Last weekend, while browsing through the organic soaps section in one of the local health and beauty shops here, I stumbled upon Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. I think it was the colorful appearance of the bottles that attracted my attention.

I picked up a bottle for a closer look. Hmm... "18-in-1 Hemp Almond Pure-Castile Soap"... whoa! HEMP?!! Is that the same hemp known by other names like mary jane, hashish, grass, weed, pot, ganja, dope?!!

I mean, I know this stuff can also be used for medicinal purposes. I think I read it somewhere and also saw it on CSI:Miami where Delko bought some illegally for his cancer-stricken sister. (Oh and Horatio is marrying the sister in the next episode I think.) But it's quite surprising to find the stuff freely accessible in a liquid soap when a TV cop had to get it the hard way.

Anyway, I bought one because I thought it smelled good (or was that the drug kicking in?). When I got home, I continued reading some of the finer prints on the label and realized that this Dr. Bronner dude must have been smoking his soaps. It was quite an interesting read. Here are some of my favorite lines:

- Clouds when cold. (What?)
- If Cap Clogs, Poke It. (That sounds dirty.)
- Do Not Squeeze Bottle and Shoot Out Soap. (That sounds dirty too.)
- Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! (That doesn't sound dirty... just stupid.)
- To simplify & enjoy life more, dilute 1/2 oz... (... and smoke it?)
- Enjoy body rub to stimulate body-mind-soul-spirit. (What's the difference between soul and spirit?)
- Within 9 minutes you feel fresh and clean. (Really? 9 minutes? How did he figure that out?)

Want to torture yourself with the whole thing? Here you go (163 KB). There's an even longer and more confusing version (957 KB) on Dr. Bronner's website, where I also saw his picture... which confirmed my theory about him smoking his magic hemp soap.

So I followed the instructions and diluted the soap in hot water, dipped my towel in, and applied it on my face. I waited 9 minutes and didn't really feel any different. My face felt a little cool, but I couldn't define that as fresh since it was obviously just cold air hitting my warm face.

Oh, and I didn't find out all the 18 ways of using the soap. Maybe next time I'll try using it undiluted and see whether any magic feeling appears.

Anyone who has watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth knows for a fact that global warming is threatening to destroy our planet. But do you know that the Canadian government is secretly trying to ENCOURAGE MORE GLOBAL WARMING?

Canada is a huge country (second largest in the world in terms of land area) with a robust economy and great social programs. It would be an utopia if not for one big problem: it's FREAKING COLD. Most of Canada is covered in deep snow all year round, which explains their national average temperature of -20°C. So it's clear that while global warming would be disastrous for the rest of us, it would actually be ADVANTAGEOUS TO CANADIANS!!!

(Imagine how nice Vancouver would be if it has Florida weather. And there would be no more Florida--it would be underwater thanks to rising sea levels caused by global warming! Al Gore said so.)

Investigations by the Global Climate Research Institute (GCRI) have revealed that the Canadian government is secretly and wastefully burning 22.5 MILLION BARRELS of oil PER DAY (that's more than what China AND India consume in a day) in an attempt to accelerate global warming. And they're succeeding! Latest scientific studies show that, at the rate it's going, most coastal areas will be underwater by the year 2020!

Is there anything we can do to stop the Canadian global warming conspiracy? Of course! Sign the online petition against Canadian global warming at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopcanada and forward this message to all your friends and family members. Doing so will only take a few minutes of your time, but ignoring this can mean a lifetime of underwater suffering for future generations. So let's all spread the word and do our best to save the planet. ACT NOW!!!

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If you're now convinced that big evil Canada must be stopped from destroying our planet, here's what I want you to do: slap yourself in the face, check the date of this post, and slap yourself in the face again. It's April Fools', you fool! And no matter what day it is, you shouldn't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Now here's what I really want you to do: help me spread the hoax. Yay! Fun! Here's how to do it:

1. Download the attached text file.
2. Open it and copy the text to your favorite email program.
3. Put "Fwd: Stop Global Warming!" in the subject line.
4. Send it to your friends, especially the annoying ones who keep forwarding you useless medical tips and urban legends.
5. Laugh like an evil maniac. (Optional)

If some of your recipients express doubt and ask questions, don't lie. Just admit that it's a hoax and send them to this page. There are probably enough people who would forward it without thinking anyway.

So go do it. Go! ACT NOW!!!

P.S. Don't forget to sign the petition. ACT NOW!!!

CNN.com can be really silly sometimes. Just the other day, I saw this headline....

