If Your Not Offended… Then I’m Not Trying Hard Enough…

Bad Friends, Bad People, & Bad Memories...

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:40:57 GMT

As a person with intrusive thoughts I had a chain start about a now x-friend.

I was thinking about our “Falling apart” and I started to realize exactly how shallow and manipulative she was and how bad in the long run my association with her was.

At first we had a LOT in common… We met at an Alt Discussion Group I belong to and we really hit it off… She invited me to some parties that I, a noob, would otherwise not have been invited to… She had some clothes she didn’t want or that didn’t fit her and I got them either for free or for a few bucks here or there… We went out to dinner, did some educational Demo’s for the Alt Groups we both belonged to, and just hung out.

I’ll admit that at first I did have a LOT of fun hanging with her…

But then the odd stuff started…

The constant questions about “Did everyone pay attention to ME tonight and not *So and So*?” and “OHHH! They will be so jealous and angry that everyone paid attention to ME even though I wasn’t doing ANYTHING to BE the center of attention!”

The half an hour on the phone with her where I was not really supposed to talk and when I DID try to add something to the conversation would get yelled at and told to “Stop Talking Over Her”.

The odd anger when she would ask me questions about things that she knew I knew a LOT about yet would get mad when I would actually ANSWER the posed question.

She would tell me about how her foot hurts because her callous cracked and I tell her that I solved the problem and don’t have it anymore because of a product I purchased in Walgreen's and she acted as if I had ruined her fun!

And one of the worst moments of all was after one of the discussion groups when I asked the speaker about a “Sex Aid” device that I saw online and after the group got out Bella turned to me and, in an angry tone, something about how she can’t believe how I could have brought that up because her first girlfriend raped her with one of those… I had NO IDEA that she had been assaulted let alone that she was assaulted by a Feeldoe!! We were at a discussion group about sexuality… I just asked a question that had nothing to do with her.

After that the strange ranting about how George W. Bush has RUINED HER LIFE (as if he has done everything he has done specifically to ruin her day) and how I can’t understand racism and being offended because I’m VERY, VERY, VERY white while she, though also white, has been “the darkest face in the room” and how she is often mistaken as Latino or “half-black” so SHE understands things that I can’t comprehend.

The odd speeches about how I am “Racist” because I went off the last time that the homeless black drug addicts that camp in an underpass by our equipment broke in to our stuff and, when they didn’t find anything of value to steel because we learned from the last 4 times they broke into our stuff they destroyed as much as they could out of frustration. About how I am sick of finding used hypodermic needles next to the cars in the parking lot in the morning. About how I am sick of my porch stinking like urine in the morning. About how I am sick of having to bring a flashlight with when I come home when it is dark so I don’t step in the human excrement that they leave next to/behind cars and in front of the staircase to go up the back way…

About how I am “homophobic” and anti-gay even though I am 85% lesbian and 15% bi because I think that hate crime legislation is a load of crap and how I find no offence in using the word “Gay” as a cultural euphemism for “Stupid” or “Bad” and how I don’t get offended by the words such as “Queer” and “Faggot” because I believe that if WE are allowed to use them as a term of endearment we shouldn’t force anyone else to stop using them even if “Others” use them in a negative context. (Either EVERYONE can say it or NO ONE can say it, anything else is hypocrisy.)

I don’t understand how I can be BOTH Racist AND Homophobic when I am usually attracted to dark skinned women of Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American, and Asian decent… I’m attracted to A LOT of “black” chicks but their culture tends to be rather homophobic and the only lesbian black women I have met of late have either been WAY too sub or WWW AAA YYY too butch… I mean “Is that a guy?” butch.

Again… I don’t judge but if I’m just not attracted to someone and there is no chemistry then I don’t think it is “Racist”. I’m just not into it… If I’m racist for not being into REALLY butch chicks then I am sexist because I am usually not attracted to men.

I explain over and over that I am pissed off at the PEOPLE THAT VIOLATE MY PROPERTY AND THREATEN THE LIVES OF MY FELLOW OWNER OPERATORS and not “All Black People” or “All Brown People” yet she refuses to see the difference…

When I was in Arizona I ALWAYS knew who it was breaking into the cars in my neighborhood… It was White-Trash Meth Addicts… At that time I REALLY REALLY hated White-Trash Meth Addicts… (I’m not all that happy with them to this day either…)

Does that mean that I hate all white people too? Hell no… Now if your addicted to substances and are abusing your kids or stealing to feed your habit then yeah… I’m not all that pleased with your life choices but it doesn’t mean that I judge every human I encounter by the standards of my dislike for meth-heads!!

I REALLY hate the drug dealing, thieving, whoring, child abusing, welfare abusing people that have ruined their own lives and the lives of their families because they refuse to accept responsibility for their own lives and feel that it is their due to take what they want form anyone that they want to take it from.

It doesn’t mean that I think the well dressed and clean black teeny-bopper drinking downstairs at the bar is going to break into my car…

Sigh... This thought cycle too shall pass but it is still shocking how ignorant and close minded the people that proclaim to be the MOST open-minded can be.

Tolerance is only an option when the people around you believe the same things you do.

If you disagree in any way or if they just can't comprehend what you are saying then you must be silenced... and if you can't be silenced then they can't be in your presence anymore... LOL!

It amazing that I, the closed minded, racist, homophobe, believe that "Freedom of speech isn't about speech you agree with, but about the right for people to say that which you disagree with."

Saying that someone needs to be removed from the Media because he wounded someone's inner child is called censorship.

Letting that person stay on the air and continue to put his foot in his mouth and drive away anyone with intelligence that listens to him? That is called freedom!

If you don’t' want to listen to something then change the channel... There is someone preaching to YOUR choir on one of the hundreds of other channels out there!

MyFreeImplants.com? WOW...

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:13:04 GMT

Hooter Heaven
By KEVIN SITES, WED AUG 15, 9:48 AM PDT

Is Jason Grunstra’s MyFreeImplants.com the answer to some women’s dreams -- or just to those who want to see them naked?

Jason Grunstra's "eureka" moment did not occur while sitting under an apple tree like Newton — nor while flying a kite in the rain, like Franklin. Then again, Grunstra wasn't busy discovering the law of gravity or the conductivity of electricity. Grunstra's "discovery" was this: Americans are obsessed with breasts.

Appropriately enough, his eureka moment came in Las Vegas, at a bachelor party, in the company of strippers.

One of the strippers had recently gotten breast implants. Another was sad because she could not afford them. So Grunstra did what any gentlemen would do — he started raising cash for the flat-chested one.

"I said, 'I've got five on it!'" he recalls. "And everybody else said, 'I've got five on it, too.' By the end of the night we had $70 bucks."

That's a long way from the cost of a breast implant operation, which can run $4,000 and up. But for Grunstra, this was more than just crumpled dollar bills stuffed in a thong. This was a big idea.

Thus the concept of "MyFreeImplants.com" was born, and it stayed with Grunstra even after he returned home from Las Vegas and sobered up. The idea was simple: Set up a Web site to raise money for women who want breast implants. The women pose for photographs on the site, and so-called benefactors pay for the right to look — and to "interact," as Grunstra puts it, via email and blog posts.

Just two years later, Grunstra claims the site has over 10,000 benefactors and one thousand women competing for their attention and their dollars. He says 28 women have already made their goal and are featured prominently on the site in before and after photos.

Benefactors create profiles and buy message credits at $1.25 a pop, which allows them to send messages to women they see on the site. A dollar goes toward the women's goal; 25 cents goes to Grunstra and the site. Grunstra says the site has more than 5 million page-views a month, brings in $1,000 a day, and generates a monthly profit of about $3,000.

Not surprisingly, the site has drawn plenty of criticism. One blogger compared it to prostitution "but without the freedom provided by the money the women earn."

In fact, the money does not go directly to the women, but Grunstra says that's to avoid fraud. "We pay the doctors directly," he says. "The girls never touch the money. They could never take it on a shopping spree. We make sure that we are paying for the implants and nothing else."

That's fine with 23-year-old Ashley, a Californian who goes by the name Minxie on MyFreeImplants.com. Ashley has already had an implant operation but wants to go bigger.

"It's just that I've been small my whole life. I've always wanted them. I've always wanted to have big ones," she says.

She is a bright, athletic young woman, not someone easily dismissed as a stereotypical bimbo pushing to be so top-heavy that she will become little more than the sum of her breasts.

Ashley hasn't gone as far as other women on the site who have auctioned bras, panties and other articles of clothing, but she does send nude pictures to her benefactors. She says a $50 donation will get you something topless, maybe in a schoolgirl outfit; $100 will get you a full nude, not something raunchy, she adds.

How many has she sent out? "Um, quite a few," she says. "Maybe 200."

Ashley's photos are tame compared to some of the others on the site, but Grunstra insists that My Free Implants is not about pornography. Rather, he says, "It's a service for meeting other people with similar interests."

