by Ian Punnett

 

Just seven days ago we called it!  Right here I wrote about that crazy Tom Biscardi-hosted press conference about the supposed Bigfoot in a freezer and the ridiculous development that the DNA samples tested as “human” and “possum,” and I quote:

OK, how can a DNA sample be accidentally contaminated with possum?  Even in Georgia! 

Anyway, it’s too early for me to say “it’s a hoax” for a 100% certainty.  Maybe these guys aren’t the ones doing the duping, maybe they’re the ones getting duped.

I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, for just a little while longer, because hoaxes are so distasteful--and potentially damaging.

So, at least I had it part right.  These two good ol’ boys knew it was a hoax but they say they were also getting played by Tom Biscardi in this article from Kathy Jefcoats of the AJC:

Two Clayton County men who “punk’d” the world with a bogus Bigfoot discovery were pawns of Tom Biscardi, a promoter who promised them books and movie deals, the pair’s attorney said Friday.

Now that Matt Whitton and Rick Dyer have walked away with $50,000, a purported middleman is out the money, and promoter Tom Biscardi of California is left holding a Halloween costume filled with road kill, the public may be wondering if the tail is now wagging the dog.

A police report filed Thursday by an Indiana man who said he fronted the $50,000 on behalf of Biscardi alleges Whitton and Dyer took the money “by deceitful means” in exchange for the frozen carcass of a Bigfoot-like creature they claimed to have found in north Georgia.

But the men’s attorney said the money was for publicizing the alleged find that Biscardi knew to be fabricated.

Man, and I thought I was a soft touch?  Not that I have that kind of money lying around but “I need to borrow 50k in order to buy a a giant block of ice with a Bigfoot in it from some jobless yokels in Georgia” may be the only pitch for money I haven’t got from a friend in the past.  And just to tell you how gullible I am when it comes to loaning friends money, my first question might just have been, “tell me more about the make and model of the freezer . . . “ 

Now you know why I work five jobs . . . wish I could win the lottery.

MADISON, Wis. -- A double-lottery-winning couple in Dane County doubled their winnings again.

Verlyn and Judith Adamson of Mount Horeb each claimed a $350,000 jackpot this week for having the winning numbers in the state SuperCash drawing last Saturday.

But they didn't mention at the time that they also held two more of the winning tickets.

They claimed two more $350,000 jackpots Thursday. All four were purchased at different locations, but with the same numbers and for the same drawing.

The total winnings increased to $1.4 million, or about $955,000 after taxes.

The Adamsons swear it’s true, that they are pursuing a patent for their formula and then referred any and all questions to their spokesman, Tom Biscardi.

Just kidding . . . 

Astronomers have shed light on how stars can form around a massive black hole, defying conventional wisdom.

(Can you shed light around a black hole?)

Scientists have long wondered how stars develop in such extreme conditions.

Molecular clouds - the normal birth places of stars - would be ripped apart by the immense gravity, a team explains in Science magazine.

But the researchers say stars can form from elliptical discs - the relics of giant gas clouds torn apart by encounters with black holes.

They made the discovery after developing computer simulations of giant gas clouds being sucked into black holes like water spiralling down a plughole.

Giant gas cloud that sucks as it spirals down a plughole?  Otherwise known as the “Biscardi Effect.”

A band of pre-eminent scientists and war-fighters has concluded that the nation's military might isn't powerful enough for the 21st Century; and so the National Research Council (NRC), an independent, congressionally-chartered body charged with assessing scientific issues, is urging the Pentagon and Congress to get cracking on developing a weapon capable of hitting any target in the world within an hour of being launched.

The NRC's Committee on Conventional Prompt Global Strike Capability believes that there are threats (like nuclear terrorism) that the Pentagon's fleets of attack planes and missiles cannot handle and which have to be stopped with the immediacy of the push of a button by a future U.S. President. It's not quite a "death ray" but it's the closest existing technology can get to that fantasy weapon. Still, skeptics roll their eyes and say that the report's authors are like a bunch of junior high school boys who have seen all the James Bond movies and believe that if a weapon can be built, it must be built.

And the problem is . . . ?

 

I mean, if you listened to your mother’s warnings about putting somebody’s eye out, nobody would ever invent anything!

It does make you wonder about the next election, though, doesn’t?  Who’s finger do you want on the death ray button:  Barack Obama or John Mcain?

There’s only one man this country can trust with a death ray?

Tom Biscardi?  No!

Me, of course.   I’m on the only one you can trust to not abuse a death ray.  Unless somebody’s giving me a hard time during open lines like last night.  Then I might just have to get the caller’s GPS coordinates and vaporize them.   Sorry, can’t help myself but I’m working on it.   If you had a death ray, wouldn’t you just be itching to try it out just once? 

Here’s another good question:  Who owns the moon?

Stefanie Olsen writes:

Within the next 10 years, the U.S., China, Israel, and a host of private companies plan to set up camp on the moon. So if and when they plant a flag, does that give them property rights?

A NASA working group hosted a discussion this week to ask: who owns the moon? The answer, of course, is no one. The Outer Space Treaty, the international law signed by more than 100 countries, states that the moon and other celestial bodies are the province of all mankind. 

But ownership is different from property rights. People who rent apartments, for example, don't own where they live, but they still hold rights.  (C-NET)

Who owns the moon?  Simple question.  The moon will belong to the first one to develop that death ray!