian mechanics to show that both the Russian and Turkish accounts of what happened with the downed jet can’t be right. Using video of the incident and the maps provided by Turkish and Russian officials, they show...that what went down couldn’t possibly have happened as both parties present it.”

"both parties present it” should be “either party presented it." (Vice)

'"What I have said is that I would be in favor of monitoring a mosque or any church or any organization or any school or any press corps where there was a lot of radicalization and things that were anti-American," Carson told reporters during an appearance at a justice forum in South Carolina. He did not expound on just how an administration would determine what constitutes "radicalization" or "anti-American." 

'Carson added that funding for FBI surveillance activities should be increased. He said the agency currently can only afford to monitor "30 to 60 people," numbers he did not explain before aides steered him away from reporters.'

NOLA

Meanwhile:

"67 percent of Americans think [abortion] clinic attacks are domestic terrorism. More Democrats (77 percent) called the attacks domestic terrorism than either Republicans (54 percent) or independents (66 percent), but a majority of Republicans still said yes.”

Vox

"Furious with her daughter, Gibbons rushed to the school and forced her daughter to submit to an 11-panel drug test—which came back completely negative. Yet when she contacted the school to give them the test results and say the whole thing had been a misunderstanding,  Klein officials wouldn't budge, and wouldn't reverse the suspension. In fact, they said she must have been on acid—the only drug not covered in the test.”

Houston Press

"The newly released research, conducted by Christian research group LifeWay at the behest of pro-life group Care Net, paints a very different picture of those seeking abortions than you might imagine. The study interviewed 1,038 women who had received an abortion. Surprisingly, a full 70 percent of these women were Christian. 

"We can fully expect many right-wing individuals to claim that these women aren’t really Christian. That seems to be the go-to argument when Christians engage in behaviors contradictory to the image many would have us believe."

Reverb Press

"A founding pastor of a Singapore megachurch was sentenced Friday to eight years behind bars after he was found guilty of fraud and embezzling $35 million in donations to bankroll his wife's pop star career...”

Vice


So Hilary Rodham Clinton weathered an 11 hour grilling by the Benghazi witch hunt committee, making them look like fools in front of god and everyone. But that was all part of her insidious plan:

‘...the chairman of the committee...wanted to interview her in private...and she said, ‘No, I want to do this in public’”

'“Now to me, that was us stepping in a trap because we should have known that she was going to go on and just stall, debate, filibuster, on these answers to make it go as long as possible, so we would look cruel”'

No, you looked like the dickless old coots that you are. She came out smelling like a rose. Thanks for the publicity. (Buzzfeed)

⚛ Happy Next Year ⚛

Limited Edition CD—The Fourth Tower Of Inverness

ZBS is re-releasing a limited-edition CD of The Fourth Tower Of Inverness:

"We don’t know how long we’ll have it, so if you’d like a copy, for yourself, or for a gift, or to pass on to your great-grandchildren, now is the time to seize one! Or two. This historic recording, the very first Jack Flanders adventure, may never be re-released on CD. "

More info at the ZBS site.

I already have the first edition CD plus the cassette tapes.  I sure would like to have those 26 reels, though.

How to sell an Android app

Induce paranoia. From a viral email I received today:

This video is very Important if you are using the flashlight on your smartphone.

Wow, that interview on Fox News about the insecurity of Android flashlight apps being "bigger than ebola" sure was scary...

...Here's the second thing I found with Google:

'The saying goes “If you’re not paying for a product, you are the product” and that remains true when it comes to something as simple as a flashlight app. It’s also true of SnoopWall itself, which has been pushing its own flashlight app (as a replacement for all the ones that are trying to overthrow the U.S. government, naturally) and the oddly named Privacy App which is designed to highlight any other apps on your Android device that are a security risk and could do you harm. 

'While the app promises to “find all the apps that are spying on you,” the user reviews suggest it’s not doing much good. The entire front page of the app’s Google Play listing is filled with reviews saying that the app produces nothing but false positives. SnoopWall’s app highlights the Google Play Store app, the Google Maps app, and even proper antivirus software apps as being huge risks. If Google Maps is a virus, we're all in big trouble.

✂︎

'In fact, with so many negative written reviews it was shocking to see that the app still holds an overall solid rating of around 3.5 out of 5. I did a bit of digging and found the reason for SnoopWall’s above average Play Store status. It seems the app score is being buoyed by a massive chunk of ratings that all landed at the same time, including one day where the app received nothing but perfect five-star reviews.'

