30 Days of Night is supposed to be about vampires going to Barrow, Alaska so they can feed for 30 days straight without sunshine. What the movie actually turns out to be about is annoying.
In these types of movies I rarely root for the vampires but in this case I was willing to make an exception as the main human characters I was introduced to at the beginning of the movie were boring and annoying - after 20 minutes or so the movie introduced the vampires who turned out to be less boring but even more annoying and I simply decided to root for no one but myself to make it through the movie without dying.
The vampires are awful. Not "oh my goodness gracious they are the diabolical evil undead coming to suck the blood and life force out of me" awful but rather the "these goth assholes screech like wounded puppies, squint their eyes like they can't see in the dark and dress, well, like goth assholes" awful. These vampires were exactly like the classmates you knew in high school - the ones who went around wearing black mascara, black lipstick, black velvet scarves and pierced anything they could. And those were the guys. They were the ones who, while you laughed at them in a not entirely unkind way, tried to act mysterious and scary by assuming an air of superiority while threatening you with the curses of Cthulhu in a made up language.
Which is almost exactly what these annoying goth asshole vampires did. They spoke their own language and every time they tried to act scary you couldn't help but chuckle a bit while thinking that, sure, yes, they could rip out my throat with a flick of their hand and throw me 50 feet across the street but they better do it fast because I'm not sure how much longer I can contain the giggles while looking at them hiss and shake their head back and forth at me like that.
A few standout moments from the movie included:
You know how I used the word "annoying" an annoying number of times to describe the annoying movie and the annoying characters in it? Well the movie was even more annoying than that.
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Historical accuracy has never been the domain of Hollywood so I am simply led to believe that 300 refers not to the actual number of Greeks who battled a million would be conquerors during the Greco-Persian war but rather to the number of man nipples shown in this movie.
There were far too many man nipples in 300. Unfortunately, as the movie wore on, other issues surpassed even that of the man nippletude.
There was the king of Persia who, were he alive today, would have ended up not trying to conquer the known world but would instead be living in his mother's basement while working at the local video store (not the local chain video store - he would feel too superior to work at a place like Blockbuster, Xerxes would only work at an indie shop) and would indeed sport as many piercings as he did in the movie but instead of wearing loincloths and chains would wear t-shirts emblazoned with sayings like "Captain of the Boob Squad" and "Boobie Patrol".
There were the weird old white men living up high on the mountain who liked power, money and naked young women. Everybody did what they said even though nobody liked them or believed them. As good an analogy for our politicians and us as I could have come up with.
There was the constant cry of "Freedom!" ala Mel Gibson as a Scotsman. Although, since in reality there were nearly as many slaves at the Battle of Thermopylae fighting for and supporting the Greeks as there were actual free Greeks, and women didn't have many rights in Greece at the time, I am guessing they meant what most people mean when they yell "Freedom!" - which is "Freedom for me!"
Finally, the Spartans had the whole annoying Type A personality thing going on. I mean, sure, Xerxes was going for world domination, but compared to the Spartans, Xerxes was a hippie slacker who spent his days smoking reefer and doing bong hits at a commune. To say that a Spartan was wound a bit tight would be like saying Pat Robertson would, upon long contemplative reflection, perhaps be against same sex marriage.
The movie was, however, very pretty and colorful.
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In a statement released earlier today, the American Family Association has condemned the actions of three men who huddled together for warmth in the arctic wilderness after their plane crashed into a lake due to engine failure.
"It goes against the natural order of things when a man - for whatever reason - provides or receives physical pleasure or comfort from another man," AFA spokesperson, Cindy McGee, told reporters.
The men, who were rescued 46 hours after the crash, were unable to grab their survival gear before bailing out of the sinking plane. "It was the longest two days of my life," said Mark Ryder, one of the survivors of the crash. "We were out there in sub-zero temperatures, didn't have any survival gear - all we had was each other."
"It is exactly this kind of moral flexibility that has been prescribed by the homosexual agenda which is loosening the moral fabric of America," said the AFA spokesperson. "First of all, it was 46 hours, not 48, so saying 'it was the longest two days of my life' is a gross exaggeration - just another lie from the valueless, liberal elite. Second of all, these men had a decision to make and when the going got tough they made the decision to stay warm via the fires of hell rather than through the burning bush of God's love."
In response to the AFA's assertions of immorality and deviant moral behavior, Mr. Ryder said, "But I lost a pinky toe, man."
The AFA is planning a boycott of the manufacturers of the winter clothes worn by the three men - which include Columbia Sportswear, North Face and Patagonia - citing "association with lewd homosexual behavior and moral bankruptcy."
Ms. McGee continued, "The AFA has a long and distinguished record of boycotting companies that support homosexuality, lascivious behavior and extra-marital cuddling. When the full weight of the millions of AFA members is unleashed upon these Godless, immoral companies they'll wish they hadn't provided their Godless, immoral clothing to these Godless, immoral men."
The AFA is, however, fully endorsing and, in fact, providing a nomination in the 'Best Shoddy Craftsmanship With Regard To Homosexual Sales And/Or Service In Aviation' category of their annual 'Goddies' award show to Piper Aircraft, Inc. for "their outstanding work in fighting the Rainbow Menace."
Piper Aircraft, Inc. could not be reached for comment.
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Amityville Horror (2005) is a perfect example of all the problems of our current sub-prime mortgage crisis.
You've got a realtor who misses the heydays of the early 00's and is so desperate to make a sale in these troubled real estate times that she knowingly sells a haunted house to buyers who are going to be shotgunned into pieces by their stepfather. Obviously having given up on the concepts of quality customer service and repeat business, this is a good reminder to all would-be buyers that the selling agent does not have a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer - the real estate agent (unless they are a buying agent) works for the seller.
One other prudent real estate agent note. In most states agents are not obligated to disclose paranormal activity in a house unless asked directly about said activity by the buyer.
You've got a broken mortgage industry willing to make obscene loans to unqualified buyers. The wife didn't work, the husband was self-employed (just starting his own business) and yet they were able to get a loan for what had to be at least a 5000 sq. ft. house on a couple acres of land overlooking a big lake with a couple of hundred feet of lake frontage and a boathouse. And you just know that 5000 sq. ft. did not include that attached space under the house that contained the hidden torture chambers of a raving holy man from the 1800s that were walled off by concrete blocks that occasionally dripped pools of blood into the basement. And the loan was probably a no-doc, 5/1 jumbo interest-only ARM with 3 points to boot.
