Archives for December 2013

How to Save the Environment and Start the Next Plague

December 31, 2013 by

Save plants, kill people, that's her motto. — Save plants, kill people, that’s her motto.

There are a number of things that have puzzled me as I continue to live my life. For example, I never understood the Tamagotchi craze. Yet I had, still have actually, friends who adored that little gateway into hell. I never bought into the whole bacterial hand soap thing either. My reason was simple; when I went to the hospital I didn’t see any doctors using it. One reminded me of something I learned in high school; the bacteria on your hands is generally there to protect you from illness. Ripping it off makes you vulnerable. Now the new craze is to save the planet. Well, okay, that’s been around a bit, but now they have handy things that anyone can do. And one of those things is to use reusable bags for all your grocery shopping.

Or, as I like to call them, Satan’s playground for things that can kill you.

Tammi Dennis, the L.A. Times Health Editor, summed it all up nicely.

Way to go, all you planet-saving shoppers who’ve made the switch to reusable bags! But consider:

“Reusable” doesn’t mean “self-cleaning.”

Researchers at the University of Arizona and Loma Linda University queried shoppers headed into grocery stores in California and Arizona, asking them if they wash those reusable bags.

The researchers were likely met with a lot of blank looks. Most shoppers — 97%, in fact — reported that they do not regularly, if ever, wash the bags.

Further, three-fourths acknowledged that they don’t use separate bags for meats and for vegetables, and about a third said they used the bags for, well, all sorts of things (storing snacks, toting books). You can see where this is going.

The researchers tested 84 of the bags for bacteria. They found whopping amounts in all but one bag, and coliform bacteria (suggesting raw-meat or uncooked-food contamination) in half. And yes, the much-feared E. coli was among them — in 12% of the bags.

Here’s the full report, (yes it’s a long title) Assessment of the Potential for Cross Contamination of Food Products by Reusable Shopping Bags.

For more on food-borne illness check out the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers wrote in their discussion of the findings:

“It is estimated that there are about 76,000,000 cases of foodborne illness in the United States every year. Most of these illnesses originate in the home from improper cooking or handling of foods. Reusable bags, if not properly washed between uses, create the potential for cross-contamination of foods.

This potential exists when raw meat products and foods traditionally eaten uncooked (fruits and vegetables) are carried in the same bags, either together or between uses. This risk can be increased by the growth of bacteria in the bags.”

The study, funded by the American Chemistry Council, is being offered up as context in discussions about a California bill, AB 1998, that would ban single-use plastic bags, which — it must be acknowledged — do tend to have little potential for bacterial contamination.

But the researchers also assessed the effectiveness of washing the bags. Way to go, researchers! Good news on that front: Machine washing or hand washing reduced bacteria levels to almost nothing.

Just a quick side note before we continue, e-coli can kill you.

There are now several companies that, clearly upset that we aren’t spreading disease at a greater rate, have invented reusable pizza boxes. One of them is metal and holds a 12 inch pie. That would be the least popular size in America. The 14 inch is the most popular.

Hey! Research is for wimps.

There are also reusable boxes for fast food. Think chicken and Chinese, not Mickey D’s. But they are each a movable feast of potential death.

The other part of the equation is that these things are a pain to use. And, you have to let restaurant owners know in advance that you’re bringing your plague inducing products into their establishment. None that I’m aware of will repack stuff once it’s ready to go.

So, if you want to save the earth AND leave some people on it, use the recyclable stuff and you’ll do fine.

And, when the paper pulp is no longer able to be used in bags and boxes, Taco Bell (and 14 other companies) will use it as an additive for your food. Now that’s recycling.

Alie Layus “Hit You” Official Music Video from Shoot to Kill Media on Vimeo.

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Merry Christmas

December 25, 2013 by

This is Lil & Marleen sharing their holiday with us.

I got up this morning and thanked God for all the wonderful things that have happened in 2013 and seem poised to keep happening in 2014. It seemed only fair since I had bitched at Him pretty vividly over all the bad shit that had come before. Writing for the World News Center, and doing the attenuate radio show on Fox Sports WBIG, is an honor and a pleasure. Thanks to the internet and the fact that the world is round I am constantly reminded that I’m not just writing for a couple of folks in Chicago. I’ve gotten emails from India, Singapore, Japan, Germany, Serbia, South Africa, Monaco, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Liberia as well as Chicago. Heck I’ve even gotten some from Indiana and Florida. I’m not well loved in Florida, but that’s okay. We can’t all be loved by everyone. I don’t even try.