Daily Dot


As always Snopes is a font of information:

'SnoopWall's "threat assessment report" suggested that flashlight apps are more prone to requesting access to unneeded permissions and data than any other category of app, but as Wired noted, many other types of apps "want access to information they probably shouldn't," and the fact that a given app has access to data doesn't necessarily mean the app is actually stealing that data and transmitting it to internatonal cybercriminals.'

Snopes


FUD. Fake reviews. Bogusware.

And the icing on the cake: did you notice that the close-up in the video was of an iPhone, which has the flashlight function built-in?

iPhone, bitch

Robert Lorick has died

From ZBS Foundation head honcho Tom Lopez:

In Memory Of Robert Lorick

Here are Robert's demo reels—you may recognize one or two. Share the fantasy.


I have the entire Jack Flanders series from ZBS. I had just finished The Green Velvet Chair and started The Fourth Tower Of Inverness when I received the news. This is beyond tragic.

I'm still alive

Waiting for you latest fix? There is a new post on the way. Stay tuned...

Our Wacky World—11/8/2015

Thank “Bob” we have 12 months before the election. There is so much more to learn about front runner Ben Carson, M.D:

'At the core of his narrative of spiritual redemption are his acts of violence as an angry young man — stabbing, rock throwing, brick hurling and baseball bat beating — that preceded Carson's sudden transformation into the composed figure who stands before voters today.

'...nine friends, classmates and neighbors who grew up with Carson told CNN they have no memory of the anger or violence the candidate has described.

'Carson's campaign adviser and business manager, Armstrong Williams, declined repeated requests by CNN to provide details… "Why would anyone cooperate with your obvious witch hunt?" Williams wrote in an email last Friday. "No comment and moving on...... Happy Halloween!!!!!”'

It’s a “witch hunt” to ask for corroboration of odd statements a man running for president has made publicly? (CNN)

The funniest thing about about religion and politics over the last 35 years is how “christians” who traditionally hate each others’ guts have come together to fight their perceived common enemies. In 2012 they finally embraced a Mormon, now it’s a Seventh-Day Adventist. I suppose the Jehovah’s Witnesses will enter the fold in 2020.

Yeah, I used this graphic last time

Back to Ben:

"Ben Carson claims that the Egyptian pyramids were constructed by the biblical Joseph to store huge quantities of grain and were not, as is commonly believed, tombs for the pharaohs.”

And

'Carson claims that he came up with the idea for a musical based on the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors during a surgical consultation with a patient named Jacob Brandman… in 1998, 30 years after [the musical] Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat premiered. However, when pushed for comment on this issue, Carson responded that he was in fact aware of the existing musical production in 1998, but that “The Bible calls it a coat of many colors, but in those days the only colors were black and white, as you can see in old television footage. My belief is that the coat was black, white and brown – the first time anyone had ever seen brown. That story has yet to be told.” 

Guardian

He’s not the first to make such an astute chromatic observation. From a story I posted in 2012:

"Our moon, he explains, is not a grey-colored object as we have been led to believe. Our moon is a full color body, but NASA has only released black-and-white photos of it. However, an amateur astronomer in Texas named Bill Bryson has been able, using his telescope and a $68 Chinese-made camera, to reveal our moon in all its full-color glory."

So umm...what color was Noah's rainbow? Anyone? Hello…?

[the next day]

"Ben Carson’s campaign on Friday admitted, in a response to an inquiry from POLITICO, that a central point in his inspirational personal story was fabricated: his application and acceptance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.”

Politico

And

'Carson shrugged off critics, scientists and other experts who have dispute his theories. 

'"Some people believe in the Bible like I do and don’t find that to be silly at all"'

Where is this in the bible? (Raw Story)


Dr. Carson is also an astute user of social media:

Yes, he actually tweeted this.

So if you need brain surgery don’t go to a professional neurosurgeon… like Dr. Carson. (RealBenCarson)

[the next day]

'Ben Carson responded to those who says [sic] he doesn’t have enough experience to be president with this staggeringly ignorant statement: “Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no elected office experience.”

‘[in fact] most of them had elected office experience. But what cracks me up is how he is trying to cover up his ignorance, by changing it to “federal elected office experience.” Uh, Ben….of course they didn’t have any federal elected office experience. You know why? Because there wasn’t a fucking federal government then.’

