Reasons

Reasons for Divorce

2008-11-29T04:24:00.000-08:00

1. Lack of commitment towards marriage, sexual incompatibility and infidelity

Commitment may be lacking in one of the partners because marriage happens not always out of love. It could be seen as making a good deal and when it is found that the deal is not what he or she expected divorce happens. Besides, people looking for quick solutions cannot sustain marriage for long.

Philandering habits die hard and this leads to infidelity. People with uncontrollable libido or unhappy with his or her partner cannot be loyal to their partners. So when the wife or husband comes to know of his or her partner cheating on him or her divorce turns out to be the answer. The question that arises is when to divorce.

2. Lack of communication between spouses

Without communication no relationship can be effective. Keeping your resentments simmering within, your partner does not come to know what is happening with you and this is likely to create distance between you and your partner.

3.Abandonment, Alcohol Addiction, Substance Abuse

When one of the partners deserts his or her partner for quite some time or a longer period divorce emerges as the answer. One leaves his or her partner because of the latter’s bad habits.

Alcohol addiction and abuse prevent marital bliss because of the change in behavior pattern which makes an adverse impact upon mental peace and physical security.

4. Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse and Emotional Abuse

These abuses are not uncommon and tolerating them is not good and a person who loves himself or herself would not put with such abuses.

5.Inability to manage or resolve conflict

Lack of maturity disables one to manage conflicts and handle personality differences or ‘irreconcilable differences’

Source : http://women.ygoy.com

Reasons Not to Date a Tyrannosaurus Rex

2008-11-27T00:56:00.000-08:00

1.Tiresome dinner suggestions

2.You can't hold hands

3.T-rex always wins best costume at Halloween parties

4.Stargazing is out

5. Surprise birthday parties are always terrible

Source : http://mingle2.com

Five Reasons Why Kanye West Is a Douche

2008-11-26T12:19:00.000-08:00

Kanye West is a douche for many, many reasons, but it is easy to falter and find yourself thinking "Man, that Kanye's a pretty wicked dude". It happens to the best of us, we falter at times, but it shouldn't have to happen. I have narrowed the proofs of his douchiness down to a ten-point emergency checklist that folds easily into your pocket or wallet for those times when his blinding douchebaggery eludes you.

1. He douched out at the Grammy's when he took the stage to accept his award, refused to leave the stage when his time was up, and then actually told them to stop playing the get-off-the-stage music so that he could keep talking. Me Kanye. I bes vewy, vewy important.

2. His new album, due out on November 24th, is a departure from his usual style, as he sings more than he raps. That is all good and well, because he is a talented musician, but then he had to go and douche it up by saying that this change in style is an attempt to challenge the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney, who he describes as "those artists in black and white photos", because taking a crap on music legends serves to make Kanye's genius obvious to all and sundry.

3. In a recent interview, Kanye said, and I am not kidding: "I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice. It's me settling into that position of just really accepting that it's one thing to say you want to do it and it's another thing to really end up being like Michael Jordan."

4. In that same interview, he showcased his inveterate respect for other performers by slamming Justin Timberlake: "There were people who had the potential to do it but they went on vacation, so when Justin went on vacation I made albums, and it just came out to be that."

5. Kanye pulled the race card when it was announced that Britney Spears would be hosting the 2007 Video Music Awards. "I can’t believe she would perform. She hasn’t had a hit record in years. Maybe my money’s not right. Maybe my skin’s not right." Riiiiight, that's it.

Source : www.mamapop.com

Five Reasons We Love Natalie Portman

2008-07-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

1.) She's been around forever, even though she's only 26.

I remember her scene in Heat. I remember her from Beautiful Girls, a film destined to make you feel creepy the older you get. My point being we've grown up together, Natalie and I, and I appreciate her sticking around. Like an old friend, she's been there through thick (Closer) and thin (Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium??).

2.) She's not afraid to mix things up.

When I first saw the Portman rap (warning: salty language) from Saturday Night Live I was stunned that she even agreed to it. She opened herself up to an incredible amount of backlash... and yet, she got away with it. I never heard a thing about it afterwards. Incredible. Is it possible everyone without a sense of humor in the world suddenly got one once Portman was involved? Whatever the case, I've never loved her more than when she threatened my pet.

3.) She changed her mind on the nude thing.

Don't worry, I'm not going to get pervy with this. My point is when she filmed nude scenes for Closer everyone involved realized they weren't necessary to the story. So they were axed according to her wishes. Later, when filming Hotel Chevalier for Wes Anderson she did a bit of nudity. This shows maturation, and good judgment too. There are times in life where people are sans clothes. I'm not talking exploitative horror-style nudity here, I'm talking something that moves the story forward in an interesting manner. Hotel Chevalier was that scene and she nailed it. Kudos to her for not giving in to fear and for allowing a master filmmaker like Wes Anderson to accomplish his vision.

4.) She's willing to try and fail.

Natalie's work in Star Wars is about as bad as she's ever done. But she committed to it and she saw it through. In between she worked on things that were interesting and successful: Garden State and Closer come to mind. No actor is ever going to bat 100%, but Natalie's wide range of projects guarantee that she'll always have something interesting cooking.

5.) Okay, okay, she is smart.

I recently read an interesting study where it was suggested that men don't want to date/marry someone smarter than them. Phooey on that noise. If Natalie wants to attend Harvard and make me look intellectually small, by all means, be my guest. Since when are we competing with each other for who is smarter in a relationship? I figure a smart gal could save my life some day, Macgyver style. Thus, smart people, in general, are highly preferable to dumb people. That's sort of my mantra for life actually (you may use it too though).

Natalie doesn't fit the current Hollywood version of glamour: she's not out getting drunk and high; she's not having surgery; she's not switching out a boyfriend every week on the cover of People magazine. Instead she's doing interesting movies and becoming a person of substance. Weird, I know.

Source : www.film.com

Physiological and Psychological Reasons for Erectile Dysfunction

2007-12-07T12:48:00.000-08:00

Erectile dysfunction (ED or (male) impotence) is a sexual dysfunction characterized by the inability to develop or maintain an erection of the penis. There are various underlying causes, such as cardiovascular leakage and diabetes, many of which are medically treatable.

The causes of erectile dysfunction may be physiological or psychological. Physiologically, erection is a hydraulic mechanism based upon blood entering and being retained in the penis, and there are various ways in which this can be impeded, most of which are amenable to treatment. Psychological impotence is where erection or penetration fails due to thoughts or feelings (psychological reasons) rather than physical impossibility; this can often be helped. Notably in psychological impotence there is a very strong placebo effect.

Erectile dysfunction, tied closely as it is to cultural notions of potency, success and masculinity, can have devastating psychological consequences including feelings of shame, loss or inadequacy; often unnecessary since in most cases the matter can be helped. There is a strong culture of silence and inability to discuss the matter. In fact around 1 in 10 men will experience recurring impotence problems at some point in their lives.

Physiological Reasons for Erectile Dysfunction

* Spinal Cord and Nerve Disorders (like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, MS)
* Hormonal Imbalances
* Arterial Disorders (like hypertension)
* Surgery
* Radiation treatments
* Lifestyle Choices (like obesity, smoking, drug and alcohol)
* Age
* Iatrogenic Causes (Medicinally caused) (like high blood pressure meds)

Psychological Reasons for Erectile Dysfunction

Psychological erectile dysfunction can occur when a man is feeling depressed, has ED.jpgfeeling of nervousness or anxiety. The issue can arise from problems with work, family or money that can lead to stressors that can inhibit sexual desire and ability. Unresolved issues with a partner or feelings of self-consciousness are two other reasons a man may experience erectile dysfunction. One last reason may be fear of a partner's reaction. Rejection is a strong psychological reason to have performance anxiety.

The most important factor is determining the underlying reason for the dysfunction so that appropriate measures can be taken to resolve the issue.

Source : www.pharmagazette.com
www.wikipedia.org

AL GORE: The Assault on Reason

2007-11-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

In “The Assault on Reason” Al Gore excoriates George W. Bush, asserting that the president is “out of touch with reality,” that his administration is so incompetent that it “can’t manage its own way out of a horse show,” that it ignored “clear warnings” about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by “stirring up a hornets’ nest in Iraq,” while using “the language and politics of fear” to try to “drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest.”

The administration’s pursuit of unilateralism abroad, Mr. Gore says, has isolated the United States in an ever more dangerous world, even as its efforts to expand executive power at home and “relegate the Congress and the courts to the sidelines” have undermined the constitutional system of checks and balances.

Mr. Gore’s central argument is that “reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions” and that the country’s public discourse has become “less focused and clear, less reasoned.” This “assault on reason,” he suggests, is personified by the way the Bush White House operates. Echoing many reporters and former administration insiders, Mr. Gore says that the administration tends to ignore expert advice (be it on troop levels, global warming or the deficit), to circumvent the usual policy-making machinery of analysis and debate, and frequently to suppress or disdain the best evidence available on a given subject so it can promote predetermined, ideologically driven policies.

www.nytimes.com

Five Reasons Why Many Gulf War Veterans Oppose Re-Invading Iraq

2007-11-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

1. U.S. troops are vulnerable to Iraqi chemical and biological warfare agents -- if Iraq is capable of using them. The gas masks, detection alarms and protection suits don't work, according to internal Department of Defense documents uncovered during investigations by the U.S. General Accounting Office. This leaves U.S. troops highly vulnerable to chemical and biological attack. U.S. chemical and biological warfare agent casualties in 2002 could be significantly higher than in 1991. Only a few months ago, the Pentagon sent out a press release stating 140,000 U.S. soldiers were exposed to low-levels chemical agents near Khamisiyah, Iraq during the Gulf War. While these soldiers appeared to return home healthy, many tens of thousands face long-term disabling medical problems that are difficult to treat.

2. Scientific evidence shows that even low-level chemical exposures are dangerous. According to a recent National Academy of Sciences report (Gulf War and Health, September 2000), low-levels of chemical warfare agents cause long-term medical problems. This conclusion is based on research resulting from the sarin attack in Japan in 1995.

3. Research shows long-term adverse side effects from mandatory vaccines given to U.S. soldiers deploying to the war zone. According to the product label insert made by BioPort in Michigan, the sole producer, the experimental anthrax vaccine has caused several deaths. The National Academy of Sciences this year concluded there are some risks to the hotly debated vaccine.

4. The Gulf War battlefield remains radioactive and toxic. Scientific research funded by the military and released two years ago links exposure to depleted uranium (DU) ammunition with cancer in rats. Solid depleted uranium bullets, ranging in size from 25mm to 120mm, are used by U.S. tanks, helicopters and planes to attack enemy tanks and armored personnel carriers. The Gulf War battlefield is already littered with more than 300 tons of radioactive dust and shrapnel from the 1991 Gulf War. Another war will only increase the radioactive and toxic contamination among U.S. soldiers. As of today, U.S. troops are not fully trained about the hazards of depleted uranium contamination, even though Congress enacted a law in 1998 requiring extensive training, especially for medical personnel.

