Creepiest Political Candidate Ever Favors Incest, Pedophilia

Nathan Larson is a longshot candidate for Congress but a frontrunner
for title of creepiest politician ever

In this weird age of Trump, people seem more and more encouraged to come out of the closet as racist, mysogynist, scary or worse.

So, unfortunately, I'm not entirely surprised by what I'm sure is the worst political candidate ever.

According to the Huffington Post, Nathan Larson, a 37 year old accountant from Charlottesville, Virginia, is running for Congress as an independent candidate.

Sounds safe enough, right? An accountant, so pretty low key. Probably a fiscal conservative, who would keep an eye on excess government spending. What's not to love?

A HUGE amount, it turns out. He is admitted pedophile who has almost gleefully bragged about raping his late ex-wife. (Who later committed suicide. I wonder why).

As reported in the Huffington Post:

"When asked whether he's a pedophile or just writes about pedophilia, he said, 'It's a mix of both. When people go over the top there's a grain of truth to what they say.'

Asked whether there was a 'grain of truth' in his essay about father-daughter incest, and another about raping his ex-wife repeatedly, he said yes, offering that plenty of women have rape fantasies."

Larson things this attitude is a plus that will endear voters to him. "A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it..... People prefer when there's an outsider who doesn't have anything to lose and is willing to say what's on a lot of people's minds."

OK, I suppose can see the rebellion against so-called political correctness. But I really don't believe people think about incest and rape and think, "What a great idea! Too bad those politically correct laws ban it."

At least I hope that's the case.

He also says he'll garner votes because "People are open minded."

Riiggght.

Yep, Larson's a real charmer. He would legalize child pornography and legalize incestuous marriage and favors "benevolent white supremacy."

Um, I don't think it's possible to be a "benevolent" white supremist.

Going on, Larson also thinks "we need to switch to a system that classifies women as property, initially of their fathers and later of their husbands."

Cripes, by comparison, he makes the world of "The Handmaids Tale" sound like something Gloria Steinem would embrace.

As if you needed more proof this guy is truly scary, he had a wiki page called Nathania.org, which has since been pulled down in which he wrote articles with the following titles:

"A Man Should Be Allowed To Choke His Wife To Death As Punishment for Cutting Her Hair Short Without Permission or Other Acts of Gross Insubordination."

"The Justifiability of an Incel's Kidnapping A Girl And Keeping Her As His Rape-Slave For Sex and Babymaking."

(The word Incel refers to mostly men who are virgins or not having sex because women aren't attracted to them, and the Incel blames the women and is angry at them for not submitting to them. Ugh.)

I'm frankly a little surprised Larson has not been arrested, since he seems to be admitting to crimes.

On the bright side, he is certainly considered a very long shot for that Congressional seat.  Which of course is a good thing.

Of course, there are other creeps out there running for office, too.  In Illinois, Arthur Jones, regarded as a Nazi, recently won the Republican primary in the state's Third Congressional District. Luckily, the district is heavily Democratic, so somebody more sane than Jones will end up in Congress from that district.

There are other wackos out there as well, but so far, they've been kept at bay. Let's hope that continues.

Be Glad This Wasp Nest Wasn't At Your House

This exterminator was engulfed in a cloud of angry wasps
as he got rid of a huge nest in a Louisiana shed.

An exterminator in Louisiana recently found the largest wasp nest he'd ever seen in a shed.

The homeowner had hired the exterminator to evict the wasps. The wasps were unhappy about the eviction.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Beekeeper Jude Varret set up his GoPro camera as he started work to evict the wasps, known as southern yellowjackets. This variety of insect is quite aggressive and their stings are quite painful.

The wasp nest was so huge that it engulfed tools and lawn furniture within the shed. Surprisingly the job took only 45 minutes to complete. Even more surprisingly, Varret was not stung even once. He said most of the time, he'll get stung once or twice while getting rid of wasp nests.

Here's the video, and a nightmare if you are afraid of bees and wasps:

Guy Barely Escapes Death At The Hands Of Molten Steel Snake

In this scree shot, a guy comes inches from death
from a ribbon of molten steel shooting out
of equipment at a steel factory. Yikes!

