A botanist from Hawaii has filed a lawsuit to stop the completion of the Large Hadron Collider on the border of France and Switzerland on the basis that turning it on might create a miniature black hole that would engulf the entire earth and spit us out in a parallel dimension.
If this blowhole wasn't a certified kook I might be a little bit worried, but I don't think we have to worry about evil transdimensional doppelgangers. Of course, there's always the possibility that this is the evil universe, which might explain a lot of things come to think about it.
The Music Man is a truly great example of American musical theater at it's finest. It's got travelling con men masquerading as crusading intellectuals, a sexy widowed librarian/piano teacher, more show-stopping numbers than you can shake a stick at and it even has Buddy Hackett! But what puts it over the top is the fact that it's got catchy tunes that also manage to make important social points.
In the clip above, Professor Harold Hill engages in the age-old political maneuvers of fear-mongering and scapegoating. He's using a fear of change to whip the town into a frenzy that distracts them from the fact that the true danger in their midst is actually him. He's there to bleed them dry and with nothing more than a little hand waving and a song and dance, they're ready to sign up.
So the next time you see a politician preaching to you about the dangerous choices you need to be prevented from making, think of this. The idea that billiards is healthy and wholesome but pocket pool corrupts the morals of our youth is a pretty powerful analogue to a lot of other discussions going on in the world around us.
