Efforts are now underway to make pleasant available as an ‘RSS feed.’ Which means it will be easier to add to (and take from) pleasant. It’s a computery thing, don’t worry about it, I’ll let you know when it gets ironed out.
Archive > October 2003
Follow-up to the story of the young man expelled from school in Florida because he said he was gay… As ugly as that story is, some might excuse the school for their acts because it is a religious school. It’s okay to discriminate, old skool style, if you say God made you do it. But please allow me to call to your attention that this school recieved vouchers . What are vouchers? A voucher is when the government gives tax money directly to a family for their child to go to school, instead of giving it to schools. Many states allow vouchers to be given to families who send their children to religious schools. As part of President Bush’s ‘No Child Left Behind’ program, taxes can now go to ‘faith based‘ organizations. The result is the tax money you and I pay into our secular, wall-between-church-and-state government is being used to fund religious schools. I work, I pay taxes, government collects my taxes, government gives my taxes to religious schools, religious schools… well, what do they do? I guess now we know.
Because the true ‘level playing field’ of the Internet is the fact that no matter who you are or what you do, someone will hate you for it… http://www.google-watch.org/.
Welcome to the Dumb Criminals Acts library! Our goal is to build the largest database of stupid criminal acts on the Internet. While we realize that criminals aren’t usually the brightest people, some just stand out, err… sink below, the rest. We are dedicated to publicizing their completely humiliating stories.
“Earth to General Boykin and his conservative allies: You are defending a country founded in the Enlightenment, the era when reason was finally recognized as the arbiter of truth. You are relying on America’s vast wealth, created by people who used their minds, not their prayers, to work and produce. You are employing sophisticated military technology created by scientists whose highest commitment is to facts, observation, logic, and proof. You would not count on incantations or sacred texts to find bin Laden’s cave. How can you rely on such means to justify your cause?” – David Kelley
Some students at Southern Methodist University had an ‘Affirmative Action Cookie Sale’ not too long ago. The price of a cookie for a white male was 1 dollar; for a female, 75 cents; for a Hispanic, 50 cents; and for a black, 25 cents. [1] [2] Complaints were filed and the cookie sale was closed down.
We hope you become the 35th Baron or Baroness of Lee. The historic 700-year-old Scottish ‘Lee Castle,’ and the titles of Baron or Baroness, recognized by The British Crown by way of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Her representative in Scotland, The Lord Lyon King of Arms, is now on the world market and it is all exclusively online. But keep in mind you have some competition.
“The Selective Service System wants to hear from men and women in the community who might be willing to serve as members of a local draft board.” http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/sss092203.html
While some Christians are having a hard time accepting homosexuality within their ranks, others are more accepting. Lest anyone think I’m entirely anti-Christian, here’s an example of a loving Christian that should just warm your heart. The Reverend Hewart Lee Bennett frequents gay chat rooms online. He specializes in finding young boys, who he solicits for anal sex and the opportunity to teach them new sexual positions. Recently he arranged a meeting with a 15-year-old boy, after telling the boy he too was underage. He asked the boy where his home was and insisted the boy get in his car. The boy, clearly an anti-Christian homophobe, ran away and later gave testimony to the police. Now Reverend Bennett is in jail, charged with ‘using a computer service to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a child to commit any illegal sexual or lewd act.’ But! What Reverend Bennett’s oppressors are missing from the story is that he did it all for the boy’s own good! He solicited underage boys for sex so that he could teach them about Jesus. He’s a minister, he wouldn’t lie about that kind of thing!
All this happened recently in Florida. In other Florida news, 18-year-old Jeffrey Woodard was pulled out of class and asked by his teacher if he was gay. When he answered yes, a school official called his mother and told her Woodard could not attend an upcoming school retreat unless the two of them met with the school to talk about Woodard’s sexual orientation. At the meeting, the school told them Woodard could get counseling for his “problem,” voluntarily withdraw from the school or be expelled. “I didn’t think Jeffrey needed therapy,” his mother said. “So when I explained he doesn’t need help for anything, he knows who he is, they … expelled him.”
Then again, I guess I am entirely anti-Christian. Or maybe just anti-Floridian. Remember how Florida had some problems last election with ballots not being counted? They have found an answer to that problem: they sent extra ballots to some citizens (including the Mayor).
Are you 72% of your adult size? Then you may be in for some changes.
The scientific method includes formulation of a hypothesis, creation of a testing method and a method of evaluating the test (including defining what constitutes both success and failure in the experiment), carrying out the test, carrying out the evaluation, and submission of the entire process for peer review. Example.