Sometimes, in steel plants, a bit of molten steel gets caught on rollers.

This causes more molten steel coming from the furnace to burst out in the form of a long snake like ribbon of hot melted steel that can go anywhere.

Of course, if you're hit by something like this, you're dead.

Watch how close this guy came from dying a really horrible death. It's from December, 2016

H/T Boingboing:

Wild Road Crash, Explosion: Miraculously, No Serious Injuries

Check out this video of a terrible crash between two trucks on a Chinese highway.

The explosion was so intense that windows broke in nearby buildings.

The incredible thing is nobody got killed.

Watch:

Fake News In The Near Future Will Be Scarier Than You Thought

Researchers have made convincing videos of Barack Obama
saying things he said years ago and inserting them into new
clips. It's a matter of time before fake news people can
make it look like people are saying things they never did. 

Donald Trump always yells about fake news when there's coverage that doesn't flatter him.

Maybe he's got a thin skin. But maybe he's ahead of his time.

In a scary story, Gizmodo had a report on research that uses machines to learn the facial movements of people and then render real looking lip movements for any piece of audio.

In other words, people with this program can make videos of anyone saying anything they want. You can see how easy it would be to make a convincing fake news clip of somebody saying something they really didn't.

How will we really know what's true and what's not.

According to the Gizmodo report,  researchers at the University of Washington developed the method to study the facial movements - in this case of Barack Obama. They were able to make it look like things he said when he was a law student were just said recently.

From there, it's easy to insert words and sentences into a video of Obama, or anybody else talking, and literally put words in their mouths.

What's worse, this techology is getting better and better, less and less expensive and easier and easier to use.

Which makes it a matter of time that anybody, even some teenager in a basement, can make a sophisticated fake news clip.

 Of course, this technology would not only be applied to news clips, to make it look like politicians and candidates were saying things they really didn't.  This could be applied to any video clip.

As Gizmodo put it: 

"If you thought fake-looking news websites were a problem, just imagine what a completely fake police body cam could do."

Scary indeed.

Product Safety Commission Blows Up Mannequins In Disturbing 4th of July Video

Mean girls? Nope, just the Consumer Products Safety
Commission using mannequins to demonstrate
the risks of 4th of July fireworks. 

The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission wants you to have a safe 4th of July.

Fireworks are part of the celebration, and too many people blow off their hands or worse during celebrations.

By the way, you could have guessed this but the vast majority of people who are injured by fireworks are teenage boys.

Go figure.

The CPSC put out a video that I can't decide whether is disturbing or funny. Or maybe both.

They blew up mannequins to show how dangerous fireworks can be.

Be safer than these mannequins!

Car Split In Half In Crash, Driver Somehow Survives

This car was split in half lengthwise in a recent California
crash, but the woman driving it somehow only had minor injuries

The video at the bottom of this post is probably the scariest auto wreck I've seen.

The scene is the aftermath of a crash on Highway 101 in California in which an SUV driven by Kevin Fenty, 27, drifted across the highway into the opposite lane.  

In that opposite lane was Apol Lansang, 26, who was driving a Chevrolet Impala and was hit by Fenty's vehicle.

The crash tore Lansang's car in half lengthwise down the middle. Amazingly, she suffered just minor injuries and was treated and released at a nearby hospital, says the Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Fenty had more serious injuries but is expected to recover.

"The scene was, it was pretty intense.....It was definitely one of the most severely damaged cars I've ever seen," said CHP Sgt. Jason Bahlman.

In a follow-up interview with the Press Democrat, Lansang said when the crash was about to happen, she closed her eyes and hoped for the best.

When the crash subsided, she saw what appeared to be another car involved in the crash resting against an embankment. She later realized it was the passenger side half of her car.

Police said Lansang might not have survived had she not been wearing a seatbelt. Fenty had more serious injuries because he was not wearing a seat belt and was ejected from his vehicle. He's been charged with DUI.

