The Eternal Gaijin

What is it with the asshats who come up with these policies? Twenty years later they're always sorry they did the thing that everyone else knew wasn't even going to work. Hit & Run > "Legal Age 21 has not worked." Yes, we know. - Reason Magazine "Legal Age 21 has not worked." Of course, any 20-year-old could, and probably would, tell you that. But the quote in question was written by Dr. Morris Chafet, a psychiatrist who served on the presidential committee that pushed to have the legal drinking age raised to 21. That push paid off on July 17, 1984, when President Ronald Reagan signed the new drinking age into law.

Beware the spinal trap This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. Click here for the latest news about the case from Sense About Science or view their Twitter updates here. Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh. You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body. In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally s...

Bloggers around the world are reprinting Simon Singh’s artical critical of the BCA . Support you local Simon Singh.

I like the fact that the Guardian just thinks this shit is crazy. In this Republican dystopia, Obama's not even a citizen | Michael Tomasky | Comment is free | The Guardian Last Friday, Orrin Hatch, the veteran Republican senator from Utah, announced that he would vote against the confirmation to our supreme court of judge Sonia Sotomayor. Hatch is a devout conservative, and Sotomayor seems pretty liberal, so on the face of it, you might say, so what? Here's what. ... Hatch's decision reflects the degree to which, during the Obama era, American conservatism – already fiercely ideological and obstructionist, operating according to sets of "facts" produced and paid for by oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers and other corporate interests – has contrived to go completely barmy. Birthers embarrass the Republicans | Thomas Noyes | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Not all terror threats are created equal. This we know from the right wing whack-a-doodle blow up some months back about Bush-era created, Obama-era published report on right wing extremist groups. We know this from the easy time the media have given the re-born militia movement in the States. And we know this from the actual use of terror laws in the UK, where the more Caucasian, and thus more acceptable, face of terrorism is handled with kid gloves and reduced charges. Our double standards on terrorism | Mehdi Hasan | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk The Guardian's Slow Torture series rightly highlights the government's powers to impose a wide array of illiberal and often draconian restrictions on Muslim terror suspects, without a proper trial and often on the basis of secret evidence. In contrast however, there is a growing group of terrorists who are treated with kid gloves by the British state and by the media – white terrorists of the far-right, neo-Nazi variety.

Commissioner who refused to marry same-sex couple loses appeal And well he fucking should. Now do your job or find another fucking one...

CTV Ottawa- CTV Ottawa legend Les Lye passes away - CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television Actor and broadcaster Les Lye passed away on Tuesday at the age of 84. Born in Toronto, Lye came to Ottawa after graduating from Lorne Greene's Academy of Radio Arts in 1948. He joined CFRA Radio, where he served listeners for more than a decade. It was at CFRA, that he worked with Rich Little and they collaborated on a comedy album, 'My Fellow Canadians' - a spoof of the Diefenbaker years.

toothpastefordinner.com

Hit & Run > Congressman Says 'Super-Marijuana' Gives You the Munchies for Brains - Reason Magazine

Really, does it come as a surprise that the police might not 'properly' use the extensive, pervasive, intrusive CCTV systems in the UK? BBC NEWS | UK | Police 'not using CCTV properly' The police are failing to use CCTV to catch as many criminals as they could, a senior officer has told the BBC Just for a perspective, here's a link telling you about CCTV density. CCTV density-maps of the UK - Boing Boing

Even mathematicians run scared of our libel laws now | Nick Cohen | Comment is free | The Observer "Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it," said John Stuart Mill. But the average British judge does not believe that free debate in the marketplace of the mind will expose "wrong opinions and practices". He believes they must be suppressed because he retains the fear of the old European aristocracy that the masses cannot see through dangerous ideas and bad arguments. To speak plainly, if I may, the judiciary has an elite suspicion of democracy and the price of its elitism is becoming too high for this impoverished country to bear.

