Many soldiers, same letter - Newspapers around U.S. get identical missives from Iraq - How low can they sink?

The Asian Squat

Bus turns over on I-94 - Hyles-Anderson College students were heading to Chicago for ministry work - "passengers were standing in the aisle, singing and rocking back and forth," causing the driver to lose control of the bus.

Librarian Action Figure - With push button shushing!

Make your own Artificial Vagina - Courtesy of Melvin

How to Tell When a Relationship is Over

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass - "Abstract: The exponential dependence of resistivity on temperature in germanium is found to be a great big lie. My careful theoretical modeling and painstaking experimentation reveal 1) that my equipment is crap, as are all the available texts on the subject and 2) that this whole exercise was a complete waste of my time."

Who was the worst Catholic saint?:

* Be nonexistent. In Christianity's early days sainthood was a matter of popular acclaim. When the church formalized canonization in the 13th century, the traditional saints were grandfathered in, but later historical review found no reliable information about many of them and some appeared never to have existed at all. One egregious example is Saint Josaphat, who supposedly was the son of an East Indian king who persecuted his Christian subjects. When it was foretold that his son would become a Christian, the king had him brought up in confinement, but the son converted anyway. Scholars eventually realized this was actually the legend of the Buddha tricked out in Christian disguise.

Then there's Saint Ursula, said to have been martyred along with 11,000 virgin companions in 451 at Cologne. Although it's possible some women were martyred in that city at some point, the notion of there ever having been 11,000 virgins in one place at one time ultimately proved too much for even true believers to swallow, and veneration of Ursula was suppressed.

When Pope Paul VI revised the canon of saints in 1969, some traditional saints were downgraded because of doubts about their stories, if not necessarily their existence. Saint Christopher, for example, is thought to have been martyred under the Roman emperor Decius in the third century, but nothing else is known about him. The well-known story about his having carried the Christ child across a river--the kid supposedly became staggeringly heavy because he bore the weight of the world--is now recognized as pious fiction.

Not all fabrications about saints can be attributed to medieval simpletons. Take the case of Saint Philomena. In 1802 the bones of a girl between 13 and 15 years old, plus a vial of what was believed to be dried blood, were found in a catacomb in Rome. An inscription said, "Peace be with thee, Philomena" and included depictions of anchors, arrows, and a palm. Impressionable souls leaped to the conclusion that these were the tokens of a virgin martyr. A cult sprang up and hundreds of miracles were attributed to Philomena's intercession. Other devout persons of the era, several of whom went on to become canonized themselves, implored Pope Gregory XVI to start the canonization process, and devotions to Philomena were authorized in 1837. Reason eventually reasserted itself and Philomena was removed from the calendar of saints in 1961.

* Be crazy. Where to start? Paging through Butler's Lives we find the story of Saint Christina the Astonishing, who was unable to bear the smell of human beings. "She lived by begging, dressed in rags, and in many ways behaved in a very terrifying manner," we are told. "There is little in the recorded history of Christina . . . to make us think she was other than a pathological case."

What Really Happened (Pre-911 Page) - Collection of shrill and improbable conspiracy theories. Why people give such great credence is beyond me.


The Freenet Project - philosophy - beginner (Extract)

Why is the freedom to share ideas and opinions so important? There are several ways to answer this question:

1. Communication is what makes us human
2. Knowledge is good
3. Democracy assumes a well informed population

Censorship and freedom

Consider now that someone had the ability to control the information you have access to. This would give them the ability to manipulate your opinions by hiding some facts from you, by presenting you with lies and censoring anything that contradicted those lies. This is not some Orwellian fiction, it is standard practice for most western governments to lie to their populations.

The solution

The only way to ensure that a democracy will remain effective is to ensure that the government cannot control its population's ability to share information, to communicate. So long as everything we see and hear is filtered, we are not truly free. Freenet's aim is to allow two or more people who wish to share information, to do so.

Isn't censorship sometimes necessary?

There are many who feel that censorship is a good thing in some circumstances. For example, in some European countries propagating information deemed to be racist is illegal. Governments seek to prevent people from advocating ideas which are deemed damaging to society. There are two answers to this however. The first is that you can't allow those in power to impose "good" censorship, without also enabling them to impose "bad" censorship. To impose any form of censorship a government must have the ability to monitor and thus restrict communication. There are already criticisms that the anti-racism censorship in many European countries is hampering legitimate historical analysis of events such as the second world war.

The second argument is that this "good" censorship is counter-productive even when it does not leak into other areas. For example, it is generally more effective when trying to persuade someone of something to present them with the arguments against it, and then answer those arguments. Unfortunately, preventing people from being aware of the often sophisticated arguments used by racists, makes them vulnerable to those arguments when they do eventually encounter them.

Of course the first argument is the stronger one, and would still hold-true even if you didn't accept the second. Basically, you either have censorship, or you don't. There is no middle-ground.

What about child porn, offensive content or terrorism?

While most people wish that child pornography and terrorism did not exist, humanity should not be deprived of their freedom to communicate just because of how a very small number of people might use that freedom.


The ultimate Indian!

An Indian and an American are seated next to each other on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. The American asked if he would like to play a Fun game.The Indian, tired, just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.

The American persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun.

He says, "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me five dollars, and vice versa."

Again, he declines and tries to get some sleep. The American, now agitated,says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500."

This catches the Indian's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment, agrees to the game.

The American asks the first question: "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?"

The Indian doesn't say a word, reaches into his wallet, pulls out a $5.00 bill, and hands it to the American. "Okay," says the American, "your turn".

He asks, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?"

The American, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer & searches all his references........no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the Internet and the Library of Congress... no answer.

Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworkers but to no avail. After an hour, he wakes the Indian and hands him $500. The Indian thanks him and turns back to get some more sleep.

The American, who is more than a little miffed, stirs the Indian and asks, "Well, what's the answer?"

Without a word, the Indian reaches into his purse, hands the American $5, and goes back to sleep.