Obama came from a poor family, went to Occidental College, got himself transferred to Columbia, and finally completed graduate studies at Harvard with magna cum laude, ala within top 1% of his cohort. He recently repaid his student loans.

So yes, there is a huge world of difference. But hey, it’s cool to look down on education and qualifications. Real men don’t need no fancy Harvard degrees.

i.e. Jenny McCrathy going around convincing people not to vaccinate their babies because she says it causes autism.

But it goes back to Old Ben Kenobi’s wisdom:
“Who is more foolish? The fool? Or the fool who follows him?”

But still, Japan does have a cetain talent for getting large groups of people to believe in wacky shit with no dissent. I guess believing in ghosts is better than believing a certain old man in Tokyo is a living god and that all gaijin are no better than animals.

So, what? You’re saying that the alien was actually -INSIDE- the White House?! Holy shit! I always knew it! It’s a scam and GWB is a sock puppet for an alien government!

*flees the country*

But Japanese TV gives this BS an outlet. And the 100% stupidity and/or lack of someone willing to take a stand and say “IT’S JUST A REFLECTION!” just seems to be part of the the groupthink, which seems to be worse in Japan.

Where’s the Mythbuster spirit? Where’s the Japanese version of Penn & Teller?
Or are they afraid they’ll get sued for slander, as TV psychics tend to do for the money and publicity, and risk that some judge who also believes in psychic BS will rule against them?

It still amazes me that the people of Japan, who score so well on standardized tests and live in a technologically advanced society, AND are not slaves to religion, still believe in ghosts, fortune telling and other such BS at really high levels, like 70-80% according to some polls.

I escape one country of rednecks and Oprah only to be greeted by even worse here in Japan.

And all the stupid tarento and everyone in the audience are bozos, too.

Apart from that I see a Harvard MBA who is not freaking out that there’s a reflection! in a window! OMG!

Fuck it. We should all give up our jobs and become psychics. Seems like an easy way to make a living AND get on TV in this country.

Fortune tellers charge 3000 yen for 15 minutes, while the average private English lesson rate is 3000 for an hour. Time to learn “palm reading”!

This is just the reflection, distorted a bit, of some dude’s white shirt sleeve, which is why it moves a bit.

Go to youtube and look up Captain Disillusionment, he debunks this, and has a few other stupid UFO/ghost “videos”, and Japanese TV is becoming a frequent target. The Japanese one with the “ghost girl” in the mirror is pretty good, but it is so obviously a simple video editing trick I’m amazed people still fall for it in this age where anyone with a bit of knowledge, free video-editing software and a digital camera can basically make anything happen.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fjMh6e_wxbY

then watch the rest

Although there is one bozo in the video clip….

It was just a teru teru bozo (weather doll).

He want is to be sunny tomorrow so he can go golfing.