Breasts?

"Right."

Grunstra also rejects the criticism that his site in any way resembles prostitution. Benefactors and implant-hopefuls aren't allowed to trade personal information or to use the site to meet offline.

Still, Ashley says that one of her benefactors managed to find her page on MySpace. After that she switched to her "Minxie" alias on the MyFreeImplants site.

Some of the benefactors "are really nice but lonely," she says. She admits to having her moments of sympathy for them. When one told her he didn't know how to cook, she taught him how to cook a steak — online, that is.

But a lot of the men are creeps, she says. "It's a business thing for me. I mean, I hate to feel that way. Because I know some of these guys are thinking I'm their friend," she says. "I'm not really a fake person, so it's kind of a challenge for me. But at the same time, you know, you got to make the money."

Ashley estimates that it takes 100 hours of online chatting and emailing with her benefactors to raise $1,000. That's not a whole lot better than minimum wage. Nevertheless, she says it's worth it. "I mean a picture, it's just a picture," she says. "You know what I mean?"

Jason Grunstra also thinks My Free Implants is worth it, although his girlfriend disagrees. "She thinks it's setting [women] back 50 years," he says.

Producer: Erin Green
Video Editor: Tommy Morquecho

When Your Wife Spikes Your Balls...

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 03:01:36 GMT

NYPD Rejects 'Dopey' Meatball Defense
Thu Aug 23, 5:14 PM ET

NEW YORK - So much for the meatball defense. A veteran counterterrorism detective's claims that he flunked a drug test because his wife served him marijuana-spiked meatballs "simply weren't credible," and he has been fired by the New York Police Department, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Thursday.

With the dismissal, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly rejected an earlier recommendation by an administrative judge that the detective, Anthony Chiofalo, be reinstated. Kelly has final say on firings.

An attorney for Chiofalo did not immediately respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

Chiofalo, a 22-year-veteran assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, was suspended without pay in 2005 after a random drug test found marijuana in his system. The officer denied ever using drugs and demanded a hearing.

During an investigation, his wife said she had secretly substituted marijuana for oregano in her meatball recipe in hopes of forcing him to leave police work.

The detective's lawyers presented evidence that she had passed a lie-detector test, and offered testimony from a toxicologist that the excuse was valid.

A Great Man Insulted By American Semantics

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:55:11 GMT

I encountered an interesting little news story on a show such as 60 Minutes. (I don’t actually remember which show but it was one of the weekly news shows I watch)

This show was about a man, born in South America, who came to live with his mother in New York at the age of 8, was HIGHLY intelligent, received a private scholarship to finish High School in the

United States

after his mother died and to continue onto college.

After college he returned home to attempt to use his good fortune to expand the educational system of his poverty stricken South American Country.

He is a GREAT success! He is one of the most intelligent people to come out of an American college!! His organization provides free education to hundreds of local children that would have ended up being barely literate at all and lead them onto a path that encourages a love of knowledge for knowledge sake.

He visits the US often to both works as well as to fund raise for his organization but has never become an American Citizen and loves his home country in South America and will NEVER become an American Citizen as long as he is free to use his visas to come and go as his work dictates.

His family is a product of South American Culture… His family came to this continent through South America and his family has no ties to the United States or even North America other then the fact that a few of his relatives decided to immigrate to the US.

Now let me add one additional fact to this story…
He is a Black Man.

Throughout the WHOLE story on this man the narrator referred to him as an “African American”.

How is it that a man that has no ties to either Africa or America other then the color of his skin and the decision of his mother to leave him in South America to immigrate to the United States and a man that is not and will never be (by a choice) an American Citizen is to be constantly referred to as an “African American”?

I’ll say it again for those of you that are slog… he is neither African nor American…

He is of African heritage yes but HIS family came to South America by CHOICE and not by being forced into enslavement by their fellow tribesmen in order to make a profit.

His MOM immigrated to the

but he only went to school here because of the generosity of a private organization that sponsored his education because of his innate genius…

So how the FUCK is he an “African American” in ANY sense of the word??

Yet again the semantics of the PC Police twist reality into something that they feel is a more palatable representation of an already great man.

He is a Black Man from a South American Country… (It starts with a B but is not Brazil… I can’t remember…)

They don’t use insulting semantics to separate them or elevate their self esteems in his country… They are too busy trying to claw their way out of poverty…

So why does everyone feel that we should apply our labels to him? Why was there a mini-riot in the Chicago Police Department when they arrested a man who had to the

United States

from Africa?

It was because of what the paperwork said… It said that the man in custody was an “African American”. Factually correct but there was a problem… The man they arrested was white.

He was born and raised in Africa but decided to immigrate to the United States in his 20’s… He, and his fellow’s that were born in Africa, are the only true “African Americans”.

White, Black, Asian, Arab, Latino, and Jew can ALL be “African Americans” if they were born in Africa and decided to immigrate to America.

If you say they are not because of the trivialities of the color of their skin then you are the one that is being bigoted…

Now I Understand The Diagnosis... Part 3 The Cutting & Suicide Attempts

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:37:42 GMT

Nothing here yet... I just wanted to make sure that I remembered where I wanted to take this entry when I got back to write it...

Now I Understand The Diagnosis... Part 2 The Story Begins.

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:35:30 GMT

Back in the day... about 1998... I went to a psychiatrist for the first time… Initially it was because my “egg donor” (A.K.A. “Mom”, A.K.A. Munchausen Biproxy Mother, A.K.A. The opiate addicted, alcohol addicted, blood sucking, soul destroying whore) had off’ed herself and my family decided that though the trauma of being mentally and physically abused by this waste of life was not worthy of receiving help or therapy the suicide of said abuser WAS…

So I went… and there I was diagnosed with P.T.S.D., Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, and B.P.D.

I was never really told what “B.P.D.” was or what it meant… EVERYONE focused on the crying, suicide attempts, and panic attacks… I was only told that “People with Borderline Personality Disorder cut and burn themselves, a.k.a. self mutilate, but are not attempting to kill themselves.”

That fit me to a T.

When I tried to kill myself I was REALLY trying to kill myself…

When I was burning myself or scratching out chunks I was doing it in a concentrated effort to produce a level of pain required for the emotional release of the current stressful situation I was in.

No one ever described the varied and predictable emotional patterns that accompany B.P.D. until I was on my Fave Depression/Codep Forum and a woman read my story and said “Has anyone ever said B.P.D. to you? Because it sounds appropriate from what you have put in your question.”

I was all “yeah… I was told I had it because I cut/burn.” And she replied with “There is so much more to it then that… Search it…”

So now I am sitting here… Thinking about everything I had read… And realizing that it is a 2 edged knife…

On the one side I have an explanation for why I am angry all the time… why my moods shift so quickly from EXTREME, almost scary, Happy to almost uncontainable anger to crying in the span of an hour!

Yet the other side is that everywhere I look it says that this is one of the hardest mental illnesses to treat and that it accounts for a LOT of “in-patient” treatment… and that terrifies me…

But at least I now I UNDERSTAND what is going on…

It explains everything from the automatic anger to why I have such “Child Like” happiness…

The most memorable example of the happiness was when I went to see Men In Black II at the theatre… It had the preview for Star Trek The Next Generation’s Last Movie “Nemesis”. I was LITERALLY overwhelmed with happiness! It was this giddy, almost “High” feeling that had me literally bouncing in my seat! I had been waiting for this movie to come out for a long time and when I saw the preview I had a mini-nova exploding inside me!! (Stupid though the plot seemed and knowing that it would be horrible because it was a NextGen movie involving Romulans and just from the preview alone I knew it didn’t really fit into the O.S./NextGen/D.S.9. time line.)

I was twitching with joy!

And when I started to talk about it quietly to my X he looked at me and said “Calm down! It’s just a movie.” And I realized that something WAS wrong… That going from a normal, lucid feeling of wanting to enjoy a movie to “OMG I can’t sit still I am so overjoyed!” was not normal…

I questioned this the next time I was able to afford to see a psychiatrist but unfortunately this doctor was so intent on putting me on expensive drugs that required monthly expensive blood tests that he wouldn’t even listen to me when I told him that one of the side effects of the drug was that it was making me want to kill people… I had to take MYSELF off the drug after the 1 scariest incident in my life!

I was standing in the kitchen with my best friend and at the time roommate when she said something that made me have an instant flash, so strong that it was more of a hallucination then a thought, of me grabbing her TINY neck in my hand and slamming her head against the counter so hard that I killed her.

It was so intense that I had blacked out for a second and had to just stop and back away from her and leave the house so that I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do her harm…

The doctor didn’t care…

He was the last doctor I was able to afford to see and though I have been trying ever since to find someone to take me on for therapy at a cost I can afford I am still having to rely on the diagnosis I received so long ago and use the internet to try to explain what is going on with me.

