Mississippi Martial Arts Instructor Arrested in Ricin Case

From Elvis to taekwondo
US News • Views: 36,134

Authorities have arrested another man in Mississippi in connection with those ricin-laced letters sent to the President and other politicians; this time, instead of a wingnut Elvis impersonator, it’s a karate instructor (and Mensa member) who was previously indicted for child molestation.

James Everett Dutschke, 41, was taken into custody by U.S. marshals at his Tupelo home early Saturday morning without incident, the city’s police chief, Tony Carleton, told Reuters.

It was not immediately known if Dutschke has been charged in the ricin investigation.

Dutschke faces other charges related to an April 1 indictment for fondling three different children between ages 7 and 16, from 2007 to 2013, according to court records. He was released on $25,000 bond in that case.

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76 comments
1 Tigger2  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:03:26am

What a winner he’s already in trouble for molesting kids.

mugshots.com

2 Charles Johnson  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:07:31am

This is the guy that Elvis impersonator Paul Kevin Curtis said was framing him.

3 wrenchwench  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:07:53am

This time they did the search first and the arrest second. Does that mean they found something incriminating? Did they wait until 1 AM to arrest him to catch him off guard? (After watching his house all day…)

4 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:08:07am

If this idiot really did this just to frame the other guy… wow. Olympics of stupid.

5 Randall Gross  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:16:36am

Something I figured out very early in life: smart people can still be unwise.

6 Varek Raith  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:17:04am

An actual, Hollywood style framing?
Weirdness.

7 engineer cat  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:22:09am

on the bright side, nobody got hurt, & his apparent intended victim, the elvis impersonator, is now famous & will probably get a lot more gigs

8 Sionainn  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:29:56am

Wingnuts will start freaking out because this guy is a Republican. *evil laugh*

9 GeneJockey  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:33:10am
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”

- Mark Twain

10 GeneJockey  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:35:48am

Actually, I like this one better:

“Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.”

- Leo Rosten

11 Four More Tears  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:39:57am

re: #8 Sionainn

Wingnuts will start freaking out because this guy is a Republican. *evil laugh*

They’ll try to find that one time in 2003 or something when he registered D for a year or two or something like that…

12 Charles Johnson  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:47:32am

Jim Hoft actually tried to claim that the Elvis impersonator was a “far left liberal” because he found a picture of Curtis pointing at an Obama bumper sticker.

Yeah. Let’s just ignore the tweet where he said “Ted Nugent for President.”

13 Skip Intro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:50:51am

I should have known it was just too good to be true to have an Elvis impersonator as a bungling terrorist.

14 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:51:46am

re: #12 Charles Johnson

Jim Hoft actually tried to claim that the Elvis impersonator was a “far left liberal” because he found a picture of Curtis pointing at an Obama bumper sticker.

Yeah. Let’s just ignore the tweet where he said “Ted Nugent for President.”

Of course, since the impersonator is just innocent, it doesn’t even matter. Just another stupid Hoft moment.

15 Charles Johnson  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:52:09am

Wow. Sometimes you read a wingnut comment that’s just amazingly stuffed to the gills with every single talking point. From Jim Hoft’s post about Obama’s Planned Parenthood speech, where the pro-lifers are gleefully advocating the death of everyone they disagree with:

We never had a President of the United States who just loves abortion — too bad he wasn’t aborted along with Holder, Clinton and with the entire Obama admin. What a bunch of murderers they are — millions of babies have been brutally murdered, think about this, entire generations of human beings murdered. I believe the only one that can take a life is God, or in some very extreme cases of illness or imminent death, then an abortion has to be done. Why is it the woman’s right only, what about the father of the baby, the grandmother of the baby, the aunt of the baby, doesn’t anyone else matter and why doesn’t the baby have rights??? But millions of humans being killed every year? It can’t be right. I say God Damn Planned Parenthood and Obama and Clinton and Holder too for spreading deadly polson to young women. Obama is the first President I know of who encourages killing babies, he is nothing but an idiot and a babykiller and what goes around comes around. Also, in some cases it has been proven that birth controlA pills cause cancer, so keep taking your pills women, Obama and Planned Parenthood want to get rid of you too, along with the seniors (cutting Medicare of billions of dollars!!!) And all of you not informed people, keep voting for these NOVELTY presidents like Obama and then Clinton??? See what it gets you, nothing but more taxes and babykilling.

