Making a point

"And your total today is $6.66."

"Oh. Don't you think I should buy something else?"

"Uh...If you want."

"You know...666."

"What?"

"I don't like that number."

"Okay. Do you want me to void something off? Add something else?"

"Yes. That's..That's the bad number."

"I guess. If you are gullible and dim-witted."

"WHAT?"

"The total of your order is not six six six. It is six POINT six six. Even if the number you fear wasn't mistranslated from fictional text and actually held some sort of magical power it isn't exactly the same. The decimal makes all the difference. So...Still want to change the total?"

"..."

"I'm sorry?"

"No."

"Okay! And would you like to make a donation to fight prostate cancer today?"

"No, thank you."

"Would you like some carry out service?"

"No."

"Okay! Have a nice day. Thanks for shopping at HayleyMart."

It is bizarre that customers lose their crap, scream, throw things, phone-bombard the corporate office and twitter-rage when a cashier opens up an additional register and they were not first in line but not when they are put in a position to shift a personal paradigm. Maybe it is the thinking that makes all the difference.

GD HTT HRM TSK PTHHFT ACK

Recently a comic book shop proprietor made a bit of a kerfuffle in the claim that DC Comics was blasphemous in depicting Superman, who was hit in the back with a bursting tank shell, taking a deity's name in vain. Hilariously, the guy declared he was boycotting the DC Comics title.

In reading the new Action Comics #1, I myself didn't take the "GD" uttered by Superman as blasphemous. Firstly, something is blasphemous only if you are negatively invoking something that exists. Since magic doesn't exist, Grant Morrison and DC Comics were not doing anything in vain except for rebooting the DCU. Dramatically, it was most obviously a grunt. Admittedly, Superman often swore in comic books in a trend going back decades. In nearly every appearance he can be read taking the name of his personal lord and savior in vain whenever he expressed a "Merciful Rao" when surprised or injured. I notice that no one ever seemed to have a problem with it. Not too many Sun God followers out there read comic books, I guess.

Most ridiculous is a person who sells and presumably reads comic books getting all huffy about a supposed negative biblical reference. Comic books are nothing if not the kind of fantasy material typically frowned upon by the devout. Comics are full of examples of naughty ideas god-botherers hate such as magic, science, civil rights, witches, demons, talking animals, people that fly and false idols. It's like a pornographer being offended by genitalia.

Indeed, the big cross-over event from Marvel of the last several months is a story of the Creator returning to Earth during the end times. Spoiler: It isn't Jesus and his dad who shows up. Did this comic book guy previously voice any problem with the heresy of an entire line of books featuring an Asgardian pantheon? Probably not but all things being equal, he should have. Focusing on Action Comics #1 while ignoring all the other examples of "blasphemy" seems hypocritical and smells of a publicity stunt. But ranting online about Marvel being heretical likely would have resulted in a forum ban and not being taken seriously enough to have the local news drive up to the store with a camera.

But personal affronts aside Free Speech is allowed in this country. Along with saying what you ant in various formats one is also free not to pay any attention to it. Even if DC intended to blaspheme, then so what? It is fiction. It is also a word (among others) almost anyone would say if hit hard in the back. It isn't like they included a racial slur or anything. For instance what would a real person say if slammed hard enough from behind to break the skin? I'm willing to show anyone who cares to find out. FYI, clicking on this NSFW Superman link is not compulsory. If easily offended, don't click. If stupid, have someone else stop you from clicking. You are free to ignore it: Reaction #1 (Sept 2011).

But where the Action Comics #1 panel was a non-event there is something far more upsetting in many other DC Comic titles lately. If there is anything in comic books to circle the wagons for then it is the threat to modern civilization contained within this panel depicting Batman:

HRM is clearly a DC Comics typesetting contraction for Human Resources Management. Take it from one who has been there, HRM is one of the leading causes of corporate economic failure in our times. If businesses fail then so does America and then the world. HRM embodies a decay beyond the spiritual and including the term in comic books must be some kind of evil agenda to poison the minds of children and 50 year old men.

HRM positions are typically staffed by those who have nowhere to go, are on their way down and are too stupid to sign up for Welfare. HR Managers often hire the wrong people and the best employees are usually terminated from a company without cause. Outrageous policies are implemented like Health Care plans being offered to part time employees. Casual Fridays are stilled called Casual Fridays but business attire is mandatory, no jeans allowed. I don't know why HRM is being promoted by the boys upstairs at DC Comics but it shows up in just about every title featuring Batman. "Business Blasphemy" is rampant at that company, much like how anti-christian themes are prevalent at Marvel. It seems counter-productive. Probably involved is a similar inverted thinking where religious fundamentalists exclusively recruit the crazy to publicize their cause. Kind of a two steps forwards, two steps back kind of approach to proselytizing.

