Saturday shorts

Here at Worldwide Wacko Watch, we're following a few breaking stories that you might be interested in.

First, the BBC reports (here) that the government of Sweden has recognized a new religion.  It is called "the Church of Kopimism," and was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student Isak Gerson.  Its central tenet is that the holiest of holy rituals is...

... file sharing.

Yup.  They believe that ctrl-C and ctrl-V are sacred symbols, and using them is akin to a religious ritual. 

"For the Church of Kopimism, information is holy and copying is a sacrament," Gerson said in a statement.  "Information holds a value, in itself and in what it contains and the value multiplies through copying. Therefore copying is central for the organisation and its members.  Being recognised by the state of Sweden is a large step for all of Kopimi.  Hopefully this is one step towards the day when we can live out our faith without fear of persecution."

Um, okay.  Like we can't see where this one is going:

Investigator:  "You're under arrest for illegally making and selling ten thousand pirated copies of Skyrim, netting $200,000 in the process."

Suspect:  "But, sir, I'm a card-carrying member of the Church of Kopimism."

Investigator:  (in a disappointed voice)  "Oh.  Okay, then.  Have a nice day."

Of course, given how rich some of the head honchos of other religions have become from their nutty beliefs, it's hard to see what the actual difference is.


Next, the show Finding Bigfoot has once again given us skeptics a chance for a good belly laugh with this clip, in which we see three apparently entirely serious people attempting to imitate what Bigfoot sounds like.  We have a guy imitating the "high-pitched scream" that Sasquatches make, which in his version sounds like he was goosed in the ass with a pointy stick.  Then a guy who appears to be wearing a raccoon cap does a few of what he calls "Squatch grunts" and a siren call.

But the funniest moment is when the first guy does an imitation of what Sasquatch language sounds like.  I can't possibly reproduce this in print, but all I can say is, if you can watch this bit of the clip without wetting your pants, you've got a Bladder of Steel.  Especially given that afterwards, Raccoon Cap Guy says, in complete seriousness, "Naw.  It sounds better than that."


Speaking of unintelligible communications, next we have a story about scientists at UC-Berkeley who are trying to decipher some radio signals that might be of alien provenance. 

Apparently, some signals picked up by a radio telescope being used by SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Life) made astronomers' ears perk up.  "These signals look similar to what we think might be produced from an extraterrestrial technology," researchers wrote on the project's website Friday.  "They are narrow in frequency, much narrower than would be produced by any known astrophysical phenomena, and they drift in frequency with time, as we would expect because of the Doppler effect imposed by the relative motion of the transmitter and the receiving radio telescope."

Of course, this doesn't mean that they are extraterrestrial in origin, and fortunately, they're all being very careful to make sure that the public understands that.  Seth Shostak, an astronomer who has been associated for years with SETI, responded to the announcement with his typical caution, stating that it is all too likely that the signal is a transmission that originated on Earth.  "They're definitely picking up an intelligent species, but one that's likely well known to us -- ourselves," Shostak told reporters.  "This is very common. It would require quite a bit of follow-up to determine whether it's E.T. or just AT&T."


Last, we have news in from scientists at Central European University in Hungary that in terms of cognition, dogs are about as smart as your average six-month-old.  In particular, their ability to understand "intent to communicate" was about as highly developed as an infant's.  This was determined by an experiment in which a researcher took sixteen dogs, and tried to get them to look at a container that had food in it.  In the first trial, she said, "Hi, dog," in a low voice, without making eye contact, and then looked at the food container.  In the second, she said, "Hi, dog!" in a high-pitched voice, made eye contact, and then looked at the food container.  The result, she said, was that in the second trial, the dogs spent more time looking at the food container, as if they understood that she was trying to communicate something -- while in the first, they didn't get it because there seemed to be no "intent to communicate."

I'm doubtful, frankly.  If they'd used my dogs, I can tell you that they would have spent the entire time looking at the food container no matter what the researcher did.  My dogs spend a lot of time staring at containers of food, because they are apparently convinced that if they just look at it long enough, it will magically pop open and spill food all over the floor.  They also attempt this kind of canine telekinesis at dinner time, when they seem to be trying to will my t-bone steak to slide off the plate and into their waiting jaws.  Why they keep trying this, when it never works, is beyond me.  But at least it keeps them occupied.


