The Bookworm Beat 10/23/17 — the world is both sad and surreal edition

For a different perspective, today’s Bookworm Beat arrives at your computer thanks to Wolf Howling, who likes serious news with a touch of the surreal.

Wolf Howling Bookworm BeatArab construction worker writes “good morning” on FB in Arabic. Facebook auto translator translates it as “attack them.” Israeli police arrest him before noting the error.

The new CNN ad campaign that needs to be seen to be believed. Apparently they have discovered fraud in the fruit packing industry.

Inventor of sex robots plans to have little bots with his hottie.

The Canucks have nicely asked the USA to please help stop illegal border crossings into Canada.

3% growth? Ha! Venezuela’s socialist paradise is poised to grow their economy 2300% next year. Yet another triumph of socialism that the poor capitalist running dogs can only dream of.

Male “feminist writer” fired by GQ after woman accuses him of rape. Actually not too surreal if one realizes that “male feminists” such as this joker, Harvey, Bill, and Ted seem to think that if they mouth support then they are free to do as they will. And given that 3rd wave feminism has killed off the code of chivalry, women are now back in the “prey” position they occupied in the early medieval period and before. Isn’t the prog’s arc of history grand?

Heh. No sooner do I write the above than the Daily Beast offers “The Left Wing Heroes Who Treat Women Like Garbage.

Jimmy Carter, the man many credit as kick starting the NK nuke program by taking the matter out of the hands of then Pres. Clinton, is now offering to negotiate with NK on behalf of the US. Even more surreal is Jimmy Carter’s full throated defense of President Trump.

We learned a new word yesterday, “Procrustean,” meaning rigid uniformity denying human nature. What a perfect bookend to that newly acquired knowledge in this psychology experiment that claims you can change conservatives into proggies by making them feel safe (in the lab). You have to read the article to appreciate fully out how the “social scientists” accomplish this amazing feat. Briefly, they have self-identified, conservative-leaning people fantasize that they have super powers. Is there anyone on the left with enough self-awareness to understand the ramifications of that?

And on a very related note, the proggie left are going nuts with conspiracy theories . . . and yet, more science attacking mostly conservatives:

But as scientists report in a new paper published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, sometimes people sense danger even when there is no pattern to recognize — and so their brains create their own. This phenomenon, called illusory pattern perception, they write, is what drives people who believe in conspiracy theories, like climate change deniers, 9/11 truthers, and “Pizzagate”believers.

Climate change deniers are conspiracy theorists??? Bottom line, it is one thing to have a factual basis, a working hypothesis, and then a desire to determine whether there is in fact the connection between the dots suggested by the unexplained facts. It is another to claim “conspiracy theory” simply when you do not want to discuss the facts.

The only piece of good news that I could find that makes sense — a bit of crony capitalism that died under Trump.

An article only a word person would truly appreciate. The grammatic stylings of Boris Johnson

And lastly . . . the mystery of why Japanese women are not having sex with Japanese men explained:

Photo credit: Mai, howling, b&w, by Matt. Creative commons license; some rights reserved.

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