Well, this is part 2 of my story… It is getting late and I need to go… Business to do and family to pick up…

To Be Continued…

Now I Understand The Diagnosis... Part 1 The Discription

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:25:00 GMT

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious mental illness characterized by pervasive instability in moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behavior. This instability often disrupts family and work life, long-term planning, and the individual's sense of self-identity. Originally thought to be at the "borderline" of psychosis, people with BPD suffer from a disorder of emotion regulation. While less well known than schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness), BPD is more common, affecting 2 percent of adults, mostly young women. There is a high rate of self-injury without suicide intent, as well as a significant rate of suicide attempts and completed suicide in severe cases. Patients often need extensive mental health services, and account for 20 percent of psychiatric hospitalizations. Yet, with help, many improve over time and are eventually able to lead productive lives.

Symptoms of BPD

While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.

People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize the other person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the other extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all. Even with family members, individuals with BPD are highly sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to such mild separations as a vacation, a business trip, or a sudden change in plans. These fears of abandonment seem to be related to difficulties feeling emotionally connected to important persons when they are physically absent, leaving the individual with BPD feeling lost and perhaps worthlessness. Suicide threats and attempts may occur along with anger at perceived abandonment and disappointments.

People with BPD exhibit other impulsive behaviors, such as excessive spending, binge eating and risky sex. BPD often occurs together with other psychiatric problems, particularly bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and other personality disorders.

Treatment of BPD

Treatments for BPD have improved in recent years. Group and individual psychotherapy are at least partially effective for many patients. Within the past 15 years, a new psychosocial treatment termed dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was developed specifically to treat BPD, and this technique has looked promising in treatment studies. Pharmacological treatments are often prescribed based on specific target symptoms shown by the individual patient. Antidepressant drugs and mood stabilizers may be helpful for depressed and/or labile mood. Antipsychotic drugs may also be used when there are distortions in thinking.

Recent Research Findings

Although the cause of BPD is unknown, both environmental and genetic factors are thought to play a role in predisposing patients to BPD symptoms and traits. Studies show that many, but not all individuals with BPD report a history of abuse, neglect, or separation as young children. Forty to 71 percent of BPD patients report having been sexually abused, usually by a non-caregiver. Researchers believe that BPD results from a combination of individual vulnerability to environmental stress, neglect or abuse as young children, and a series of events that trigger the onset of the disorder as young adults. Adults with BPD are also considerably more likely to be the victim of violence, including rape and other crimes. This may result from both harmful environments as well as impulsivity and poor judgement in choosing partners and lifestyles.

NIMH-funded neuroscience research is revealing brain mechanisms underlying the impulsively, mood instability, aggression, anger, and negative emotion seen in BPD. Studies suggest that people predisposed to impulsive aggression have impaired regulation of the neural circuits that modulate emotion. The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure deep inside the brain, is an important component of the circuit that regulates negative emotion. In response to signals from other brain centers indicating a perceived threat, it marshals fear and arousal. This might be more pronounced under the influence of drugs like alcohol, or stress. Areas in the front of the brain (pre-frontal area) act to dampen the activity of this circuit. Recent brain imaging studies show that individual differences in the ability to activate regions of the prefrontal cerebral cortex thought to be involved in inhibitory activity predict the ability to suppress negative emotion.

Serotonin, norepinephrine and acetylcholine are among the chemical messengers in these circuits that play a role in the regulation of emotions, including sadness, anger, anxiety and irritability. Drugs that enhance brain serotonin function may improve emotional symptoms in BPD. Likewise, mood-stabilizing drugs that are known to enhance the activity of GABA, the brain's major inhibitory neurotransmitter, may help people who experience BPD-like mood swings. Such brain-based vulnerabilities can be managed with help from behavioral interventions and medications, much like people manage susceptibility to diabetes or high blood pressure.

Future Progress

Studies that translate basic findings about the neural basis of temperament, mood regulation and cognition into clinically relevant insights—which bear directly on BPD—represent a growing area of NIMH-supported research. Research is also underway to test the efficacy of combining medications with behavioral treatments like DBT, and gauging the effect of childhood abuse and other stress in BPD on brain hormones. Data from the first prospective, longitudinal study of BPD, which began in the early 1990s, is expected to reveal how treatment affects the course of the illness. It will also pinpoint specific environmental factors and personality traits that predict a more favorable outcome. The Institute is also collaborating with a private foundation to help attract new researchers to develop a better understanding and better treatment for BPD.

Source: nimh.nih.gov

It Explains A LOT About Our Culture...

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:03:32 GMT

One In Four Read No Books Last Year

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 21, 11:06 PM ET

WASHINGTON - There it sits on your night stand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing — you are not alone.

One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

"I just get sleepy when I read," said Richard Bustos of Dallas, a habit with which millions of Americans can doubtless identify. Bustos, a 34-year-old project manager for a telecommunications company, said he had not read any books in the last year and would rather spend time in his backyard pool.

That choice by Bustos and others is reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

When the Gallup Poll asked in 2005 how many books people had at least started — a similar but not directly comparable question — the typical answer was five. That was down from 10 in 1999, but close to the 1990 response of six.

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled "Reading at Risk" found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.

Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn't read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

At the same time, book enthusiasts abound. Many in the survey reported reading dozens of books and said they couldn't do without them.

"I go into another world when I read," said Charlotte Fuller, 64, a retired nurse from Seminole, Fla., who said she read 70 books in the last year. "I read so many sometimes I get the stories mixed up."

Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.

Pollyann Baird, 84, a retired school librarian in Loveland, Colo., says J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series is her favorite. But she has forced herself to not read the latest and final installment, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," because she has yet to file her income taxes this year due to an illness and worries that once she started the book, "I know I'd have to finish it."

People from the West and Midwest are more likely to have read at least one book in the past year. Southerners who do read, however, tend to read more books, mostly religious books and romance novels, than people from other regions. Whites read more than blacks and Hispanics, and those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently.

There was even some political variety evident, with Democrats and liberals typically reading slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives.

The Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories. Popular fiction, histories, biographies and mysteries were all cited by about half, while one in five read romance novels. Every other genre — including politics, poetry and classical literature — were named by fewer than five percent of readers.

More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography. Industry experts said that confirms their observation that men tend to prefer nonfiction.

"Fiction just doesn't interest me," said Bob Ryan, 41, who works for a construction company in Guntersville, Ala. "If I'm going to get a story, I'll get a movie."

Those likeliest to read religious books included older and married women, lower earners, minorities, lesser educated people, Southerners, rural residents, Republicans and conservatives.

The publishing business totaled $35.7 billion in global sales last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group, a trade association. About 3.1 billion books were sold, an increase of less than 1 percent.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from August 6 to 8 and involved telephone interviews with 1,003 adults. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

AP Manager of News Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

(This version CLARIFIES that people in the West and Midwest are more likely to read at least one book a year, but that Southerners who do read tend to read more books.)

Will Someone Please Sew This Bitches Vagina Shut??

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:22:35 GMT

Arkansas Couple Welcomes 17th Child
By JILL ZEMAN, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - It's a girl — again — for the Duggars. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar welcomed their 17th child, and seventh daughter, into the world Thursday.

Jennifer Danielle was born at 10:01 a.m. at Saint Mary's Hospital in Rogers, Ark., the Duggars said in an interview. Jennifer weighed 8 pounds, 8 ounces and arrived five days after Michelle's due date.

Less than 30 minutes after giving birth, the Duggars already were talking of having more.

"We'd love to have more," Michelle said, adding that the girls are outnumbered seven to 10 in the family. "We love the ruffles and lace."

Jennifer joins the fast-growing Duggar brood, who live in Tontitown in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

The oldest is 19 and the youngest, before Jennifer, is almost 2 years old.

"We are just so grateful to God for another gift from him," said Jim Bob Duggar, 42, a former state representative. "We are just so thankful to him that everything went just very well."

Jennifer joins siblings Joshua, 19; John David, 17; Janna, 17; Jill, 16; Jessa, 14; Jinger, 13; Joseph, 12; Josiah, 11; Joy-Anna, 9; Jedidiah, 8; Jeremiah, 8; Jason 7; James 6; Justin, 4; Jackson, 3; Johannah, almost 2.

The family includes two sets of twins.

Michelle Duggar said that Joshua, Janna, Jill and Jessa were at the hospital, but that the rest of the family planned to visit their new sister later Thursday.

Michelle Duggar said she started feeling contractions Wednesday night and went to the hospital at about 5 a.m. Thursday.

"It actually went fast," she said. "I guess once I started progressing, it went within 30 minutes."

Jennifer was born via a VBAC — or vaginal birth after Caesarean, Jim Bob Duggar said.

The Duggars have been featured on several programs on cable's Discovery Health Network. The next special, the Duggar Family Album, is scheduled to air next month, Jim Bob Duggar said.

