Belrad Universe, February 4, 2008 - Transcript

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Hello, and Welcome to Belrad Universe. It's February 4^th, 2008, and I'm your host, Bryan Belrad.

We are your source for all the news, both strange and unusual, that you won't get anywhere else, and your forum for the revolutionary ideas that will shape the future of our world.

You can reach us by email at Show@BelradUniverse.com, and we look forward to hearing from you.

In the news this week:

A story coming out of Sweden tells of a police crackdown on a strange kind of reverse-smuggling: dwarf raiders. In short, two crooks, one tall and one small, steal valuables out of peoples' luggage on bus trips. The dwarf gets put into a large suitcase or other article and gets stowed down below. Instead of just hopping a free ride while his companion up above keeps an eye out, these miniature pinchers are popping out of their cases and rummaging through other passengers' bags.

Apparently, this kind of con has become so much of a problem, the bus companies are starting to put video cameras in their cargo bays. Now that's a tiny hold-up.

Can you tell when you've had too many to drive? A woman called 9-1-1 on herself after leaving a party with her boyfriend. The man said he was in no condition to drive, and, after watching his beloved swerve all over the road, questioned whether she was able either.

In a fit of spite, the inebriated woman dialed in to an emergency dispatcher and said, "Somebody seems to think I can't drive home straight," and requested a police escort. The cops were only too happy to oblige, and they arrived in short order with a breathalyzer - and proved him right, putting an end to that argument. And probably the relationship.

But, hey, what's one night in jail compared with being able to say that, just once, he was proven right?

A retired man in Denver, having nothing better to do with his time, decided to check out the veracity of the 'claims' by toilette paper companies (such as 1,000 sheets delicious). He meticulously counted each sheet of paper on the rolls of more than 60 different brands, logged his findings, and, at the end, found that most - on average - were 40 to 50 sheets short.

He reported his results to the Denver Post, who conducted their own fact-checking session. They too counted every sheet on rolls of the very same brands, and found the numbers stated on the packages to be dead accurate. They advised the man of his apparent mistake, but, obviously, found the story amusing enough to run - with their own research included - anyway.

And people say that old folks don't go looking for things to complain about. This guy had to try real hard to put all this together - just to nitpick about toilette paper! What a crappy attitude.

A European airline is hoping to expand their grasp of the market by expanding their alternative lifestyle choices of flights. Specifically, they are setting up a nude-charter.

Now denizens of Denmark and Germany will be able to fly the bright blue skies in their birthday suits, the way "God intended it," according to one senior exec.

While that does make it easier to join the mile-high club, one must wonder: as crowded as flights can sometimes be, who thought this would be a good idea?

A burglar in Malaysia was arrested after being caught asleep on the job in the home of his victim. The bandit broke in, and, while plundering, chanced across a stack of cookies. He devoured the goodies, then decided it would be a good idea to take a little nap - in a bed inside the house.

The family's son discovered the crook upon their return home, who remained restful, clutching a purloined purse, until the authorities arrived.

And a pair of St. Louis thieves picked the wrong mark too. They tried to steal the purses of a couple women who were loading groceries into their car, but were instead treated to a barrage of violence. One woman grabbed a snow shovel from the back of the suspects' pickup, and beat one of the crooks over the head with it. The other woman assaulted the other man, taking the truck's keys away so the would-be bandits couldn't drive off.

The pair were arrested at a nearby motel. The one had to have his head stapled to close the gash on his noggin. They are presently jailed with appropriate charges. Alas, 'getting whooped' isn't technically a crime.

Yet another collection agency is in trouble for crossing the line. This week, Nationwide Collections, INC is being sued by the recipient of a letter sent to collect on a debt of $16 and some change. The reason is twofold. First, the letter threatened legal action - over 16 bucks. Second, and more importantly, it opened with the salutation, "Dear Shit Face."

The Buffalo man's attorney said, "I've never seen anything quite so brazen."

Also, Buddy Holly's widow is preparing to sue "Peggy Sue". Peggy Sue Gerron, whose name was made famous by Holly's hits "Peggy Sue" and "Peggy Sue got Married", is releasing a book to mark the 50^th anniversary of the late superstar's #1 song. Ms. Holly, however, is rather perturbed that somebody else is making a profit off of her husband's name.

The book, "Whatever Happened to Peggy Sue," is a compilation of stories about Peggy's experiences with Buddy Holly, whom she calls, "the best friend I ever had." Using old journal entries from the good ol' days, Peggy shares anecdotes with the world about what kind of person Buddy Holly really was.

