Tag Archives: scare
Bath salt zombies scare cadets straight in Navy-produced video
The Navy has a new weapon in its arsenal against designer drug abuse: the mini-movie Bath Salts: It’s Not a Fad, It’s a Nightmare.
Available to the public on YouTube (and at the bottom of this page), the 6:37 minute movie uses horror-movie style special effects to simulate the hallucinogenic and often violent effects of the drug.
Shot from a young sailor’s point of view, the first 2 minutes of the video put the viewer behind the eyes of a cadet as he smacks his girlfriend in a bowling alley, witnesses his roommate morph into a horrific demon, and ultimately ends up convulsing on a hospital bed as he is held down by camouflage-wearing doctors.
According to Lieutenant George Loeffler, Chief Psychiatry Resident at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, treatment centers within the armed forces are seeing more cases of bath salt abuse every month. In early 2012, the Navy announced an “alarming increase” in designer drug use, which led to 1515 sailors being discharged in 2011 alone according to the Navy-run Jet Observer.
Mr. Loeffler explained that paranoid delusions and psychotic episodes that last long after the drug is out of their systems. “When people are using bath salts, they’re not their normal selves. They’re angrier, they’re erratic, they’re violent, they’re unpredictable.”
“People will start acting really weird, seeing things that aren’t there, believing things that aren’t true,” Loeffler continued. “Some people describe people spying on them, trying to kill them and their families, other people talk about seeing demons, and things that are trying to kill them.”
The designer drug has the potential to cause permanent damage. “One of the most concerning things about bath salts is that these hallucinations, these paranoid delusions, will last long after the intoxication’s gone,” Loeffler says.
Similar to the designer drug spice—the synthetic version of marijuana until recently sold over the counter in tobacco shops—bath salts contain unknown ingredients which vary widely depending on the source. This makes experimenting with the drug essentially a game of Russian roulette, often with devastating effects.
Reports of a 31-year-old man named Rudy Eugene attacking a 65-year old homeless man in Miami, stripping off the victim’s clothes, and proceeding to eat his face recently brought national attention to the potential dangers involved with bath salts.
It later turned out that Mr. Eugene was not in fact using the synthetic drug, though the psychotic episodes and paranoid delusions experienced by the assailant are consistent with known side effects.
The military treats soldiers who test positive for drug use with a strict “zero tolerance”, and are increasingly able to detect many designer drugs. Many of the most dangerous chemicals, however, do not register on drug tests, according to Mr. Loeffler. This fact has been used specifically to market the drug to sailors, soldiers, and marines.
Are the Navy’s methods to discourage bath salt use excessively dramatic in their recent video, or appropriate to counter an increasingly threatening epidemic of designer drug abuse?
Decide for yourself after watching the video:
Kansas militia expects zombies, and it’s dead serious
It’s got to be one of the coolest names ever for a group:
The Kansas Anti Zombie Militia.
But the group is real and its members are pretty serious about it.
Once the Zombie Apocalypse hits, they’ll be ready for it and they want you to be too.
“Can a natural person change into this monster that many fear?” Alfredo Carbajal, the militia’s main spokesman, said in an interview. “The possibilities are yes, it can happen. We have seen incidents that are very close to it, and we are thinking it is more possible than people think.”
Carbajal and other true believers aren’t so much scared of movie zombies. The apocalypse they see coming is a pandemic spread by a virus that creates zombie-like symptoms.
Last month, the Discovery Channel featured the Kansas militia in a documentary that concluded that such a Zombie Apocalypse — or Zompoc — was possible. The program featured scientists who speculated some evolving virus is bound to jump to humans on our overcrowded planet.
Of course, scientists have been warning about pandemics such as bird flu that don’t produce zombies, but zombies are the hot monsters right now.
A packed house listened last year at St. Mary’s College of Maryland as a chemist, psychologist and student acknowledged the possibility of an epidemic, according to the school’s newspaper.