Normally I take this time of year to talk about odd traditions, have some fun with the Gospel of Luke and explain why Kentucky Fried Chicken is the most romantic food in Japan right noew.

Today, though, I thought I’d take a moment to thank you for following along. Each of you make this possible. When I started blogging here on October 19, 2010, the idea was that I’d “be bringing you my peculiar take on news from around the world, occasional updates on what’s going on in my life and, if I get it right, stuff that makes you think.”

For the most part that seems to have worked out well.

About 6 months later, when I did the first radio show it was hosted by JoAnn Genette and Ryan Gatenby. JoAnn has gone on to bigger and better things but Ryan and I keep plugging away. Usually on Friday’s at 9:10 AM, but it has been a movable fast throughout the week.

Yet, thanks to Facebook & Twitter people keep finding it.

A quick funny story here.

After about a year of doing the radio show I quit smoking in December of 2011. About three months later I got a wonderful email from a lady named Helen. In it she said the following, “I used to listen to your dad do the show and now I listen to you. Don’t tell your dad but I think you’re funnier and more informative.”

Yes, she thought I was my own dad. It took a very confusing chain of emails to finally explain that I was both people. I later listened to some old podcasts and realized that I saw her point. I was wheezing and gasping in all of them. Those shows, all essentially unlistenable, are no longer online.

In all this has been a fun ride and it shows no signs of slowing down. Which is good because I like doing it. And, to the nice man who clicked the link below to ask me if that link was really my email ….. umm, yes.

So keep those cards and letters coming.

On behalf of Ed Silha, Ryan Gatenby, me and all the elves who make this possible, Merry Christmas.

Cozy Hawks – Goddamnit, It’s X-mas from Sharkitect on Vimeo.

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Tradition (Part II)

December 24, 2013 by

wnc-xmas — You have your holiday traditions, I have mine.

This originally posted on Christmas Eve 2012. Several people wrote to ask me if it’s true that some people celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus by putting up statues of poop. Since the answer is yes, and this article contains the full answer, and since I’m lazy by nature, I’ll just re-post this.

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Merry Christmas everyone. It’s time, once again, for us to take a look at the glorious traditions that surround this odd holiday. We have already discussed the Krampus, that lovely little fellow who either casts your children into hell or eats them, depending on what part of Austria you hang out in. But, we neglected his female cousin Perchta The Belly Slitter. Because nothing says HAPPY HOLIDAYS like eviscerated children. Have I mentioned that Austria was the home for the beginning of two world wars? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. When people tell you that they think the Japanese are insane for making Colonel Sanders the symbol of Christmas, feel free to point out Austria. At least in Japan they use the holiday to get laid. That’s an acceptable use of any holiday as far as I’m concerned. In fact I think it should be the point of almost every holiday, but that may just be me.

Another holiday tradition I seem to have missed happens in Spain, the home of great Christian traditions such as the footprint of Jesus, the tour of Mary Magdalene and her servant Veronica and, of course, the Caganer. The caganer represents a lovely tradition of displaying the Nativity scene, the usual array of farm animals, the Star of Bethlehem and a random peasant taking a dump. Yes, you read that right. And it’s not just implied. All statues come with a steaming pile so you can make no mistake as to what the caganer is doing. Granted, seen from a strictly logical viewpoint it makes sense. Someone had to be taking a dump when Christ was born. We all have bowels and those bowels need to move from time to time.

Still, it seems a touch odd, even by Spanish standards.

But all of the above pales when compared to the article my friend Suzy Solar sent to me. According to Live Science, we may owe a big debt of holiday gratitude to magic mushrooms.

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the “jolly old elf” flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children.

But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or “magic” mushrooms.

“Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world,” said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

According to the theory, the legend of Santa derives from shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions who dropped into locals’ teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, Rush said.

“As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice,” Rush told LiveScience. “Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story.”