Who knows what ultimate goal DC has in mind for their staffing requirements? But their anti-employee agenda goes against all intuitive processes in effectively training newly hired personnel. All I know is until DC reverses their position on Human Resources Management and apologizes I'm boycotting all the New 52 titles featuring members of the Bat Family.

A lean and athirst housing market

Imagine living in a world where magic exists. What if the supernatural was real?

Our world would be a shambles. It is doubtful civilization would exist. Assuming a civilization could be built against all the interference of hostile entities hours of daily life would be extraordinarily consumed with the trappings of protection against evil forces. All the praying and hexing would barely leave time to eat a meal, much less forage for and prepare it.

Proof of life after death, angels and demons would be as obvious and physically evident as the sun. If those entities existed, eternal war would be the result with humans as pawns or casualties. Millions of people would be taken, killed or possessed by entities hostile to all that was good, shambling through the streets like extras in a George Romero film. Only the insane would act in a manner they know for a certainty would cause torment in limbo or fire as the proof of it would be in front of their eyes everyday and night without misinterpretation. But would the mentally ill or any disease even exist? In a world of magic they would be healed through faith and the laying on of hands or potions the moment symptoms manifested.

Physics as we know it now would be radically different than it is. No mysteries would remain as sensitives prove that they can cast their minds through time and space seeking answers and bringing back irrefutable evidence of the way the universe works. Their talents would not be negated, hindered or defeated by cameras, the nearby presence of unbelievers and double-blind tests. If any of the Woo was real it would not be hidden, it would obvious, verifiable and most of all reproducible. Like science is.

SCIENCE vs. SUPERSTITION

SCIENCE WINS

I, The Quitter

The roar of the custom tour bus shook the parking lot. Conservatives staggered to the left. Sarah's eyes were a symphony of incredulity, an unbelieving witness to truth and reality. Quickly, she checked the beautiful swelling of her personal portfolio account where the money went in.

"How could you?" The Tea Party gasped.

Sarah had only a moment before talking to a corpse of a Presidential campaign, but she got it in.

"It was easy," Sarah said.

God Oil Good For You says God Oil Council

The media is reporting only a few people have done unfortunate things fearing the end of the world but even three would be too many. There may be scores of people who inflicted damage to themselves and others that we know nothing about. It is unfortunate that the mentally ill in particular suffer, and what other way would you describe them, when fear is fostered by every grifter with an internet connection.

PZ Meyers passes on the news that one woman attempted to kill herself and her children, a man committed suicide and another person gave away all their money anticipating the Rapture. NONE of which makes sense even in their strange world view. In accordance to their own wacky rules the mother and the man in Nairobi could have just repented and been saved and the children were innocents so no problem, they would have been removed from the world by a higher power. Their actions display not only illness but a profound lack of faith in their own system.

And why give away money to strangers when you would just leave it all behind for sinful looters anyways? It isn't like the cash you left behind would be used for good purpose in any case. Even if you left it with someone you trust to do good deeds with it, they are going to be left behind and since being irredeemably sinful, they would divert the funds to their own purposes once you were gone.



As of 10 am pacific time the Harold Camping website has not been updated to reflect the world not ending. I am curious as to what form the next installment of the message will take. Undoubtedly the news from all the various God oil salesmen will be full of squirming, convoluted weasel words to explain why God's plan is unknowable and the Rapture did not occur because Jesus is still holding out for a percentage of those WWJD bracelets and send more money or you will face damnation. Who knows? Since Harold is hiding from the faithful and mocking alike it might be a while before we get an update.

You know what? Right now I'm asking Harold to do some good in the world. Shutter your 120 million dollar radio empire, liquidate everything and donate the funds to some charities that actually accomplish something positive and not do something stupid and wasteful like build more prayer buildings or programs that teach abstinence. There are a lot of organizations out there that will actually make people's lives better and make the planet a nicer place to live. All those bucks could really do a lot of great things if sent to the right places. Let good things and not bad jokes be your legacy, Harold.

THE RATURE!

You know, this just means that the only rodents left behind are irredeemably evil!

IZ BEGGIN U

ONE DAY LEFT UNTIL...

THE RATURE!

Are You Rature Ready?

RATPENT, SINNERS!

The Rature is Coming

21 May 2011
Are you ready?

Have a Happy Iron Age Cult of Suffering Day!

Gone too soon and never was

Almost bought this until when leafing through it at the check stand I noticed that fictional people were included.

And the room exploded with applause

"...And herewith introduce to this body for consideration to render into law Bill H5150, in which any person found to be using homeopathic remedies will be considered a danger to themselves and others and be remanded for psychiatric counseling and physical health maintenance by an accredited medical practitioner until such time as they are no longer deemed a threat to their own person, or in the case of communicable illness or mental impairment of judgment or behavior, to the public."