The panel pointed out that there already have been zombie-like symptoms dating back to 1594; they were eventually determined to be the first recorded human case of furious rabies — an especially serious form of rabies.
Carbajal, 28, didn’t start out as a zombie fighter.
He and several friends grew up in Wamego, home of the Oz museum, watching zombie movies like “Shaun of the Dead,” “28 Days Later” and “Night of the Living Dead” and playing video games like the Left 4 Dead video game series.
The friends designed a web page for fun but then they began wondering what to do if there was actually a zompoc, and their thinking turned serious.
The group has five founders but about 1,500 likes on its Facebook page.
It’s not all zombie crusading; the militia also sponsors a Zombie Walk in October to raise money and food for charities.
But the group’s website points out that the militia is committed to research and preparing for a zompoc.
“We are not crazy. We are not paranoid. We believe in preparedness in any situation,” it says.
Everything you need to know about surviving a zombie attack can be found on the militia’s website — never take on a small horde of zombies by yourself because that would be suicide, and make sure all your skin is covered because blood spatters can be infectious.
Blunt objects are better to use than, say, knives because blades tend to dull after each use. A metal bat and a collapsible baton are the two most recommended weapons.
The site also notes as “a real-life threat to humanity” a biosecurity lab planned near Manhattan, Kan.
Carbajal and his group are not alone in their deep fascination over zombies. Much of the country has been touched.
The “Walking Dead” cable series broke basic cable ratings records with more than 10 million viewers for the first show of season three. And already hype for a movie, based on the book “World War Z,” is widespread even though its release date is six months out.
How-to books have been published in recent years, including the “Zombie Survival Guide,” which made the New York Times Best Seller List, and the “Zombie Combat Manual,” which warns “During a zombie outbreak, 98% of individuals will have to destroy an undead opponent without the aid of a firearm. Will you be ready?”
Carbajal said that if you aren’t a true believer, just being prepared for any apocalypse or natural disaster is a good thing.
“My thought is if you are ready for zombies, you are ready for anything, whether it be natural disasters, fall of government, invasion from another country — the possibilities are endless,” he said. “The point is to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.”
Others agree.
Using the guise of a zombie apocalypse, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state emergency management agencies are trying to get people to be prepared for a natural disaster with at least several days of food and supplies, copies of important documents and a plan.
“It’s a spoof; we are not encouraging a zombie scare,” said Devan Tucking-Strickler, Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman. “We use the tagline, ‘If you are prepared for zombies, you are prepared for anything and prepared for the unexpected.’ ”
Kansas even used the militia to help promote general disaster awareness.
Members of the group were featured in a photograph with Gov. Sam Brownback when he signed a proclamation declaring October as Zombie Preparedness Month in Kansas.
A little preparation for disaster can prove very important later, but most people don’t prepare, said another viral disaster worrier, Shawn Beatty, who also was featured on the Discovery documentary.
“You can get a first aid kit for $100, something that you should have in your house anyway, or you can go to dinner, take a trip, or have a really nice night out with that $100,” said Beatty, a public-school teacher in Columbia. “Who is going to say, ‘Let’s go buy something that you may not use?’
Doomsday 2012 Fact Sheet
There is widespread and unnecessary fear of doomsday on December 21, 2012. Some people worry about a Maya prophesy of the end of the world, others fear a variety of astronomical threats such as collision with a rogue planet. Opinion polls suggest that one in ten Americans worry about whether they will survive past Dec 21 of this year, and middle-school teachers everywhere report that many of their students are fearful of a coming apocalypse. Following are brief facts that address these doomsday fears.
Mayan Calendar: The Maya calendar, which is made up different cycles of day counts, does not end this year. Rather, one cycle of 144,000 days (394 years) ends and the next cycle begins.
Mayan Prophecy: The ancient Maya did not predict the end of the world or any disaster in December 2012. Such doomsday predictions are a modern hoax.
Planet Nibiru: Nibiru is probably the minor name of a god found in ancient Mesopotamian writing. There is no planet named Nibiru, and the fictional books by economist Zecharia Sitchin about a civilization on this planet are a hoax.
