Our Wacky World—7/14/2011

The unanswered question

"In order to evade tough regulations on public rallies, protesters... merely clap their hands to display their anger at Mr. Lukashenko's policies... But...an unemployed man...says he was convicted this week of applauding in public and fined...despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence: He...has only one arm."

MSNBC

Here it is: absolute Proof that the earth doesn't move—in eye-gouging HTML:

"Think of this as a "crash course" for people everywhere of all ages who are ready to test and see how Kabbalist evolutionary mythology has deceived the world...and what it will mean to every living person when that deception is exposed."

He denies Dispensationalism and has a problem with Millenarianism so I guess he wouldn't play nice with certain other religious kooks. (Fixed Earth)


This is a familiar pattern:

"It was once the most active, independent and inspiring civilian group for the environment. But in the last decade or so, Greenpeace abandoned the rigour of science. When the science has been inconvenient, Greenpeace chooses dogma. Which is why it has a zero-tolerance policy on nuclear energy, no matter how imperative the need to remove coal and gas from electricity production. Or why it is adamant organic farming is the only way forward for agriculture, when organic could not feed the world’s population today."

As it says in the masthead to this blog, "Every revolution tends to become the tyranny that it overthrew." I guess they'll join the ranks of eco-terrorists next. (Cosmos)

"Listen folks that is an idol, a demonic idol, right there in New York harbor. People say, 'well no it's patriotic.' What makes it patriotic? Why is it? It's a statue of a false goddess, the Queen of Heaven. We don't get liberty from a false goddess..."

Dispatches From The Culture Wars


Guess what? Harold Camping's End Times bullshit has cost idiots their lives:

"Of course we can blame Satan and the communists but their blood is on the hands of Harold Camping and his Family radio."

John The Baptist TV

Meanwhile, it appears that TBN has kicked perennial false prophet Jack Van Impe off their network—or did he leave? What the fuck cares? Jack has made an entire career out of living in the End Times and a living off of bogus End Times prophecy.


Today in "drug" news:

"Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal's decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked."

AFP

Her view is that people who smoke marijuana - by far the most widely used illicit drug in the United States - are violent deviants, roaming Philly's streets with deadly weapons, killing witnesses and committing "untold numbers of crimes" to support their habit. "Don't tell me about polls. I don't want to hear it," Abraham groused. "People want to drive 100 miles an hour. They want to smoke pot. They want to do everything!"

Or maybe, as a growing number of politicians and law-enforcement officials now realize, Americans just don't want to continue paying for the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of nonviolent drug offenders. (Philly)

Meanwhile, a lot of pot smokers just can't seem to make it past that "gateway":

"Hell's Angels motorcycle gang members are probably more 104 times more likely to have ridden a bicycle as a kid than those who don't become Hell's Angels, but that doesn't mean that riding a two-wheeler is a "gateway" to joining a motorcycle gang. It simply means that most people ride bikes and the kind of people who don't are highly unlikely to ever ride a motorcycle."

Healthland

"Vladimir Putin has become the object of veneration for a bizarre Russian all-female sect whose followers believe that the tough-talking prime minister is a reincarnation of the early Christian missionary Paul the Apostle."

The Telegraph

"A man has appeared before Limerick District Court charged with ordering his Alsatian dog to have sex with a 43-year-old mother of four, who died from an adverse allergic reaction to the intercourse."

The Journal

"The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive."

Dispatches From The Culture Wars

"Yes, according to the ARIS survey, fewer Americans identify themselves as Scientologists than Rastafarians, Sikhs, and whatever the heck Eckankar is."

Village Voice

Sylvia Browne is number one

I get more search hits for Sylvia Browne than another other topic I've ever posted on this blog. You may recall that in my last Book Club entry that I said

Her latest title, published just before her unanticipated heart attack, is Afterlives of the Rich and Famous. Now that's a book! Let's find out how Heath Ledger feels about winning the Oscar!!

I checked the stats today and what did I see?

The other week it was this:












I can't make shit like this up:

These are the keywords in actual searches, folks. I also get a ton of image searches, which kicks my stats way up but probably doesn't entice many people to actually read anything.