Emphasis in the original text. (Dispatches From The Culture Wars)

[the next day]

Next he trots out the old "christian nation" shiboleth:

'This nation — the United States of America — one of the few nations in history to claim God in their founding documents — we talk about in our Declaration of Independence certain inalienable rights given to us by our Creator, every one of our coins, every one of our bills says ‘In God We Trust.’”…

‘[Carson] has the history here completely reversed. In fact, nearly every western nation “claimed God” in their founding documents for centuries until the United States [didn’t].’

Dispatches From The Culture Wars


I’m stopping here. I’m not even going to go into his involvement in a “nutritional supplement” marketing scheme, which he denied at first and later...

— ⚕ —

More on the "christians who hate each other while they need each other" theme mentioned earlier—a protest at a “satanic” church wasn’t entirely peaceful:

"There was a heavy police presence, and the protests were largely peaceful, except for a few moments before dark when members from two groups of protesters — one Catholic organization from Pennsylvania, and the other consisting of some sort of doomsday-preachers from Las Vegas — began arguing with each other over whose sect of Christianity was correctly following Jesus.”

Houston Press

"We've seen some questionable crowdfunding campaigns in our time, but this one might take the cake. A Russian outfit is raising money for USB Killer, a $99 dongle that thwarts data thieves by... electrocuting your USB port.”

Seems a bit expensive to me but what do I know? (Endgadget)


Roger Waters fears Hilary Clinton:

"I have an awful worry that she might become the first woman president to drop a fucking nuclear bomb on somebody”

As opposed to the first man president? (Rolling Stone)


Which oath to uphold?

"The Montana Supreme Court’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) recommended Thursday that Elmer “Stewart” Rhodes, Montana lawyer and founder of the [paranoid far-right group] Oath Keepers, be disbarred for violating his attorney oath”

Forbes

Click to enlarge

Absolutely mind blowing:

‘...recently I had this young woman, 15 maybe, and we did the procedure. I said, ‘Your uterus is empty, the procedure is over. I have to go check to make sure we got everything,’ and I left the room to examine the tissue. Then I came back and told her, ‘Everything’s fine, your uterus is healthy.’ And she said, ‘So … when are you going to use the steel ball?’ I picked my jaw up off the floor and said, ‘Steel ball?’ She said, ‘Well, I went to the crisis pregnancy center and they told me you’re going to put a steel ball that’s covered with sharp blades into my uterus and twirl it around.’ And this kid still came! I was thinking, How did you ever make yourself walk in the office believing I was going to do that?”’

NY Mag

Now let’s get down and dirty. Another horny “christian” male tries really hard to get his dick wet but ends up sticking it in his mouth:

'Let me try and explain this in another way. In Greek mythology there was a monster woman named Medusa. She was a cursed and hideous creature and if men looked upon her face they were turned to stone. I know you love your wife, most men love their wives. But sin is ugly. Your beautiful bride’s face becomes ugly during this sinful time that she is grudgingly giving you sex as she grimaces wanting you to “just hurry up and get it over with”.

'So like the men who could not look at Medusa’s face otherwise they would be killed, realize that if you look on your wife’s face when she is displaying a sinful attitude toward sex it will kill your sexual pleasure and may actually make it much more difficult for you to achieve the physical connection and release that you need. Again you know you want that emotional connection too, but your wife is the one who is in sinful rebellion against God’s design for sex in your marriage and is refusing to emotionally connect with you.’

He goes on and on like this. In order to explain his utterly fucked “christian” version of the minefield of marital sex he has to invoke a Greek myth! The sound of ass. (Biblical Gender Roles)

"A key ingredient in a CVS homeopathic medicine, the kind people choose when they want something more "natural" than an over-the-counter product, is alcohol. The packaging on CVS's homeopathic constipation relief describes it as safe and non-habit forming. The bottle, which listed 20 percent alcohol as an inactive ingredient, is sold over the counter with no age requirements.”

Contains no pharmaceutical substances but it does a nice kick to it. (NBC)


Don’t give your kids an education because… The Rapture™:

"17-year-old Tori McIntyre ran away from home because she wanted an education, but was unable to provide any information about what level she was at. The El Paso school district put her in 9th grade and asked the family to prove that their kids were getting a basic education. Requests to the parents for cooperation were rebuffed, so the district eventually filed truancy charges.”