Among the "fun facts" listed on Discovery Health's Web page devoted to the Duggars: A baby has been born in every month except June; the Duggars have gone through an estimated 90,000 diapers, and Michelle, 40, has been pregnant for 126 months — or 10.5 years — of her life.

On the Net:
Duggar family Web site: http://www.duggarfamily.com
Discovery Health site: http://health.discovery.com/convergence/duggars/duggarfamily.html

Think Organic is Better For The Environment?? Think Again...

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:06:12 GMT

16 Organic Apples and a Gallon of Gas
By Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience’s Bad Medicine Columnist
posted: 27 June 2006 08:40 am ET

Do you like the taste of juicy organic apples from Washington? They're not bad, but they could taste sweeter if each one didn't involve a cup of gasoline.

In your quest to eat healthier food and do better by the environment, you might want to place more value on local food products than on organic foods.

It might seem sacrilegious to pooh-pooh organic food-that is, food grown in pooh-pooh as opposed to synthesized fertilizers and pesticides. But as revealed in the June issue of Sierra magazine, the environmental price for organic foods is sometimes hidden.

Simply put, one must consider transportation costs. Apples grown in the state of Washington are trucked, on average, more than 1,700 miles. That adds up to a cup of gasoline used to ship each apple. California grapes require up to 4 cups of gasoline per bunch when shipped across the country. And so on.

These calculations were originally published in 2004 in a book chapter in "Environment Development and Sustainability 6," by David Pimentel of Cornell University and his colleagues.

Go local
Also, mass-produced foods, either grown by organic or conventional methods, are usually picked well before ripening to prevent rotting during shipping. They are less tasty and contain fewer vitamins and minerals compared to local varieties. In fact, this summer is a good time to visit a local farmers' market and talk to the sellers about these issues.

I'm not anti-organic. I need to state that up front considering the angry email I received after I suggested that visiting untrained, unlicensed naturopaths practicing medicine based on medieval superstition could harm your health. I am, after all, reading Sierra, the pro-environmental magazine of the Sierra Club.

I merely hope to point out that blindly buying organically can be foolhardy.

Consider that unless you are eating rocks, all food is organic. Technically, organic refers to anything with a chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms. All living organisms are organic. So is gasoline. So is dry-cleaning fluid, which I now see advertised as "organic" by unscrupulous merchants capitalizing on the public perception that "organic" equals "safe."

What's in a word
The word "organic" has come to mean plant-based food grown without synthetic fertilizers, as well as animals fed organic food during the few months to few years they were alive. It doesn't inherently mean healthy or fair.

Organic manure could contain lead and cadmium, naturally. Organic junk foods can be just as unhealthy as conventional junk food, albeit with organic fat and sugar. The organic label says nothing about the rights of Central American workers growing organic bananas in squalid conditions, nor is it concerned with the similarly disgusting conditions in which organic meat, eggs and dairy products are often manufactured.

After all, organic is big business these days-nearly $14 billion in 2005, according to the Organic Trade Association-and big business is often business as usual.

Not so with local farming.
Local almost always means small-scale and thus more environmentally benign, fresher, healthier and cruelty-free. Talk to the farmer at the farmers' market. He might use a little pesticide but likely not much because the food product is well-suited to the environment.

Less gas
The apples I buy at a farmers' market in Baltimore are grown less than 50 miles away, and each apple "consumes" less than a teaspoon of gas on its journey to the market. Unlike the strangely happy cow on a carton of Horizon organic milk, the cows producing the (non-organic but hormone-free) milk sold locally walk freely and feed on grass and hay; they're not pen-raised and fed organic grains they cannot digest, as can be the case with some organic milks. [Related story: Even the Cows are Unhappy]

With support of local farms, fewer farms get turned into asphalt-covered shopping malls and housing complexes, which in turn means fewer natural wetlands, forests and deserts are turned into mass-commercial farms. Supporting local farms, organic or not, also fights our perverse global food market in which $20 million in U.S.-grown lettuce is exported to Mexico while $20 million Mexican-grown lettuce is imported to the United States each year, as reported in the May-June issue of Mother Jones.

Some of the food at my farmers' market is organic; other food is not. I don't worry so much, as long as it is local. I can trust the food because I'm buying it from the person who produced it.

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." Got a question about Bad Medicine? Email Wanjek. If it's really bad, he just might answer it in a future column. Bad Medicine appears each Tuesday on LIveScience.

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Superman's Fortress of Solitude Found In REAL WORLD!

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:57:15 GMT

Superman's Fortress of Solitude Found
By Bill Christensen
posted: 01 August 2007 12:21 pm ET

Superman's fabled Fortress of Solitude has been depicted in films as a vast complex comprised of enormous crystal beams. Fans know that it built itself from a single crystal in the far north.

Imagine the surprise of miners when they actually found it! Not in the frozen north, but buried a thousand feet below Mexico's Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan desert.

This has been quite a year for Superman fans; the deadly remnants of planet Krypton were discovered in a mine in Serbia this past April (see Kryptonite Discovered By Scientist).

Actually, of course, the Cueva de los Cristales is a purely natural formation consisting of enormous beams of gypsum. Some of the crystals are as long as 36 feet (see photo).

Geologist Juan Manuel Garcia-Ruiz has described the probable origin of the crystals in the journal Geology. The cave was drained by mining operations; for millennia, however, the crystals grew in mineral rich, 136 degree Fahrenheit water.

Via National Geographic.

(This Science Fiction in the News story used with permission from Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction.)

Video: Appear to Levitate
Real Mineral Nearly Identical to Superman's Kryptonite
How Spider-Man Compares to the Real Thing

Click Here For Pictures of The Cave!

What a week! Only 1 day to go!

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:46:14 GMT

WOW… This has been a REALLY tough week…

An accident with the truck… An appointment with a Mentor… Writing a business plan from scratch… trying to get the appropriate financial documentation together and printed… Getting invoices done… Getting checks in… Finding time to pet the kitten!

WHEWWW…

I’m not even ½ done with the business plan but this IS just a meeting with a mentor… It’s not like I’m going to an interview with an SBA loan officer… I HOPE that they can direct us TOWARDS a meeting with an SBA Loan Officer but this seems to be a more laid back meeting where we get advice on expanding.

Well… time to get back to the grindstone!

Wish me luck!

Just like humans Fish starve themselves and harm themselves to maintain their place in society…

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:56:23 GMT

Subordinate Fish Starve Themselves to Avoid Conflict

By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 27 June 2007 09:27 am ET

Dieting in the fish world can be the ticket to survival. Goby fish starve themselves so they can stay smaller than their superiors and present no threat that could lead to eviction from the group.

A new study reveals how the threat of punishment can keep coral-dwelling goby fish (Paragobiodon xanthosomus) from trying to climb the social ladder and to instead accept, and even work to maintain, their subordinate status. The result is a stable, non-competitive group.

In goby societies, only the top male and top female mate. The other females have to wait in line, the order of which is based on their relative sizes, to achieve alpha breeding status.

“Many animals have social queues in which the smaller members wait their turn before they can mate,” said lead scientist Marian Wong at James Cook University in Australia. “We wanted to find out how they maintain stability in a situation where you’d expect there would be a lot of competition.”

Wong and her colleagues studied a group of goby fish at Lizard Island on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Measurements of the fish showed each fish had a 5-percent size difference from the goby above and below it in the queue. When the size difference varied, say an inferior fish boosted its size, the superior would try to drive the over-eater out of the group.

“Social hierarchies are very stable in these fish and in practice challenges and expulsions are extremely rare,” Wong said, “probably because expulsion from the group and the coral reef it occupies means almost certain death to the loser.”

The discovery, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has implications for the whole animal kingdom, including humans, Wong said.

“It is clear the fish accept the threat of punishment and cooperate as a way of maintaining their social order—and that’s not so very different to how humans and other animals behave,” Wong said.

While maintaining a slim physique might not help humans avoid conflict, certain actions in the workplace could be viewed as parallel to the goby dieters’ behavior. For instance, performing tasks too well could overshadow the boss and just tick him or her off.

“Some employees may face the choice of restraining their own potential goals in order to appease their bosses and so avoid any negative consequences,” Wong said, adding that research would be needed to substantiate this fish-human parallel.

Images: Freaky Fish

Mating Game: The Really Wild Kingdom

Fish Mating Preferences Change With Age

Hanover Park Cops RULE!

