United States

Saw this on TheDailyWTF. Too funny to miss.

Two years ago, Wattsupwiththat demolished a crackpot story published on CBS (here and here). As stated in the second article, CBS wrongly attributed the story to Associated Press and then killed it without publishing a retraction.

At some time since, that story has been restored on the CBS site, and here is today's screenshot with a bit of surrounding material to prove the date of the screenshot:

Those who have taken a look at the background materials on this site will know that one of the dangers I see threatening humanity is a widespread psychological malfunction I have called the false religion. This isn't a religion in the old sense, it has no personal god, it isn't an overt competitor with other religions. Indeed, believers in normal religions often are also believers in the core doctrines of the false religion. In fact, because we are immersed in the false religion from birth (it having now taken over as the unofficial religion of the state), we all probably have been suckered by one or another of its beliefs, even if we saw through most of them and even if we later wised up when we looked closely at the evidence.

Perhaps Jung understood it in talking about an expansion of the ego - a belief that the individual, or the human species, has infinitely perfectible nature and powers, instead of being limited, as are all creatures, by the restrictions of our evolution, our environment, and our instincts. The framers of the American Constitution also understood it when they designed a structure that could work in spite of human frailty, rather than gambling on a mass spiritual transformation. So it clearly is a mistake to think the false religion has a single, identifiable manifestation. Human hopes and dreams can outrun reality in a thousand different ways - and how hard it is to reign them in when they are framed in words that uplift the heart and enthuse the spirit, even as they guarantee that the hopes must end in disappointment and tragedy. The false dream can infect any group or any organisation, and it does infect many, all at once. Over the top? Too alarmist? The following video was put together by a black person, Kevin Jackson of theblacksphere.net, so if you want to accuse me of racism for the following, please don't bother. It scares me, and it should scare you too.