Inclusion of new diagnoses into the DSM always involves much thought and debate, or at least it should, as a diagnosis can determine treatment and even involuntary commitment of individuals.
A most controversial addition will hit the DSM-V, slated for release in 2013. A new term, called Paraphillic Coercive Disorder, will be added to the Appendix of conditions that need more research but are not considered official diseases yet. This concession was made as members of the medical community are at odds with each other as to whether PCD is an actual psychiatric condition.
Well, what is PCD? It is, in essence, a term applied to serial rapists. ("The person has clinically significant distress or impairment in important areas of functioning, or has sought sexual stimulation from forcing sex on three or more nonconsenting persons on separate occasions.") You see, many states have laws stating that sexual predators can be hospitalized indefinitely in mental facilities after they have served their prison sentences. The Supreme Court has ruled that the person must have an actual disorder (other than being a selfish, evil fuck) that makes them dangerous in order to be held. Thus far, such offenders are held under a vague classification which is being legally challenged as punitive and unconstitutional, so well-meaning, but otherwise incorrect folks have tried to invent a disease in order to lock rapists up.
I have a mental illness and so do millions of other human beings, people who have consciences and wouldn't consider harming another person. The difference between psychosis and psychopathy lies in one's ability to feel, and mentally ill people most certainly have a full spectrum of human emotions- in fact, it's usually amplified. Lumping people who want and need psychiatric intervention with those who live to service their narcissistic desires by attacking others undermines the integrity of the entire psychiatric profession and those with actual illnesses that are present through no fault of their own. Additionally, it laughs in the face of traumatized victims and offers yet another new defense to a reprehensible crime.
I agree that serial rapists should be incarcerated, and for very long periods, followed by closely-monitored parole. However, admitting them into hospitals where they will have an all-you-can-eat buffet of vulnerable prey is most certainly not the way to go. Individuals with serious mental illnesses have enough to deal with without being housed with sexual predators, who are highly aware that what they are doing is wrong and have no desire to change.
While it's unfortunate that convicted sex offenders are in our midst, it's absolutely unconstitutional to hold someone past the term of his or her determined sentence. Moreover, it is an insult to good people to coalesce the ill with the depraved. The psychiatric community needs to stop excusing horrendous voluntary behaviour at the behest of law enforcement agencies and should issue a resounding no to even considering this ridiculous proposal.
Regardless of the reasoning, under no circumstances should the term serial rapist be sugar-coated.
Yesterday, Family Research Center president Tony Perkins got on the air with Mike Huckabee idol James Robison to complain that religious freedom in America is ruining politics and pissing off the Skydude. According to guys who claim to speak for God, the big guy is passing a great judgment on America for democratically electing leaders who are not righteous enough.
Here's a newsflash, dude: you live in America; a land where one's religion or lack thereof isn't supposed to matter, a land where the state shall establish no religion. The USA is a place where the founders were so concerned about Church of England asshats that they wrote religious freedom into the Constitution and established Muslims as respectable in the first international treaty ever signed by the new nation. The Treaty of Tripoli also stated clearly that the United States was " not in any sense founded on the Christian religion".
The U.S. was and is a free country, and if these FRC and AFA idiots long for living in a Christocracy, maybe it is they who should be forced to change or leave. Nigeria, Uganda, and Ethiopia are among the countries that would welcome these folks with open arms. I know, I know, there's all those black people, but they sure like burning witches and gays, so the pigmentation thing won't be as big of an issue.
I know I'm not the only one who is dog tired of treasonous religious freaks trying to undermine liberty and institute a theocratic regime. Make no mistake, religious fundamentalism is based in submission and fear, where the strong rule over the weak, where the self-declared rule over the enslaved. Theocracy is the arch nemesis of democracy, and if we fight against it overseas, we should focus closer to home lest it be instituted in a nation in which most of my family and friends reside.
When at a loss for words due to the level of lividness that morons like Perkins inspire, I find it's often good to turn to the words of someone wiser than myself. In this instance, the words of the fourth U.S. president and father of the Constitution, James Madison, come to mind:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
Musical taste is a highly subjective thing, however there have been some absolutely awful tracks released in the last 30 years. In many cases, bad music was meant to capitalize on TV or film stardom, or worse, a dance craze.
While I'm sure you won't agree with a few picks, look forward to a few nightmares and some possibly aural bleeding. Without further ado, the worst songs of the last 30 years are upon you.
Readers' Choices
Does what it says. These were some of the dandies selected by readers of this blog. The more mentions, the higher the ranking. Top 7 :
7. Take My Breath Away Berlin
6. Barbie Girl Aqua
5. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman? Bryan Adams
4. That's Not My Name Ting Tings
3. Informer Snow
2. Shiny Happy People REM
#1 went #1 in 17 (!) countries around the globe. You can buy it HERE
Now that you've lived through the choices of your fellow roofmonkeys, here are the songs that have made me throw things at people in the last 30 years.
Dishonourable Mentions
Don't Shed A Tear Paul Janz
Scatman Scatman John
We Built This City Starship
She's Like The Wind Patrick Swayze
Batdance Prince
Higher Love Steve Winwood
Sailing Christopher Cross
Have You Seen Her? MC Hammer
The Crap 10
10. Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley buy here
Yes, you've been RickRoll'd. This song is as confusing as it is plain dreadful. I remain to this day utterly perplexed as to how a voice so deep could come out of the Ginger version of R.J. Berger. One tries to not think about how pendulous the testicles to produce this racket must be, and quietly wish that his powers had been used for good.