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:07:22 GMT

One of our trucks was up in Hanover Park, on West Bound Lake Street at Barrington Road, when there was an air leak… The truck “Broke” and he had to pull over at that VERY dangerous intersection…

While waiting for our mechanic to arrive and fix, what we come to find out is his fault, a police car pulls up…

Now I know everyone will think “OH god what does this asshole do?” but it is actually the exact opposite… He was the MOST courteous and helpful police officer that I don’t drink with…

Officer Roel Aganon did everything in his power to make this already pissed off moment go as smoothly as possible… Without him we wouldn’t have had the time it took for the mechanic to get there and might have had to get towed… A VERY expensive procedure for a tractor trailer with a full load on…

He was so wonderful that the driver actually told me to call his superior and tell him how great he was…

So if you up in Hanover Park and you get pulled over by Officer Roel Aganon just be cool… He saved our ass and he might just be as cool to you if you’re cool with him.

Irrational Anger Issues... Why can't I escape these people?

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:44:23 GMT

Irrational anger is a symptom of a plethora of mental illness… I encountered it again with someone I should have expected it from…

This girl only calls if she hears that something bad happened so that she can tell the person how great her own life is while their life is in the shitter…

My life hasn’t been all that bad of late… a LOT of emotional issues but I suffer from depression… it happens… but because I told a mutual friend that I was feeling shitty and had panic attacks over the weekend she called.

She periodically picks up on the fact that most people don’t appreciate hearing how great her life is in that “Tone” that just screams “I’m doing this to boost my own self esteem” and told me that she has a HORRIBLE cold sore… Well, as she well knows, I get them CONSTANTLY and so I have a variety of ways that can make the virus retreat with in 24 hours and healing of the remaining wound in 48… It’s not as if I am just “breaking” the news to her… So she starts talking about how it is impacting her job hunt because it isn’t a positive thing to go into an interview with a gaping wound on your face so I 4 words that have solved my cold sore problems: Abriva and Spirits of Camphor. Use um both and it will be GONE in about 40 hours.

Well… she hates it when someone knows something she doesn’t and so she gets mad… “I’ve had these before and I KNOW how to handle it!”

It has a striking familiarity with how Bella reacted when she told me that the callous on her heal had cracked and was causing her great pain… I didn’t even say I knew how to “Cure” it but I have the problem too (Since I wear sandals all year or no shoes whenever I can and that tends to build up a wicked callous) and ALL I did was start to describe the Pumice Stone on a stick I use because both of us have a hard time pulling our heals up to our face… “I’ve been getting these for years and I know how to deal with it!” meaning soaking it and suffering… A callous doesn’t get to the cracking point if you use a pumice stone on it as it gets thicker…

It is a simple idea, a simple product, and a simple act… but elicits irrational anger…

It’s like getting mad at the mechanic for telling you that you need air in your tires… Yeah.. you have had that car for a long time but maybe the guy that sees cars all the time can give a recommendation on how to do something better…

It’s not calling “you” stupid when someone knows something you don’t… Hell… if that were the case then everyone would be running through the streets, foaming at the mouth because EVERYONE knows something that you don’t… Your not stupid unless you freak the fuck out when you hear something new…

My relationship with Leslie has really become clear now that I have dropped other poisonous relationships of late… She never has anything positive to say unless it is about herself and she seems to take pleasure in other’s pain… and not in that good BDSM sort of way…

I’m done dealing with other peoples insecurities, insanities, and self-esteem issues… It isn’t worth the drama and anger that comes along with the periodic good times…

I’d rather stick with the long distance friendships I have with people that have their heads on straight (or gay as the case may be) then have to cope with borderline assholes in real life if it means having to walk on pins and needles to hang out.

It’s just not worth it… I'm better then and am finished letting others drag me down into their drama...

Another reason I hate Bureaucracy…

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:50:38 GMT

Court Upholds Prisoners' Right To Porn

Tue Jun 26, 8:20 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Convicted sex offenders in Sweden are free to read pornography in their cells following a court ruling that has angered the prison service.

The Supreme Administrative Court in Stockholm last week ruled that the Swedish Prison and Probation Service had no right to deny a rape convict access to his porn magazines.

Prison officials had argued that reading porn would interfere with the man's rehabilitation program. They also said the magazines posed a security problem for staff and other inmates because they could increase the risk of the man relapsing into criminal behavior.

But the court, whose ruling cannot be appealed, said the prison service failed to prove that the magazines could "jeopardize the security of the institution."

Prison officials said they had asked the government to change the law so that they could continue to ban porn magazines at the Nordic nation's prisons.

"It increases the risk of assault for other interns and it is provocative for personnel," Elisabeth Kwarnmark, a prison service psychologist, said about the ruling.

Kwarnmark said that other pornographic material, such as adult movies, channels and Web sites, are not permitted in Swedish prisons. Child and violent pornography are also banned.

My Dreams Do Come True! Giant 5-Foot Tall Penguin’s Roam The Earth!

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:21:15 GMT

Fossil Of Giant, Spear-Fishing Penguin Found In Peru: Study

Mon Jun 25, 4:37 PM ET

CHICAGO, United States (AFP) - Hollywood gave us all-singing, all-dancing penguins, and surfing penguins, but leave it to evolution to give us giant, prehistoric spear-fishing penguins from Peru.

In a case of fact being stranger than fiction, or at least animation, paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a fearsome new species of penguin that lived on the southern coast of Peru about 36 million years ago, according to a study released Monday.

The ancient bird, Icadyptes salasi, stood five foot tall and had a pointed seven-inch beak which it probably used to spear its prey.

The now extinct penguin species is one of the largest ever reported and was recovered from the coastal desert of Peru.

Paleontologists also discovered the skull and partial skeleton of a second extinct penguin species, called Perudyptes devriesi, in the same region.

That penguin lived around 42 million years ago and was comparable in size to the modern King Penguin, 0.75 to .90 meters (2.5 to three feet), which makes its home on sub-Antarctic island groups, including the Falkland Islands.

The penguin fossils are among the most complete ever recovered and are challenging long-held assumptions about the timing and patterns of penguin evolution and dispersal.

Paleontologists and students of the penguin lineage had assumed that penguins evolved in colder climates in the Antarctic and in New Zealand and had only moved to lower latitudes closer to the equator about 10 million years ago -- long after significant global cooling about 34 million years ago.

"We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species, even the small penguins in equatorial regions today," said Julia Clarke, a paleontologist and assistant professor of marine, Earth and atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University, in Raleigh.

"But the new fossils date back to one of the warmest periods in 65 million years of Earth's history. The evidence indicates that penguins reached low latitude regions more than 30 million years prior to our previous estimates."

What's more, paleontologists generally assume that species moving from cold to warm climates become smaller as the animals do not need to conserve heat.

It's all the more surprising, then, to find giant penguin fossils close to the Earth's equator, especially during the waning days of a greenhouse Earth, the authors of the study noted.

The paper appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More Pseudoscience making self-deluding people believe in “Magic” and self-help bullshit…

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:04:32 GMT

God damn… how gullible are people that this spreads like herpes?

“Happy Thoughts” and a positive outlook are essential to not just blowing your own head off with a shot gun but this is taking things too far…

It is just another symptom of our sick mindset when you start to believe that a positive mindset will suddenly make you rich, famous, and POPULAR!!

That is sad… It is the materialism and jealousy that are making us unhappy in the first place… so now you get a promise of wealth and fame without having to do more then think Happy Thoughts? That is not the way to go to be truly happy…

Critics Of 'The Secret' Bemoan Claims

By TARA BURGHART, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 23, 2:22 PM ET

CHICAGO - The woman with long, dark hair looks yearningly at the gold necklace in the window of a jewelry store. She fixates on the bling. There's some kind of disruption in the atmosphere. And then, the necklace is draped around her neck.

The scenes unfold in "The Secret," a 90-minute-long DVD advocating the power of positive thinking that has sold 2 million copies. More than 5.2 million copies of the book of the same name are in print.

While "The Secret" has become a pop culture phenomenon, it also has drawn critics who are not quiet about labeling the movement a fad, embarrassingly materialistic or the latest example of an American propensity of wanting something for nothing.

Some medical professionals suggest it could even lead to a blame-the-victim mentality and actually be dangerous to those suffering from serious illness or mental disorders.

"It's a triumph of marketing and magic," said John Norcross, a psychologist and professor at the University of in ScrantonPennsylvania who conducts research on self-help books. He believes some are very useful when backed by science and focused on specific problems, such as depression.

"'The Secret' has earned my antipathy for its outrageous, unproven assertions that I believe go beyond the ordinary overpromises of most self-help books into a danger realm," he said.

"The Secret" is the work of Rhonda Byrne, an Australian television and film producer. Her central claim is that the "law of attraction" governs our universe.

"The law of attraction says that like attracts like, and when you think and feel what you want to attract on the inside, the law will use people, circumstances and events to magnetize what you want to you, and magnetize you to it," Byrne said in an e-mail in response to several questions posed by The Associated Press.

She said she was struggling personally and professionally several years ago when she was given a nearly 100-year-old book called "The Science of Getting Rich," by Wallace D. Wattles. In it, readers are guaranteed to become wealthy if they learn and follow "certain laws which govern the process of acquiring riches."