Rogue Planet Headed for Earth. For the past decade there have been reports of a rogue object (Planet X, or Nibiru, or Hercubolus, or even Comet Elenin) that will collide with Earth in December 2012. These claims are not true. If such a threatening world existed, it would be one of the brightest objects in the sky, and astronomers would have been tracking it for years. If it existed, its gravity would be distorting the orbits of planets, especially Mars and Earth. Astronomers know that it does not exist.
Planet Alignments: There is no alignment of planets in Dec 2012. There is an approximate lining up of the Earth and Sun and the center of our Galaxy in late December, but this happens every year. In any case, planet alignments have no effect on the Earth.
Pole Shift: There is nothing strange this year about either the magnetic poles or the rotational poles of the Earth. The magnetic polarity changes every million years or so, but that is not happening now, and it probably takes thousands of years when it does happen. A sudden change in the rotational axis has never happened and is not possible. If there were any change in the Earth’s rotation, it would be instantly apparent by failure of our GPS systems.
Increasing Disasters. Our planet is behaving normally in 2012, although we see more and more news stories about natural disasters. There has been no increase in earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. There has been an increase in extreme weather, including both droughts and floods, which are partly attributable to global warming, but this has nothing to do with a 2012 doomsday.
Solar Outbursts: The Sun’s ongoing 11-year activity cycle is expected to peak in 2013, not 2012. Solar outbursts (flares and CMEs) can damage orbiting satellites but will not hurt us on the surface. The strength of the 2013 solar maximum is predicted to be lower than average, not higher.
Bunker Conspiracy: Accusations of a massive government cover-up are nonsense. No government could hide an incoming planet or silence hundreds of thousands of scientists. Rumors that huge bunkers have been built in the U.S. or elsewhere to shelter the elite are lies. Apparently a few people are building private shelters, but their fear of 2012 is misplaced and they are wasting their money.
Scaring Children: The group most vulnerable to doomsday claims is children. Teachers report that many of their students are frightened and some are even considering suicide. This is the most tragic consequence of the 2012 hoax.
The End of the World: The idea of the sudden end of the world by any cause is absurd. The Earth has been here for more than 4 billion years, and it will be several more billion years before the gradual brightening of the Sun makes our planet unlivable. Meanwhile there is no known astronomical or geological threat that could destroy the Earth.
Cosmophobia: Many young people write to me that they are scared of astronomy. When they read about some new discovery, the first thing they think is that it might hurt them, even if it is happening in a distant galaxy. There is no reason for such fears, which I call cosmophobia (fear of the universe). This rash of concern seems to be the result of too many conspiracy theories and sensational stories featured on the Internet and irresponsible news outlets. Astronomical objects are so distant that they cannot threaten the Earth. Please don’t be afraid of the Sun or the planets or comets or asteroids. The universe is not your enemy.
Summer solstice, 2012: Six months to doomsday?
WASHINGTON — When the summer solstice arrives Wednesday, it will mark six months until the winter solstice on Dec. 21, when, according to some people’s reading of the Mayan Long Count calendar, the world will be destroyed.
Scientists and archeologists have debunked the doomsday theory, but it remains alive and well in popular culture.
“People who are not specialists in the Maya calendar have taken a few quotes and a few misunderstandings by scholars, and they’ve picked it up and run with it,” says Simon Martin, co-curator of a “Maya 2012: Lords of Time” museum exhibit in Philadelphia. “So it becomes somewhat unrecognizable.”
In 2009, the movie “2012”destroyed the world in the best special-effects fashion. The cable channel Spike TV has announced a new reality show called “Last Family on Earth,” in which one of the prizes is a spot in an underground bunker provided by Vivos, a company that sells space in such shelters. Vivos, for its part, maintains a countdown clock on its Website.
Striking a more positive note, the online stock trading firm Ameritrade suggests, “Say the sun rises on December 22, and you still need to retire. Ameritrade consultants can help you build a plan that suits your life.”
