January 18, 2001

THE INSANITY RETURNS!

Great news for the insomniacs among you! Art Bell has announced his return to late-night radio on Feb. 5. Bell is the man who single-handedly brought all the conspiracy theorists, alien abductees, time-travellers, Men in Black, psychic spies, reincarnated Atlantian channelers, doomsday prognosticators, near-death experiencers, and all manner of paranormal freaks out of the closet and nudged them oh-so-close to the mainstream with his peculiar overnight radio show which grew to over 400 stations across North America. Broadcasting from his home in the desert near Area 51, Bell was infamous for unquestioningly allowing any and all manner of nutbar (misunderstood genius?) to tell their stories. Among many other highlights of his decade long reign, his show, Coast-to Coast, gave an outlet to a host of people who were convinced that the comet Hale-Bopp was accompanied by an alien craft (this, in part, led to the Heaven's Gate mass suicide), has fuelled endless conspiracy fodder on every conceivable subject, and was a huge motivating factor in the Y2K hubbuballoo of 1999. Art Bell is also about the only place where you'll hear in-depth analysis of serious environmental and health issues from experts who refuse to tow the corporate line. If you can think for yourself, and have a well-tuned bull-shit detector, Coast to Coast is probably the best source of non-mainstream information available. Check it out on streaming audio at www.artbell.com .

HOW ABOUT A REFRESHING COCKTAIL OF TOXIC ROCKET FUEL?

How much would it cost to get you to eat a toxic component of rocket fuel every day for six months? How about a cool grand? Sound absurd? The military contractor Lockheed Martin has begun the first large-scale tests of a toxic drinking water contaminant on human subjects, paying them each $1,000 to ingest a daily dose of up to 83 times the "safe" level of perchlorate, an ingredient in rocket fuel. This, because perchlorate has been found to be the likely source of contamination of hundreds of water supplies in southern California, and the Environmental Protection Agency will begin testing water supplies this year to set national regulations on the chemical. If the military giant can persuade the EPA that perchlorate is a "safe" ingredient to drink, they will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs. Heart-warming, isn't it? Medical researchers and environmentalists have called the scheme "morally unethical and scientifically invalid." How about evil, stupid, sickening, infuriating, and wrong? Even more ridiculous is that they had no trouble finding 100 doorknobs to take the thousand bucks. (Los Angeles Times)

GIVING US A COSMIC INFERIORITY COMPLEX

Astronomer Charles Lineweaver of the University of New South Wales speculates that the reason aliens haven't contacted us is that Earthlings are just too boring. He estimates that Earth-like planets around other stars would be an average 1.8 billion years older than Earth, so any intelligent beings on those planets would be so advanced that they would think of us as nothing more than bacteria. (New Scientist)

THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA IS COMPLETE

In honour of the inauguration of George WWIII Bush (gag!), I'd like to point you all to http://slate.msn.com/features/bushisms/bushisms.asp to check out political correspondent Jacob Weisberg's brilliant collection of quotes in which Bush mangles the English language. Not surprisingly, there is no shortage of stupidity on this site, such as these gems: "It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet." "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "It is clear our nation is reliant upon big foreign oil. More and more of our imports come from overseas." "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it." "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us vs. them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who they are, but we know they're there." "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

PSYCHIC PETS, YET AGAIN

Eugene Emery, a man who has tracked the predictions in tabloid magazines since 1979 has found, not surprisingly, that "very few tabloid predictions come true." However, last year one forecast was correct, that George Bush would win the election by "a razor-thin margin of a couple hundred votes." Who was the accurate seer? Sylvester Stallone's mother's two psychic doberman pinchers, who channeled the prediction through their owner Jacqueline Stallone. Hmmmm... (Washington Post)

WAITING FOR A MIRACLE

Tens of thousands of Buddhist pilgrims have flocked to the Chonggyesa Temple in Seoul, South Korea to worship a sacred statue of Kuan Yin, on which flowers that bloom only once every 3,000 years have appeared. Buddhist priests say that the legendary flowers only appear "when the 'Sage King of the Future' comes into the world." The Miracle of the Flowers, as it is being hailed, has never occurred in the 1,000-year history of the temple, and Buddhist monks are now keeping a prayer vigil at the statue, waiting for the event that "will change mankind's future forever." (Sightings)

JUST SAY YES

The newest pop-psychology trend that is making it's creator rich is called Surrendered Women, a concept that encourages woman to always please their husbands in order to have a happy marriage. Laura Doyle's advice manual, The Surrendered Wife, suggests that women should obey their husbands at all times, submit to sex whenever their husbands wish, not demand satisfaction for themselves, and forgive indiscretions away from home. This, Doyle claims, is the secret of a happy marriage. Or at least a very happy husband, I suppose.

MONKEYING AROUND

Thousands of monkeys have invaded the parliamentary buildings in New Delhi, India, and are occupying government offices, stealing food, threatening bureaucrats, and destroying valuable documents. "They are moving in very high security areas," said the defense ministry officer. Authorities cannot figure out how to get rid of them, and killing them is out of the question, as monkeys are considered sacred in the Hindu religion. (AP)

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