"The young American Marine is exultant. "It's a sniper's dream," he tells a Los Angeles Times reporter on the outskirts of Fallujah. "You can go anywhere and there so many ways to fire at the enemy without him knowing where you are." "Sometimes a guy will go down, and I'll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies. Then I'll use a second shot." "To take a bad guy out," he explains, "is an incomparable 'adrenaline rush.'" He brags of having "24 confirmed kills" in the initial phase of the brutal U.S. onslaught against the rebel city of 300,000 people. [...] http://www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1386

i really really doubt that i will ever go to one (a service) again when you are buried? :o

80%, 58% and one in 5. Hmmmmmmm "The principal reason people gave for backing the adoption of ID cards was to prevent illegal immigration." Well, this poll is broken, since everyone knows that ID cards cannot prevent illegal immigration any more than passports can. Its also not good practice to use two different ways of presenting numbers in a single poll; 1in5 means 20%, which means in practice that only 20% of people will pay for this proposed card. When the news finally gets out that ID cards dont solve any problems but create a whole legion of others, the percentage of people willing to pay for them will drop to 0 and the numbers willing to carry one will dwindle wonderfully.

Since the 1991 Gulf War, photographs of coffins as they return to the United States have been tightly restricted. And few such photographs have been published during the conflict in Iraq. News Here

I went to a funeral a few weeks ago, in a Lutheran church. It was quite an experience. My good friend's grandfather had passed away. He was such a lovely man, and I was quite upset by his passing. I will miss his bright light. I arrived at the church, feeling sad, trembling emotion, perhaps you can relate. You know, when the tears spill out so easily you are almost embarrassed? And what was so interesting to me, was how the service functioned to relieve me of my grief. I do not follow any particular religion, but I am a spiritual person, and it was interesting to follow the service through my emotions and observe how it helped to raise my spirit. It was not the words - there were many times when I felt I understood what the deacon was saying, however the language did not exactly reach my true center. But the measured process of speech, song, prayer, praise and closure helped me with my feelings of grief that I found to be quite effective, an avenue of release I may not have searched out for myself if left alone. The personal experience aside, it left me with an appreciation of the function that religion serves in society, to provide community, a way of life, a ritual, some solace. Perhaps this is the draw for so many? It is difficult to be so strong, to have all the answers, is it so wrong to rely on a system that can carry you through? I must admit, we have had the benefit of the visit of the Dalai Lama, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu and Shirin Ebadi this week in Vancouver, so much of the news has been about peace, acceptance, non-violence and love. I wish this was every week, in every paper, every where. What would we do without these people? Their very existence makes manifest that which they believe.

So it's fair that I can only use this music on an iPod, which is made by Apple, and I can only play it through iTunes, which is made by Apple? Hmmm... that sounds a lot like a Microsoftian viewpoint. How very monopolistic of you. What if I want to play my music on Rio players and listen to it in Winamp? What if I want to listen to it on a Linux box? Saying "because Apple's license agreement says you can't" is ignoring the laws of supply and demand. If enough people use PlayFair to circumvent Apple's iTMS protection then there is a demand for DRM-free music and Apple must change their ways or perish. http://wincent.org/forum/message/63/

Benjamin   n   1. a $100 bill.   2. any money. ("It's all about the Benjamins." -- Lauryn Hill.) money (related to) one hundred dollars http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~wrader/slang/b.html

I've never found an explanation This is irrelevant; you are not going to get anywhere with this if you keep appying the same broken tools to this perception problem. As I said, you need to put aside your personal ideas when you read these texts. As for why someone would believe in the rapture, this is pretty obvious to: A anyone that can ephathise with other people B anyone what understands what the rapture is You can replace the rapture with reincarnation btw. Stop fighting agains it; you need to live next door to these people - in every way - get into their minds so that you can better acquit yourself in front of them. You will not be able to do this, by quoting "facts" about how the very centres of their beliefs are fradulent. I challenge you to listen to RG Stair for a week and to say that you do not agree with him on everything to do with politics. Find the common ground!

Blush say Iraq will be free to govern itself. Did you know the the US embassy they are planning to build there will be the biggest US embassy in the world, and that it will have a staff of THREE THOUSAND people? Holy staging posts Batman!

One should not be scared by people who believe in the rapture; they mean no harm to anyone, and their belief does not harm anyone. One should not call peoples religous beliefs "stuff" like its some sort of garbage (unless one is being flippant, then one can call it bullshit, codswhallop, trash, crap, nonsense). When a person says, "People believe this stuff. It truly saddens me..." It could be taken to mean (probably wrongly), by italicizing "believe" that it is somehow incredible that someone would seriously think that the rapture is going to happen, which by the way as beliefs go is in no way incredible, strange or out of the ordinary. Why should it make anyone sad that there are "rapturists" out there? What exactly is it that they are missing out on that would make a person feel pity for them? Only a person who thinks that they know better than a rapturist, that they have unlocked the key to the universe would pour pity on a rapturists head. It is very simple to understand what rapturists believe. All one has to do is read what they have read. The major religious texts are understandable by anyone, and if one can put aside personal feelings and inclinations while reading these texts, one will find that they are internally consistent. One will then be able to qualify a statement like "People believe this stuff." with "...which baffles me, beause thats not what it says in the King James Bible, which they claim to folllow". Now, that is not an attack, that is a reasoned thrust of a foil. It makes nor implies a claim to superior knowledge about the nature of mans life on earth, it simply asks a polite question. Of course, in the middle of the night on a full moon, one might, in private, think that the universe has been revealed to you, but that is quite another thing entirely. To understand anything, you simply have to study it. If religions are treated as subsets of human behaviour, then they are complete, finite and can be studied in their entirety. There might not be time for this, so, for example, you can listen to, for exammple The Overcomer (which I have posted here at least 5 times) or watch the Islamic TV channels that are out there. There is one in particular, hosted by an old guy with a vertical white headress, which sometimes is translated into English. These people never lie, and when they say something that isnt true, like "Planet X is travelling at the speed of light and is going to smash into earth" you can safely discount it....maybe :o The most important thing is that the information conveyed by the voices above will confirm that you have much more in common with them than it would appear at first glance, which should give one comfort and lessen one's anxiety about the aparent "strangeness" of religion and its adherents. Certainly, most of liberal america is now finding that they have alot in common with the Militia types, who they once derided as lunatics. But thats another story!