"Chief Justice Ann Crawford McClure of the 8th Court of Appeals wrote: “No parents have ever prevailed in any reported case on a theory that they have an absolute constitutional right to educate their children in the home, completely free of any state supervision, regulation, or requirements.”

Reverb Press


Depressingly familiar:

"She would later tell a judge she was splayed outside the patrol car for a pat-down, made to lift her shirt to prove she wasn't hiding anything, then to pull down her pants when the officer still wasn't convinced. He shined his flashlight between her legs, she said, then ordered her to sit in the squad car and face him as he towered above. His gun in sight, she said she pleaded "No, sir" as he unzipped his fly and exposed himself with a hurried directive. "Come on," the woman, identified in police reports as J.L., said she was told before she began giving him oral sex. "I don't have all night." 

"In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.”

Big Story

Click to enlarge

Our Wacky World— 10/26/2015

Almost a Darwin Award:

"Man tries to put out garbage fire by driving over it in a van loaded with ammunition"

Kansas City Star

Matt Drudge: idiot, liar, both?

"I had a Supreme Court Justice come up to me and say to my face it is over for me. Matt, it is over for you, they've got the votes to enforce copyright laws, you're out of there. They're going to make it so you can't even use headlines.To have a Supreme Court Justice say that to my face, that it is over, they've got the votes. It means time is limited. Time is not forever, how many more moons and sunrises will you see in your life rise and fall, not that many, it is a small amount.”​

Both. And a narcissist. (Esquire)


The comments to this are great. The usual idiots show up:

"With the rise of both marijuana use and public support growing, this could make for a precarious political issue for politicians in a presidential election year. Forget about the chicken in every pot, these citizens just want the pot.”

Jonathan Turley

Ben Carson M.D., who like so many right-wing talking heads has bafflingly become relevant in our time, rather like comets appearing from out of nowhere one night on Fox News (or returned from purgatory after an unexpectedly less-than-perpetural period of public disgrace). Carson is the classic intelli-educated screwball in whose mind all things make sense without a requisite basis in fact:

"What is it with brain surgeons? The strange ideas of leading GOP presidential candidate and retired brain surgeon Ben Carson have been making the headlines a lot lately… The statements that Carson has made are staggeringly ignorant for a man with an advanced science education.”

Skeptic

And now he’s being "threatened" by “progressives”:

“I’d prefer not to talk about security issues but I have recognized — and people have been telling me for many many months — that I’m in great danger, because I challenge the secular progressive movement to the very core”

People have been "telling him." (Dispatches From The Culture Wars)

'A regular guest commentator on Fox News who has been lying for years about working for the Central Intelligence Agency was arrested on Thursday...by federal authorities following his indictment by a federal grand jury for allegedly committing major fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government. Simmons claims to have worked for the CIA from 1973 to 2000, and "used that false claim in an attempt to obtain government security clearances and work as a defense contractor, including at one point successfully getting deployed overseas as an intelligence advisor to senior military personnel”'

Huffington Post

"China was tired of the Nobel people giving a human rights price to human rights advocates, particularly Chinese dissents or the Dali Lama. So it created its own prize to give those hard-working dictators an opportunity to shine. So this year, China is honoring a man who has destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe, starved his people, oppressed dissidents, and maintained one of the most disgusting levels of corruption and personal excess of any dictator in the world.”

Jonathan Turley


Carly Fiorina has a moment of startling clarity:

“Finally my degree in medieval history and philosophy has come in handy… because what ISIS wants to do is drive us back to the Middle Ages, literally.”

So your degree was worthless before? (Sun Times)

'But the session became violent, the police chief said. "Both brothers were continually subjected to physical punishment over the course of several hours in the hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness” ...Leonard was taken to the hospital after church members found he wasn't breathing, Inserra said. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.’

‘… [an] ex-member denied reports the church is a cult. "I realize this situation makes it look like this," she said, "but if you listen to the teachings, they are accurate to the Bible.”'

But then everyone does "what the bible says," don't they? (CNN)

More:

"Lucas Leonard, a 19-year-old whose family was immersed in Word of Life’s secretive practices, said that he was the [witch], that he wanted church elders to die and that he had considered making a voodoo doll of a church leader.”

New York Times

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 topics—the 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