First of all, isn't "six-legged octopus" an oxymoron? You do know what the prefix "octo-" means, right? And why is this under the technology section? Is your six-legged octopus some kind of sinister robot from the future?

The British scientists who discovered the strange creature called it a "hexapus" and named it Henry. "Henry the hexapus"? That sounds so lame. I guess "six-legged octopus" wasn't so bad after all.

Introducing the hexapus: 25% less sushi

The article said that Henry was the first six-legged octopus ever found, but I knew I had seen something like that somewhere before. I just couldn't for the life of me remember where. Then, earlier tonight, as I was digging through old pictures in search for blog ideas, I found it.

You sure this was made in China? I thought the Chinese are good at math.

I saw that "octopus" stuffed toy in a souvenir shop in Subic a few months ago. I took a picture because I couldn't get over how stupid the idea of a six-legged octopus is.

Well, I guess I was wrong. Hail the hexapus!

It's Blog Action Day today! Yay! OK, it's not. That was two days ago. What can I say? I'm a procrastinator. But better late than never, right? Right.

This year's Blog Action Day topic is the environment. And since Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out last year, global warming has become the single hottest issue for young wannabe environmentalists everywhere. The planet has a fever! We're all gonna die!

Al Gore has since been hailed as a visionary and a hero. I'm sure you've all heard about him winning the Nobel Peace Prize last week. But have you heard about this less reported story? At around the same time, a British court ruled that Al Gore's movie contains various inaccuracies and exaggerations. In particular, the apocalyptic vision of a sudden 23-foot rise in sea level was characterized by the judge as "distinctly alarmist."

I'm not really surprised. When I saw the movie, I did suspect that Al Gore overstated the doomsday scenario for maximum shock value. But the fundamentals of the film are still sound, right? The British judge thought so. I thought so too... until I saw this clip.

Now I'm not so sure anymore.

To be clear, I wasn't impressed by all the name-dropping at the start of the clip--hell, I've seen enough "doctors" endorsing all kinds of crap on TV to know better. But the part about the 800-year gap between the rise in temperature and the increase in carbon dioxide concentration... that's a big deal. Al Gore says that CO2 causes global warming. But if CO2 spikes come centuries after temperature increases, it sure would seem like Al Gore had the cause and effect all backwards. Hmm... chicken or egg? A quick trip to Google got me an explanation and a rebuttal of the explanation, neither of them overwhelmingly convincing.

The question of CO2's role in global warming is highly significant because much of the current effort to address climate change is focused on the reduction of carbon emissions (*cough* Kyoto Protocol *cough*). Global warming is clearly a problem, but if carbon dioxide isn't the primary cause, then we're just wasting our resources. Not smart. If we're going to solve this problem, we'll have to be smart.

Unfortunately, a big chunk of the "green" advocacy is becoming more and more like a religion, where Al Gore is God, his movie is the gospel truth, and everyone who disagrees needs to be browbeaten into repentance. Hey, it's good to be passionate for a cause you believe in, but a little scientific attitude is nice too. If the evidence doesn't support the hypothesis, it's reasonable to be skeptical. More research, less propaganda.

I don't think that PR gimmicks like the Blog Action Day thing really help much. The simultaneous rants of a few thousands bloggers, many of whom got everything they know about global warming from one movie, probably muddle up the issue rather than clarify it.

Sorry for raining on the Blog Action Day parade. Me goes hide from torch-wielding environfascists now. Hey, come on guys, put those torches down. Torches cause global warming!

Recent findings show that the length of your fingers may indicate your cognitive leanings. From the article:

Specifically, boys whose index fingers were short compared with their ring fingers tended to excel at numbers and girls with index and ring fingers of similar length tended to do better on the verbal portion of the test.

....

Researchers believe hormones explain the findings. Finger length is thought to be determined in the womb, with exposures to testosterone and estrogen playing a key role. Greater testosterone exposure appears to result in a shorter index finger relative to the ring finger, while estrogen encourages more equality between the two fingers.

Apparently, testosterone promotes development of spatial and mathematical skills, while estrogen affects language skills. Is that why women talk all the time and men pay all the bills?

Hmm, this testosterone-estrogen dynamic sure can explain a lot of the gender-specific behavior we have. Here's a few I've listed down for violent reactions or interactions, however you prefer it.

1. Guys always wanting to score. (Testosterone = math skills)

2. Women asking grammatically correct yet impossible-to-answer questions like, "Do I look fat in these jeans?" (Estrogen = language skills)

3. Gay guys jabbering anywhere and anytime. (Guess which hormone is dominant here?)

Inquirer.net's layout sucks. They like to have a big headline on top and a photo right under it, which would be normal if not for the fact that the headline and the photo are usually unrelated. This is what I saw there earlier today.

