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The Sporadic Chronicle
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09 Aug 2009
Was a belief in biblical prophecy part of Bush's motivation for invading Iraq?
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
If even remotely true this is more disturbing than words can adequately convey.
09 Aug 2009
News:
05 Aug 2009
Blimey, these official residences in the Houses of Parliament mustn't be very well built; the new Speaker's having to spend £20,000 doing up his flat just after the previous Speaker spent £724,600 on what I don't doubt was essential maintenance over 8 years.
03 Aug 2009
Uh-oh, this'll cause trouble:
A haggis recipe was published in an English book almost two hundred years before any evidence of the dish in Scotland, an historian has claimed. ...
Mmmm, haggis.
02 Aug 2009
Just finished reading Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley. The tale of a 1920s quack who made millions by transplanting goat testicles and worse into anyone with the money for his miracle cure and left a trail of maimed and gangrenous victims behind him as he wriggled through regulatory cracks. Naturally, despite the damage he was doing Brinkley could always produce testimonials from satisfied customers and attracted a horde of zealous supporters.
20 July 2009
Forty years ago today:
Buzz Aldrin, on moon Buzz Aldrin, on moon Neil Armstrong, in Lunar Module on moon
(Pictures from NASA's Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, the place for all your moon picture needs)
09 July 2009
Captain Blackshirt's donning a pirate eyepatch and waving his cutlass:
The EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants to prevent them entering Europe, British National Party leader Nick Griffin has told the BBC. [...] Pressed on what should happen to those on board, he said: "Throw them a life raft and they can go back to Libya".
The policy suggestion hints at an interesting solution to the BNP; if they're ever on a boat together maybe some navy should come along and sink it, leaving them with a life raft so they can go back to wherever they came from.
06 July 2009
When chimpanzees escape:
An investigation is under way into how 30 chimpanzees escaped their enclosure at Chester Zoo, forcing its evacuation.
I think what happened is pretty obvious. The chimps started 3 tunnels, disguising excavated soil by dispersing it in their compound using a shuffling gait, then made their bid for freedom. I bet one of them's half way to Switzerland on a motorbike by now.
02 July 2009
As swine flu becomes more widespread a world leading consumer health protector explains that it was engineered in a lab as part of a corporate plan for genocide. And by "consumer health protector" I mean "loon". Nice sweater, though.
27 June 2009
When I heard that Michael Jackson had died I wondered how long it would take for someone to spin a conspiracy theory about the government bumping him off. How long? Not long at all:
FSB sources are reporting to President Medvedev today that American pop icon Michael Jackson was “most assuredly” assassinated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after an examination of data transmitted by a Russian Military’s Kosmos 2450 satellite show “conclusively” that immediately prior to the music stars death in Los Angeles an electromagnetic pulse consistent in pattern to EMR weapons looted from the former Soviet Union by the United States was employed at the “exact coordinates” of the rock stars home.
And why did the CIA fire an electromagnetic pulse which killed Michael Jackson but somehow left everyone else in the house unharmed, you wonder?
To the reason behind the CIA needing to assassinate Michael Jackson, these reports continue, was an out of court settlement the pop icon signed with son of the king of Bahrain, Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa, this past November in London, and which stated, in part, that in exchange for millions of dollars previously lent to Mr. Jackson by the Sheikh, Mr. Jackson would allow his sold-out United Kingdom concerts to be a “platform” for warning the World of a soon to occur mass genocide event.
Of course! Michael Jackson was zapped with a CIA Death Beam to stop him from warning the world about impending genocide. It's all so obvious...
26 June 2009
Angry mobs of villagers identify and burning witches is all well and good for a joke, but not funny when it happens for real:
Suddenly an old woman breaks from the crowd, screaming for mercy. Three or four people go after her, beat her and drag her back, pushing her onto - what I can now see - is a raging fire. [...] Village youths who took part in the killings told me that the five victims had to die because they had bewitched a young boy. "Of course some people have been burned. But there is proof of witchcraft," said one youth.
In the 21st Century. *sigh*
23 June 2009
The University of Wisconsin's National Primate Research Center has a "Primates in the News" section for all your primate news needs, and a variety of primate factsheets.
15 June 2009
The bookmaker working for a "psychic medium" is in court for significant fraud:
Denise Hall of East Arlington faces one count of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return after investigators with the U.S. Attorney's office say she stole money from self-proclaimed spiritual medium Rosemary Altea — using four credit cards to obtain cash advances, forging checks and giving herself unauthorized electronic paychecks all under Altea's name for the past seven years ... Prosecutors claim Hall is responsible for embezzling and diverting between $120,000 and $200,000 from Altea between early 2001 and the middle of 2008
If someone was stealing tens of thousands of dollars a year from you for seven years, and you're an "internationally renowned spiritual medium", shouldn't you have noticed that this person was up to no good? Wouldn't the dishonesty create a ripple in the psychic auras, or something, that you'd pick up on?
15 June 2009
News:
14 June 2009
I saw the Apollo 11 Haynes Manual in Waterstones yesterday and it looks goooood.
14 June 2009
Uh oh, Spirit, one of the pair of plucky little robots which have been driving around on Mars for more than 5 years, has been having memory lapses and is now stuck in soft ground.
14 June 2009
Folding bike race at the Smithfield Nocturne last week:
Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race
Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race
Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race Smithfield Nocturne folding bike race
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