In what will surely signal mass hysteria from the religious right and probably usher in the next great holy war, reknowned British physicist Stephen Hawking has theorized in his new book "The Grand Design" that God did not create the universe (and everything inside it, the stars, the planets, and us) and that our universe's creation was an "inevitable consequence of the laws of physics." For those of you dummies like me playing at home, his basic argument is that God or no God, the Big Bang would have happened anyway. It didn't need a jumpstart or a push from any outside celestial or cosmic force. Hawking writes that the undeniable force of gravity caused the universe to create from nothingness:

So as much as that headline would have likened you to believe that Hawking took a dump on an altar and spun his motorized cart wheels to create a burn out in the dookie, he did not in fact totally shit on organzied religion. True, while some of his statements reflect changing views from the famous scientist (his early works acknowledge God as perhaps the creator of some of our most laws of physics and gravity, though God cannot intervene to break or change these laws), it seems that now, Hawking is fully comfortable in implying that in terms of religion versus science, science will always come out on top: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority; and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."  

Hard to argue with that logic, though I am sure the religion majority will find a way to discredit one of the most brilliant minds our planet has ever seen. And while Hawking didn't come out and say God doesn't exist, people will see the words "God Did Not Create Universe" and get worked into a frenzy, just like the dumbasses that see the words "Ground Zero Mosque" and do this and do that without reading any of the facts. Sometimes things like "facts" and "science" and "logic" get in the way of a good and angry froth. And Hawking's theory is just that - a theory. Still, people tend to lose their shit when the G word gets thrown around. Let's see how far the backlash hits. Will Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan be holding super-rallies to take back the name of God for the Tea Party? Will Bill Mahr host "Anti Religo-Con" in support of Hawking's theories. Who knows. This is the Mindwafers - Fun Fact of the Day section; personal opinion takes a back seat as we try to provide as many factoids as humanly possible.

Plus here is undeniable proof that God exists!

Most of us our too young to remember but there was a time in the 80s where the Russkies were a very scary adversary to the United States, and not just because of Red Dawn. Take Korean Air Flight 007, which in 1983 was en route to Seoul via New York City, and after a stop over in Alaska, was shot down by Soviet interceptor jets as it mistakenly crossed into Russian air space and was thought to be an enemy combatant plane. All 269 civilians on the board the airplane were killed, including current (at the time) US Rep Lawrence McDonald - making him the only sitting Congressman ever directly killed by those slimy Soviets. Due to several internal and piloting errors, the plane erroneously deviated from its projected course and crossed into forbidden Soviet airspace. Some of Russians military intelligent officers wanted to confirm it wasn't just a lost civilian jet, but the Boris with the biggest dick - Gen. Anatoly Kornukov - overruled them and scrambled fighter jets to intercept and shoot down the plane. The Soviets did report they tried to contact and warn the flight that it was tresspassing and that it may be met with hostility if it did not identify itself, but they reported the KAL007 never replied to them. Even as the Soviet pilot later admitted he saw blinking lights on the plane to indicate it was most likely a civilian Boeing 747, missiles were fired and the Korean Air Lines 007 was destroyed in a hail of fire and twisted metal.

American response to the attack was slow and uncoordinated, as with the Cold War tension still high, search and rescue operations were hampered by US-Soviet staredowns. Confrontations between naval ships in both countries lead to recovery efforts being delayed. Human remains were eventually found and turned over the the US and the families of victims, which belonged to a host of other countries, not just the States. Condemned by President Ronald Reagan, the US government began a swift and very lame course of justice by having the FAA revoke Soviet Airlines' rights in the US and by having New York and New Jersey deny Soviet ambassadors landing rights at the UN. At later diplomatic summits between the US and Russian at the UN, delegates accused one another of esponiage and spy games; the US labeled the Soviets deed as a "massacre" and a "crime against humanity"; the Soviet refused to apologize and maintained that the flight refused to answer warnings from their fighters and basically had every right to assume it a enemy plane. The Korean Air Lines disaster marked a very tense pissing match between the US and the USSR, and furthered the Cold War until it ended with the Soviet dissolution in the early 1990s.

So what does this have to do with GPS? After the KAL007 disaster, Reagan announced that this new doo-hickey called a Global Positioning Device would be made free and available for all civlian aircraft. Intially just used for the military, Reagan believed that airline access to the GPS satellites would make flight errors that intially caused Korean Air Lines Flight 007 to go off course obsolete. This then lead to the GPS model expanding to ground use for civilians, and with the launch of more sateillits and bills passedby future administartions, GPS became a household product.  So now, every time you lose your signal when you go in a tunnel or under a bridge, you can thank President Reagan and the victims of Korean Air Lines Flight 0007.