Fergie's voice makes most pop-rap crap worse, and this is the piece de merde. Will can be a rad dude, but the fact he bought into this overproduced garbage takes him down 5426244723 notches in my book. The choruses are intended to be catchy, and they are, but more along the Herpetic vein. Someone needs to tell Fergie that the majority of the world wouldn't spend their money on her humps nor her trying to sing about them.
The first time I heard this was in a Toronto nightclub. the remix and the weird linedance that went along with it made me laugh so hard that I fell off my barstool, where I was rescued by a drag queen, who also could not contain her laughter. This is the classic example of what happens when someone takes a classic sung by some old dudes and absolutely demolishes it. It came out when people wanted to dance alike, and man did it sell. In retrospect, it is a testament to just how many drugs people did in the mid-90s.
Before he became music's most famous dad, Billy Ray put out some decent country albums. However, he is also remembered for popularizing the supermullet and this dreadful linedancing standby. The first time I heard this song, I was out with buddies who kept putting this song on repeat. I also had my first experience with post-beer projectile pukeage. To this day, nobody knows whether it was the beer or being forced to here this awful tune for 6 hours that caused me to paint my buddy's washroom orange.
P.S. : My housemate just said that this is the worst song ever.
6. Jakk Frost - Gay Bashing
The rapper says he's just dissing wanksters, but it's pure filth. The music is a weird, garbled mess of random sounds that don't seem to flow together. The noise is high-pitched and piercing, but doesn't drown out the rantations of a washed up second-rate rapper who is just looking for shock value. Well, here's a shock to you Jakk- this track sucks and everyone but you knows it.
Sorry ladies, I am not a fan of stinky cheese, and this is as bad as it gets. I'm not sure what specifically makes this stand out in an era of awful love songs, but even listening to it for the purposes of this blog made me retch. My dislike for this song is so long-standing that my mum has been tormenting me with it since I was in grade 8. For me, this record epitomizes chick flick wretchedness. Every time I hear it I curl into the fetal position.
This is the only song on the German-born crooner's VEVO channel because nobody's ever heard a peep out of him since 1999. This is probably a good thing. I'm not sure what he's doing here, but it's not singing or rapping. The only use for this CD is for repelling birds. This is what happens when someone tries to create a linedance track and does everything wrong.
3. Rock On - Michael Damian
Dude was most known for playing a musician on the Young and the Restless, and since people still watched soaps back then, A&M figured plenty of housewives would line up to buy this single off the Dream a Little Dream Soundtrack. And they were right- it sold boatloads of copies. Nonetheless, Rock On reigns as the worst pop song of 1989, the year of the awful song. I don't like the original David Essex version of this, and Michael Damian's is worse. Stick to being Danny Romalotti, dude.
I realize this is a tongue-in-cheek swipe at the fashion industry, but the point of the song gets lost in the awful music and repetitive lyrics that are punctuated by Fred's peculiar, throaty voice.The first time I heard this abomination was in a Montreal mall, and when I returned to Ontario, discovered to my dismay that it was a hit there also. Even though it's in jest, it's still one of the worst songs ever made.
1. Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy - Big and Rich buy here
First off, I'll acknowledge the fact that this song has made John Rich a ton of money, but that's not really relevant here. This song is the most annoying song in music history. My mother nominated it, and I fully agree. I live in a small city where this irritation still gets some play at the older clubs, and Jagermeister-soaked jillbillies still bound up to dance to it. The first time I heard it, I left the bar and didn't come back for 2 months.
What I'm thinking here is that Big and Rich tried to bring back the whole line dancing thing. Maybe. Either that or it was a cash grab right from the start. And it's not just the fact that this song is annoying, but the quality of people who actually enjoy this song. Suffice it to say, if you made it past Grade 6, this ain't your song. If your wife is your cousin, saddle up your horse with this cassette in your pocket radio.
It's no secret that certain individuals would love it if the U.S. took over Canada and her natural resources and turned the whole shebang into a Christocracy. When I began writing about such people many years ago, their opinions were considered so far off to the right fringe that they inspired satire and ridicule. However, today holds a different reality. People like Fred Phelps are still generally considered wackjobs, but folks like Bryan Fischer carry an air of credibility; their soft speech and businesslike demeanor luring in otherwise reasonable folks.
It has no longer become an outsider view to wish your religious will become the laws of the nation, with the Bible's codes reigning over the people in the same manner that the Qu'ran does in Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Recently, AFA Director Bryan Fischer made a few more public statements as to the true aims of what his organization sees for the future of Greater America. In the clip below, he cites penalties issued for conduct violations by private enterprises in a call to make blaspheming against God an enforceable crime.