One other prudent mortgage note. Payday loans are considered heinous and untenable by most experts and yet whereas in a payday loan the loanee typically has to pay about 2.5 times the loaned amount (usually a couple of hundred dollars) over a period of 3 years, in a mortgage loan the loanee must also pay about 2.5 times the loaned amount (which usually runs hundreds of thousands of dollars) but must do so over a period of 30 years. At least the payday loan is over more quickly.
And finally, you've got a pair of young buyers with a young family who only want to make a better life for themselves and think they should do this by going into extreme debt to finance a house where they say they are going to have to make many financial sacrifices to get it, but once they are in the house they start going out to eat and hiring help to watch the children and don't even consider selling their boat to help make ends meet. Once blood starts dripping from the walls and the family sees disgusting demonic apparitions and a priest trying to exorcize the house of demons gets the paranormal equivalent of a bitch slap and runs screaming from the house they are so upside down on the mortgage that they do not have the financial wherewithal to be able to move from the house.
One other prudent home buyer note. Folks, make sure you have an emergency fund. Wanting to go out and buy a new car when the one you have works perfectly well? Not a good use of an emergency fund. Wanting to get that 50'' plasma tv that's on sale for $3000 dollars when you current 42'' rear projection tv is still up to snuff? Not a good use of the emergency fund. Wanting to find a nice two-bedroom apartment somewhere because your possessed house is causing the voices in your head to suggest grabbing your axe and chopping up your loved ones because they are demons who want to eat your soul? Definitely a good use of the emergency fund.
One last thing - when you're buying a house, by all means get a home inspection. While most qualified home inspectors are not looking for demonic possession of a house they will most likely catch the telltale signs of pools of blood, demonic screams, furniture moving under its own power and unexplainable cold drafts. Even if they miss the paranormal activity though, they will most likely catch mold issues, termite infestations and leaky plumbing saving you – potentially - tens of thousands of dollars in home repairs and making it that much easier to move when the voices from the house start telling you do to unsavory and, frankly, icky things to your family.
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Are There Divorce Lawyers in Heaven?
I wonder, if my wife died, would I remarry? And if my wife died and I got remarried, would she be up in heaven watching me?
During sex with my second wife, would my first wife be critical of my second wife? Would she be up in heaven shaking her head and saying, "Oh my, it looks like she could stand to lose a few pounds?" Would she slap her forehead when my second wife tried something new and say, "He never liked it when I tried that, honey, you better not...ooooooh...see...I told you so?" Would she come down to earth for some ghostly menage-a-trois and possess the body of my second wife, or, worse, would she have discovered in heaven that she was a lesbian and possess me during sex because she found my wife attractive?
And what about when everyone was dead? What if my second wife didn't make it to heaven and my first wife started nagging, saying that she knew that bitch was no good and what was I thinking marrying her in the first place and she's lucky she didn't make it up here because what I'd have done to her is far worse than anything they'll do to her down there?
Or what if we all made it to heaven and I find out my first wife had remarried in heaven? I imagine the introductions would be a bit awkward, especially when some guy came up to us and hugged my second wife and introduced himself as her first husband when I didn't know she had been married before me and all five of us are so embarrassed that we'd stare down at our feet until the new guy's second wife walked over from a nearby cloud with her original husband and a guy she just had sex with on the side but then we'd all decide, hey, this is heaven, so we'd dream up a fabulous house and live together happily for awhile because my first wife's second husband's new girlfriend's boyfriend used to be a five-star chef in Paris and what with all the new people constantly moving in there'd never a problem finding enough people to get a soccer match going and boy howdy all this would be great until one night I'd sneak out of the bedroom where I slept with my second wife to go down to my newest girlfriend's room and as I was reaching for the doorknob the door would swing open and I'd run into my Uncle Pete sneaking out of her room backwards - who knew the old codger would make it to heaven - and I'd decide I've finally had enough and choose reincarnation and end up as a Mormon with four wives and twelve kids and we'd all die at once in a terrible bus crash that received national media attention and now the heaven house would be really full and I'd notice my oldest son start taking an interest in my first wife from a couple of lifetimes back.
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Close Encounters Of The Born Again Kind
I was walking the hills of a nearby state forest when I came across two dozen or so people standing on the trail. There were three people on one side of the trail and everybody else on the other. As I got closer I saw a single length of rope at the feet of the large group and just as I started wondering what the rope might be for it happened - they, all of them, turned to me and smiled.
Walking in state forests you get used to people being friendly - a smile here or a "hello" there - but this was different, they'd all done it at the same time and there was a glassy look to their eyes. My initial thought was "stoners", but then I got a better look at their smiles and thought "born again Christians". Their smiles seemed to say "we know absolutely without a doubt that we are in good with Christ and are filled with His love and while you may be an evil sinner who will burn in hell for all eternity for not accepting Him as your Savior we do not hate you as such but rather take great pity on you and hope to help you see the errors of your unholy ways."
Granted, that's probably a rough translation.
As I walked by I returned their smiles with one my own that, I hope, said something along the lines of "this heathen is terribly sorry to have interrupted your obviously important gathering, I won't be but a brief minute, please do not hand me any pamphlets." Their heads swiveled together to watch me pass and as I continued on my way I was finally able to wonder what the rope was for.
Were they perhaps training to lasso non-Christians? Take down the unbelievers, hog-tying their hands and feet rodeo-style in order to brand them with "sinner" or "needs saving"?
Or maybe they were doing some group exercise comparing Christians with mountain climbers? Something about mountain climbers tying-off with each other for safety and Christians, like mountain climbers, should do the same so if one falls into the crevasse of sin the others can help them get back to the surefooted path of righteousness?
Or possible it was a Rapture thing? Remember in grade school when you had a buddy on field trips and wherever your buddy went you went too? And if the teacher was really mean you didn't get to pick your buddy but instead got assigned buddies and you'd always end up with the kid with asthma so while all the other kids were riding the ferris wheel or looking at the apes you were stuck sitting on a bench while your buddy pushed the button on his inhaler? Maybe there are Rapture buddies and they were practicing for the big day. Only I bet they really hope that they'll be able to pick their own Rapture buddies because when it comes to the Rapture you don't want to get tied to a fornicator or an in-the-closet homosexual - who knows if you'd be able to get into heaven with them on the line.
Or, I guess they could have just been really bad mountain climbers who were amazed that someone was braving the hazards of the state forest trail with a solo, free-walk.