Check out this amazing story from Australia: Mom Brings Baby Back To Life

Apparently a woman in Australia gave birth to twins, one of which was a stillborn, whcih is terrible. But the mother then hugged the baby goodbye, at which point the baby suddenly gasped for air. She gave the baby some breast milk - the nectar of life - and boom! Rejuvenated! The child came back to life and is now a 5 month old healthy baby boy. All because of the sweater jugs. It just goes to show that the power of tits is beyond our mere comprehension. They cause can wars, they can turn brother against brother, and now, they have the power to restore human life. Is there anything tits can't do??

T-I-T-S! TITS! TITS! TITS!


-Nutsie Kerouac

If the headline above confused you, don't worry - you're not alone. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit was a cartoon character created by Universal Pictures in the 1920s that was later sold to Walt Disney and his studio for a series of television cartoon serials. The precursor to Mickey Mouse, Oswald was a dark dot-eyed rabbit that wore plaid shorts and was constantly caught up in some kind of humorous mischief (well whatever humor was like in the 1920s; the era of Prohibition, criminalization of marijuana and immigrants, I'm sure it was hilarious times). The Oswald cartoons continued with Disney under created Charkes Mintz, until Walt - sneaky bastard that he is - dumped Mintz and Oswald the Rabbit after some arguemnets over creative control and what else, money. Walt basically stole the Oswald concept and altered it a slight tad with his creative team - shortened the ears, gave him red pants, and boom - you had Mickey Mouse. Kind of a dick move, Walt.

So how does Al Michaels fit into any of this? In 2006, Al Michaels had been signed to a lucrative deal with ABC to be their main sports guy. But when the NFL parted ways with ABC for their football television rights and they went to NBC, Michaels requested to continue working with John Madden and with Monday Night Football (now on Sundays). In an unprecedented deal ABC traded Michaels and his contract to NBC, and in return several minor assets with Universal/NBC went back to ABC/Disney, including Oswald. Disney acquired the rights to the character 26 of the short films created with Oswald. Disney promptly announced their acquistion of the rabbitt may releasing sevearl DVD collections and a line of merchandise. Al Michaels is still on Sunday Night Football, and he and John Madden continue to wreck football broadcasts with their terrible commentary. He is to this day the only sportscaster ever traded for a cartoon rabbit.

Welcome to Part 2 of our investigation of how newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst followed his dreams and made our world a much, much worse place then he found it. First off, I neglected to mention that Hearst's life influenced Orson Welles classic film Citizen Kane, often cited as one of the best films of all time, just to give you a sense of how big this guy was.


This edition deals with Hearst's dislike of the stoner community. In the mid 1930's, Harry Anslinger served as the head of the Bureau of Prohibition, the least fun office ever created by the government. They might as well have called Angslinger Director of Buzz-Killing. Anslinger launched a massive propaganda campaign against cannabis, including the well known film Reefer Madness. Now the media campaign seems silly in its extremity and inaccuracy, but for a public with little knowledge of the effects of cannabis, it worked wonders. Anslinger is even credited as promoting the term "marijuana" to describe the drug, giving the name a Mexican sounding influence because most Americans categorized Mexicans as being sinister.


In the 30s, Hearst struck a partnership with Anslinger, where he threw all his editorial support toward the old man's campaign against marijuana. Those who read about the USS Maine know how much Hearst's opinion mattered in our country. Soon Hearst was printing exaggerated stories of American kids getting hooked on this "new" drug, robbing their parents and...dancing (shudder). 


Again, Hearst's smear campaign worked and the American public became scared of the sticky green Mexican stuff. In 1937, Congress approved the Marihjuana Tax Act which put the nail in the coffin for cannabis. Many theories have been put forth as to why Hearst supported the movement. One, put forth by marijuana activist Jack Herer, states that Hearst had significant interests in timber, which would be in direct competition with hemp, a plant similar to cannabis. However, the theory has never been proven.

I know you've had the experience of feeling helpless and small, feeling that you're only 1 person and can't possibly make a change in the world. Well the next time you have those kinds of thoughts, just remember the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and all of the changes he was able to influence and perhaps you'll feel better. However, also keep in mind that most of what Hearst accomplished was manipulative, untrue and just plain wrong.


Hearst grew to prominence when he became editor of the New York Journal in 1896, which was engaged in a bitter battle with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. The legacy is that Pulitzer got his name on a fancy award that no one cares about, while Hearst was able to influence public opinion for the early part of the 20th century.


