Our Wacky World—11/27/2011

'Brazilian researchers polled nearly 500 men from a dozen cities, and found that roughly 35 percent of the men had "made it" with an animal. That's a problem, because screwing a horse, donkey, pig, or any other animal was found to up your likelihood of developing cancers of the penis by 42 percent.'

Aetiology

"After a three year investigation, European Union officials have concluded that there is no evidence to prove that water can prevent dehydration. Bottled water producers are now forbidden by law from making such a claim."

Turley's blog


This week's sample from Michelle Bachmann's endless supply of batshit:

"But, while Bachmann at least had an obvious reason for inventing and/or distorting the “facts” in her original story — to sound more Iowan when campaigning in Iowa — nothing can explain why this woman would take a chance on making up the addition to her story that appears in her new book, Core of Conviction: My Story — that her great-great-grandfather, Halvor Munson, won a farm in Kansas from Jesse James in a poker game!"

This Week in Christian Nationalism

'District Attorney Lisa Riniker appears intent on outdoing other prosecutors by charging a 6-year-old boy with first-degree sexual assault for what the family says was playing doctor with a 5-year-old girl. The toddler is charged with a Class B felony and Riniker rejects criticism that she failed to apply not just discretion but reason. Instead she says “the legislature could have put an age restriction in the statute if it wanted to. The legislature did no such thing.”'

Turley's blog

"The $6.2bn George [H.W.] Bush, when functioning on top line, is perhaps the most powerful warship in the world. Its air group of more than 90 planes and choppers could defeat many national air forces or navies on its own, and it can steam at a speedboat-like 30+ knots for 20 years without refuelling.

 ✂. . .

...at times there hasn't been a single working head – as lavs are known at sea – anywhere aboard the entire mighty hundred-thousand-ton warship. Reportedly the Bush is fitted with no less than 423 thrones, but it appears that problems with the suction flushing system can easily knock out large numbers of these at once – or even all of them."

The Register

"The theme of the movie is nothing new, and it is rapidly gaining a New Age cult status that deserves a skeptical look. One of the most egregious claims in the movie is that free energy machines are being suppressed by "the man" because it would overthrow the current energy producers."

JREF

"After a devastating breakup, Eric Smith does the only sensible thing: he [sells the ring and] buys a full set of armor inspired by Halo"

Bygone Bureau

The ban was placed by school administrators after a parent suffered a concussion after being hit in the head by a soccer ball. "Any balls brought will be confiscated and may be retrieved by parents from the office," a statement obtained by CTV said. "The only kind of ball allowed will be nerf balls or sponge balls."

Huffington Post

"Charles Preston found $500,000 worth of cocaine hidden in the door panels of his used Chrysler Town & Country 15 months after he bought the car, when his car was in the shop having its brakes examined"

AOL Autos

"A Catholic Church child safety co-ordinator who was in charge of investigating sexual abuse allegations was jailed for 12 months today for internet peadophile offences."

Mail Online

Let Us Spray

Our Wacky World—11/16/2011

Now that Halloween is over with it's back to the wackiness...

"Allison DuBois, the best-selling author who inspired the recently cancelled television show Medium, claims to have amazing psychic abilities. But when her skills are tested in the real world—first with a missing-child case and then at a dinner party on reality-TV—they prove less than stellar." [it gets funnier]

Skeptical Inquirer

'Some proudly display pictures of pox on children's limbs. ...they proudly post pictures of them on their blogs, with chirpy captions like "The little people enjoying each other, playing, and getting exposed" and "Although it sounds awful, we certainly hope the exposing worked!" ...it doesn't just "sound" awful. It is awful. True, such complications are fairly uncommon but they can be quite serious, all in the name of being "natural" and avoiding those evil vaccines. ...some parents...are mailing the virus to each other'

Which is a violation of federal law. Anthrax, anyone? (Respectful Insolence)

"Doctors who took an ultrasound of a man's testicles to find out what was causing him pain were astounded to find a gaping face staring back at them" (picture)

Telegraph

"With coverage many times greater than a bracelet or necklace, the IonX Ionized Energy Fabric, exclusive to Energy Athletic Golf, delivers ionized energy to the entire upper body through a negatively charged electromagnetic field built into the molecular structure of the fabric."

Respectful Insolence

"A study using a procedure called the rubber hand illusion has found striking new evidence that people experiencing schizophrenia have a weakened sense of body ownership and has produced the first case of a spontaneous, out-of-body experience in the laboratory."

Science Codex

"In the Justice Department’s view, the CFAA criminalizes conduct as innocuous as using a fake name on Facebook or lying about your weight in an online dating profile."