The end of days has been scheduled often during human history. The Bible’s Book of Revelation predicts it. Many Europeans expected the end of the world would come in the year 1000. More recently, American evangelist Harold Camping predicted doomsday would arrive May 21, 2011, then he switched the date to Oct. 21. Now he’s reconsidering.
The source of the current fear apparently is the end of the cycle of the Mayan Long Count calendar, one of the Mayans’ many calendars. The Mayan culture in Middle America thrived for six centuries before collapsing around 900 A.D., according to recent scholarship, because of a series of droughts and possibly warfare. The Mayans were sophisticated calendar makers and time keepers; in Guatemala recently, a Mayan mural with calendar calculations etched on the walls was discovered.
Kate Quinn, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, or the Penn Museum, where the “Lords of Time” exhibit was displayed, says that the previous end date on the Mayan Long Count calendar occurred 5,125 years ago and was regarded as a significant event.
“They really thought of it as the turning over of dates, as the rebirth, the reawakening — the time to really reflect and start anew and just refresh,” Quinn said. “They really believed in that in the same way that we do with our New Year’s resolutions, but this was a bigger one for them. A much larger time frame. A very big party.”
Martin, co-curator of the exhibit, says that because of different correlations of dates, there is some dispute over when the Mayan Long Count calendar actually will end this time. He said you might want to wait until Dec. 25 to be in the clear.
In September 2011, Archeology Magazine published an article exploring various doomsday theories, from black holes to magnetic fields. Even the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is getting into the act, with its “Ask an Astrobiologist” feature including a question-and-answer column on “Nibiru and Doomsday 2012.” (Nibiru is a planet that the ancient Sumerians forecast would hit and destroy Earth.) E.C. Krupp of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles wrote an article for Sky and Telescope magazine going through various theories, “The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare.”
“In various spiritual and religious beliefs we find evidence of the end. It comes back as a kind of classic theme in the culture that we’re imagining it’s about to end,” says author Ben Winters, whose new mystery, “The Last Policeman,” is based on the premise of Earth’s destruction from an asteroid.
The doomsday theories provide “a reason to not be engaged in the world as it is,” he said. “To be thinking about some imagined future, some brutal future. It’s a kind of a fantasy, it’s a kind of escapism.”
Quinn said, however, that when the museum polled visitors to the Maya 2012 exhibit, most people were unaware of the details behind the Mayan Long calendar and the end of days.
“You ask, how do you think the world’s going to end, and they say, ‘Well, it’s something with the sun, aren’t we going to crash into something?’or, ‘It’s going to be a flood,’ and they didn’t really know,” Quinn said. “So there seemed to be a lot of theories out there, and a lot of opportunities out there for us to help the public to be directed to what we know to be true.”
Martin said that doomsday scenarios seem to be a North American phenomenon dating to the 1970s.
“It is something that recurs in societies that are looking for answers beyond what science seems to offer,” Martin said. “I think that people aren’t always happy with what science tells them.”
One positive benefit of the possible end of days, however, could be a boom for tourism in Honduras and other areas where Mayan civilization thrived.
“The hotels are selling out; the restaurants are going to be booked,” Quinn said. “It’s a great opportunity for them to bring in tourists altogether because the people who are interested in this idea of apocalyptic thinking, whether they believe the world going to end or not, they understand that the event is going to be here. They want to be there at that time.”
Locals in those areas seem bemused by it all, Quinn said. While preparing for the exhibit, she said, the descendants of the Mayans asked her, “Why do you Americans think the world’s going to end? And what is it with you people? How can you possibly trace it back to us?”