When the Saudi people finally rise up in revolt and throw out the House of Saud, it won't be for democratic reform, and it won't be for an islamic republic. It'll be about mobile phones. [...]

MADINAH, 14 April 2004 � Police in Madinah arrested an 18-year-old man in woman�s dress including a veil in a Madinah shopping center. Al-Madinah reported that people noticed strange movements and felt the person was not walking like a woman. His arms were also noticed to be hairy. People said the person was following women and annoying them. The police were called and they arrested the man saying that he might be mentally ill.

The thing about wearing an abaya and a veil, it could be anybody in there. It could be Hulk Hogan. It could be Osama Bin Laden. It could be Clyde, the Orang Utang. Just don't show your hairy arms. As for the man's mental health, I agree. Any Saudi man who would rather be treated like a Saudi woman, is by definition nuts.[...] http://muttawa.blogspot.com/ Mobile telephony as a basis for a state: "I am 4 it" Men in Jihab: "I like it"

One recent poll showed that only 19% of the American public now identify themselves as liberal. That means that if a liberal network wants to be successful, politically or economically, it must also convert a significant number of the 39% of the public that the poll said considers itself moderate. Good luck. In a country in which 64% of the public say they attend weekend worship services at least once a month, mocking religion might not be the most effective way to win converts � and yet, on Good Friday no less, that's exactly what the various Air America hosts repeatedly did. Two of the hosts gratuitously announced that they're Jewish, and one � Marc Maron of the network's "Morning Sedition" program � went on to make fun of Easter and Christmas rituals. Then, in a segment he called "morning devotional," Maron began his prayer for divine guidance on behalf of President Bush by saying, "Dear Lord, what the hell is going on up there?" [...] La Times Ahem. Or should it be Amen? I'm not sure today!

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.1 PLANETS. http://myfootprint.org/ Bad Citizen!

Exhibit an individual belief system (e.g. pixies tell you how to live, whispering sweet somethings in your ear) and you'll be in a rubber room before long. But believe you hear the voice of a god and do it's bidding, speak to an invisible entity that doesn't reply and ask favours, and think that if you're good you'll end up in an eternal paradise... suddenly you're a model citizen. Atheists, are a breed of religious fanatics who believe in man instead of God. They are also Talibanesque in their intolerance of any belief other than their own. The Taliban spend time trying to erase the religion of others to the point of using dynamite to destroy statues; Atheists use ridicule, ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments as their weapons. Atheists are like the Jehovas witnesses, banging on your door with "a message from God" at 7AM on a Saturday when you are having a well deserved late morning after a hard weeks slog. Atheists think they have the answer just like every other religious fanatic. They have their holy texts - lots of them - which they encourage you to study, just like the Musilms, Christians and every other group. They, like the religiuls, have "got religion" the religion of Athesim, which they preach and are bound to spread, "for the good of mankind", for, if everyone believed what they believe, the world would naturally be a better place. This is as vile to me as the Jehovas witnesses waking me up in the morning, or Christians going to India to "harvest souls", or those dumbasses who want the UK to be run under Sharia law. I have complete tolerance for all religions; there are many places where you can live and express your religious beliefs to the full, and you can live any way you want as long as you keep it your own business. I dont have to give the examples of the way different countries are organized around religion or to negate the effects of religion. There is however, no Atheist state; maybe someone should start one? One thing is for certain. The people who will shit their pants first on the day of the second coming will be the Atheists. The people who will have an afterlife heart attack after the heat attack that ends their lives are the ones that see the many aspects of Krishna as it is revealed to them that they spent their whole lives in a complete self centered inward looking lie. The believers, if there is no God, get a chemically induced near death experience, indistinguishable from ascending to heaven. so they dont loose either way :o During the Cultural Revolution they said "religion is poison". I say, rationality as religion is poison. Both kill something. Stop the killing...stop the insanity.

Now send this to your MP / Colleagues: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/19/biometrics/page4.html

Tarantino knows his Kung Fu! http://killbill.movies.go.com/vol2/flash/

baldstars!

whoa.

"Put the pick in here Pete, and turn it around, real neat" That isnt the correct quote of course, do you know what the correct one is? Anyway... Where is A^k?

Gaddafi plans major law reform

Libya's leader has called for sweeping legal changes including the abolition of a special revolutionary court criticised by human rights groups. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi also urged an end to the arrest of people without a warrant and the ratification of international anti-torture conventions. Last month he promised to act after an Amnesty International team made their first visit to Libya in 15 years. The image of Libya's leader has been transformed in western eyes recently [...] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3639011.stm Smart move; dismantle your aparatus of control berore the religious hoardes take over and use it against you. If they decide to take over that is. Hmmmm now in the west there will be arrest without warrant, but in Libya, there will be no arrest without warrant. You can smoke in public in Bahgdad, but not in Manhattan. Whats wrong with this picture?!?!?!