His first victory was won in the late 1800s, when the US began to develop negative sentiments for Spain and their involvement in Cuba. All of a sudden, we felt that Cubans needed to be free from Spanish rule. Why? Because we want everyone to be free like us right? Well yeah, but mainly because Cuba could serve as a cheap source for sugar and other crops that we like to use...but freedom, yeah. Anyway, in 1896, the USS Maine was mysteriously sunk off the coast of Cuba. At this point, US public opinion was mainly against getting involved in a war with Cuba. However this changed quickly as Hearst, trying to one-up Pulitzer began what is now referred to as "Yellow Journalism," which basically means he fabricated stories in order to serve his interests. Stories were created, portraying the Spanish as brutal, savage slave-drivers who raped the Cuban women and needed to be stopped. After the USS Maine sunk, Hearst's job got that much easier. Without any evidence except a flimsy Naval investigation that turned out to be discredited, Hearst blamed the sinking on the Spanish, printed daily angry editorials trying to get the public in a frenzy about going to war (sound familiar?). His ploy worked, as the public soon supported the war effort, as the US got involved in the Spanish-American War. It resulted in the US taking Guam and the Phillipines for some reason, so I guess it worked out for us. The Cubans were free, at least for a few years before Bautista, a real brutal dictator, was installed as President. The overthrow of Bautista resulted in Fidel Castro's forces taking control and we all know what happened after that. So, to recap, we supported Cubans being free for about 3 seconds before deciding that it's better if we make the decisions. By the way, a later independent investigation revealed that the USS Maine's explosion was ignited from within the ship. Whoops!


Check out tomorrow's edition where we explore Hearst's connection to current marijuana policy and further proof that YOU can change the world.

Consider the strange and unusual concept of Quantum Entanglement.  This fundamental concept of Quantum Mechanics, the study of the behavior of physical bodies at the sub-atomic level, is directly at odds with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (Special & General).  You see although the Theory of relativity works well in explain the movements of all physical matter in the universe, when you get down to the atomic and sub-atomic level, the rules begin to break down as particles begin to defy the laws of physics.  Therefore, a new field called Quantum mechanics was born to study the behavior of these particles.  As all of these theories are far beyond my intelligence level, I will attempt to explain the concepts as I understand them.  So in this strange world of quantum mechanics, there is an even stranger concept called Quantum Entanglement, which basically states that every particle in the universe, electrons / protons / photons / oompalooptons, are always part of a dual system.  This means that every particle comes into existence with a connected sister particle, and those particles will forever be connected.

“So what?” you say.  Well consider that these particles are connected in a way that they can interact with each other instantaneously, no matter the distance apart.  It has been proven through experiments using photons, that when a single photon is activated (I don’t know how you activate a photon, but it’s something really really smart people do, it has something to do with spinning and correlation between particles) its sister photon becomes activated instantaneously.  Now this fact alone is just ridiculous, however when you throw in the fact that the distance between the particles does not effect rate at which interaction occurs, then it becomes fucking unbelievable.  This is where quantum mechanics starts to defy the laws of physics. Consider, that two particle are connected at distance of 1 light year (the distance light travels at 299,792,458 metres per second[ in one year).  The particles can interact instantaneously, whether they are both in your hand or at these great distances), so therefore the information sent between these two particles is moving faster than the speed of light.  Only one problem, Einstein’s theory of Relativity says nothing can move faster than light.  That means that these particles are communicating with each other outside of the Spacetime continuum, meaning outside the known dimensions of our universe. This effect was referred to as "spooky action at a distance" by Einstein. You see you have to operate in the rules of space-time to be considered real, even wormholes, black holes, the big bang, all operate in this reality were nothing moves faster than the speed of light. So how are these particle communicating, what dimension or reality or something no one could even describe are these particles operating in?  No one knows.  They don’t even know if these particles are actually exchanging information or reacting to each other, or something not fully understood.  Makes that excel spreadsheet your working on seem pretty insignificant huh?

One thing related to Quantum Entanglement is time travel, not forward time travel, which all physicists believe is defiantly possible if you could build something that could fly fast enough, but backwards time travel.  I will not get into details because I really don’t understand it, but in essence, because these particles react simultaneously, if the particles where at a great enough distance where it could cause these reactions to be delayed, the particle information would actually be traveling backwards in time. For more info check out wikipedia.

Time travel, that would even push Lindsey Lohan’s jail sentence of the front page of the news.

