War Profiteering at it's Dumbest

As our troops withdraw from Iraq, some of the Iraqi security forces have begun relying on mystical, new age devices to detect bombs and weapons, even though US military and technical experts insist these devices are useless.


I first noticed this story on Derren Brown's blog a week and a half ago. Assuming it was just a few wacky security guys in an isolated incident, I only skimmed the story and thought, "oh that's an odd one," and then I wrote it off as a silly thing to be forgotten unless it comes up in the most random conversation down the road. However, over the past few days I keep seeing variations of the story coming up again and again. You see, when I first saw this piece, what I didn't know was (1) the "magic bomb detecting wands" cost several thousands of US dollars a piece and (2) the Iraqis bought something in the neighborhood of $85,000,000 worth of them from a British company called ATSC.

That's right... They spent about 85 million on magic wands. Let that soak in for a minute. :(

How can any sane person not just find this confusing? I don't understand why using any unproven "magic" bomb detecting device was ever even open to discussion in Iraq, let alone regarded as a potentially good idea. I don't care how scientifically illiterate or otherwise f@#ked up your culture is... If any device is not conclusively and observably proven as repeatedly reliable, you just don't spend tens of millions of dollars on it or make it part of any procedure to protect people's lives... End of freaking story!

* http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/14/bad-science-iraq-ben-goldacre

* http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/graeme_wood/2009/11/superstition_at_the_checkpoints.php

* http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html?_r=3

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Faceplant Bonanza

Just over an hour ago, a friend sent me some links to a couple of cool parkour videos on Youtube... but like a typical Youtube viewer, after watching, I started to click and watch the 'related videos' which now lead me to the action of sharing the following painful clips that I'm probably going to Hell for laughing at... Enjoy. :)

Go Medium

Earlier today, I was reading Derren Brown's blog (where I should confess I get a noticeable amount of material for this blog from) and I came across a link to this ridiculous story about Police in the UK who blew £20,000 (about 33,400 American dollars) investigating the "murder" of a man who's death was already ruled a suicide until so-called psychics spewed forth stories of animal-related imagery.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6508875/Detectives-launch-20000-murder-inquiry-after-bogus-tip-off-from-mystics.html

Once again, if you choose to believe in the psychic phenomena, that's your business... but no mater what country you live in, before you spend public or taxpayer money on something supernatural, please ask yourself first: "If any psychic is so real, why haven't they either won the lotto or collected a million bucks from James Randi?" Because let me tell you, if I had any kind of supernatural intuitive powers, I'd help lots of people, sure ...but I'm getting paid first! ;)

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Hate by Post-it

On Wednesday morning, a Jewish California man in the town of Rancho Penasquitos woke up and found his daughter's car tagged with hundreds of Post-it notes. The writing on the post-its included things like "Jesus loves you,""secret admirer," "pigs are cool and so are you," "chicken" and as seen in the picture, the notes found on the hood spelled out "have fun" in large blocky letters. The local police have written this incident off as a teenage prank, but the Rancho Penasquitos man referred to it as a hate crime; and in the man's defense, Rancho Penasquitos does have a recent history of religious intolerance. Just last year, the town made the news when vandals tore into a local high school at least three times, smashing windows, drawing swastikas and even defecating on school grounds.

http://www.10news.com/news/21589915/detail.html#

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Invisible Diarrhea

Here's another wacky Florida story. About a week ago, 42 year old David Napodano was arrested in North Naples FL, for exhibiting himself nude while in his truck at a WalMart parking lot. When two passing women chose to be alarmed rather than stimulated, they called police. Now, being stupid enough to get caught by the police while allegedly exposing yourself indecently is one thing, even if you do happen to have some kind of rational explanation for being unclothed in public, but the best Napodano could come up with was to claim that he had to remove all his clothes due to "explosive diarrhea" ...which could almost classify as a viable excuse, except for the fact that diarrhea always produces ...um, shall we say... rather conclusive evidence... of which, none was present.

http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?s=11443802&

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Klingon Eminem in Germany

Yes, you read that title right. I couldn't make this one up if I damn well f@#king tried. Although, I have seen the documentary Trekkies and know exactly how bizarre American Star Trek fans can get. So, why should European Trek fans be any less freaking weird? Just the same, as I type this, I'm a little on the fence as to whether or not I should hit the "publish post" button, since this one is more simply a big dumb joke, as opposed to a more typical slap in the face to the concept of subculture that I usually mock by adding to this blog.

Ah screw it... Kapla kids, it's Klenginem!!!

http://www.klenginem.de/

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French Divorce Fair

In France there are about 260,000 divorces annually. (Insert French surrender joke here.) With this in mind, Paris (AKA: The city of love) is hosting something that's being referred to as a divorce fair. It's a 2-day event that is actually called the New Start Trade Fair. The fair has 60 stands, some with lawyers, others profit on self improvement, while others still have fortune telling and tarot readings. The conferences cover topics such as plastic surgery, self image and separation law. Most in attendance are women, but that's fair, because the same is apparently true of Parisian marriage fairs. So, I guess that means they are at least committed to their sense of balance.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Europe/EU_France_Divorce_Fair.html

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