Here's the video:












“The scene was, it was pretty intense,” said Sgt. Jason Bahlman, who has been with the CHP for 16 years. “It was definitely one of the most severely damaged cars I’ve ever seen.”

Would You Swim In This Glass Bottom Pool, 42 Floors Up

There's a very nice brand new luxury apartment building in Houston, Texas that has one great feature.

A swimmer's view through the bottom of a glass bottomed pool on the side
of the 42-story luxury apartment buidling in Houston, Texas

A swimming pool.

Yes, I know. Lots of expensive apartment complexes have swimming pools.

This one, though, is 42 stories up on the side of the building. And hangs over the edge. And has a glass bottom.

Watch the video at the bottom of this post and see if you would use it.

Part of the video was taken by someone walking across the pool in the water, looking down through the bottom of the pool at the street more than 500 feet below.

Yikes!

I doubt you'd fall through, given the pool has an eight-inch thick plexiglass floor, but then again, accidents can happen, can't they?

The pool extends outward ten feet from the side of the building. I hope the braces that hold it in place are strong.

They must be. Imagine the insurance pay out if the pool failed.

I still don't know if I'd try swimmig in this pool. Would you?

By the way, you probably can't swim there. It's a private pool, open only to residents of the building.

Here's the video:

Scary: Escalator Reverses, Speeds Up, Tries To Kill Shoppers

In an image taken from a video, a Hong Kong escalator
suddenly reverses direction and speeds up, sending
people crashing into a pile at the bottom. 

I'll take the stairs, thank you.

I'm always told to take the stairs when I want to get from one floor to another. It gives you a bit of exercise. It's healthier. Maybe you'll live longer.

An escalator in Hong Kong proved that point dramatically.

Dozens of shoppers were on a shopping mall escalator when this happened, according to Consumerist.

"In Hong Kong over the weekend, a 150-foot fall escalator abruptly reversed direction and flung screaming shoppers to the ground, injuring 18 of them.

Of course there's video, from multiple angles, because this was a terrifying event, that happened in a public place in 2017. One mall-goer happened to be taking video of the escalator before the mayhem started."

That video is at the bottom of this post.

The escalator normally moves people from the fourth to the eight floor of the mall at Langham Place in Hong Kong, Consumerist reports. When it reversed, it also picked up speed, going at least twice the speed it normally does.

The South China Morning Post reported that safety inspectors think the problem sarted with a malfunction of one of the escalator's two brakes and its non reversing mechanism.

Well, yeah, gee, that makes sense.

The escalator supposedly passed an inspection on March 23, and inspections are carried out twice a year, with routine checks once every two weeks or so.

Still, something obviously went wrong, judging from the scary video, below. Two mechanics have been arrested and charged with tampering with the escalator to make it reverse direction and speed up.

Meanwhile, I think I'll take the stairs.

The Worst Ever Song In Support Of A Supreme Court Nominee Ever

This painful chorus, led by whack job Eugene
Delgaudio, is delightfully painful as hell.

You'll never be able to un-hear and un-see the video at the bottom of this post.

But I gotta tell you. Sometimes intense pain is sometimes entertaining. This is one of those times.

There's a whack job from Virginia named Eugene Delgaudio likes Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.  

OK, that's not all that weird. Lots of people like Gorsuch.

Delgaudio has taken things one step further, though, by giving us this video in which he leads the "Confirm Gorsuch Chorus" in a song - I can't believe this is true - to the tune of "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" from "The Sound of Music."

It's unique, I'll give them that. I've never heard anything quite like it. The chorus is so off-key that it sounds like tornado sirens on heroin. Except worse.

Of course, Delgaudio is quite the character anyway. Wildly anti-gay, he comes up with some of the best stuff, I swear to God.

One of my favorite pieces of gloriously awful fiction was a fundraising letter Delgaudio put out in 2010.  He says this story is true, but my, what prose!

"One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I'd heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.

As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses. 

Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined. 

Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling. My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands more boxes were already loaded on the tractor trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press. 

