News of the Weird
oracknows | May 2, 2009...at least that seems to be the case with this couple:
Tourists enjoying a day of sightseeing at Windsor Castle got more than they bargained for today when a couple were caught having sex on the Queen's lawn.
Ignoring signs asking visitors to Please Keep Off The Grass, the man and woman, said to be in their early 30, selected a spot near the castle's Garter Tower and stripped off in full view of hotels, pubs and shops.
An employee at the Harte and Garter Hotel, which overlooks the castle, said guests went out to observe the scene and could not believe their eyes. The woman, who asked not to…
oracknows | January 9, 2009Three weeks ago, I reintroduced my readers to one of the most amazingly skilled weaver of woo tales who has ever lived. I'm referring, of course, to Lionel Milgrom, the man who can pepper his homeopathic woo with quantum nonsense the way Bobby Flay seasons his latest creation with various spices. Now, I'm about to admit a huge hole in my knowledge here. I realize that it seems simply unbelievable that I would have a hole at all in my knowledge, much less a major hole, but there you are. Not even cranky supercomputers are perfect, I guess.
The huge hole in my knowledge revealed by my…
oracknows | September 24, 2008I've written about their antics, both silly and vile, many times before.
Animal rights activists in general and PETA in particular. In doing so, I've come to the conclusion that they are so far off their rockers that they are simply impossible to parody. Just yesterday, to reinforce that point, PETA wrote an open letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. It has to be read to be believed:
September 23, 2008
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,
On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million…
oracknows | August 13, 2008
...you'd better run for cover!
Truly, you can't make--if you'll excuse the term--shit like this up.
Let the jokes begin!
oracknows | August 11, 2008Seen in a bookstore in the Delta terminal at LaGuardia:
It makes perfect sense. What's left after fleecing millions of gullible readers selling books about "alternative" medicine and secret cures "they" don't want you to know about? Fleecing millions of gullible readers by selling books rife financial scams, of course. (I wonder how many pyramid schemes--excuse me, multilevel marketing investment opportunites"--are within this new book.) Of course, Kevin Trudeau definitely knows about financial scams. After all, he did spend time in jail for swindling banks and another for bilking his…
oracknows | June 23, 2008
If you happen to be a blogger, has there ever been anything that you meant to blog about, but it totally slipped your mind? This is just such an item for me.
Yes, multiple people e-mailed me about this on Friday, and for some reason in my amusement at David Kirby's antics over the weekend twisting a CDC report and then looking even more clueless as he modified his post in response to his errors being pointed out, producing a mangled mess that made even less sense than before, in all the fun, I totally forgot about the item.
And my blog mascot is not at all pleased. Here's why:
MOSCOW - A…
oracknows | June 17, 2008I consider myself very fortunate that I don't work in business. As a physician and a scientist, I just don't think I would fit in the culture that well. Oh, I'm sure I'd adapt if ever the killer opportunity in big pharma or surgical device manufacturing ever came around to which I couldn't say "no," but this bit on the 50 Office-Speak Phrases You Love To Hate shows that I'd clearly have a lot to learn as far as the language goes.
The list is from England, but I'm sure my American readers will recognize many of the same phrases, albeit maybe spelled or phrased a bit differently. My favorite?…
oracknows | June 2, 2008Even here at the ASCO meeting, I couldn't help but be made aware (thanks to Steve Novella and others) about a brand-spanking new video of a supposed encounter with an alien that--unlike all the other dubious videos of alleged alien encounters--according to its maker will really and truly convince you that, really and truly, Aliens Are Real And Earth Has Been Visited by them. Why, you may ask, would I blog about such things when I'm at a meeting? Well, writing about clinical science is hard, and I haven't had time to analyze the abstracts that I wanted to analyze, and blogging about this is…
oracknows | May 21, 2008Here's how not to allow personalized stamps to be produced:
BERLIN -- German neo-Nazis used a personalized stamp service offered by Deutsche Post to create a 55-cent stamp carrying a portrait of Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess, the company said Wednesday.
The latest newsletter of the far-right National Democratic Party gloated about being able to slip the stamp past Deutsche Post's quality control personnel.
"The Hess stamp is out there," wrote Hannes Natter in the May edition of Deutsche Stimme, or German Voice.