Following this, he posted a tweet that also demands the prosecution of adulterers and fornicators in an effort to punish pornographers:
How to shut down porn industry: pass, enforce laws against fornication, adultery. Every scene = all the photographic proof you need.7:48 AM May 28thvia HootSuiteRetweeted by 17 people
It also comes as no shock that Mr. Fischer and like-minded folks earn their living attempting to enact laws punishing private behavior, or at least tying up state and federal legislative bodies so that nothing else can be done until ridiculous cases can be heard. There are dozens of bills on floors right now that seek to ban or restrict abortion, the rights of gays to adopt, and the forced inclusion of Creationism into public schools. The Texas Republican Party's platform spends much of its pages detailing the ways in which it seeks to punish homosexuals (incarceration and removal of rights), abortion providers, divorcees, the disabled, scientists, and those who even look at porn. (READ IT HERE) Louisiana and Tennessee have already put creationism into schools. Most school districts are too terrified of the Church to teach kids about sexual health- knowledge of which has been proven to reduce the number of sexually-transmitted infections, abortions, suicides, teen pregnancies, and dropouts. The Christian right makes no bones about the fact that they are after your children, and will stop at nothing until they know that their only worth as human beings is as soldiers in an army of a God that is cruel, judgmental, and always watching.
It's really no wonder that our kids today are confused, but it's not just our young folks. Religion and racism have infiltrated politics to such a point that Republicans are questioning whether they can run a Mormon candidate or whether one's Syrian or Indian heritage is acceptable. It's no longer okay to be a moderate- you have to be a raging, homophobic Christianist bigot to be a success in today's political word, lest you be seen as soft or insulting to the beliefs of your base. Fear of the powerful religious lobbies is the reason why "one nation, under god" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, why we have a National Day of Prayer, and why John McCain doesn't even sound like the same dude as the one we saw 5 years ago. Religious fundamentalism is real, and it threatens to tear an entire continent apart.
When it comes to religious fighting, this may be what comes to mind.
However, the war at home is not as cut and dry. It's not about oil or territorial expansion; it's fought with handshakes and backroom payoffs versus guns. It's a war where children are trained for battle before they can learn to speak and where battle lines are often drawn across the kitchen table. This war is about whether or not the Constitutions and Charters that two good nations were founded upon really do matter. The state is not supposed to establish religion. We have young people fighting and dying in foreign lands because of just how oppressive and brutal religion is when it becomes intertwined with the law. If every pine box flown home is not a reminder of what can go wrong with a secular nation when religious fundamentalism takes over, we may as well hand Bryan Fischer his crown.
Sharia by any other name is still the same.
And Jesus said: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father,a daughter against her mother,a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household."
Women have done some bizarre things in search of everlasting beauty. From injecting Botulinum to having a surgeon cut apart one's visage and yank it, people are just not willing to permit Father Time to get his just desserts.
With this in mind, we travel back to the 90's, when Linda Evans pitched a product that confused and terrified a generation. Could you imagine being a Girl Scout selling cookies and having someone who had one of these things on answer the door? Little Clarice would have needed millions of dollars worth of therapy to make the lambs stop screaming after witnessing this.
Little known fact: If you ordered Rejuvenique within the first 15 minutes, you got a free machete.
An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest, "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"
- quote from Pilgrim At Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Image Copyright 2010 Lorenzo Fracchetti and can be purchased here
The sports world is on fire today as Scottie Pippen did the unthinkable and proclaimed that LeBron James may just be the greatest player of all time, even better overall than His Airness. While everyone knows that Scottie wouldn't have his fistful of championship rings if not for his former teammate, he also may have forgotten names like Elgin Baylor and the always hated but never duplicated Wilt Chamberlain.
After checking out some playoff tapes, I did find an instance in which King James may just be better at something than Michael Jordan. Jordan may have played some pro baseball, but this clip proves that LeBron is certainly a 2-sport athlete, and possibly a top contender for the 2012 U.S. Platform Diving team.
After a little fanfare and a whole lot of legal wrangling over the estimated $145 million invested into this venture, the Candwich has arrived. Yes, stoners and Tyler, a real BP&J hoagie in a can. While canned-food enthusiasts may wish to wait for the exciting (!) meaty options to come out, you can sink your teeth into a standby that isn't really any more expensive than one at 7-11. Plus, it comes in a can, which can be easily recycled and/or used as a missile to chuck at the drunk guy who keeps trying to mess around with the campfire.
I don't know if a sandwich in a can appeals to you, but it does to me, since I'm in an earthquake/tsunami zone and I bet these things float. Plus, everyone loves peanut butter- even my mum who's allergic to peanuts- and canned anything is always intriguing, so it should be a fast sell.
At $3 each, Mark One Foods should easily be able to recover the investment. Either that, or my blood sugar's really low right now. In any event, wander over to http://www.markonefoods.com/product.html for a laugh or to score your very own fleet of carbohydrate missiles.
I didn't create this graphic- it's from a real website and the group is very real. The new-and-revamped Jews for Palin are dedicated to spreading the message that Americans and those abroad should consider Sarah Palin to be some kind of cult heroine to Jews simply because she likes the idea of Israel being able to expand wherever it pleases. According to their website, they also love her concept of "Drill, baby. Drill." and have left open the sections titled Fiscal Responsibility and Family Values, presumably because she has no concept of either.
I know many, many Jewish people, many of whom are American and/or Israeli, and - you know what- none of them like Sarah Palin. For the most part, their collective disdain for Alaska's most famous court jester preceded her misappropriation of the term blood libel. Sarah Palin is an evangelical Christian, who has long enjoyed the company of a bizarre Apostolic network that is more than a tad anti-Semitic. Wise Jews know that Sarah is a proponent of Christian Zionism, the idea that Jews should all move to Israel, hand over their supposed control over the world to the Christians, and repent for their sin of non-belief in the Christ. It will be then that the Messiah will appear, etcetera, etcetera.