Suddenly, a dark-haired man screeched, 'Delgaudio, what are you doing here/' Dozens of men began moving toward me. I'd been recognized.

As I retreated to my car the man chortled, 'This time, Delgaudio, we can't lose.'"

Phew! Not with that bit of "writing" they can't.

Delgaudio also insists that the fact that  gay people got marriage  and other rights in recent years will all go around raping and murdering little boys and the courts will rule that such actions are OK because the homosexual agenda people say so.

Yeah, he's that type of guy.

But now, he's turned his attention to Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch. I'm not sure Gosuch appreciates the support from Delgaudio and his "chorus," but like everything Delgaudio does, it is something to behold.

Here's the video, if you can stand it:

Alex Jones, Who Is Trump's Wacko Muse, Is Entertaining In A Scary Way

Alex Jones is one of Donald Trumps most, um,
interesting news sources.

One of Donald Trump's favorite news sources seems to be Alex Jones.

Jones is the visible head of something called InfoWars, which is, to put it mildly, a wildly crazy, train wreck of an extreme wacko conspiracy theories.

There's an entertaining video of him at the bottom of this post.

Jones is the guy who informed us that terrorist attacks and mass shootings in Orlando, Sandy Hook, Boston and other places were "false flags" by the Obama administration to take away all our guns and all of our freedoms.

He's the guy who informed us that the government is creating gay people by putting estrogen in juice boxes,thereby being a method of population control.

When a terrible tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma in 2013, he said the U.S. Air Force has the ability to control and direct swarms of tornadoes and launched a strike on Moore. No word from Jones yet on why the government targeted the fine people of Moore.

Also, Diet Coke is a by-product of a Pentagon study that would engineer e-coli bacteria and the fact that Taylor Swift endorsed Diet Coke in ads means that she loves genetically modified bacteria poop. 

So, yes, Jones is, um, interesting, which makes it very easy for me to pick on him. I know I'm being mean. I shouldn't abuse the mentally ill.

But in Jones' case, I can't help it. He needs to be taken down a notch.

Thankfully, we got some help from Vice, who tweeted the compilation you'll see below of clips from Jones' radio show.

Jones tends to have a temper, or which he also apologizes for. The wax and wane of these episodes is something to behold.  The dude certainly is excitable.

Watch the clip if you dare:

 Alex Jones wants you to know he’s sorry for his outbursts pic.twitter.com/i83ubKiwNp

— VICE News (@vicenews) March 5, 2017

Is Trump Administration Trampling The Rights Of Gold Star Dad Khizr Khan?

Is the Trump administration thinking of restricting
Khizr Khan's right to travel?

I'm really, REALLY hoping breaking news reports about Khizr Khan this afternoon are not true.

If the reports are true, we are in desperate straights.

You might remember Khan and his wife delivering a speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

He waved a copy of the Constitution and urged then-Republican candidate Donald Trump to read it.

Khan has been an American citizen for 30 years and his son, died in a bomb explosion as a member of the U.S. military in 2004.

If the reports this afternoon are true, then Trump did not read the Constitution, as Khizr Kahn suggested.

Kahn was scheduled to speak at a Toronto, Canada luncheon Tuesday, but canceled reportedly because his "freedom to travel abroad" is under review, according to several news outlets, including Politico.

"This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad.....I have not been given any reason as to why. I am grateful for your support and looking forward to visiting Toronto in the near future," Kahn said in a statement.

I'm writing this, but I'm still skeptical, because it seems so over the top. But you never know with Trump.

I'm hoping the whole thing is some sort of weird misunderstanding.

But if Kahn is right we should be totally worried about this if it's true.  I'll update if there's more confirmation, or it this turns out not to be true.

Dolls Keep Getting More And More Nosy. And Scary

 Could hackers access voice messages left by kids
on this internet-connected cute toy?
Security experts say yes. 

Since when have toys gotten so nefarious?

In December, I told you about Cayla, the doll that collects information from chatty kids. This information could be used to target advertising, or worse, scam the kid or their family.

Now, we're learning about more dolls and toys that are just as cavalier about privacy.