Wow.

16 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:52:48am

Back when we elected a b-list dummy movie cowboy president I thought that reality was out-stripping satire. I mean it sounded like a hackneyed satire of the US before it even happened.

Now that our national politics and international situation are yet another Mordecai Richler satire, I realize that I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.

I mean 9/11 followed by a shoe bomber followed by an underwear bomber who burned his dick off? Any satirist would have been beaming proud to write that book. Add in Abu Ghraib as the new internet S&M porn creation and you have a masterpiece.

17 Skip Intro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:53:14am

re: #8 Sionainn

Wingnuts will start freaking out because this guy is a Republican. *evil laugh*

A child molesting Republican. You’ll never hear another word about this case from the usual suspects, unless they’re going to try the “government is covering it up” theme again.

18 jaunte  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:53:39am

re: #12 Charles Johnson

Jim Hoft actually tried to claim that the Elvis impersonator was a “far left liberal” because he found a picture of Curtis pointing at an Obama bumper sticker.

Yeah. Let’s just ignore the tweet where he said “Ted Nugent for President.”

Soon the Elvis impersonator will be transformed into the unjustly-accused conservative victim of a crypto-liberal assassin.

19 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 11:57:35am

Add in that every racist in the country has been going nuts for the last 5 years trying to hide his hood while screaming about Obama, and you have the satiric sequel. No wonder I haven’t been reading satire, reality has cornered the market.

20 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:03:47pm
(Reuters) - Federal agents arrested a Mississippi martial arts instructor on Saturday after his home and a former business were searched as part of an investigation into ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and two other public officials.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was taken into custody by U.S. marshals at his Tupelo home early Saturday morning without incident, the city’s police chief, Tony Carleton, told Reuters.

It was not immediately known if Dutschke has been charged in the ricin investigation.

Maybe they found further evidence of child molestation or child porn when they were searching.

21 kerFuFFler  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:08:10pm

re: #5 Randall Gross

Something I figured out very early in life: smart people can still be unwise.

I have known reams of brilliant people and none of them has ever bothered to apply for MENSA membership. I suspect that occasionally an average person tests well (false positive for intelligence) on a single test and then is so excited at their supposed exalted status that they rush to join. I imagine a significant % of the club is made up of such lucky test takers. Genuinely smart people are confident enough to not need to bolster their egos in such a pathetic manner.

22 Romantic Heretic  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:11:23pm

re: #21 kerFuFFler

Actually, when I joined MENSA, it was to meet women. Hopefully ones with as eclectic tastes and interests as myself.

Unfortunately most of the MENSA membership was guys that had the same idea as me.

23 Charles Johnson  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:13:11pm

I have to say, though - the cast of characters in this ricin investigation is starting to look like a Quentin Tarantino movie.

24 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:14:52pm

re: #21 kerFuFFler

It can be a “false positive” in the sense of what IQ tests measure being unimportant, but there isn’t variation in how one person scores. Those tests are good at measuring SOMETHING, and if you’ve ever been to a mensa party you’d find that a lot of these people have amazing verbal skills. I remember a game where you had to use given words in a poem in iambic pentameter. Not something I could do, but there were people there who could do it endlessly.

25 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:17:37pm

…and cleverly.

26 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:17:46pm

re: #24 stabby

There are also people who aren’t in Mensa who can do that, though. And the tests Mensa gives also exclude other categories of very smart people.

27 kerFuFFler  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:17:54pm

re: #22 Romantic Heretic
Come too think of it, lots of the brilliant people I was thinking of who did not join were women!

But hey, sorry it didn’t work out for ya. :)

28 blueraven  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:20:15pm

re: #5 Randall Gross

Something I figured out very early in life: smart people can still be unwise.

I know a couple of genius level IQ people who dont have a lick of common sense, or social skills.

29 allegro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:20:29pm

re: #22 Romantic Heretic

Actually, when I joined MENSA, it was to meet women. Hopefully ones with as eclectic tastes and interests as myself.

Unfortunately most of the MENSA membership was guys that had the same idea as me.