This group of self-professed leaders seems to be using Sarah as the billboard for their hatred of Barack Obama, figuring her face will add credibility to their reposts of Breitbart and Korn rants. Their love of Sarah The Anti-Obama is so great that yesterday they posted a piece that compared the reality-TV millionaire to Queen Esther. Yes, as in the Biblical one. I for one don't see the similarity between a woman who chickened-out on her elected position in order to become rich to a heroine who risked her life to save thousands from genocide. If I'm wrong here, feel free to fill me in, because I find that analogy offensive to common sense.
Binyamin Korn is allowed to blog about whatever he wishes, just as you are and I am. But, gentle readers, don't confuse the opinions of Jews for Sarah as representative of Jews With Brains. There are plenty of folks who don't like Obama's dealings with Israel and would never consider supporting any Christian dominionist, let alone one who couldn't handle having a real job.
By blindly supporting Sarah Palin's public speaking career, Ben Korn and Pam Geller are promoting literal stupidity. It's not enough that Sarah Palin supports Israel, one must delve into the why before donating vast sums. Sarah Palin is no more a true friend of Israel than Jews for Jesus, which Sarah also has the blessing of. Sarah worships at an assembly that preaches a Christian takeover of 7 cultural facets of America, and Israeli settlement expansion is only supported because that's where all the Jews that aren't for Jesus are expected to go until the End Times, whence they will be converted anyways.
I dare say that any Jew who would lend material support to someone with these beliefs is a traitor; someone who doesn't mind the idea of forced religious conversion in exchange for the support of the greatest insult to hockey moms in existence. At the very least, I'd say that anyone who calls him or herself a Jew for Sarah Palin is an uninformed, self-loathing idiot.
In this video, 7 Mountains proponent Thomas Muthee asserts that Christians must take back business and finance from the Jews, among other terrifying things that this faction believes. It takes place at Sarah Palin's church and includes her being anointed by the preacher.
Due to actions taken by their state lawmakers, Texas has somewhat of a reputation as being a conservative backwater, filled with damnation and bigotry. So, the folks at ABC decided to see if everyday, non-zillionaire Texans shared the beliefs of many of their leaders, and they were surprised to discover just what happened when a scenario was set up involving gay families being abused in a restaurant.
Watch and cry at what happens. Humanity is a state of mind, not a location.
As I have told many of you, I live in the town that time forgot. One of the victims of the system is a 71 year young former mill worker named simone. Granno Simone was a fairly fit lady, and remains a tough example of Franco ingenuity. But she is dying, and probably will perish due to lack of correct medical care.
In our small town reside old guard physicians and young bucks, and Simone didn't wind up with the best of the tribe. Misdiagnosed and overprescribed, her lungs filled with fluid, straining her bullish ticker. The docs just pass her along, hoping for her demise while her family hopes for a cure to a disease brought on by a physician's neglect.This is a beautiful matriarch who will die because an arrogant doctor even refuses so much as a prescription for an oxygen tank, lest its presence admit his wrongs.
But the harshest of all things, all misdeeds committed against a nearly angelic soul is the callous manner in which the oaths of profession have been so grotesquely violated and continue to be on Vancouver Island. You see, my grandmother was also killed by faulty medical care. She was strong and vibrant and given drugs for a non-existant COPD. And those drugs killed her, just as they are eroding Simone Gallant's heart.
What my ultimate wish is for every woman to be given proper medical care on the west coast of Canada; for every old lady mechanic and every former maid and every amazing mother to be given the same treatment as a man under the same circumstances. There is so much attention given to breast cancer and the like, but horrifyingly little paid to cardiac conditions and even simple symptoms of aging in women.
But I could be wrong. Maybe there are doctors in Canada and abroad who can see that 71 is very young in our day and age; they can ssee the magnificent qualities that the old-but-able still possess. Maybe Granno Simone is just in the wrong part of Canada, and if she is, if you know someone who can try to fix the ticker that was clocked by an incompetent and uncaring fool, this would be your time to speak up.
Granno Simone was told on a routine ECG that she'd suffered a heart attack. She wasn't given an extensive consultation nor hospitalization. She was told to go home and only call 911 if she dropped dead.
So much for Hippocratic. I'd call that an appalling example of the hypocritcal oath.
The information age has enabled all of us to have a bit of a laugh over Harold Camping being proven wrong (again) today. The heavens didn't open up and swallow believers, there were no dreadful superseismic events, nothing happened when the good Christians of the Philippines raised their Bibles to the sky. And some of us laughed at Camping's idiocy and that of other high-profile people, but there is a flip side to this entire spectacle. May 21 proponents made a lot of money off of the hopes and dreams of average people.
Harold Camping expanded his millions by lying to people who needed to believe in something. From unemployment to addiction, people seek guidance during the rough times, and some try religion. These vulnerable people become bait for spiritual sharks like Harold Camping. Good people have given up their jobs to drive Rapture vans and spent fortunes advertising this complete and utter hoax. Christian Family Radio doesn't run without money, and the kind it runs on is donated by those who can scarcely afford to give.
