Day: August 16, 2006

Air terrorism – don’t be scared

I know I just don’t let this drop.  It’s a matter I find very important.  If you are scared to live a normal life, the terrorists have succeeded in terrorizing you.  That’s all those people are trying to do.  They are more concerned about the terror than the body count.  Here’s a write-up from Kung Fu Monkey saying that in more depth and with more style than I have been able to say it.

No false bravado and it’s not that I don’t take terrorism seriously. I do, which I why I voted for the guy who believed in securing our ports and fighting terrorism with criminal investigation methods — which is, if we may remind everybody, how this particular plot was busted.

I am just not going to wet my pants every time some guys get arrested in a terror plot. I will do my best to stay informed. I will support the necessary law enforcement agencies. I will take whatever reasonable precautions seem, um, reasonable. But I will not be terrorized. I assume that the terror-ists would like me to be terror-ized, as that is what is says on their nametag, rather than, say, wanting me to surrender to ennui or negative body image, and they’re just coming the long way around.

[tags]Aren’t you afraid?, Terrorists seek to terrorize – duh![/tags]

How radiation will change our race

Not only do we find interesting ancient articles over at Modern Mechanix, we also get humorous commentary. I’ll skip much of the commentary, but point out that this December 1953 Mechanix Illustrated article gets rightly ridiculed over the implied idea that large numbers of humans will simultaneously get mutated with the same beneficial changes which will result in massively oversized brains inside hairless heads:

How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race

An atomic war could produce an entirely new species of man. Would he be friend—or foe?

By O. O. Binder

“Now hear this, Earth! I am Mutant Man, Homo Superior! I have been created by radiation forces out of the loins of you, the human race, after your great and terrible Atom War. Yes, I am a step above and beyond you and I am now your master for better or for worse. You created me in your blind, savage, senseless war of atomic radiation. You have only yourselves to blame if I turn out to be your— Frankenstein Monster!”

WILL this voice someday thunder ominously over the world from a Mutant Man, not a human being, but as far beyond us as we are beyond the ape man? Will a new race, spawned out of the hellish radiation of a world-wide Atomic War, go on to challenge mankind’s supremacy on Earth?

Shrug this off if you can or laugh at it as fanciful Sunday supplement pseudo-science. But first, examine a few cold hard facts that stare us straight in the face today, showing that atomic radiation has changed us physically.

[tags]Modern Mechanix, How radiation will change our race, Homo-superior, Radiation = t3h win[/tags]

On coulrophobia

A coworker was talking about fear of clowns today. I remembered reading something recently about some famous people who admitted to having a fear of clowns. I was trying to track down some names of said famous people when I found this freaky image:

You know, this would explain that fear some folks have.  That’s just not right.

[tags]Coulrophobia, Fear of clowns, Freaky clown baby[/tags]