[ via John Redford ] Greg Beaty’s “geek love prose poem” on aliens and culture (high and pop): Aliens enter our lives to save us, because somebody must, and Heinlein is dead.
[ via Interconnected ] The Economist reports on recent work on why people latch onto conspiracy theories. Human brains may have evolved to look for casual, and not subtle, explanations of the phenomena we observe. If we see a big effect such as an assassination, a disaster, or a war, but there’s no obvious corresponding [...]
Over at W6 Daily, Phillip responds to my links from yesterday. And no, there’s nothing funny in the break room coffee at Apple, aside from it being undrinkable. Nutter v. Nutter I compared Rall and Lileks because I thought both theories were silly. Serial killing isn’t Al Quida’s MO, they go for the mass murder [...]
Ted Rall and James Lileks appear to be in a tight race for conspiracy theory of the month. Rall: those evil Republicans killed Wellstone. Lileks: those evil Muslims ran the DC Sniper. Small planes crash without help, and violent men end up in a bad way. Here’s a dollar, go buy an Occham’s Razor at [...]
A forensics researcher at the FBI who helped chase down the Unabomber and revealed the ‘anonymous’ who wrote the Clinton satire Primary Colors told the BBC that the person responsible for mailing anthrax spores throughout the Eastern Seaboard last fall is most likely a well connected individual in the defense and intel communities. Furthermore: Controversially, [...]
[ via FoRK ] The online superstore for everything you need to take over the world, or just extort “one million dollars” (pinky at corner of mouth) from the UN. You’ll find uniforms for henchmen, sexy assassins, antimatter and other doomsday devices at the site. Their webmaster is the preserved head of a Nazi in [...]
[ via Backup Brain ] So a bunch of creationists learned that Richard Dawkins used a Mac back when he was writing The Blind Watchmaker. This got them all het up. Then they saw the BSD mascot. And then they saw the Darwin mascot. Update: Okay, okay, it’s pretty clear by now (28 April 2002) [...]
I bet the really funny part was when Quayle called directory assistance to find Tony Soprano’s number. You have disrespected the ‘Bing, Mr. Prime Minister.
The Bovine Illuminati is a project by one of the loons I work with on ConJose. Fnord.
[ via the Muted Horn ] For kicks and grins, check your server logs for vists from 63.148.99.224-63.148.99.255 — a block of addresses belonging to an outfit called Cyveillance. They sell a service monitoring the Web for companies worried about what people are saying about them online, so don’t go saying a certain antidepressant will [...]
The thrust of the editorial in Salon is familiar: the rest of the world is really starting to worry about the US’s problem with exceptionalism. Oy, but what makes it interesting is the analogous domestic situation Ian Williams uses to introduce it. This week the City Council of La Verkin, Utah, was forced to reconsider [...]
EU MPs are taking Echelon as a serious threat, and now encourage Europeans to use encryption.
David Greenburg says that Pearl Harbor was the “JFK” of the GI generation. Just as many people deny Oswald acted alone, there were plenty of people then and now who claimed that the Imperial Japanese attack on Hawaii was a “plot” by FDR to get the US into WWII. Greenburg reports on the history of [...]
Our esteemed comrade Benjamin Kite has written the definitive secret history of Norman Fell, who was more than just the wacky landlord in “Three’s Company.”
[ via the Shan Monster ] Back in the day, we’d use a FemBot to liquidate critics of the regime. But these days the Supreme Leader wants us to use Middle Eastern dancers.