“The woman who went on ‘Good Morning America,’ claiming she injected her 8-year-old daughter with Botox, now swears under oath … she made the entire story up for a few hundred bucks.” Sheena Upton, née Kerry Campbell, is now trying to get her daughter back from the child-protection folks. [TMZ]

[MinnPost]

Our guest columnist is the General Services Administration.

One lot to consist of hoodie and sunglasses. Kaczynski used different methods to disguise his identity when he traveled to commit Unabom crimes. He maintained several different pairs of sunglasses. Included among the sunglasses were these, strongly resembling those believed to have been worn by Kaczynski when he was seen in February of 1987 in Salt Lake City as he committed yet another Unabom crime. A subsequent artist drawing based on the memory of the witness resulted in the infamous sketch the mysterious Unabomber wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and aviator sunglasses. This was the only time during all of the Unabom crimes that the subject was ever seen. The artist drawing became a universal symbol of the hunt for the Unabomber and has been circulated worldwide.

This item is being sold “As Is, Where Is” with no attestation as to the accuracy of the description and the condition. No refunds will be issued.

Hoodie and Sunglasses [GSA Auctions]

Bidding Underway As Feds Auction Off The Unabomber’s Stuff [TPM]

We don’t spend much time on the Eschatology Beat, so we’re not familiar with the Scriptural underpinnings of Saturday’s Endapalooza. But we’re not surprised to discover that, like many things, the Rapture isn’t mentioned as such in the Bible itself.

Instead, it’s an All-American creation of Increase and Cotton Mather, who got hung up on this passage:

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

That would be 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, the standard source for Rapturiana. It’s also a standard source for Biblical Zombies, since the “dead in Christ” are presumed to be bodies rising from their graves.

And who’s behind 1 Thessalonians? None other than our favorite Biblical fraud: Paul.

Read more »

“More than 550 health professionals and organizations have signed a letter to McDonald’s Corp. asking the maker of Happy Meals to stop marketing junk food to kids and retire Ronald McDonald.” [WSJ]

Esquire exclusively reports breaking news about The Anticlimactic Book of the Millennium:

In a stunning development one day after the release of Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, by Dr. Jerome Corsi, World Net Daily Editor and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Farah has announced plans to recall and pulp the entire 200,000 first printing run of the book, as well as announcing an offer to refund the purchase price to anyone who has already bought either a hard copy or electronic download of the book.

Only Esquire, is, y’know, kidding. And the elderly-woman-stalking WND is not amused:

Read more »

“…let me say on the record, any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood”

—Newt Gingrich

This really is a most remarkable variation on the old “Who you gonna believe: me or your lying eyes?” defense. And really, we haven’t seen as much ass kissing and back tracking on an issue since early 2009, when the entire GOP leadership took turns making pilgrimages to Rush Limbaugh’s show to apologize to that enormous gasbag for suggesting he was wrong about some issue or another.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)