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Our Wacky World—12/22/2011

And now for something really awful—Billy Idol singing "White Christmas"

Yep, that hella sucked. On another holiday note, here's some skateboard hooligans trashing stores. It's a good thing they got it all on HD video. Hope their families can afford lawyers.

Now, with all the Xmas cheer out of the way, here's this week's quote from Michelle Bachmann:

If she were president and a U.S. drone crashed in Iran, as one did last week, Bachmann said she would "seek to obtain that drone." However, she would not provide further details because "it's not prudent to say as a president what I would do ahead of time."

Not that any voters would want to know what she would do as president. (CNN)

As you may have already heard, Christopher Hitchens is now burning in hell. A few people have had the temerity to call out some of his "mistakes"

I first became aware of who Hitchens was when he suddenly popped up as a supporter of the war against terror Islam. All of the lionizing of him has fallen flat for me since. People who knew him before then (Randi being a good example) no doubt have a different perspective. He was a great wit and writer but also a classic example of a flawed human being. I'm assuming that his drinking was the cause of his cancer. At the risk of beating this to death, here's Glenn Greenwald's longer essay about his Iraq war nonsense. I'm just a bit sus of Richard Dawkins, too. Maybe it was was his hysterical screeching about Stephen J. Gould. Well, actually it was that that soured me.

"A video camera recorded what happened next as DeAngelo Mitchell told his brother he couldn't afford another strike against him and that he needed his brother to eat the cocaine he had in his possession. Mitchell then appears to hand off the cocaine, which was stuffed in his buttocks, to his brother." [includes the video]

Mail Online

"Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved ‘feelers’ or ‘antennae’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex."

Skeptic blog

"A New York woman claims her home got more than it agreed to when they brought an adopted toy poodle into their home that was demon possessed. Olga Horvat, a certified Lumia Science Color Therapist and writer of a book Paranormal Pooch writes that her pure-bred dog Princess brought with her a string of bad luck on her home and family.

✂. . .

...she is selling energy shield pendants for both animals and humans at $197 for the human and $189 for the pet. The Energy Shield is a device that will support and balance your body’s own magnetic field, while protecting you from the negative energy generated by many aspects of our environment,’ her website describes the small metal objects which resemble tiny water-tight canisters for holding addresses or other slips of paper – with the addition of ‘Energy Shield’ written around it. In addition her pendants, she says that dogs with pointy, opposed to floppy ears, she has learned, are more prone to demon infiltration, ‘because the spirit can get in there easier,’ she explained."

Skeptic blog


Well gang, what could possibly go wrong with THIS idea?

"The laser, resembling a rifle and known as an SMU 100, can dazzle and incapacitate targets up to 500m away with a wall of light up to three metres squared. It costs £25,000 and has an infrared scope to spot looters in poor visibility. Looking at the intense beam causes a short-lived effect similar to staring at the sun, forcing the target to turn away."

Telegraph

I'm sure this damn thing will be declared safe as the people who will be using it will be the ones interpreting the safety data. And then DHS will be giving them to every police dept. in America who will in turn use them to break up lawful protests and bust people with an ounce of pot.

I have lasers. A bunch of them. I even have a one Watt laser. It sets thing on fire. These things are not toys; I singed my fingers focusing the 1W! Here in the US lasers are a radiological hazard regulated by the FDA. It should get interesting when every "eye doctor" in the country comes out against this.

'Two former participants in the CIA’s Mars visitation program of the early 1980’s have confirmed that U.S. President Barack H. Obama was enrolled in their Mars training class in 1980 and was among the young Americans from the program who they later encountered on the Martian surface after reaching Mars via “jump room.”'

Exopolitics


The Alabama immigration law trainwreck continues:

'A young man interviewed by Human Rights Watch said he was stopped and detained by police for not having a driver's license and was told by an officer, "You have no rights." One permanent resident was told by a major store employee her prescription could not be refilled because she is not a citizen.'

CNN

"Thanks to a $374,000 taxpayer-funded grant, we now know that inhaling lemon and lavender scents doesn't do a lot for our ability to heal a wound. With $666,000 in federal research money, scientists examined whether distant prayer could heal AIDS. It could not. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine also helped pay scientists to study whether squirting brewed coffee into someone's intestines can help treat pancreatic cancer (a $406,000 grant) and whether massage makes people with advanced cancer feel better ($1.25 million). The coffee enemas did not help. The massage did."

