Now, what we need is a similar Onionesque site that gives helpful hints for making a fortune by fleecing the feeble-minded credulous set. You know, the same gaggle of wooly-headed folks who do things like buy "The Secret" DVD, worthless dietary supplements, magnetic jewelry, lucky charms that neutralize "deadly" cellphone radiation, and who believe in all kinds of other creative quackery and MLM schemes.

If I had larceny in my heart, I'd immediatly craft a set of gadgets and market them to scientifically and ethically challenged idiots by preying on their fears and superstitions. The local "health fairs" are a great place to do this. It would be a cinch- I can concoct scientific-sounding gobbledegook with the best of them.

Fortunately, I prefer to make an honest living by doing real work.

Although I truly have mixed feelings about crafting laws to protect the gullible from their own stupidity, it could only benefit society to shaming the marketers of new-age, new-wage and "alternative" crapola by giving them the PLA treatment.

Any takers?

P.S. Please don't waste your time and precious bandwidth by excoriating me for being a closed-minded rationalist. I won't care.

There is another subset of people who are sometimes tempted to embrace the loony schemes I mentioned. Those who are poor or desperately ill, or otherwise without hope due to tragic life circumstances. We need laws and more for the benefit of those folks.

While I would gleefully watch some greedy fool get taken in by the false promises of material weatlth offered by "The Secret" etc., I would gladly advocate for the revocation of prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment for anyone low enough to offer false hope to the desperate.

Just to be clear...

"...Where have we heard this before?

So as far as I can tell, the Bush supporters are thoroughly disgusted with all this hatred for their boy shown by those on the left. They are proposing that liberals "lay down their arms" so to speak, and then--maybe--they'll agree to play nice, too."

Yup.

Lucy Van Pelt. Charlie Brown. Football.

Geek that I was, I counted amongst my childhood heroes, Tom Lehrer, who penned this beauty:

(For the uninitiated, this is sung in Waltz time, with a schmaltzy "silent-movie" style piano accompaniment)

--------------

_When You're Old and Grey_

Since I still appreciate you,

Let's find love while we may.

Because I know I'll hate you

When you are old and grey.

So say you love me here and now,

I'll make the most of that.

Say you love and trust me,

For I know you'll disgust me

When you're old and getting fat.

An awful debility,

A lessened utility,

A loss of mobility

Is a strong possibility.

In all probability

I'll lose my virility

And you your fertility

And desirability.

And this liability

Of total sterility

Will lead to hostility

And a sense of futility.

So let's act with agility

While we still have facility,

For we'll soon reach senility

And lose the ability.

Your teeth will start to go, dear,

Your waist will start to spread.

In twenty years or so, dear,

I'll wish that you were dead.

I'll never love you then at all

The way I do today.

So please remember,

When I leave in December,

I told you so in May!

-----------------------------

...And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear

One for every year he's away, she said

Such a crumbling beauty, ah

There's nothing wrong with her that a hundred dollars won't fix

She has that razor sadness that only gets worse

With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by...

(Snipped from "9th and Hennepin" by Tom Waits)

... the Secret Service has finally tired of having to thwart well-meaning marksmen from wanting to shoot that furry little varmint off the top of his head.

"...Either [faux] conservative voters have the memory spans of goldfish..."

Check.

...or there really is no such thing as [faux] conservative "principles".

Double-check.

The time has never been better to neatly compile all of Limbaugh's recent hysterical, foaming screeds against McCain, and should McCain be nominated, trumpet them to the skies, ad nauseum, until November.

The immediate effect, of course, would be to plant some well-deserved doubts about McC, and in the longer term, hopefully- the Goldfish will grow a few more storage neurons, making it impossible to escape the conclusion that the punditry really are a bunch of unprincipled, lying sacks of shit. It would be worth it just to see a few more heads explode from CDO*

*(Cognitive Dissonance Overload)

"What was so great about Reagan?

If you really want to know the answer, contact someone born and raised in a Eastern Bloc country. Someone who's lived long enough to remember th Berlin Wall coming down, and the freedoms they have since enjoyed.

Those kind of people are not democrats or republicans.

Those kind of people are known to tear down statues of their former communist masters, and construct statues of Ronald Reagan."

...but these people don't vote in American elections, so who cares?

... because the GOP Slime machine and the mouthbreathers that eat up their vile produce don't DO "logic and reasoning."

I'm glad you think Airborne works for you, however I'm not impressed by your's or anyone else's anectdotal evidence.

Neither is the FDA, and with good reason.

There is such a thing as well-designed scientific inquiry, which demands the use of long-established methodologies for minimizing bias and error, and going where the evidence leads. It's not a perfect system, but it't the best one we have.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people don't know what Science actually is, what it's for, or how it is supposed to work.