So far, Harold Camping hasn't spoken out as to why his third such prediction turned out to be wrong, and while many people are laughing, I don't think it would be humane to have too much fun with it. Average folks were taken advantage of en masse by an 89-year-old con man who will never have to pay the price for any of his many, many swindles. Harold Camping is like Bernie Madoff, only the stocks he sells are in the afterlife. both men sold hope and if you'd feel sympathy for someone swindled by Wall Street, you should also feel for those whose lives have been ruined by false prophets.
While I realize that people are free to choose for themselves, rules exist to ensure fairness. For example, if I sold you a roof and took your money, yet failed to give you a roof, you could sue me. There are thousands of regulations related to stock market procedure that you must follow under penalty of prosecution. I have no idea how one would go about attempting to sue evangelical criminals, but if you could nail these guys for Breach of Promise for every time they lied to you, dishonest preachers would have to leave the game.
People are taught from birth to have faith- be it in themselves, their parents, or a deity. Millions of decent people whose only crime was listening to the words of yet another self-proclaimed prophet had their entire belief systems shattered. Even though I'm atheist, I cannot celebrate the confusion, trauma, and depressive regret being felt by victims of what can only be called spiritual abuse. Camping and other parasitic evangelical leaders are another story- they deserve mockery and more in exchange for their tax-deductible robbery of the lower and middle classes.
If you're inclined to believe in a supernatural guide for your life, I have nothing wrong with you as an individual. While I may think your sky friend is a figment of your imagination, if it brings you and your family joy and peace, then pray on. Rock your prayers and have fun with it. There's nothing that says you have to go to a gilded building and pay money to millionaires to have a relationship with your supernatural buddy. No God would mandate that you eat crap-in-a-box in order to give 10% to buy private jets and luxury vacations for rich people. While you're forging your spiritual path, you'll run into people who will want you to attend their admission-fee-required hate parade. And when you respond that you can pray at home and your friend seems horrified, simply reply that if the megabuilding was truly considered sacred by your deity, there wouldn't be a lightning rod on it.
Okay, so I bit. I had already written about Harold Camping and didn't feel like doing a heavy piece right now. Life's too short to be in a consistently serious headspace.
Anywho, i have had this song in my head for most of the day. It came out when I was 4 and I very much remember it. This song is so awesomely bizarre that it still doesn't park in any mainstream musical category.
Let's wander back to 1980 and mentally munch on the pop disco-rap classic Rapture by Blondie
Copyright (1980) EMI. This version (C) 2009 EMI Buy On iTunes.
I walked into an apartment this week with the intentions of making it once again livable for a new tenant. The previous occupant had been evicted and just left everything there- sofas, makeshift coffee tables, liquor bottles, and urine-soaked mattresses were amongst the treats found inside a former home that was amongst the filthiest things I've ever witnessed. Crawling through the refuse and junk contained in an apartment that had clearly never been cleaned, I found hundreds of reminders of the fact that this was not only a place where some very troubled people lived, but one also died.
The reminders were noted stickers, hundreds in all, as well as huge red Sharpie circles and codes identifying exactly what the Indian Red chunks and streaks were. These were the last remains of a man who was severely beaten and they occupied the floors, walls, and ceilings of every room in the domicile. 7 weeks ago, a man was brutalized so severely that he never got to go home. He'd been pummeled and left to die while those who were supposed to care for him partied on.
The man had a wife, one that is an alcoholic. Witnessing the fact that she lived and drank and hosted guests who enjoyed their Sherry on a blood-stained sofa for over a month after the police finished their investigation is what chilled me. Cleaning up dead guy is one thing, but realizing that these people enjoyed spirited gatherings in the presence of hundreds of pieces of a man they knew without even bothering to acknowledge it freaked me out. There was no attempt to even remove the bloody handprints from doors. It was even clear that someone had been sleeping on the bed, which was among the places where a human being bled out. It wasn't so much the fact that a man had died here that filled me with gloom, but the callous manner in which the proverbial band played on.
Renovating rentals causes you to see many things, and most are the result of neglect. However, in my mind there is a vast difference between leaving a filthy kitchen behind and simply not caring enough to honour the dignity of your dead husband. To the Crown, who dropped the charges against the attacker, Darrell Andow was just another welfare recipient whose hard life and brutal death didn't matter, but to the woman who shared his bed, he should have been so much more.
I recall voicing my confusion as to why nobody bothered to call emergency services for days while a man lay dying, and I still don't understand fully. Yes, the building is one of the roughest in one of the worst cities in Canada, but I just do not get how some people can live with themselves. My only thinking as to why in my travels I see all of these trashed rental units with their human waste and worse is just how humanity-destroying addiction truly is. Continuous use of booze will cause you to live in conditions so squalid that the cat leaves;(this actually happened in this case) it will make you beat someone to death in an argument over whose turn it is to clean the washroom; it will allow you to drink yourself to sleep on the same piece of furniture your loved one died; it will cause you to have more concern over where you're going to find your next drink than the welfare of your dying partner.
When you live in an addicted city, few things truly surprise anymore. From hookers that make LA's worst look angelic to former lumberjacks staggering drunk down the streets at 8 AM, there is a permanent fog of disease and death eminating from the sidewalks and doorways. Behind doors lurks the dens where the next fix is cooked and tales of the one who got away are told on shit-soaked sofas parked on top of crushed cigarettes and last year's spilled supper. My dismay over this particular example of in-your-face humanity will fade, to be replaced by that over the next in a series of death pits that are ubiquitous in the town that time truly forgot.
