facts + logic = truth
How fundies and conspiranoids are reverting to an ancient, superstitious mindset and taking you with them Check out the no-head guy in front. You suck, AI "art." ----------------------------------------------------------- In her 1979 essay "Total Eclipse," Annie Dillard (the Werner Herzog of nature writing) described her viewing of a solar eclipse in Washington's Yakima Valley as a... Continue Reading →
This book has bothered me for a long, long time. I picked it up at a secondhand bookstore on a whim and have read it several times over the past 12 years or so. As you can see, I paid tree fiddy for it. Even that might have been too much. Because it's a 30-year-old... Continue Reading →
How Two Young Girls Started a New Religion Without Even Trying Spiritualism was an accident, and it was an accident of humble and disturbing origin. It began in a rented two-story cottage in rural Hydesville, New York, in the spring of 1848. The Fox family had just moved to the area in December of... Continue Reading →
There were three main phases in the development of Pizzagate, each involving distinct (yet interlinked) entities on social media. Phase I (early July to late October 2016):Â Hints of "something big" involving Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and child trafficking show up on 4chan, the YouTube channels of pseudo-Anonymous groups, and other lesser-known online forums. At... Continue Reading →
The 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission is a good time to review the factoids and conspiracy theories that have been junking up the cultural atmosphere since 1969. The Daily Banter has a list of the top 11 Apollo conspiracy theories, but if you're looking for a classic examination of moonbattery, check out... Continue Reading →
A parade of sad, silly people who thought they could resurrect the dead (and/or themselves) Returning from the dead is a big thing right now. ABC is airing Resurrection, a series about Missourians spontaneously coming back to life (total ripoff of similar to the excellent French miniseries  Les Revenants). A film adaptation of the bestselling... Continue Reading →
Since 1996, a non-governmental organization known as AFESIP (from the French, Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) has been working to rescue and aid young female victims of human trafficking, operating three centres in Cambodia where the young women are housed and educated. The guiding light of this effort is co-founder Somaly Mam, a Cambodian-born... Continue Reading →
Now that the heartbreaking/enraging viral story about a disfigured 3-year-old being turfed from a KFC for "scaring the other customers" has turned out to be a likely sham, let's review some of the other kooky hoaxes and urban myths involving fast food chicken joints... 5. Clones and Chickenblobs/KFC name change Beginning in the late '90s,... Continue Reading →
With the recent passing of British comedian Rik Myall, you might have had nightmarish flashbacks to one of the most astoundingly awful films of recent decades: Drop Dead Fred. Or maybe you had fond flashbacks, because you were one of the people who cherished that movie. But did you know that the movie's title character... Continue Reading →
We all know the first part of the story: Early in the morning on March 8, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, just one hour into its flight, lost radio contact with air traffic controllers. After going silent in the Gulf of Thailand, the plane unexpectedly veered west and flew back across... Continue Reading →
Swallowing The Camel 