Zombie Apocalypse Has Begun! PREPARE PREPARE – Outbreaks Occurring Nationwide
Beginning in May, on a sunny day in Miami, Florida, America began living its very own
Zombie fantasy. As you know, there are thousands of homeless people in the world. Well 65 year old Ronald Poppo, who was one of these unfortunates, was walking in an alley of down town Miami, when 31 year old Rudy Eugene decided he looked delicious. Eugene was found naked under a bridge, chewing on Poppo’s face. The Miami police yelled at Eugene to stop, but he wouldn’t and for Poppo’s safety, the police shot at Eugene. They shot at him in the chest several times but he was still alive, after shooting him even more, Eugene dropped to the ground dead. Poppo is now in a hospital in Miami. He is doing fine and is to have physical therapy.
Poppo is not the only zombie victim in the U.S. there was a woman who ate part of her baby’s brain, three of its toes, and part of its intestines. There was another college student who killed and ate his roommate. That definitely makes me not want to live in dorms. There was another attack where the man threw his own intestines at the police officers. Finally, a Canadian porn star lost it and ate someone, oh and also threatened the Prime Minister.
Yes, there are finally Zombies in North America and who knows if they are in any other part of the world. There is nothing we can do about it. Let’s face it; we all know that this country is all pretty screwed up. There are some crazy people in the country.
People are starting to say that the Zombie apocalypse is almost here. When I was younger, my mother joked around about the zombie apocalypse. I got really scared. Little did know that I was going to write an article about Zombies. People are freaking out about this when you are actually pretty safe. There is a 0.25 in a 10 percent chance that you would be a Zombie victim. But just in case, you should be ready for the Zombies next attack.
Look, everyone knows that the Zombies are coming and there is nothing we can do about it. Just be prepared. This is the updated list of the do’s and don’ts, and how to tell if Zombies are in your town.
Let’s start.
How do you know there are zombies in your town?
Well, if you start hearing crazy people chanting to themselves, then yeah they are on the verge on Zombie-hood (or they are in a popular teen cult…either way, probably bad news). We all know that the crazy people are going to become zombies first because they were neglected and left to live on the streets. You can also tell there are Zombies in the town when you hear screaming and police cars all night long. And the final way to see if there are Zombies in your town is if you see a lot of new (but empty) graves. That means one of three things:
A- The Zombies have been crawling out of their graves.
B- There have been a lot of deaths, which means that they died from Zombies eating them.
C- That pesky teen cult thing again.
How do you prepare for a Zombie apocalypse?
Two words: Get Weapons.
When picking your weapons, you want to get something that you can shoot or throw or stab them with from a long distance because you don’t want to get the Zombie juice on you. The main weapon that you want is a gun. When you get a gun, your first choice is a hand gun. Hand guns can hold more bullets and you can empty and re-lode fast. They are easy for travel and you can put them almost anywhere. You want to make sure that you have more than one gun because the gun can get lost or broken. If you can’t get the gun, then you want a machete. Go ahead and cut off their heads. Make sure that you don’t get the Zombie juice in your blood through a cut or something…it will turn you into a Zombie. You can use pretty much anything, just kill the brain. Cut off the head then smash it. If you want you can burn it. Just don’t let any other Zombie eat the body because then the Zombie will get stronger.
After you get your weapons, you want to get a safe spot. I would say a basement because Zombies can’t lift heavy things or their limbs will fall off. Or you’re going to want to hide in an attic. You want to be as far away from a graveyard as possible. Try getting a cabin in the middle of the woods. Make sure that you have food storage because you don’t know how long you will be there.
How you know you got infected and what to do.
If you got any Zombie juice on you, and you didn’t disinfect it by burning the area you are probably on your way to being a Zombie. If it gets into your blood then kill yourself if you don’t what to become a Zombie. If you decide to kill yourself then you should knock yourself out and have someone throw you in a fire so you know that you won’t become a Zombie. If the Zombie juice gets in your system without you knowing the symptoms of Zombieitis, you’re going to want to go through this check list:
- Are you choking on nothing?
- Do you have green splotches on your skin, dizziness, and craving for raw meat? Especially Brains?
- Is your skin falling off like a leper?
If you said yes to any of these, you may want to kill yourself.
But you never know when they are going to crawl out of their grave…OH WAIT THEY HAVE!
Y’all had better stop reading and start killing the Zombies