The Bloggess

Because she's awesome:

Actual screenshot from an ad that a nearby sailing school sent me.


“Sailing, like invisibility, is a skill that can last a lifetime”.

Baffled. I’m just baffled.

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truth and perception

Exremely F**king Stupid.

Stunning ads

F1 - let the fight begin:




Otrivin: blocked nose?



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Technology bad.

Family life breaking down because of texts and emails warns Bishop of Stafford

Family life is breaking down because of the emails and text messaging and the church is at risk of becoming a "lifeless dangerous and useless distraction" a leading Bishop has warned.

Firstly: bollocks. Define "family life", for starters. My family, immediate and extended, grew up moving. We have always been at some physical distance from someone we loved. At one stage, I was in the UK, one of my brothers was in the Sudan, another was in the US, my sister was in Toowoomba, my parents were in Cairns and my 3rd brother was holding down the fort in Brisbane. Technology  made it possible to stay together and in touch.

Having said that, if the good Bishop meant that constant connection to the world diminishes family connectivity, then he may have a (limited) point. Being constantly online, to the point where your brain is NEVER engaged with the people you live with, is a barrier to communication, but is it any more or less difficult than dealing with a child who lives on the phone, a husband who watches footy at the pub with mates every night, a son who hangs out with mates until the lure of food and/or money draws him home? Technology is only the latest potential barrier to family interaction, not the epitome of it.

Secondly: the church may be at that risk, but it's got nothing to do with technology. Luddites should not be allowed to make public policy declarations, or the church absolutely WILL be seen as an institution out of touch with the world!

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Revolution: Torture is Wrong

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Mental health FAIL

When attending a mental health clinic for treatment, is a smokestack really the first thing you want to see? Very Dickensian, darling.

Jeff

I am a LADY!!

... God bless Little Britain. This person was on my bus home.

this makes me furious

Note: her 5 ADOPTED daughters. What the FUCK. In my head, you adopt because you want kids so badly, because you choose to take on that responsibility. This is not a poor woman making bad lifestyle choices and ending up with 5 kids she doesn't know how to look after — this is a PASTOR, 65 years old, who has 5 adopted children under the age of 12. No one checked on living conditions etc?

I'm going to go and shout incoherently at the washing machine now.   

Female pastor jailed for abusing 5 girls

Prosecutors say woman forced kids to live in a hidden room with no heating

The Associated Press

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. - A California pastor has been sentenced to life in prison for beating and drugging her five adopted daughters and locking them in a garage.

Jessica Banks, 65, received consecutive life terms Friday after being convicted in July of sexually abusing two of her daughters and forcing all the sisters to go without food for days.

Banks was arrested in 2005 after one emaciated girl was found lying outside a Moreno Valley business.

Prosecutors say the sisters, who were ages 4 to 11 at the time, lived in a hidden room in Banks' garage with no air conditioning or heating.

They attended school at the Word of Life Apostolic Church, where Banks was pastor.

wrong wrong wrong

The 'Hot Doll' sex toy for dogs

It is billed as the "must have" accessory for lonely dogs, the first ever canine sex toy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6207922/The-Hot-Doll-sex-toy-for-dogs.html

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weird news

The Weird Week in Review - from MentalFloss.com

Snake with a Foot Found

A 16-inch snake was killed at a home in China and then found to have a foot growing out of its body! 66-year-old Dean Qiongxiu said she awoke to find the reptile clinging to a wall in her bedroom. She killed the snake with a shoe and when she saw the clawed foot, she put the body in alcohol to preserve it. It was taken to the Life Sciences Department at China's West Normal University in Nanchang for study.

107-Year-Old Woman is Looking for 23rd Husband

107-year-old Wok Kundor has been married to her 22nd husband for years, but is now afraid he might leave her. 37-year-old Mohammed Boor Che Musa is currently in a drug rehabilitation program in Kuala Lumpur. Kundor is afraid he may be able to ind a younger wife and not come back to their small village in the Terengganu state of Malaysia.
If so, Wok has her eyes set on a 50-year-old man, but hopes it does not come to that.
"I realize that I am an aged woman. I don't have the body nor am I a young woman who can attract anyone," she told the newspaper.
Her current husband, however, told a newspaper that he still loves her.

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uber-pimped cars

Some things just should not be. I give you this:







More at Oddee.com

Fwd: Notification

Spam guys, you need a new idea. There's no effort here at ALL.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Online Co-Ordinator <jimmywahl@bellsouth.net>
Date: Thursday, September 17, 2009
Subject: Notification
To:

You are the winner of £891,934.00's: Send your information to
Mr.Fred Martins. at (c_group@9.cn). Name:___ Address:___
Age:___Sex:___Tell:__ Occupation:___Country__
All winning must be claimed not later than 14 working days from this
notification.

Mad Man: Is Glenn Beck Bad for America? - TIME - Flash Player Installation

I particularly liked this:

Stephen King [...] once called Beck "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother" 

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1924348-4,00.html

Vacancy for a Proofreader?

A letter to a publisher.

Dear HarperCollins

I'm reading a book published by you in 2008, and it seems clear that you are short-staffed when it comes to basic proofreading.

The book is "A Fistful of Charms", by Kim Harrison. Two examples: in virtually every instance requiring the word "where", the text has it as "were", as in "you should have told us were you were"; and if that's not sufficiently wince-inducing, I've just read about a pixy holding a cup of coffee, "trying to eek out some warmth". I've not found eeking to be of much use to anyone in terms of extending something as far as possible, so I assume you meant "eke".

Isn't someone paid to find these things? If so, a performance review is in order. If not, someone really should be. I am open to offers.

Regards


Freelance Proofreader & Appalled Reader

Khalil Gibran

I was reminded recently of this poem:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Notes From a Hospital Bed

This blog (Notes From a Hospital Bed) is extraordinarily funny. 

WEDNESDAY, 16 SEPTEMBER 2009

Can you guess what it is yet?

What is this? I didn't eat it by the way.

protest FAIL

This guy is protesting outside our building. What about? No one knows,
cause his sign is written in liiittle tiny writing. And he's wearing a
bag on his head.

former President Carter weighs in

In this article:

http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/click.phdo?i=515ba0d75a277957dc69c2ad0ebc76f8

Carter: Wilson remarks 'based on racism'

He says says the outburst was part of a disturbing trend in national debate

John Bazemore / AP

Former President Jimmy Carter is flanked by his wife Rosalynn as he speaks during "Conversations at the Carter Center" on Tuesday in Atlanta.

NBC News and news services

Video: Carter derides 'racist' tone of debates

ATLANTA - Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

The Georgia Democrat said the outburst was a part of a disturbing trend directed at the president that has included demonstrators equating Obama to Nazi leaders.

"Those kind of things are not just casual outcomes of a sincere debate on whether we should have a national program on health care," he said. "It's deeper than that."

[...]

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American," Carter said.

"Racism ... still exists and I think it has bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the south but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply," Carter told NBC News.

[...]

"I think Joe's conduct was asinine, but I think it would be asinine no matter what the color of the president," said Dick Harpootlian [South Carolina's former Democratic Party chairman], who has known Wilson for decades. "I don't think Joe's outburst was caused by President Obama being African-American. I think it was caused by no filter being between his brain and his mouth."

[...]

[Carter said, ]"The president is not only the head of government, he is the head of state," he said. "And no matter who he is or how much we disagree with his policies, the president should be treated with respect."