There's a group of toy animals, made by an outfit called CloudPets, that can store and replay voice messages sent to them via the internet, says the Huffington Post. 

Often families buy these toys for things like sending hearfelt messages to and from dad or mom who might, say, by deployed in the military overseas.

The problem is, the personal information of more than 800,000 customers is now out there. These include some two million voice recordings, many of them made by children, the Huffington Post says. 

What's worse is CloudPets appears to some to have a pretty cavalier attitude toward the data breach.

Information like customers' login and password information and voice recordings, was in a database there for anyone who knew how to find the information.

Security experts like Troy Hunt ried to contact CloudPets about the issue, but never heard back from the company, the Huffington Post reports. 

The head of toy maker, Mark Meyers, denied that the voice recordings were stole, says Network World. 

The security threat isn't huge, espeically if the passwords for CloudPets products aren't the same as users' other devices.

But the data could be used to push messages to children, and there are a lot of creepy people out there.

I really think we should just go back to old fashioned dolls that have no connection to the internet.

According to The Guardian:

"John Madelin, CEO at IT security experts Reliance ACSN, echoes Hunt's warnings. "Connected toys that are easily accessible by hackers are sinister. The CloudPets issue highlights the fact tht manufactuers of connected devices really struggle to bake security in from the start."

Madelin called the accessibility of the CloudPets data "unforgivable."

Time to haul out the internet-free teddy bears we got when we were kids, I guess.

"Bringing Back" Virtual People Has Scary Orwellian Implications

Will the Light Stage technology shown here someday be used
to make it look like to the world that somebody who's innocent
is doing something not innocent?
Photo by Al Seib, Los Angeles Times

I was watching "CBS Sunday Morning" and what started out as a quirky fluff piece quickly scared the hell out of me.

The segment began by noting that the recent Star Wars movie "Rogue One" had in its cast the British actor Peter Cushing.  

Cushing died in 1994, so how can he be in a recently released film?

It turned out actor Guy Henry performed the new scenes, and a special effects engineers replaced Henry's face with Cushing's.

Here's where we begin to turn scary, when they introduced a guy named Paul Debevec.

According to CBS, Debevec invented something called the Light Stage. It has more than 10,000 LEDs, inside of which a subject - a person - is photographed with roughly 20 high quality DSLR cameras, which produce a series of high-resolution photos from different angles to reconstruct a 3-D model of the subject's face.

Debevec told CBS: "We'll have the actor make a succession of about 50 different facial expressions. And that produces all of the different motions of their face. But we also can record a facial performance from all these different angles, and then create a digital performance of that character that does exactly what they did in the video."

Adds CBS: "Once an actor has been scanned into Light Stage, engineers can digitally insert him or her into scenes, even if the actor is unavailable, much older or younger or deceased."

That's all fine and dandy if we're talking about the make-believe world of Hollywood. At least 100 famous actors have stood in this Light Stage to be scanned for movies, notes CBS.

The Light Stage was wicked expensive to build, but the price of this type of technology is coming down, and like most technology, will continue to come down fast.

Here's the scariest part, brought up by CBS Sunday Morning: What happens if someone scans a person, even unwittingly, and tries to pass it off as reality?

I'll take it to a ridiculous level. Remember that insane wacko rumor that Hillary Clinton was running a childhood sex ring in the non-existent basement of a Washington DC pizza restaurant?

So imagine scanning all these images of Hillary Clinton and making a film that "proves" she was running the child sex ring.

There are so many gullible people out there. An insane number of people believed the Clinton sex ring story. What if there was a computerized film to "prove" that it was true.

People are also always looking for blackmail opportunities, or to make it look like people did something bad that they didn't do.

Already, people hack into computers, making it look like they were committing crimes. Imagine using this Light Stage technology to produce videos for blackmail or worse that "show" the victim doing something terrible.

The lines between reality and fiction are blurring, be it politicians who do it by repeating false things, or people who use technology to make things up and pass them off as real.

This is another example of this blurring.

