Behold the power of Fark in finding this awesome clip.

Song…. Kristen Dunst…. Turning Japanese…. I’m lost?

’80s remake? When? For what?

Note: there are some quick NSFW flashes in this video.

The queen of shrillness for the antivaxx movement has had a sudden revelation. As reported by Time Magazine:

She has backed off from her most heated rhetoric and says she is now not against all vaccines but is in favor of studying them further and modifying the schedule by which they are administered.

In the immortal words of SNL, “Jenny, you ignorant slut!”

What the hell do you think has been going on? The schedule and vaccines that are given is constantly looked at for efficacy, safety and efficiency.

Jenny’s  misguided and mangled notions that vaccines are responsible for her child’s Autism – a diagnosis that is now severely in doubt given her son’s Evan recovery has been a rallying call to the antivaxx movement, conning thousands of parents into not vaccinating their kids through ignorance and fear. Today we see a rise in childhood diseases in the thousands where we saw hundreds. There is a body count attached to this that did not have to be there. Kids have died because of this.

She has literally railed against scientists with the most ludicrous threats and spit out ridiculous pablum while defending quacks like Wakefield and his bogus research. And now she’s like, “oops, my bad!”

You dumb, dumb coont, you don’t realize what you have wrought – the sheer amount of false hope you have spread, the pseudoscientific promulgations you’ve championed has set back research, misdirected funding, and confused parents that need help and now are looking to the wrong areas.

Worst of all Jenny, you don’t even realize what you’ve done.

He is a bag of sarcasm packed into a suitcase of sarcasm loaded onto a plane of sarcasm.

And his comments on the state of music today jive with exactly what I’ve been saying… crap! The catch is, of course, the interview is from 1992.

Things really never got much better. I’d love to see him do a new interview with the same questions, and a fresh sandwich.

Great editorial from the Seattle Times today by Leonard Pitts Jr.

My favorite part:

To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper’s online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe.

Go read the whole article, it’s worth it.

The European Union is starting (finally? thankfully?) to speak out on the secrecy and ultimate stupidity of the ACTA treaty currently being hammered out in not-very-good secrecy in Mexico.

Peter Hustinx, the European Union Data Protection Supervisor published a 20 page opinion on why ACTA is the worst idea since cloning Hitler.

Such practices are highly invasive in the individuals’ private sphere. They entail the generalised monitoring of Internet users’ activities, including perfectly lawful ones. They affect millions of law-abiding Internet users, including many children and adolescents. They are carried out by private parties, not by law enforcement authorities. Moreover, nowadays, Internet plays a central role in almost all aspects of modern life, thus, the effects of disconnecting Internet access may be enormous, cutting individuals off from work, culture, eGoverment applications, etc.

On the upside, this is pretty much what I’ve been saying. So, Peter, you get an A+ in my book. Let’s go get a beer.

To bring you up to speed on ACTA, check out what I wrote last month.

While there have been private concerns shouting as loud as they can about how screwed up the ACTA treaty will be, political noise has been cautious. A few US senators have called for ACTA to be made public, but Obama continues his stance that ACTA must be kept secret because it is a matter or National Security. First, that’s a bullshit, and second it’s more backpeddling on Obama’s decree for a more transparent government.

Good job, jerk.

As Business Week points out, the latest leak continues to confirm that:

The leak also revealed that negotiators, led by the U.S., want ISPs to monitor the content on their networks and to sever internet connections of subscribers who repeatedly upload or download copyright-protected content without permission.

Shall we count the ways privacy will be raped just to make this condition happen? How about turning ISPs into the investigator, judge, jury and executioner?

This is all still predicated on the notion that there will be no peer review, no trial, and no evidence needed to convict people and sever them from using the internet, forever.

This is horrible to the nth degree and everyone needs to be talking about it, and should be concerned about it – especially since ACTA is a treaty and can be passed easily, not a law that will die in our Congress or Senate (where everything goes to die).

This will come to haunt you, your kids, your business, and you life as corporations levy ACTA to their will. Think DRM is bad now? Think Fair Use laws can’t be crushed under the corporate hell?

Wait until they get a load of this…

Remember those bent pieces of wire that are supposed to pass for bomb sniffers, the ones used ineffectually in Iraq, and then the company’s owner was arrested in England for selling these pieces or junk?

Well, the army chief General Anupong Paojinda of Thailand thinks they are just spiffy and is using them in his country to not catch bombs as well. To understand the depths of this man’s moronic thinking, I give you:

“I respect the scientific tests but at this stage there is no banning order by the government so the army will continue to use it,” he said.

These would be the tests that showed these dowsing rods were what all dowsing rods are - ineffectual pieces of bent metal. The same tests that got the maker of these dowsing rods arrested in England.

So while people continue to die in Thailand due to this ignoramus’ actions, the army will continue to use these devices that don’t work… because.

Yet More Stupidity

As Bad Astronomer dug up on his blog, Iraq is still using these things with abandon. Good job Iraq, way to join the 21st century. Oh wait, you are too busy exploding from bombs walking by your dowsing rods.

Isn’t it awesome when people above you adopt pseudoscientific bullshit that gets you killed. I doubt we’ll see either of these Generals using these rods to detect bombs. In fact, both these guys ARE rods.

Simon Singh’s appeal day over the libel lawsuit brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association was today. All signs seemed to say it was a must-attend affair with some great quotables from the judge (I always take that as a good sign).

If you need to be brought up to speed, I’ve blathered on about it here, and in previous posts.

Probably the most promising statement to come out of the hearing as reported by Index On Censorship site:

England’s most senior judge today said he was “baffled” by the British Chiropractic Association’s (BCA) defamation suit against science writer Simon Singh.

So, when you are the prosecutor, and the judge says your client baffles him, it’s time to acknowledge your lawsuit is on pretty thin ice.

But wait, it gets better. The judge goes on to say:

He went on to criticise the BCA’s reluctance to publish evidence to back up claims that chiropractic treatments could treat childhood asthma and other ailments.

“I’m just baffled. If there is reliable evidence, why hasn’t someone published it?”

See, there IS no evidence. There are no studies that could pass any scientific muster. It’s all a damn hoax. That’s why the BCA had chiropractors pulling erroneous claims off of chiropractic websites at warp speed – they knew they had just been called out on their bullshit in the biggest way possible. Now the BCA is on an international stage under one hell of a hot spotlight.

The ruling has yet to be given, but all this leaves me in pretty high hopes we may be on the verge of not only reforming the UK’s horrendous libel laws, but a giant rock of pseudoscience may also get smashed in the process.

Win – win.

Waring: may cause stroke, insanity, or  gibbering.

Other explanation: zombie on Enzyte.

Trying to justify the unjustifiable just means you don’t get it, and in this case Ubisoft wins this week in moronic business decisions.

The very entertaining game Assasain’s Creed has a sequel hitting the shelves soon. In an attempt to thwart piracy of their game, Ubisoft has tacked on the most restrictive DRM (Digital Rights Management) yet seen.

If you can’t connect to the internet, you can’t play. If you are in the middle of the game and you lose your internet connection you are hosed. You don’t get a chance to save your progress, you get booted back to the last checkpoint.

Luckily, everyone has hi-speed, always-on, always-reliable internet. OH WAIT THEY DON’T. There is no multi-player for this game. There is no reason to stay connected to the internet once the game is installed.

Know what’s awesome? Software pirates will crack this in no time and be able to play anywhere, anytime. Know who gets screwed? The honest person buying the game.

Ubisoft, you are terrible. The game looks great, but you’ve ruined thousands of hours of artists, programmers, and director’s work with your incredibly stupid decisions.