Deutsche Post spokesman Dirk Klasen confirmed that someone managed to slip an order…
oracknows | May 18, 2008Yesterday's post sucked all the blogging life out of me for the moment, so here's a quickie. If there's anyone who deserves a Darwin Award, it's this guy here:
AUBURN -- A man talking on a cell phone while walking Wednesday on railroad tracks was hit by a train and killed. He was the second person in the area to be killed by a train while talking on a cell phone in the past two weeks.
Auburn Police spokesman Scott Near said the man killed just after noon was walking on the tracks between the 1200 and 1400 blocks of C Street Northwest, where the rails parallel the street and there are no signs…
oracknows | March 22, 2008The other night, I wrote about how the painfully inept and just plain dumb actions of the producer of Expelled!, the neuron-apoptosing movie that's basically an extended argumentum ad Nazium against the dreaded "Darwinism" that blames Hitler, Stalin, and, apparently, puppy hatred on Charles Darwin himself. Basically, the producers were having one of their private screenings (although how one can call a screening for which almost anyone can sign up on the web "private" is beyond me), and, by serendipity, the screening happened to be in the Mall of America on the Thursday before a large atheist…
oracknows | February 27, 2008...two words: Killer robots!
Clearly, we're all doomed. Skynet, here we come!
oracknows | February 16, 2008When you don't have the facts on your side, can't get published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and have consistently failed to make a case for your hypothesis, what do you do? Well, if you're a real scientist, you might just finally pack it in, admit that you were probably wrong, and move on to another scientific question or to another hypothesis about the same question to investigate.
Not "intelligent design" creationists.
To them, it doesn't matter just how bad their arguments are, how untestable and incoherent their hypothesis is, or how obvious it is that they are simply…
oracknows | February 4, 2008...posterior:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians visiting a health resort received a rude shock when a nurse used hydrogen peroxide instead of water to give them enemas.
Itar-Tass news agency reported Thursday that 17 tourists in the Caucasus spa town of Yessentuki had to be treated in hospital after the mix-up.
All I can say is...ouch! It's a wonder none of them burned a hole in the colon and needed an emergency operation. What would EneMan think? But what's really funny is the excuse for the mixup:
Sources at the sanatorium said the mistake was explained by water and hydrogen peroxide looking the…
oracknows | February 2, 2008Thanks, PZ. Thanks a lot for posting what has to be one of the stupidest, most vile examples of an idiotic religious nut that I've seen in a long time. It was so bad that it has to be seen to be believed:
It hurt my brain just to look at this smug, smarmy twit gloat over his belief that Richard Dawkins (and Heath Ledger, for that matter) are now (in the case of Heath Ledger) or will be (in the case of Richard Dawkins) burning in hell for all eternity. It's guaranteed to raise your blood pressure--unless you're a hateful bigot as well. Thankfully, B-grade horror movie sound effects that…
oracknows | January 30, 2008Like most people, I have my limits. Actually, I have a pretty high tolerance for tastelessness. It's a necessity in a world like this, where tastelessness increasingly goes beyond the pale. But even I am not above finding something like this so tasteless and offensive that I can only shake my head:
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A Carnival float with a pile of model dead bodies commemorating the Holocaust is causing unease before the lavish parades in Rio de Janeiro this weekend.
The Viradouro samba organization, or school, plans to feature the grim display when it marches in the Sambadrome…
oracknows | January 20, 2008Via a fascinating blog that was pointed out to me (Morbid Anatomy), I came across a story from last winter about how a Colorado nonprofit organization is reviving a Victorian custom about which I had been largely ignorant, namely the custom of taking photographs of recently deceased loved ones as mementos. Indeed, the photographs were known as "memento mori." The group, called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, takes carefully posed photographs that are truly astonishing. Although the concept may sound morbid, the results are not (although I really, really wish the website would get rid of the sappy…
oracknows | January 16, 2008File this under You Can't Make Stuff Like This Up.
Just when I think People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) can't get any more zany or ridiculous in its never-ending battle against meat eating, it comes up with a gem like sending a request to the jail where a cannibal killer is being held requesting a vegetarian diet for him:
Sheriff's officials were astounded Thursday by a letter requesting the man accused of murdering his girlfriend and possibly participating in cannibalism be placed on a vegetarian diet to keep him from being "involved in any senseless killing" while…
oracknows | December 21, 2007
Now why can't all New Age-y pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo be like this New Age-y pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo?
Yes, it's back. Starting right around now, it's Global Orgasm time again:
WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone you know.
WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction and places where violence is used in place of mediation.
WHEN? Solstice Day - December 22, at 06:08 Universal Time (GMT)
WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological,…