Wired

A former white supremacist had his facial tattoos removed:

"Widner had never felt such pain. Not all the times he had suffered black eyes and lost teeth in bar brawls, not the time in jail when guards — for fun — locked him up with a group of black inmates in order to see him taken down. His face swelled up in a burning rage, his eyes were black and puffy, his hands looked like blistered boxing gloves. He had never felt so helpless or so miserable."

AP

It looks like we're going to have about a hundred fucking GOP debates this election season. Every week there's a new poll showing how the candidates stars rise and fall. This week the heat was on Herman Cain:

'But leave it to former Sen. Fred Thompson to really elevate the debate. In a riotously funny column penned in Cain’s defense, he too blows the whistle on the whole “sexual-harassment scam.” Because it is, as he conceives of it, a talentless woman’s golden ticket to fame: “These alleged victims and their lawyers—no matter what they may say publicly—are champing at the bit to come forward for their day in the limelight and the inevitable book deal.”'

Slate

Even better is this exercise in attitude from a sure 'nough Mormon:

"I don’t care what did or did not happen to her. First and foremost, I don’t believe rape exists. When there are incidents that are classified as “rape,” or names that are similar, what usually ends up happening is that the “victim” tends to “forget” to mention immodesty, flirty actions, or other conduct on their part that contributed to the matter. A woman who dresses immodestly must accept accountability for her choice of attire. If, in fact, this girl was being molested or forced into prostitution as the media outlets say her tweets claimed, then it was her fault that it happened, and continued to happen."

Michael "Douchebag" Crook

I love how you can't select any text on the page. But copy the source and paste it into an html editor and you're good to go. What a fucking douche.

'An Australian escort agency is offering the virginity of a teenage girl for AU$15,000 (US$15,400), prompting outraged community groups to describe the move as "putting women's liberation back centuries." MyOutCall Australia...is offering the Chinese 19-year-old student for four days in exchange for the $15,000 sum.'

Fox DC


Masturbation was the gateway drug before cannabis:

"No single vice causes so much mental and physical debility ... It impairs the intellect, weakens the memory, debases the mind, ruins the nervous system, exhausts the vital power and destroys body, mind and soul."

Then it was comic books, pulp novels, video games... (Cracked)

Meanwhile:

'...the Catholic Church in Germany, through its wholly- owned subsidiary...has been selling what they now demand to be classified as “erotica.” ...last week, after reports spread worldwide of their selling “erotica,” the Catholic Church threatened lawsuits against publishers who had called the 2500 titles, with names like, “Fuckable,” “Lawyer’s Whore,” and “Sluts’ Boarding School,” pornography, insisting they were “erotica.” Which is kind of like the Catholic Church insisting its priests don’t molest children at a higher rate than the general population does.'

The New Civil Rights Movement

"One year at Princeton University: $37,000. One year at a New Jersey state prison: $44,000."

Guantanamo is only $800,000 a year. (The Atlantic)

'The troublemaker for power grids is the "GIC" – short for geomagnetically induced current. When a coronal mass ejection (a billion-ton solar storm cloud) hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the field to shake and quiver. These magnetic vibrations induce currents almost everywhere, from Earth's upper atmosphere to the ground beneath our feet. Powerful GICs can overload circuits, trip breakers, and in extreme cases melt the windings of heavy-duty transformers.'

NASA

"An estimated 33,000 people in Rhode Island have been left without medical records after Dr. Nomate Kpea, a dermatologist, left for Nigeria to run for political office — leaving their files in foreclosed properties in the state."

Turley's Blog

"The Cross Spangled Banner Combines
the World’s Two Most Powerful Symbols
 to Reawaken the Virtue America has Forgotten"

Our Wacky World—11/4/2011

Free Icon

"A MAN caught having sex with a donkey stunned a court on Monday by claiming that the animal was in fact a hooker he pulled from a nightclub."

New Zimbabwe

“We were curious to know which bands people would be most horrified to discover when browsing their date’s iPod”  (And the most horrifying band is... )

 Gun Shy Assassin

"She's mad because I've ordered her to bring the car back, in a nutshell, but yeah, that's me. I lost my temper," Adams told the station. "Her mother was there, she wasn't hurt ... it was a long time ago ... I really don't want to get into this right now because as you can see my life's been made very difficult over this child."

It's really a shame that she fucked up his life so much that he had to beat the crap out of her--in front of a hidden video camera:

"In my mind I have not done anything wrong other than discipline my child when she was caught stealing. I did lose my temper, I've apologized. It looks worse than it is."

CNN

You be the judge.

"One court employee called Adams a good judge and told CNN affliate [sic] KTRK that there were always two sides to every story."

I can't wait to see the video of the other side. Thanks for the False Dichotomy, I don't get enough of that every day already.