Oregon is number one in voting none of the above to religion.
Greetings to everyone referred from the front page of the Skeptics Annotated Bible. Tell a friend, won’t you?
Mother Teresa did good things as an individual, and good things have been done in her name. In the balance of life, I’d say she’s a good person. She stood up for providing care for people with AIDS at a time when the majority of her religion either ignored the problem or thought it was the action of a benevolent deity. But sometimes bad things happen in the name of good people.
Bengali tribeswoman Monica Besra was diagnosed with and treated for tubercular adenitis by medical professionals. Later she developed a tubercular cyst in her abdomen; this is a sympton of the disease that can be mistaken for a tumour. Her medical care lasted for nine months, and included taking medicine that had measured positive effects on her health. But eventually her family could no longer afford medical care and she was transferred to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
My source is unclear as to what kind of medical care she got from the Missionaries of Charity. But my source does state that the people who worked there tied a magic rock (“a medallion”) to her stomach and – poof! – the “tumor” vanished the next day. A miracle! Never mind the nine months of treatment that had occured before then… the magic rock made the imaginary cancer go away.
Her hustband was skeptical about the magic rock. But “after the family converted to Roman Catholicism, their children were given school places, and their fortunes rose after months of crippling medical bills, he, too, became a supporter of the miracle theory.” Is this sentence making the claim that Roman Catholics advanced their children in school and gave them money to be heard to claim to believe in magic rocks? It certainly could be read to make that claim.
Others who were skeptical about the magic rock were the doctors who treated Monica Besra. “There is no question of a miracle as far as this case is concerned. It was purely by virtue of modern science” [...] “She was on the drugs for nine months and it was those that led to the shrinking and final disappearance of the cyst.” Fortunately for the magic rock salemen, the doctors were not consulted in the matter.
Well, that’s not entirely true. As part of the process of making Mother Teresa’s ghost a super-duper-ghost (a “saint”), “The priest from the church that ran the hospital came to me months after and asked me for a cerficate to say I has been treating her for tuberculosis. Only later did I realise they were pitching the cure as a miracle by Mother Teresa.” Religion loves science when it seems to prove the claims of religion, but not so much when it makes claims of its own (say, that condoms can prevent the spread of HIV).
But what’s the harm? Depends on whether one wants to reward honesty or dishonesty, and whether healthy skeptical people are better than gullible dead people, and whether it is better to use ones’ limited rescources to support medical hospitals that cure people or to support magic rock salesmen. One of the doctors said “It is very dangerous for the Vatican to beatify Mother Teresa. In India, hundreds of thousands of people get tuberculosis. If the miracle was reality, all of them would be cured by tying Mother Teresa medallions around their affected body parts.”
My source states: “Ms Besra’s healing may be the only ‘miracle’ needed to get Mother Teresa beatified but at least one more is needed for her to attain sainthood, something that the Pope would fervently like to see before he dies. The prospect of nuns tying hundreds more medallions to their patients’ bodies to effect another miracle remains real.”
And that just seems cruel. The Vatican is not about to go broke any time soon. It has money and power to spare. But it is more in favor of selling magic rocks that will definitely not help people than it is in funding medicine that definitely will help people. What a waste. What a shame to piss away all those resources, and in the name of someone who actually did do some good in the world.
Dr Mustaphi said: “They can say what they like; I know what the truth is. It was no miracle.”
It is good to have people to admire throughout one’s life. But it is easier to do so in youth. In my youth, several people tried to become ‘real live superheroes.’ One was the Human Fly. One was J. J. Arms. There should be much more about these two men online but I’m not finding it. But the one who, for me, came the closest to being that real-life superhero is not forgotten. And October 17th is his birthday. So happy birthday, Evel Knievel, from someone who jumped over stuff (and didn’t jump over stuff) just like his hero. I’m still jumping over stuff (and not jumping over stuff).
‘Mommy, is it true that there is a kind of submarine-attacking 21-foot-long shark that is blind with glowing eyes that can eat a whole reindeeer?’ ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’
The word photography comes from the Greek “photos”, meaning light, and “graphos” meaning drawing, but the ancient Greeks didn’t invent photography. The word camera comes from the Latin “camera”, meaning room, and “obscura”, meaning dark. It’s not surprising the Ancient Greeks didn’t invent photography, after all, they never liked to get their hands dirty, but the Romans, who would have been at home in the “Dark Room”, could have invented photography, but never did. Why?
When Pat Robinson stated his support on television for the use of nuclar devices against the United States Government – not once but twice – was he in violation of the Patriot Act?