5. Research shows long-term adverse side effects from mandatory pills given to U.S. soldiers deploying to the war zone. According to testimony before Congress (Rand Corporation, 1999), the experimental pyridostigmine bromide (PB) anti-chemical warfare agent pills "can't be ruled out" as linked to Gulf War illness. During the war, soldiers were told to take one pill every eight hours. After the chemical alarms sounded, some soldiers, out of legitimate fear for their lives, took more than the prescribed amount. To date, the long-term consequences of PB pills remain largely unknown.

Source : www.alternet.org

Tracy Chapman - Give me one reason

2007-11-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

Give me one reason to stay here and I'll turn right back around
Give me one reason to stay here and I'll turn right back around
Because I don't want leave you lonely
But you got to make me change my mind
Baby I got your number and I know that you got mine
But you know that I called you I called too many times
You can call me baby you can call me anytime
But you got to call me

Give me one reason to stay here - and I'll turn right back around
Give me one reason to stay here - and I'll turn right back around
Because I don't want leave you lonely
But you got to make me change my mind

I don't want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I don't want no one to squeeze me - they might take away my life
I just want someone to hold me and rock me through the night

This youthful heart can love you and give you what you need
This youthful heart can love you and give you what you need
But I'm too old to go chasing you around
Wasting my precious energy

Give me one reason to stay here - and I'll turn right back around
Give me one reason to stay here - and I'll turn right back around
Because I don't want leave you lonely
But you got to make me change my mind

Baby just give me one reason - Give me just one reason why
Baby just give me one reason - Give me just one reason why I should stay
Because I told you that I loved you
And there ain't no more to say

Age of Reason Halloween Special

2007-10-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

Reason (magazine)

2007-10-31T15:52:00.000-07:00

Reason magazine is a libertarian monthly magazine from the Reason Foundation.Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole, Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule. As the monthly print magazine of "free minds and free markets", it covers politics, culture, and ideas with a mix of news, analysis, commentary, and reviews.

Nick Gillespie has been the magazine's Editor-in-Chief since 2000. Other Reason writers include Charles Paul Freund, Jacob Sullum, Jesse Walker, Brian Doherty, Ronald Bailey, Radley Balko, Tim Cavanaugh, Julian Sanchez, Kerry Howley, David Weigel, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Michael C. Moynihan, Cathy Young, Jonathan Rauch, and cartoonist Peter Bagge. Former editors include Marty Zupan and Virginia Postrel.

Erik Spiekermann, the inventor of the typeface Meta, headed a redesign of Reason in 2001, aiming for a look that is "cleaner, more modern, making use of the Meta typeface throughout".

In June 2004, subscribers to Reason magazine received a personalized issue that had their name, and a satellite photo of their home or workplace on the cover.

The magazine now has a circulation of around 60,000 and has twice been named one of the US's "50 best magazines" by the Chicago Tribune.

Source : www.wikipedia.org

Christians Should Not Celebrate Halloween

2007-10-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

Many in our secular society believe Halloween is nothing more than a harmless festival that allows kids to collect candy. But is it? Its origins lie deeply rooted in the occult, and Christians should stay away. Here are five reasons why.

1. October 31st has long been known as "The Festival of the Dead." The Celtic tribes and their priests the Druids celebrated this day as a marker for the change from life to death.

2. Halloween today is performed usually by adherents of witchcraft who use the night for their rituals. Witches celebrate Halloween as the "Feast of Samhain," the first feast of the witchcraft year. Being a festival of the dead, Halloween is a time when witches attempt to communicate with the dead through various forms of divination.

3. Christians should not be involved with occultic practice or divination. Note God's command against divination in Deuteronomy 18.

4. Occultists believe Halloween is a time of transition between life and death. Some occult practitioners practiced divination and believed you could learn the secrets of life and wisdom by Iying on a grave and listening to the messages from the long-departed.

5. Occultists also taught that spirits and ghosts left the grave during this night and would seek out warmth in their previous homes. Villagers, fearful of the possibility of being visited by the ghosts of past occupants, would dress up in costumes to scare the spirits on their way. They would also leave food and other treats at their door to appease the spirits so they would not destroy their homes or crops but instead move on down the road. That is the real reason why kids dress up in costumes today and go door-to-door seeking treats.

Source : http://fillthevoid.org

Kasabian - Reason Is Treason

2007-07-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason
Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason

See the stones coming at my window
See they left man no protection
T ell his family that he will be ok
K-I-LL!

Check the angles from both forces
overcome by the need to fight it
fight it
fight it
fight it
fight it

Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason

I hear the sounds all around

Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason

Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason

Here come the morning that I say goodbye to ya
Here come the morning that'll say goodbye
but I dont turn around cause the reason is treason

Reason, truth, and emotion or passion

2007-07-23T12:31:00.000-07:00

In literature, reason is often opposed to emotions or feelings, and desires, drives or passions. Others see reason as the servant or tool of these things -- the means of sorting out our desires and then getting what we want. Some would say however that many of the key philosophers of history (e.g. Plato, Rousseau, Hume, Nietzsche) have combined both views - making rational thinking not only a tool of desires, but also something which is itself desired, not only because of its usefulness in satisfying other desires.

At the same time, reason sometimes clearly seems to come into conflict with some desires (even while not being in conflict with others) giving us the impression that reason is separate from emotion. Only in humans, choices are sometimes made on the basis of an association of ideas which is an artificially constructed model, rather than an un-inspected association based on raw experience, and this “feels” different from when one is won over by a passion supported by raw “feeling”. The opposite is also unique – we sometimes feel that a passion has won over our decision-making “unjustly”, despite having lost its argument, or perhaps (in the case, for example, of a reflex action) not even having been a subject of argument before the action took place.

The question of whether reason is in fact driven by emotions is important for philosophers because reason is seen by almost all philosophers as being the way that we come to know the truth, and we see the truth as something which exists outside of our own consciousness. If reason is driven by emotions, then how can we ever know that we are not deceiving ourselves about what is true by denying undesirable information in favor of a more pleasing construct of our world?

Fortunately, we are not entirely without answers to this important question. Modern psychology has much to say on the role of emotions in belief formation. Deeper philosophical questions about the relation between belief and reality are studied in the field of epistemology, which forms part of the philosophical basis of science, a branch of human activity that specifically aims to determine (certain types of) truth in an emotion-independent fashion.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

5 Reasons God Exists

2007-06-19T07:27:00.001-07:00

Reasons To Never Accept A Diamond

2007-06-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

Five Reasons Why You Should Never Accept a Diamond Ring from Anyone, Under Any Circumstances, Even If They Really Want to Give You One

By Liz Stanton, CPE Staff Economist

1. You've Been Psychologically Conditioned To Want a Diamond

The diamond engagement ring is a 63-year-old invention of N.W.Ayer advertising agency. The De Beers diamond cartel contracted N.W.Ayer to create a demand for what are, essentially, useless hunks of rock.

2. Diamonds are Priced Well Above Their Value

The De Beers cartel has systematically held diamond prices at levels far greater than their abundance would generate under anything even remotely resembling perfect competition. All diamonds not already under its control are bought by the cartel, and then the De Beers cartel carefully managed world diamond supply in order to keep prices steadily high.

3. Diamonds Have No Resale or Investment Value

Any diamond that you buy or receive will indeed be yours forever: De Beers’ advertising deliberately brain-washed women not to sell; the steady price is a tool to prevent speculation in diamonds; and no dealer will buy a diamond from you. You can only sell it at a diamond purchasing center or a pawn shop where you will receive a tiny fraction of its original "value."

4. Diamond Miners are Disproportionately Exposed to HIV/AIDS

Many diamond mining camps enforce all-male, no-family rules. Men contract HIV/AIDS from camp sex-workers, while women married to miners have no access to employment, no income outside of their husbands and no bargaining power for negotiating safe sex, and thus are at extremely high risk of contracting HIV.

5. Open-Pit Diamond Mines Pose Environmental Threats

Diamond mines are open pits where salts, heavy minerals, organisms, oil, and chemicals from mining equipment freely leach into ground-water, endangering people in nearby mining camps and villages, as well as downstream plants and animals.

Source : www.diamond-center.info

Reasons for war with Iraq

2007-06-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

Reason applied to nature

2007-06-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Natural moral law is concerned with both exterior and interior acts, also know as action and motive. Simply doing the right thing is not enough; to be truly moral one's motive must be right as well. For example, helping an old lady across the road (good exterior act) to impress someone (bad interior act) is wrong. However, good intentions don’t always lead to good actions. The motive must coincide with Aquinas's cardinal or theological virtues. Cardinal virtues are acquired through reason applied to nature; they are:

1. Prudence
Prudence(lat.:prudens) is classically considered to be a virtue, and indeed, one of the Cardinal Virtues. The word comes from Old French prudence (13th century), from Latin prudentia "foresight, sagacity," contraction of providentia "foresight". It is often associated with Wisdom, Insight, and Knowledge. In this case, the virtue is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place. Although prudence itself does not perform any actions, and is concerned solely with knowledge, all virtues had to be regulated by it. Distinguishing when acts are courageous, as opposed to reckless or cowardly, for instance, was an act of prudence. This is why it is classified as a "cardinal" which is to say "pivotal" virtue.

2. Justice
Justice concerns the proper ordering of things and persons within a society. As a concept it has been subject to philosophical, legal, and theological reflection and debate throughout history. In modern times, for many, justice is overwhelmingly important: "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought." Few theorists, however, believe that the current world comprises a fully just system: "We do not live in a just world."

3. Temperance
Temperance (Sophrosyne in Greek) is the practice of moderation. It was one of the four "cardinal" virtues held to be vital to society in Hellenic culture. It is one of the Four Cardinal Virtues considered central to Christian behaviour by the Catholic Church and is an important tenet of the moral codes of other world religions—for example, it is one of the Five Precepts of Buddhism.

4. Fortitude
Courage, also known as bravery and fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation. It can be divided into "physical courage" — in face of physical pain, hardship, and threat of death — and "moral courage" — in the face of shame, scandal, and discouragement.

His theological virtues are:

1. Faith
Faith in Christianity centers on faith in the Resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) '... the gospel I preached to you... Otherwise, you have believed in vain...'. The same book says, in 15:14: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (see also Acts 2:32; Philippians 3:10; John 11:25). That he was raised from the death for God the Father. Most Christians believe that God is one eternal being who exists as three distinct, eternal, and indivisible persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ the eternal Word), and the Holy Spirit.