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Good Eatin'
I was watching a television show on cannibalism and was wondering how so foreign and, let's face it, icky, a concept ever came to be considered appropriate behavior by any society. But then I got to thinking about it a bit more and thought it wasn't such a bad idea, you know, in theory.
The first guy to ever consider cannibalism probably woke up one morning in his cozy little hut in the jungle. Like most of us in the morning he didn't want to get out of bed but he had to - he was hungry and he had a wife and four kids to feed. So he made some coffee, strapped on his hunting gear, grabbed his spear and brushed aside the long grass front door to his hut.
Most likely it was hot and humid outside, you know, what with being in the jungle and all. As he took one last lingering look inside the cool, dark interior of the hut he saw his wife and kids fast asleep, comfortable in their beds and thought of all the quick, poisonous and hard to catch animals that waited for him out in the jungle. He thought of the hours and hours of hot, sweaty work it would take to track, hunt and prepare a meal.
It was probably about then that his stomach rumbled with hunger and he began thinking how unfair it was that he had to go out and do all the hard work while the wife and kids got to sleep in. Maybe he even got a little angry. Maybe he thought if he didn't have so many mouths to feed life would be easier and happier. Then it clicked. If he killed one of his family he not only wouldn't have that mouth to feed anymore, but he could feed the rest of the family at the same time without all that mucking about in the jungle.
Genius, he thought.
But who to kill? The wife was the obvious choice. She ate the most out of any of them. In fact, she had really packed on the pounds since the last pregnancy, and, besides, she was always nagging him in front of his friends. And, with her out of the way, there wouldn't be any new mouths to feed in the near future.
Although, she did let him have sex with her occasionally. Okay then, it would have to be one of the kids, probably the youngest one as it would put up the least amount of struggle.
So by 9:00 that morning the whole family had finished eating breakfast and, after finding out what she had eaten, the wife had him in front of the elder council by 9:15.
After hearing the charges against him the elder council secretly sympathized with the man - it wasn't so many years ago that they too had to go out hunting to provide food for their families - but they obviously had to put him to death for they were old and slow and, besides possibly being a bit stringy, could be considered by many to be good eatin'.
My guess is that near the end of the council meeting one of the elders stood up and said that the man had been smart to kill a human for food, for humans were amongst the slowest and weakest creatures in the jungle and the man had been smart not to kill his wife so he could still get nookie but the man had not been smart to kill a child for everyone knew the children were our future.
So they killed the man and ate him and vowed only to eat outsiders, enemies, castaways and missionaries for food from then on.
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Rev. Jerry Falwell, the evangelist who used the power of television to transform the religious right into a mighty force in American politics, has died. He was 73.
The founder of the Moral Majority was discovered without a pulse Tuesday morning at Liberty University. Initially, those who found him were not worried about the lack of pulse as he hadn't had one since a skiing accident in 1996 and would often be found lying still, staring unblinkingly into the distance competing with God in an on-again/off-again, decades-old staring contest. However, when Falwell hadn't blinked for 37 minutes 24 seconds - which would have been a new personal best for the reverend - onlookers knew something was amiss. He was pronounced dead at a hospital about an hour later. Dr. Carl Moore, Falwell's physician, said he had a heart condition - myocardial atrophia, or, basically, lack of a heart.
Falwell, driven into politics by the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established the right to an abortion, founded the Moral Majority in 1979. The rise of Christian conservatism and the Moral Majority's full-throated condemnation of homosexuality, liquor, drugs and pornography (incidentally the same four reasons for the six year period between the court's decision and Falwell's forming of the Moral Majority, "I just wanted to get those things out of my system before giving myself to God," said Falwell) made him perhaps the most recognizable figure in the evangelical right.
The preacher started a fundamentalist church in the abandoned bottling plant of his favorite brewery in Lynchburg in 1956 with just 35 members. He built it into a religious empire that included a 24,000 member Baptist church, a widely syndicated TV show and a 9,600 student university.
Over the years Falwell waged a landmark libel case against Hustler magazine, created a furor when he called one of the Teletubbies gay and blamed homosexuals and liberals for the 9/11 terrorist attack on American soil.
Falwell quit the Moral Majority in 1987 saying he was tired of being a "lightning rod" and wanted to "look into becoming a member of the Moral Minority or, perhaps, the Immoral Majority" as they looked to be having much more fun.
Spiritually, the Rev. Jerry Falwell seemed prepared for his passing. Two weeks before he died, Falwell preached of man being indestructible until he has finished with God's work, woman not being indestructible because they weren't protected by God's invisible force field of protection and then told churchgoers he was at peace with death.
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Job Interview
I've been looking for a new job and have been having problems with some of the interview questions I've been asked.
During an interview I was asked if I could think outside the box. I beckoned the interviewer out of her 10' x 10' office into the 50' x 50' room full of cubicles. I beckoned the interviewer out of the 50' x 50' room full of cubicles into the 30' x 30' lobby of the 130' x 130' office building. I beckoned the interviewer out of the 30' by 30' lobby of the 130' x 130' office building into the 50' x 50' parking lot. I beckoned the interviewer out of the 50' x 50' parking lot and onto a small, triangular section of grass at a nearby intersection and said, yes.
During an interview I was asked why I wanted to work at that particular company. I said it wasn't necessarily a matter of want and that that particular company had said they'd had a job available and if they didn't would they please stop wasting my time.
During an interview I was asked how much money I was looking to make. I said I wasn't sure but it had better be enough to cover my crack habit, my alimony payments, my mortgage payments, my wife, my girlfriends, and my recent out-of-court settlement concerning the incident at the bar with the dwarf, the foosball table, the keg and the pool cue.
During an interview I was asked what my 5-year plan was. I said I wanted to win the lottery and live a life of leisure, but, failing that, I wanted to work as little as possible while making a lot of money.
During an interview I was asked what my family, friends and former coworkers would say about me. I said I wasn't sure but we could call them up if he wanted.
During an interview I was asked what it was like to be a tree. I said they were slackers who played around outside all day - soaking up the sun, swaying in the breeze and sleeping for six months of the year. I said they were trespassers who should be dealt with harshly for their lack of respect of peoples' personal property. I said they were litterbugs who should be fined for not picking up after themselves in the fall. I said they were nasty things that housed rodents and insects. The interviewer then asked what kind of tree I would be. I said Poplar.
During an interview I was asked - after taking an IQ test, a personality test, a math skills test, a vocabulary matching test, a grammar test, a mechanical aptitude test, and a drug test - why I thought they should hire me. I said because I had already put in a full day's work.
