The National Weather Service Will Genocide Us All

This is a good case study in how the legit press works as opposed to ideological fanatics with websites who pretend to be journalists and how the average news consumer can tell the difference.

Higgs Hysteria

One of the great things about science is how it strives to wipe away any of the subjective interpretations that fanatic ideologues try to impose on its findings. There aren’t liberal and conservative positions on, say, the speed of light. There is just the speed of light. It doesn’t change based on the political or religious views of the observer.

Immortal Cyborgs! Amish Smoke-Detecting Demons! Reagan Blood 4 Sale! And More!

I have a feeling that writing a weekly column about people saying and doing crazy things is going to get a lot easier now that it’s getting warmer. The heat seems to drive normal people nuts and sends the ones who were already a little off into Francis E Dec territory. At least that’s the explanation I gave myself when I tried to narrow down all the weird news stories to summarize this week. And that’s probably a self-serving explanation because the alternative – that this is part of a larger downward spiral into universal lunacy – is just too depressing.

Secret Communist Subliminal Messages! Supermoons! God Lives in Ohio! And More!

“It’s a Supermoon, dicknose!”

Tomorrow there will be a full moon, and it’s going to be the biggest one of the year. It’s one of those Supermoons. And it’ll be on May 5th, 2012 (5/5!!). Does this mean the Moon will grow so much that it will reverse the Earth’s magnetic poles, causing massive earthquakes and tsunamis which will then awaken the sleeping Mayan god Quetzalcoatl? And will Quetzalcoatl then destroy the world in accordance with the unwritten ancient prophecies? Probably!

That’s the kind of thing you get with Supermoons. At least that’s what happened last year during another supermoon, so we can probably expect it again.

The Agony of Mike Daisey

Mike Daisey, seen here herpin’ and a derpin’.

Back when I was a kid, my parents explained Mutually Assured Destruction to me. They thought telling a kid they might be blown up in a nuclear attack (or, more likely, slowly eaten away by fallout radiation) would be a cool thing to do. They said that the Soviet Union was run by a corrupt oligarchy and that I should probably know they might kill everyone I knew at a moment’s notice.

Witch Hunts! Psychics! AGW Deniers! Hindu Nationalists!

So I had originally thought of calling this regular column This Week In Fucked Up Religious Shit, but a few problems came to mind. For one thing, there are lots of non-religious infuriating, hilarious, or otherwise crazy shit I would have to ignore: psychics, alternative medicine, fringe politics, conspiracy theories, North Korea, and a lot more. Also, I’d eventually collide with the problem of trying to delineate between what does and does not qualify as a religion, which can be tricky at times. I’d rather leave that problem to the IRS.

Anyway, I’m going to try to regularly write about some of the craziest shit that happens throughout the week. When I’m feeling more patient, I’ll try to actually explain how people’s thinking has gone wrong and how we can actually know that, but there will be plenty of mockery too. Sometimes that’s the most appropriate response.

So let’s get to it:

A Day on Twitter With Bryan Fischer

Mark Twain said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” This makes no fucking sense because truth is a quality of a statement which describes its factual accuracy and isn’t a human being which might wear shoes. But he might have been trying to point out how easily it is to make false statements and misrepresent the truth compared to the effort required to correct the lies.

Bryan Fischer is a living case study of this phenomenon. He’s the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, which is the organization which collaborated with Texas Governor Rick Perry in throwing their little rain dance / prayer rally last month. He’s also very active on The Twitter, spending maybe an hour or two every day typing out the most dishonest possible way to attack the gays, Muslims, liberals, moderate Republicans, and bears. That’s actual bears, not big gay dudes. He might be the inspiration for Stephen Colbert’s character’s fear and hatred of the godless killing machines.

Melissa Harris-Perry Would Like More Irrationality, Please

Melissa Harris-Perry, seen here being incredibly full of shit.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
-Voltaire

I like Rachel Maddow’s show. It’s one of the few I can stand on MSNBC. Sure, she slips into the “Defend the President and Party At All Costs” mode from time to time, but it’s nowhere near as egregious as some of her fellow hosts on the network. Also, her head is not a ginormous wonder to all surviving phrenologists, which is another plus.

Fox Wins the Morning

… for their excellent coverage of this political suicide. Just in case the editors at Fox accidentally acquire a sense of shame and this gets pulled or edited, here is a screenshot (click to enlarge)

Jeremy Scahill on Ed Schultz

Hey, let’s all watch this video from 2003 last week where  Fox News MSNBC blowhard Ed Schultz scolds Jeremy Scahill for not blindly trusting President Bush Obama over the war in Iraq Libya.

It’s really pretty amazing to see how blatantly Schultz copies the defense for war used so recently by his political adversaries while Bush was in power. But then he pretends it’s totally different because of how Obama went through the UN to get authorization for the use of force. So apparently the only problem Schultz can really say he had with the Iraq war was that no such authorization was sought, and not that it was a pointless waste of lives and money to try to force democracy on a country externally.