Maybe It’s Best I Don’t Have a Dog

Okay, so my only question is whether all the people who forwarded the inspiring story of Rickey Wagoner around that internet book with faces, and the bird’s nest thing, and all that, are now obliged to go around to every person they annoyed with that excrement and apologize for being so stupid.

At any rate, the Associated Press reports:

A white bus driver’s story that a religious book in his shirt pocket blocked bullets as he was attacked by three black men isn’t supported by evidence and testing, Dayton police said Wednesday as they closed the case, which had been investigated as a possible hate crime.

Rickey Wagoner, 49, told police he was outside his city bus Feb. 24 when men assaulted him. He said that two bullets hit the inch-thick book containing Bible verses and that one hit his leg and that he was stabbed in the arm, according to a police report. The report also said Wagoner told police he grabbed the gun and shot at the fleeing men.

Wagoner had told police that the assailants were black and that he thought the attack might have been a gang initiation.

But his account wasn’t found to be factual, Police Chief Richard Biehl said at a news conference.

“This assault, as reported, is not true, not accurate,” Biehl said. Police did not say Wagoner made up the story and didn’t explain why he would have made the report. Biehl did say it appeared Wagoner owed on back taxes.

Sigh.

Right.

Truth told, I rather prefer the Daily Mail take on the story: “Bus driver shot and stabbed HIMSELF before making up story that only his Bible had stopped fatal bullets fired at him in supposed hate attack”.

In related news, the nation’s foremost failure-cum-racist-cum-failure, the one and only Donald Trump, is apparently upset that black people have civil rights, too. In other words, no news, or, what killed the dog.

____________________

Associated Press. “Bus Driver’s Bullet-blocking Book Tale Is ‘Not True’: Police”. The Huffington Post. June 18, 2014.

Associated Press and Daily Mail. “Bus driver shot and stabbed HIMSELF before making up story that only his Bible had stopped fatal bullets fired at him in supposed hate attack”. Mail Online. June 18, 2014.

Trump, Donald. “Donald Trump: Central Park Five settlement is a ‘disgrace'”. New York Daily News. June 21, 2014.

Wills, Nat M. “No News, or, What Killed the Dog?” Camden: Victor, 1908.

Sieveheads

“Whether or not God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.”

—Denis Diderot

I have long rejected atheism as an identity—though not as a legitimate philosophical or religious outlook—not because I “believe” in God, but because, well, frankly, it’s embarrassing. That is, I get the underlying proposition that there is no God, but atheists never really seem to get past that. It’s almost as if they want to be critics of something, don’t want to put the effort into having a half a clue what they’re talking about, and have rolled out the best excuse they can find for their ill-conceived, uneducated Crusades.

It’s a long list of complaints that have built up over the last twenty years, since I first adopted an atheistic outlook and then abandoned it in the face of a dysfunctional nihilistic demand that requires one’s skepticism be artificially limited exclusively to religion in order to escape, and at no time has the rising atheistic movement offered any real relief. Indeed, the ever-growing body of uninformed mockery the atheistic movement has hurled at religious movements reminds that it really isn’t about whether or not God exists, but finding an excuse to be hateful toward one’s fellow human beings. It’s more about empowerment; they don’t simply want to break the traditional religious power structures in society, they wish to usurp those influences. Thus, even though atheists are supposedly better educated, far too many continue to act just like the idiotic religious neighbors they so need to mock.

Take the new poster boy for the International Association of Atheistic Idiots, one Lukáš Nový, as an example:

A man who wears a sieve on his head for religious reasons has been allowed to wear his bizarre headgear on his official identity card.

Prankster Lukas Novy, from Brno in the Czech Republic, claims that his Pastafarian faith means he has to wear the sieve at all times.

Officials ruled that turning down Novy’s request would be a breach of the country’s religious equality laws.

Brno City Hall spokesman Pavel Zara explained: ‘The application complies with the laws of the Czech Republic where headgear for religious or medical reasons is permitted if it does not hide the face.’

Novy claims to be a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, when emerged in the USA as spoof on organised religion.

According to its tongue-in-cheek website their ‘only dogma … is the rejection of dogma’.

—Williams

To the one, the Daily Mail article demonstrates just how stupid Czech officials are, but, to the other, it also reminds us just how sleazy the organized atheism movement actually is.

And more than anything, it’s the sleaze factor that really screws the movement. Then again, it’s what they want. Much like many organized religions, it’s a job-security racket, to deliberately raise demons in order to publicly play the hero and slay them.

A couple of obvious jokes: Bald bespectacled bears

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy … er … yeah.

Really.

Or, according to the Daily Mail:

You’d have thought a fur coat would have been the ultimate bear necessity.

But not for the unfortunate Dolores who has lost all her body hair and has just been left with a few tufts around her head.

