News Of The Weird

As a recovering Libertarian, I can tell you that sometimes unworkable ideas look pretty good on paper. Then again, you have to wonder what kind of people think the platform of The Constitution Party looks good on paper. Perhaps they don't read.

http://www.constitutionparty.com/party_platform.php

They just had their convention, highlighted by an attempt by Alan Keyes to hijack their party, ala the Reform Party and Pat Robertson--if any of you remember that.

Keyes, whose apparent claim to fame is as a national figure who loses elections, couldn't even win that election. They elected this guy http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/ Chuck Baldwin, "a Radio Talk Show host, syndicated columnist, and pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America was founded." In for a penny, I guess.

Update: D'oh! The Manka Bros punked me with this one. Nicely done satire!

Dammit. I missed the obvious "white Christian teen rapper" angle when I was looking for my multi-million dollar record deal.

I strongly encourage all you pagan atheists to have a stiff drink before watching this delightfully insane video. (I'm 100% serious here. Have a drink of something before clicking the Play button. Make sure you swallow first.)

And yes, I am well aware that more exposure for this tweener singing/rapping dynamic duo means that they will probably sell more records - and I am perfectly OK with that. More power to 'em. Fleece the sheep for all they can bear, seems to be their father/producer/manager's motto. It's a textbook lesson in exactly how one can indeed worship God and mammon, contrary to what their holy book says.

Enjoy.

Offered without further comment.

[link] WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

Hahah! Surprise! It was all an art project!

[link] I feel a massive sense of responsibility to my art, but more importantly the readers of this blog. My closeness to this project must have made art seem like reality to many people. That is not a reaction that I expected nor can I morally justify. This is why my project, 90DayJane, will be taken down on day 80.

Welcome to the Internet, folks.

I always thought religious kooks had sticks up their asses, but things are getting out of hand. This summer Baptist minister Gary Aldridge of Montgomery Alabama died in some sort of weird autoerotic asphyxiation accident. Or as Republican's call it, natural causes.

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

He was found hogtied and wearing two complete wet suits, including a face mask, diving gloves and slippers, rubberized underwear, and a head mask, according to an autopsy report. Investigators determined that Rev. Gary Aldridge's death was not caused by foul play and that the 51-year-old pastor of Montgomery's Thorington Road Baptist Church was alone in his home at the time he died.

Immediately following his death, church officials issued a press release asking community members to "please refrain from speculation" about what led to Aldridge's demise, adding that, "we will begin the healing process under the strong arm of our Savior, Jesus Christ."

Former British spy David Shayler has cleared up the confusion for Christians all over the world. That's right, you Christian folks can stop worrying about that whole "second coming" deal because, well, David Shayler is the Messiah.

Praise David!

How do I know it's true, you say? Well, because David says that it's true - and the Messiah can't lie. Duh.

[David aka the Christ conciousness] "I am the last incarnation of the Holy Ghost (aka the Holy Spirit) or the Yeshua or Jesus Spirit (aka the Christ consciousness).

As the Holy Spirit is God incarnate as essence, I am God incarnated as spirit and man.

It is absolutely clear to me that the world is going to hell in a handcart. Few would dispute that humanity needs a Messiah to get it through these difficult times.

This is all rather embarrassing for someone who was an atheist technocrat three years ago. And I am painfully aware how mad all this sounds."

No, no, David, I don't think that you are aware at how completely and utterly insane you sound. Otherwise you wouldn't be calling news conferences to spotlight your lunacy.

David's mother was not available for comment.

Whaddya think? Could this be a subtle new front in the War on Terror?

Boy, 3, Hospitalized In Playground Squirrel Attack
Trooper, Adult Also Injured

ORLANDO, Fla. -- A 3-year-old boy, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and another adult were hurt on Wednesday afternoon in a bizarre attack by a squirrel on a day care playground.

* * *

"There was a 3-year-old little boy sitting on the swing. The squirrel attacked him and didn't want to get off of the child. We threw things at it to try to get it off and nothing. Finally, we were able to take it off," day care director Maritza Diaz said.

The trooper, who was working an accident near the playground, responded, and FHP spokeswoman Kim Miller said he was jumped by the animal. He tried to shoo the squirrel away, but it attacked again and scratched and bit him before he could escape.

