100 of the Worst Ideas in History

Humanity's Thundering Brainstorms Turned Blundering Brain Farts They are priceless, multifaceted jewels of misjudgment. Masterworks of the moronic. Steroid-juiced stupidity wearing a size 9XX dunce cap embroidered with one simple word: “Duh.” They are the colossally, cringingly, often laughably bad notions that have leapt from the short-circuiting synapses of some of the world’s brightest (and dimmest) brains, now faithfully retold here as "100 of the Worst Ideas in History, The Podcast." Based on the hot-selling book of the same name -- with stories hailing from the worlds of politics, popular culture, international relations, finance, business, sports, entertainment, and news -- these shoddy concepts have started wars, sunk countries, wrecked companies, scuttled careers, lost millions, endangered the Earth, and left the bad idea’s mommy or daddy as red-faced as, well, your mom or dad will be when they learn that you like to dress your pit bull as one of the Backstreet Boys. On this rollicking romp through the bungles and stumbles of humanity, we’ll: • Meet the U.S. president who starts each day skinny-dipping in the Potomac. • Sample the “dental hygiene product” that could rot your teeth. • Get an earful of the hit singing group that can’t really sing. • Munch on the tasty new snack food that might just give you diarrhea. • Encounter the famed archaeologist whose discovery of the “missing link” is revealed to be a monkey jaw glued to a human skull. • Plus so much more (of so much less). Peppered with “Hey-I-Didn’t-Know-That” factoids and perspective-gaining “Afterthoughts,” this collection of our species’ most stupendously stinky thinking spotlights how the ideas of yesterday—from funny flubs to the stunningly strange to classic mind-bogglers—continue to resonate in each of our lives today. So, without further ado and in no particular order, get ready to explore 100 of history’s thundering brainstorms that turned out to be blundering brainfarts.