Chicago Tribune

"Even though [sperm donor] Johnson has been helping lesbian couples become pregnant, one of his main gubernatorial platforms in 2010 was running against gay marriage."

The Sideshow

"For most of this week the air in Beijing has been rated as “very unhealthy” and “hazardous” by the US Embassy air monitor, reputed as the most reliable indicator of pollution in the city. On Sunday it posted a new record: “beyond index”, as it registered 522 micrograms of particulate pollutants per cubic meter of air." [includes pictures of what little you can see—and comments about how the pictures must be fake]

France 24

Our Wacky World—12/12/2011

MDRDV

Charlie Brown learns what Christmas is all about (the real version). And here are some really bad Nativity scenes. And here's the latest priceless quote from Rick "man on dog" Santorum:

'Discussing controversial classroom subjects such as evolution and global warming, Santorum said he has suggested that “science should get out of politics” and he is opposed to teaching that provides a “politically correct perspective.”'

"i [sic] had an acetylene bottle in my truck, the valve was bumped so slightly and over night the truck filled with the gas. i [sic] noticed the smell, and opened the doors to air out the truck. i [sic] drove the truck out of the garage to get some more air movement. i [sic] went to roll the pass side window down and as soon as i [sic] touched the power windows. BAM. with me in the truck." [GREAT pictures]

CK5

PAYPAL: Only a nonprofit can use the Donate button.
ME: That’s false. It says right in the PDF of instructions for the Donate button that it can be used for “worthy causes.”
PAYPAL: I haven’t seen that PDF. And what you’re doing is not a worthy cause, it’s charity.
ME: What’s the difference?
PAYPAL: You can use the donate button to raise money for a sick cat, but not poor people.

Tech Crunch

PayPal later backed down.

Police said Mr Cole, who was wearing a bow tie and rather too much tweed for his age, would not reveal his country of origin. "Countries do not exist where I am from. The discovery of the Higgs boson led to limitless power, the elimination of poverty and Kit-Kats for everyone. It is a communist chocolate hellhole and I'm here to stop it ever happening."

CNET

"It boggles the mind that neither side knew about this during trial," the judge said yesterday, blaming both the prosecution and the defense for not realizing earlier that Montgomery literally had an iron-clad alibi. "Both sides in this case were spectacularly incompetent."

ABA Journal


From helpless gypsy to millionaire (undeclared income at that). Not bad:

'Bridgette Evans, 33, raked in $1.6 million from clients who believed she could eradicate otherworldly forces causing them misfortune... She would instruct people to send her cash—and in one case, a Rolex watch—that she would use in a spiritual ritual, promising to return the money once the spirits disappeared. Her attorney...argued Evans is a victim of the "gypsy culture" in which she was raised. She has a fifth-grade education and has had to make money as a psychic'

Sun-Sentinel

.700

"...she even ripped open her blouse, then wet her pants to give the appearance she had been knocked unconscious. But it was all part of what authorities said Friday was an elaborate hoax by the woman to convince her husband she was raped so they could move to a safer neighborhood."

CBS

"...the victim...told police he was crossing Broadway near the school...when he was struck by...Hillen's...Honda Accord. As he struggled to his feet, Hillen...is alleged to have stopped and asked if he was okay. According to the complaint, when the victim said "No,"
 [Aida] Hillen tossed him a religious pamphlet and attempted to flee, much like her operatic namesake, albeit in her case toward the swamps of Galveston County and not the Egyptian desert."

Houston Press


Most people—sportswriters included—have a very poor grasp of probability:

"But I also believe in Tim Tebow because there is no scientific explanation for what is happening to the Denver Broncos. There is no other plausible way to make sense of these games and the amazing, miraculous way with which they win week after week. … It just happened."

Yes, there's no other explanation for a statistically insignificant short series of wins, is there? Do teams have losing streaks because "god" hates them?

CNN

While we're on the subject of mathematical literacy, how good are you at arithmetic?

“The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction. ...I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate. I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities. I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession."

Washington Post

Now, before you fall into the trap of agreeing with any of this wankery, try solving some of the irrelevantly abstruse Algebra 101 problems that stumped him:

"This is yet another demonstration of a problem I've been banging on about for years: the innumeracy of intellectuals. Mr. Roach holds three college degrees, and clearly considers himself an educated person, but even a lack of practice at taking tests can't really explain this level of failure."

Uncertain Principles

What a simple test. I aced it. If you can't solve these problems you're innumerate.

"The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg."

Exile Online

Meanwhile, there's some bad news in Jerusalem.

Boxing day