So, that's our news for today.  The Church of File-Sharing, Bigfoot noises, alien radio signals, and communicating with your dog.  We tirelessly scour the world's news for the latest oddball developments, so you can have these stories delivered to your doorstep.  No thanks are necessary, but if you have an extra copy of Skyrim handy, just pop it in the mail, because we'd really like to give it a try.

An alien cathouse

Hey, guys -- have you ever found yourself jealous of Captain James T. Kirk, who wherever he went, always had to fight off the seven-foot-tall green women with brass corsets, who had been waiting for a galactic era for Kirk to show up and hop into bed with them?  New worlds to explore, new alien women to shag, that was the life for Kirk.  And c'mon, you have to admit that would have its attractive side.

Well, fire up the warp drive, because soon you might be able to experience something of that thrill, if (1) you don't mind going to Nevada, and (2) you're really good at suspending your disbelief.

Dennis Hof, entrepreneur and owner of several (legal) brothels, is now planning on opening an alien-themed one, presumably to attract the science nerd demographic.  The whole thing will have an Area 51 theme, with rooms decorated to look like alien worlds, and the women will have costumes, and (it is to be surmised) large quantities of body paint.  For costume design, Hof has hired none other than Heidi Fleiss, the "Hollywood Madam," who gained notoriety after being arrested for running a high-priced prostitution ring in southern California.

"She's the chief alien design queen," Hof told the Las Vegas Review-Journal two days ago.

Well.  It's not that I disapprove of anything done between consenting adults, as long as no one gets hurt; but doesn't this all strike you as kind of... silly?  Personally, I think the whole thing would make me laugh, not feel frisky.  And wouldn't the body paint... um, rub off?  Antennae get knocked askew?  Pointed ears come loose?  I mean, role play is one thing, but this would require a suspension of belief that I doubt I'd find myself capable of, even if for some reason I had the desire to get it on with one of the Blue Amazon Women of Bazonga-4.

Which I don't, particularly.

I'm sure, however, there will be plenty of guys who do.  There's a whole subgenre of science fiction that is basically alien erotica, so evidently there are people who get off on that sort of thing (literally and figuratively).  So whatever my personal reluctance would be, I have no doubt that there are a sizable number of guys who have every episode of Star Trek memorized, and who would be thrilled to have an opportunity to experience sex with a Vulcan woman.  (I'm guessing that logic would have very little to do with it, however.)  And my guess is that when the brothel opens, the crew of the USS Intercourse will have no shortage of business.

So, anyway, that's the news from Worldwide Wacko Watch for today.  An alien brothel in Nevada, as if Nevada needed anything to make it weirder.  A place to seek out strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly come where no man has come before.

President Obama in space

Whatever you think of the accomplishments of one president or another, it can't be easy to hold the highest office in the land.  And one of the most trying things are the prognostications of the political pundits, calculating your popularity on a daily basis, noting how your decisions effect your standing.  Imagine if every day on television, you heard people like Wolf Blitzer make statements about you like, "Steve's decision to tailgate the slow-moving elderly guy in the Buick today really cost him in the polls.  We know he was late to work, but it may not have been the prudent thing to do.  Given the fact that when he finally passed the old guy, Steve flipped the him off, this clearly will trigger a loss of popularity in the above-65 age bracket.  We calculate that Steve's approval rating went down 2.8% for this reason alone."

By the way, did you know that Wolf Blitzer is his real name?  I always doubted that, from the first time I heard it.  It always sounded to me like one of those made-up names, the way romance novel authors always have names like "Desiderata St. Cloud."  In fact, I once bet one of my students that it was a pseudonym, so we looked it up -- and it turns out that no, it is his real name, and in fact "Wolf" is a traditional name in his pack.  Er, family.

But I digress.

Anyhow, my point is that it's got to be hard to hear everyone having an opinion about what you're doing, if you're president.  Just look at what the Grand Warlock of Mexico said, just a couple of days ago.

First of all, did you know that Mexico had a Grand Warlock?  I didn't.  It sounds like a fun job, although you apparently have to grow your hair and beard out and look really scraggly, at least to judge by the current one, Antonio Vazquez.  Vazquez, who lives in Catemaco, practices brujeria, or a Central American form of sorcery, and each year he makes highly publicized predictions.  Last year, for example, he predicted that in 2011 a South American leader would be assassinated.

