Shecky, @#1, do you mean he had a sense of humor? Then there's hope! :-)

This comment from another blog is by far the most disturbing thing I've seen on this matter. I quote it here in its entirety:

"As a Catholic, I agree - it's crazy. And as an epileptic, it's downright alarming. Smelling sulfer [sic] is a text-book description of an "aura" - which are frequent precursors to grand mal seizures. What she was experiencing in the early weeks were untreated medical symptoms - and the seizure is the predictable result!

"Also, epileptics are not alert during seizures - we ALWAYS "wake up" and wonder why people are surrounding us. And don't get me started with the "L...L...L..." sound; she was having a seizure!

"Finally, I have no doubt that, after this 'exorcism', her group of friends retrofitted Susan's daily life to fit the dramatic "demons" plaguing her. And that is the most troubling of all. Rather than calling a doctor, Bobby Jindal grabbed a Bible. That would be a very scary person to have in the White House."

- Posted by Decalain

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/06/bobby_jindals_dance_with_the_d.php#comment-2899659

I live in Louisiana, and yes, the religiosity of Catholics, Baptists, Pentacostals, and others can be quite heated. Other bloggers assure us, and I believe, that exorcisms are by no means rare among Catholic Charasmatics.

As for Intelligent Design, don't forget that staunchly mid-American Kansas voted it in.

Many Americans are quite religious, and I honestly don't know how the whole country would see this exorcism.

On a lighter note, here's an imagined picture of it:

http://megorious.com/politicklish/bobby-jindal-exorcist

@Certhas, re #31, I wouldn't laugh too much. The ACLU is supporting anti-gay nutjob Fred Phelps' right to free speech, and he's easily as bad as the Nazis.

Wolfrider, #9: read the Wikipedia article on "freeganism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeganism

I enjoyed the video! David Byrne did an awesome job with the building.

However, here's what I hope isn't a stupid question. I didn't hear him play tunes, and it isn't entirely clear to me that the keyboard is set up so that you could. What is the truth here, and are you supposed to expect to play tunes in this kind of music in the first place?

(I've long been smitten with Xeni too.)

I didn't know there was a Bangkok, Connecticut! ;-)

BJacques, the Soviets were famous for that! Look at Wiki's article on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_censorship

It mentions the incident you just did. Notice also how Yezhov's picture was edited out from alongside Stalin. The Censorship of Images link gives a lot more examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union

I've even read how this sort of thing is readily visible in successive editions of the biography of Maurice Thorez, the longtime head of the Communist Party in France!

All this was the inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's 1984, whose mission is to continually rewrite history like this.

Hmmm... The Chinese censors are sticking magazine pages together??? The things that turn some people on!!! :-)

This reminds me of the Seventh-Kilometer Market near Odessa, Ukraine.

"The Seventh-Kilometer Market (informally known as Tolchok (Russian: to hit, to shove), is an outdoor market outside of Odessa, Ukraine. Founded in 1989 during Perestroika reforms, it is now possibly the largest market in Europe.

"When founded as an Odessa flea market in 1989, it was expelled to an area outside of the city's limits at the seventh kilometer of the Odessa-Ovidiopol highway, thus acquiring its name. As of 2006, the market covers 170 acres (0.69 km²) and consists almost entirely of steel shipping containers...

"The independent traders on the market sell all sorts of cheap Asian consumer goods, including many counterfeit Western luxury goods. According to the impressions of S. L. Myers of the New York Times who visited the market in 2006, 'the market is part third-world bazaar, part post-Soviet Wal-Mart, a place of unadulterated and largely unregulated capitalism where certain questions — about salaries, rents, taxes or last names — are generally met with suspicion.'
And Zerkalo Nedeli wrote in 2004 that 'it is a state within a state, with its own laws and rules. It has become a sinecure for the rich and a trade haven for the poor.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-Kilometer_Market

When off-duty, this machine works for the SA Post Office.

Wiki talks about scopolamine's legitimate uses:

"In medicine scopolamine has 3 primary uses: treatment of nausea and motion sickness, treatment of intestinal cramping, and for ophthalmic purposes."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine

I remember that scopolamine used to be used to relieve pain in childbirth. The scopolamine gave amnesia, which is also why it's used as a date rape drug.

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=12883

I wonder whether the heat is from underground geothermal activity in the area? I agree that most likely it's some sort of chemical toxin, assuming that it's not suggestion/ negative placebo.

It could also be a satellite with radionucleides as #2 said, but I doubt that you'd get the symptoms they are seeing. Any fuel in a satellite would have burned up.

I remember the Andromeda Strain. My favorite part is where the Atomic Self-Destruct gets activated and they're racing around trying to cancel it.

Billy in Dagenham is pretty clearly a compulsive hoarder; it's a form of OCD. There's info about that on the OC Foundation's site:

http://www.ocfoundation.org/

They describe examples a lot worse this!

Anti-Social Behavior Orders sound like they were intended for Antisocial Personality Disorder. Here's wiki's article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath

Probably most of your people who have Anti-Social Personality Disorder are dangerous enough that they belong in jail.