2. Hope
Hope is one of the three theological virtues in Christian tradition. Hope being a combination of the desire for something and expectation of receiving it, the virtue is hoping for Divine union and so eternal happiness. Like all virtues, it arises from the will, not the passions.
Hope is opposed to the sins of despair and presumption; refraining from them is adhering to the negative precept of hope. The positive precept is required when exercising some duties, as in prayer or penance.

3. Charity
In Christian theology charity, or love (agapē), means an unlimited loving-kindness towards all others.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

The Killers - For Reasons Unknown

2007-05-31T14:21:00.001-07:00

Reason (software)

2007-05-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

Reason is a popular music software program developed by Swedish software developers Propellerhead Software. It emulates a rack of hardware synthesizers, samplers, signal processors, sequencers and mixers. Reason can be used either as a complete virtual music studio, or as a collection of virtual instruments to be played live or used with other sequencing software.

Reason 1.0 was released in November 2000. The program's design mimics a studio rack into which users can insert virtual devices such as instruments, effects processors and mixers. These modules can be controlled from Reason's built-in MIDI sequencer or from other sequencing applications such as Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase and GarageBand via Propellerhead's ReWire protocol.

As of version 3.0, modules available include two mixers, a subtractive synthesizer, a graintable synthesizer and four different kinds of sample players - one with a step sequencer designed for drums/percussion, two for tonal instruments, and a sliced loop playback device. Effects include distortion, reverb, chorus, a vocoder and mastering effects. The Combinator device, introduced in version 3.0, allows users to combine multiple modules into one. Another device connects Reason to Propellerhead's (now discontinued) ReBirth.

One of the most striking aspects of Reason's interface comes into play with the Toggle Rack command, which flips the rack around to display the devices from the rear. Here the user can route virtual audio and control cables from one piece of equipment to another in an almost unlimited number of ways. This cable layout enables the creation of complex effects chains and allows devices to modulate one another in creative ways.

Unlike many other audio applications, Reason cannot record audio tracks or be expanded with third-party plug-ins. Some users complain about these limitations; others argue that they can be easily surmounted by using Reason in tandem with another application that has these capabilities.

A stripped-down version of Reason known as Reason Adapted is packaged as bonus software with other audio software such as Pro Tools LE. It restricts the user to a limited number of devices.

The program's name was taken from software used by the lead character in Douglas Adams's novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Early in development it was known as Realizer (after the PPG Realizer). The English band The Prodigy has used Reason as a production tool, as have André 3000 of (Outkast) and Luke Vibert to lesser knowns like Mixer Jaëxx and others. Wonder Arillo, one of the songwriters on rapper T.I.'s hit "What You Know", used Reason on this song. In addition, numerous commercials and movies make extensive use of Reason. It is required, along with a laptop computer and other music production equipment, of new students in certain majors at the Berklee College of Music.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

Critique of Pure Reason

2007-04-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft), first published in 1781 with a second edition in 1787, is generally regarded as the most influential and widely read work of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and one of the most influential and important in the history of Western philosophy. It is often referred to as Kant's "first critique," and was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement.

Kant saw the first critique as an attempt to bridge the gap between rationalism and empiricism — and, in particular, to counter the empiricism of David Hume — famously arguing that, although all knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.

The Critique is one of the most important works in Western philosophy. In The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer wrote: "Kant's teaching produces a fundamental change in every mind that has grasped it." It is also notoriously difficult to read and understand. Professional philosopher A.J. Ayer once claimed to not fully grasp Kant's work until having a sunstroke.

The Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) is an attempt to answer two questions: "What do we know?" and "How do we know it?".

Kant approaches the questions by looking at the relationship between knowledge based on reason (what we know purely logically, prior to or independently of experience, or a priori) and knowledge based on experience (what we know based on the input of our senses or a posteriori).

In Kant's view, a priori intuitions and concepts provide us with some a priori knowledge, which also provides the framework for our a posteriori knowledge. For example, Kant argues that space and time are not part of what we might regard as objective reality, but are part of the apparatus of perception, and causality is a conceptual organizing principle that we impose upon nature.

In other words, space and time are a form of seeing and causality is a form of knowing. Both space and time and our conceptual principles and processes pre-structure our experience.

When we see a box as three-dimensional, the shape of the box may not be part of the box's nature. Kant argues that the spatio-temporal aspect of our perception of the shape of the box comes from us, in interaction with the box, not just from the box itself. When we experience events as causing other events, it is because we have a concept of causality in nature into which we fit our experience.

Things as they are "in themselves" are unknowable. For something to become an object of knowledge, it must be experienced, and experience is prestructured by the activity of our own minds -- both space and time as the forms of our intuition or perception, and the unifying, structuring activity of our concepts. These two aspects of our minds turn things-in-themselves into the world of our experience. We are never passive observers or knowers.

Kant's I—the Transcendental Unity of Apperception—is similarly unknowable. I am aware that there is an "I", subject, or self that accompanies all of my experience and consciousness. But since I only experience it in time, which is a "subjective" form of perception, I can never know directly that "I" that is appearing in time as it might be "in itself", outside of time. Thus we can never truly know ourselves as we might be outside of or prior to the forms through which we perceive and conceive ourselves.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

The Reason For The Suffering In The World

2007-04-24T13:35:00.001-07:00

The Reason For The Suffering In The World - Click here for another funny movie.

5 Reasons We Love Flex 2

2007-03-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

As the Adobe and Flash communities probably already know, Adobe's Flex platform was released recently. For the unfamiliar, Flex is a development environment that allows developers to build web applications replete with business rules, layout capabilities and other goodies that compile to Flash. The result can be a really compelling, rich end-user experience. We all know that AJAX gets all the buzz these days. We do plenty of AJAX work here at Arc90. But we’re also loving Flex 2. Here are 10 reasons why.

1. No More Browser Compliance Testing! One thing about AJAX, it’s more complicated than plain ol’ XHTML and some CSS. Browser compatibility testing goes from a bad dream to a nightmare. Since Flex apps compile to Flash SWF files, they are identical down to the pixel, no matter which browser or operating system you’re using.
2. E4X. Anyone who’s parsed XML knows the pain of parsers. Flex 2’s version of Actionscript includes Ecmascript for XML or E4X. It makes walking an XML object way easier by treating XML as a primitive. Take a look at these simple examples. Sweet.
3. No More Interface Layout Pain. We’ve all been there. Anyone who’s committed to CSS for layout knows the pain in attempting to properly lay out those DIV tags. It’s painful. With the Flex markup language’s (MXML) container-based, it’s far simpler to lay out both fixed and liquid designs to predictable results.
4. Simple Field Validation. Anyone’s who’s built business or eCommerce applications has dealt with form field validation. Zip codes. Credit card numbers. They’re all built right in and very easy to use.
5. Rich Media Support. The Flash platform has absolutely blind-sided the previously dominant media players on the Web (Real, Windows Media). It is light and works without installing this or that. Flex makes it simple to embed both audio and video content right into your applications.

Source : http://blog.arc90.com

Osmonds - Love me for a Reason

2007-03-12T13:16:00.001-07:00

Reasons to love being a californian

2007-03-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.

2. You make over $250,000 and still can't afford a house.

3. You take a bus and are shocked at 2 people carrying on a
conversation in English

4. Your child's 3rd grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring,
and is named Breeze.

5. You can't remember... is pot illegal?

6. You've been invited to a baby shower that has two mothers
and a sperm donor.

7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans
are grown and can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.

8. You know which restaurant serves the freshest arugula.

9. You can't remember... is pot illegal?

10. A really great parking space can move you to tears.

11. A low speed pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast.

12. Gas costs 75 cents per gallon more than anywhere else in
the U.S.

13. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and
crotchless chaps. You don't even notice.

14. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing
the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney IS George
Clooney.

15. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.

16. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the
woman who delivers your mail is into BDSM and your Mary Kay rep
is a guy in drag.

17. You can't remember... is pot illegal?

18. It's sprinkling and there's a report on every news station about
"STORM WATCH 2000."

19. You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy
Blanks himself is teaching the 4:00 PM Tae Bo class.

20. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are
all busy with their cell phones or pagers.

21. It's sprinkling outside, so you leave for work an hour
early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.

22. Hey! Is Pot Illegal?

23. You AND your dog have therapists.

Source : www.nirvani.net

Why am I Catholic?

2007-03-03T11:16:00.001-08:00

20 Reasons Against Implants

2007-03-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

1) According to the National Institute of Medicine, 25 to 40 percent of people who get breast implants end up needing another operation to correct something wrong with the first one. (The rate varied in particular studies, depending on things like how long women were monitored, the typical time being five years.)

2) A study by a maker of saline breast implants, Mentor, found that 27 percent of implants put into breast cancer patients had to be taken back out again within three years, due to side effects. Another 13 percent had to have lesser corrective surgeries. The competing manufacturer McGhan has similar numbers. Even for healthy patients, both were forced to admit that "most women experienced at least one complication over the three year period".

3) In general, breast cancer patients have complications with implants far more often than healthy people do. Many of the complications are about three times as likely for mastectomy reconstruction patients as for cosmetic augmentation patients. We regard this as socially the most acceptable and necessary time for implants to be used, but medically it is the most risky and unjustifiable time to use them.

4) Up to 9 percent of saline implants end up deflating within just three years, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA also found that complications become more and more common for each year implants spend in the body.

5) Another FDA study found that even among women who had not complained of any perceived trouble with their implants, MRI scans showed two thirds of them have ruptured implants on at least one side. The rate was actually higher in 10 to 15 year old implants than with 20 year old ones, because the older ones were made with thicker containers. In 21 percent of women in the study, significant volumes of silicone were found to have migrated elsewhere in the body. Doctors removing implants often claim that they ruptured at the time of removal. This study makes me suspect, as some patients long have, that many doctors are lying about this for some reason, perhaps to avoid liability.

6) Though rare, it is not unknown for complications to be so severe that the breast ends up getting amputated. The chest wall can be injured. Your lungs and heart can be affected. You can end up dead.

7) They sometimes find cultures of microorganisms growing inside saline implants when they're removed. This is worrisome given that the newest implants contain vegetable oil... it could spoil. Saline, at least, is not a nutritious meal for bacteria. Even the silicone gel ones sometimes get some kind of mildewy looking stuff growing inside them... and each new fluid they've tried has been friendlier to microorganisms than the last one was.

8) If you're a European patient who has the option of oil-filled implants (these implants have not been approved in the US), British doctor Rahim Karjoo warns that oils leaking into the body will absorb calcium, and the resulting soaplike material, if it enters the bloodstream, can create fat emboli which can kill you without warning. The British government recently withdrew its approval for oil-filled implants and they will no longer be sold there.