What kind of world will we live in when we can't distinguish the difference between what is really going on before our eyes, and what is pure fiction?

Why I Don't Like Ceding Control To Technology

Kim Novak was rescued from a burning car by Police Officer
Tim Schwering, but the rescue would not have been necessary
had the door locks and windows not been fully electronic.
Wouldn't it have been better if the car allowed Novak to
manually open the door and escape herself? 

A news report from KTLA in Los Angeles earlier this month is more proof as to why I don't like letting technology always do the work for me.

I like my Toyota Tacoma, but the one thing I dislike about it is I have to hit a button to electronically role the windows up or down.  

Gone are the days of the hand crank.

I know, I know it's sooooo much work having to work the crank than just hitting the button.

But one day, it will rebel against you. This doesn't happen to often, but it does.

Which leads me to the KTLA story.

It involves a woman named Kim Novak who was driving down a street in Spokane, Washington and the car suddenly died. The engine caught fire. But the doors locked themselves, and the window controls did not work. She was trapped in the burning car.

In the old days, all Novak would have had to do is open the car door and get out. Or failing that, roll down the window using the hand crank and spring out to safety.

No, now, we have to die in burning cars because - technology!

On the bright side, technology ultimately saved the Novak. She called 911 and police were nearby.

Windows these days in cars seem to be shatterproof, so the 911 dispatcher's advice that the woman trapped in the car kick out the windows didn't work. They wouldn't budge.

Finally, a cop came and with a lot of work, was able to smash out the window with his baton. He and another good Samaritan got the woman out just in the knick of time, just before the car was fully engulfed in flames.

As you can see in the video, the "safety glass" almost killed the woman, too.  The cop wearing the bodycam really had to hack away at the window for the longest time to get the woman out of the car.

Also, note some of the comments on the video from people who agree with me: Why the hell are the locks in the car fully electronic? Why can't there be manual back up?

The automatic door locks are a small but annoying inconvenience for me. Say my truck is safely parked in my driveway, and I'm working outside, retrieving tools from the truck from time to time. If the windows are rolled up, sometimes the truck just suddenly locks the doors.

If I left the keys in the truck, maybe because I was planning on going to the store in a few minutes, I'm screwed. It's another thing I have to remember: Never leave the keys in the truck because I might get locked out.

What if I temporarily have my dogs in the car with the keys. They can get lock inside. That happened to us once, and we had to get a locksmith to free the dogs. What if it had been sunny and hot. Our dogs could have died.

There have been several instances of kids accidentally being locked in cars. Isn't that dangerous? Why can't we have manual locks?

Car makers don't like manual locks and windows because they've convinced the public they are must-haves. And now there's supposedly no room for both manual and electronic controls on door panels.

Granted, this is a First World problem. But still. I don't like it. Automakers: Just let me do some of the work for myself. Don't do everything for me. I want to have at least a little control.

Here's the video of the rescue from that locked car in Spokane:



uc

This Guy Kills Wasps Dead With HIs Bare Hands

This guy's hands are messy but otherwise unscathed
even though he's just crushed a wasp nest with his bare hands.

In the summer, when I find a wasp nest that endangers me, my husband or dogs with stings, I do something very environmentally incorrect.

I buy a can of Raid and blast the little bastards.

A guy in Florida has a less, um chemically induced way of getting rid of wasp nests. He just smushes them with his bare hands.

Yeah, sounds dangerous.

As you see in the video, below, he doesn't get stung He says he's done this dozens of times without getting stung

I'm still not going to try this at home, though. The makers of Raid can count on my continued business.

For what it's worth, though, here's the video:

Three White Terrorists Planned Car Bombing At Kansas Mosque, Apartment Complex, Say Authorities

These three guys were arrested in Kansas for plotting
 a terrorist attack on an apartment complex where
many Somali immigrants live.

I get why people are worried about ISIS - inspired terrorist attacks in the United States.

They do happen, as we saw last year in San Bernardino and this year in Orlando, Florida.

Now, if we haven't done so already, apparently we need to start worrying about white terrorists attacking Muslims in this nation.

