Headline Gems

Once in awhile, you find a headline that seems to stand out from the rest. Here are some of these rare gems:

Duck Reportedly Scared of Water
Farmer: "It never went with the other ducks to swim in the river."

Woman Sues After Police Mistake Her For a Man
"I want compensation for the misery and hurt this caused"

Maine Anchor Gets Hate Mail For Palin Resemblance
She's "generally flattered."

Man Passes Gas, Charged With Battery On Officer
Cop: "Odor was very strong."

Hospital Tells Grandfather, 71, That He's Pregnant
Retired man "had sought help for agonizing abdominal pain."

Robber Caught Because of Large Bottom
"Witnesses identified her by her big backside."

Fan-Baiting Tutorial

Here's another form of baiting you can try from your own home, just for fun. Find a comment section on any web news page that seems to be getting lots of action or controversy. Then inject a comment that is odd or out of place to see if anyone notices. For an example, go here and scroll down to the entry labeled 'dwight / 8:29 a.m.' (Apologies to you sports aficionados)

Hmm. Nobody noticed. These rabid sports zombies are too preoccupied with post-game ranting. The goal of baiting is to get noticed and get a reaction. So it's time to mix odd with a little personal attack. I submitted the following :

Dwight says: "Bottom Line: MORMON MAFIA. All insiders know you get a handsome payoff to lean your calls towards BYU when they are playing...OR ELSE. I had an uncle who kept calling penalties on BYU and we have never seen him again. BTW, do any of you guys have jobs or like girls?"

Dang-it. Rejected by the moderator. Did I fail the "Any comments found to be abusive, offensive, off-topic, misrepresentative, more than 200 words or containing URLs will not be posted" test? Dwight tried again the next day and got in! (scroll down to Dwight's entry here). Now we just sit back and wait for the smack down.

Later...

Wow. It's been a few days and no fan-wrath. Just a kindly, older-brother-type "now, now Dwight...", and then on-going pep rally jive and analysis. Then the comments drop off as the story has faded out of the news cycle. Then it hits me. I'm trying to provoke BYU fans! What am I thinking? All I'm going to get there is forgiveness and tolerance! Next time: Scrap-Bookers!

To Cote d'Ivoire With Love

Ever heard of "scam-baiting"? It's when you actually respond to those emails from Nigeria (or other African regions, usually filled with some sappy story in broken English requesting help moving money) and try to waste their time leading them on. I don't have time for such shenanigans, so I thought I'd try to decisively settle a blossoming relationship that begun today when I received the following email:

From: pascal zadi Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 4:32:54 PM

Hello Dear
I am happy meeting you,
My name is Pascal Zadi I hope this mail finds you well & healthy and i hope we can established a relationship since we are meeting for the first time,i have gone through fasting and prayers asking God to lead me to a trust worthy person who will help me with this transaction and it interests me to contact you aftter my prayers for an assistance to help me transfer this Sum of 10.7 Million USA dollars my father deposited in a bank here in Cote d'Ivoire before he was assasinated.i like honesty,trust,love,truth,caring,& respect,i have all this qualities in me and i believe you have all this qualities too, that is why i decided to contact you for this transaction,i will like you to contact me as soon as possible through my private email so that we can know ourselves better. you can as well call me on phone (00225 6634 7640) Thanks and hoping to hear from you soonest

Pascal Zadi

Here is the response I sent:

Hello Pascal,
I am happy meeting you as well. Thank you for considering me for your financial transactions. I am actually quite honest, caring and respectful, especially when it comes to my own family. This is really a wild coincidence, but as much as I would love to assist you with your inheritance (I'm assuming I would receive a "handler's fee"), I have a bit of a confession to make (I am, after all, honest). You see, I was in the Ivory Coast recently and I...well, this is rather awkward...I...killed your father (a Mr. Zadi, right?). Please understand, it was nothing personal, I was just carrying out my employer's orders. Please accept my sincere condolences and I hope you find someone as equally caring, honest, and trusting as myself (but without a conflict of interest) to help you with your problem. May I suggest an associate of mine, Mr. "Shells" O'Rourke (shells@exterminators.com). He covers our Near East region and would be happy to help you.

Cheers,
Malky

Dr. Mitchell Wants To Believe

Where do you go after you've been to the moon and back? In Dr. Edgar Mitchell's case, you go a little nutty. First of all, you have to hand it to a guy who accomplishes all that is necessary to become a pioneering astronaut. Dr. Mitchell took part in the longest moonwalk in history on the Apollo 14 mission and was smart enough to earn his doctorate in Aeronautics and Astronautics. Now at the age of 77, he's grabbing headlines (and the adoration of UFO zealots) with the astonishing claim that, yes, it turns out aliens are real and have visited us frequently (which vindicates Dr. Laibow from the last post). As sci-fi films have been trying to tell us for years, the aliens are indeed small, strange-looking beings with large eyes and possess superior technology. I guess it would have been anti-climactic if they looked like your overweight neighbor or John Tesh (now he's off the hook as well). So there you have it. The decades old government cover-up is over. We will now need to devote resources to new considerations, such as: should they learn English, or will we be obligated to have services available in alien-ese? Should our little friends be screened for infectious alien diseases before they are allowed to mingle freely among us? What sort of carbon emissions do their spacecrafts give off? And, Dr. Rima Laibow wants to know, what about reparations (or at least an official apology) for all those abductions and 'probes' inflicted on innocent earthlings over the years?