9) Surgery in fatty tissues runs a much higher risk of difficult and dangerous infections taking root than surgery in lean tissue does. Infections with implants present are harder to treat than otherwise. In some cases the implant has to be taken out before the infection can be controlled. This problem affects about one breast augmentation patient out of 80.

10) So they replaced silicone implants with saline ones, avoiding the possible immunological problems associated with silicone gel leakage... and then the National Institute of Medicine decided that silicone has been "exonerated" and doesn't cause many of the problems it was accused of causing... So what -- somehow just about as many people have problems with saline implants as had trouble with silicone ones. The container is still silicone rubber, after all, which differs from silicone gel mostly just in the length of its molecules' polymer chains. Eventually, small flakes of silicone rubber come loose, and sometimes the chains break down chemically, yielding fluid silicone compounds, elemental silicon, and silica dust. (The operation often leaves stray talcum powder in the body, too.) The implant container can also release traces of heavy metals like lead and platinum (used as a catalyst in creating the silicone polymers), and carcinogenic solvents like xylene and toluene. A German study (J. Friemann, M. Bauer, et al) of the scar tissue surrounding removed implants found the tissue was commonly impregnated with chemicals from the implant, and also showed evidence of chronic inflammation occurring there.

11) And if the official line is that silicone is now exonerated, then why isn't it okay to inject silicone directly into the body without a container around it, like they used to back in 1960? No doctor would try that now... they could land in jail. Some doctors are of the opinion that no facility that accepts blood or organ donations should take any from women who have silicone in their bodies, whether it's in a container or not.

12) The "exoneration" of silicone and implants is based on a failure to link it to certain autoimmune diseases that some implant patients were diagnosed with: arthritis, lupus, sclerodoma, etc. Interestingly, the same symptoms (sore joints, weak muscles, fatigue, cognitive difficulties) keep leading to different diagnoses, none of which was provable in itself. The obvious conclusion is that the condition is a separate disease that somewhat resembles these others. One theory is that many of these symptoms might be caused by ethylene oxide, which was used to sterilize many implants after they were manufactured, possibly contaminating the material. They also found no link with breast cancer... but overall cancers were another matter. Two recent NIH studies of overall mortality of women with implants, one from the National Cancer Institute (Dr. Louise Brinton) and one from the FDA, found plenty of extra mortality relative to patients of other plastic surgeries. Causes included lung cancer, brain cancer, a few other cancers, other lung diseases, and an increased rate of suicide.

13) One of the fastest growing areas of medical practice is surgeons who specialize in repairing the errors and complications of boob jobs done by other doctors. "If a doctor tells you they don't have complications, they're either not operating or they're lying to you," says Dr. Jack A. Friedland of Scottsdale.

14) A lot of doctors doing boob jobs and other vanity surgery are half-assed quacks without proper qualifications. Most states allow anyone with a medical degree -- even dentists -- to take a weekend course and sell plastic surgery. They do it because it's easy money. Dr. Ervin Moss of New Jersey says, "You can't imagine how many specialist groups are lobbying against [laws requiring proper accreditation] as a threat to the bottom line."

15) Can you imagine your doctor brushing off life-threatening complications and telling you "You look great!" when you ought to be heading for the emergency room? It's been known to happen in the cosmetic surgery biz...

16) You want health insurance coverage for other breast-related illnesses? Goooooooood luck.

17) The first time I had a chance to feel a pair of tits with implants in them, they felt like two blocks of cement covered with a quarter inch of skin. I was told it was an unusually high quality job, too.

18) They claim that the cement tit problem has been solved, and modern operations don't produce that kind of extreme hardening any more. Well, they still end up hardening sometimes. One doctor who trumpets the improvements over past techniques and calls saline implants "absolutely safe" (George Beraka of New York -- he gives plastic surgery advice on women.com and elsewhere) still admits that 5 to 8 percent can end up "as firm as your thigh" due to scar tissue... and that he sees "a lot of bad results" from other doctors. I think he's understating the problem rate... Mentor found that 9 percent of augmentations had serious "capsular contracture" (which causes hardening, and sometimes pain), sometimes bad enough to require reoperation.

19) The more we see blown-up boobs, the more we learn to recognize them instead of being fooled. The more we learn to recognize them, the less attractive they are. The more people are exposed to these bug-eye bosoms, the more often they are going to start seeing them as unattractive instead of as appealing. I've been seeing them that way for years now.

20) If I am not making myself clear, let me spell it out right now: implants are fucking ugly! Implants only look good on the level of first impressions. Expect people in your life to react with an initial charge followed by a gradual accumulation of disgust. Anyone who likes you over the long term will do so in spite of them, not because of them -- the same as they would if you had a glass eye.

Source : www.paulkienitz.net

101 Reasons not to be a pro wrestler

2007-02-27T13:27:00.000-08:00

10 Reasons to Become Vegetarian

2007-02-27T13:00:00.000-08:00

1) You're in good company. Vegetarian actors include Brad Pitt, David Duchovny, Dustin Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Brooke Shields, Jerry Seinfeld,Michael J. Fox, Anthony Perkins, Rosanna Arquette,Ted Danson, Richard Gere, Candace Bergen, Kim Bassinger,Woody Harelson, Mary Tyler Moore, Eric Stolz, Drerw Barrymore, and Alicia Silverstone.

Vegetarian musicians include Sarah McLachlan, Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Seal, Michael Bolton, Lenny Kravitz, Leonard Cohen, Joe Jackson, Indigo Girls, Billy Idol and Bob Dylan.

2) You'll eat fewer chemicals lower on the food chain. The more chemicals an animal eats, the more you will eat.In every bite, a typical beef.pork hotdog contains seven cancer-causing pesticides, and a quarter pound burger contains three cancer-causing substances. The primary source of nuclear radiation contamination in humans is from beef and dairy products. (Living Healthy in a Toxin World - David Steinman)

3) Persticides, industrial polutants and sex hormones are known to cause breast cancer and to have estrogen-like effects, are stored in animal fat. These contaminants tend to accumulate in human breast fat, reachings levels thousands of times greater than in food. Obeisity from fatty diets has also been known to cause breast cancer. (Dr.Samuel Epstein -The Breast Cancer Prevention Program)

4) Non-vegetarians had 54 percent more prostate cancer than vegetarians in results from Adventist Morality and Health studies. non-vegetarians had 88 percent more colon cancer than vegetarians. Non-smoking vegetarians have about half the rate of lung cancer as non-smoking non-vegetarians.

People eating meat three or mmore times per weeks had more than a two-fold increase in bladder cancer compared with vegetarians, and those consuming meat four or more times a week had a 66 percent higher mortality rate from ovarian cancer than vegetarians in the same study.(Brenda Davis - Becoming Vegan)

5) You can get enough protein as a vegetarian. According to many nutritionists, you can consume a healthy percentage of complete protein by combining organic lentils, beans, tofu, organic whole grains, free range eggs, spinach and other plant sources. (Becoming Vegetarian -Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina)

6) Minerals ? Adequate amounts of iron can be found in organic broccoli, bok choy,figs, whole grain, enriched cereals, and other plants.you can get required calcium from sesame seeds, beans, tofu, wax beans, hummus, and broccoli. There is more calcium in sesame seeds and broccoli than there is in milk. And calcium in cow's milk isn't easily absorbed by people who have difficulty digesting it.

7) You might lose weight by avoiding saturated fat in meat, butter and the animal fat used in baked goods, desserts and fried foods.

8) You won't miss red meat. The vegie-meat substitutes and chicken clones made into patties, nuggets, ground round and steak available in health food store delis, frozen food and produce sections have a great meat-like texture and taste. They have far fewer calories than the "real thing" too.

9) You save money at restaurants. Most menus offer vegetarian selections or chefs will oblige to prepare a vegetarian meal, and they're usually less expensive than their meatier counterparts. And many restaurants now feature innovative,organic ingredients in salads now at reasonable prices.

10) Nutritional value. Flesh foods are essentially protein and saturated fat. Plant foods are protein, unsaturated (essential) fat, nutrient-rich carbohydrates and life-saving enzymes.

Source : http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com

Earth, Wind and Fire - Reasons (live)

2007-02-27T12:54:00.001-08:00

Reason and logic

2007-02-27T12:35:00.000-08:00

We reason when we conclude one thing on the basis of something else. For example, one day you hear the sound of raindrops on the roof and conclude that it is raining outside. Logic as an academic subject is the theoretical study of reasoning. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first person to write an actual treatise on the subject of logic, indeed he wrote five such treatises in all, and for this he is rightly called the Founder of Logic.

This contrast between reason and logic thus extends back to the time of Aristotle. Although the Greeks had no separate word for logic as opposed to language and reason, Aristotle's neologism "syllogism" (syllogismos) identified logic clearly for the first time as a distinct field of study.

No philosopher of any note has ever argued that logic is the same as reason. They are generally thought to be distinct, although logic is one important aspect of reason. But the tendency to a preference for "hard logic," or "solid logic," in modern times has incorrectly led to the two terms occasionally being seen as essentially synonymous (see Reasoning) or perhaps more often logic is seen as the defining and pure form of reason.

However machines and animals can unconsciously perform logical operations, and many animals (including humans) can unconsciously, associate different perceptions as causes and effects and then make decisions or even plans. Therefore, to have any distinct meaning at all, “reason” must be the type of thinking which links language, consciousness and logic, and at this time, only humans are known to combine these things.

Although this is an old discussion, the neurologist Terrence Deacon, following the tradition of Peirce, has recently given a useful new description in modern terms. Like many philosophers in the English traditions such as Hobbes, Locke and Hume, he starts by distinguishing the type of thinking which is most essential to human rational thinking as a type of associative thinking. Reason by his account therefore requires associating perceptions in a way which may be arbitrary (or nominal, conventional or "formal") - not just associating the image or "icon" of smoke and the image of fire, but, for example, the image of smoke and the English word "smoke", or indeed any made-up symbol (not necessarily a spoken word). What is essentially rational, or at least essentially human, is however not the arbitrariness of symbols, but how they are used. See below concerning Reason and Language.

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

Propellerheads Reason Song Tutorial

2007-02-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

10 Reasons to Eat Meat

2007-02-22T15:15:00.000-08:00

1. Eating meat is like driving an SUV (substitute "smaller car" for "plant-based food sources"): it's more dangerous than plant-based food sources, uses up more natural resources than plant-based food sources, puts out more greenhouse gas pollution than plant-based food sources (potentially endangering all life on this planet), promotes environmental degradation, and is a symbol of my God-given freedom in this greatest country in the world to do whatever I want to whatever I want as long as I don't do the killing unless it's the right season in the right place.

2. McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, have all done exhaustive nutritional research on diet in their extensive efforts to produce the most nutritious, healthy, and low fat food in the known space-time continuum at the lowest price possible for people everywhere. They pay well and only hire people who are so strong as to not need health insurance paid by the company they work full-time for.

3. It's obvious that drinking the bodily fluids of female bovines that are used to fatten up young calves is extremely healthy for adult human beings of another species entirely.

4. The slaughter of 4 billion animals per year globally [it's really 10 billion per year in the US alone] for food is okay, just like terrorism, as long as it isn't in my backyard.

5. All those studies of human diet for decades in China that clearly show a vegetarian diet is the healthiest were obviously sponsored by organizations that are only interested in telling us what to do, and don't care about the freedom to enjoy that which can kill you if used improperly, but it's my option and my right as an American to do what feels, tastes, smells, is seen as, and is heard as gud. Real gud.

6. You mean you don't like ground up dead cows grilled and put on a whole-wheat bun slathered with high fructose syrup tomato sauce, ground up mustard seed sauce, onions, and sliced vinegared & garliced sugared yellow-dyed cucumbers?

7. The millions of tons of livestock excrement and urine dumped into our ecosystem will produce, through the laws of evolution, even stronger plants, animals, and humans. Nature likes a challenge, and the decreased clean water, lesser productive soil, and more unbreathable air will just make all living things tougher through Natural Selection. No problemo.

8. The FDA has a great track record for knowing what's good for us: at least 50% of the drugs they approve don't have any unforeseen side effects. (note: real stat)

9. Fermented/congealed cow and goat fluid discharges, rotting chunks of pig, decaying slabs of cow, and often infected pieces of chicken anatomy are so good for you, we need the USDA to spend millions of our tax dollars every year promoting their consumption, and warn you that you need to cook 'em at high temperatures to kill any bad microorganisms in them that the USDA doesn't have the resources to check for, that slaughterhouses don't check for, and that can kill you and currently make hundreds of thousands of people sick every year. If vegetables were so important we'd spend more than a million dollars a year promoting them (note: that's a real stat).

10. Just look at the numbers of doctors and nutritionists, as well as television commercials, advocating eating at least 4 to 5 servings of meat every day. They couldn't do that if it weren't true and they weren't paid enough.

Source : http://soulveggie.blogs.com

Hoobastank-The Reason

2007-02-20T15:19:00.001-08:00

Etymology Of Reason

2007-02-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

In philosophy, reason is the ability of the human mind to form and operate upon concepts in abstraction, in accordance with rationality and logic —terms with which reason shares heritage. Reason, like consciousness with which it is also intimately connected, has traditionally been claimed as distinctly human, and not to be found elsewhere in the animal world. However, recent studies in this area show that, in lower levels, animals are capable of some types of thinking similar to that of humans. Discussion and debate about the nature, limits and causes of reason could almost be said to define the main lines of historical philosophical discussion and debate. Discussion about reason especially concerns:

* its relationship to several other related concepts: language, logic, consciousness etc,
* its ability to help people decide what is true, and
* its origin.

Also see practical reason and speculative reason.

The concept of reason is connected to the concept of language, as reflected in the meanings of the Greek word "logos", later to be translated by Latin "ratio" and then French "raison", from which the English word derived. As reason, rationality, and logic are all associated with the ability of the human mind to predict effects as based upon presumed causes, the word "reason" also denotes a ground or basis for a particular argument, and hence is used synonymously with the word "cause."

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org

Reasons Why We Need to Go Beyond Religion

2006-12-28T10:15:00.000-08:00

1. Religion is limited by our human understanding. Spiritual truth is as wide and broad as the mind of God. No human attempt to comprehend the reality and plan of God could be complete and final. There is always more to learn.

2. Religion is the grammar school of spirituality, the place where we learn the basics about God. But those lessons are couched in very elementary concepts. In the same way that we are intended to move beyond grammar school into ever higher levels of learning, so we must be willing to move beyond childhood concepts and embrace the larger truths that God continually offers us.

3. We are physical/spiritual beings. We have a body which will eventually die, and a soul which will live forever because it is part of God. As a result, we have two sets of senses, the five which connect us with the physical world and others that connect us with the spiritual world (intuition, dreams, visions, psychic abilities, etc.) Religion is an expression of the physical side of our nature, while spirituality is connected to our divine nature. Our goal as humans is to become more like God, to turn the world into the Kingdom of Heaven. We can do this only as we turn away from human/intellectual images of God and seek a broader understanding of divine truth.

4. Religion is an attempt to convert a vision of the invisible, eternal world into symbols and practices which we can understand. But the problem is that we tend to invest those symbols and practices with divine authority and eventually worship the traditions we ourselves have created. This is called idolatry.

5. Religion is trapped in its own past. Over the years it has developed a point of view about God which it considers complete and final. As a result, it spends most of its time defending that vision and protecting itself against any new revelations which might upset its system of belief. That means that even God is unable to get through to religious institutions with new insights into divine truth. Thus, we have a choice between defending old human systems or being open to God's spirit which wants to communicate with us daily.

6. Christianity is one of many efforts to understand and become one with God. To think that it is the only true way to God, or that God loves only those within this particular belief system, is the worst kind of chauvinism. It is helpful in this regard to think of Christianity as the Jesus cult. There is nothing wrong with this cult except its claim that it alone holds the key to God's love. Because of this claim, rather than embracing all others as equals in the sight of God, it looks down upon them as unbelievers who must be converted to think as Christians do.

7. Jesus made the statement that he has much more to tell us (John 16:12). But many who claim to be his followers are not interested in what he still has to say to us because they are afraid that any new idea will upset their neat little closed system.

8. Religion is by definition an effort to understand and therefore to please God. Religion began in primitive times with a recognition that the most important things in life are out of our control-life, death, weather, crops, health, the future, etc. All these things seemed to be in the hands of a power much greater than we, and therefore it was important to stay on good terms with this power. There is still a large element of this primitive thinking in current religious practice-fear of punishment, sacrificial behavior to try to gain divine favor, sets of rules which define acceptable behavior, etc.

9. Ancient Jews felt that their salvation came from belonging to the people of God. We understand today that each individual's personal relationship with God is what is required. However, there is still a large tribal component in religious practice-belonging to church, attending worship, observing certain celebrations, accepting the required disciplines. These are external and largely man-made rules. We need to move from fear of punishment to love of God.

10. Recent revelations about sinful practices in the church and the leadership's attempts to cover up those crimes underlines the fact that the church is often motivated, not by a love for God and his people, but by a desire for power and the need to protect that power. The church has become so saturated with politics that it tends to forget its basic purpose, to speak in self-forgetful love for God.

source : http://www.beyondreligion.com

Stand to Reason

2006-12-13T14:18:00.000-08:00

Do Animals Have Souls?

A characteristic of soulish beings is to have mental activity that consist of beliefs, intentions, desires, sensations . . .

Animals have different kind of souls than human beings. Human being souls are made in the image of God and they live forever, they are everlasting. Animal souls are not made in the image of God, and we have no evidence that I can tell that they are everlasting.

When Pavlov rang his famous bell, the dog salivated because it believed it was about to get some food. As a result of that belief it set up a response in its body to produce the saliva. When the dog sees the food placed before him, it moves toward the food because it has an intention to eat, and there is desire of hunger inside of it that motivates the intention. As it eats, it chooses one food rather than another -- and you cat owners know about that -- because one food tastes better than another to the cat. Therefore it has sensation, too. In other words, animals have all of these things that are qualities and characteristics of the mental life. They have beliefs, they have intentions, they have desires, they have sensations--or they appear to. Since these things are not physical things, they are non- physical things and they must exist in the animal in the non-physical space that is real. That non-physical place is a soul. Ergo, animals have souls like human beings have souls.

But there are different kinds of souls--even in human beings. I think female souls are different than male souls. This is what encourages our valid generalizations about the differences between male and female, because the differences that we point out are soulish differences, not differences merely in plumbing or chemistry. Also, animals have different kind of souls than human beings. Human being souls are made in the image of God and they live forever, they are everlasting. Animal souls are not made in the image of God, and we have no evidence that I can tell that they are everlasting.

Just some fun thinking about the nature of the soul.

source: http://www.str.org

10 Reasons To Drink More Water

2006-12-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

1. Get Healthy Skin
2. Flush Toxins
3. Reduce Your Risk Of Heart Attack
4. Cushion And Lube Your Joints And Muscles
5. Get Energized And Be Alert
6. Stay Regular
7. Reduce Your Risk Of Disease And Infection
8. Regulate Your Body Temperature
9. Burn More Fat And Build More Muscle
10. Get Well

"Shall we or shall we not? Yes or No? " asked the lawyer. Was the witness evading the question when he answered, " Partly yes and partly no? " Not at all. There are some questions which can neither be truthfully nor satisfactorily answered by one word. Strange to say, many of the magazine articles treating this subject have attempted to answer yes or no for all individuals. About the briefest answer which can be given to the question, Should we take water with meals? would be: seventy per cent of us should; thirty per cent should not — or at least not more than eight ounces of all fluids.

To the average person a stomach is just a stomach. He does not realize there is great variation as to size, shape, position, muscular, and secretory powers. No two leaves are alike. It is not strange that stomachs also vary.

An attempt will here be made to develop the treatment of this subject from a scientific stand-point. The first requirement is to state facts on which conclusions may be based.

The gastric juice is well represented in its chemical value by the amount of hydrochloric acid which it contains. If this is greater than average, water drinking with meals may be an advantage ; if less than average, a disadvantage; if average, not harmful.

So much for the secretory factor in the case. Motility is the other important factor. Motility refers to the motor power or the mechanical ability of the stomach to receive food, hold the same within its grasp, mix thoroughly with its own juices, and, at the proper time, pass it on to the duodenum. The size, shape, position, and muscular power of the stomach determine its motility.

The first real information regarding its muscular contractions was obtained by observation of a man who had received a bullet wound in the stomach, leaving a permanent opening through the abdominal wall. Generalization from such a specific instance was a mistake. Our present information on this subject is quite different. Much of this was obtained by means of the X-ray, which affords opportunity to observe stomachs of many kinds — normal as well as abnormal. This has helped to answer the question, " Should we drink water with meals? " and has given sufficient reasons therefor.

source: http://www.oldandsold.com

A Few Reasons to be Chinese

2006-12-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

* You don't believe in God. You accept everything claimed by teachers and "experts." If you find errors in their thinking, you will complain, but next time you will still believe them.