Just to piss people off

Our Wacky World—7/7/2011

For those of you living under rocks or simply outside the US mediasphere you probably haven't heard about the "spectacular" murder trial that ended with an acquittal this week. Of far greater interest is the reaction of CNN's own "mouth from the South",  their sanctimonious legal talking helmet-head Nancy Grace. I wasn't going to bother with it but here's Turley's take:

"While many were surprised by the verdict in the Casey Anthony case yesterday, some things remained both predictable and consistent like Nancy Grace’s reaction to any defendant prevailing in a criminal case. Grace’s choleric persona was in full rage that the jury would deign to find the evidence insufficient to convict the woman who Grace had already convicted many times on her show."

Turley's Blog

I also ran across this gem:

"CNN, which enjoyed blockbuster ratings for its nonstop coverage of the Casey Anthony case, said today it would cover a future Casey Anthony murder trial "if and when Nancy Grace kills her." While network executives were cautiously optimistic about their chances of another murder-trial ratings bonanza, one network source said, "I just saw Nancy in the hall, and she could blow any second." ...  Across the country, there were several reported incidents of CNN viewers being severely burned by fire shooting from Nancy Grace's nostrils."

Dispatches From The Culture Wars

Now that we have that crap out of the way, the real news story this week is that Rupert Murdoch's print operation in the UK is in a spot of legal trouble. Here's the latest outrage:

"News of the World...encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up... thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the paper...deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. ...this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive."

Guardian and LA Times

This story is so fucked up I was seriously thinking of making it a separate post but I didn't have the time. Oh wait, now they're throwing in the the towel:

The scandal "sullied" the newspaper and "has no place in our company," News International Chairman James Murdoch said Thursday in announcing the shutdown.

As if this changes anything. When are you going to shut down the entire festering empire, Jimmy? (CNN)

"Unused dollar coins have been quietly piling up in Federal Reserve vaults in breathtaking numbers, thanks to a government program that has required their production since 2007. And even though the neglected mountain of money recently grew past the $1 billion mark, the U.S. Mint will keep making more and more of the coins under a congressional mandate. The pile of idle coins, which so far cost $300 million to manufacture, could double by the time the program ends in 2016, the Federal Reserve told Congress last year."

NPR

"Call me legalistic,” said Amos Peete of Watchlight Discernment Ministry, “but maybe the Church would be better served by NOT being led by a profit-driven clown. I mean, we already have Benny Hinn out there, don’t we?”

✂... 

Among other criticisms by Peete is McDonald’s past associations with Hamburglar, a known criminal, and Grimace, who after leaving McDonaldland discovered his Christ-consciousness and became a Transcendental Meditation guru in Van Nuys, California. Added Peete with a sigh, “Ronald McDonald’s only qualification is marketing Happy Meals with a smile. Good grief, he’s like Joel Osteen with orange hair.”

Sacred Sandwich

For those of you who actually who actually bother to read this article, the name Abanes may sound familiar. I listed his prophecy book in the sidebar article Prophets Or Profits? He's a bit more on the mark in that book. Not surprisingly he sees Warren as an acceptable compromise between the extremists and the Show-Up-On-Sunday-Morning Set.

"What depresses me is what this Macmillan Reader edition says about our American educational system. Any high school student who cannot read The Great Gatsby in the original cannot read. That student has been sold a bill of goods. We know that teachers at the college level complain that many of their students cannot read and write competently. If this is an example of a book they are assigned, can they be blamed?"

Roger Ebert

One of the commenters says the book in question is for ESL (English as a second language) students. As Roger replies, why adulterate a classic work of literature while lame crap abounds? I've never read Fitzgerald myself and I probably never will but what amazes me is that someone got paid to "write" this. What a waste of money. Any high school history textbook would have been illiterate enough.


Rev. Bobby Schuller has been ousted from the Crystal Cathedral Ministries board:

"The cathedral recently switched over from a traditional worship format to a Gospel-style choir – much to the chagrin of many long-time members. Coleman also required choir members to sign a covenant acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and the belief that marriage should be between a man and a woman. The older Schuller publicly lashed out at the contract saying everyone is welcome in the church. Phillip Johnson, the architect who constructed the cathedral's iconic glass sanctuary, was an openly gay man."

OC Register


See kids, it really does happen: "A Parish man who was participating in a motorcycle helmet protest ride was killed this afternoon when he went over the handlebars of his motorcycle and injured his head on the pavement"

Syracuse