During an interview I was asked if I would consent to taking a drug test. I said I sometimes had problems distinguishing between irregularly shaped sugar cubes and crack cocaine and had forgotten my bong, but if they were willing to lend me one of theirs, I was willing to give it my best shot.
During an interview I was asked how I handled stressful situations. I picked up the interviewer's computer monitor, threw it through the window, banged my fist against a wall, cried in a corner and lit up a joint.
During an interview I was asked what my biggest mistake was and how I'd fix it. I said my biggest mistake was taking out student loans so I could go to college to learn what to do while sitting in front of a computer so I could get a job working in a cubicle all day so I could afford to pay back my student loans. I said I'd fix it by building a time machine, going back to the day I graduated high school and throttling my younger self until he agreed to forget about college and bought a ticket to Hawaii where he'd learn to surf instead.
During an interview I was asked what I was most proud of in my life. I said I was most proud of holding the high score for Asteroids down at the video arcade for an entire summer. When the interviewer suggested I should have, perhaps, said something more along the lines of "having kids" I responded that having kids was easy - that just involved doing something I enjoyed doing anyway, whether or not kids came of it, and besides, billions of people had been doing that kind of thing for hundreds of thousands of years - but holding the high score in Asteroids for an entire summer, now that took real skill and determination.
During an interview I was asked if I would be willing to work overtime to finish a project, if I would be willing to work through the night and on weekends - even sleeping at the office if I had to - to finish a job, if I would be willing to do anything and everything to meet a deadline, if I would work under extreme pressure and endure harsh criticism all in the name of making the company look good.
I asked the interviewer if they'd be willing to let me work undertime and still pay my salary, if they'd be willing to let me have my nights and weekends free - even letting me sleep in on cold, dark, wet, work days, if they'd be willing to do anything and everything to let me get home on time, if they could handle me slacking off at work and making fun of them behind their backs at the bar with my friends, all in the name of making me feel better.
They said no.
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It isn't as easy being a big city sandwich board wearing doomsayer as you might think, for instance, I have to keep coming up with new things to write on the sandwich board. A big city sandwich board wearing doomsayer can't get away with something as cliched as 'Repent! The End Is Near!' - that may play out in the sticks but up here in the big league your average big city type won't even bother breaking their stride to swing a kick your way with something as weak as that written on the sandwich board.
Although I do hope the end is near because I can't wait for all those kickers to get what's coming to them. And the spitters and the punchers and the pushers, too. The eternal fiery circles of hell are too good for the lot of 'em if you ask me. Oh yeah, and the harassing cops and the puddle-driver-througher cabbies, they're gonna burn too.
But don't worry, not everyone will burn in hell for all eternity. I'm pretty sure the people who give me food and money are going to heaven. Of course, I can't tell them that when I'm out on the street, I'm a doomsayer, not a, um, not-doomsayer after all. I mean, really, how would it look if I'm shouting fire and brimstone to the damned when some kindly soul gives me a few bucks and I, what, stop? Tell them that they're saved? Although, come to think of it, that's how some religions work. But, no, if you give me food or money I can't just stop yelling and tell you you're going to heaven, but rest assured, you are.
But getting back to the whole message thing, it's a fine line that I walk when making up a new message. On the one hand I can't write something as vague as 'Mean People Will Burn In Hell!' because then people'll think Hey, I'm not mean, so I won't burn in hell and we can't have that. On the other hand, I can't get too specific either, I mean, sure, 'Harry Sherman, You Will Burn In Hell!' sounds great at first, but, frankly, I'm in a bulk business, and while a sandwich board sign like that will freak out anybody named Harry Sherman, well, you get the idea.
Although, I did try a micro-payment scheme for awhile where anyone could, for a couple of bucks, have a personalized doomsayer message on my sandwich board, and, for another buck or two, have their picture taken with it. It was big among the tourists for awhile but it never really took off the way I wanted it to and after the dot-com crash it was so hard to get VC financing and, boy, did I need the VC money - expenses are crippling in the big city sandwich board wearing doomsayer business. I go through a lot of raingear and waterproof chalk, after all, it's not like people are going to stop being damned for all eternity because it's raining out - that'd just be silly.
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My Life As A Teenage Zombie Call Girl
Okay, okay, maybe not teenage exactly but I've always looked young for my age and since the years after you become a zombie don't count, well, you know how many clients pay extra for the 'teenage' in teenage zombie call girl? Anyway, that's what the math from the birth date on my driver's license says and I'm sticking to it.
As for the zombie call girl part - that's definitely true, and it's a pretty good gig if you can get it. With zombie call girls, johns don't have to worry about catching or transmitting diseases, and since so many of them are worried about privacy, and since we're already dead, they know we'll take their secrets to the grave.
Just a little zombie humor there...look, I said a was a teenage zombie call girl not a teenage zombie comedienne.
In case you're wondering, the trade for teenage zombie call girls is pretty good. Oh sure, you're thinking 'what about the smell' or 'do guys actually ask you for head', right? As for the former, we teenage zombie call girls have our little secrets - every woman needs a little mystery in her life, and for the latter, well, no, johns don't actually ask us to do that, and can you blame them? But sometimes we ask them for a little head.
I kid! I kid.
Like I said, business is good, there are actually more necrophiliacs out there than you might think. Now now, don't judge, apart from the necrophilia thing they are just like you and me, well, like you anyway. They're just looking for a little love, a little tenderness, a little bing bang boom. Mostly they make an arrangement with the local morgue or funeral home and I end up lying quietly on the metal table with my eyes closed pretending to be dead - hah, pretending! - for a minute or two while they do their thing. They do their thing, pay me and leave. Pretty simple really. Well, except for the ones that actually want to use some of the mortician's equipment. I used to charge extra for that but some guy took my arm off once. Can you believe that? The guy literally cut my arm right off. Don't get me wrong, the guy did a really good job of it, by the cut you could tell he knew what to do with an electric hacksaw, but he chopped it right off! So I charged him triple and then ate his brains, the bastard.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to sew an arm back on with only one hand?
Anyway, when they don't use the equipment, it's a pretty safe business. The johns know what'll happen to them if they get too kinky, the cops don't mess with us because, while necrophilia with the dead may be illegal necrophilia with the undead is fairly new legal ground and there's no legal precedent yet. I don't have a pimp so I get to make my own hours and keep all the money I make.