But that’s just the beginning of the symbolic connections between the Amanita muscaria mushroom and the iconography of Christmas, according to several historians and ethnomycologists, or people who study the influence fungi has had on human societies. Of course, not all scientists agree that the Santa story is tied to a hallucinogen.

Presents under the tree

In his book “Mushrooms and Mankind” (The Book Tree, 2003) the late author James Arthur points out that Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere under conifers and birch trees, with which the fungi —which is deep red with white flecks — has a symbiotic relationship. This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

“Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other … ?” he wrote. “It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this ‘Most Sacred’ substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.”

Reindeer are common in Siberia, and seek out these hallucinogenic fungi, as the area’s human inhabitants have been known to do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying.

“Flying” reindeer

“At first glance, one thinks it’s ridiculous, but it’s not,” said Carl Ruck, a professor of classics at Boston University. “Whoever heard of reindeer flying? I think it’s becoming general knowledge that Santa is taking a ‘trip’ with his reindeer,” Ruck said.

“Amongst the Siberian shamans, you have an animal spirit you can journey with in your vision quest,” Ruck continued. ” And reindeer are common and familiar to people in eastern Siberia. They also have a tradition of dressing up like the [mushroom] … they dress up in red suits with white spots.”

Ornaments shaped like Amanita mushrooms and other depictions of the fungi are also prevalent in Christmas decorations throughout the world, particularly in Scandinavia and northern Europe, Pfister points out. That said, Pfister made it clear that the connection between modern-day Christmas and the ancestral practice of eating mushrooms is a coincidence, and he doesn’t know about any direct link.

Many of these traditions were merged or projected upon Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century saint who was known for his generosity, as the story goes.

The Santa connection

There is little debate about the consumption of mushrooms by Arctic and Siberian tribes’ people and shamans, but the connection to Christmas traditions is more tenuous, or “mysterious,” as Ruck put it.

Many of the modern details of the modern-day American Santa Claus come from “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (which later became famous as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”), an 1823 poem credited to Clement Clarke Moore, an aristocratic academic who lived in New York City.

The origins of Moore’s vision are unclear, although Arthur, Rush and Ruck all think he probably drew from northern Europe motifs that derive from Siberian or Arctic shamanic traditions. At the very least, Arthur wrote, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer are references back to various related Northern European mythology. For example, the Norse god Thor (known in German as “Donner”) flew in a chariot drawn by two goats, which have been replaced in the modern retelling by Santa’s reindeer, Arthur wrote.

Ruck points to Rudolf as another example of the mushroom imagery resurfacing: his nose looks exactly like a red mushroom, he said. “It’s amazing that a reindeer with a red-mushroom nose is at the head, leading the others.”

Some doubt

Other historians were unaware of a connection between Santa and shamans or magic mushrooms, including Stephen Nissenbaum, who wrote a book about the origins of Christmas traditions, and Penne Restad, at the University of Texas.

One historian, Ronald Hutton, told NPR that the theory of a mushroom-Santa connection is off-base. “If you look at the evidence of Siberian shamanism, which I’ve done,” Hutton said, “you find that shamans didn’t travel by sleigh, didn’t usually deal with reindeer spirits, very rarely took the mushrooms to get trances, didn’t have red-and-white clothes.” But Rush and Ruck say these statements are incorrect; shamans did deal with reindeer spirits, and the depiction of their clothes’ coloring has more to do with the colors of the mushroom than the shamans’ actual garb. As for sleighs, the point isn’t the exact mode of travel, but that the “trip” involves transportation to a different, celestial realm, Rush said.

“People who know about shamanism accept this story,” Ruck said. “Is there any other reason that Santa lives in the North Pole? It is a tradition that can be traced back to Siberia.”

I have already noted how Clement Clark Moore didn’t want his poem published. He was a serious author and thought that children’s literature was beneath him. His friends and family disagreed and we have a little epic that gets read every year.

As to Santa, trying to pin one origin story on him has proved impossible. And that is because the story has evolved so much over the centuries. From the skinny and dour Sinterklaas to the jolly elf we all know today, Santa’s taken many forms.

But they all have one thing in common, they love you and want you to be your best.

That’s not such a bad thing.

From all of us here at the World News Center to all of you where ever you are, have a very merry and safe Christmas.

