(Visit Cracked.com to read the rest of this very enlightening article)

Link: Phone Popcorn Secrets Revealed – CNN.com

I actually find it particularly repugnant that the CEO of Cardo systems claims in this video that they didn’t intend to scare people with this bullshit marketing campaign.

They wanted to sell more bluetooth headsets, so suggesting that using a cell phone close to your head could pop brain cells like popcorn kernels would scare people into buying his product. Making people LAUGH? Not so much.

As a matter of fact, I would tend to believe that the people who were genuinely frightened by these videos would resent the company for creating that fear, and AVOID buying their products because they’d been lied to.

But maybe that’s just me.

Bullying and  BULLSHIT.

According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice Fact Sheet #FS-200127, bullying is is repeated acts over time that involves a real or perceived imbalance of power with the more powerful child or group attacking those who are less powerful. Webster’s definition is quite ambiguous and generic, but other definitions say “repeated aggressive behavior in order to intentionally hurt another person, physically or mentally” or “an individual behaving in a certain way to gain power over another person”.

Nowhere does it say bullying is a disagreement between peers on more or less equal footing.

Nowhere does it say that it is when a person of authority – be it a teacher, law enforcement, or website owner – reacts to someone’s bad behaviour with reasonable consequences such as detention, arrest or sanctions.

Because of the media coverage of some high-profile cases, “bullying” has become a hot word. The problem is, now it is suddenly being used and abused by people to attempt to worm out of the natural consequences of their actions.

And, let’s make it clear: if you verbally abuse someone or do something nasty to them, their response CANNOT be bullying. YOU STARTED IT.

I’m getting sick and tired of people claiming they are being bullied when they behave badly and get caught. That’s BULLSHIT.

AIG is a HUGE company with tendrils extending into many countries, including Canada. It is a cornerstone of the mortgage market because it insures high-ratio mortgages. In other words, if you didn’t put down 20-25% when you bought your house, you probably had to pay some kind of insurance premium to cover the lender in case you default. In Canada, it is primarily CMHC that does this with a little additional coverage from AIG. In the USA, AIG covers a substantial percentage of the market.

If AIG had failed, it could have taken down a substantial portion of the banking system with it. The reason AIG is having so much trouble is because of a very small number of its own employees and a SUBSTANTIAL number of corrupt mortgage brokers who deceived them. When the U.S. housing market began to flail around like a steerage passenger on Titanic, it was not the banks who took the first ballshots – it was the companies that insured the mortgages like AIG. Read the rest of this entry »

Possibly the shortest conversation I will ever have with someone about the “fuel cost crisis” and global warming:

(Name Removed to protect the Stupid) (Simcoe Composite School) wrote at 11:23pm yesterday

Here’s an idea to think about. If some sort of law was made saying that buy (sic), 2010, everybody in the world either has to get an electric car or GO GREEN and change their Gas engine to run on canola oil. This way nobody needs to worry about gas prices, am I right?? Now obviously I can see that that is thinking BIG. But just think about all the other things that have happened by regular everyday people. Like people on facebook for example. And with electric cars or running on Canola Oil we won’t have to worry about people idling their cars all the time. So that would possibly slow done (sic) our arch nemesis known as GLOBAL WARMING!!!! Its (sic) our future and we should do something about it if we wanna live to watch our grandchildren grow up. We need more people in this group to (sic). Everybody send out invites. (: We need to stop this gas bullshit because if someone doesn’t we would eventually be looking gas prices as high as 2 dollars. Maybe higher and that would really suck!!!

The Angry PolarBear wrote in response at 1:08am

Brilliant (unnamed moron)! Cause, Canola Oil only costs about $2 a litre which would solve the problem of $1.20/litre gasoline and $1.30/litre diesel! Oh, and of course, Canola Oil does not in fact BURN, it only emits magical gases like butterfly farts in defiance of all physical laws of the planet. You wouldn’t expect something BURNED in a COMBUSTION engine to make CO2 or anything.

And we won’t even worry about how using all the farmland to grow Canola beans for oil to run engines will disrupt the food supply, because we can spin the butterfly farts into manna noodles and honey and solve the hunger crisis at the same time! YAY!

Way to think BIG! Only you forgot the THINK part!

Seriously?

This is what our schools produce nowadays?

REALLY? WTF!?!

Thanks, Al Gore!