Yeah, it keeps getting worse.

The New York Daily News reports that the FBI has arrested three white guys for conspiring to blow up an apartment complex where many Somali immigrants live. The guys involved in the plot apparently call themselves "The Crusaders."

The apartment complex the three targeted has a mosque where many of the Somalis frequently gather for prayers.

According to the Daily News:

"Curtis Allen, 49, Gavin Wright, 49, and Patrick Stein, 47, were charged Friday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, according to the Department of Justice's national security division. The Crusaders call Muslims "cockroaches" and they had discussed brutal attacks on Muslims for months, federal prosecutors said.

FBI agents working on tips from an undercover informant said the three men planned to blow up four car bombs at the Garden City apartments. Allen, Wright and Stein hoped the attack on the 120-resident complex would 'wake people up,' the feds said."

I guess ironically,  "The Crusaders" MO was much the same as ISIS. Do a splashy terrorist attack to demoralize their enemies and more importantly, inspire like-minded idiots to do more of the same.

I obviously can't hold Donald Trump directly responsible for what these idiots planned, but I do blame him for doing a large part in creating a hostile culture that might have helped inspire these three idiots. 

Frighteningly, the "Crusaders" came pretty close to being able to carry out their plan. A paid informant helped squash the plot, though.

More from The New York Daily News:

"Allen, Wright, Stein and the informant met multiple times at Wright's business, the G&G Mobile Home Center in Liberal (Kansas). At one meeting in July, he used Google Maps to drop pins labeled 'cockroaches' on locations of potential victims, according to the complaint.

They talked about attacking targets such as city or county meetings, landlords who rent to Muslim refugees, organizations that assist Muslim refugees, a mall frequented by Muslims and Garden City's African Community Center, investigators said. They decided on the W. Mary St. apartment complex in August, according to the complaint."

Police also found a metric ton (!!) of explosives and detonators with these guys.

Glad that they got these guys. but here's the fear:

The climate is so toxic now, that if Trump loses the Presidential election, which seems quite likely now, his most ignorant, racist, hostile, misogynistic fans will erupt in extreme anger.

They already are, fueled by some pretty violent rhetoric, especially around the meme that the election is supposedly "rigged" if Hillary Clinton wins.

Even people in supposedly authority are using this rhetoric. Sheriff David Clarke, a Trump surrogate, tweeted it's "pitchforks and torches time" if Hillary is elected because she would "rig" the election.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, who should know better, is also accusing people of "rigging" the election.

Trump's true believers in the crowd are even worse.

Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor told the Boston Globe at a Trump rally this week: "If she's (Clinton) in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That's how I feel about it.....We're going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that's what it takes. There's going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that's what it's going to take... I would do whatever I can for my country."

That is, if "doing whatever he can for his country" is committing treason, I guess.

There's quite a few people like Bowman, who, fired up by Trump's incredibly irresponsible and wrong speech, won't accept an election, won't accept democracy.

Some people will act violently, I fear.

Ah yes, just what we need, domestic terrorists by people who are in a snit because the majority of us rejected a spoiled rich kid jerk/moron for president.

Don't you love people like Donald Trump who insist on making things worse for all of us?

Idiots Light Shelves Of Fireworks In A Walmart Apparently Because It's Fun

Somebody set fire to this display of fireworks
inside a Phoenix Walmart.  

If you're in Arizona, you can buy fireworks for your Fourth of July celebrations at a Walmart.

Except at one Phoenix Walmart at the moment.

That's because some idiots decided it would be fun to light them on fire while the fireworks were still on the store shelves in that Walmart.

You can see the two videos of the incident at the bottom of this post. Pretty wild.

Whoever set the fire - and their faces are on security cameras from the store - could face 20 years in prison with a felony conviction for doing this.

Store staff evacuated the busy store. Some of them were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation from breathing all that smoke in while making sure everybody was out of the building.

On the bright side, the flames were extinguished before they reached a nearby display of lighter fluid and propane, which really would have caused a mess.

But the store is closed because of extensive smoke and water damage.

