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Curious Times No. 198
June 26, 2003
The folks at the Time Travel Institute have set up a Time Travel Fund at which you can invest ten bucks in order to be "retrieved" by people in the future after time travel is perfected. The Time Travel Institute will add your cash to their trust fund, which the say will grow into an enormous chunk of cash thanks to compound interest over hundreds of years. Then, the future custodians of the fund will come back to the early 2000s and bring you to their future. They promise, on their website, that this is not a joke, a scam, or a cult. "If it were a scam we would be asking for a lot more than ten bucks," they claim. Of course, if it was a scam they would tell you it was a scam, right? Go blow your cash at www.timetravelfund.com.DON'T LET THE FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF A GOOD WAR
Pollsters from the University of Maryland have expressed shock at the level of ignorance among Americans about the war on Iraq. Their recent poll found that a third of Americans believe that the U.S. has found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and 22 per cent believe that Iraq used chemical and biological weapons during the war. Also, about half of those polled believed that Iraqis were among the hijackers responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11. Of course, no WMDs were found in Iraq, no chemical or biological weapons were used, and none of the hijackers were Iraqi. "It's a striking finding," said Steve Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes, "given the intensive news coverage and high levels of public attention, this level of misinformation suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance." Kull suggests that most Americans don't want the facts to conflict with their beliefs, so they simply ignore those facts which don't fit their preconceptions. He also noted that ignorance of the facts was "substantially greater among those who favored the war." (Philadelphia Inquirer)DOES HALLMARK HAVE A CARD FOR THAT?
Bored youth in middle America seem to have created a new holiday. According to police in Cleveland, Ohio, May 1st has become "Beat Up A White Kid Day." Word of the new "holiday" came out after a 13-year-old white girl was thrashed by a mob of 18 black and hispanic teenagers at Wilbur Wright Middle School in Cleveland. Police say 12 girls and six boys, aged between 9 and 15, beat, kicked and choked the girl, who remains under medical supervision and still suffers blackouts from the attack. The 18 youths, who admitted to attacking the girl in honor of the May 1st "ritual," have been charged with felonious assault, ethnic intimidation and aggravated riot. (World Net Daily)THEY GAVE ME A SLICE OF PIZZA TO MENTION THEIR COMPANY IN MY COLUMN
A pizza joint in Portland, Oregon has become the first business in North America to "hire" the homeless to advertise their business. In exchange for pizza, soda, and a few dollars Portland bums have been carrying signs which state: Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money. According to the panhandlers, the deal is fair, but a Portland-based watchdog group is trying to force the pizza chain owner to at least pay minimum wage. "If they don't get minimum wage, this is exploitation," said a spokesperson for the group. The owner of Pizza Schmizza has a differing opinion. "It's a gesture of kindness more than anything," says Andre Jehan, "I got tired of not being able to make eye contact with these people. I thought, 'What skills could they have?' Holding a sign was an obvious one." (Seattle Times)YOU CALL A LIFE OF NEAR-DISASTERS LUCKY?
A Croatian man whose friends have called him the world's luckiest man has won over a million dollars in a European lottery. Frane Selak, 74, has previously survived near death on at least seven different occasions, having survived being hit by a bus, being severely burned by a flaming car, narrowly escaping two car explosions, surviving a bus plunge into a river killing four, surviving a train derailment which killed 17, and being thrown from an airplane when a door flew open, killing 19 people. "I am going to enjoy my life now," says Selak, I feel like I have been reborn. (Ananova)FINISH YOUR LUNCH BEFORE YOU READ THIS
North Korean refugees have shocked international aid agencies with news that cannibalism is increasing due to food shortages, and claims that children have been murdered and their flesh sold in markets. Reports from the North Korean World Food Programme, which recently interviewed 200 refugees, found that starvation is again on the increase due to another poor harvest, big cuts in international food aid, floods, deforestation and a lack of farm fertilisers and equipment. According to the latest reports, things have gotten so extreme that children have been killed for food, and people who die naturally are dug up shortly after a funeral and their corpses are cut up and sold as meat.I'LL SEE YOU IN THE BUTCHERED PEOPLE'S COURT
The Canadian Medical Association Journal is reporting that surgeons and hospitals are trying to come up with foolproof ways to ensure that surgery is always performed on the right organs and the right patients. After far too many malpractice suits and many more near-misses, surgeons are desperate to cut down on the number of "wrong-side" surgeries - surgeries which are performed on the wrong side, the wrong site, or the wrong patient. Canadian bone surgeons are already signing body parts in order to ensure the correct surgery is performed, but a resident at McMaster University feels the practice should be taken one step further. He suggests that medical staff should write "cut me" on the correct limb or organ site, and write "malpractice" on the other. (Ottawa Citizen)LIKE A TASTE EXPLOSION IN YOUR MOUTH
Great news for all you semen swallowers out there. A couple of entrepreneurs out in Arizona have received U.S. Patent No. 6,485,773 for their "Semen taste-enhancement dietary supplement." According to their research, ingestion of the powdered fruit/vegetable/spice drink will create "significant semen-taste improvement" for approximately 24 hours. The drink works by reducing the salty and bitterness in male semen, while adding a "pleasant flavor," which, they promise, 98.5% of customers find very enjoyable. Get all the details at the U.S., Patent website at www.uspto.gov/patft .BURIAL AT SEA
A company which builds the equipment used to process sewage has released a warning to children who might flush a live pet fish down the toilet after watching a scene in the movie "Finding Nemo," in which a fish finds his way back to the ocean after being flushed. Unlike the fantasy played out in the film, a real fish flushed down the toilet will meet with powerful sewage processing machines which will shred it into "tiny particles," they warn. And if the fish survived that shredding, it would be killed by chlorine disinfection before having its corpse unceremoniously dumped in the open sea. (AP)
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