The average crash test dummy has a BMI of 24.3. I know this because I’ve done some Googling after hearing from a couple news sources that “studies have shown” cars in America are apparently not tested adequately to ensure protection for overweight males (by the way, the same “studies” also show problems for skinny people too, but for some reason that’s not making the news). Checking their sources for what I thought must obviously be a newfinding, I found that they were referencing a four-year-old article from the American Journal of Public Health. It must be a slow news day.

The American Journal of Public Health:

“These cabin designs may not be optimal for drivers with a different body habitus and may contribute to the higher fatality seen at both ends of the BMI continuum.”

“Future crash dummy simulations and other studies are needed to account for individual and gender-related variations in body mass and fat distribution in tests of velocity and vehicle design.”

So… instead of making thinner Americans, we need to make fatter dummies?

image from reddit.wired.com

Check out the Devil’s Food Reese’s Cake and more at ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com

What’s great is that you can know someone, know their sense of humor, know the “ins and outs” of what makes them tick, and know how to interact with them enough to make a witty reply to their Facebook status that you know they’ll find amusing.  What’s not so great is that the other people who know them but don’t know you might not find your comment so amusing.

So when a friend copied and pasted the meme about understanding how to interact with a special needs child and I replied with my witty snark “I don’t think at your age you qualify as a special needs child” I found myself thinking again and deleting my comment.  Sigh.

Grass roots campaigns in opposition of taxes and advocating the reduction of the power of the federal government aren’t a bad idea. Even though we’re taxed at a lower rate than most other developed countries, I don’t think we’re getting much of what we pay for.  Also, I definitely thing the government oversteps its bounds too often.  I don’t even find your opposition of the health care bill that problematic apart from the fact that I’d bet none of you actually read the plans in the first place. Getting in a bus and touring the country can be fun, too… especially with like-minded folk coming along. The claims of not being affiliated with a political party were attractive as well… at first.

I was OK with you guys for a while, even though I didn’t fully agree with you (especially in terms of health care reform), but you really start to lose me when you let the racists and the hillbillies come along for the ride.  I’m all about a government “by the people and for the people,” but it’s helpful when the people can read and spell to a certain degree too.

photos: huffingtonpost.com

Oh, and maybe learning the difference between socialism, communism, and Hitler’s approach of militaristic fascism, because when you talk about them as if they’re the same, it’s really embarrassing for all of us.  By that, I mean that the other countries are laughing at us.  What they see in us is our inability to make decisions (except to go to war), our obesity, and our questionable politics as evidenced by the 2000 Presidential election scandal, Presidents getting blowjobs in the Oval Office, the fact that no one in either major political party can have an original thought outside of their group, and now you people.

You know how we hear stories in the news about all the political corruption and crazy scandals and crazy riots and demonstrations going on in countries like Venezuela, Kazakhstan, or Ecuador and we think “Wow, I’m glad I don’t live in that fucked-up country?”  That’s how other countries are seeing US!

The fact that you’ve seemingly embraced Sarah Palin, arguably the biggest idiot of all public personalities in the last 40 years or so, as your spokesperson just makes it worse.  Do you realize it’s her whacko right-wing idiot-think style of government that gave the federal government the power you’re opposing in the first place?  The Patriot Act was Bush’s thing.  No year-and-a-half-long discussion like with health care reform, it got rammed down our throats like we were tied to a pommelhorse in a rapist’s basement.  The idea that a corporation has the same rights as an individual and therefor can spend as much as it likes on a political campaign?  That was the recent doing of our Republican-biased Supreme Court.  The bank bailouts?  That was BUSH’S IDEA! Obama just inherited the bank bailout.  I don’t agree with those things, as I don’t agree with the bailouts of GM and Chrysler.  See, I start out just like you… but the disconnect here is how my fully developed and functioning frontal cortex concludes “Wow, there’s a lot of stuff wrong with our federal government, especially where corporations are concerned.”  Your thought process is to jump on a bus with a bunch of badly made signs expressing your ignorance to the whole world.

I don’t think there’s a chance for Palin to reach any important political office, but if she does… oh, I don’t even want to think about that right now…

This discovery, for me, all started when I read a post on a friend’s Facebook page about James Cameron’s Aquaman, which was of course fictitious.  Diverting in topic the way Facebook posts will, I posted something in jest about a remake of  The Wizard of Oz.  Of course, remaking that movie in hopes of “improving” it is akin to someone getting the idea they can successfully improve on “Purple Haze” or “Stairway to Heaven” or Van Gough’s “Starry Night,” right?  Surely no-one would really do that, right?

Well, I guess I forgot about Hollywood mentality.  After all, we’re soon to get a big screen version of The Smurfs, although I smurin’ thought we already smurfin’ got a smurfin’ cast in smurfy James Cameron’s smurfy remake of Dances With Wolves.

Well, apparently there is some interest behind doing a Wizard of Oz project.  I mean, I’d read that people had ideas a couple years ago, but dismissed it as internet rumor, but with the recent popularity of Alice in Wonderland, and the movie companies’ desire to flood the cineplexes with 3D movies, I can see this one seeing the light of day (or the dark of the theater as it were).  In my journeys through the internet, I’ve found comparisons to Alien in regard to the new version.  I wonder if Dorothy will strip down to her underwear and bra… Wait. What am I talking about?  OF COURSE she will!

Apparently, the new movie will get the “Alice treatment” in that it won’t be the original story, but instead set up with excuses and explanations as to why they’ve bastardized the story to make it “believable.”  Apparently, it’s Dorothy’s granddaughter (unfortunately imagining Liza Minnelli children) goes to a much darker, meaner, modern-day Oz.  Whatever. I’ll just be there for the badass flying monkeys.

monkeyswithwings.com