What's that? You want to know about the 'zombie' part of teenage zombie call girl? That part's easy, there wasn't any more room in hell. Duh.
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My Life As An Amateur Layabout
Being an amateur layabout is no picnic, at least if you're doing it right. You can't get up to go to the picnic for one thing.
I've been in training to go pro for three years now but it's hard going what with a wife, kids and a full-time job - those things add all kinds of social pressures that can keep a guy from going pro. The wife wants help at home, the boss wants deadlines met at the office, and it's not like I can tell them I'm in training to be a layabout because layabouts don't make the effort to explain themselves.
A lot of people have the wrong impression of layabouts, they think it's all junk food on the couch and TV. Ha! It's true that I have to eat junk food and watch television per National Layabout League rules, but the NLL allows only so many channel changes and bathroom breaks per day before imposing severe penalties - you try watching an unexpected Matlock marathon with a full bladder.
That's right, being an amateur layabout isn't easy, but with a lot of hard work and dedication I might just go pro one day.
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Orange Juice From Concentrate
There are many ways in which The Man keeps us down but there are few as nefarious as orange juice from concentrate.
But orange juice is so good for you," I hear you say. "So healthy and nourishing. It tastes so good! And orange juice from concentrate is even better because it is less expensive than orange juice!"
That's what The Man would like you to believe.
When you make orange juice from concentrate, The Man instructs you to mix it with about 3 containers of water.
Three containers, people! Three! I've made orange juice from concentrate from four and even five containers of water and it has tasted ... just ... fine.
You see, when you short change yourself and make it with only three containers you have to buy more orange juice from concentrate than you really need which increases your grocery bill. When you spend more on groceries you have to earn more money to pay for them. In order to earn more money you have to work more hours, which means you have less free time. When you have less free time, your spouse starts feeling neglected and has an affair with your best friend and your kids grow up without a good role model and end up shooting heroin in a rat-infested alley outside the shop where they pawned the laptop computer you bought them for college.
Orange juice from concentrate is nothing short of the total collapse of civilized society.
"But," you say, "I'll just buy regular orange juice then. It will save me time, my marriage won't collapse and my kids will grow up to be doctors. Life will be wonderful."
Sure, buying regular orange juice will be okay for a couple of weeks, your spouse will leave your best friend and cry their undying love for you while your kids sign up for classes at the local community college, but every time you grab for that half-gallon or gallon of orange juice your eyes will drift to the frozen food section where those tidy rows of orange juice from concentrate cans are lined up and you'll think of how much money you could be saving and then, one day, you'll break down and buy a can.
You poor, deluded fool.
"Just one can," you'll say to yourself. "Just one can so I can spend a little extra time with the kids this week."
And soon you'll be back to buying only orange juice from concentrate. At first you may even sneak an extra container or two of water into the mix, but your spouse - feeling a bit grumpy about the recent decline in your free time - will mention that the orange juice doesn't taste "quite right" so you'll go back to using three containers and the grocery bill will start rising as your free time continues falling. Your spouse will move in with your best friend and you won't be able to afford rehab for your kids so you'll suffer a nervous breakdown - losing your mind, your job, and your house all in the same week.
And why? Because of the vicious cycle - perpetrated by The Man - that is orange juice from concentrate.
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Pentagon May Help Secure Southern Border
Faced with growing pressure from Southern states the Bush administration wants the military to come up with ideas to help solve the security problems along the U.S. border with Mexico.
In back-to-back moves last week, the Pentagon began exploring ways to lend support at the Southern border while the House voted to allow the Department of Homeland Security to use soldiers in that region in limited cases.
At the Pentagon, Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, asked officials to offer options for the use of military resources and troops along the border with Mexico.
One of the most popular options discussed, according to defense officials familiar with the discussions, was a new Star Wars-based initiative called ALIEN.
ALIEN - Automated Laser Inquiry and Exclusion of non-Nationals - is the code word for a system of laser-equipped, geosynchronous earth orbit satellites. The satellites monitor the nearest 500 yards of any country bordering U.S. territory. When ALIEN determines a potential immigrant is trying to cross into the U.S. illegally it shoots them with a laser beam.
ALIEN's laser beam can be calibrated to a wide range of settings ranging from 'stun' for first-time offenders and rich peoples' maids to 'vaporize' for repeat offenders and Democratic Party supporters.
According to Gordon McLean, lead research scientist for the U.S. Center for Defense Against Illegal Immigrants, the testing of some early ALIEN prototypes had some officials wondering if the technology could work.
"There are two parts to ALIEN's laser system, detection - which detects potential illegal immigrants, and prevention - which stops the potential illegal immigrant from entering U.S. territory."
"The prevention part was easy," continued McLean, "it was the detection part we had some initial problems with. We were getting a lot of false positives early on, so instead of incapacitating Mexicans intent on entering the U.S. illegally ALIEN would be zapping, say, a newlywed couple with a deep tan returning back to the States from their honeymoon in Acapulco, or a group of retired women from that Red Hat club returning from Cabo San Lucas - we just couldn't differentiate between tans and natural skin color or between old ladies' hats and sombreros, but once we got those kinks worked out the Pentagon was very happy."
"It's a great system," McHale said. "Once ALIEN is up we won't have to exert any more manpower on border patrols or immigrant processing. Illegal immigrants will not set one single foot on U.S. soil."
"Well," McHale continued, "if ALIEN is set to vaporize and an illegal immigrant is running really fast the explosion might actually propel a foot or a few toes into U.S. territory, but that's all that would make it."
According to Pentagon sources, approximately ten satellites will be needed to cover the Southern U.S. border with Mexico. The first ALIEN satellite is slated to launch sometime in August of this year with the entire ALIEN network coming online by early next year.
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Sleep for America
According to a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on-the-job drowsiness costs American companies $18 billion per year in productivity, the costs of which could be recovered by allowing as small as a 30 minute nap during the work day.
30 minutes a day = $18 billion dollars of extra money in our economy. Sounds pretty good to me.
In fact, I think companies should take things a step further. Forget the measly 30 minute nap. Forget the lousy $18 billion. What companies should do is let employees sleep all day on the job. For the average, full-time, 8-hour day that would be an increase in productivity of $288 billion dollars. That's an extra $288 billion per year pumped into our economy.