Okay, that didn't technically come true, but this hasn't stopped people from seeking out his help, nor from listening to his predictions.  And his main prediction this year: President Obama will lose the 2012 election.

To me, it seems a bit early to be making these kinds of statements, given that we don't even know who the Republican nominee will be.  But this hasn't stopped Vazquez, who has also predicted that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez will have "a terrible relapse" of his cancer.

Vazquez learned all this, he says, from "Tarot cards and observations of the stars."

And this isn't the end of President Obama's current problems, either; we now have a devastating revelation that he secretly went to Mars in the 1980s.

This story, broken by noted wingnut Alfred Lambremont Webre, states that two "high-ranking government advisors," Andrew Basiago and William Stillings, not only saw Obama in "Mars training classes" in 1980,  but that they both saw him on Mars, in the "rudimentary U.S. facilities" that were built on Mars between 1981 and 1983.

Obama, then a teenager, was teleported with nine other teenagers to Mars from a "staging room" at Hughes Aircraft in Los Angeles.  "I can confirm that Andrew D. Basiago and Barack Obama (then using the name "Barry Soetoro") were in my Mars training course in Summer , I encountered Andy, Courtney M. Hunt of the CIA, and other Americans on the surface of Mars after reaching Mars via the 'jump room' in El Segundo, California.”

Well, all I can say is, I'm sure this will make Obama's approval rating go down even further.  The idea that the President of the United States participated in a Teenagers in Space program, not to mention got to teleport, and didn't tell the rest of us, is just reprehensible.  Next thing you know, we'll find out that while he was on Mars, he got caught in a rip in the space-time continuum and had to be returned to Earth by Geordi LaForge, because otherwise it would change history so that Michele Bachmann wins the 2012 presidential election, which would cause a massive exodus of everyone with a triple-digit IQ from the United States, but now there's a problem on the Enterprise with antimatter containment in the warp core, which causes several of the non-essential red-shirted Starfleet members to get flung against the wall and die, but fortunately Captain Picard comes up with a brilliant plan and the whole thing is resolved before the credits roll.

In any case, I don't know how much all of this bad news is going to cost President Obama.  First, a warlock in Mexico says he's going to be defeated in the upcoming election, and then we find out he participated in a highly classified space program that was top secret to everyone but Alfred Lambremont Webre.  I'd think that's gotta cost him some percentage points.  Maybe Wolf Blitzer knows for sure.

The rampages of Oily Man

New Jersey has the Jersey Devil.  West Virginia has Mothman.  Southern England has Spring-heeled Jack.  All sightings of mysterious, humanoid creatures with distinctly non-human features, who are capable of running, jumping and (in some cases) vanishing in a way no normal person could, and who are blamed for strings of attacks on a terrified citizenry.

And now, in Malaysia, we have the orang minyak -- "Oily Man."

According to a story on the Asia News Network, residents of Gombak, Selangor province, have been terrorized lately by an entity (or more than one of them) that would certainly scare the crap out of me -- a large, muscular, half-naked man, with glowing eyes -- and completely covered in oil.

The orang minyak, so goes the legend, is a resident of the dense forest, and comes out at night with the intent of finding human women to have his way with.  In the case of the recent sightings, there have been a couple of unsuccessful attacks -- the women Oily Man attacked escaped unscathed -- but there have been multiple reports of oily footprints, and in one case a human-shaped oil patch on the ground where the orang minyak is alleged to have slept.  One resident, Aslam Khan, says he got a good look at one.

"I saw the bald orang minyak hiding behind the water tank of a house at about two in the morning," Khan told reporters.  "It was breathing really loudly, like a cow.  It was black and shiny.  When I shone my light on it, the thing stuck out its head to look back at me.  Before I could do anything, it climbed up the roof and disappeared."

Khan said that upon investigation, they had found the spot where the orang minyak conducts its nightly oil bath and reciting of jampi (ritual prayers).  I'm relieved, actually.  At least Oily Man is observing the religious formalities.  Who knows what an atheist Oily Man might be capable of?

The article in question clearly treated the appearances of the orang minyak as a paranormal occurrence; and that's obviously what the residents of Gombak think.  In fact, their explanation is that the orang minyak is a spirit that is attempting to complete its initiation into black magic and become a full-fledged demon, and in order to do so has to have sex with a certain (unspecified) number of human women.  To which I say: I'm doubtful.  If I were a resident of Gombak, I would be looking for a guy who seems to be buying more than his fair share of Head & Shoulders Greasy Hair Formula Shampoo.

