The Weak In Rock

We were watching TV the other night and had a collective giggle fit over an ad for Kinoki footpads - the pads that claim to leach toxic chemicals out of your body through your feet while you sleep.

To me it wasn’t funny because I couldn’t imagine anyone dumb enough to think these things actually work, let alone do much of anything at all. At the tender age of 41 I know all too well that there are not only lots of people out there stupid enough to buy this sort of snake oil, but that there are enough of them to justify spending thousands of dollars on a network TV ad spot in order to alert these ignorant masses of where to call to order these inane gauze pads with adhesive around the edges.

No, it was funny to me because were I to think up such huxterish flim flam there’s no way I’d let the dopes who bought my snake oil get off so easy. In my book, if you’re a tragic nitwit you ought to really suffer for your nitwittery. Sticking pads on your feet ultimately just wastes a little of your time. If I were to sell a detox product it would come in the form of either a rectal or nasal tampon.

The chuckles from the rectal tampon are obvious. The nasal one would take some salesmanship. I’d design the product so that in order for the user to get the promised benefit, he or she would have to wear a pair of - let’s call them nasal pods - my nasal pods for 24 hours. After that you’d have health and happiness for all the rest of your days. And your coworkers and family would get some therapeutic gut busting laughs out of watching you walk around all day with two strings hanging out of your nose.

Thanks again to Boing Boing for the link.

Technorati Tags: Kinoki footpads, flim flam, nasal tampon

I’ve been saying for a long time that the British have had a much more enlightened conception of Al Qaeda than the US. Well, now it’s official.

“The words ‘war on terror’ will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country’s chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

“Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless ‘death cult.’”

The story goes on to say, in reference to the most recent terrorist activity in the UK:

“’The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers,’ Macdonald said. ‘They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.’”

Yup. That’s it. The folks who flew planes into the World Trade Center in NY on 9/11/01 were criminals, not soldiers. You cannot fight criminals with an army. You fight them with law enforcement - investigation, evidence gathering, arrests, prosecution and incarceration. And by calling these people what they are - fanatics, narcissists, murderers and criminals - you give them their proper status. By referring to them in any sort of context of warfare you elevate their importance in the world and dignify what they’re doing.

Maybe someone in the Democrats’ camp will pick this one up and run with it. We can only hope.

Technorati Tags: the British, Al Qaeda

Ok, this will give you an idea of how my brain works – I read this article about scientists putting enteric bacteria from kangaroos into the intestines of cows to try to reduce the amount of methane cows fart into the atmosphere and I immediately started visualizing this as the beginning of some dystopian sci-fi classic.

The movie trailer would go like this:

“They were trying to save the world”

[shot of scientists in generic biology lab]

“To protect the environment”

[cut to cows in a meadow]

“But something went wrong…horribly wrong…”

[ominous music – cut to scenes of people running screaming in the streets – zoom in on the face of a horrified woman as she says]

“Oh my God!!”

[cut to black]

“Kangacows – coming to theaters this summer”

I know. I’m a sick man.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

Technorati Tags: kangaroos, cows, methane, fart, dystopian sci-fi