Quick! Get a new Homeland Security appropriation passed! We need to confront this new menace before more 3 year olds and highway troopers are attacked!

Jim Downey

PZ is being sued for libel in New York Southern District Court by Stuart Pivar, author of the "Lifecode" books. Apparently because PZ reviewed them and found them wanting.

Wow. Suing someone for a bad review. That's the way to do real science, Stuart. Nice job.

A good write-up from Scientific American.com here.

PZ comments here:

[link] Huh. I'd heard some noise from Pivar threatening to sue, but this is the first I've heard of any formal action being taken. Since I'm a defendant (one who hasn't been notified of his status!) I suppose I should just shut up at this point and let justice run its course.

Since I'm a blogger, though, I can't completely shut up. I will just say that this is Pivar's attempt to squash a negative review of his book, which I posted here. Nothing in the review was motivated by personal malice, and I actually am inclined to favor structuralist arguments in evolution ... but I'm afraid my honest assessment of Pivar's work is that it does not support his conclusions. I still stand by my review, and now I'm a bit disturbed that someone would think criticism of a scientific hypothesis must be defended by silencing its critics.

I am sure most of you haved heard about Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick's recent troubles concerning dog fighting. At first, Vick claimed to have no knowledge and blamed his cousin for holding dog fights on his property without his knowledge. Well, on Tuesday, Vick was indicted.

It seems Vick was VERY involved in the organization and promotion of the dog fights according to several witnesses. Usually, I am not a big PETA fan, I think they go way too far sometimes, but in this case, I am glad they are around to stand up and speak out. Please follow this link if you would like to tell the NFL what you think about Michael Vick's activities.

Now this is what I call stupid. A man brutally attacked a peacock in a Staten Island Burger King and the poor bird had to be euthanized due to its injuries.

Although it's not clear what would cause a man to mistake a peacock for a vampire the common guesses are drugs or mental disorder. In either case the man should be shot but will probably only get a fine or a little time in prison.

...when I almost wish that there was an actual Christian-style afterlife, just for the humor potential it would present. Imagine the scene standing before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates for these folks:

Naked couple die from S.C. rooftop fall

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths.

The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday.

Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

Jim Downey

Via Pandagon, a nice little news story tied to our friends at the Creation Museum:

Columbus, Ohio (AP) --
The man who plays Adam in a video aired at a Bible-based creationist museum has led a different life outside the Garden of Eden, flaunting his sexual exploits online and modeling for a clothing line that promotes free love.

After learning about his activities Thursday, the Creation Museum in Kentucky pulled the 40-second video in which he appears.

Yup, because you know, he can't have had a life at all prior to being Adam. But here's the best, and funniest, bit:

"For the Creation Museum, I did what I did as an actor. It doesn't necessarily mean I believe in evolution or a believe in creation," Linden said. "I'm hired to get a point across. On the flip side, if I was hired to play a murderer, that doesn't mean I'd go out and kill somebody. It's make-believe."

BHEJAPADAR, India (Reuters) - The corpse of an Indian man was exhumed by his family in a remote eastern village in the belief that a witch doctor could bring him back to life, three days after he died.

Arun Majhi, 21, died after he was bitten by a snake while scouring the jungle near his home for firewood last Thursday and his grieving family buried him the same day.

But two days later, Majhi's mother dreamt that her son could come back to life.

You gotta feel sorry for their loss of their son at such a young age, and how that sense of loss would lead to such a false hope. But still, I found this closing line from the article fairly insightful:

Superstitions are widespread in India, especially in rural areas where an ineffectual schooling system has left millions illiterate and uneducated.

I guess the problem was that they buried him rather than putting him into a cave and rolling a big rock in front of it...

Jim Downey

I bought my first house at an estate auction. Wasn't even thinking of doing so, just went to an auction looking for a nice dinning room set. I did a lot of that sort of thing the first summer after I graduated from college, going to auctions (I was living in small-town Iowa at the time), adding to my small selection of furniture and whatnot. Anyway, once there, I discovered that the house was going to be auctioned, looked through it, found it to be in suprisingly good condition (it was built in the 1880s), and wound up buying it for a song (everything was depressed in the area at the time, and no one else wanted it - I got the place for just over $12,000, believe it or not).