Inspired to do further research, Byrne said, she resolved to create a film to spread the word about what she felt she had learned about the "law of attraction."

The DVD, also available as a Web-based, pay-per-view video, was released in March 2006. It resembles a videotaped seminar, featuring commentators with titles such as "quantum physicist," "philosopher" and "visionary" — many of whom had already written their own books. Its trailer has cloak-and-dagger images, yellowed scrolls and mystical music evoking another massive publishing hit, "The Da Vinci Code."

The book, which followed last November, features images of wax seals and paper that mimics parchment. It's currently the No. 1 nonfiction book on lists of best sellers, including Publishers Weekly, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and is No. 1 on The New York Times' hardcover advice list.

As with many publishing hits, the "Oprah Effect" played a role. Winfrey devoted two shows in February to "The Secret," and Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres also featured it on their shows. It was spoofed on "Saturday Night Live" when a man portraying a refugee in the Darfur region of Sudan was blamed for having negative thoughts.

However, the fear that "The Secret" will lead to a blame-the-victim mentality is a serious claim of critics.

For example, the book dismisses conditions such as a genetic predisposition to being overweight or a slow thyroid as "disguises for thinking 'fat thoughts.'" And during times in which massive number of lives were lost, the book says, the "frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event."

Psychotherapist and lifestyle coach Stacy Kaiser said that after reading "The Secret," several patients have worried that it was their fault they were abused, or laid off from their jobs. Others seem to expect everything in their lives to change overnight, she said.

The Los Angeles-based Kaiser joined several other therapists who praised the positive thinking espoused in "The Secret," but who question its failure to discuss action.

"People start to think that they don't have to use their free will, that they don't have to have power anymore, that they don't have to make choices," Kaiser said. "They don't realize they have to do the work. And that's the conversation I keep having to have with people."

Dr. Gail Saltz, an author and psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, pointed out that cognitive behavioral therapy seeks to modify harmful thoughts as a way to improve patients' feelings.

She said that among people who are ill, those who remain hopeful and have a positive attitude tend to do better. But she was especially upset about a portion of Byrne's DVD in which a woman claims her breast cancer was cured without radiation or chemotherapy; the woman watched funny movies and had faith that she had already been healed.

Saltz received hundreds of angry e-mails after she talked about her concerns on the "Today" show. She thinks that some fans of "The Secret" take it figuratively — they don't think they'll get a necklace just by thinking about it, but feel improving their thoughts improves their life. But from the e-mails she received, she said some people do believe it is based in scientific reality.

"Living is difficult. ... People want ... a solution and an answer. If it were an easy one, like 'think it' — that would be even better, right?" she said. "I understand. It's a wish fulfillment. I really do understand that."

Dr. Maria Padro, a psychiatrist at St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan in New York City, believes that Americans turn to self-help books because contemporary society is stressful and there is still sometimes a stigma connected to visiting a therapist.

She read "The Secret" to see what the "jibber jabber" was about. She jokes that she keeps the book in her bedroom, out of the view of visitors. Still, she sees value in its positive outlook.

"I think the secret is that everyone has their own secret, and everyone has their own dream," she said. "And the book is one of the tools we can use to get it, but I don't think that it's a little magic wand."

Even one of the participants in "The Secret" DVD and book laments the lack of action. James Arthur Ray is billed as "a philosopher," although he says in a telephone interview that he is five hours shy of a college degree in behavioral science.

He speaks to groups on his own philosophy of success, and he maintains that the "law of attraction" is just one of seven "laws" people must use to improve their lives. He felt "The Secret" was "a good way to introduce people to a new way of philosophical thinking and looking at their world." But Ray said during the creation of the DVD, much of his talk about taking action ended up on the cutting room floor.

"You can watch 'The Secret' and come away with the illusion that you can sit around in your living room and visualize your millions dumping into your lap, and that's just not going to happen," he said.

Byrne counters that the type of action her critics discuss isn't required by the "law of attraction."

"It is impersonal, exact and precise. Become that which you want on the inside, and you shall receive it in the outside world," she said in her e-mail. "The most important action to take is the work within you. When that is done, you will be moved in the outside world to receive what you asked for."

As for the woman with breast cancer, Byrne said "The Secret" fully supports all forms of healing, and feels "enormous gratitude" for what traditional medicine has accomplished.

"The Secret" owes its life as a book to an Oregon dinner party where the president and publisher of Portland-based Beyond Words Publishing met one of the DVD's commentators, who prompted them to watch "The Secret." Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, has a co-publishing agreement with Beyond Words. Judith Curr, Atria's executive vice president, said when she watched the movie, she immediately envisioned a book.

She was especially confident because of the success of the "teachers" featured on the DVD. The contributors, including Jack Canfield of the "Chicken Soup" series, had sold roughly 400 million copies of their own books, she estimated.

"I told everybody here when I still just had a DVD that we were going to sell a million copies," she said. "They all, of course, thought I was smoking something."

Now "The Secret" is being published in 35 foreign languages and is the fastest-selling self-help book in Simon & Schuster history.

"It's great to be involved in something that can help change people's lives in a positive way," Curr said.

Amanda Jacobellis, 25, believes her life has changed for the better since she watched "The Secret."

Earlier this year, she was trying to turn a building in West Hollywood, Calif., into a makeup salon specializing in eyelash extensions and evoking the glamour of Old Hollywood. Her renovation was only half done, her credit card bills were coming due and her banker couldn't explain why the money for a $50,000 approved loan hadn't arrived in her account.

Sensing her despair, a friend suggested she watch Winfrey's upcoming show on "The Secret." Jacobellis did, and bought the DVD as well.

She spent a night diagramming what she wanted in her life, using a piece of paper and a Sharpie pen: happiness, security, freedom; good relationships with her friends and family; fitness and health goals; less stress — and in one corner, she wrote that she wanted her $50,000 loan by the next day at 3 p.m. She made a call to her banker the next morning: no news. But by 3 o'clock, the mail arrived, containing a letter saying she could call to get the funds transferred into her account.

Jacobellis now sells the DVD in her Makeup Mandy salon.

"I think where people are mistaken when they watch it is they think all they have to do is wish and it's going to happen," she said. "That wasn't exactly the case. This is something I had put a lot of energy and time into.

"What I take from it is not that you just have to wish or hope or think something's going to happen. ... There's a way it's going to happen. ... When you're more positive, I think new ideas come to you and you're able to kind of get through hurdles or over obstacles."

More Bullshit Based On Pseudo Science… FINALLY some real FACTS!

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:33:22 GMT

Cartoon Seizures: Are They Real?

By Benjamin Radford, Special to LiveScience

posted: 20 June 2007 10:56 am ET

A marketing logo designed to promote London, England, as host for the 2012 Olympics was roundly criticized by Britons, whose politicians wasted no time in labeling the design “hideous.” While the logo simply offended some people, others claim it is actually dangerous.

Earlier this month the logo was blamed for causing seizures in about two dozen people who watched a short animated promotion clip on the London2012 Web site. Studies have shown that, under certain circumstances, bright flashing lights can trigger seizures in people with photosensitive epilepsy. While the mechanism is poorly understood, those diagnosed with epilepsy are at a higher risk than the general population. A public outcry arose, with parents and doctors concerned about the image’s influence on massive numbers of British children. The clip was quickly removed, and while little or no permanent damage was done, it raised fears about new technologies and public safety.

The incident was reminiscent of the Pokémon panic in Japan ten years ago, in which up to 12,000 children reported minor illnesses ranging from nausea to seizures after watching an episode of the wildly popular cartoon "Pokémon."

Despite many studies and theories, a clear cause of the panic remained elusive for years. How could a cartoon cause seizures in thousands of children? The answer is simple: It didn’t. The scare was largely the result of mass sociogenic illness, better known as mass hysteria.

Many aspects of the Pokémon panic suggest this diagnosis. For example, the Pokémon-induced symptoms (headaches, dizziness, vomiting) are less typical of seizures than of mass hysteria, and symptoms often associated with seizures (drooling, stiffness, tongue biting) were absent in Pokémon victims. Furthermore, the incidence of photosensitive epilepsy is estimated at about 1-in-5,000. Such an incidence (0.02 percent of the population) comes nowhere near explaining the sheer number of children affected (in some cases nearly 7 percent of the viewers).

While some children did endure brief seizures from the cartoon, the vast majority of those affected did not. Instead, once the children learned of the cartoon’s attacks at school on the following day, the number of kids reported to have been affected shot up by more than 10,000. The first accounts of thousands of students being affected appeared only after mass media coverage and the opportunity for contagion in the schools. And schools are among the most common places for outbreaks of mass hysteria to begin.

While photosensitive epilepsy is a real condition, it is also very rare and its risk should be put into perspective. Children are in greater danger while riding in a car or eating peanuts than they are of being injured by flashing cartoons or video games.