Amazingly, "Christians" do this sort of thing all the time:

'To Train Up a Child is a manual of progressive violence against children. Not only are there no stopgaps to prevent child abuse, the book is a mandate to use implements to inflict increasingly intense pain in the face of continued disobedience. The part about not causing injury is vague and open to interpretation, but the part about never backing down or shirking your parental duty to spank harder and harder is crystal clear. The Pearls’ teachings will lead, inescapably, to extremely strong-willed kids being abused and sometimes murdered by fundamentalist parents who are determined to “break” those children.'

No Longer Quivering

"An email sent out to members of the Crystal Cathedral congregation requesting meals for founder Robert H. Schuller's wife Arvella, who is ill with pneumonia...was sent...to Bible study groups as well as church elders, asking that meals for the reverend's wife be dropped off at the cathedral's Tower of Hope where the Schullers' limo drivers will be waiting to pick them up at the designated time."

OC Register


Revisiting the midnight ride of Betty & Barney Hill:

'Barney Hill told Betty while in Colebrook, NH shortly after 10 PM, “It looks like we should be home by 2:30 in the morning—or 3:00 at the latest.” Macdonald says, "That’s a wildly optimistic estimate. But they’d already decided that they were going to drive home that night. They were on the tail end of a twelve-hundred-mile trip, had run out of money, and were committed to pushing on." In fact, "By the time they reached home they’d been driving for around twenty-one hours. They’re lucky that being abducted by space aliens was the worst that happened to them: Others who’ve tried similar trips have run into trees."'

Bad UFOs

"Do you guys think women are really lesbians or is it just another form of “look at me” attention whoring? I mean they don’t have sex, they don’t reproduce, they don’t achieve financial success like the gay male community does. In fact I’m not sure exactly what lesbians are doing in their relationships. I still don’t believe they are real. In order for two people to come together there must be a very specific purpose and attention whoring is shallow even for women. They usually only shack up for babies and money."

Man Boobz

'Anti-Gay lobbyist and former deputy clerk of the Virginia House of Delegates, Linda Wall, wants to put her conservative ideology to work for the citizens of Appomattox, Virginia...  Her campaign slogan is: “A Campaign of Protection and Restoration.” But the place where our Country was reunited in 1865, is wondering just what kind of “protection” she’s talking about and has a real dilemma on its hand since Wall admitted a lesbian affair with one of her junior high students in the early 1970s. Wall says the affair was a “youthful mistake,” and that God has “cured her” of her homosexuality. The former gym teacher is now an “ex-Gay” she claims.  Wall even went on to “educate” the voters about just how one becomes involved in a homosexual affair in the first place. “I call what’s going on today criminal in telling people they’re born [gay] when there’s no scientific evidence to prove that anymore,” Wall said.' 

Is that supposed to mean that there was scientific evidence at an earlier time?? There's nothing worse than a convert. (Turley's Blog)

"One of my students working in the oilfields habitually came in late, and started to fall asleep in class," said Stout. "I asked him what was going on, and he said, 'I'm putting in 90 hours a week because the overtime pays so well ... to be honest with you, I'll get what you cover from my friends in class, but don't count on me staying awake or getting to class on time.'"

CNN Money

'The “superfood” industry has capitalized on the antioxidant craze. The recipe is simple: Pick a fruit, preferably something exotic and tropical. Claim it is a superfood with unique benefits. Develop a concentrate, a pill, or a mixture with other special ingredients. Advertise it with claims that can sneak by FDA restrictions. Solicit testimonials; make them up if necessary. Get several of your friends to try it so you can claim it is “clinically tested.” Start a multilevel marketing company. Charge exorbitantly high prices.'

Skeptic [scroll down]

"A San Fernando Valley doctor and evangelical minister who...used bogus herbal medications to offer false hope to dozens of people suffering from diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's was found guilty Tuesday of nearly a dozen federal charges. Twenty-eight victims or family members of victims who died while taking the products testified against Christine Daniel, 57, who was found guilty Tuesday on four counts of mail and wire fraud, six counts of tax evasion related to income tax filings as well as one count of witness tampering."

LA Times

Collector's
Item

"It also turns out that Jobs had complications after his surgery. From what I can gather from Isaacson’s account (it wasn’t entirely clear to me) Jobs refused a nasogastric tube when he needed it and as a result aspirated gastric contents when he was sedated, developing a severe postoperative aspiration pneumonia from which at that point “they thought he might die.” Worse, although the transplant was a success, his old liver was riddled with metastases throughout, and surgeons noted “spots on his peritoneum.” Whether these “spots” were metastatic tumor deposits, Isaacson does not say, but it’s a good bet that they probably were."

Science-based Medicine