Suzy Solar – Ocean of Love from Bill McCormick on Vimeo.

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This Is 2013, Right?

December 20, 2013 by

Them's just funnin! — Them’s just funnin!

In a week where the unenlightened and uninformed decided to step up front and center and let us all know just how ignorant they are – THANKS PHIL & SARAH – I found myself wondering what year this is. Starting with Phil Robertson, the patriarch of that stupid show Duck Dynasty, who opened his pie hole to GQ Magazine and managed to bash gays and point out that them Negroes were much happier when they weren’t all uppity and free. Darn Martin Luther King & Malcolm X for ruining everything. Of course, when you get to that level of intolerant you immediately get supported by Sarah Palin. Last week she defended the firing of Martin Bashir, for his incredibly dense remarks, as being the right thing to do. So, naturally, when Dear Old Phil got suspended by A&E for his boneheaded remarks it was an attack on the First Amendment. The thing is, if you’ve seen one episode of the show, and I have, you figure out pretty quick that Phil may be a self made millionaire thanks to his duck calls but he leans to the right of Ted Cruz when it comes to social concerns. No one at A&E is allowed to act surprised by his comments as far as I’m concerned. You can’t give the guy a national platform and then tell him not to use it. It’s disingenuous at best.

This kind of “tone deaf” racism seems to be on the rise. After all, slavery wasn’t all bad, was it? It is in the bible so that has to count for something. That is a nice summation of some of what has flopped into the national consciousness from the political right. And you need to keep all this in mind to understand why this next story is dividing Jacksonville, Florida.

Michael Peterson at CNN reports that people are upset that a school named after KKK leader and slave trader, Nathan B. Forrest, is to be renamed.

You have to read this to believe it.

Fifty-four years after the Duval County, Florida, school board ignored the wishes of students and named a Jacksonville high school for a controversial Confederate general, the school will be getting a new name.

The school board voted 7-0 Monday to change the name of Nathan B. Forrest High School after the current school year ends. Officials will choose between the names Westside and Firestone in January.

When it was opened in 1959, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision that required racially integrated public schools, district officials chose to name the school after Forrest — a former slave trader and Confederate commander whose troops were involved in the massacre of black Union soldiers at a Tennessee fort.

He later served as the first “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan.

“For too long and too many, this name has represented the opposite of unity, respect, and equality — all that we expect in Duval schools,” board member Constance Hall said in a statement from the district.

The name-change was spearheaded by parent Ty Richmond, whose Change.org petition amassed 162,150 signatures.

“I’m very encouraged. Jacksonville is too much of a beautiful city to have that ugly blemish,” Richmond told CNN affiliate WAWS.

“I don’t want my daughter, or any student, going to a school named under those circumstances,” he said in his petition. “This is a bad look for Florida — with so much racial division in our state, renaming Forrest High would be a step toward healing.”

At the time it was named, the segregated school had an all-white student body. It is now 62% black, 23% white and 9% Hispanic, according to the district.

Still, the decision to strip the name was not universally popular. More than half of the faculty opposed the change, as did 36% of students, the district said.

A Missouri KKK leader also protested the change, saying those who want the name changed are ignoring “the true historical facts surrounding this valiant man of honor.”

Bedford fans have noted the commander’s widespread reputation as a military genius, and have long said he was misunderstood. They say he disbanded the first version of the Ku Klux Klan after it grew violent and argue that he made efforts to reconcile with blacks in his later years.

He is the subject of numerous monuments and other efforts to preserve his memory across the South.

A monument honoring Forrest has been the subject of long-running controversy in Selma, Alabama, a focal point of the civil rights movement. The monument was located in a city building for a while but moved to a city-owned cemetery following protests.

In 2012, someone stole Forrest’s bust from atop the monument. Efforts to refurbish the monument have resulted in disputes.

In 2011, a Mississippi proposal to create a license plate honoring Forrest brought opposition by civil rights groups and never saw the light of day.

Just so we’re clear, it’s true that Bedford left the Klan over their increasing violence. He was okay with owning and selling blacks but he saw no reason to kill them too.

Derek Kinner, over at AP, has a coda to thsi story.

The removal of the names of key Confederate figures, some of whom participated in the early days of the Ku Klux Klan, is trending through the South and other parts of the country.