The companies could even be patriotic about their new wealth and give half of it to the federal government for the war in Iraq - the government could make a big campaign out of it. They could show commercials of people sleeping in hammocks set up in cubicles and factory floors all around the nation. Slogans like "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You But How Much Sleep You Can Get For Your Country" or "Uncle Sam Needs You...To Sleep" or "If You Love Your Country You'll Sleep On The Job" would signal this new era in patriotism.
Sure, people would still brag about putting in 10, 12, and 15 hour days but they would be doing it in their hammocks.
When people got off work, they would be ready to hit the town and spend their new wealth, and they wouldn't need to stop going out and having fun and spending money until they returned to work the next day, ready for a good, hard day's sleep. All the spending would further spur the economy to hitherto unattainable heights.
The only problem I can see with all this is waking people up for lunch. Whole new industries would have to be created in order to deal with the morning mouth, bed head, and general crankiness of waking up. The silver lining in this, however, again, would be these new industries providing new jobs and even further stimulating an already orgasmic economy.
Sleeping on the job is the right thing to do.
Sleeping on the job - do it for America.
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"You see this? This...is my BOOMstick!"
--- Ash, Army of Darkness
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There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
--- Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
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Wall-E Galactica
I finally got around to watching Wall-e and, well, boy howdy A bunch of humans ruin Earth, leave the planet to travel the galaxy in a big spaceship, stay away for hundreds of years while dreaming of one day returning to their home planet and when they finally do get back decide to give up all their groovy technology to live a simpler life.
Sorry, that was Battlestar Galactica.
Wall-e is different in that it tells the above story from the point of view of one of the cylons who were built to look like Number 5 from Short Circuit.
Wall-e is just a simple worker bot with big dreams and imagination who dutifully fulfills his directive of cleaning up the trashed planet Earth with his plucky and well-trained pet cockroach as his only companion until he encounters a mysterious, fancy robot named EVA who he falls in love with and pursues with a single-mindedness and selfishness that involves ruining paradise for every single human being left in the universe.
You see, when humans originally left their horribly polluted Earth behind they did so in the Axiom, an interstellar spaceship on which they could live in complete comfort while traveling through the galaxy at, if they so desired, faster-than-light speeds while social-networking their day away riding hover chairs with free (and limitless) food and drink served by robots who also just happened to also take care of every mundane and unfun detail aboard the ship.
So what if the humans on the ship had had it so easy for so many generations – no worries about shelter or work or money or health care - that they had all become immensely obese (boy, did they need that socialized health care!) because really, is being obese that big a price to pay for having absolutely everything you could ever want handed to you? By a robot? In space? Did I mention the hover chair? With full reclining capability?
Human paradise lasts for centuries until cylon Wall-e follows his honeybot back to the Axiom after having given her proof that, when protected by 5 feet of metallic garbage from the vast sand and dust storms swirling around skyscrapers of garbage resembling the Manhattan skyline (built by Wall-e, see, he's artistic), a single sickly bean plant can survive on Earth.
When the humans learn about this little bitty sickly plant they decide to rebel against their evil robot overlords who had done nothing but give them every single thing their enormous, cholesterol-filled, plaque-stained hearts could desire and head back to Earth where they abandon their amazing spaceship and presumably die of starvation weeks later after learning that they cannot, in fact, subsist solely on the single, sickly bean plant from a lovestruck robot.
Perhaps, instead of abandoning paradise to take back control of their lives, the humans could have just gone for the occasional swim (yes, the Axiom had a pool and, presumably, other fitness facilities), gone for an actual walk to look at the beautiful cosmos laid out before them, or, since they liked computers so much, maybe one of them could have remembered to bring a Wii Fit with them before they left Earth the first time around.
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"Discovered in 2001...Gigantic jets are literally lightning that comes out of the thunderclouds, but instead of going down, like most lightning strokes do, these apparently find their way out the tops of thunderclouds, and then keep going and keep going and keep going until they run into something that stops them," Cummer explained.
The something that stops them is the ionosphere, the topmost layer of the Earth's atmosphere (right at the edge of space), which is made up of electrically charged atoms, or ions.
- Gigantic Jets, Gigantic lightning jets from clouds to space
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When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn't work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me.
--- Emo Phillips
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Odors from ripening bananas can jam fruit flies' and mosquitoes' power to detect carbon dioxide.
Mosquitos, in contrast, outright love CO2. They hunt down blood meals by following plumes of the exhaled gas. But as in fruit flies, a fruit compound can jam CO2 receptors in the notorious mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus, the researchers say.
- Fruity Whiff May Inspire New Mosquito Repellents, Science News
Sure beats holding my breath every time I go outside, I keep fainting.
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It's Tasetastic!
An article titled, Long-range Taser Reignites Safety Debate, in NewScientist states:
Unlike the current Taser X26, which fires darts attached to short wires, the XREP is wire-free. Its projectile, the size of a shotgun cartridge, is designed to pierce the target's skin and contains battery-powered circuits that deliver a debilitating shock. It has a range of 20 metres or more, compared with 5 metres for previous Tasers.
A team led by Cynthia Bir, a trauma injury specialist at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, found that some of the 275 XREP cartridges that Taser supplied for testing last year were capable of delivering an electric shock for more than 5 minutes, rather than the 20 seconds of shocking current they are supposed to generate. Previous Taser stun guns shock for only 5 seconds per discharge, though that can be repeated.
Wireless shotgun taser!
All of which leads me to wonder, what's next?
I'm thinking uzi taser – spray and pray the electrocution, hey? And perhaps sniper taser – why get within 20 meters if you can do it from hundreds of meters out?
Howitzer taser, now that would be nifty.
Or maybe get more high tech. F22 Raptor taser or stealth bomber taser technology – attack the enemy and instead of obliterating them with smart bombs you could subdue them with electrical shock. Or you could electrocute them and then bomb them to smithereens!
Ooh! Ooh! Nuclear powered taser missiles! Can you imagine how long a nuclear powered taser could tase somebody?
Which begs the question: Is 5 minutes really long enough to tase a person? When there are riots there are lots of people to tase and it would be a shame to hit something like 30 people in a row only to have the first couple people start to get up while you're just putting down the last few stragglers. It seems to me we need tasing to last for up to, what, say 30? 45 minutes? That way the cops can put everyone down that needs to be put down and then start packing them into the paddy wagon all nice and tidy like.
And inmates. If we kept all inmates mildly tased they wouldn't be able to cause trouble in prison.
