Zombies Wars!

Part IV, A NEW HOPE 

It is a period of civil war. 

It is the Election Season of '12.

Zombie lovers, striking from hidden ballots, have won their first victory 

against the evil Living Empire. 

During the election, zombie spies managed to infect dead politicians,

 getting them elected by a pathetically unaware general public.

Now pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, 

Earl Wood and Charles Beasley races home 

aboard two decked out RVs, 

custodians of the zombie political hope,

the only thing that can save their people 

and restore freedom to the dead….

This is a dark time for the rebellion.

Although the zombies won local elections in Florida and Alabama,

Living troops still pursue zombies through swamps and forests.

A third member of the Zombie Party rose up during the elections,

Charles Darwin, the scientist behind the Theory of Evolution.

He won more than 4,000 votes in a Georgia federal contest.

but Darwin lost to Representative Paul Broun.

Can the Zombie recover and get elected to the Federal government in 2014?

Or will the Living Empire crush the Zombie Rebellion forever?

For the real stories, read how Darwin did win votes in Georgia and how a couple of stiffs beat out the competition.

Freaky Friday News: October 12, 2012

An artistic rendition of 55 Cancri e, the Diamond Planet
Credit:  Haven Giguere 

Hello!  Welcome to today's edition of the freaky news of the week.

• First up, it's a story about a man and his car.  In December 2010, a 31-year-old man in southern Germany went out drinking for the night.  When he woke up in the morning, his car was gone.  He searched and he searched, then he reported the loss to the local police.  Fast forward to this week, and vióla!  The police find the car, parked about 4 km (or about 2.5 miles) from where the man thought he left it.  
• Moving on to space, SpaceX's Dragon capsule flew up to and docked with the International Space Station successfully this week.  So begins the next chapter of our journey into space.
• Also in space, scientists think Voyager I traversed the heliopause, the boundary between our heliosphere and the rest of the universe, earlier this year and is now the first man-made object outside our entire solar system.  As a Star Trek fan, I wonder if this is the first step towards the making of V-ger.  

  

  Artistic drawing of what happened with Voyager I.
  Credit:  NASA/JPL-Caltech

• My last bit of space news is rather expensive.  Scientists think they found a planet that's twice as big as earth and has approximately 8 times the mass, with a third of the planet being composed of diamond (see the picture at the top of the post).



Credit: www.FreeClipArtNow.com

• In health news, the November issue of Consumer Reports contains an investigation into arsenic and rice products.  Sadly, there is measurable amounts of inorganic and organic arsenic in a variety of rice products, from rice baby food to instant rice to rice cereals (such as Rice Krispies and Rice Chex).  Currently, the FDA neither measures nor limits arsenic in foods, though three members of Congress have stated their intentions of changing this.  Regardless, I strongly urge you to read this article and check out your kitchen.  (In January, Consumer Reports found arsenic in grape and apple juices - you can find that report here.)  
• A women in Minnesota lobbed the first lob in what is certain to be the legal blitz over the contaminated injections of pain medication.  I cringe over this lawsuit, because I wonder if it is truly necessary.  If the pharmaceutical company that created and sent out the shots steps up and pays for everyone's medical bills and compensates people for lost wages (if necessary - some companies already pay people sick leave), then why sue them?  The woman who filed the lawsuit doesn't even know if she is contaminated; she is suing them preemptively. Ugh.
• This story does have a funny tangent.  Governor Scott of Florida accidentally gave out a phone number to a sex hotline when attempting to give out a number for people to call for more information about meningitis. 
• Apple got its hand caught in the metaphorical cookie jar.  Instead of designing a new interface for the clock in iO6, they stole the design of the Swiss Federal Railways station clock, a national icon in Switzerland.  For people who doubt this statement, I've included a picture of the Apple clock and the Swiss clock so you can make your own comparisons.

  

  Apple iO6 Clock vs Swiss Railways station clock

  By the way, I find this amusing and infuriating because Apple sued Samsung because Samsung's cell phones have rounded corners. Simultaneously, Apple goes out and steals a design that's been patented since 1944. Talk about hypocrisy.
• My last story contains a nominee for the Darwin Awards.  A 32-year-old man in Florida, Eddie, won a bug eating contest, then promptly passed out and died.  No one knows why, since the other contestants are okay.  What do you think?  Darwin award nominee or simple tragic accident?         

Wordless Wednesday - Statue of LIberty

The Statue of Liberty made out of Legos, from Legoland, in Florida

The Greater Evil Behind Trayvon Martin's Death

Raise your hand if you have ever watched a B-grade movie where the villain turns out to be a pawn.  At the very end of the movie, sometimes even after the credits roll, a silhouette of a man appears, sometimes smoking a cigar, remarking that the loss of the villain is only a minor setback; the plan still thrives and continues.

That's how I feel about the shooting of Trayvon Martin.  George Zimmerman is the movie villain, but he is in the end the lesser evil of the situation.  The Greater Evil is more ominous, more hideous, hiding behind shadows, using talking heads to disseminate diversions to the public in order to cover up its true nature.  And the Greater Evil is working overtime at the moment.

First, it tried to use the Stand Your Ground law to exonerate Zimmerman, but public outcry at the fact that Zimmerman instigated any confrontation soon made that untenable.  Then it tried to use self-defense, but again that particular tactic does not seem to have a mollifying effect.  So it switched to attacking Trayvon Martin, spreading rumors about his supposed marijuana use at school and even blaming the incident on his hoodie.

The Greater Evil produces fear mongering, sowing new crops of terror at every turn, until the mere present of a young, black man spooks an older man into calling 911 and acting as a vigilante.  For that matter, the Greater Evil produces the atmosphere where a vigilante feels justified in his actions.  Property and material goods suddenly carry more worth to the general public than a human life.  Requests for personal liberty slam into accusations of "If you don't have anything to hide, why do you care?"   And if you even think too loudly about protesting or happen to be near a protest (regardless of your involvement), police show up at your proverbial door and try to intimidate you into silence.

Sadly, the fate of George Zimmerman means nothing in the end if we do not work against this Greater Evil.  Worse, Trayvon Martin's death will be in vain.  But what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to do to stop this infection in our society from claiming another innocent life?

Wordless Wednesday - Legoland Knight

Knight in Legoland, FL

Wordless Wednesday - Sea World Show

Shamu - The Great Orca Slave Whale?!??

A few weeks ago, PETA sued Sea World claimed that the killer whales were "slaves" under our Bill of Rights.  While I fully believe in the ethical treatment of animals, PETA is their own worst enemy when they do stunts like this.