For years, communities have been trying, sometimes successfully, to change names of schools, parks and other facilities because they represented Confederate leaders and ideals.

In Memphis, Tenn., the City Council voted in February to change a local park’s name from Nathan Bedford Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park, though a statue of Bedford on a horse remains. It also voted to rename Confederate Park as Memphis Park and Jefferson Davis Park as Mississippi River Park.

In Lee County, Fla., NAACP officials have been lobbying for years to change the county’s name because it was named for Gen. Robert E. Lee, considered the leading Confederate general of the Civil War, but city officials have refused the request.

Keep in mind that the city where Trayvon Martin was killed had hosted a Klan rally just a couple months prior.

Of course, as the Klan keeps saying, it’s not about hate, it’s about white people loving white people. The deportation or annihilation of all other races is just a bonus I guess.

Chester French “Black Girls” from Todd Bell on Vimeo.

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LIARS!

December 19, 2013 by

Somewhere there is a girl who really, really, wants Pinocchio to lie to her.

2013 is drawing to a close. Various and sundry holidays will be celebrated, food will be eaten and alcohol will be consumed. And at some point you will meet someone who had the perfect year or has the greatest family in the universe or who rescues puppies and finds them homes with millionaires or who has proof that humans are actually a hybrid of gorilla and pig DNA. And at that point that little voice inside your head will say, “Wow, these people are full of shit.” Take the DNA dude for example. While it is true that humans have some DNA in common with pigs, we also have some in common with iguanas. You have a part of your brain called the reptilian core. No, none of your ancestors banged a lizard. It’s just that evolution tried lots of things on lots of creatures before it got to us. So, by the time out mutant spin off wandered the savannas, there was lots of stuff, quite a bit of it useless, in our make up. Evolution is not a straight line, it’s a bunch of branches and many of them are tangled. That being said, hybrids are creatures that are created when creatures from the same basic species. So lions and tigers can produce ligers since they are both feline. Lions and pigs, on the other hand, produce dinner for the lion. The reason I’m calling Mr. DNA out is that he’s asking for money to “continue his research” and, this holiday season, I want to make sure you don’t get sucked in.

Okay, moving on.

Pamela Meyer totaled up the whoppers and hoaxes of 2013 and put them all together in one easy read, so I thought I’d share them with you.

If North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un had whispered to his uncle, “Looking forward to seeing you over the holidays” it would have taken the cake on this year’s Top Ten List… but this year there were even stronger real contenders:

10. The “Diane” Flight Hoax

Diane was an airline passenger on Thanksgiving. Frustrated by holiday delays, her mood arced from agitated to hostile to sinister temptress that represented everything people hate about air travel.

Thanks to in-flight wifi, Diane — and her temper tantrums — became Internet celebrities before her plane’s wheels hit the runway. A producer for the hit ABC series, The Bachelor, took to Twitter to broadcast the play-by-play, while cheerfully provoking her and egging her on. The Arthurian battle ended in the terminal with Diane slapping him and airport officials threatening to arrest her. By then, social media was on fire with an impracticable display of both empathy and hate for the hapless traveler.

The only problem is that Diane never existed. The following week, the mischievous producer confessed the whole show was theater. Maybe it was a way of passing time on a painful flight; maybe it was a way to spin up an avalanche of new Twitter followers. Regardless, never believe those lying eyes… or those lying tweets.

9. Manti Te’o’s Imaginary Girlfriend

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o was having a career season. The Fighting Irish were destined for the National Championship game, and the All-American linebacker was leading the charge. The only catch? His girlfriend Lennay was stricken with leukemia. Manti told his teammates and the media alike the heart-wrenching tale of nights spent holding her hand, trying to pull her out of a deep coma.

On game day, Lennay passed away. Manti met the moment, inspiring his teammates and leading them to a 20-3, “win one for the Gipper” walloping of Michigan State. The following week, she was buried. But she had insisted Manti not miss his game. Another victory followed, and Lennay became a celebrity. Heisman trophy whispers orbiting Manti grew to a chorus. Charities were started, Notre Dame’s campus electrified.

If only she existed. Manti’s Shakespearean love drama unraveled just in time to distract the team ahead of the National Championship game. They lost to Alabama 42-14.