As a 20-something single woman, I joined Mensa in 1981 to enhance my social life and it fulfilled that mission and more. It was rockin’ in the early 80s with parties, happy hours, Special Interest Groups, lunch bunches, speaker programs, etc. There wasn’t anything else like it and I had a ball, meeting people who are still dear friends.

And no, Mensans do not sit around talking about IQ or how smart they are. Nor is membership a status thing to anyone in my acquaintance. It’s just a social group.

30 Romantic Heretic  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:20:33pm

re: #24 stabby

When I was a member there was another member who was also in the Triple 9 organization. To be a Mensa member you have to be in the top two standard deviations on the intelligence bell curve. To be a Triple 9er, you had to be in the top two above that.

He was the most boring person I’ve ever met. He could literally come into a room and all the fun would drain out of it.

At 55 he still lived at his mother’s house.

Intelligence and competence do not always overlap.

31 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:22:01pm

re: #22 Romantic Heretic

Actually, when I joined MENSA, it was to meet women. Hopefully ones with as eclectic tastes and interests as myself.

Unfortunately most of the MENSA membership was guys that had the same idea as me.

That’s kind of adorable.

The different ‘kinds’ of intelligence are always interesting to me. For example, I can read faster than I anyone I know, with very good comprehension and enjoyment. I didn’t do anything special to achieve this, I just read a lot. I have no idea ‘how’ I do it. Is that a portion of my ‘intelligence’? If i just read Alex Jones stuff, that ability might actually work against me. But it definitely is part of what makes me ‘smart’ in other ways, that I’m generally well-read.

32 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:23:41pm

re: #29 allegro

And no, Mensans do not sit around talking about IQ or how smart they are. Nor is membership a status thing to anyone in my acquaintance. It’s just a social group.

The mensans in prison group is always my favorite.

The Mensan group at University of Chicago was really bad advertising for Mensa in general. They did sit around talking about how smart they were, and they were all ‘race realists’ when I was there.

33 kerFuFFler  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:24:13pm

re: #24 stabby

It can be a “false positive” in the sense of what IQ tests measure being unimportant, but there isn’t variation in how one person scores. Those tests are good at measuring SOMETHING, and if you’ve ever been to a mensa party you’d find that a lot of these people have amazing verbal skills. I remember a game where you had to use given words in a poem in iambic pentameter. Not something I could do, but there were people there who could do it endlessly.

But I think MENSA will allow other high scores, like SAT’s, not just IQ tests. Since SAT’s are multiple choice there will, statistically speaking, be people who score well due to luck.
Do you think that Elvis impersonator or Dutchske are good at improvising in iambic pentameter?

34 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:24:40pm

I’m not good at verbal games. I was hoping for non-verbal games like go, but the party was just about verbal games, probably because that’s more social, so I never went back.

35 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:27:22pm

I really enjoyed Douglas Hofstadter’s book Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies which was about how to attempt to program a computer to answer IQ type questions and similar problems.

36 wrenchwench  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:28:39pm

re: #22 Romantic Heretic

Actually, when I joined MENSA, it was to meet women. Hopefully ones with as eclectic tastes and interests as myself.

Unfortunately most of the MENSA membership was guys that had the same idea as me.

Worked for my brother. He and his Mensa wife have two teenage Mensa kids.

37 122 Year Old Obama  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:29:02pm

re: #15 Charles Johnson

Wow. Sometimes you read a wingnut comment that’s just amazingly stuffed to the gills with every single talking point. From Jim Hoft’s post about Obama’s Planned Parenthood speech, where the pro-lifers are gleefully advocating the death of everyone they disagree with:

Wow.

Behold, our compassionate conservative patriots. Wanting people who merely disagree with them to be fucking killed.

38 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:29:03pm

I think one of the smartest things my parents ever did was to not share the results of the IQ test administered in kindergarten with me until I was old enough to recognize it was a meaningless number.

39 allegro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:29:08pm

re: #30 Romantic Heretic

When I was a member there was another member who was also in the Triple 9 organization. To be a Mensa member you have to be in the top two standard deviations on the intelligence bell curve. To be a Triple 9er, you had to be in the top two above that.

He was the most boring person I’ve ever met. He could literally come into a room and all the fun would drain out of it.

At 55 he still lived at his mother’s house.

Intelligence and competence do not always overlap.