- Artie

While we mess around with iPads and Kindles and think they're the most amazing invention in the history of the world, don't forget that, at one time, cellophane was considered the most important thing in the world. We might now know cellphane as that stuff we put our weed in when we don't have any baggies or the stuff that wraps cookies, but before the 1930s, food didn't have any kind of wrap and, as a result, had a much shorter shelf life. Enter cellophane which, as reported in the book Plastic by Stephen Fenichell, a national grocery chain saw a 2,100 percent increase in the sale of doughnuts after the use of cellophane. Camel cigarettes took advantage of the boom by being the first to add cellophane to its packaging, causing its competitor, Lucky Strikes, to add the still handy easy-to-tear-tab to its packs. Thanks Lucky Strikes, now go back to obscurity.


Soon after, "cellphane gags" became popular, as people would crumple up the substance and pretend it was an ice cube and Hollywood starlets would dress themselves up in the stuff. Cole Porter even wrote a song about cellophane for his Broadway musical Anything Goes entitled "You're the Top" where he claims that cellophane is considered one of the best things in life. And, finally, The New Yorker said that "Civilization as we know it today would practically disappear without cellophane." And I thought it would disappear without democracy. Silly me.


So next time you play with your iPhone and are amazed at what it can do, don't forget the little piece of plastic that the phone came wrapped in. At one time in history, society was more amazed with the plastic.

Can you consider one person both the luckiest and unluckiest bastard in the world? That honor might go to Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who (until his death is 2010) was the only living person to survive both the Hiroshima AND the Nagaski atomic explosions during WWII. Dude must have been born attracted to photons or something. Yamahguchi was a staunch opponent of the war and wished Japan has not gotten involved, and he told people later in life that he was so distraught over the war effort he considered suicide for him and his whole family as to escape defeat. He was working in Hiroshima for a business trip on August 6th 1945 and was preparing to leave the city with work colleagues when he actually witnessed the Enola Gay dropping "two small parachutes" in the city center before "there was "a great flash in the sky, and [he] was blown over." He lost hearing and severed radiation burns on his body. However, tough fucking bastard as he was, he returned to his home of Nagaski and actually showed up for work at Mitsubishi 3 days later. "Hey boss, yeah got hit by a nuke over this weekend, no big thing, here are those TPS reports you asked for." Ironically he was explaining exactly what had happened to him in Hiroshima when the 2nd nuclear bomb hit Nagaski. The blast did not directly injure him but ruined his bandages and the lack of medical care led to him getting a high fever. He was recognized by the Japanese government in 1957 as only a Hiroshima survivor because he did not want the distinction of being the only person to survive both explosions, but as he aged and h saw the horrible toll nuclear weapons took upon his own body, his countrymen, and even his own children, he applied for double recognition in 2009: "My double radiation exposure is now an official government record. It can tell the younger generation the horrifying history of the atomic bombings even after I die." He was finally felled by stomach cancer in 2010.

RIP - Japanese Chuck Norris.

So maybe this is something that 99% of the human race has already figured out, but it just dawned on me that "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "The Alphabet Song" are the exact same melody. Again, I don't think this is a revelatory fact, as I feel that I should have realized this when I was 8 years old, but hey. But that's not what this article is about. Rather, it's about the origin of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which, like most old songs, has an interesting and odd history.

The tune is actually based on a French lullaby written in 1761 by a "Mr. Bouin" who lived in Paris. It's original title is "Ah! vouz dirai-je Maman." Clearly, a much catchier title than "The Alphabet Song" The song has gone through quite a few permutations, most notably by Mozart, who refigured the melody in the late 1700s. 

But the best part of the original French version are the bizarre lyrics, that are neither hopeful, like "Twinkle" or educational, like "The Alphabet Song." Instead, it's like a surreal stew of words involving meat dishes and an angry father. There are three versions, each weirder than the last. Take a look at the first:



French lyrics: Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman,
Ce qui cause mon tourment.
Papa veut que je raisonne,
Comme une grande personne.  
Moi, je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que la raison.

English Translation: Ah! I shall tell you, mum,
That which causes my torment.
Papa wants me to reason
Like an adult.
I say that sweets
Are better than reason.



You learned a lesson about the connection between reason and sugary candy didn't you? Well let's move on to the second:


Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman,
ce qui cause mon tourment
Papa veut que je retienne
des verbes la longue antienne..  
Moi, je dis que les bonbons
valent mieux que les leçons.

Ah! I shall tell you, Mother,
what causes my torment.
father wants me to remember
This catalogue of verbs conjugations
I say that candy
is better than lessons


I really love picturing a kindergartener saying the word torment when talking about candy. And finally, the third version:

Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman,
ce qui cause mon tourment.
Papa veut que je demande
de la soupe et de la viande...
Moi, je dis que les bonbons
valent mieux que les mignons.

Ah! I would tell you, Mother,
what causes my torment.
father wants me to ask
for soup and for meat
I say that candy
is better than lovers.



What could be more French than that?