Kent Police clamp down on tall photographers • The Register Kent Police set a new legal precedent last week, as they arrested a photographer on the unusual grounds of "being too tall". What is making this ridiculous in the extreme is the fact that there's never a suspicious action or any other form of reasonable cause. Worse yet, the police overstep the very guidelines that keep getting quoted when the apologies come. Related articles by Zemanta: Amateur UK photographer arrested for "prevention of terrorism"

Birther follow-up at Canadian Cynic .

They've found a good formula -- Fucktard + lawyer = Bullshit notoriety. Soldier: Obama not U.S. born, can't send me to Afghanistan - Politics AP - MiamiHerald.com

If you haven’t heard of the recent child abuse reports in Ireland, hit the Googles. We’ll wait. Pretty fucked up, eh? It’s a mess. On the other side, it seems that there is a forming backlash against the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland. Part of this backlash is a movement to leave the church . It seems that this is belied a bit by the recent passing of the Blasphemy Law in Ireland. We can take it as read that this is a massive step backward from freedom of expression. And all for a victimless crime. The nice thing is that there is a backlash against this as well with commentary and with Irish atheists promising to test the law out. It boggles the mind that there’s even a debate about this sort of crap.

Warning, uses the word horseshit a lot.

Ah, the tanuki , that strange little creature you see on shelves, in gardens and standing on their own balls outside an izakaya. What are they like ? But more importantly, what can they do with their ballsacks ? A lot, apparently.

Okay, I swear a lot. Which is why I'm glad to see this headline in the Independent . Swearing outbursts 'can lessen pain' - Science, News - The Independent There could be a good reason why hitting one's thumb with a hammer is likely to unleash the Gordon Ramsey within, say scientists. F-word outbursts, like those the celebrity chef is famous for, can actually lessen pain, according to the researchers. Swearing may be a good recipe for coping with physical knocks, their study suggests. Scientists at Keele University in Staffordshire wondered whether swearing might have a psychological effect that increased pain tolerance. To test the theory they asked 66 volunteer students to submerge a hand into a tube of iced water for as long as possible while repeating a swear word of their choice. That's all fine and well except for this problem with accuracy between the Independent and the Guardian. (HT to Lay Scientist ) Revealed: Brown's secret plan to cut Afghanistan for...

Speaking of the BNP, Jeremy Hardy said that you don't want to give them the oxygen of publicity, nor do you want to give them the oxygen of oxygen. This is why.

Steorn perpetual motion machine, amazingly, may not work: independent jury resigns – Bad Science

London bombings memorial unveiled No further comment needed.

Delivered with a British accent it sounds even more authoritative.

Tim Hortons may be coming home .

Weird. Apparently all the years of army worship in the States has reached over and seeped into the religious community. Behold, the 21st century version of the Salvation Army .

Somewhere along the way I stumbled on this old article at Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes and looked though it. One thing struck me - Chinese characters prove the Bible. Sure. But, as a former Japan resident, I feel I can comment on this and I will. Bullshit! To elaborate. Some whack-a-doodle decided that he as a non-Chinese/Japanese speaker could prove that the elements that make up kanji actually encode Bible stories. I, as a Japanese speaker, differ. Let's check some of the examples that Bing McGhandi cites. 沿 - The whack-a-doodle says this character means ' hand down ,' and is made up of water , the number 8 and mouth . In Japanese, it is pronounced so(u) and means ' follow along (side) ' or ' abut against .' In Chinese, (checks dictionary) it is pronounced yan and means much the same as it does in Japanese. So no points for meaning. What about the components, known as - follow the jargon here- radicals ? Well, buddy gets half points. This character ...

Um, yes. You claim that Leonardo Da Vinci created the Turin Shroud and made the case recently in the TV documentary . Could you give an explanation of why the Shroud has known, documented provenance from 1357 , where Da Vinci was born in 1452 ?

Homeopathic A&E That Mitchell and Webb Look: Homeopathic A&E

after you try some of that delicious, delicious cock . HT to Rebecca Watson . (if memory serves.)