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She was brought in from the county jail by correctional officers. They were concerned about her altered mental status, and suspicious of drug use. They had a reason to think she was concealing drugs “on her person.”
Movin’ Meat: Delicate Situation.
People are insane.
Yarrr! It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Avast, ye bilge rats! Scrub the poop deck and polish the bung hole! Drink a Salty Dog to the memory of the finest thievin’ pirates in Davy Jones’ locker! Walk the plank! Smartly, me lass and admire me hornpipe! Arrrrr!
Pirates be special people and our forefathers, so say the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Arrr. Aye, me parrot concurs.
Methinks somebody at the BBC News website is having a laugh… the choice of photos is priceless.
Be afraid… be very afraid.
If you can’t see the video above, see the film website.
According to an interviewee in this trailer, there are two kinds of people in the world… people who love Jesus, and people who don’t. The co-ordinators of the ‘Kids on Fire’ evangelical summer camp, who insist that “we have the truth”, want to see Christian children as radicalised as the Muslim children they imagine with grenades strapped to their bodies - assuming that all children are, or should be, radicalised in the first place. There is no third way mentioned – presumably the atheists and Humanists of this world fit in to the category of people who don’t love Jesus, and therefore are considered enemies, their children lost. The children in this film are described as born again, one boy saying he was ‘saved’ at the age of five. Apparently it’s never too early to start saving souls.
You can anticipate the reaction to a film like this before it has even hit the cinemas – most reactions being formed without people even having seen the film (and, no, I haven’t). Radical Christians may believe that their words have been misinterpreted, taken out of context or distorted, to suit the ends of the film makers (though the film has mostly been described as a balanced portrayal). Less ‘extreme’ Christians may claim that these loonies have nothing to do with them, and that the themes of the film don’t apply to their own faith. Atheists and Humanists may describe this film as a worrying spectacle of young children being manipulated and indoctrinated by neo-conservative zealots who are no less of a worry than radical Imams.
This all serves as a reminder that religion just isn’t as simple as wearing a badge, any more than declaring yourself an atheist, Humanist or anything else provides a precise breakdown of your own personal credo. We really are all atheists – when it comes to other religions, or other interpretations of religion, faith, personal spirituality, whatever you want to call it. Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise have both fallen from favour with the movie-going public for being too assertive with their respective beliefs, the common reaction being along the lines of ‘entertain me, just don’t talk about your religion, it makes me uncomfortable’.
In many workplaces, even in social circles, conversations about religion are taboo – no-one can open their mouth without offending someone, and Muslims, Hindus, Christians and everyone else demand that their religion be treated respectfully, lest their human rights be violated. I don’t think that my atheism earns me any special treatment, and I don’t expect to have to extend any to anyone else, regardless of their religion. Being asked to lay off criticising religious people has always felt to me like being asked not to mock the afflicted. If you have a faith, you should be prepared to defend it.
Jesus Camp appears to demonstrate that the US has no less of a crisis of identity on its hands than Islam – well-organised radicalism against liberalism. Rational people don’t have the luxury of being able to say that we’re all stuck in the middle while this schizophrenic wrangling plays itself out around us.
The oldest surviving condom in the world has gone on display in an Austrian museum.
The reusable condom dates back to 1640 and is completely intact, as is its original users’ manual, written in Latin.
The manual suggests that users immerse the condom in warm milk prior to its use to avoid diseases.
The antique, found in Lund in Sweden, is made of pig intestine and is one of 250 ancient objects related to sex on display at the Tirolean County Museum in Austria this summer.
Ananova – World’s oldest condom
…and now for the trivia. The condom was found in the Swedish town of Lund, and the word Lund means ‘penis’ in Hindi!
I’ll get my coat.
Microsoft technology that protects digital files from copyright infringement has been breached, according to reports.
A program called Fairuse4wm has been posted on the net and is apparently capable of breaching Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) system.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Music download security ‘cracked’
A program pops up which allows people to remove Digital Rights Management from the music on their computers. Just watch as Microsoft’s developers and lawyers swing in to action, to close down the ‘offending’ site that offers the software, and update DRM to close whatever loophole the software opened in the first place. The boy who plugged a hole in a dyke with his thumb comes to mind.
The irony is that this software is aimed at the people who have already paid for the music they are listening to, and wish to continue to do so after they stop paying a monthly fee to MSN Music, Napster and the like. The software makes absolutely no difference to the people who already share files illegally, or download from sites such as allofmp3.com – they are sharing unrestricted MP3 format files, and pay little or nothing for them in the first place.
The record industry and software providers (well, Microsoft and Apple) are going to continue to fight against people’s desire to own the music they have paid for, to preserve revenues – all under the guise of a battle to protect artist’s rights, when the artists themselves are held hostage to high prices by the record companies they work for. It’s all arse about face.
Development of some of the core features of the Internet that we now take for granted has arguably always been led by people on the wrong side of the law – Napster started as an illegal file-sharing program, Bittorrent technology is set for ever wider use in legal applications though currently it is mainly used to share pirated content, and the development of e-commerce, marketing and video compression on the Internet has been led in no small part by pornographers. The MSN Musics and iTunes of this world aren’t the innovators – they’re doing their best just to keep up in the only truly laissez-faire free market left in the world, where millions in revenue can be threatened by a Russian teenager in his bedroom, and if people don’t want to pay for music they can’t easily share, burn to CD or put on their portable player, they don’t have to.
When asked “how can I help you Sir/Madame?”, you reply “I am here for Lucy’s Birthday Party at the Rivoli Bar”
Lucy Gao really can’t have imagined that this would happen. I almost can’t believe it’s true. Almost, were it not for people’s capacity to be such complete and total wankers.
Was she a control freak to have given her ‘friends’ such explicit instructions for attending her birthday party? Maybe. Maybe she just wanted a good night, on her 21st birthday, which is a fairly big deal for anyone, and wanted everything to be just so. She’s almost certainly as naive as hell. She was paying for the champagne and the cake – but obviously the opportunity to humiliate her was more appealing for some employees of Citibank than the opportunity to take advantage of free booze at the Ritz.
Maybe she deserves a talking to for suggesting that “it goes without saying that the more upper-class you dress, the less likely you shall be denied entry”, but the lesson to be learnt here is never, ever, ever, ever send anyone an e-mail you wouldn’t be prepared for the whole world to read. Especially if you work at Citibank.
Quite Random is the blog of Nathan Nelson, a human male who lives in the UK and is not entirely sure what he's going to do when he grows up but is interested in international development, photography, secularism, technology, music and movies and other things anyone of his age would be.