Hmm, interesting. So we have an article telling us that 19% of Filipinos are living in extreme poverty. But right below the headline, we have a bunch of Greenpeace activists protesting against genetically modified rice while dressed as turds.

I've called Greenpeace activists idiots before, and I'll do it again. These idiots love publicity stunts. Dress up in silly costumes, carry big signs, and scream anti-GMO slogans--how fun! But if you walk up to them and ask them to explain why GMOs are bad, chances are they won't be able to come up with logical answers. Instead, they'll just throw around misleading "scare" words like "contamination." They also like to make general accusations that are unsupported by any evidence. Genetic engineering is evil! GMOs contaminate the environment! GM food is Frankenfood--it's not safe! Ooh, so scary!

Bullshit. There is no scientific evidence that GM food poses any significant health risks. But fearmongers like Greenpeace seem to have no qualms about spreading misinformation to promote their agenda. The situation isn't helped by lazy journalists who parrot Greenpeace press releases without checking the facts. And the poor public ends up scared shitless. Oh no! GM food sounds so scary! We've got to ban it!

Of course, as with any new technology, some of the safety concerns here may be valid. But the solution is to do more research and testing. It makes no sense to throw away all the benefits of genetic engineering just because a bunch of idiots are irrationally afraid of scientific progress. That's right, Greenpeace. Genetic engineering actually has benefits! Scientists don't genetically modify stuff just for the heck of it, you know. They do so to produce crops with higher yield, more nutrients, and better resistance to diseases.

In Third World countries where many people go hungry everyday, GM crops can potentially save and improve millions of lives. An example would be golden rice, which is genetically modified to biosynthesize beta-carotene. It would be good for a country like the Philippines, where Vitamin A deficiency is a prevalent health problem.

But Greenpeace activists don't want that, and I can't understand why. Maybe they're a front for the organic food industry. Or maybe they're just well-meaning dummies brainwashed by evil Greenpeace overlords. Whatever their motives are, it's clear that they're doing more harm than good.

Someone please remind these idiots that, for starving people, Frankenfood is better than no food.

Last month, I bookmarked this CNN.com article about a Mercedes-Benz concept car inspired by tropical boxfish. Well, maybe "inspired" isn't the right word, because that thing is butt ugly.

But the fish car might become appropriate in a few decades when, as the Great Prophet Al Gore predicted, Antarctica melts and we're all underwater. Scary! We've got to stop ManBearPig global warming now!

But wait, what's happening? Many parts of the US are now experiencing record cold weather. What the hell? How can there be record low temperatures all over when the planet is supposed to have a fever?

I tried to Google for an explanation, but most results I get seem to be of the "Haha! Al Gore is a dumbass!" variety, posted by gloating conservatives who don't "believe" in global warming. I'm sure I'll be able to find some politically neutral scientific analysis if I look hard enough, but I'm lazy.

All I know is that if global warming continues, poor countries like the Philippines will be the hardest hit. Rich countries can, I don't know, build dikes or big boats or something. Things would be much worse for people living in mud huts.

So what should we do to avert the impending disaster? In an ideal world, everyone will work together to stop pollution and save the earth. Yay! Unfortunately, in practice, being green requires a different kind of green: money. Lots of money. Rich countries can afford to pay the premium and implement stringent environmental policies, but to impose the same standards on developing countries would likely stunt economic growth. You think the Industrial Revolution would have happened if the Europeans back then were concerned about carbon emission levels?

Besides, being extra nice to Mother Earth would mean nothing if your neighbors don't do the same. Conversely, you can pollute as much as you want as long as your neighbors are willing to clean up your mess. In the end, it's almost like a prisoner's dilemma--no matter what others do, it would be more advantageous to not cooperate with environmentalist efforts.

As politically incorrect as it may sound, the right thing for small poor countries like ours to do is to say "screw the environment" and concentrate our resources on improving the economy. If the big rich countries somehow manage to reverse global warming and save the planet from Al Gore's Waterworld Apocalypse, great. If not, at least we would have enough money to buy us some Mercedes fish cars.

Life is unpredictable. One can learn about totally useless facts at totally unexpected moments. I sure learned something today.

For dinner earlier this evening, I threw some Christmas party leftovers on a plate, covered it, pushed it into the microwave oven, closed the door, and set the timer to 3 minutes--all pretty standard procedure. But as the light inside the oven came on, I saw that the cover I used had at least a dozen ants crawling on it. Oops.