Once again, I have to ask the question of why people seem so determined to jump to a paranormal explanation for something that admits of a simple, logical, and rational solution.  It's all well and good to say, "Well, those are superstitious people, down there in Malaysia" -- which may or may not be true, and ignores the fact that we self-congratulatory Americans have our own way of ignoring Ockham's Razor (consider how many people read, and trust, horoscopes, and how rich the "Psychic Hot Line" people are).  So it's perhaps unjustified for us to point fingers.  But whatever the source of the attacks -- be it an evil spirit with an affinity for grease, or a sexual predator taking advantage of a credulous populace -- I hope they stop soon.  The article stressed how tense the people of Gombak were becoming, having to be on guard round-the-clock.  I can see how that would wear on one, whatever the nature of the attacker -- paranormal or otherwise.

A mental lacuna

Without going into any gruesome personal details, I've been in therapy for two-and-a-half years in order to deal with on-and-off bouts of depression.  My therapist, a 60-something Ithaca MSW whose office stands next to her home, was recommended to me by a friend with the words, "She's the real deal."

About a month ago, there was an odd change in her manner.  Rather than opening her office door to let me in, she called through the closed door, "Gordon?  You can come in now."  Getting up from my seat in her waiting room, I went into her office to find her seated, legs crossed at the ankle, in her customary armchair, looking rather embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," she said.  "I'm having trouble walking."

I said, "I'm sorry to hear that."  Upon inquiring further, I found that the trouble wasn't confined to her legs; she had weakness all down her right side, including her right arm.

I knew her to be a heavy smoker, with a persistent hacking cough she always attributed to "allergies."  When she described her symptoms, alarm bells went off in my head.  I said, "Have you seen a doctor about this?"

Her response was immediate, and unequivocal: "I don't believe in doctors."

Over the next few weeks, I asked each time how she was doing, and each time she said, "I'm slowly getting better."  But her reluctance to walk, even to stand, continued, and the two other times I brought up going to the doctor, I was cut off sharply.

I found out on New Year's Eve that she died two days after Christmas of a massive stroke.

The Latin word lacuna means "gap," and in English usually refers to a missing section of a manuscript, or a concept for which no word exists in a given language.  I'm going to use it differently here; as a blind spot, a missing piece of self-awareness.  In particular; how could a trained therapist, who daily counseled people about how to deal with their problems in an honest way, have such a mental lacuna regarding her own health?

She was up front, and defiant, about being a smoker; she related to me once being confronted by a patient, who didn't like the faint cigarette smell that hung about the office, despite the fact that she always smoked in another room.  That the patient could object to this was, my therapist said, out of line.  "It's none of her business what I do," she said, which is true, of course; but her rough voice and persistent, grating cough were always blamed on "pollen allergy," a statement that left me thinking, "C'mon.  You and I both know a smoker's cough when we hear it." 

The lacuna extended, apparently, to a distrust in doctors -- odd for a person whose obituary called her a "mental health professional" to refuse to consult a different kind of health professional.  Even with symptoms that virtually everyone would consider a red flag of the most serious kind, she refused to admit the facts, refused to seek help.  And ultimately, that refusal killed her.

While this is an extreme example, with a tragic outcome, the whole thing leaves me wondering what sorts of unacknowledged lacuna I have -- and what ones we all have.  What things are there about ourselves that are so troubling that we cannot even get within arm's reach before our denial mechanism kicks in?  What things will we not entertain, because to do so opens up such an emotional can of worms that we can't face it?

Most of us like to think that we're honest with ourselves, about ourselves, for the most part.  But if a trained counselor can have one realm in which she was this much in denial, what unguessed, uncharted territories exist within all of us?

Love Potion Number Nine

My son and I spent an entertaining hour yesterday afternoon looking at websites for magic potion recipes, and guffawing like idiots.

