I'm Calling Aiko The Robot A Hoax

Everyone is covering this robot story now, it's even on CNN. But I'm going on record and calling this thing a hoax. The thing that really looks fake is when the Aiko's "creator" Le Trung holds up a sheet containing a hand-written algebra problem and the robot provides the answer.

Also the name AIKO apparently translates to "Love Child" (?).

Fake.

Why The Auto Bailout Should Die

This is an excellent article from Forbes showing why the automotive bailout is a huge con job.

Is Ghost Adventures A Big Joke?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that Ghost Adventures is a prank being played on the show's audience, in the style of Ghostwatch. It's just getting more and more ridiculous. Not like Paranormal State's brand of flaky pseudo-science ridiculousness, but a kind of self-conscious, leg-pulling ridiculousness. Tonight they played at least 1 "EVP" that was completely indecipherable. I mean it was just noise. It had subtitles underneath it to help you hear it, but it really was just noise. Then they also showed a photograph which looked completely normal, while presenting it as 'evidence' of shadow, which again was not detectable.

That's on top of the bizarre 'taunting' they have been doing on the last couple of episodes. Any time there's supposedly been a hanging, Zak Bagans brings in his own personal hangman's noose and carries it on his shoulder or throws it over a rafter (etc). Tonight's episode had the very bizarre (almost comical) moment where Zak locked one of his crew in a shower area of the Old Idaho Penitentiary where an inmate had been "gang-raped to death". They tauted the 'spirits' by offering up the crew member as a gift(!). Pretty freaking tasteless.

When will they pull the punchline?

The Black Friday Toys R Us Shooting: The Devil Is In The Details

Almost everyone has by now heard about the shooing on Black Friday at a California Toys R Us. What you may not have heard is that the shootings were apparently a murder-suicide. The evidence is piling up that there was only one shooter, Juan Meza, who after killing Alejandro Moreno, shot himself. Apparently there had been a long standing feud between the two families which led up to this confrontation.

The story gets very interesting when you learn about the criminal records of Moreno and Meza. Moreno apparently had been arrested for domestic assault in 1998. Meza, the alleged shooter, however had a much more lengthy criminal record including multiple arrests for gun possession (the latest one only 8 months ago), assault with a deadly weapon and drug possession. Yet Meza had never served any prison time.

How'd he manage that? The Moreno family's attorney, Mark Sullivan has a theory:

I suspect that Juan Meza was a criminal and an informant for the police. The reason I say that is because the judges who sentenced him on all these cases are not lenient judges. They're very tough sentencing judges here in Indio, as they all are. None of the judges nowadays tolerate weapons possessions, especially repeat offenders who have never been to prison a day in their life.

The Sheriff's department for their part had this to say:

"I'm not able to confirm that at all," -Herlinda Valenzuela, a Riverside County Sheriff's spokeswoman

Interesting.....