Mrs. Holly says that the book will hurt 'her' business, the Buddy Holly Estate, and that it is a pack of filthy lies. "He never, never considered Peggy Sue a friend."

Yesterday was the 49^th anniversary of the infamous plane crash that killed Holly, along with Ritchie Valens and "the Big Bopper," and inspired folk legend Don McLean to write "American Pie."

It's good to know that the icon's widow is so concerned about the memory of her late husband, while a person who, she says, was never a friend of his, publishes a book recalling the good times, fond memories, and reminds us all of why Buddy Holly was more than just another singer.

It brings to mind another, similar tragedy of more recent days, where a rising star was suddenly stripped away from this world, forever. Heath Ledger's death was encapsulated perfectly in a haiku written by a friend of mine, who goes by 'Orchiolum':

A young actor dies.
Greed and sensationalism
devour compassion.

We'll be right back. (break)

Welcome back to Belrad Universe.

You know, Wal-Marts are popping up everywhere these days. My town is getting a new one soon, and there's already four of them within a 20 minute drive. Soon they'll be in more places than Starbucks.

Well, thinking about the new store got me to wondering: why do they have people greeters?

I think it was Jeff Foxworthy who first joked about having people standing at the front of the store, asking everyone 'Would you like a buggy?' Well, you know, it does seem kind of odd.

I mean, I can appreciate having a 'greeter', someone to direct customers to any specific departments or products they might be looking for, or otherwise give out information as needed. But, having a person just stand there all day, asking if you want a cart or not?

Really, I think the process is pretty much automated to begin with. It doesn't actually need a human to oversee everything, and make sure the complex task of cart acquisition goes as planned. Either you need a cart - and thus take one - or you don't. Does anybody actually need a person to ask whether they'd like a cart in order to decide if they do?

Are we going to have bathroom attendants start walking from stall to stall asking if anybody needs toilette paper? If I need it, I'll get it myself, thank you very much.

But what's worse, there are actually people who have to stop and think about it. I know, it's one of the most critical decisions of the day: should I bring a cart with me as I venture forth into the savage wilderness that is Wal-Mart? God knows, you couldn't possibly come back and get one later, if you need it!

These are the same people who stare at the menu at McDonald's, only to eventually order the same thing they do every single day. They sit at green lights, deciding whether to go or not. They turn left from the right-hand lane, without signaling. They park sideways in parking lots, stand stock-still in the middle of walkways to gab on their cell phones, and ask you what time it is just after looking at their watches.

These are the demon-spawned dumbasses of America. They are the reason for road rage, and why so many of us are sociopathic. They are Lewis Black's next aneurysm waiting to happen.

These are the people blonde jokes are written about. They are folk who need to wear headphones that play a looped tape that says 'breathe in. Breath out,' just so they don't forget. They ask random questions like 'What color is an orange?' Yes, it turns out that there actually ARE stupid questions.

They are people who are utterly incapable of independent thought. Perhaps they are the way they are because their parents smoked up at Woodstock. Perhaps they never got the 'special attention' they needed in school. Most probably, though, they are just used to being told what to think to such an extent that they just stopped trying.

If you learn nothing else from me, remember this: if we stop doing our own thinking, if we ever stop questioning what we are told by others, then we are destined to become a nation of zombies. There are already at least four million of these doomed souls wandering aimlessly through life - I know, because that's about the size of Rush Limbaugh's audience.

Even supposedly educated people fall victim to this dangerously contagious disorder of non-thought. Like I reported last week, many scientists are having a lot of difficulty in rubbing two coherent ideas together, much less looking at new information from every angle. And, then, of course, there's President Bush, who somehow managed to graduate from Yale. Scary, huh? And they say that going to college will make you a liberal.

Myself? I've got more degrees than any four people I know - yet I find myself strangely growing more conservative as the years go by. In fact, I almost got convinced that trickle-down economics made sense, what with this week's report that a cut in spending by the wealthy would hurt the lower classes.

I forget off hand if it was the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, but one of the two ran an article that exposed the hardships that could be suffered by the masses if the nation's richest spenders stopped spending. The idea is that since the wealthiest 10% or so make up for 40% of the nation's consumer spending, any economic stimulus program that doesn't take them into account is doomed to failure. What's worse, the poor who depend on that spending will have to go without until things brighten up a bit.

