The World Wide Weird
Witch Anatomy
Thursday, November 15th, 2007In the window of The American Craftsman at Rockefeller Center this morning:
I don’t even want to know…
Meanwhile, I’m really liking having a digital camera with me as I walk to/from work every day. I’m tellin’ ya, they should put these things in cell phones!
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Dog Shoots Man
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007Jeez, remember when it was considered news for a dog to bite a man? Well, now they’re ARMED!
DES MOINES, Iowa — A hunter is recovering after he was shot in the leg by his dog, who stepped on his shotgun and tripped the trigger, an official said yesterday.
[The man’s group] shot a bird, and when [he] went to get it, he put his gun on the ground and crossed a fence. As he crossed the fence, his hunting dog stepped on the gun…
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Take That, Taco Bell…
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007Much has been made of Taco Bell’s Steal a Base, Steal a Taco campaign, in which everyone in America is (was) eligible for a free taco at participating Taco Bell’s today, October 30th, from 2pm – 5pm, because there was at least one stolen base in the 2007 World Series.
Not to be outdone, Chipolte is running a Boo-Rito campaign tomorrow (on Halloween). So says the website:
Come in on Halloween, Wednesday, October 31st, from 5pm to Close, dressed like a Chipolte burrito, taco, bowl or salad, and we’ll complete you costume with a FREE BURRITO
Quite the master stroke, huh? Now if only they told anyone about it…
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Does New Jersey State Law Discriminate Against Idiots?
Friday, October 26th, 2007Public Question #4, Union County, New Jersey, 22nd Legislative District:
Shall the amendment of Article II, section I, paragraph 6 of the Constitution, agreed to by the Legislature, revising the current constitutional language concerning denial of the right to vote by deleting the phrase “idiot or insane person” and providing instead that a “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” shall not enjoy the right of suffrage, be adopted?
And here’s the Interpretive Statement that follows it:
Approval of this amendment concerning the denial of the right to vote would delete the phrase “idiot or insane person” and replace that phrase with “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote. The phrase “idiot or insane person” is outdated, vague, offensive to many, and may be subject to misinterpretation. This constitutional amendment acknowledges that individuals with cognitive or emotional disabilities may otherwise be capable of making decisions in the voting booth and that their right of self-determination should be respected and protected in this regard. The amendment only denies the right of suffrage to those individuals determined by a court, on a case-by-case basis, to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting.
No word, of course, on what legal body, if any, would declare a person an “idiot or insane person” under the old law…
As Dave Barry likes to say, I am not making this up…
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It’s Never Funny When Someone Dies…
Friday, October 26th, 2007But this is damn close.
Some highlights:
The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys. SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.
The city has long struggled to counter its plague of monkeys, which invade government complexes and temples, snatch food and scare passers-by. One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques. The city has also employed monkey catchers to round them up so they can be moved to forests. But the problem has persisted.
As Glenn Reynolds would say, read the whole thing…
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From the “Can’t Catch a Break” File…
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007George W. Bush, campaigning in January, 2000 on the “No Child Left Behind” bill:
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
President George W. Bush, September 26, 2007, advocating for the renewal of the No Child Left Behind Law:
As yesterday’s positive report card shows, childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”
George W. Bush – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at every turn…
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Life Lessons
Wednesday, September 26th, 2007A 10-year-old decides she wants a pony:
| Child: | Daddy, can I have a pony? |
| Daddy: | No. |
| Child: | Why not? |
| Daddy: | It’s against the law. |
| Child: | It’s a dumb law. We should change it. |
| Daddy: | Go for it. |
Later…
| Child: | It’s a dumb law. You should change it. |
| City Hall: | No. |
| Child: | But it’s a dumb law. |
| City Hall: | We’re going to make the law better, so other kids like you don’t call it a dumb law. And since you’re a kid and we don’t want to be seen as cold, heartless jerks, we’ll invite you to be on the committee that changes the law. Can we go now? |
I’m willing to bet that no kid has ever learned so much about how the world really works just by asking for a pony.
(Hat tip: James Lileks at buzz.mn)
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The Dangers of Online Chatrooms…
Saturday, September 22nd, 2007This from the Daily Telegraph:
A married couple who didn’t realise they were chatting each other up on the internet are divorcing.
Sana Klaric and husband Adnan, who used the names “Sweetie” and “Prince of Joy” in an online chatroom, spent hours telling each other about their marriage troubles, Metro.co.uk reported.
The truth emerged when the two turned up for a date. Now the pair, from Zenica in central Bosnia, are divorcing after accusing each other of being unfaithful.
“I was suddenly in love. It was amazing. We seemed to be stuck in the same kind of miserable marriage. How right that turned out to be,” Sana, 27, said.
Adnan, 32, said: “I still find it hard to believe that Sweetie, who wrote such wonderful things, is actually the same woman I married and who has not said a nice word to me for years”.
Not mentioned in the article: both Sana and Adnan like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain…
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What a Wonderful Shadow…
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007This is just awesome:
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I’m Sure Someone Else is Curing Cancer – Part Three
Friday, August 24th, 2007Scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found a way to induce an out-of-body experience in people without using drugs.
Now, first of all, thank God they didn’t use drugs, because we all remember those scientist doping scandals in the 1990’s. Heck, there are still those out there who think the whole Viagra discovery should have an asterisk.
But beyond that, the two main questions here are 1) What exactly have they done here, and 2) For the love of everything holy, WHY?!?!?
Taking the first question first:
Using virtual reality goggles to mix up the sensory signals reaching the brain, they induced the volunteers into projecting their awareness into a virtual body. Participants confirmed they had experienced sitting behind their physical body and looking at it. The illusion was so strong that the volunteers reacted with a palpable sense of fear when their virtual selves were threatened with physical force.
So they’re temporarily re-wiring your brain in order to give you a hallucination that you’re outside of your body. OK, moving on to question #2:
Inducing people to have out-of-body experiences could have wide-ranging uses, [says Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist formerly of University College London, and now at the Karolinska Institute].
“This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation. If we can project people into a virtual character, so they feel and respond as if they were really in a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications.
The experience of video games could reach a whole new level, but it could go much beyond that. For example, a surgeon could perform remote surgery, by controlling their virtual self from a different location.”
Say what?!?
OK, granted, I should have seen the video game thing coming, but surgery? First of all, we understand that the surgeon would only think he were somewhere else, but not actually be somewhere else, right? Second, anyone want their surgeon operating on them while experiencing a scientifically induced delusion?
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