* You are familiar with Qín Shīhuáng, Sūnzǐ, Confucius, Zhōngshān Sūn, Xùn Lǔ, Chairman Máo, Prime Minister Zhōu, GuānYīn bodhisattva, Wùkōng Sūn, the Spring Festival, dumplings, fire crackers, and the Great Wall.

* You know how table tennis and badminton are played. You know how to do at least some Gōngfu (Wūshù). If you are female, you played "Chinese jump rope" as a child; if you are male, you knew how to use a slingshot.

* You get seven days vacation every Spring Festival, National Day and Labor Day, during which you can travel to other cities or go home to stay with your family.

* You're likely to believe in Buddha. If not, you probably believe you will be reborn in the future, and the species of your reincarnation will depend on your behavior in your current life.

* You don't think of McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut as tasty, healthy, or cheap food-- everybody knows that Chinese food is the most delicious in the world. Somehow, when you do go to McDonald's or KFC, you have trouble finding a seat because there are so many people eating there.

* You probably have a telephone and a TV at home. If you live in northern China, your place is heated in the winter, but it isn't if you are in the south. It has its own bathroom. Unless you live in a developed city, you do your laundry by hand, and no matter where you live, you hang it out to dry. You eat at a table, sitting on chairs.

source: http://www.zompist.com

20 Reason for William Moseley

2006-12-05T15:26:00.000-08:00

10 Reasons to Reject Social Security Privatization

2006-12-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

1. Privatization would slash guaranteed benefits by 40 percent even for workers who DON'T choose private accounts. The average young worker would lose $152,000 in retirement benefits. (The Century Foundation, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for Economic and Policy Research)

2. The government would take back 70 cents in retirement benefits for every $1 in a private account. And that's on top of the 40 percent benefit cut. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

3. Privatization would weaken Social Security by diverting money from the Trust Fund to pay for private accounts. That would make our retirement security problems WORSE.

4. Privatization would explode the federal deficit—forcing the government to borrow some $4.9 trillion in just the first 20 years—mostly from foreign countries such as China and Japan. (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

5. Privatization would leave retirees in poverty. Taxpayers and family members would have to provide them with the help that now comes from Social Security's guaranteed benefits.

6. Privatization would open Social Security up to corruption, waste and Enron-ization because politicians would decide which Wall Street firms make billions in inflated fees off our private accounts. You wouldn't control your private account—someone on Wall Street would.

7. Privatization could raise the retirement age. Do YOU want to work until you're 70?

8. Privatization threatens benefits for people with disabilities and survivors of workers who have died. Today, Social Security is a lifeline for 7.8 million people with disabilities and 7.5 million survivors. (Social Security Administration)

9. We can strengthen Social Security without slashing guaranteed retirement benefits. Congress should pay back the money it borrowed from Social Security before even thinking about cutting our benefits, for example.

10. We can convince Congress to stop privatization in its tracks. Every day we see news reports that even Republicans in Congress have grave concerns about privatization. Members of Congress are waiting to hear from you that privatizing Social Security is the wrong way to go.

source: http://heartsoulandhumor.blogspot.com

Five Reasons Not To Meet A Russian Woman

2006-12-03T09:03:00.000-08:00

1. Sending a woman money: This is a huge no-no. Any Russian or FSU (Former Soviet Union) woman who asks you for money is just trying to scam you. She will either bleed you until you are dry (if she is very slick) or just disappear after a quick score (if you are lucky). An honest woman would not ask; she has too much pride. Besides, she has already lived for 20+ years without your “help.” Why does she need you now? A Russian woman does not even consider the two of you to be in a “real” relationship until you have met in person! Would you give money to American girl that you had just met? Would you ask her for money? Think about it. It is just not smart and sets you up for trouble (and makes the ladies think it is easy and encourages more of the same behavior).

2. Not being prepared to visit: You did know that in order to bring her over here as a fiancee, you must visit her, in her country? Yes, it is the only way she will be able to get a visa to come to the USA. For more details on the visa and immigration process click here. Honestly, though, an FSU woman, if she is serious, will want to meet you. You must be ready and prepared to visit her at some point in the future. It has been my observation (by watching and talking with both western men and FSU women) that a woman will generally give you about 6 months to decide you will visit. Then a few more months for you to get yourself over there. Make her wait longer than this and she will think you are not serious and probably move on to someone she thinks is! Just be ready: emotionally, physically, and monetarily.

3. Falling in love with a photo: Do not place too much emphasis on her photo. At least not until you know more details about her and her photos. Perhaps they are old. I once had a woman tell me her photos were over 2 years old! Her hair color and style was changed and it looked like she had gained about 20 pounds! Know what? It was my fault, because I did not ask her! Generally, the women of the FSU look even better in person than in their photos—and that is a huge compliment! But not always, and you do not marry a photo, you marry a real person. Get to know her, what she thinks, how she thinks, her dreams, desires, passions, hobbies, etc… Try to understand (as they say in Russia) her inner world.

4. Focusing only on one woman: Bad idea. You may get lucky and find the woman you end up marrying right away. I do know some people that things worked out this way with. I also know some people who won the lottery! Do not bet on this happening. You need to get over the idea of being a gentleman. This is, in it’s most basic sense, a numbers game. I heard it said that only 4% of US-Russian relationships are successful. With that in mind you will have to date and meet 25 ladies on average before finding your wife. This was indeed true in my case. I met over 150 ladies in person, and actively dated around 30 of them. Hopefully you will not need to go through this many. If you hang around at my site, read my articles, manuals, and use my consulting services, I guarantee you a heck of a lot better results! Writing/dating only one woman at a time is a bad idea. If it doesn’t work out with her, than you are back at ground zero and have nothing. You have to start all over again. Not to mention the time that you have wasted, and the money if you actually took a trip to meet her in person. We all want to believe in love at first sight, but many times you look at someone and she looks at you and you know immediately it is just not going to work. Sure, sometimes it goes perfectly, but will you gamble 3-4 months of your life and several thousand dollars on a trip to Russia just to find that out!? Most guys who are involved in this process (statistically speaking) are in their mid-upper 40’s…and most of the ladies are in their mid-upper 20’s. Do you have the time to waste? She probably does, but you need to be in contact with several women at any given time. Even if only for comparison purposes.

5. Not doing your proper research: By this I mean finding an honest and reliable dating or marriage agency, finding out all you can about your woman, learning about the geography, history, culture and language of the country she is from. These are all crucial to your success. You need to find an honest service. Then you need to educate yourself on other ways of contacting your woman. This will continue to ensure that your agency is honest, and that you are indeed writing to a real woman! Without doing your research you are just placing your bets (paying your money) and taking your chances.

via: http://top-10-reasons.blogspot.com

10 Reasons people don't live a prosperous life

2006-12-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

1. CLARITY

Many people don't know what they truly want in life. They have not clarified exactly what they desire and where they want to be within a year, 5 years even 3 months. Because they don't know where they are going they drift along with the daily grind, totally forgetting that they want to attain true prosperity.

2. A CLEAR PATH

They are some that have a goal for their life, yet they do not know how to attain it. They go through the motions daily and never actually make a conscious decision to attain their goal.

3. STRUGGLE

Many are desperately trying to live a life of happiness, wealth and success. They are focused on achieving true prosperity but yet constantly find themselves struggling to attain it. It is this struggle that actually prevent them from being truly prosperous.

4. FEAR

-False Evidence Appearing Real. This one 4-letter word prevents us from going forward to achieve all that we desire. What will our family think? Will our friends still like us? A very high percentage of persons fear success because of how it will affect us and our relationship with others.

5. CONDITIONING

As children and young adults our environment affects a great deal of our 'conditioning' and has a profound effect on the way we think, act and live. Our environment here could include our parents, our friends, television, politics, religion, school courses and our job. For example, the TV may constantly bombard us with images of prosperous persons as unhappy, as crooks or gangsters or as lonely or selfish. If we really believe this, who would want a lead a prosperous, successful life?

6. THE NORM

"I can't be bothered. This is too much work. It's too hard". Some persons simply cannot be bothered to achieve prosperity. They live each day in a trance, in a numb existence, going along with the status-quo and have no desire to change their lives for the better.

7. OUT-GROW YOUR PEERS

Some people don't want change. You may be hesitant to achieve your dreams, goals, you vision because once you do achieve true prosperity it may reduce your inventory of what is actually possible for you. It may mean that you grow beyond your partner, your friends and your family. What will that mean for you?

8. NEGATIVITY

Our lives are stuck by the negativity we are drawn to in our daily lives. A large percentage of persons want to out do their co-workers or friends with the amount and magnitude of problems that they have. Most of us live our lives in total lack and shortage and that prevents us from achieving true prosperity.

9. COURAGE

It takes courage to be prosperous. It takes courage to make that decision and that change! We need to focus our thoughts towards our vision of true prosperity and hold to that vision. Once we have the courage and the beliefs, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

10. BELIEFS

"It can't happen to us. Prosperity is for other people. They were born with a silver spoon in their mouth". We are programmed to think that being poor equals happiness. Our belief system totally affects how we live our lives. Its is these beliefs that hold us back from our true potential and our true prosperity.

source: http://www.ideamarketers.com

5 Reasons to use Firefox

2006-12-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

1) Small and slick

The Windows version is only 6.0 MB. That's insanely small for something this powerful. No matter what theme you choose for your Fireird -- and there are quite a handful of personalized styles out there to select from -- it just feels slicker than all the alternatives. It's extremely responsive, and just looks cool. Far more screen real estate is given to the webpage itself and less to the browser, giving it a clean and compact feel.

2) Intuitive user interface

I've watched over a dozen people pick up Firefox for the first time, and it takes them only seconds to become comfortable with its interface. All the menus are stored exactly where they should be, and although Firefox offers an abundance of features and options, it never feels as though you have to wade through an impossible labyrinth of choices and menus in order to change your settings. Firefox successfully accomplishes the difficult goal of making simple things simple and complicated things possible.

3) Tabbed browsing

Anyone currently using a browser without tabbing abilities may have difficulty comprehending exactly why tabs are such a useful feature, but those who use tabs wouldn't give them up for the world. Firefox integrates tabbed browsing seamlessly into everyday browsing life by opening tabs if a user holds Ctrl while clicking on a link. While you continue to read the current page, the background tab loads so that it's ready for you when you're ready for it. There's no confusing switching between windows, and you can open an entire folder of bookmarks as a series of tabs. Fast, efficient, and intuitive.

4) Popup blocking

You can finally laugh at all the Internet Explorer users who visit one webpage only to have fifteen popup windows jump ceaselessly on top of each other. Firefox offers a powerful solution by blocking popup windows by default but informing the user through an unobtrusive icon when popups have been blocked. If a user clicks on the icon, they can manage their popups and grant access to legitimate ones.