But, then it occurred to me that the wealthy don't make like Robin Hood and just hand out their riches to the unfortunate commoners all around them. They do not shop at Grandma's bakery, or Uncle Jim's shoe store. They do not hire the homeless to tend their gardens or watch their children (unless said homeless happen to be Mexican). In fact, almost all of their money goes to gigantic companies, the profits of which go to... you got it! The shareholders, who are, for the most part, also wealthy!

Yes, if the super-rich stop buying yachts, the yacht builders will probably have to lay off some workers. If they stop eating at $1,000 a plate restaurants, some kitchen boys will be let go. If they cut spending, it will impact our nation's economy. But not much.

They still need to have food. They still need gas, and homes, and clothing - and don't tell me they'll buy anything less than their lifestyle demands. These are NEEDS we're talking about here. You won't see Donald Trump eating Soup-in-a-Cup for lunch just to save a few pennies. You won't see Suzanne Summers fire her personal trainers in favor of a Bally's membership because times are tight.

The rest of us will still need gas (as evidenced by Exxon's record-shattering profits - again). We still need cars, and phones, and television, and all the rest of it. We still need homes, no matter what Wells Fargo has to say about it.

It is good that those with influence have finally realized that the economy is in trouble - now that their own pocketbooks have begun to feel the pinch - but helping the wealthy won't make much of a difference at all.

The reason they're feeling it now is because those of us who support the economy, the poor folk who live paycheck to paycheck, working four or five jobs just to keep the bills from going more than a month overdue, have been caught in the vise for a while now. We just don't have the money to shop at the places we used to, or eat out as often. We, the "lesser" 90%, are going broke - and there's no one left to line the pockets of the rich with gold.

Helping out the wealthy is a temporary fix at best - and only for the wealthy. Unless something more than throwing a wad of cash at the problem is done, and done soon, the crisis we've got going on now is going to spiral out of control. You'll know it when it comes. It's the day you no longer have the "luxury" of choosing between paying your mortgage or feeding your kids - you just can't quite manage either. It's the day you have to stitch your child's bleeding cut at home because you can't cover the co-pay at the emergency room. It's the day you decide to skip breakfast to save a few bucks. And lunch too.

It's the day you give up, because you just don't have it in you to fight any more.

That's what life was like in the 1930's. For MILLIONS of Americans - people who have jobs, people who pay taxes, and people who VOTE - life is already like that. And thousands more join their ranks every day.

How many more have to fall into this black pit of despair before we stand up and take action? How long until it happens to YOU? And who will speak up then?

We'll be right back. (break)

And we're back!

This week's top science story is straight out of sci-fi. The Navy conducted tests of a new weapon that comes direct from the minds of science fiction authors: the railgun. It's a really big gun that can propel a projectile at nearly the speed of light - and it doesn't use any kind of explosive to do it.

How it works is a magnetic 'bullet' is set between two rails - hence the name - which are then charged with a powerful electromagnetic current, which flings the 'bullet' at a fantastic speed.

You've probably heard of these before - they were in the movie "Eraser." They've been 'in work' for a few decades now. Apparently, we've finally got them into production.

This week, we have a lot of letters to go over. You can send your questions, comments, and ideas to Show@BelradUniverse.com, and we'll see if we can't cover them too.

First up, several of you have written in asking why the polls show Barack and Hillary in a dead heat, and yet, he is getting further and further ahead in actual vote counts. South Carolina especially proved the point, where Barack was statistically dead even with Hillary, but ended up capturing more than twice the votes - and the delegates that go along with them - than she did.

The answer lies in how the polls are conducted. Only what are called 'likely voters' are surveyed; people who have voted in the last three elections, generally. Because that's a 12 year timeline, the polls essentially aren't even looking at the huge segment of the population who are under 30 - which make up a gigantic chunk, if not a majority, of the people who actually are passionate enough about this election to go out and vote. Not to mention all those people, of any age, who were never inspired to bother voting before, but now are eager to have their say.

Not surprisingly, both of these groups - young people and those who have never before been moved to vote - favor Barack with huge numbers. That's what happens when you've got a REAL leader, someone who can inspire people to follow where he goes because they want to go there too, not just because he's the lesser of all evils.

Alan of Phoenix, NY asks: "Why does Matter matter? What is it about the fine details of how our reality works, either on the small scale like atoms or on the grand scale of galaxies, that is important to us, regular everyday people?

I ask because there are some people I know who simply don't understand these things, and as much as I try to explain it myself, it just can't get through. Perhaps you'd have better luck at explaining things."

Well, there is a long answer and a short answer, and every kind of answer in between. The scope of this question is so huge, I don't think I could fully explain it if I devoted a whole show to it. Seven shows, even. Not that I would - there is far too much going on in the world.