8. Barack Obama Flirts with his Danish Counterpart

Oh that incorrigible scamp Barack Obama! On a solemn occasion such as Nelson Mandela’s funeral, you’d expect some reverence from the Commander-in-Chief. Instead, an Agency France-Presse photographer snapped a few shots of the President giggling and playfully enjoying a coquettish chat with the comely Prime Minister of Denmark.

Bystander Michelle Obama’s stern look of disapproval added to the fun. A few moments later, in the seat-change heard round the world, the First Lady plopped herself between the two like the reincarnation of the Berlin Wall.

Social media, as social media is wont to do, blew up. Media outlets, as media outlets are wont to do, followed social media’s cues and hungrily ran “the sequel” to President Clinton’s noted philandering.

To the world’s dismay, the AFP photographer put a stop it all. “Photos can lie,” he wrote on the AFP blog. “In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.”

7. Jimmy Kimmel’s Twerking Prank

Before Miley Cyrus made the fiery booty shake colloquially dubbed “twerking” a household name, one poor young lady introduced the dance to the world in a somewhat more subtle, if not wildly painful, way.

She decided to film herself twerking, maybe for the Internet’s enjoyment, maybe for her boyfriend’s. But normal twerking simply wouldn’t do. That’s not the way to get a good video to go viral. Instead, she flipped herself in a handstand and twerked her front door like it was Kanye West. A hapless roommate opens the door, she falls onto some candles, and before you can click back to Amazon, the poor girl is screaming in terror as flames creep up her leg.

It took approximately 6 days for the video to hit 6 million views, or roughly the population of Denmark. It was somewhere in the range of 12 million views when late night host Jimmy Kimmel, known for his pranks, decided to confess the whole thing was nothing more than a spirited hoax.

6. Lance Armstrong Fesses Up

There’s nothing more excruciating to watch than a house of cards tumble. But how else can you describe cyclist Lance Armstrong’s fall from divinity? Over a decade of astounding cycling victories, coming on the heels of a nasty cancer diagnosis, Armstrong’s abilities seemed mythical.

Turns out he was juicing himself up like a reality TV version of the 6 million dollar man. When teammates, staff, competitors or anyone else dared challenge Armstrong’s integrity, the Tour de France champ resorted to intimidation, bullying, and the tried-and-true lawsuit.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency eventually zeroed in on Armstrong like a cruise missile, and the walls started closing in. So where else to go but Oprah? Armstrong’s heartfelt penance in the daytime star’s confessional swept the chaff off of years of cheating and scandals. Though it’s reasonable to expect he was being truthful under her microscope, the culmination of 10 years of fibbing earns Armstrong the number 6 spot on the list.

5. Google Nose: Smelling is believing.

There are an astounding 12 billion Google searches per month. That type of attention has turned the search engine giant into a quasi public laboratory, where people watch the company do wildly fun and interesting things like build glasses that interact with the world, self-driving cars, and moon maps.

So no one smelled a rat on April 1st 2013, when Google announced its latest creation, Google Nose. Not at first, at least. In an admirably convincing video that was unveiled on the Google homepage, the wily tech wizards from California proudly proclaimed a breakthrough in “photo audio olfactory sensory conversion.” In English, it meant you could search for smells.

The date, of course, should have been a dead giveaway. Google was just having some April Fools’ fun. But the jig wasn’t up until the online and communications world exploded with a cheerful mix of confusion and enthusiasm. Consider it a user-warning for the next time April creeps around.

4. Amy’s Bakery

It’s no secret that businesses will bend, distort, twist, stretch, and ultimately break their word to lure in consumers. But it’s not always the big guys who do the fibbing.

Take the sad saga of Amy’s Baking Company. In a reality show where celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay tries to rescue failing eateries, even Lucifer himself of Hell’s Kitchen couldn’t put the owners on the straight and narrow. After enduring baffling stubbornness and a dismal work ethic, Amy’s Bakery was the first and only establishment Ramsay abandoned.