In fact, if we kept all Americans tased, or, since people probably wouldn't go for that, how about we implant tasers in every American citizen? Cops wouldn't be able to shoot tasers at people anymore, but they could ( I don't know, flip a switch? Key in the social security number of the desired tase-ee?) tase people at will, and, side benefit, first responders would be able to use the taser implant to jump start humans who've had a coronary episode (no more lugging around those heavy, awkward defibrillators).
Other side benefits of taser implants include:
We should also go back and retrofit the atomic bomb. How cool a name is the “atomic taser� It gives it that spiffy 50s retro sound!
Yeah, I think this taser technology is the wave of the future.
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"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
- either Voltaire or Stanislaw J. Lec.
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Every day, children who come to the clinic write their names on sheets of paper and tape them to the windows of the walkway for ironworkers to see. And, every day, the ironworkers paint the names onto I-beams and hoist them into place as they add floors to the new 14-story Yawkey Center for Cancer Care
The building's steel skeleton is now a brightly colored, seven-story monument to scores of children receiving treatment at the clinic.
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When birds make noise, it's not always with their throats. In hummingbirds and manikins, for example, special feathers flutter and vibrate to produce tones and whistles, which impress potential mates and scare off competitors. Now researchers have found that pigeons use wing noise to warn the flock about approaching enemies--the first example of a nonvocalized alarm call in birds.
- Pigeon Wings Sound the Alarm
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"We still have a large number of miserable, hungry people and this contributes to world instability. Human misery is explosive, and you better not forget that."
- Norman Borlaug, May 2006, the Asian Development Bank forum in the Philippines.
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Daisuke Inoue, the inventor of karaoke, was awarded the 2004 Ig Nobel Peace Prize last night, "for inventing karaoke, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other."
--- Karaoke's Creator Wins Ig Nobel Prize
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Donatella Marazziti, Alessandra Rossi, and Giovanni B. Cassano of the University of Pisa, and Hagop S. Akiskal of the University of California (San Diego), for their discovery that, biochemically, romantic love may be indistinguishable from having severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.
--- Alteration of the platelet serotonin transporter in romantic love
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How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee thus, about this much right here.
No, see? Your hands, this far apart, my dear.
Like this. 'Tis it!. Your hands are goodly placed.
I also love thee to the tippy top.
And to the depths plumb'd at the way bottom.
And please include all middle stuff too, um,
That 'bout covers it my lovely dew drop.
No, wait! I love you even more than that!
Like choc'late, flowers, smiles and beer are thee.
I love you with a love as blind as bat
To faults too num'rous list. I kid! You see?
My thoughts of you eternal 'neath my hat.
Together for all time's eternity.
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Does anything good ever happen in broad daylight?
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Mr. Sulu uses Milwaukee County Transit
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Insults just aren't what they used to be, according to a study called The Decline of Public Insult in London 1660-1800 by Robert B Shoemaker, professor of British history at Sheffield University.
Shoemaker pored over records of court proceedings from the late 16th through to the early 19th centuries, paying special attention to the insults. Time was, insulting someone in public – or even in private – could easily propel you into court, and thence, if the insult was good or your luck wasn't, to jail.
Shoemaker charted the number of insult-fuelled prosecutions in the consistory court of London over those centuries. "The pattern is clear," he writes, "a massive increase in the late 16th century to a peak in the 1620s and 1630s, followed by a collapse ... By the late 18th century, per capita prosecutions in London had fallen to only one or two per 100,000 per year."
I think it's because insults used to be like this: "A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited-hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable, finical rogue; one trunk-inheriting slave, one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition."
Now all you get is: "hey w1lh3lm197 u sux0rs! hitler bichz!"
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Physicists Explain How Human Eyes Can Detect Quantum Effects
How human eyes could detect quantum entanglement: A single-photon qubit is amplified through cloning via stimulated emission in a nonlinear crystal (red box). The clones are split into two orthogonal polarization modes, with the polarization basis varied with the help of a wave plate (green box). Each mode is then detected by a naked human eye.
I'm sure they did explain it somewhere in the article, but I'll be darned if I understand it.
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Nero's rotating banquet hall unveiled in Rome
Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they think are the remains of Roman emperor Nero's extravagant banquet hall, a circular space that rotated day and night to imitate the Earth's movement and impress his guests.
The purported main dining room, with a diameter of over 50 feet (16 meters), rested upon a 13-foot (4-meter) wide pillar and four spherical mechanisms that, likely powered by a constant flow of water, rotated the structure.
Nero wasn't the most stable of Rome's leaders but he knew how to have himself a time of it.
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Bugatti Veyron
The following are not the amazing facts:
The amazing facts:
Have ten minutes? Watch this.
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This song was playing on the radio when my dad drove my date and me back to her house after having been out on my first date ever (I didn't yet have my driver's license). We saw a movie, and though I can't for the life of me remember the name of the movie, I do remember that we held hands in the back seat on the way to her house (it had taken me nearly the entire movie to get up the courage to hold her hand in the first place).
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A driver in Minnesota got one year probation and 100 hours of community service for "failing to yield the right of way," thus running into a bicyclist and killing her. He must also pay $350 in restitution to the city of St. Paul, which painted bike lane markings on the Summit Avenue service road east of Snelling Avenue after the accident.
The first time I heard a story like this:
The 25-year-old former Champaign resident, a University of Illinois mechanical engineering graduate working for Caterpillar in Peoria, [Wilhelm] died on Sept. 8 from head injuries he received Sept. 2 when Stark hit him with her car because she was downloading ring tones to her cell phone instead of paying attention to driving.
Mr. Wilhelm was bicycling north on Illinois 130 east of Urbana when he was struck from behind about 7:15 p.m. Stark was so far off the road that she hit Mr. Wilhelm from behind with the driver's side of her car. He was wearing a helmet.
Jennifer Stark's punishment? She was charged with an improper lane change and sentenced to the maximum $1000 fine and 6 months conditional discharge (probation without reporting to an officer).
No vehicular manslaughter. No reckless driving. Just a dead person and a fine paid to the government.
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Even smart folk still get confused:
The email edition of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest has reached the milestone of its 150th issue. To mark the occasion, the Digest editor has invited some of the world's leading psychologists to look inwards and share, in 150 words, one nagging thing they still don't understand about themselves.
David Lavallee, Professor of Psychology and Head of Department of Sport and Exercise Science at Aberystwyth University in Wales, on sporting rituals:
While I appreciate that carrying the same amount of tees in my pocket during a round will not help me play better, or the action of always marking my golf ball on the green with a coin placed "heads-up" will not influence the outcome (making the putt), I will probably continue to resort to such behaviours as if I was one of Skinner's pigeons.
