Martin World News

And now another round of the idiocy of mankind- NOT including idiots like those that think blocking cars on the road is an appropriate form of protest, or those (like Party Of Scrooge) that think that anyone who dares disagree with them are "Brainwashed by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh".  Those are the idiots I wish I didn't have to share a world with.  Must be nice to have a Tardis...

Om the other hand, there are those that are "intellectually inept" instead of purposefully dipshitical (another new English word courtesy Bum Steer productions), and it is those that we salute herein.

ITEM:  Let's start out with Sickweather.com, a social media medical tracking service, have come up with a list of this year's sickest states.  Now I might be inclined to say, "Well, it HAS to start with California," but we are talking medically, so let's see who comes out on top.

10- Nebraska
9- Massachusetts
8- Oklahoma
7- Indiana, yes, Indiana! With our weather, who can blame us?

6- Oregon
5- West Virginia
4- Texas
3- Kentucky
2- Nevada
And #1- It looks like we're in Kansas!

Idaho, BTW, was the healthiest state; but I have to call into question the data when #2 is New York.


ITEM:  Next up, I have what may actually pass as one of the stupidities I didn't want to feature, but the example provided... well, just see what I mean:


A passenger was tossed off a plane at La Guardia Airport on Tuesday after flipping out — because airline workers wished him a merry Christmas. The man was waiting to board American Airlines Flight 1140 to Dallas when a cheerful gate agent began welcoming everyone with the Yuletide greeting while checking boarding passes.

The grumpy passenger, who appeared to be traveling alone, barked at the woman, “You shouldn’t say that because not everyone celebrates Christmas.”

The agent replied, "Well, what should I say then?"

"Don't say, 'Merry Christmas!'" the man shouted before brushing past her.

Once on the plane, he was warmly greeted by a flight attendant who also wished him a “merry Christmas.” That was the last straw.

"Don't say, 'Merry Christmas!'" the man raged before lecturing the attendants and the pilot about their faux pas. He was eventually led of the plane to a round of applause from passengers. (From our brainwashing friends at Fox News)


I was just telling an Aussie friend who mentioned she said Happy Holidays out of respect for all the disparate religious celebrations happening this time of year, that over here you cannot use happy holidays in respect because Christians will call you an atheist, and atheists will smirk at any nearby Christians.  But to get thrown off a plane, eat a $200+ ticket, just because you don't want to hear, "Merry Christmas?"  Well, that's the kind of stupidity that makes that Tardis key in my pocket start to itchin'...


ITEM:  And some of these idiots are so stupid they actually back all the way around into being right... almost:


Egypt has banned the Hollywood biblical epic movie Exodus: Gods and Kings citing historical inaccuracies, a day after Morocco made a similar decision.  The film, starring Christian Bale as Moses and Australia's Joel Edgerton as Ramses, shares a story about how Moses helped Israelite slaves flee persecution in Egypt under the Pharaoh Ramses by parting the Red Sea to let them cross safely.  Egyptian culture minister Gaber Asfour said Ridley Scott's blockbuster was rife with mistakes, including an apparent claim that "Moses and the Jews built the pyramids".

"This totally contradicts proven historical facts," Mr Asfour said. "It is a Zionist film.  It gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies and that's why we have decided to ban it."


I wonder if the atheists who created the film (to show how it could all have happened by coincidence) or Christian "Moses was a barbarian" Bale knew they were closet Zionists?

ITEM:  And they are not the only "non-Americans" to not exactly think "the American Way"... North Korea, who are p.o.ed because we hacked their computers for hacking OUR computers, had this to say about President Obama:


The communist regime said the US president was behind the release of the film and described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.

‘Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest,’ an unidentified spokesman at the commission’s Policy Department said in a statement carried by the country’s state news service, Korean Central News Agency.

In May, the news agency published a dispatch saying Obama had the ‘shape of a monkey.’

I wonder what it is that Dennis Rodman sees in those whacky guys...


ITEM:  More Obama fun comes from Malaysia, where tragedy has given the Malays the same opinion of Obama that we have...

A huge flood has hit most of the nation, with over 120,000 left homeless.  And the people are mad.  Why?


Malaysians have vented their anger at Prime Minister Najib Razak after photos went viral on social media showing him playing golf with US President Barack Obama during the storms.

"Yep,always do this during emergencies.  Helps to keep me calm while Valerie Jarrett plans my response..."

ITEM:  Next we go into the shadowy realm of... science!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First, fire prevention 102, or guess what's the next thing to get a do not do this at home label:

(NEWSER) – A fire broke out at a store in England on Christmas Day, and the cause is about as Christmas-y as it gets. As a Dorset fire service spokesperson explains, "The cause of the fire was believed to be sun refracting through a snow globe in the shop window which then ignited 'reindeer food' and fake snow material in their window display." 


So what is it they feed reindeers in England- and why is it so flammable?


Second, let's see how intellectual and noble Neil DeGrasse Tyson's being now:

Neil deGrasse Tyson        ✔ @neiltyson

Follow

On this day long ago, a child was born who, by age 30, would transform the world. Happy Birthday Isaac Newton b. Dec 25, 1642

10:38 AM - 25 Dec 2014

Later, Tyson shit down his leg did a partial retraction on Facebook, claiming he didn't see why Christians would be upset.  "  If a person actually wanted to express anti-Christian sentiment, my guess is that alerting people of Isaac Newton's birthday would appear nowhere on the list," he said, then spent about a dozen lines congratulating himself on how much his faith-baiting increased his number of retweets.  Now there's solid science!  My theory:  Subject gravitates towards atheism because it allows him to conceive himself the smartest being in the universe.

