"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you." - Rita Mae Brown

***

16 year guy: while we can have very meaningful discussions.. i am unable to bring up between us metaphysical topics of feelings, emotions and other 5h1tz.

Me: unfortunate. but why would that be the case?

Him: i thought that part would be obvious.

Me: err. age gap?
you're a typical guy?

Him: you are 20something man. i am 16 year old boy.

Me: gah

Him: you no longer posess the same kind of emotions i have.

Me: I am a 20something man. Hath not a 20something man eyes? Hath not a 20something man hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a 16 year old boy is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

damn this sounds like bad slash

Him: ........
nahbehcheebye mov.

***

Japan's humanoid robots | Better than people - "HER name is MARIE, and her impressive set of skills comes in handy in a nursing home. MARIE can walk around under her own power. She can distinguish among similar-looking objects, such as different bottles of medicine, and has a delicate enough touch to work with frail patients. MARIE can interpret a range of facial expressions and gestures, and respond in ways that suggest compassion. Although her language skills are not ideal, she can recognise speech and respond clearly. Above all, she is inexpensive . Unfortunately for MARIE, however, she has one glaring trait that makes it hard for Japanese patients to accept her: she is a flesh-and-blood human being from the Philippines."
!@#$%^&*()

Landover-Baptizon.com: buying info: Donkeys Can Talk (Creation Science For Teens) - "This book is a wonderful introduction to "Creation Science." Children will learn that people once lived to be 900 years old, that donkeys and snakes can talk, that the earth has four corners, that bats are really birds, that man is made of mud, that the first woman was made from a rib bone, that the world was made in 6 days, that God drowned everyone on earth one time because fallen angels were having sex with humans and creating dinosaurs, and much, much more!"

Stud muffins of science? New calendar a `good cause' for brawny professors (12/4/95) - "Put away your stethoscope, George Clooney, and put on your shirt, Fabio, because the "Studmuffins of Science" are ready to set hearts aflutter in 1996. New York-based science journalist Karen Hopkin talked 12 male scientists out of their lab coats and onto the pages of the first edition of her beefcake-meets-beakers calendar. They are shown skiing, swimming, lifting weights and -- in the case of Brown University research scientist Dr. Robert Valentini -- just hanging out. The 33-year-old Dr. Valentini, who studies techniques for healing damaged tissue, is "Dr.September." Other studmuffins-of-the-month hail from Stanford,Columbia, Cornell, the University of Minnesota and Colorado State University. Dr. Valentini claims the calendar serves a higher purpose than ogling."

Don't give to tsunami victims - the message of the American right's Philosopher-Queen. The ironic centenary of Ayn Rand - "Rand’s rabid anarcho-capitalism has clearly tapped into something primal in American political culture (particularly that of conservatives): it is revealing that she is almost invariably described as an “idealist”, rather than a maniac. She appeals to the ugliest side of Americanism (contrasting with its many, many strengths): a fear and hatred of the state, even in its most democratic form, and of wider collective action. Rand has only one conception of liberty –freedom from government. As one of her heroes, Howard Roark, says, “The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is – hands off!” Like most of the American right, she has no conception of positive liberty. When asked how free a man in Harlem with no healthcare insurance and a kid with cancer is, she has no answer. She cannot see when hands have been kept too far off."