I don’t think it’s competence as much as a lessened ability to deal with people socially. I knew a couple of people who were off the scales IQ-wise and they were socially awkward, though lovely people. Someone once used an analogy that may be helpful and that is to think of a person of average IQ of 100 communicating with someone with say, a 70 IQ. It’s going to be limiting. Could those same limitations be in place between a person with a 130 IQ and a 180 IQ? Entirely likely.

40 kerFuFFler  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:31:55pm

re: #24 stabby

It can be a “false positive” in the sense of what IQ tests measure being unimportant, but there isn’t variation in how one person scores. Those tests are good at measuring SOMETHING, and if you’ve ever been to a mensa party you’d find that a lot of these people have amazing verbal skills. I remember a game where you had to use given words in a poem in iambic pentameter. Not something I could do, but there were people there who could do it endlessly.

A hot young bloke named McNameter
Had a dick of prodigious diameter
It wasn’t the size
Gave the girls a surprise
But his rhythm, iambic pentameter

Just had to pass that along with apologies…. :)

41 wrenchwench  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:32:15pm

re: #38 klys

I think one of the smartest things my parents ever did was to not share the results of the IQ test administered in kindergarten with me until I was old enough to recognize it was a meaningless number.

I think my mom held out as long as she could, but couldn’t resist telling me and my older brother that we were soundly beaten by the next two siblings.

42 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:32:55pm

re: #39 allegro

I don’t think it’s competence as much as a lessened ability to deal with people socially. I knew a couple of people who were off the scales IQ-wise and they were socially awkward, though lovely people. Someone once used an analogy that may be helpful and that is to think of a person of average IQ of 100 communicating with someone with say, a 70 IQ. It’s going to be limiting. Could those same limitations be in place between a person with a 130 IQ and a 180 IQ? Entirely likely.

But IQ is a terrible measure of intelligence. Any of those people might just be a terrible communicator.

I have no idea if my wife is naturally smarter about biology than I am, or not. It really doesn’t matter, since she’s studied the hell out of it for years and years. The barrier between us in communicating about molecular biology has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with the fact she’s studied it for years and is getting a PhD in it.

I’ve known people with very ‘high IQs’ who were great at communicating with others, and those that were shit. I’ve also know people with ‘high IQs’ who are pseudoscientists. Even measuring is capacity is hard enough, and then you also have to think about the purposes people are putting their ‘intelligence’ to.

43 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:34:09pm

I do know one woman who has an off-the-scale IQ who has always been very social and socially able. I had an deep crush on her in high school.

44 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:34:22pm

re: #41 wrenchwench

I think my mom held out as long as she could, but couldn’t resist telling me and my older brother that we were soundly beaten by the next two siblings.

Haha.

I feel like I should add, for posterity’s sake, that I was in grad school by the time my parents finally told me.

I have no idea where my siblings stand. Except that they’re both extremely capable of blonde moments. Especially the baby. (She thinks the job interview went well, so we are all crossing fingers!)

46 stabby  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:37:06pm

re: #32 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

Oh God. That’s beyond horrible. The only thing worse than a conceited racist asshole is a whole group of them.

47 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:37:19pm

re: #42 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

But IQ is a terrible measure of intelligence. Any of those people might just be a terrible communicator.

I have no idea if my wife is naturally smarter about biology than I am, or not. It really doesn’t matter, since she’s studied the hell out of it for years and years. The barrier between us in communicating about molecular biology has nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with the fact she’s studied it for years and is getting a PhD in it.

I’ve known people with very ‘high IQs’ who were great at communicating with others, and those that were shit. I’ve also know people with ‘high IQs’ who are pseudoscientists. Even measuring is capacity is hard enough, and then you also have to think about the purposes people are putting their ‘intelligence’ to.

I bet you probably know just enough to throw the key buzzwords in a sentence where they are used totally incorrectly and you know it, you just do it to aggravate your wife.

No? Maybe that’s just my husband’s thing then.

48 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:37:46pm

re: #43 stabby

I do know one woman who has an off-the-scale IQ who has always been very social and socially able. I had an deep crush on her in high school.

I have an off the scale IQ (left side into neg numbers) but my wife still loves me.

49 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:39:31pm

re: #44 klys

Haha.

I feel like I should add, for posterity’s sake, that I was in grad school by the time my parents finally told me.