Not real but I can dream. Of course, if anything as awesome as dropping the hammer on the billions of dollars a year fake medicine industry ever really occurred Faux News would start shrieking that the Obama administration was trying to outlaw the drinking of water.

How To Read Tea Leaves

It is refreshing to see an Archie Comics feature even as old as this one actively discouraging superstitious belief and practices even though they go about it by insulting the reader in a self-aware "We're So Stupid We're Cool" sort of way. This short (probably drawn by Ernie Colon) predates the long period when the Archie cast was used as an arm of the similarly faux-magical Cult of Suffering propaganda division.

From Archie's Mad House #10 (February 1961).

My Left Foot

On the side of the store that caters to males a shoe is advertised that protects the wearer from wear and tear of exercise while simultaneously allowing the user to benefit from the activity. The shoe differentiates all the harmful activity from the beneficial through some sort of I don't know, shoe magic, I guess.

Meanwhile, the other side of the same store caters specifically to women. On the flip side a shoe is for sale which reportedly does nothing other than mercilessly work the muscles of the lower extremities in order to tone the legs and backside.

The ad for the men's shoe emphasizes protection and the one for women focuses on the wearer being made more attractive at the expense of safety. Are women expected to suffer more for the desired results? This leads me to question the conventional wisdom that women are the more careful and wiser shoppers. Advertising is remarkably complex and nuanced on levels many consumers never consciously detect. Do women shop for their shoes mostly alone and accompany the men? Then the difference in the execution of the advertising makes more sense. Making safety a priority for the men's shoes would indicate the woman in the relationship would have some say in the purchasing decision as she would not want her man out of work recovering from a playground injury.

Then again, it could be that this ad reveals a situation where the right foot doesn't know what the left foot is doing.

Happy Easter

See what you get when you trust somebody who purports to speak for the Universe? Decades and decades of lies and corruption through every level of the church hierarchy because those in charge are just thieving, grifting users of gullible or desperate people.

I can't help but think that the ROBOT POPE would rather delete its hard drive than overwrite the truth about child-molesting members of the church.

Yeah, "Happy Easter".

Reason for the season? Gimme bunnies, ducks and chocolate.

Uber Chicle FAQ

A bunch of people were very interested in my original posting of the price list for UBER CHICLE, the miraculous neoprene that cures all bodily and spiritual ills by harnessing the awesome power of gobbledygook. In the previous post UBER CHICLE, I point out that the sellers of the magic rubber inexplicably admit that their product is made from wetsuit material.

Skeptical readers found this difficult to believe. Surely not even the most foolish snake oil representative would admit their product was a useless scam for fear of the intelligent consumer investigating their claims and shying away from their product, thereby harming sales. It seems to be an odd mixture of confession and grifting. Perhaps it is a preemptive admission so as to explain against the inevitable questions of how Uber Chicle neoprene differs from the standard wet suit neoprene. As example, production artifacts such as glue and thread common to both Uber Chicle and a wet suit. Well, very few people ever lost money underestimating the gullibility of others.

Posted here is the proof of Uber Chicle's origin from the actual website of the manufacturer. As before, I changed the name of the product to prevent anyone from using this site as a resource for actually looking the junk up and buying it (a public service really, much in the same spirit as not giving a toddler a loaded gun because something stupid and tragic will inevitably occur).

Grammatical awkwardness from the translation to English aside, the FAQ is full of the usual nonsensical pseudo-science word salad common to quack medicine of this sort designed solely to separate the foolish and desperate from their money.

Again I implore anyone reading this: If you are sick, please seek real medical help. Relying on quack science can be a matter of life and death for some people.

UBER CHICLE

In the post Bibimbap is the shizznit a while back I posted about the unfortunate practice of 'affinity scams', where a member (or pretends to be) of an ethnic, religious or professional group takes advantage of perceived and expected trusts to defraud a member of the same group.

On a recent visit to one of the local Asian markets in San Diego I picked up one of the fliers for a particularly heinous scam that targets the Asian community using the social and cultural pressures inherent to an affinity scam. In this post is a real advertisement for a ridiculously expensive miracle rubber that the seller claims will cure whatever ails you. I changed the name of the product, the logos and removed the inventory numbers because I don't want some poor fool looking this quack garbage up and buying it through any leads I might provide.