I always find it interesting to trace back how we end up talking about a particular topic.  In this case, the subject of magic spells came up because Nathan developed quite an interest in edible and medicinal herbs a while back, and started a nice little herb garden.  We've had an unusually mild winter, and a few days ago he went out and did a bit of light weeding, and found that he still had a lot of green and growing plants -- lemon balm, mint, lavender, and selfheal, amongst many others, despite its being midwinter, a time when normally upstate New York would be blanketed with snow.  Then, yesterday at lunch, I commented that a piece of pottery he'd made looked like a vessel for cooking magic potions, and he responded, "I bet some of my garden herbs have magical uses!"

So we got on the computer and did a quick Google search, using the keywords "magic potion recipes."  I figured we might find a site or two, maintained by some poor deluded soul who really thinks that (s)he can do magic.

Well. "A site or two" turned out to be a vast underestimate.  We stopped looking at about page seven of lists of sites which claim to present Real Magical Potion Recipes.  We found recipes for everything from love potions to something called "Black Arts Oil" (the latter, it's said, is extremely potent and should be used with extreme caution [italics theirs]; since it contains black pepper oil, I'd guess that's prudent enough).

There was a lot of the usual stuff, potions for making money, for good luck, for getting someone to have sex with you, for driving away evil.  A few, however, made for wonderful reading.  One of the better ones we found was "Separation Powder," which you make from chili powder, black pepper, iron filings, cinnamon, and a couple of other things.  If you're tired of your lover, you're supposed to toss the powder on him/her, and it will assure a separation.  Me, I think the chili powder and iron filings alone would suffice; I'd certainly be pissed if anyone threw that on me, all magic aside.  One recipe for a love potion -- to be shared with your prospective love -- takes some ice cubes, a banana, some strawberries, a peach, and some orange juice, with a bit of vanilla extract.  Carol and I must still be in love because we share this potion sometimes -- only we call it a "smoothie."  A potion called "Yula Death Oil" is made from the combination of rose oil, wisteria oil, lavender oil, and melon extract, with black dye added; one practitioner said, "Do not use this unless the death of the target individual is desired!" but the owner of the website commented, "Even with the black dye, this mixture doesn't smell like death to me, so I have my doubts that it would work."

So do I, lady.  So do I.

One of the more interesting sites we came across was written by someone who calls herself "Silver RavenWolf" (actual name: Betty Sue Ludnowski), which had potions and incantations.   The best find here was a magickal (in real magic, it's always spelled with a "k," to differentiate it from fake magic) procedure for conferring invisibility.  Silver/Betty Sue described the procedure, along with a caution that "it doesn't always work;" the whole thing seemed to center around focusing on a white light and concentrating until the image of yourself in your mind becomes blurry around the edges.  My personal opinion is that anyone who believes this would work is a little blurry around the edges already, and it immediately reminded me of the wonderful movie Mystery Men (the best sendup ever of comic-book superhero movies), in which there's a character called "Invisible Boy" who, as advertised, can become invisible.  The problem is, it only works when no one is looking.

Another one this site confers to you the "strength of an oak tree."  It begins with directing you to take a twig from an oak tree, but "only if the dryad agrees," and tells you to obtain oak bark from a herbal medicine store if she doesn't.  Honestly, if you think the spirit in your oak tree is talking to you, your best option may be to come indoors where it's safe and have a nice cup of tea, and leave aside the magic for a spell.  (ba-dump-bump-kssssh)

So, anyway, Nathan is going to collect various plants the next chance he gets and give the whole thing a try.  I have volunteered to test whatever he concocts, as long as it doesn't contain anything disgusting or outright poisonous.  I'm all about the scientific method.  I will definitely report back here if I grow antlers, or suddenly find I can fly, or start receiving divine prophecies from the water spirits in the creek in our back yard.  Trust me, you'll be the first to know.

The year in review

Well, 2011 is almost over, and I thought it would be entertaining to review some of the top stories from this year, as a way of reminding ourselves how bloody amazing it is that humanity has survived this long, considering some of the silly things we say, do, and believe in.