5) Extensions

Firefox currently has over 150 extensions (including some of the extensions mentioned in this document): from Calendar modules, to "Blog This" capabilities, to W3C checking of the current page, and mouse gestures. Extensions are remarkably easy to install in Firefox -- just a few clicks without a disruptive install screen. Whether you want to play Minesweeper in your browser, or add Word Processor functionality to text forms (including opening and saving form entries as files), Firefox has more extensions than you could possibly dream of.

source: http://www.insanecats.com/firebird

20 Reasons WHY FISHING IS BETTER THAN SEX

2006-12-01T15:43:00.000-08:00

20 - No matter how much whiskey you've had, you can still Fish.

19 - A limp rod is still useful while Fishing.

18 - You don't have to hide your Fishing magazines.

17 - It is perfectly acceptable to pay a professional to Fish with
you once in a while.

16 - The Ten Commandments don't say anything against Fishing.

15 - If your partner takes pictures or videotapes of you Fishing,
you don't have to worry about them showing up on the Internet if you
become famous.

14 - Your Fishing partner doesn't get upset about people you Fished
with long ago.

13 - It's perfectly respectable to Fish with a total stranger.

12 - When you see a really good Fishing person, you don't have to
feel guilty about imagining the two of you Fishing together.

11 - If your regular Fishing partner isn't available, he/she won't
object if you Fish with someone else.

10 - Nobody will ever tell you that you will go blind if you Fish
by yourself.

9 - When dealing with a Fishing pro, you never have to wonder if
they are really an undercover cop.

8 - You don't have to go to a sleazy shop in a seedy neighborhood
to buy Fishing stuff.

7 - You can have a Fishing calendar on your wall at the office,
tell Fishing jokes, and invite coworkers to Fish with you without
getting sued for harassment.

6 - There are no Fishing-transmitted diseases.

5 - If you want to watch Fishing on television, you don't have to
subscribe to the Playboy channel.

4 - Nobody expects you to Fish with the same partner for the rest
of your life.

3 - Nobody expects you to give up Fishing if your partner loses
interest in it.

2 - You don't have to be a newlywed to plan a vacation primarily to
enjoy your favorite activity.

1 - Your Fishing partner will never say, "Not again? We just
Fished last week! Is Fishing all you ever think about?"

source: http://www.azinet.com

Five Reason for Chinese Food

2006-11-29T11:50:00.000-08:00

1. The food style of a culture is certainly first of all determined by the natural resources that are available for its use. . . . It is thus not surprising that Chinese food is above all characterized by an assemblage of plants and animals that grew prosperously in the Chinese land for a long time. A detailed list would be out of place here, and quantitative data are not available. The following enumeration is highly impressionistic:

Starch Staples: millet, rice, kao-liang, wheat, maize, buckwheat, yam, sweet potato.

Legumes: soybean, broad bean, pea- nut, mung bean.

Vegetables: malva, amaranth, Chi- nese cabbage, mustard green, turnip, radish, mushroom.

Fruits: peach, apricot, plum, apple, jujube date, pear, crab apple, mountain haw, longan, litchi, orange.

Meats: pork, dog, beef, mutton, venison, chicken, duck, goose, pheasant, many fishes.

Spices: red pepper, ginger, garlic, spring onion, cinnamon.

Chinese cooking is, in this sense, the manipulation of these foodstuffs as basic ingredients. Since ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chinese food begins to assume a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it uses. Obviously ingredients are not sufficient for characterization, but they are a good beginning. Compare, for example, the above list with one in which dairy products occupy a prominent place, and one immediately comes upon a significant contrast between the two food traditions.

One important point about the distinctive assemblage of ingredients is its change through history. Concerning food, the Chinese are not nationalistic to the point of resisting imports. In fact, foreign foodstuffs have been readily adopted since the dawn of history. Wheat and sheep and goats were possibly introduced from western Asia in prehistoric times, many fruits and vegetables came in from central Asia during the Han and the T'ang periods, and peanuts and sweet potatoes from coastal traders during the Ming period. These all became integral ingredients of Chinese food. At the same time,. . . milk and dairy products, to this date, have not taken a prominent place in Chinese cuisine. . . .

2. In the Chinese culture, the whole process of preparing food from raw ingredients to morsels ready for the mouth involves a complex of interrelated variables that is highly distinctive when compared with other food traditions of major magnitude. At the base of this complex is the division between fan, grains and other starch foods, and ts'ai, vegetable and meat dishes. To prepare a balanced meal, it must have an appropriate amount of both fan and ts'ai, and ingredients are readied along both tracks. Grains are cooked whole or as flour, making up the fan half of the meal in various forms: fan (in the narrow sense, "cooked rice"), steamed wheat-, millet-, or corn-flour bread, ping ("pancakes"), and noodles. Vegetables and meats are cut up and mixed in various ways into individual dishes to constitute the ts'ai half. Even in meals in which the staple starch portion and the meat-and-vegetable portion are apparently joined together, such as in . . . "wonton" . . . they are in fact put together but not mixed up, and each still retains its due proportion and own distinction. . . .

For the preparation of ts'ai, the use of multiple ingredients and the mixing of flavors are the rules, which above all means that ingredients are usually cut up and not done whole, and that they are variously combined into individual dishes of vastly differing flavors. Pork for example, may be diced, slice shredded, or ground, and when combined with other meats and with various vegetable ingredients and spice produces dishes of utterly diverge, shapes, flavors, colors, tastes, and aromas.

The parallelism of fan and ts'ai an the above-described principles of ts'ai' preparation account for a number ( other features of the Chinese food culture, especially in the area of utensil To begin with, there are fan utensils and ts'ai utensils, both for cooking an for serving. In the modem kitchen, fan kuo ("rice cooker") and Ts'ai kuo ("wok") are very different and as a rule not interchangeable utensils. . . . To prepare the kind of ts'ai that we have characterized, the chopping knife or cleaver and the chopping anvil are standard equipment in every Chines kitchen, ancient and modem. To sweep the cooked grains into the mouth, and to serve the cut-up morsel of the meat-and-vegetable dishes chopsticks have proved more service able than hands or other instrument (such as spoons and forks, the former being used in China alongside the chopsticks).

This complex of interrelated features of Chinese food may be described, for the purpose of shorthand reference, as the Chinese fan-ts'ai principle. Send a Chinese cook into an American kitchen, given Chinese or American ingredients, and he or she will (a) prepare an adequate amount of fan, (b) cut up the ingredients and mix them up in various combinations, and (c) cook the ingredients into several dishes and, perhaps, a soup. Given the right ingredients, the "Chineseness" of the meal would increase, but even with entirely native American ingredients and cooked in American utensils, it is still a Chinese meal.

3. The above example shows that the Chinese way of eating is characterized by a notable flexibility and adaptability. Since a ts'ai dish is made of a mixture of ingredients, its distinctive appearance, taste, and flavor do not depend on the exact number of ingredients, nor, in most cases, on any single item. The same is true for a meal, made up of a combination of dishes. In times of affluence, a few more expensive items may be added, but if the times are hard they may be omitted without doing irreparable damage. If the season is not quite right, substitutes may be used. With the basic principles, a Chinese cook can prepare "Chinese" dishes for the poor as well as the rich, in times of scarcity as well as abundance, and even in a foreign country without many familiar ingredients. The Chinese way of cooking must have helped the Chinese people through some hard times throughout their history. And, of course, one may also say that the Chinese cook the way they do because of their need and desire for adaptability.

This adaptability is shown in at least two other features. The first is the amazing knowledge the Chinese have acquired about their wild plant resources. . . . The Chinese peasants apparently know every edible plant in their environment, and plants there are many. Most do not ordinarily belong on the dinner table, but they may be easily adapted for consumption in time of famine. . . . Here again is this flexibility: A smaller number of familiar foodstuffs are used ordinarily, but, if needed, a greater variety of wild plants would be made use of. The knowledge of these "famine plants" was carefully handed down as a living culture -apparently this knowledge was not placed in dead storage too long or too often.

Another feature of Chinese food habits that contributed to their notable adaptability is the large number and great variety of preserved foods. . . . Food is preserved by smoking, salting, sugaring, steeping, pickling, drying, soaking in many kinds of soy sauces, and so forth, and the whole range of foodstuffs is involved-grains, meat, fruit, eggs, vegetables, and everything else. Again, with preserved food, the Chinese people were ever ready in the event of hardship or scarcity.

4. The Chinese way of eating is further characterized by the ideas and beliefs about food, which actively affect the ways . . . in which food is prepared and taken. The overriding idea about food in China -in all likelihood an idea with solid, but as yet unrevealed, scientific backing-is that the kind and the amount of food one takes is intimately relevant to one's health. Food not only affects health as a matter of general principle, the selection of the right food at any particular time must also be dependent upon one's health condition at that time. Food, therefore, is also medicine.

The regulation of diet as a disease preventive or cure is certainly as Western as it is Chinese. Common Western examples are the diet for arthritics and the recent organic food craze. But the Chinese case is distinctive for its underlying principles. The bodily functions, in the Chinese view, follow the basic yin-yang principles. Many foods are also classifiable into those that possess the yin quality and those of the yang quality. When yin and yang forces in the body are not balanced, problems result. Proper amounts of food of one kind or the other may then be administered (i.e., eaten) to counterbalance the yin and yang disequilibrium. If the body is normal, overeating of one kind of food would result in an excess of that force in the body, causing diseases. . . .

At least two other concepts belong to the native Chinese food tradition. One is that, in consuming a meal, appropriate amounts of both fan and ts'ai should be taken. In fact, of the two, fan is the more fundamental and indispensable. . . . The other concept is frugality. Overindulgence in food and drink is a sin of such proportions that dynasties could fall on its account. . . . Although both the fants'ai and the frugality considerations are health based, at least in part they are related to China's traditional poverty in food resources.

5. Finally, perhaps the most important aspect of the Chinese food culture is the importance of food itself in Chinese culture. That Chinese cuisine is the greatest in the world is highly debatable and is essentially irrelevant. But few can take exception to the statement that few other cultures are as food oriented as the Chinese. And this orientation appears to be as ancient as Chinese culture itself. According to Lun yu (Confucian Analects, chap. "Wei Ling Kung"), when the duke Ling of Wei asked Confucius (551-479 B.C.) about military tactics, Confucius replied, "I have indeed heard about matters pertaining to tsu (meat stand) and tou (meat platter), but I have not learned military matters." Indeed, perhaps one of the most important qualifications of a Chinese gentleman was his knowledge and skill pertaining to food and drink. . . .