Vets have been left baffled by the condition of the bespectacled bear, who lives at a zoo in Leipzig.

And Dolores isn’t the only one. The sudden hair loss has affected all female bears at the zoo.

Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.

It’s something of an unfortunate oddity, for certain. While the zoo is enjoying some increased attention for its bald bespectacled bears, the animals themselves are suffering rashes and skin inflammation, as well.

We can only hope for the best, but yeah. Charles Mudede comments that, “A bear without hair looks like something from outer space”. I must disagree. I saw Savage Planet on basic cable, and I know that extraterrestrial giant killer bears have fur.

Because things aren’t strange enough

Bernann McKinney (r) with Booger clone

Okay, so if criminal kink and Kafka don’t cut your cake-hole, how about cloning? In case you haven’t heard, some woman apparently paid £25,000 to have her dead pit-bull cloned. Of course, that’s just for starters. There is some criminal kink—although not exactly kafkaesque—involved in this one, too.

The face was familiar, albeit older and heavier. The surname was the same.

So was the alleged American, ex-beauty queen background and the unusual devotion to pitbull dogs.

Surely it wasn’t? Could the new owner of the world’s first commercially cloned pups be the same woman who had gone on the run from British justice 30 years ago, having been the star of one of the most bizarre, entertaining and downright saucy court cases in living memory?

In 1978, Joyce McKinney jumped bail and disappeared after being charged with kidnapping a 17-stone male Mormon missionary, whom she had chained to a Devon cottage bed with mink handcuffs and forced to have sex ….

…. Were these two blonde, American, dog-loving and, yes, quite possibly barking mad, Miss McKinneys one and the same person?

Last night, when we spoke to ‘Bernann’ on the telephone, having tracked her down to a Seoul hotel room, her hostile reaction hardly quashed the intrigue.

Asked: ‘Are you really Joyce McKinney?’ she snapped: “Are you going to ask me about my dogs, or not? Because that’s all I’m prepared to talk to you about.”

Not exactly a flat-out denial, then.

The infamous Joyce McKinney

Perhaps the Daily Mail is jumping the gun a bit here—they’re convinced the two McKinneys are, in fact, one and the same—but it makes for a hell of a headline, doesn’t it?

Of course, how long before you can clone your Mormon sex slave?

But, seriously: What ever happened to normal weird news? I mean, really. Cloning your damn dog is even creepier than having the taxidermist make it into a lamp. And raping a missionary allegedly wearing “some sort of Mormon chastity belt”? I mean, come on.

At any rate, a couple of punch lines from the article:

• Joyce McKinney was a beauty queen in the 1970s and was a former Miss Wyoming before going to Brigham Young University, in Utah, to study drama.
• McKinney met the similarly bailed May and the pair fled to Canada, using false passports and disguised as deaf-mute mime artistes.

Smell the Posh

File under, “What the hell is wrong with people?”

Seriously, which part of Steve Myall’s article for the Daily Mail is more frightening? The celebrity?

Victoria Beckham has developed a bizarre system for rating the devotion of her fans.

The super-slim singer says “true fans” prove their dedication by bursting into tears when they spot her – or by falling unconscious.

But the star reserves her highest praise for those who work themselves into such a state they need emergency medical help ….

…. The 33-year-old, otherwise known as Posh Spice, said in a video on her personal website: “It was amazing at the airport – there were lots of lovely Japanese people there to greet us.

“There were tears. I always like that, I think that it shows you are a true fan when you cry or when you pass out.

“When the paramedics are called I think that is a good sign, it shows real determination as a fan.”

Or the fans themselves?

More than 750,000 tickets have already been sold worldwide since they unveiled their plans in June.

Initially, gigs were planned in 11 cities but due to demand that number has expanded, and some dates remain to be fixed.

Tickets for the first announced London gig sold out in just 38 seconds.

More were added, with the same response, and the capital will now host 17 concerts from December 15.

For that belligerent-looking brew

‘Tis true. I’m not sure what how to feel:

Guinness Red is the latest variant to be developed by the good folk in Dublin. Hops, water and yeast are combined as usual but the barley is lightly roasted, giving it a rich red complexion.

This gives the drink a ‘well balanced, bittersweet character’, the brewers claim. The new stout will contain similar alcohol levels to the other versions of Guinness, about 4.1 per cent, and will also cost the same. It will keep its distinctive white head and will require the same patience-testing two-step pour.

According to the Daily Mail, there are no plans to market the stuff in Ireland itself. The brew is testing in British pubs, and may not make the trip across the pond.

And, you know, normally, when I hear the word “red” associated with beer, I tend to think of a rich, warm hue, an inviting tone. Something, I suppose, other than this:

 

(A nod and a wink, and a tipple of the hat to Mo.)

 

(What …?)