It got worse. Amy, the eponymous owner of the bilious bakery, was later caught reselling a stale old cake that she claimed was hers. Her ensuing Facebook meltdown bordered on madness, as Amy hysterically mapped out a conspiratorial alliance of “haters” and the downright jealous, all out to get her. Naturally, Amy and her bakery quickly found themselves the subject of viral Internet and media fame.

It’s more fun to pick on the Fortune 500s and their often-questionable relationship with the truth. But for Amy’s cringe-worthy train wreck of paranoia and blatant lying, this small business owner earns the number four spot on the list.

3. Anthony Weiner Comes Clean

After Congressman Anthony Weiner was caught distributing photos of his canoodle to individuals best descried as women other than his wife, he went into full rehab mode. Following the old time-tested political playbook, Weiner went to the media and admitted he lied, took some time off to “be with his family,” and reentered politics after the tidal wave of outrage receded.

The New York City Mayor’s race was the perfect target for the shameless Representative from Brooklyn. Weiner was justly apologetic. Humbled, he swore up and down that he had seen the error of his ways, insisted that he was whole again, that he learned his lesson. And it was working. As recently as May, some polls had him leading a crowded field of mayoral aspirants.

Then a young woman curiously named Sydney Leathers sank the ship. She blew the whistle on her well-documented online relationship with Weiner. His campaign’s following implosion was worthy of the Hindenburg.

Weiner finally confessed to a double-digit number of illicit relationships, including 3 after he was chased out of Congress. On Election Day, he stumbled to an ignominious 5th place finish.

2. Lesbian Waitress’ Bigotry Hoax

Americans are empathetic people. So when a struggling young lesbian waitress posted a restaurant recipient with a bigoted, anti-gay note in place of a tip, the sympathy — and the dollars — started pouring in.

For a time, Dayna Morales was the talk of the town. You couldn’t scroll through a Facebook newsfeed without seeing her story. Thousands of dollars found their way to the former Marine, who gallantly promised to donate the proceeds to the Wounded Warriors Fund.

That’s about where her story fell apart. A nice couple that frequented Morales’ restaurant spotted their receipt and some suspicious alterations on the tip line. Justifiably interested in clearing their name, the couple took to the evening news with their copy of the receipt, noteworthy for its 20% tip instead of a hateful note. They even dug into the their credit card statement to cement their alibi.

Morales was later caught flatfooted by a local NBC affiliate, wide-eyed and full of denial. Faster than you can say “cry for attention,” the restaurant did a short investigation and promptly let her go. And the Wounded Warriors? They’re still waiting for that check.
1.President Obama “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.”

Nothing defines a presidency like a lie or empty promise that becomes a legend. Nixon fled the White House after Watergate. George H.W. Bush promised “Read my lips. No new taxes”. President Clinton will be remembered for “not having sex with that woman” and the impeachment that followed.

President Obama made many promises during his 2012 election run. But perhaps no promise was more punctuated than his insistence that if “you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance.” In what’s certainly one poor speechwriter’s regret, that line has replaced the Obama Administration’s hopeful clarion’s call of 2008 with the glum thumping of a tuba.

Three months after implementation of Obamacare and 15 months after the election, nearly 5 million Americans have lost their health insurance. And another 129 million more are vulnerable to losing their plans. Politifact has already rated it the Lie of the Year.

Whether the President was the victim of poor choice of words, poor policy, or poor politics, his empty assurance wins the title-belt of 2013’s sordid gallery of hoaxes, fibs, and whoppers.

There are some bonuses to the above stories. Sami Bouzaglo, the co-owner of Amy’s Bakery, is fighting deportation proceedings. Meanwhile the place is still there in the Scottsdale shopping mall just like it always has been and the Yelp reviews are fascinating.

As to President Obama, I don’t think he, or anyone else, realized how bad many of the existing insurance policies actually were. If your policy met the federal minimums you could keep it. Hooray! But it seems that about half of the policies people were paying good money for simply didn’t really cover much of anything. When I saw that lady on Fox complaining that her monthly premium was tripling from $50 to $150 I was stunned. $50 insurance policies are simply a nice way for folks to hand random strangers $50 that they can use on hookers and blow. They have no value beyond that.

That being said, this was his baby. Someone should have looked into it a little more before they fired up the teleprompter.

Cris Cab ft. Pharrell “Liar Liar” from Aggressive on Vimeo.

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