"Drive-in banks were established so most of the cars today could see their real owners." - E. Joseph Cossman

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Taking Back the Initiative from the Human Rights Spoilers - "Today, those conducting the most energetic diplomacy on human rights are likely to reside in such places as Algiers, Cairo, or Islamabad, with backing from Beijing and Moscow. The problem is that they are pushing in the wrong direction. These human rights opponents defend the prerogative of governments to do what they want to their people. They hide behind the principles of sovereignty, non-interference, and Southern solidarity, but their real aim is to curb criticism of their own human rights abuses or those of their allies and friends... These governments tend to say that they support human rights in principle, but oppose only the way that rights are allegedly twisted, used, or perverted by more powerful nations. They mimic the language of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, or solidarity with the downtrodden... [On 'hypocrisy'] few people facing slaughter, rape, or arbitrary detention would forsake rescue simply because someone else's suffering is being ignored"

Twitter / bibleanswers - They are following me on Twitter HAHAHAHAHAHA

Bruckner's 9th - less is more - "I am so glad that Bruckner did not ruin his 9th symphony by adding a last movement, a finale, to it... The problem, simply put, is this: How do you finish a long piece of abstract music, with no story to it, and no words, and make the ending really feel like the end of the whole thing, as opposed to just the end of the last part? Before Beethoven, this didn't really arise, since a symphony was essentially a set of pieces, like a set at a jazz club, where you would make sure the ending made a good ending, period. What you did half an hour before was beside the point. But Beethoven tried something more ambitious: pieces of music that might last up to an hour, and that felt like a giant single thing. How could you make that work, when you didn’t have a story as you would in a Shakespeare play?"
I think this person is just seeing what he wants to see

YouTube - Young Girl Talking About Herself - "I was like, she was all
He was all, they were like
We were all like
OMG like totally"
Great mockery of video-whoring

Men become richer after divorce - "Divorce makes men - and particularly fathers - significantly richer. When a father separates from the mother of his children, according to new research, his available income increases by around one third. Women, in contrast, suffer severe financial penalties. Regardless of whether she has children, the average woman's income falls by more than a fifth and remains low for many years."
This is extremely misleading since it looks at per capita incomes. The correct way to look at it is that marriage depresses male incomes and boosts female incomes, so divorce merely corrects this.

Quit-smoking challenge for Malays ends with 15% success rate - "One reason given for quitting was high costs of cigarettes and the economic downturn. Random tests were conducted to verify their smoke-free status."

City tram turned into padded cell - "A Sheffield tram has been turned into a padded cell as part of an £18m campaign against mental health discrimination... Posters give the message that mental health problems are common and many sufferers get on with life and travel to work like everybody else."
I wish I could say the same of most sufferers.

Facebook | Videos Posted by Landon Loomis: Chinese New Years - It's like being in a warzone.
"This, my friends, is why after two very enthusiastic years I am now a Chinese New Year grinch. This may look spectacular, and it is, but after an ENTIRE WEEK of this, including waking up to stray explosions in the morning & getting the shit scared out of you by random blasts as you're walking around during the day, it gets really old really fast."

Resurrecting an Old Heresy - "The problem with the “Prosperity Gospel” is that it is based on two (at least) misunderstandings. The first is a problem defining success... We immediately think of wealth when we define financial success... However, a simple review of Scripture will help us redefine our concept of success... A second flaw in the doctrine of the “Prosperity Gospel” is ignoring the close kinship between desiring money and loving money... It seems incomprehensible to me that God’s desire for me is that I desire those things that will plunge me into ruin and destruction and cause me to wander away from the faith."

Attenborough reveals creationist hate mail for not crediting God - "Sir David Attenborough has revealed that he receives hate mail from viewers for failing to credit God in his documentaries... "They tell me to burn in hell and good riddance."... "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs. I find that hard to reconcile with the notion of a divine and benevolent creator.""

Bacon Explosion: The BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes - "The other day the guys from BaconToday.com contacted me in search for some barbecue bacon recipes. Of course I have plenty of great uses for bacon in a barbecue pit, but the longer I thought about it, the more I wanted to step it up a notch and clog a few arteries for those guys. Behold, BACON EXPLOSION!!!"

Man's brain infected by eating slugs - "A Sydney-based man who ate two garden slugs as a dare during a party narrowly escaped death from a rare form of meningitis, an often fatal swelling around the brain."

Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy - "The knock on science from its cultural and religious critics is that it is arrogant and materialistic... Science teaches facts, not values, the story goes... But this is balderdash. Science... does indeed teach values. Those values, among others, are honesty, doubt, respect for evidence, openness, accountability and tolerance and indeed hunger for opposing points of view... It is no coincidence that these are the same qualities that make for democracy... If there is anything democracy requires and thrives on, it is the willingness to embrace debate and respect one another and the freedom to shun received wisdom. Science and democracy have always been twins... There is no democracy in China, and some would argue that despite that nation's vast resources and potential, there will not be vigorous science there either"

What piracy crisis? MPAA touts record box office for 2007 - "The MPAA claims that piracy is causing dire harm to the movie business, but the combination of a record $9.63 box office take in 2007 and overheated piracy rhetoric lead us to wonder how bad off the motion picture industry really is."

Singapore Poly's upgrading courses gaining popularity - "I chose Singapore because Feng Shui is an Asian study, so I wanted to study in Singapore where I heard all the masters are. I graduated around 2008 and I have been incorporating Feng Shui into my architecture career ever since."
Poor, misguided girl.