There are a ton of people very justifiably pissed off and otherwise worried because NWO conspiracy theorist and general scary dude Glenn Beck is chilling in Israel.
The thing is, while Obama talks about victimization and Beck tries to steal the media, there are evil bastards like this guy in the PLO/PA government. I'm fairly middle-of-the-road. I'm going to give dude a chance.
This man is a serving member of PA cabinet, and I'm uncomfortable with the fact that a dude with these views is serving as a cabinet minister within the confines of Israel.
The Diet Coke and Mentos experiment has received major airplay on shows like MythBusters and Unwrapped, so many permanent kids try to do it themselves. This is the funniest example of the Mentos bottle rocket I've ever seen, and because we're sadists it will probably go viral within the next week or so.
Enjoy! (nerd moment below)
How does this work? The Mentos have an inconsistent, porous surface, which permits much of the CO2 (which Diet Coke has more of than other American sodas) to park in them. This increased surface area for a potential reaction is the major reason why old-school Mentos work better than the glossy varieties. On the way down, even more gas is produced by the CO2, as well as by the reactions between the Aspartame and potassium in the soda and the gelatin and gum arabic in the candy. By the time the candies have sunk to the bottom, there is so much gas pressure that it must escape, producing the pretty little waste of processed food known as the Diet Coke Cannon.
Stephen Hawking has received a ton of hatred from North American religious fundamentalists after confessing that he is very much an atheist. This revelation came as no surprise to me, and I too believe that we should enjoy our Earthly lives and stop living like we're petrified of some supernatural tyrant. In my view, we should do nice things because they make us feel good and we enjoy sharing with others, instead of buying tickets into a space castle and calling it charity. But I suppose, some people have other ideas.
This is just a small sampling of the things said to Mr. Hawking today on his page by the good Christians on Facebook.
*Warning* - some of these are very graphic and unmistakably cruel
AS A SPACE FREAK MYSELF,I RESPECT MR. HAWKING AS A PHYSICIST.BUT HE'S IN NO POSITION TO SAY THERE'S NO GOD.HE WILL KNOW THERE'S A GOD WHEN HIS LIFE SUPPORT FAILS HIM,AND STEPHEN WINDS UP BURNING IN HELL FOR ETERNITY.BUT I LOVE HAWKING'S VIEWS ON SPACE AND THE COSMOS.BUT IT'S TERRIBLE THAT HE BAD-MOUTHS JESUS AND TRIES TO GET OTHERS LOST.
I am so sorry for you Stephen Hawking! At least I don't need science to be there where I'm going when I die! The earth, cosmos and every living thing did not originate out of thin air with one atom and even you the genious can't see that it... takes a genious to achieve simplicity (quote Bob Seger). Unfortunately, you don't have that quality of genious! We are not computers, we are human and our brains are 100's of times more complicated than a computer. Of course being the intellect that you are, go ahead and quantum leap anywhere you want but you'll never achieve the leap to Heaven like me and others who are not just believers, but testifiers of a truth that your science will never begin to understand.
Well Stephen Hawking, even if you could prove there was no Heaven, I would think you were just failing a test From God himself. Im sad with all God has given you, that you dont know who to thank. Its not a matter of belief. God WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE.
" If you chose not to believe in God, oh YOU WILL REGRET IT WHEN YOU ARE DEAD!!! "
This dear person Stephen Hawking is in pain the kind only GOD can take away.as I send up this Prayer please comfort my friend Stephen.And in your own unique way let him know you are there.Me and facebook will do our part too by Parying showing him that GOD care's. Stephen I like you and I think you are a very smart man may GOD Bless you your Pow for life O-dee
i hope someone pushes you down a staircase
You suck Balls!
Dear Mr Hawking: You can continue to talk through your little computer and sound like a robot. Enjoy the rest of your life, talking crap while everyone feels sorry for you. I'll only feel sorry for you when you find out there IS an afterlife....a good one and a bad one. And since you don't believe in either, have fun in the bad one :)
- Am I the only one who if I saw him would try to take the batteries out of that speaking thing?
- Cmon you that you would wanna do something.Not like he could try and stop you unless he tries running you over with it.
- While he's sleeping slash his tires...then remove the batteries. Is that better?
- Yes, but why stop there? Let's re-wire his controls so once the wheels are fixed and he tries to drive it it runs into a wall
Mr. Hawking I don't know if you even view this page, But I am here to tell you there is a God! And no matter how smart you think you are there is one that holds the key to Death and Hell. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords he is Jesus Christ. He is real! Act 2:38..If you would have Faith and Believe with me he can Heal you. He can make you whole. Sometimes he is waiting on us to make the first step. Some never will come to know Christ because they have so much hate lives. You can come to know him by - Repenting of your sins . Ask God to forgive you of your sins everyday. Even if we think we havn't done anything wrong. Be baptisted in the name of Jesus Christ . And he will give you the gift of the others the holy spirit. The evidence is that you will speak in other tongues . Don't be afraid let it happen. That is God dwelling inside of you. You telling others there is no God you will have to answer to God for the lost souls you help send to Hell
Now, I understand that the opinion of an old man is a huge threat to the existence of Christianity, since everyone must be saved prior to the May 21st rapture, but doesn't this strike you as somewhat wrong? I know they're not breaking Biblical law by telling a non-believer he's going to Hell, but morally wrong. Is there nothing worse than condemning a man to eternal fire and then ridiculing his disabilities?