In January, we had an announcement from the scientists at the Minnesota Planetarium Society that according to their research, the standard zodiac isn't correct.  So even if, for some reason, you think astrology actually works, that the position of the Sun relative to arbitrary patterns of stars has something to do with your personality, daily life, and destiny, you haven't been using the right constellation for your "sun sign" because the plane of the ecliptic has moved since the time of the Greeks.  There's now a thirteenth zodiac constellation (Ophiucus) and all of the dates have shifted.  (Link)

February brought the announcement that former Baywatch star Donna D'Errico was looking for Noah's Ark on the side of Mount Ararat.  Despite her plans to bring along a camera crew, she was quoted as saying, "I am not doing a reality show."  I have to agree with her there.  Reality is the last thing this is about.  (Link)

March was a contentious month, and saw two examples of mystics hurling abuse at other mystics for being mystics.  In Bulgaria, a monk named Brother Visarion wrote a book, and has been preaching sermons, denouncing two folk religious figures, the healers and prophets Peter Danov and Mother Vanga.  And in yet another example of the pot cursing the kettle, we had the Raelians, who believe (amongst other things) that Jesus' resurrection will be accomplished by cloning, criticizing the Christians for having wacky beliefs.  (Link)

In April, I wrote the post that has generated the greatest number of hits to date -- a piece about the claim that Rebecca Black's song "Friday" was really about the JFK assassination.  That this song could have anything going for it, other than being the most terrible song ever recorded, is hard to believe; but apparently enough people at least wondered to (1) generate the claim in the first place, and (2) send over 1,500 people to my blog to find out what I thought.  So I owe a rather reluctant debt of gratitude to Rebecca Black, even though I still would rather have both ears removed with a SkilSaw than have to listen to that song again.  (Link)

In May, we found out that (gasp!) Harold Camping was wrong again about the world ending, resulting in disappointment both from his followers, and from us godless heathens who thought we were finally going to be rid of them for good.  Camping, of course, was undaunted, and merely revised his date to October.  (Link)

June brought the startling announcement that the Smurfs were communists, and were indoctrinating children into Marxist ideology.  A Parisian lecturer named Antoine Buéno wrote a vicious treatise about the Red Menace of "Les Schtroumpfs" (as the French call the Smurfs), which was notable as making even less sense than the Muslim imam's claim that Mickey Mouse was an agent of Satan. (Link)

In July, we had the announcement that the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo's ship from the Star Wars trilogy, had been found crashed on the floor of the Baltic Sea.  Or, if not Solo's ship, at least a crashed UFO of some kind.  The Swedish treasure-hunting outfit Ocean Explorers were the ones who made the discovery, and the subsequent claim, and no one was more shocked than I was when it turned out to be... a bunch of rocks that were vaguely shaped like a spaceship.  (Link)

August often turns folks' minds onto vacations, and for the woo-woo minded we have a post about a variety of opportunities for mystical travel.  (Link)

In September my blog set another record, for the highest number of hits in a single day -- after I inadvertently pissed off a bunch of British ghost-hunters with this post, and they got wind of it, and a battle of cross-posting ensued.  (Link)

October was notable for the world not ending again, and also because the Russians began their big push to prove that the Yeti was real.  Some Russian scientists sponsored an expedition to Kemerovo, the site of many alleged Yeti sightings, and actually got a bunch of interested researchers from other countries to attend.  Unfortunately for any scientists who were interested in trying to find actual evidence, the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and included "Bigfoot nests" that had apparently been made using hand saws, a technology that most credible researchers believe Yetis don't have.  But the expedition did have one thing going for it -- the participation of heavyweight boxer Nikolai Valuyev, the "Beast from the East," who might have a personal interest in proving the existence of Bigfoot -- if you get my drift.  If you don't, you will when you look at his photograph.  (Link)

November brought a story about the organization PETA losing what little credibility it had left by attacking the video game character Mario for wearing a fur coat, and retaliating by creating a game of its own that had a crazed Mario carrying around a bleeding dog's head.  Evidently the word "fictional" isn't really part of these people's vocabulary.  (Link)

And most recently, in December we had the claim that a highly advanced alien species, possibly the Romulans, had a huge cloaked spacecraft parked near Mercury.  In fact, the spacecraft was exactly the size and shape of Mercury.  And, of course, it turned out that the spacecraft was Mercury, to the dismay of UFO aficionados and Trekkies alike.  (Link)

It's been a long year's journey through the world of the woo-woo, and for those of you who are regular readers, thanks for sharing it with me.  I wish you all a Happy New Year.  Myself, I'm looking forward to 2012, which will undoubtedly bring us all new examples of wingnuttery, and a brand new date for the End of the World.  So, let's boldly plunge forward into the New Year, with the fervent hope for peace, happiness, and love, and a quick wish that we'll find out that the Mayans were wrong, after all.