But wait. Before you break out the Klingon dictionary, let's do some poking around. Besides excelling in a profession dictated by hard science, Dr. Mitchell has always been drawn to the paranormal. He conducted ESP experiments with friends back on earth while he was in space. Not long after his return, he founded the Institute for Noetic Sciences, devoted to the study of consciousness and psychic phenomena. Several years ago he claimed that he was cured of kidney cancer by a teenage 'remote-healer' (although the cancer was never confirmed by the standard testing). Regarding his alien claims, he has never actually seen any evidence first-hand, but has it on good authority from unnamed sources who are now, um...deceased. Sorry UFO-buffs, just pull your warp drives back to sub-light speed, because this isn't quite the smoking phaser you were hoping for. But we are still Not Alone...we have each other.

The Truth Is Out There...but probably not on YouTube.

Take this to the bank...No medical/pharmaceutical break-through will go unpunished by the fringe alternative-medicine consortium (usually led by marginalized, disaffected, and personality-disordered doctors and other 'experts'). Case in point: Every autumn, flu shots are made available to the public in hopes of building up population immunity against influenza, which makes it's global rounds every year, killing and hospitalizing thousands of people. Flu-mist, a nasal spray derived from live but weakened flu strains, was developed as an alternative to the shot, and may have some minor side effects as the body responds to this 'mini-exposure' to the flu and builds up an immunity against the real thing.
A few alarmist videos have popped up on YouTube which claim: Flu-mist is just a step away from becoming H5N1 pandemic flu and is part of 'Their' (the illuminati) plan to effectively KILL OFF MOST OF THE EARTH"S INHABITANTS THROUGH VACCINATIONS! AHHHHHHHGG! Your local health department is in on it! So is your doctor! Trust no one! Eating fungus jelly and mega-doses of vitamin C will cure influenza and cancer!
Watch this example, complete with X-File-ish music and a vegan host.

Now, there's always a little more to these slick purveyors of paranoia than meets the eye:
The medical professional interviewed for this video is Dr. Rima Laibow, who campaigns against any form of medical treatment other than natural supplements and nutrition. She is actually a psychiatrist whose specialty is working with people abducted by aliens. In fact, she claims to have been abducted herself. She is married to General Albert Stubblebine, formerly with Army Intelligence and now on the Board of Psi-Tech, a company providing 'remote viewing' services and training. To get an idea of what this pair's dinnertime conversation might be like, read this speech by Albert.
Remember, these folks need a customer base motivated by fear and paranoia to make their living. Further insight can be found on this link. Does this pair suffer from follie a deux ('shared delusion'), or are they crazy like a fox?

Suspicious Minds

Remember those rumors of empty rail-cars equipped with shackles a few years ago that had the conspiracy crowd moving 30 miles further out of town? Well, beef up your compound boys, because the CDC (Center for People-I mean Disease-Control) has stockpiled 500,000 plastic coffins in Georgia! You can ascertain the truthfulness of this claim because it's (1.) on the internet and (2.) it's hosted by Alex Jones' Infowars site, where he makes a living by stirring up our government-wary tendencies.
Watch this clip. (Although it gets pretty boring after a few minutes)
Well, there it is. They know something bad is about to happen. (Or did they get the wrong Georgia?)


OR...sniff around a little, because when something smells funny, it usually is. Turns out these plastic 'coffins' are actually vaults, sometimes substituted for concrete ones, that all coffins must legally be enclosed in before burial to keep embalming fluid from getting into the environment. This location in Georgia is actually a manufacturing and storage plant, not a government stockpile. Did you notice it's right off a main road with no fence or security? Pretty top-secret, eh? Remember, the hard-working folks that pay their bills through the sale of certain films, literature, lecture appearances, 'natural' health products, and survival gear need you to see malevolence in harmless things.

Political Analysis

Please enjoy this political analysis of our nation's presidential prospects.

Welcome

Welcome to The Web-Miner, where we explore the New Dark Age and attempt to illuminate some of it's shadowy recesses.
Witness pervasive superstition, paranoia, and surrender to base instincts! Political correctness! Embarrassing cultural phenomenon! Hoaxes and other Tom-Foolery!
All alive and well despite the Great Enlightenment and the benefits of the scientific method and common sense.