I thought about stopping the oven, but I was too hungry. Besides, ants are protein-rich, right? So I left the ants in the oven and went to see what was on TV. By the time I came back a few minutes later, I had forgotten about the ants. Imagine my surprise when I saw little black dots running around as I opened the oven door. Oh my god, they're alive! Holy crap! And they're now crawling all over my food. Crap.

As I flicked the ants off my plate, I couldn't help but wonder how they survived the microwave oven. Don't microwave ovens cook stuff by causing water molecules to vibrate and heat up? I'm pretty sure that insects contain lots of water. So why the hell weren't the ants fried and crispy?

Well, they'll probably all get cancer soon, but for now, they're alive. Scary. And what if they don't get cancer? What if the microwave radiation gave them super powers instead and eventually turns them into super evil mutant ants that will take over the world? Scary!

Then the mad scientist in me started wondering if larger animals can also survive microwave cooking. Maybe I should do an experiment with a kitten or a puppy. Will it survive like the ants did? Or will it turn into an exploding ball of fur? Hmm... time to schedule a trip to the local animal shelter.

Kids, you're looking at the device that will put an end to all the diseases in the world!

On the outside, it doesn't look too impressive. It's an ugly metal box with a screen plus a few buttons and knobs. It comes with a standard PC keyboard--well, standard except that there is only one big Delete key where separate Insert and Delete keys should be. And, interestingly, it saves data on a 3 1/2-inch diskette. Wow, really? People actually still use those? I haven't seen of one of those fossils for years.

But beneath the ordinary-looking shell lies extraordinary healing powers that no machine in history has even possessed. So what is this amazing contraption? As the pastor who showed me the device earlier today explained, it is a Rife beam ray machine.

Huh? What is a beam ray machine? The beam ray machine was derived from the works of mad scientist Royal Raymond Rife in the 1930s. Yes, the 1930s. The basic concept is that each type of disease-causing microbes oscillates at a specific frequency. By blasting those microbes with a sound wave of the proper frequency, we can make them explode the same way that the voice of Mariah Carey shatters glass. Bacteria ka-boom = disease cured. Yay! Makes sense? Yay!

OK, that's wonderful, but how do I know what frequency to use? Don't worry, my friend. The beam ray machine comes with a neat manual (see picture) containing the names of every disease that you can think of and the corresponding frequencies. By fiddling with the settings, you can use this machine to cure anything from migraine to cancer to AIDS! Just input the correct number and press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start!

Seriously, all this is starting to sound like a gigantic load of bullshit. Do you have any scientific proof? Peer reviews? Controlled clinical trials? Anything? Well, not really. But that's only because the technology has been suppressed for decades by evil pharmaceutical companies that control the FDA and the whole medical industry! The dog ate my homework Their goons burned down Mr. Rife's lab and destroyed all his notes containing the detailed results of his experiments! In fact, Mr. Rife was so devastated that he become an alcoholic and died of a drug overdose. Poor Mr. Rife! Pharmaceutical companies don't want you to have this miracle cure. They want to keep you sick so that you'll keep buying their drugs!

Wait a minute... if the beam ray machine can cure anything, why didn't Mr. Rife use it to treat his own alcoholism? .... Never mind, don't answer that.

I asked the pastor if he has had personal success with the device. He enthusiastically told me story after story of sick people getting better after he treated them with magic beam rays. Cool. I then asked if he had encountered instances where the device didn't work. After a bit of awkward silence, he admitted that yeah, it doesn't always work. Hmm....

Most sane rational people would see the whole thing, from the concept to the execution, for what it is--a laughable scam. So you would think that the good pastor who swears by the magical device is a total idiot. But the sad thing is that he's actually a well-educated guy... brilliant public speaker... definitely above average IQ.

It must be true that there's a sucker born every minute. Of course, it's hard to judge them. With enough effort, anyone can be deceived. This interesting podcast mentioned on Carnifex's blog illustrates how human perception can be easily manipulated. It's true... we humans are stupid stupid animals.

But to be fooled by the claim that a beeping and buzzing metal box can cure all diseases? Come on! Unfortunately, religious people, even the smarter ones, seem to be particularly susceptible to this kind of pseudoscience. Oh well, I guess that should come as no surprise. Think about it. If you can believe in a magical son of god who can heal the sick and perform miracles, it's probably not too much of a stretch to believe that a magical god machine can do the same, right? Right?

Anyway, to end this rant on a positive note... hey, good news for all you Catholics. You really don't have to use condoms! If you do catch nasty STDs, just come before the Jesus miracle beam ray machine and confess your sins, and you shall be healed.

Yay!