I have no idea where my siblings stand. Except that they’re both extremely capable of blonde moments. Especially the baby. (She thinks the job interview went well, so we are all crossing fingers!)

My youngest brother, the Ron Paul fan, is considerably more intelligent than I am, yet he keeps being sucked into conspiracy theories.

50 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:41:54pm

re: #47 klys

I bet you probably know just enough to throw the key buzzwords in a sentence where they are used totally incorrectly and you know it, you just do it to aggravate your wife.

No? Maybe that’s just my husband’s thing then.

No, I make honest attempts to understand. Luckily, I’ve been interested in the macro stuff for awhile, so that helps, since cancer is very much a thing which involves. The humor value mostly comes from the med school part, where, for example, on the anatomy exam the penises were, for no particular reason apparently, lopped off and stuck on the end of sticks so they could be carried around.

51 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:43:00pm

re: #50 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

No, I make honest attempts to understand. Luckily, I’ve been interested in the macro stuff for awhile, so that helps, since cancer is very much a thing which involves. The humor value mostly comes from the med school part, where, for example, on the anatomy exam the penises were, for no particular reason apparently, lopped off and stuck on the end of sticks so they could be carried around.

That’s why my body is going to the local med school.

52 allegro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:43:26pm

The discussion of IQ testing aside (because I really don’t give a shit), my observation of Mensans and other highly intelligent people of my acquaintance is that they do share similar traits. One is curiosity. Two is being quite well read and conversant on a wide range of topics (no doubt the result of number one).

A Mensa gathering is very much like LGF - there is going to be at least one person there who has deeper knowledge of most any topic that comes up. The conversations are wildly eclectic and most always interesting. It’s fun.

53 The Mountain That Blogs  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:43:29pm

re: #50 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

The humor value mostly comes from the med school part, where, for example, on the anatomy exam the penises were, for no particular reason apparently, lopped off and stuck on the end of sticks so they could be carried around.

This should answer your question.

54 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:44:05pm

re: #49 Walking Spanish Down the Hall

My youngest brother, the Ron Paul fan, is considerably more intelligent than I am, yet he keeps being sucked into conspiracy theories.

My friend Jimmy is specifically much better at me than math, and yet I can beat the pants off of him in any game that relies on math, like Acquire, or gin.

If you set the stuff up in equations, I’m sure he’d solve them faster. And he can teach himself a programming language in like a week.

My mother has such an affinity for language that she starts taking on people’s accents if she hangs around them too much.

It’s all a rich tapestry.

55 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:44:21pm

re: #49 Walking Spanish Down the Hall

My youngest brother, the Ron Paul fan, is considerably more intelligent than I am, yet he keeps being sucked into conspiracy theories.

Not a true blonde moment, but still funny nonetheless:

My baby sister was recovering from having her appendix out a day or three before, and they were sitting down to dinner. For some reason, my parents let her cut the bread for the family, which was taking a bit. My other sister got the first piece, and managed to eat the entire thing by the time the baby had cut a piece for everyone. She was about to set down the knife and start eating when the middle one chimed in with “Hey, where’s my piece?” in a very offended tone.

It was probably due to the drugs, but the baby apologized profusely and started cutting another piece. I think folks at the table managed to hold onto it for about 15 seconds before they all cracked up and had to explain to her that she hadn’t missed her sister.

She still gets rather pissy if you bring it up, saying that it was mean to play a joke on her when she was still recovering from surgery. Which means, of course, I bring it up all the time.

56 allegro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:45:06pm

re: #46 stabby

Oh God. That’s beyond horrible. The only thing worse than a conceited racist asshole is a whole group of them.

And his experience is seriously at odds with any of my observations over more than 30 years, a good 20 of them being quite active in the organization. Chicago has always had a great group of people.

57 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:47:31pm

re: #50 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

No, I make honest attempts to understand. Luckily, I’ve been interested in the macro stuff for awhile, so that helps, since cancer is very much a thing which involves. The humor value mostly comes from the med school part, where, for example, on the anatomy exam the penises were, for no particular reason apparently, lopped off and stuck on the end of sticks so they could be carried around.

My husband generally does make some honest attempt to understand. He just also starts making up stories using my key buzzwords that are completely nonsensical.

To be fair, it took me two years of reading papers in the field before the average comprehension level per paper went above 50%.