Paul Rozin, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, on time management:
Every night, I bring home a pile of work to do in the evening and early morning. I have been doing this for over 50 years. I always think I will actually get through all or most of it, and I almost never get even half done. But I keep expecting to accomplish it all. What a fool I am.
David Buss, Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, on overcoming irrationality:
One nagging thing that I still don't understand about myself is why I often succumb to well-documented psychological biases, even though I'm acutely aware of these biases. One example is my failure at affective forecasting, such as believing that I will be happy for a long time after some accomplishment (e.g. publishing a new book), when in fact the happiness dissipates more quickly than anticipated. Another is succumbing to the male sexual overperception bias, misperceiving a woman's friendliness as sexual interest. A third is undue optimism about how quickly I can complete work projects, despite many years of experience in underestimating the time actually required. One would think that explicit knowledge of these well-documented psychological biases and years of experience with them would allow a person to cognitively override the biases. But they don't.
And Steve Reicher, Professor of Psychology and Head of School at the University of St. Andrews, on identity:
Who am I?
I am a jew, but I am no believer and I do not believe that Israel speaks for me.
I can’t be sure what it means to be a jew.
Yet I am sure that others are sure.
And I know that jewishness matters.
I know that millions were slaughtered for being jewish.
I know that millions have been displaced by jews for not being jewish.
What is being jewish to my world and to me?
Who are we?
Who am I?
I was born in England of family who fled from Germany and Poland.
I was raised in England by parents who moved abroad for work.
I live in Scotland with a wife born in Yorkshire of a father born in Pakistan and with a son born in Scotland.
Our history is pandemonium, our destiny (we hope) is Caledonian.
Who do we want to be?
What will others let us be?
And does it count one jot to anyone but me?
No wonder I study identity.
Other answers included consciousness, nightmares and parenthood.
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Goldman Sachs's Griffiths Says Pay Inequality Helps Everyone.
A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.
"We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all," Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The panel's discussion topic was, "What is the price of morality in the marketplace?"
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Nasa's LCROSS lunar mission uses Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Nasa's LCROSS lunar mission last week gave Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the extra-planetary exposure it has always deserved. A Twitter feed from the satellite sent crashing onto the moon's surface on Friday channelled the voice of an improbably created sperm whale that discovers itself hurtling towards a different outer-space collision in Adams's much-loved story.
Here's the LCROSS twitter feed and the following are the status updates for impact:
Initial analysis of the plume from the lunar impact seems to indicate iron and mercury, not water.
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2006 Ig Nobel Prize In Mathematics.
Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization, for calculating the number of photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group photo will have their eyes closed.
REFERENCE: "Blink-Free Photos, Guaranteed," Velocity, June 2006.
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I was gearing up to be more creative with the the stories and the funny when I ran across the following quote from Lloyd Blankfein, CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs, referring to himself as:
just a banker doing God's work
I'm not sure I can get more humorously creative than that, so I'm pausing to reevaluate my options.
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I almost stopped using WordPress - it seems like such a lot of software to run my little bitty site. I got tired of using other peoples' designs and the thought of wading through PHP WordPress code and making my own design didn't seem worth the effort. I love me some lazy.
Then I thought of all the posts going back to 2000 and keeping all the comments in-house and the automatic RSS feed generation so decided, against my better judgment, to indeed have a go at incorporating a design into Wordpress. Two days later I got the single-column, simple design that came close(ish) to what I was looking for, and it turns out that, for me, Wordpress theme design is a lot like horseshoes and hand grenades - close(ish) is most definitely good enough. Theme name: simplewop.
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Plants prefer their kin, but crowd out competition when sharing a pot with strangers
Plants don't mind sharing space with their kin but when they're potted with strangers of the same species they start invigorating their leaves, a study by McMaster University reveals.
As soon as I hear the word "kin" I imagine the plants are like the Hatfields and the Mccoys a feudin' - throwing elbows and slinging iron. And doesn't "invigorating their leaves" sound like such a wonderful euphemism?
"This supports previous research that plants are capable of complex social behaviour and will exhibit altruistic behaviour, giving their siblings a competitive edge in the wild," says Murphy.
Just how insufferable will M. Night Shyamalan be if it turns out he was right?
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The twin STEREO spacecraft confirmed their reality in February 2009 when sunspot 11012 unexpectedly erupted. The blast hurled a billion-ton cloud of gas (a coronal mass ejection, or CME) into space and sent a tsunami racing along the sun's surface. STEREO recorded the wave from two positions separated by 90 degrees, giving researchers an unprecedented view of the event.
"It was definitely a wave," says Spiros Patsourakos of George Mason University, lead author of a paper reporting the finding in Astrophysical Journal Letters. "Not a wave of water, but a giant wave of hot plasma and magnetism."
The technical name is "fast-mode magnetohydrodynamical wave," or "MHD wave" for short. The one STEREO saw reared up about 100,000 kilometers (62,000 miles) high, raced outward at 250 km/second (560,000 mph), and packed as much energy as 2400 megatons of TNT (1029 ergs).
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Nuclear experts clean radioactive site with Cillit Bang - "Decontamination experts at the former nuclear site at Dounreay, northern Scotland, are using the Cillit Bang household cleaner to remove radioactive plutonium stains."
Junk food a stress killer - "A controlled study of rats that were traumatised in early life and went on to exhibit depressed or anxious behaviours found those that were fed lard-laced foods such as cake or pie reversed their stress levels."
Road rage linked to exposure to petrol fumes - "The study, which is published in the latest issue of the peer review journal BMC Physiology , shows that rats exposed to vapours from leaded and unleaded petrol become more aggressive."
Fecal architecture for beetle defense and offense - Defense: "[Leaf beetles] spend their youth wearing a growing cylinder of excrement that typically started as rows of rectangular plates that mom applied to the egg. Lab tests exposing young beetles to three kinds of predators show that the fecal architecture pays off in protection." Offense: "Other leaf beetles have developed excremental structures, such as fecal parasols that bearers use to thump aggressors"
Breath on your skin helps you hear - Next time you tell that special someone you love them, don't be afraid to get really really close when you say it, you know, just to make sure they hear you properly.
Tiny magnetic discs could kill cancer cells - Just don't try to get through airport security after.
Most dangerous jobs - Nary a police officer or fire fighter on the list.
MedGrow Cannabis College - It's all academic until the Horticulture Lab.
caveat lector