Benjamin Radford investigated the Pokémon panic and co-authored, with sociologist Robert Bartholomew, the 2001 article "Pokémon contagion: Photosensitive epilepsy or mass psychogenic illness?" in the "Southern Medical Journal." This and other articles are noted on his website.

Toothbrushing Can Trigger Epileptic Seizures

Many Seizure-Prone People Continue to Drive

Surgury Ends Tot's Laughing Seizures

Time for a reality check:

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 02:37:24 GMT

Public Farce: Pundits Clueless About School Shootings

By Benjamin Radford, Special to LiveScience

posted: 21 April 2007 11:45 am ET

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, police, the news media, and psychologists have pored over the crime, picking it apart from every imaginable angle. Everything from the gun lobby to the university president to violent entertainment and racism have been cited as possibly contributing to the worst shooting rampage in America's history.

Predictably, the killings have spawned calls for action and the usual questions that follow any well-publicized violent tragedy.

Pundits come out of the woodwork to muse about how to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again, but of course it's a public farce. The simple fact is that no one knows why a troubled person will suddenly turn violent.

No amount of after-the-fact psychological analysis will tell police how to prevent other attacks. In the current climate of media coverage overkill, panic and concern often replace rationality and reason.

Time for a reality check:

1) Are schools safe?

Yes. Despite rare incidents like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech, schools are and always have been among the safest places to be. A student is far less likely to die on a school campus than in a public park or on a highway driving to the school.

2) Are shootings like this preventable?
Rarely. Unless the attacker shares his plans with others who warn authorities, there's little anyone can do. Students who are intent on harming others will always be able to do so. The efficacy of psychological profiling is greatly exaggerated; police already have good profiles of potential mass murderers, which were useless in preventing Seung-Hui Cho's attack.

3) Could the heavy media coverage of the shootings spur further threats and violence?

Yes, and it already has. According to the FBI, there have been nearly 50 copycat threats across the country since the Virginia Tech attack, often shutting down schools. Apparently not all of the nation is in mourning; some use the opportunity to play hoaxes.

The news media suggest that America is asking why the tragedy occurred, but most of us already know why: bad things happen. Every now and then, some deranged person will shoot up a school or blow up a building. Innocent people will die. Cho was a violent, mentally ill man who had access to a gun. There's no big mystery.

Yet the news media, and some Americans, won't accept that.

Just like conspiracy theorists for whom the death of Princess Diana was too easy, too understandable, they will continue asking why, pressing for answers they already know.

In the wake of events like this, reflection and analysis are good, but asking why is often pointless and unproductive. It does not help people grieve, it does not help us understand the event. Of all the lessons that these tragedies teach us, this is the one most often forgotten.

Benjamin Radford wrote about the news media's coverage of school shootings in "Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us" (2003). This and other books are noted on his website.

Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

Scientists: You Can't Profile School Shooters

Shot Stopper: Smart Guns Get Smarter

Global Warming? Yeah... I'll belive it when you explain how THIS is wrong...

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:45:34 GMT

How about doing some REAL research on the changes that this planet has undergone in the last few millennia before you willingly give your life away to whack-job domestic terrorists like Green Peace and PETA?

This planet has been forming and reforming… developing and evolving… since the dawn of time… It has had ice ages and heat waves LONG before humans even evolved here… We are having an impact but this planet is much bigger then anything we can ever even attempt to “Control”. It will do as it will, as it has, long after we are all nothing more then fossils in the sand…

Watch History Channel if your not willing to read... They have shiny pictures to explain how you are being lied to by organizations with nothing but an urge for Political Power and Wealth...

Remember... You can drive a hybred, recycle everything, and shit right into a compost pile and it won't mean a damn thing once Yellowstone goes off... When the Supervolcano goes (And it could happen at any time... 1 second from now or 1 million years) Chicago will be under 6 feet of ash... SIX FEET OF ASH... From Yellow Stone National Park... America's Supervolcano!

Little Ice Age: Big Chill
Not so long ago, civilization learned that it was no match for just a few degrees drop in temperature. Scientists call it the Little Ice Age - but latest theories, and scholars and historians recreate the history that could be a glimpse of things to come. Face the cold, hard truth of the past - an era that may be a window to our future.

Its impact was anything but small. From 1300 to 1850, a period of cataclysmic cold caused havoc. It froze Viking colonists in Greenland, accelerated the Black Death in Europe, decimated the Spanish Armada, and helped trigger the French Revolution. The Little Ice Age reshaped the world in ways that now seem the stuff of fantasy--New York Harbor froze and people walked from Manhattan to Staten Island, Eskimos sailed kayaks as far south as Scotland, and two feet of snow fell on New England in June and July during "the Year Without a Summer". Could another catastrophic cold snap strike in the 21st century? Leading climatologists offer the

Genre:Science & Technology

History Channel & History Channel International

Rating: TVPG
Running Time: 120 minutes

Q: If the Yellowstone supervolcano were to erupt, what climate changes would occur? How long would the climate changes last? — LB

A: The latest models suggest several years and that the effects would be a severe cooling, particularly in the summer. The largest eruption of the last few hundred years was Tambora in 1815, in Indonesia. This caused the "Year Without a Summer" in Europe and frosts in New England in 1816. Benjamin Franklin wrote about these effects. A supereruption, however, is 10 to 30 times greater than the 1815 Tambora eruption, and we might expect even more severe climate effects. The climate effects might last much longer due to a polluted environment, but this idea is not yet established in the scientific community. Some scientists have speculated that the effects of having a continental area covered by ash would result in decades of unusual weather.
— Prof. Steve Sparks

America's Explosive Park

By Larry O'Hanlon - Discovery.com

YellowstoneNational Park sits atop a subterranean chamber of molten rock and gasses so vast that the region, known for its geysers and grizzlies, is arguably one of the largest active volcanoes in the world.

Granted, it's not your typical volcano, either in scale (it's huge), appearance (it's a vast depression, not a single mountain) or frequency of eruption (at least hundreds of thousands of years apart).

But it is active, and the evidence is everywhere.

A relatively close-to-the-surface magma chamber — as close as 5 miles underground in some spots — fuels thousands of spewing geysers, hissing steam vents, gurgling mud pots and steaming hot springs that help make Yellowstone such an otherworldly and popular tourist attraction, with 3 million summer visitors.

Molten rock and gas in a chamber near the Earth's surface is similarly present below "traditional" cone-shaped active volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens in Washington state.

But there are differences. Huge differences.

The crater atop Mount St. Helens is about 2 square miles. The Yellowstone "caldera" — a depression in the Earth equivalent to a crater top — is some 1,500 square miles.

The 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption blew 1,300 vertical feet off the mountain, sent an eruption column 80,000 feet high in 15 minutes, ejected 1.4 billion cubic yards of ash detectable over 22,000 square miles, and killed 57 people.

But the last major eruption at Yellowstone, some 640,000 years ago, ejected 8,000 times the ash and lava of Mount St. Helens.

And that wasn't even the largest eruption in Yellowstone's prehistoric past.

"Yellowstone is much larger than any other volcanic feature in North America," says geophysicist Bob Smith of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory and the University of Utah. "People don't realize this."

>>> NEXT PAGE: WHAT'S FUELING YELLOWSTONE?

What a HORRIBLE week...

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:33:53 GMT

Fuck… What a week…

First my business partner… the guy that has been driving trucks since before I was born… Had his windows up and radio on and backed the fucking 10-Ton RIGHT into the machine at the job site…

The other driver was there and so we called and Mike said “NO! I had my windows down… I was paying attention…” but the Driver said “HELL NO! He had his windows up AND both the air conditioner and radio on!”

So he not only ended up fucking both trucks for that day (They only got 2.5 hours each) but had to pay $500.00 out of pocket AND gas to go and get the part from the shop!

We are lucky that the customer didn’t charge us for the down time at the site!!

Top that off with being turned down for an over-draft line of credit because the cock-sucker waited over a fucking YEAR to agree to fill out the application and so all our over-draft’s, bounced checks, and late payments counted against us… Let’s just say that I am fucking pissed…

The jag-off goes fishing for 2 weeks and then comes back and fucks the company… It is so much easier when he stays the fuck away from me!

He still can’t get it through his head that I can’t pay his credit card bills with company funds without receipts… I’ve even had the CPA explain it to him… And ALL he says is “Well, I spent the money on the company! Why can’t you pay it?”

So I’m all, “Look… Lets pretend I’m the IRS… ‘Here, why did the company pay your MasterCard bill?’”
Response, “Because I spent that money on the company.”
IRS Person, “Prove it…”
Mike, “Um… I can’t.”

*BAM!*

We get busted for misuse of corporate funds…

I understand that he DID use the cards on purchases for the company… But I have no proof either way… The IRS doesn’t give a shit about half assed explanations if you don’t have the paperwork to back it up!!