I also saw a few posts where dingleshits stated that if he prayed to Jesus, his ailments would miraculously vanish. Since Mr. Hawking has suffered from motor neuron disease for several decades, there's a good chance that at some point in time he did indeed pray for it to go away. Think about this for a second- what god would decide to create a man of such genius and then arbitrarily sentence him to a slowly degrading body whilst being fully conscious of the fact? The answer is none.
People pray all of the time for themselves, their sick parents, and strangers to survive dreadful diseases to no avail. And then they pay a trained scientist to provide the healing because in the back of everyone's mind they know that stone-age superstition has zero on modern medicine.
It doesn't surprise me that Dr. Hawking doesn't believe that goblins talk to him and that the religious are making their stand against the mute who will never be silenced. What does disgust me are the number of people who not only believe that they know more about how the universe operates than numerous Nobel prize winners, but will engage in absolute displays of cruelty in order to state their view.
As I was walking through a forest with my dog today, I could see how magnificent it was, complete with trees that pre-dated man's arrival and a river clear as water from a faucet. It's exquisiteness was truly breathtaking, and I could admire it's spectacle quite well without believing their were fairies above it or demons beneath.
All Stephen Hawking has ever tried to do is show people the beauty of the universe, and for that he was and will continue to be treated with utter ugliness by ignorant people petrified that he may just be right.
Yesterday, New York Sen. Ruben Diaz staged a fairly large anti-gay rally. There, over 2000 people marched in support of inclusion of religious condemnations into state law. It was a slightly rainy but heartwarming day, where Catholic and Jew alike stood in solidarity, demanding state intrusion into something that doesn't affect them personally, namely the homes of private citizens and their families.
There were also podium appearances, and everyone from the National Organization of Marriage to Sen. Diaz himself took part. Speakers professed their love for the "sinner" whilst issuing wholesale Bible-based condemnations to those they have never met. And here we have Rev. Ariel Torres Ortega stating that gays are worthy of death. These words were spoken mere minutes before Senator Diaz took the stage.
"Committing sexual acts between man and man. And receiving the retribution of the things that they have done from straying away. And because they did not take God in count. God gave them over to reprimand their mind to do things that are not right, being against all justice, fornication, perversity, aberrations, malignity…those who practice such things are worthy to death, not only do they do it, but those who also practice it. God bless this earth. That is the word of God."
This is the same as a group of people proclaiming that Jews should be killed for not accepting Christ or that African-Americans should be forced into captivity because Jesus commanded slaves to worship their masters. (Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.- Ephesians 6:5 NLT, also 1 Timothy 6:1-2) I know, I know, it's different. How is this any different? The Bible was used to justify slavery for thousands of years; there are instructions on the selling of your daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:7-11) and how to beat your slave. (Luke 12:47-48 - this one's from Jesus himself; Exodus 21:20-21) There are far more commandments relating to the buying, selling, and brutalization of slaves than relate to shaming or executing gays; in comparison, the homos are small potatoes, don't you think?
Now I do not endorse religious discrimination or slavery in any way, and if you have a brain, you don't as well. These and many, many more Biblical rules have been abandoned because they are arcane, cruel, or simply nonsensical. We eat shellfish, don't own slaves, don't force women into marriage by raping them (Deut. 22:28-29: Deut. 21: 10-14: Judges 5:30; and several others), and shave our faces. The average person disobeys more commandments than he or she keeps.
If the only basis for your hatred of strangers is a book of rules that you break all of the time, I'd suggest your foundation is crumbling. If your only argument against another group of people is based in something that is supposed to have little to no interference with the affairs of the state, why not simply let your neighbours enjoy the freedom you take for granted?
It stinks to be required to be given human rights that should have been there in the first place, but don't mistake peacefulness for acquiescence. Gay people and their families have existed since the beginning of recorded history, work hard, pay taxes, and snore just as loudly as any other husband. I'm not a believer, but let's suppose for a second that there is a God. Haven't you ever wondered why, no matter how hard you pray, God won't magically take away the gay?
This town was completely leveled tonight by a forest fire that spread with the help of 100 kph winds. The video below is from a cellphone as a guy was narrowly escaping. If this town is safe to return to, there will be absolutely nothing left- the high school, police station, town hall, radio station, and hundreds of homes and businesses have all burned to the ground.
The town's name is Slave Lake and instead of using Google, a ton of people tonight have joked about the town's First Nations name. You know, us Canucks and our sense of humour.
This is serious- thousands of people have lost their homes and workplaces. For those of you who care about the price of auto gas, these fires very well could hit Fort McMurray and all her precious oil. And if you bothered to Google it, you'd know that the world slavee means strange.
Donate to the Alberta Red Cross at 1-800-418-1111 or www.redcross.ca
Everyone has a buddy known for driving while doing several other things, however this knee driver is a Rome bus driver and he's using a cell phone as well as farting around on his smartphone simultaneously and in broad daylight.
Mr. Busdriver- you just Facebooked your way out of a pension.
