Ray's X-Blog

Bias Against Humans The other day someone accused me of being biased against peasants. That’s not exactly true. I’m just biased against most humans. Backtrack: I mentioned to someone about the meteor that fell in South America. A fireball was seen in a remote region of Peru. Later a smelly crater - apparently created by a meteor slamming into the earth - was discovered. Local villagers went to look at the impact site and many fell sick later, symptoms ranging from headaches to stomach pain. [ link ] I said that a number of different answers could apply to the outbreak of illness, e.g., mass hysteria (or to use the more accurate term, collective delusion). The other person replied I was being prejudiced against the peasants who reported being sick. I told her that it had nothing to do with the socio-economic background of the people. Collective delusion has been reported over the years, involving people from all social groups. There’s the classic case of the Seattle windshield pit...

A Plan From Outer Space? The push is on. Posters are circulating to make people aware of what they should do in the case of an emergency (i.e., TERRORISTS STRIKE!) The poster features “nine essential items to help you shelter-in-place in the event of an emergency,” (i.e., TERRORISTS BLOW UP YOUR CITY!!!). Emblazoned on the colorful poster is the logo, “Plan 9.” Plan 9? Where have I seen that term before? The poster lists items such as water, food, medications, and a first aid kit. Obviously a plan to reanimate the semi-dead. Is Ed Wood in charge of this project? Or could it be sinister aliens from another world who like their meat ambulatory, easy to herd, fresh on the hoof?

Free Association: A Creative Mind At Work I was sitting around the coffee shop the other day, killing time. I was bored. For some reason the name of a city popped into my head: Butte, Montana. Like I said, I was really bored. (Does cute rhyme with butte?)

Mutant Fowl Up Bioengineering firm G Spot unveiled its line of polychromatic chickens. The birds are striking, variegated color bands marking their bodies from beak to tail. The head might be shade of green or yellow while the other end could be dark blue or bright red. Unfortunately a couple of defects can’t be overlooked. Doctor Jean Nettics, head of research at G Spot, said that flower DNA was spliced into the DNA stands of a common chicken to create the multicolored mutations. While the feather color change was successful, the altered avians suffer from unusual disabilities. The roosters make horrible sounds because they crow backwards. The repeated reversed crowing soon causes their throats to collapse and they suffocate. A few of the chickens are afflicted with head spinning, constantly twisting their heads in circles. This chronic action disconnects their necks. Eventually their heads sag and droop; they’re unable to eat. The DNA splicing is so effective that it only has t...