58 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:49:23pm

re: #54 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

My friend Jimmy is specifically much better at me than math, and yet I can beat the pants off of him in any game that relies on math, like Acquire, or gin.

If you set the stuff up in equations, I’m sure he’d solve them faster. And he can teach himself a programming language in like a week.

My mother has such an affinity for language that she starts taking on people’s accents if she hangs around them too much.

It’s all a rich tapestry.

The accent adoption happened to me in high school when I worked the carny for a week.

59 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:49:32pm

re: #52 allegro

I think it’s a big assumption to consider Mensans just flatly ‘intelligent’, though. I’m sure quality varies— aside from the U of C one of befuddled racists, a mensa group came to one of the bars I bartended at, played trivia, lost, and were total dicks about it, trying to semantically parse questions (that they were wrong about). And they tipped 10%. Obviously this isn’t representative of Mensans in general, it’s just you’re going to get a lot of variance since there’s no real common bond.

I have only gone to a few, but I’m getting into Meetup stuff now, things around a common interest. As in the above molecular biology thingy, I’m generally more interested in people who have worked in a field or studied something at length, rather than any innate capacity for intelligence they may have.

60 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:50:14pm

re: #55 klys

Not a true blonde moment, but still funny nonetheless:

My baby sister was recovering from having her appendix out a day or three before, and they were sitting down to dinner. For some reason, my parents let her cut the bread for the family, which was taking a bit. My other sister got the first piece, and managed to eat the entire thing by the time the baby had cut a piece for everyone. She was about to set down the knife and start eating when the middle one chimed in with “Hey, where’s my piece?” in a very offended tone.

It was probably due to the drugs, but the baby apologized profusely and started cutting another piece. I think folks at the table managed to hold onto it for about 15 seconds before they all cracked up and had to explain to her that she hadn’t missed her sister.

She still gets rather pissy if you bring it up, saying that it was mean to play a joke on her when she was still recovering from surgery. Which means, of course, I bring it up all the time.

You are a true big sister.

61 Bert's House of Beef and Obdicuts  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:51:38pm

re: #57 klys

My husband generally does make some honest attempt to understand. He just also starts making up stories using my key buzzwords that are completely nonsensical.

To be fair, it took me two years of reading papers in the field before the average comprehension level per paper went above 50%.

Our friend Jed— my dad’s era, so in his sixties— is a totally awesome geek programmer dude. He was over for dinner one night and he randomly picked up one of my wife’s papers while people were talking, scanned through it, and then began asking her what my wife said were excellent, tough, insightful questions about the paper.

His daughter was a molecular biologist, so Jed had just studied up on it in his spare time. Y’know, just picked up molecular biology on the side.

I also love Jed because he’s capable of nearly infinite nested forking. I can remind him of a conversation we had five years ago that we didn’t get to finish and he’ll light up with happiness and go “Ah yes!” I love that “Ah yes!”.

62 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:51:43pm

re: #60 Walking Spanish Down the Hall

You are a true big sister.

I can make her start sighing heavily in 3 seconds flat.

…Sometimes it’s too easy.

63 Eclectic Cyborg  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 12:52:08pm

re: #23 Charles Johnson

I have to say, though - the cast of characters in this ricin investigation is starting to look like a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Lol, I was thinking more like a Lifetime movie but still, the same point. An elvis impersonator, a martial arts instructor, potentially poison letters sent to sitting U.S. Senators and the President and a frame job? The darned thing practically writes itself.

You don’t even have to try to come up with a title, it can merely be called:

I am KC

64 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:00:14pm

From the point of view of intelligence, the people you surround yourself with can also make a huge difference in how you view yourself. It’s really easy to feel like the idiot in a room full of smart people no matter what your intelligence level.

65 Walking Spanish Down the Hall  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:01:08pm

re: #64 klys

From the point of view of intelligence, the people you surround yourself with can also make a huge difference in how you view yourself. It’s really easy to feel like the idiot in a room full of smart people no matter what your intelligence level.

During Jeopardy, I throw things at my wife.

66 allegro  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:05:25pm

re: #64 klys

From the point of view of intelligence, the people you surround yourself with can also make a huge difference in how you view yourself. It’s really easy to feel like the idiot in a room full of smart people no matter what your intelligence level.