And I did wind up buying the dinning room set, too. Had a lot of little discoveries about the place in the time I lived there before selling it and going to grad school. But I never had anything like this:

...fucking Paris Hilton, or the godders will go nuts:

OK, so what happened was that monologist Mike Daisey was giving a performance last week, and well, I'll let him give the details:

Last night's performance of INVINCIBLE SUMMER was disrupted when eighty seven members of a Christian group walked out of the show en masse, and chose to physically attack my work by pouring water on and destroying the original of the show outline.

From today's New York Times, more proof that you just can't please some people:

CLEANLINESS, as the saying goes, is next to godliness. But combine these two virtues into a single product and some consumers may take offense.

That is the lesson Ian Stallard, a partner in the London design firm FredriksonStallard, has learned from creating the Cross brushes, a set of cleaning tools shaped like Christianity’s most sacred symbol. “Some people have become very upset about it,” said Mr. Stallard, recalling a number of vitriolic e-mail messages his company has received.

OK, granted, these guys were counting on a little controversy, to help drive awareness of their products and get some publicity. How else are you going to sell brushes for $128.00? Still, when you can buy such products as Pope-on-a-rope (I've seen worse things at religious shrines and Christian bookstores), I don't see the point in people complaining...

Jim Downey

Via MeFi, this weird little item about The Mysterious Holes of Peru:

A series of holes, usually about 24 inches across and in neat rows of from nine to twelve, stretched for almost a mile in Peru. It starts at the base of a mountain and then climbs up the side and meanders up and down, over some of the roughest terrain.

OK, that makes it sound like maybe there's a line of a these things. Nope - take a look at the images on that site and here, and you'll see that this like 50' wide path going over a mountain looks dimpled with the damned things.

Why would someone do such a seemingly crazy thing high up in the Peruvian Andes? My guess - the local Shaman said that "it would please the Gods". And now, of course, no one remembers.

Jim Downey

That Pat told faithful viewers of his 700 club he was the recipient of yet another revelation from on high does not surprise me.
But how in hades will he splain his way out of this one when millions of Americans and cities are not destroyed in the latter half of 07.
I recall Oral Roberts left wiggle room when he claimed GOD would be taking him home less the faithful sent a love ransom.
Pat must have skipped his Prozac prior to the broadcast. That millions and millions of people who are otherwise able to engage in the ordinary activities of daily living accept the rantings of a fruit loop as gospel kinda explains why I own several guns.
Were a stray space rock to smack into the planet with enough girth to knock out civil living as we know it for a couple years its fellows like Pat that would rise from the chaos in hopes of establishing a new dark age in Jesus name.

From USA Today, under the headline Coca-Cola should drop the 'coca,' Bolivia growers say:

A commission of coca industry representatives advising an assembly rewriting Bolivia's constitution passed a resolution Wednesday calling on the Atlanta, Ga.-based company to take "Coca" out of its name and asking the United Nations to decriminalize the leaf.

The resolution demands that "international companies that include in their commercial name the name of coca (example: Coca Cola) refrain from using the name of the sacred leaf in their products."

The commission, which met for three days in Sucre, 255 miles southeast of La Paz, is part of an effort led by President Evo Morales to rehabilitate the image of plant, used in the Andes for millennia but better known internationally as the base ingredient of cocaine.

Yup, it's not just the monotheists who are nuts.

Jim Downey

I heard this on this morning's Weekend Edition, so had to go check it out: Delegate Wants to Ban Vehicle Displays of Plastic Genitals

From the WaPo article:

Maryland Del. LeRoy E. Myers Jr. to truckers: If you've got 'em, you don't need to flaunt 'em.

As the General Assembly debates global warming and the death penalty, Myers (R-Washington) has something else on his mind: the outsized plastic testicles that truckers dangle from the trailer hitches of their pickups.

Ah, yes. Silly, of course. But why post about it here? Because it seems that there may be a bit of religious zealotry behind it:

To some truckers, they are manly expressions of rural chic. But Myers, who says his Western Maryland district is brimming with giant fakes on the roadways, calls them vulgar and immoral -- and filed legislation this week to outlaw them.

"People are making a joke out of it," Myers said yesterday. "But I think it's a pretty serious problem. You have body parts hanging from the hitches of cars. We've crossed a line."