"Uber Chicle" (as I call it) is basically the rubber of the kind you would find in any wetsuit. In fact, the seller even admits that a wetsuit manufacturer supplies their materials. From the samples I've seen the rubber is clearly mass-produced and bears the typical quality control issues one would find in long sheets of this material such as smeared cement on the edges, seams and frayed threads. While I find the rubber indistinguishable in any way from similar wetsuit material stock the seller claims the Uber Chicle is special in some way. The advertising materials make the usual unsubstantiated nonsense text-salad claims that the special rubber (made from rocks) enriches human cells and recycles the magnetic waves the human body emits (mostly in the infra-red range) all to enable the body to retain the natural biological rhythm. Whatever that means.

This is an example of a woo-woo claim that is clearly immoral if not criminal. These pieces of rubber are sold at high prices using questionable claims of efficacy and healing powers or functions that are nothing short of magical. I worry that people with real illnesses are spending money on this junk believing and hoping it will help cure them of their afflictions. This is a very real concern as sales tactics vary depending on the customer. I have experienced this first-hand. Sales reps will variously ignore, treat with hostility or suspicion or deflect any inquiries I have based on what I presume is my race and a few other factors. Without missing a beat the very same salesperson will pounce upon my wife with spiels about miracle cures and awesome magical properties of whatever device is being sold. Often, it happens while I am standing right beside her.

Keep in mind that the average price for neoprene sheeting is about $25 dollars a yard. There is no shortage of the gullible and desperate. If I was evil, I'd be rich.

Click the picture to mark up 1000%

Sadly, it is very difficult to shut predatory scams of this nature down. This a little fish kind of problem in a very big pond and often the most that would happen is that false advertising charges would be levied, a small fine would be paid and business as usual would continue even if under a different name. Caveat Emptor rules the marketplace. Administrations that should protect consumers often look the other way or are toothless in the face of huge profits and influential dollars flowing into political coffers. The few victims that realize they are scammed are reluctant to file complaints or eagerly go on to the next quack-cure convinced that the next one or the next or the next will work as promised. Attempts by private individuals and Governments to educate the public is a slow process and feels despairingly futile sometimes. Unfortunately for every rational warning there are 500 attention-whoring celebrities praising the magic healing power of a pill, book or magnetic shoe insert.

The fact is, if any of this crap worked as advertised the world if not our marketplace would not be recognizable as it is now. This special knowledge and technology, if it was real, could not be contained or controlled by a select, special or powerful few. As most of the advertising claims the knowledge is everywhere, part of everyone and can be manipulated and touched. It is natural and miraculous and cures all ills. There would be no need for specialists or sales reps as every person on Earth would be at their ultimate potential of health just by common everyday exposure to these natural fantastic elements. Medical science, Doctors and hospitals would exist only so far as to ensure each individual died without pain and with dignity, though a comfortable hospice with a bucket of crystals in each room would conceivably replace the function of the physician in regards to the transitioning soul also. Keeping what is claimed to be so reportedly fundamental out of the hands of the average layman would be like trying to control the secret of making fire 10,000 years after the first bonfire was built and used to cook Mammoth steaks.

Please. If you are sick, visit a Doctor. A real one.

Take it home, Glen

As expected, I lost several subscribers in the hours after I posted my little opinion of Pat Robertson and his twisted, sick, hate-filled, bigoted and insane Cult of Suffering yesterday. I have no real idea who routinely drops in or when they stop doing so beyond the limited amount of tracking I do for the site, but I usually lose a number of the registered 'Followers' whenever I stray too far from the subject of comic books.

So?

When The Magic Goes Away

In the race to say something stupid about the disaster in Haiti it is Pat Robertson who is once again the clear winner, taking the gold medal. Almost as bad as Pat is his cohort in crime, that woman who sits on the couch next to him on the telecasts and who nods in sage acknowledgment to every insane and ridiculous statement this guy spews. I know it is her job, if not her actual calling, to play hostess but there should be a limit to what a person can stand.

I really can not think of any situation that is made better by adding in religion. It does nothing but allow self-limiting behavior that crushes human potential and deflects responsibility for both the good or ill that people do.

I'd like to think that organized religion is in it's death-throes and that all the attention and exposure is the reflexive actions of a twitching corpse before it finally dies. That is likely hopeful thinking on my part. What I hope is the last gasp of an irrelevant dying giant is probably been going on in some form for thousands of years, much the same as the Woo-Woos seeing signs of the Apocalypse occurring at any moment.

It would be so great though if Pat and the entire disgusting Cult of Suffering he is a part of was rendered irrelevant. Maybe another couple of decades will see some progress. I'd like to think my grandchild will live in a world where superstition is relegated to the fantasy of e-books and the cinema and not serve as an actual human impetus.

Think of how great the world would be if religion was looked back on as being as equally real as the cartoon adventures of Scooby-Doo.

NSFIQ Video (Not Safe For IQ)

Oooh, Burn!

Certainly demonstrating something