Wave at the camera

You have probably seen the fake advertisement for Wave, the new way of charging your iOS 8 phone in any standard household microwave. (Although I would venture that some of the responses with fried microwaves and phones are hoaxes as well.)

I admit I did giggle when I first read it — some chump microwaved their expensive phone and blew it up, funny, right? Only I realized that it’s not funny at all.

Why shouldn’t people believe that a new technology would allow them to charge their phone by microwaving it? It’s no more or less magical than any other new technology being invented every day. It just happens not to have been invented yet.

Yes, people need to think critically, check sources, use common sense, and become less science-illiterate. Is microwaving your phone a smart thing to do? No. Could the average person probably have known better? Yes. But if you are lucky enough to be in the minority for whom this is obvious, you don’t have any right to laugh at those for whom it is not.

Illegal Were Folon’s!

The American elections are coming up tomorrow, which for me means completing an absentee ballot. I actually like this, since I can sit down and Google all the candidates at my leisure before voting, to make sure they’re not KKK members. One resource that I often use is vote411.org, which is sponsored by the League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan organization.

They send out questionnaires to every candidate for every elected office on every ballot, interviewing them on the relevant issues, which they then reprint on their website; you can even compare two candidates’ answers side by side. This is an amazing (and free) service. I rely on it to help me form an opinion about Maryland politics, since I’m registered to vote there.

There were four candidates for the US Senate on the ballot: a Democrat, a Republican, a Green candidate, and one from the Constitution Party. I would have thought that the Constitution Party was a recent consequence of the Tea Party, since every third word out of a Tea Partier’s mouth is “constitution”, but apparently it’s been around for ten years. Anyway, this Constitution candidate, Richard Shawver, answered the interview questions so incompetently that I truly don’t understand how he was able to string enough coherent sentences together to get on the ballot. For your reading pleasure, I reproduce the interview in full below [the links to the sections of the US Constitution are mine]:

QUALIFICATIONS: What are your qualifications for this office?

Richard Shawver: Article 1 Section 3 I believe in the constitution, want to keep this country a repubic.

BUDGET: What methods would you support to address the federal budget deficit?

Richard Shawver: Article 1 Section 8 Congress must obey thier oath.

FOSSIL FUELS: What should be done at the federal level to reduce our use of and dependence on fossil fuels?

Richard Shawver: Hydroelectric plants, clean burning coal plants.

IMMIGRATION: What changes, if any, do you support in regard to immigration policy?

Richard Shawver: Article 1 Section 8 Illegal were folon’s, could not become citizens.

CORPORATIONS/ELECTIONS: What do you think is the proper role of corporations in elections?

Richard Shawver: There no proper role.

EDUCATION: What role should the federal government play in public education?

Richard Shawver: None, its the states role.

SECURITY: What are the most important steps towards assuring the short- and long-term security of our country?

Richard Shawver: Article 1 Section 8

First of all, it’s obvious that writing coherent English must be an elitist policy designed by the Obama administration to give furriners an unfair edge over red-blooded Americans — wait, what? I don’t like to nitpick, but there is at least one spelling, grammar, or factual error in every answer, except the last one which isn’t even trying to be a sentence!

For example, I just love his stance on immigration. “ILLEGAL WERE FOLON’S!” is such a pithy slogan, it should be the new battle cry of Blondie and the Freedom Party as they lead the Netherlands back into the Dark Ages, cheered on by the neo-nazi English Defence League. They could print it on their flags. What are folon’s? That’s the beauty of it, nobody knows. My best guess is “felons”.

My favorite part, though, is that he wants to keep the country a “repubic”. I think it’s only fitting that if America is in the throes of repuberty, then who else but hormone-fueled brats should lead her.

Now my only worry is whether to be relieved that these people can’t possibly be taken seriously, or scared that they’re taken seriously enough to get this far. This is why I implore you, if you are one of those inhabitants of this world with the right to vote in the United States on Tuesday, to do at least a minimum amount of research. Watching smear ads on TV doesn’t count.