When you’re working in a group, it’s hard to know what you truly think. We’re such social animals that we instinctively mimic others’ opinions, often without realizing we’re doing it. And when we do disagree consciously, we pay a psychic price. The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that people who dissent from group wisdom show heightened activation in the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the sting of social rejection. Berns calls this the “pain of independence.”

Take the example of brainstorming sessions, which have been wildly popular in corporate America since the 1950s, when they were pioneered by a charismatic ad executive named Alex Osborn. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, ends & odd by Mike Farrell
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From the cage beneath the cellar, a random spattering of hyperlinks.

Inside New York's abandoned leper colony

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Tags: ends & odd by Michael Cade
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Recently I was browsing in a used book store when I stumbled upon a soldier’s Japanese phrasebook from World War II. Between faded orange covers I found a treasure trove of fascinating words and phrases- certainly it’s the most useful text published by the U.S. War Department I’ve encountered since that pamphlet on sexual hygiene for GIs I found in a Texas ghost town a few years back. It does lack for detailed diagrams of human genitalia, however.

Like most phrasebooks it contains all the standard terminology related to greetings, asking for directions and finding lodgings, but the structure and at least half of the language is strictly determined by the context of war. Thus it begins not with “Hello” and “My name is…” but rather a set of “Emergency Expressions” the very first of which is: [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd, travel & foreign lands by Daniel Kalder
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10. I resolve to finish that pro-Catholic pornographic musical I’ve been working on

9. I resolve to eat my weight in marzipan

8. I resolve to finally find Waldo
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Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd by Bob Sullivan
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10. Instead of ‘Naughty’ or ‘Nice’ you’re on his ‘Asshole’ list

9. He leaves a note saying, “You better watch out! You better not cry! You better not shout while I’m torturing you!”

8. He smears reindeer poop all over your drapes
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Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, ends & odd by Bob Sullivan
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INTELLIGENCE ALERT
PINKARSKY COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

The Pinkarsky County Sheriff’s Department was recently made aware of a potentially dangerous threat to our children, in the form of music that mimics the feeling of euphoria that comes from taking drugs. Sheriff’s Department officials would like to warn parents about this troubling development, and encourages all parents to be vigilant and make sure and monitor any music that your children listen to, to ensure that they’re not “getting high” off it.

“Of course, we’re concerned about what the children of Pinkarsky County are listening to,” said Sheriff Waldo Heiny, at a press conference called specifically to announce this troubling development. “We want to make sure that the parents, who already have their hands full with their jobs, or unemployment worries, or whatever, understand that the Sheriff’s Department will do everything it can to help them to deal with this dangerous threat targeting our youth, by making random stops of children who exhibit odd behavior in public, and by making random searches of the CD and MP3 collections of the county’s children.”

The Sheriff added that the silence from some neighboring counties on this potentially devastating problem has been deafening.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DONAR COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

The Sheriff’s Department of Donar County recently learned that some parents had become alarmed by the idea that some kids might be trying to get high by listening to music. Donar County Sheriff Whitty Crain wishes to assure parents that there is little threat of children getting high from music. The real threat is from girls dipping their tampons in vodka, and then putting the tampons in their vaginas, where the vodka is absorbed through the soft, tender tissue of the girl’s vagina. [Read more →]

Tags: drugs & alcohol, ends & odd by Ricky Sprague
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I’m so sick of our nation’s focus on this ridiculous rich vs. poor scuffle.  We all know that there will always be a distinction between rich and poor, even in Communist Utopias, because the rich and the poor have always been opposing one another and have, over the millennia, reached a sort of natural equilibrium which prevents one from eliminating the other.  Thus, over the course of thousands of years, the poor’s standards of living have increased dramatically, with a similar increase realized by the elites.  Neither of those groups is likely to be the instrument of oppression in the United States of America.

For that dubious distinction we need to look to our Crusader Class.

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Tags: ends & odd, politics & government by Mike McGowan
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The sun shines. People forget. There is an eminence front for all people and therefore all candidates. For candidates it must be especially thick and durable as it is liable to come under meticulous attack, if not by the people then by the press and the other candidates. Herman Cain has learned this simple truth. Does his need to learn this lesson the hard way indict him? According to the gunslingers not on the Cain payroll, the gunslingers that are have ham-handed this one. What actually happened or was said is immaterial on this reckoning. It’s all about the optics: how it looks and Cain looks like a desperate fugitive. [Read more →]

Tags: ends & odd, race & culture, trusted media & news by Ken Watson
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Lately I’ve been chasing my father all over Hell – figuratively speaking. I don’t expect to catch him; he died seven years ago, taking with him some secrets I wish I could have asked him about, and others that I know I couldn’t have. He left behind some intriguing clues about himself, but remained something of a mystery to the end. [Read more →]

Tags: diatribes, ends & odd, family & parenting, terror & war by Jeff Scheuer
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In honor of Halloween, below is an excerpt from the Zombie Kama Sutra, which is sort of like the regular Kama Sutra that we living people all know and love, except that it’s aimed at the Undead. This excerpt features some highly disturbing and erotic images of zombie sexual positions. Please stop reading if the thought of such matter disturbs you.

IN the beginning, the Lord of Beings created men and women, and prescribed therefore about one million rules by which those men and women must necessarily regulate their living existence. Yet, these rules have not applied to the undead. For too long have these wayward, shambling, unholy creatures attempted to engage the acts of courtship, embracing, unions, seduction, and etc.

Death should not be used as an excuse for chaos.

To that end are written these more than one thousand chapters, intended as a guide to those who have risen from the grave by whatever means, be it metaphysical, mystical, biological, or extraterrestrial. These important “rules to be dead by” shall provide to the Zombie the proper knowledge in regards to conducting oneself in all manner of intimate relations. [Read more →]

Tags: art & entertainment, ends & odd by Ricky Sprague
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