As an observer of the debate over whether or not evolution should be taught in schools, I've been curious as to why exactly someone could deny substantiated scientific fact. I mean, I had seen videos of folks like Kirk Cameron spitting on the memory of Darwin in the past, but certainly didn't think that his loud opposition to common sense was the same idea promoted by religious institutions all over the land. Back in the day, there was the Butler Act, which until 1967 stated that the biblical version of creationism was the only one that could be taught in Tennessee schools, andnow they want it back again. Louisiana has policies forcing schools to challenge evolution in science classes. The Evangelical overthrow of nature is a war being waged all over America, much to the utter bewilderment of the modern world and the 20% of Americans who actually want to live in it. Those of us who were raised in religion know that it is forced upon children before they can learn to think for themselves. Everything from the concept of Original Sin to infant baptism to the genital altering of newborns is designed to indoctrinate babies before their eyes can even focus. Absurdities are presented as fact and obedience is considered to be desirable, lest the wee ones ask too many awkward questions. Even non-believers may have their children taken to churches by worried grandparents, which is what happened to one fellow free thinker this past weekend. This is the colouring book his kid was given by granny's church to take home to one horrified dad. If your screen resolution is low, you may have to enlarge some of the images in order to experience the sheer magnitude of holy shit presented before you.
So far, so good
Yes, that's Noah petting Tyrannosaurs. Apparently, they were herbivores before the Great Flood
Adam and Eve chilled with dinos that have been extinct for thousands of years. Dinosaurs became unfriendly because of Adam's sin, but Noah still chose a few to chill with his family on the Ark. Men hunted dinosaurs and caused their extinction around 3000 years ago. These ridiculous hypotheses and more are taught to millions and millions of children every Sunday because the religious are too arrogant to admit that they may just be just a tiny, wee bit wrong.
My nephews are absolutely fascinated with dinosaurs. They could tell you when each one lived, their differences in size, speed, and diet, and when and how each likely met their demise. These small lads are fully aware of how old the Earth is, how natural disasters occur, and just how closely homo sapiens sapiens is related to numerous other creatures. And because they go to American public schools, they may soon have some religious whackadoodle teacher tell them they're wrong, and then be told they're going to Hell because the concept of some vengeful old white bearded man living in the clouds is absurd in their little minds.
The Christianist movement is claiming that the intelligent are trying to make religion illegal, but there really is no chance of that occurring. Wingnuts are freer to intellectually abuse their children than any other time in modern history. Not only are people making a conscious effort to become stupider, they want to force your kids to become equally imbecilic. Public schools are supposed to support intellect, and biblical creationism stagnates productive thought. A work of grammatically-tragic fiction written by prehistoric schizophrenics who claimed that the Sun spoke to them is not a competing scientific theory. Bad literature should be debated in the presence of Buckley reprints, not Bunsen burners.
Most 15 year old kids are out doing things to piss off their parents, but Toronto-area kid Marshall Zhang went out and found a combination of drugs that could very well be a treatment for cystic fibrosis.
Cystic fibrosis is a chronic disease that causes your lungs to fill up with mucus, suffocating the afflicted. It affects 1 in 3000 people of European ancestry, causing their bodies to drown them to death. CF is one of the most feared genetic mutations for a very good reason.
The now 16 year old's effort in advancing the use of virtual docking to test drugs won him the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge. Students entered develop research projects with the help of a mentor, in this case being Sick Kids Hospital researcher Dr. Christine Bear.
His winning combination was found with the help of the Canadian SCINET supercomputer and virtual drug docking, where he inserted two new compounds into a defective protein to see if something good would happen. Secondary tests on live cells confirmed that his combination could actually repair these proteins.
Mr. Zhang's experimental treatment is certainly not a cure for CF, but it gives hope to those for whom other treatments have failed. Marshall Zhang will spend this summer hanging out with Dr. Bear at Sick Kids to see what other treatments they can discover.
*this would be the part where I cry or similarly emote*
I'm sure I give this guy more time than I should logically, but sometimes one just needs to think of the kind of person that could cause serious suffering in the English-speaking world.
I could write volumes about the appalling attributes of American Family Association Director Bryan Fischer; I could do a post a day and have material for years. I'd also bore the shit out of you and lose a few of you. Most of you have heard from me about his justification of the genocide of North American Indians and just how far GOP hopefulls will go to impress the socially acceptable hate machine.
There are several high-profile celebrity Christians now, and a few want to impress this bigoted base that has gone from once being microscopic to being a force. Our parents used to fight against this and some are even becoming it. And the virus spreads. On Friday, Bryan Fischer decided to revisit a favourite topic- Muslims. He has said before that Muslims should be deported, not allowed to enlist in the military if American, and more.
And this is what he said about 1 in 10 American and Canadian doctors and 1 in 8 of our engineers (Cornell Univ. Study). This is what he said about Ali al-Tabari and Malcolm X to be sure, but also your neighbour, coworker, or podiatrist. He claims to have facts and doesn't back them up with solid data and uses his imaginary statistics to spread filth to scared people.
In my opinion, this is hate speech. Bryan Fischer has the right to think and say (or say without thinking) whatever he pleases, so long as he doesn't advocate genocide (again). However, I have the right to say that I think he's wrong. Both intellectually and morally, this guy whose ass the GOP is trying to kiss is wrong.
Bonus coverage from Friday, where Bryan Fischer discusses "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" with 2 other homophobes. Some of the worst jihadists are men who wear crosses.