Then I start dealing with the City of Chicago AGAIN!

Turns out, a FULL YEAR LATER, that our handler at the Hired Truck Program never forwarded on our claim to get reimbursed for damage caused two days in a row by City Equipment!!

A faxed it in more then FOUR TIMES… Mike dropped off a hard copy to their fucking offices…

And we heard “Oh… yeah… We got it… And we passed it along to the proper department.” But they refused to tell us WHAT department that was…

So now, a full fucking year later, we FINALLY get a hold of the right department and they say that they have no idea what we are talking about…

So it never went to the department… It never went before the committee… It never even got logged in…

So NOW we need to get documents from our insurance company stating that we DID NOT file a claim… Bills… Witness Statements… The works…

AND the driver that was working isn’t an employee anymore because work has been so slow of late (Slow because the City spent all it’s money and isn’t handing out permits) so they will need to interview him on HIS time…

Then there is the Welding Shop that did the repairs… That was a year ago and this mother fucker can’t find his cock with two hands and a fucking flashlight… He’s the reason for the last series of bounced checks… HIS payment to US over drew his account…

We got nothing to hide… We got investigated by the fed’s and we never did anything wrong while in the H.T.P. but having this issue come back up more then a year later?

This is gonna piss some people off…

They can confine me to a room with a spot light and interrogate me… they can go through the books… but it is the annoyance factor that pisses me off…

Then I kept having my father say “We NEED to pay *Blank* $1000.00” and “We NEED to pay *Blank* another $800.00” and so now we are SOL as far as the bank balance is concerned and our insurance came up and the guy is putting the check in TODAY…

There is ZIP in the bank right now so that check will bounce and I have no idea how badly this will fuck everything up…

If we could just get it postponed for a week… Then all the invoices would be coming in… I KNOW we got $11,000.00 from one customer and another $10,000.00 from another… Then we got the odd jobs through the brokers that will come in… But in about a week and a half…

This one cock-sucker claims that he “Never received” our invoice… I’ve been faxing it to him EVERY OTHER DAY for the last week and a half… I EVEN got QuickBooks to Email it to him… But this fucker needs to go out of town to his kid’s birthday party of some shit like that so he won’t cut us a check until “Sometime next week.”

Mother fucker… His payment is 60+ days past due! We are NEVER working for THEM again!

Shit…

The tractor doesn’t even have any gas in it… We might need to siphon off some from 103…

Luckily only 101 & 102 are working Monday…

But we need to cash in our change jug to pay for ANYTHING else… I got $20.00 to my name…

I need to sell the shit I have in storage… I have a FULL APARTMENT up in jack-ass’s second floor empty office…

I could sell my couch and love seat… I could sell my dining room table… I have kick-knacks galore!

Too bad my books are not worth shit… I have, literally, over 1000 books… If they were worth even $3.00 each I would sell um…

OH! And Mr. Spectacular Driver (Our other older driver) cut a fucking drive axel tire on a hunk of concrete... AGAIN! This is the THIRD time he has fucked up a drive axel tire... $900.00 a POP!

Mother fucker actually looks at my father and asks "What? Don't you have your tires insured?"

I have no idea how much crack this jag-off is smoking to belive that "Tire Insurance" for tractor trailers exists... Yeah... We fuck up back tires ALL THE TIME... But Drive Axle Tires are suposed to last a VERY long time... They are expensive and so they are made better to handle the stresses placed upon them... Fucking retard...

Shit…

I DID have a wonderful C.L.A.W. meeting on Wednesday… The only problem is the emotional back lash I had the next day through today… I feel like shit… Like someone had been kicking me in the face…

A scene can really fuck you up…

I’m gonna take it more carefully next time…

They DO stop careing after the first kid...

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 00:27:03 GMT

Families' Eldest Boys Do Best On Tests

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer

Thu Jun 21, 5:54 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Boys at the top of the pecking order — either by birth or because their older siblings died — score higher on IQ tests than their younger brothers. The question of whether firstborn and only children are really smarter than those who come along later has been hotly debated for more than a century.

Norwegian researchers now report that it isn't a matter of being born first, but growing up the senior child, that seems to result in the higher IQ scores.

Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal report their findings in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

It's a matter of what they call social rank in the family — the highest scores were racked up by the senior boy — the first born or, if the firstborn had died in infancy, the next oldest.

Kristensen, of Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health, and Bjerkedal, of the Norwegian Armed Forces Medical Services, studied the IQ test results of 241,310 Norwegian men drafted into the armed forces between 1967 and 1976. All were aged 18 or 19 at the time.

The average IQ of first-born men was 103.2, they found.

Second-born men averaged 101.2, but second-born men whose older sibling died in infancy scored 102.9.

And for third-borns, the average was 100.0. But if both older siblings died young, the third-born score rose to 102.6.

The findings provide "evidence that the relation between birth order and IQ score is dependent on the social rank in the family and not birth order as such," they concluded.

It's an issue that has perplexed people since at least 1874, when Sir Francis Galton reported that men in prominent positions tend to be firstborns more often than would have been statistically expected.

Since then, several studies have reported higher intelligence scores for firstborns, while other analyses have questioned those findings and the methodology of the reports.

While the Norwegian analysis focused on men, other studies have included women, some indicating a birth-order effect and some not.

Frank J. Sulloway of the Institute for Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley, welcomed what he called the Norwegians' "elegantly designed" analysis.

"These two researchers demonstrate that how study participants were raised, not how they were born, is what actually influences their IQs," said Sulloway, who was not part of the research team.

The elder child pulls ahead, he said, perhaps as a result of learning gained through the process of tutoring younger brothers and sisters.

The older child benefits by having to organize and express its thoughts to tutor youngsters, he said, while the later children may have no one to tutor.

Squirrels are out to take over the world!!

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:33:59 GMT

High-Wire Squirrels Torch Man's Home Twice In 8 Days

BLUE ISLAND | But owner finds fault with ComEd

June 21, 2007

BY ANGELA CAPUTO Daily Southtown

If you think Alan Turcott has bad luck, just think of the squirrels in his neighborhood.

For the second time in eight days, Turcott's Blue Island home caught fire when squirrels knocked high-voltage wires loose from a utility pole and onto his three-story house, fire officials said.

"This is unbelievable," Blue Island Fire Chief Robert Copp said. "I've seen where squirrels have shorted things out or blown a fuse, but nothing like this before."

Two scorched squirrels were found after the fires, confirming the critter cause, Copp said.

It appears they transferred power from one line to the next as they bounced across the wires June 9 and 17.

"It's like a battlefield around here," Turcott said as he pointed to his plywood-patched home. "I think it's a total loss. It's just a big nightmare."

But Turcott isn't so quick to point the finger at his furry neighbors. The lines should be able to handle squirrel traffic, he said.

"If [ComEd] would have maintained and repaired [the wires] properly, the fires wouldn't have started," he said.

Richard Roeper... I love this guy...

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:33:08 GMT

Readers rant on 'Evan', Con’s, & Why does Chicago need 50 aldermen, but L.A. only 15?

Dewey Sprenzel: Con's

"Two years ago I worked at the Virgin store at Ohio and Michigan. One day as I was going to lunch, I happened on a young woman. She was holding a sign that said 'Stranded, purse stolen, need $ to get home.' Her story was she was visiting from Seattle, her purse was stolen and had no money to get back to Seattle, but it would be OK because her friend was driving out from Seattle to pick her up and would be there in a week or so. She just needed money to get by.

"She worked that corner for three months. Being a young, white, attractive-enough girl, she made plenty of cash . . ."

That's why I'd rather give money to the guy with the sign saying, "I'm broke and you're not." It's not the panhandling that bothers me as much as the con job.

Donald E. Soula, Ph.D. candidate in Biblical Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary:

"I thought I'd provide you with a detail that should have had a major impact on 'Evan Almighty.'

"In the movie, a big point is made about Genesis 6:14, God's command to Noah to build an ark. A modern man is told to build an ark because God is going to cause a worldwide flood once again.

"The problem is that according to Genesis 9:11, God promised Noah that 'never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.'

"This makes the 'God' of this movie either forgetful or a liar. . . . It's one thing if you just make up a story, but it's another to ignore that the original story flat-out precludes your new story."

What about "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer," which really should have been called, "I Still Know What You Did Two Summers Ago"? Huh huh huh?

In "Bruce Almighty," Jim Carrey uses his omniscient powers to make his girlfriend's breasts bigger and to teach his dog to use the toilet. And you're worried that the SEQUEL isn't going to be faithful to the Bible? Trust me, that's the least of this movie's problems.

Bill Papadakis: Aldermen

"How is it that Los Angeles, a city larger than Chicago, can function with only 15 council members, but Chicago needs 50?"

Somebody ordered 50 leather chairs, and we don't want to waste 'em.