So, the short answer: we study Physics on all scales, including the universal and subatomic levels, because we want answers to the great questions. Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here?

We gain a lot of practical, useful, information from these studies. We went to the moon because of them, and the space program has given us all manner of everyday technologies like Velcro and memory foam. We study things on the quantum scale, and we've developed the atom bomb, nuclear power plants, and may soon have quantum computers (which is the subject of a whole other show). Even railguns.

A lot of people study what they do for any number of reasons. A geneticist might have suffered a loss due to cancer, for example, so he might be on a quest to eradicate it once and for all. A person saved from a burning building by a pet dog might grow up to become a vet. But whatever we do in science, we do it because there is a burning desire in us to find something.

We do gain from all this research, but, honestly, it is the desire to KNOW that drives us. All the rest, the fame, fortune, and nifty gadgets, are just icing on the cake.

So why does matter matter? Because having an answer to these questions has compelled us through all the ages. From birthing new religions to revolutionizing the way we think of so many different things, the way we DO so many different things, and giving us every bit of technology we have today, the question is what drives us.

Until we have answer to the 'why we are here', the only 'why' we can identify with on the scale of a species is finding the answer to why we are here. And along the way we come across some very interesting things. Even if we never find that answer, isn't it worth the trip, just for all sights we see along the way?

Apparently, I took a quick vacation last Friday. Strangely, though, I wasn't aware of it until a fan let me know that he'd seen an excerpt from "Credit where credit is due", an article and a segment from last week's show, posted as a comment to a mortgage fraud article on topix.com. Strangely enough, the post is in my name, but I seem to have been in North Benton, OH at the time.

Now, I have to chuckle. Obviously, somebody liked that segment enough to post it around the 'Net - and I can't complain about that. But, North Benton? I actually live in Upstate NY, a bit north of Syracuse. I'm sure North Benton is a great town, but I've not had the pleasure of making its acquaintance. So, for me, it's sort of like 'where's Waldo'. I wonder how many other odd places I might be popping up in.

If you see me somewhere odd, let me know. I want to set up a map of the US with all the places I've visited but never been to.

Rick of Syracuse asks what the deal is with December 21, 2012. According to any number of websites, the world is going to end on that day, the Winter Solstice. However, almost all of them propose a different ending.

One theory discusses the possibility of Earth crossing some kind of 'dark zone' in our Galaxy, which will somehow spell oblivion for all life on our planet. Another suggests that we are overdue for a crustal upheaval, whatever that means. Yet another implies that an ancient prophecy has predicted that a giant comet will wipe us out, as in the novel "Lucifer's Hammer." Or our poles will flip. Or the next Ice Age will come.

Well, the grain of truth driving all the end-of-times mania is an ancient artifact that spells out the end for us all.

No, I'm serious - it literally spells out 'the end', for us all.

Long ago, the ancient Mayan civilization had learned a great deal about astronomy. They built observatories, and were able to track objects and predict the orbits of things in space with amazing accuracy. They were so good, in fact, that they carved a calendar out of stone with many predictions of future events placed on it. This calendar still exists today, and is, for all intents and purposes, 100% accurate.

The doomsday prophecy comes into play in 2012. What happened is that the Mayans ran out of rock to carve this monster day-planner on, so ended it in what we would call the year 2012. The Winter Solstice was the time they marked the end of a year, so it coincided with finishing off what they were working on. On that day, the calendar literally says "Beyond this there is no more."

It's easy to see where people, particularly paranoid buggers who look under every stone for the end of the world, might get confused. The wording can lead one to believe that this 'prophecy', which is basically nothing more than a star-watcher's guide, means there will be no more world after that date. In reality, though, it just means 'the end.' As in the end of a book or movie. It doesn't mean the world is gone, no more than the end of a movie means the universe those characters occupy has imploded, it just means the narrative stops.

The crazy theories that are shooting off of this thing are all basically the same nonsense people were talking about with Y2K, and all the other 'impending doom' dates. And now you know - and knowing is half the battle.

And speaking of knowing, "Testing the Big Bang", the book that put the Big Bang theory where it belongs - on the scrap heap with all the other Creation myths - celebrates its first anniversary this month. We'll have more on that next time, but you can check it out for yourself on Amazon.com.

Well, that's all for this time. Remember, if you have a story, question, comment, or idea, you can reach us by email at Show@BelradUniverse.com.

Until next week, stay safe, everyone.