"My theme song?  I'm Gonna Make You Love Me..."

Finally, Dean Burnett of The Guardian did a column on the most dubious science stories of the year.  Frankly, I thought that article on the biggest stories in science I did last week might have covered that, but Dean finds some other good ones, too.  Included in these are:


-The U. of Portsmouth's Research Group in Breast Health released a study that shows that "large breasts are a barrier to exercise."  I'm guessing that depends on whether you are an exerciser with large breasts or the observer of an exerciser with large breasts.  Either way, it would seem to me another example of "let's study common sense".


- In physics, you have the story he calls, "the effects of high-pressure blasts on posturing politicians":

There is presently an ongoing political row in the UK over Boris Johnson, London Mayor, purchasing 3 crowd-control water cannons, despite parliament not having approved their use. This has developed into an ongoing controversy, with many people objecting to the use of water cannons on the public. Granted, police in Northern Ireland have been able to use water cannons for many years, but now that they could appear in London it’s a proper scandal.

As part of the ongoing row, Boris Johnson has now publicly agreed to be hit by a water cannon, to “prove the wisdom” of their purchase. This is a bold move, especially as Boris Johnson doesn’t have a great track record for making wise decisions. 


Apparently Johnson agreed to the experiment in June, but I have found no evidence that he has taken the field to prove it as yet.

- In technology, he cited the backlash caused from inserting a program people don't want (say, the new U2 lp) into a piece of new hardware (say, anything you download iTunes 2 onto).

-In sociology, we learned that there is yet another oppressed minority:

Venture capitalist David Harding has recently donated £5m to the Science Museum for a maths gallery. This is a very cool thing to do, so hats off to him.  He also said that using the terms “nerd” or “geek” to describe people is the same as using the worst of racial slurs. His actual quote is “I feel these words are as insulting as nigger.” This, many would probably argue, is not such a cool thing to do, so hats remain on this time.


- And in the most hopeful medical news I've heard all year, a study by the U. of Exeter suggests, that farts can help stop cancer and cure many other diseases:


Scientists from the University of Exeter say that a compound found in the smell of rotten eggs and human flatulence might some day be useful in mitigating the cell damage responsible in part for certain diseases.

The study, published in a recent issue of the journal Medicinal Chemistry Communications, examined the impact of hydrogen sulfide gas—which humans produce in small amounts during digestion—on cells’ mitochondria. Although the gas is noxious in large doses, scientists found that cellular exposure to smaller amounts of the compound may prevent mitochondrial damage. This could have future implications in the prevention of strokes, arthritis, heart disease, among other things, the researchers say.


Whether the masses will take this to heart is up for debate:

Of course, for many in the media, “hydrogen sulphide delivery helps prevent disease damage in cells in certain disease models” will always be trumped by “farts cure cancer” when it comes to headlines. But, for once, it turned out that the wild extrapolations were true, and smelling farts really did cure major illnesses. And as one might expect, the consequences of this were sudden, unpleasant, and lingered for a long time afterwards.

Firstly, a lot of the underlying science had to be re-written. It was widely believed that inhalation of high concentrations of hydrogen sulphide was very harmful to health, not beneficial. It was also believed that smelling a fart merely meant the component gases entered the lungs and were largely just exhaled again, not absorbed efficiently and delivered to diseased cells.

Many scientists also wondered why this phenomenon hadn’t been observed before now, considering that the average person is supposedly farts about 14 times per day but there have always been plenty of sick people around despite constant exposure to these human emissions. The obvious counter to this argument is that, without the healing properties of flatulence, sickness rates could be much higher than they are. On top of this, studies revealed that people rarely break wind around the terminally ill, due to awkwardness and fear of saying something insensitive resulting in increased “clenching” of the relevant sphincters.


I hereby volunteer to get me the most fart-producing substance I know- a can of pink salmon- the next time Laurie gets sick.  Who needs chicken soup?

-In psychology, we have one of those claims that I can't believe Al Sharpton hasn't jumped on:

"...the award for best psychology story of 2014 has to go to Ukip (the UK Independent Party), for their (weirdly persistent) claims that tiredness causes racism, whether it be natural tiredness or chemically induced. This tiredness = racism link is a completely unexplored one, opening up new realms of prejudice studies for the field of psychology."


- And in nature, he again turns to the UKIP for fodder, this time in the form of disgraced  former UKIP MP David Silvester claiming it was the recent legalization of same sex marriage that caused recent floods in Great Britain.  Our host says, wait a minute (tongue in cheekly), that's not as ridiculous as it sounds...

Logically, same-sex marriage leads to an increase in the number of weddings. Weddings invariably involve a large number of people congregating in one place, which leads to a lot of body heat and warming, and this heat enters the atmosphere, increasing the air temperature and producing more warm fronts. People also cry a lot at weddings. This is likely to be even more pronounced at same-sex weddings, with the added element of recently achieved equality making the events even more poignant. Tears are basically water, which quickly evaporate, thus adding to the water content of the atmosphere. Weddings also typically involve a lot of alcohol, which makes people colder, meaning they’re more likely to turn on heating systems when they arrive home, releasing more heat and CO2 into the atmosphere.



I'll have to remember that one on April Fool's day.