The converse is true as well. A person with a driving need to feel and be seen as the smartest person in the room at all times will likely be uncomfortable and unhappy in a group with highly intelligent people.

67 klys  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:11:54pm

While I’m watching How It’s Made while doing some relatively simple housework bits, and they’re showing how they make CCDs, which is kind of cool.

Except they said they coat them with ‘liquid glass’.

Argh.

68 Feline Fearless Leader  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:12:07pm

OT: That was different.

The younger cat just squirmed halfway across the room on his back enjoying a long sunny spot. Just sort of slithered and pushed with his elbows and didn’t use his paws.

Fully thermally charged right now as well. If I feed him some catnip I might have to scrape him off the ceiling afterwards.

69 steve_davis  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:29:07pm

re: #26 Glenn Beck’s Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut

There are also people who aren’t in Mensa who can do that, though. And the tests Mensa gives also exclude other categories of very smart people.

and really, if you had to spend eternity in hell with a group of people, would you want it to be people who have to use words from a poem in iambic pentameter, or people who just had problems controlling their baser appetites? I’m kind of inclined to spend it with the anti-Popes. Apparently they have a hellaciously good Wednesday movie night.

70 AlexRogan  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:39:08pm

re: #22 Romantic Heretic

Actually, when I joined MENSA, it was to meet women. Hopefully ones with as eclectic tastes and interests as myself.

Unfortunately most of the MENSA membership was guys that had the same idea as me.

In other words, a complete sausage fest.

/

71 engineer cat  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 1:39:48pm

people tend to think i’m very smart. i always tell them that this is an illusion caused by the fact that i talk too much. i do love to read a lot, mostly history, and learn new things and skills. however, i think i’m really not too sharp in many areas of intelligence

i like to say that most people, if they are honest w themselves, can get a good sense of how stupid they are or aren’t. but if you are a computer programmer like me, the computer will show you every day exactly how stupid you are

72 SidewaysQuark  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 2:32:25pm

re: #21 kerFuFFler

I have known reams of brilliant people and none of them has ever bothered to apply for MENSA membership. I suspect that occasionally an average person tests well (false positive for intelligence) on a single test and then is so excited at their supposed exalted status that they rush to join. I imagine a significant % of the club is made up of such lucky test takers. Genuinely smart people are confident enough to not need to bolster their egos in such a pathetic manner.

That’s because if you have a high IQ, and you’re most noteworthy accomplishment is having a high IQ, then something is seriously wrong.

73 BongCrodny  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 2:52:58pm
…it’s a karate instructor (and Mensa member) who was previously indicted for child molestation.

Up here we’ve had two martial arts instructors arrested on the same kinds of charges in the past year.

Guess the Scouts are too passé for today’s modern predator.

74 majii  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 5:43:42pm

re: #15 Charles Johnson

Yes, yes, yes, do follow this guy’s advice and demonize President Obama, all members of his administration, and anyone who believes what he believes about PP because there were no abortions performed during the 8 years GWB was in office. I actually researched the number of abortions that took place when GWB was in office, and iirc, the total came to be somewhere @ * million. Whenever I read a rant like this, I wonder where these people were during the GWB Administration, and why they weren’t so focused on stopping all abortions during that time. Oh, yeah, right, GWB was a republican. This is faux outrage is all a sham on the part of these people because, if they were as concerned about the number of abortions performed from 2002-2009, I couldn’t tell. Neither were they as concerned about abortion when republicans had control of both houses of Congress and could have passed a law abolishing it.

75 kg7u  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 8:51:43pm

For the record, “Mensa” is a perfectly cromulent word, not an acronym: e.g., “MENSA.” There is nothing recondite about it — it’s Latin for “table.” Like, King Arthur’s round table, y’know? ;)

76 Vicious Babushka  Sat, Apr 27, 2013 8:54:39pm

re: #12 Charles Johnson

Jim Hoft actually tried to claim that the Elvis impersonator was a “far left liberal” because he found a picture of Curtis pointing at an Obama bumper sticker.

Yeah. Let’s just ignore the tweet where he said “Ted Nugent for President.”

The bumper sticker Curtis was pointing at and making fun of said “Christian & Democrat” and was on a late-model Lexus, not Curtis’ own car.


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