Because of some idiots.

First video was taken right by the display as it burst into flames, the second one is store surveillance cameras narrated by a snarky guy, but still pretty fascinating to watch.

And stupid. If that fire spread any quicker, some of those shoppers and Walmart staff could have been killed.

Jan Crouch, Televangelist With Very Interesting Hair, Has Died

I mocked televangelist Jan Crouch for her, um,
amazing hair and makeup, but to me she
was also a tragic figure. She died recently at age 78. 

The subject of what is so far, mystifyingly the most popular post in the history of this here blog thingy has died.

Jan Crouch was the subject of my February, 2012 post: "The Televangelist With The, Um, Amazing Hair," in which I contemplated the remarkable structure, if you can call it that, of her hair and wigs.

We learned this morning that Crouch died of a massive stroke at the age of 78.  

I guess it's a requirement that female televangelists have elaborate makeup and hair. Crouch's makeup, by the way, was as amazing as her hair.

Another requirement in third rate cable televangelism TV, Crouch became mired in infighting, lawsuits and allegations of criminal activity.

Crouch was the co-founder of Trinity Broadcasting, which pushed what is to me a very scammy sort of televangelism. Basically: Give all your money to me, and God will then reward you with material riches.

Though I'm not a Bible expert, I don't think that's the gist of the Holy Book, but what do I know?

I know it's mean of me to kick round Jan Crouch when she's just passed away.  It's true I didn't respect her.

However, I felt a bit sorry for her when I wrote that post about her hair in 2012 and I feel sorry for her now.

She seemed obsessed with gaudy, showy moneyed ickiness. I wonder if she was at all spiritual, and in her quest for money, did she miss out on what really matters in life.

At the end, she was estranged from much of her family, due to the infighting. Her grandchildren wrote pleading messages to her, saying that they loved her, but the grandchildren were kept away from her, due to the fighting and lawsuits about all the money the "ministry" raked in.

Jan Crouch's wigs were certainly works of art, of sorts. The artful beauty of love and compassion and just experience life as a human being seemed to elude her.

Which makes this subject of my mockery also a tragic cautionary tale.

Tarantulas On A Plane. Really!

How'd you like this guy to be your seat mate
on your next airline flight?  

Both real life and fictional airline flights are fraught, let me tell you.

I've recently written about the impossibly long lines created by TSA staff shortages and incompetence combined with a do-nothing Congress.  

We have idiotic movies, like Snakes On A Plane, which certainly sounds unpleasant.

Now we've just had a real life drama that's even worse than the aforementioned movie.

Tarantulas on a plane!

Makes me look forward to some upcoming flights I'm taking in June.

According to The Guardian newspaper, two huge tranantulas got loose in the passenger cabin on an April flight from the Dominican Republic to Montreal, Quebec Canada.

Understandably, the incident had passengers screaming and standing on their seats, and flight attendants urging everyone to keep their ankles covered.

Yeah, a lot of good that would do for the women on the flight wearing skirts or dresses.

Let's allow Catherine Moreau of Quebec tell her in-flight story, as related by Radio Canada:

"I was wearing a skirt and a spider crawled up my leg...,...It was during a meal. My husband managed to catch the spider in a plastic container, but it wriggled its legs out. My daughter was crying, she was in shock."

Yeah, I bet!

Especially since they're so huge.

The Guardian and Radio Canada said that a Montreal entomologist, Etienne Normandin said the type of spider on the plane is roughly four to eight inches long and has fangs that can be nearly an inch long.

The bad news, Normandin said, is this type of spider is quite aggressive. The good news, I suppose, is the venom in these spiders isn't especially potent.

Great. I'm sure everybody who was on the plane was just overjoyed with that news.

The tarantulas were on the plane in the first place because probably some idiot hid them in their carry on luggage and they escaped.

Apparently, there is a market for these things and the mystery passenger who brought them on board probably intended to sell them in the Montreal area.

Tarantulas as pets? No thanks. I'll just keep my two furry non-aggressive, happy and not scary dogs, thanks.