O-Bits: Waka Flakka Inflamed Edition

Remember the other day when we told you how to survive the coming Zombie Apocalypse? Scientist Gilcrist Muir said we didn’t have to worry about “fast” Zombies…And it looks like he was wrong. The New York Post reports on a new drug taking hold called “flakka.” A synthetic substance also known as Alpha-PCP, it appears to create alpha zombies. It raises the body temperature to 105°, causes hallucinations and paranoia. More than a few users have been reported to strip naked, run screaming through the streets and break into homes. Sounds like Fast Zombies to us.  No word on their staircase agility, but we recommend taking no chances.

Also from the Post, comes a story of a couple of nurses who, while probably not Zombies, were certainly ghoulish.  They were employed at the Northeast Atlanta Health and Rehabilitation Center, and one of the patients in their care was 89-year-old WWII vet James Dempsey. Video shows the two nurses laughing and failing to take any life-saving measures as Dempsey repeatedly cried for help. They have lost their license and the facility was fined over $800,000.

It’s been assumed that one of the reasons establishment GOP figures have yet to break with President Trump, despite his anemic popularity and general imcompetance, is because they see him as a chance to give the Federal Judiciary a conservative bent. Today’s Washington Post has a profile of one of his nominees, Brett Joseph Talley. Although he has the usual  resume of a potential judge: Harvard Law, clerking for a  Federal Judge, speechwriter for a GOP Senator, articles published in Conservative blogs, what interests us is his extra-curricular activity. He’s a ghost-hunter. “I love old, abandoned buildings. Factories, insane asylums, that sort of thing,” he told a paranormal-interest website. He’s also authored horror fiction. All this, and he still gets a “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association. One historian thinks he interest in the paranormal is disqualifying in and of itself. “I don’t think it’s a good sign that a judge would embrace the reality of ghosts,” Stanford’s Robert N. Proctor said,  “What other parts of modern science would he be willing to reject? Climate change? Darwin’s theory of evolution? The judge will presumably be ruling on 21st-century disputes, not questions from the Middle Ages.” We would rather not see him on the Federal bench either, but our opinion is based more on his Second Amendment stance. After the Newton, Conn. massacre, he wrote an essay titled, “A Call to Arms: It’s Time to Join the National Rifle Association.” We guess it’s because more guns means the possibility of more undead.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.

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