The importance of the kitchen in the king's palace is amply shown in the personnel roster recorded in Chou li. Out of the almost four thousand persons who had the responsibility of running the king's residential quarters, 2,271, or almost 60 percent, of them handled food and wine.

source: http://www.index-china-food.com

50 Ways To Reduce Stress

2006-11-28T12:39:00.000-08:00

1. Getup 15 minutes earlier
2. Prepare for the morning the night before
3. Avoid tight-fitting clothes.
4. Don't rely on your memory
5. Practice preventative maintenance
6. Make duplicate keys and store them where you can get to them
7. Say no more often
8. Set priorities in your life
9. Avoid negative people
10. Use your time wisely
11. Simplify everything you can
12. Make copies of important papers and store them where you'll be able to find them
13. repair anything that doesn't work properly
14. Ask for help
15. Chunk down big jobs into little ones
16. View problems as challenges
17. Look at challenges as opportunities
18. Unclutter your life.
19. Smile
20. Be prepared for rain
21. Laugh at something
22. Pet a dog or cat
23. Don't try to know all the answers
24. Look for the silver lining
25. Say something nice to someone
26. Teach a kid to fly a kite
27. Walk in the rain
28. Schedule some time each day to play.
29. Take a long shower or a bubble bath
30. Be Conscious of the decisions you make
31. Believe in yourself
32. Stop beating yourself up
33. Stop saying negative things to yourself.
34. Visualize yourself winning
35. Develop your sense of humor
36. Stop thinking that tomorrow will be a better day
37. Set goals for yourself.
38. Say hello to a stranger
39. Ask a friend for a hug
40. Give a friend a hug.
41. Look at the stars
42. Breathe slowly
43. Learn to whistle
44. Read a poem
45. Listen to some music you've never heard before
46. Watch a ballet
47. Read something
48. Do something new.
49. Stop a bad habit.
50. Buy yourself a flower

via: http://www.circleofchristianwomen.com

20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity

2006-11-26T12:30:00.000-08:00

1. Christianity is based on fear
2. Christianity preys on the innocent
3. Christianity is based on dishonesty
4. Christianity is extremely egocentric
5. Christianity breeds arrogance, a chosen-people mentality
6. Christianity breeds authoritarianism
7. Christianity is cruel
8. Christianity is anti-intellectual, anti-scientific
9. Christianity has a morbid, unhealthy preoccupation with sex
10. Christianity produces sexual misery
11. Christianity has an exceedingly narrow, legalistic view of morality
12. Christianity encourages acceptance of real evils while focusing on imaginary evils
13. Christianity depreciates the natural world
14. Christianity models hierarchical, authoritarian organization
15. Christianity sanctions slavery
16. Christianity is misogynistic
17. Christianity is homophobic
18. The Bible is not a reliable guide to Christ's teachings
19. The Bible is riddled with contradictions
20. Christianity borrowed its central myths and ceremonies from other ancient religions

source: http://www.seesharppress.com

Reasons To Live With A Dog Instead Of A Woman

2006-11-26T11:57:00.000-08:00

1. Dogs love it when your friends come over.

2. Dogs don’t expect you to call when you’re running late.

3. The later you are, the more excited they are to see you.

4. Dogs will forgive you for playing with other dogs.

5. Dogs don’t mind if you give their offspring away.

6. Dogs like it when you leave lots of things on the floor.

7. A dog’s parents never visit.

8. Dogs understand that instincts are better than asking
directions.

9. Dogs don’t hate their bodies.

10. No dog ever bought a Barry Manilow album.

12. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.

11. Dogs never criticize.

13. Dogs would rather have hamburger than lobster for dinner.

14. You never have to wait for a dog. They’re ready to go 24 hours a day.

15. Dogs find you amusing when you’ve had too much to drink

source: http://www.thatwasfunny.com

50 Hebrew Scriptural Reasons

2006-11-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

1. Be the "seed of the woman" that would bruise the serpent's heel (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 4:4; 1 John 3:8).

2. Be the "seed of Abraham" (Genesis 12:3; Matthew 1:1; Acts 3:25; 18:18, 22, 18; Galatians 3:16).

3. Be the "seed of Isaac" (Genesis 17:19; 21:12; Matthew 1:2; Luke 3:34; Hebrews 11:17-19).

4. Be the "seed of Jacob" and the "star out of Jacob" who will "have dominion" (Genesis 28:14; Numbers 24:17, 19; Matthew 1:2; Luke 3:34; Revelation 22:16).

5. Be a descendant of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Matthew 1:2-3; Luke 3:33; Hebrews 7:14).

6. Be a descendant of David and heir to his throne (2 Samuel 7:12-13; Isaiah 9:6, 7); 11:1-5; Jeremiah 23:5; Matthew 1:1, 6; Acts 11:23; Romans 1:4).

7. Be the Son of God (Psalm 2:7; Proverbs 30:4; Matthew 3:17; Luke 1:32).

8. Have God's own name, YHVH applied to Him (Isaiah 9:5-7; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Romans 10:9; Philippians 2:9-11).

9. Come at a specific time: 483 years after the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-26; Matthew 2:1, 16, 19; Luke 3:1, 23).

10. Be born in Bethlehem in Judah (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7).

11. Be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18-2:1; Luke 1:26-35).

12. Be adored by great persons (Psalm 72:10-11; Matthew 2:1-11).

13. Be preceded by one who would announce Him (Isaiah 40:3-5, Malachi 3:1, Matthew 3:1-3; Luke 1:17; 3:2-6).

14. Be a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15, 18; Acts 3:20-22).

15. Have a ministry of binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives, and announcing the acceptable year of the Lord (Isaiah 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19).

16. Have a ministry of healing (Isaiah 35:5-6; 42:18; Matthew 11:5).

17. Have a ministry in Galilee (Isaiah 8:23-9:1, 2; Matthew 4:12-16).

18. Be tender and compassionate (Isaiah 40:11; 42:3; Matthew 12:15, 20; Hebrews 4:15).

19. Be meek and non-pretentious (Isaiah 42:2, Matthew 12:15-16, 19).

20. Be sinless and without guile (Isaiah 53:9; 1 Peter 2:22).

21. Suffer the reproaches due others (Psalm 69:10; Isaiah 53:12; Romans 15:3).

22. Be a priest (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:5-6; 6:20; 7:15-17).

23. Enter publicly into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11).

24. Enter the Temple with authority (Haggai 2:7-9; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 21:12-24; Luke 2:27-38, 45-50; John 2:13-22).

25. Be hated without cause (Psalm 69:4; Isaiah 49:7; John 7:48; 15:24, 25).

26. Be undesired and rejected by His own people (Psalm 69:8; Isaiah 53:2; 63:3; Mark 6:3; Luke 9:58; John 1:11; 7:3-5).

27. Be rejected by the Jewish leadership (Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; John 7:48).

28. Be plotted against by Jews and Gentiles together (Psalm 2:1-2; Acts 4:27).

29. Be betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9; Matthew26:21-25, 47, 50, 55; John 13:18-21; Acts 1:16-18).

30. Be sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:15).

31. Have His price given for a potters field (Zechariah 11:13; Matthew 27:7).

32. Be forsaken by His disciples (Zechariah 13:7; Matthew 26:31, 56).

33. Be struck on the cheek (Micah 4:14; 5:1; Matthew 27:30).

34. Be spat upon (Isaiah 50:6; Matthew 26:67; 27:30).

35. Be mocked (Psalm 22:7-8; Matthew27:31, 39-44, 67-68).

36. Be beaten (Isaiah 50:6; Matthew 26:67; 27:26, 30).

37. Be executed by crucifixion, having his hands and feet pierced (Psalm 22:14, 16, 17); Zechariah 12:10; Matthew27:35; Luke 24:39; John 9:18, 34-37; 20:35; Revelation 1:7).

38. Be thirsty during His execution (Psalm 22:15; John 19:28).

39. Be given vinegar to quench His thirst (Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34).

40. Be executed without having a bone broken (Exodus 12:46; Psalm 34:20; John 19:33-36).

41. Be considered a transgressor (Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 27:38).

42. Be "cut off, but not for Himself" (Daniel 9:24-26; Matthew 2:1; Luke 3:1, 23).

43. Be the one whose death would atone for the sins of mankind (Isaiah 53:5-7, 12; Mark 10:45; John 1:29; 3:16; Acts 8:30-35; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18; 1 John 3:5).

44. Be buried with the rich when dead (Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60).

45. Be raised from the dead (Psalm 2:7; 16:10; Isaiah 53:9-10; Matthew 28:1-20; Acts 2:23-36; 13:33-37; 1 Corinthians 15:4-6).

46. Ascend to the right hand of God (Psalm 16:11; 68:18; 110:1; Luke 24:51, Acts 1:9-11; 7:55, Hebrews 1:3).

47. Exercise His priestly office in heaven (Zechariah 6:1; Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25-8:2).

48. Be the cornerstone of God's Messianic believing community (Psalm 118:22-23; Isaiah 28:16; Matthew 21:42; Ephesians 2:20; 1 Peter 2:5-7).

49. Be sought after by Gentiles as well as Jews (Isaiah 11:10; 42:1; Acts 10:45).

50. Be accepted by the Gentiles (Isaiah 11:10, 42; 49:1-12; Matthew 12:21; Romans 15:1).

source: http://www.bibleone.net

50 Ways to Order a Pizza

2006-11-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

1. If using a touch-tone, press random numbers while ordering. Ask the person taking the order to stop doing that.
2. Make up a charge-card name. Ask if they accept it.
3. Use CB lingo where applicable.
4. Order a Big Mac Extra Value Meal.
5. Terminate the call with, "Remember, we never had this conversation."
6. Tell the order taker a rival pizza place is on the other line and you're going with the lowest bidder.
7. Give them your address, exclaim "Oh, just surprise me!" and hang up.
8. Answer their questions with questions.
9. In your breathiest voice, tell them to cut the crap about nutrition and ask if they have something outlandishly sinful.
10. Use these bonus words in the conversation: ROBUST FREE-SPIRITED COST-EFFICIENT UKRAINIAN PUCE.
11. Tell them to put the crust on top this time.
12. Sing the order to the tune of your favorite song from Metallica's "Master of Puppets" CD.
13. Do not name the toppings you want. Rather, spell them out.
14. Put an extra edge in your voice when you say "crazy bread."
15. Stutter on the letter "p."
16. Ask for a deal available somewhere else. (e.g. If phoning Domino's, ask for a Cheeser! Cheeser!)
17. Ask what the order taker is wearing.
18. Crack your knuckles into the receiver.
19. Say hello, act stunned for five seconds, then behave as if they called you.
20. Rattle off your order with a determined air. If they ask if you would like drinks with that, panic and become disoriented.
21. Tell the order taker you're depressed. Get him/her to cheer you up.
22. Make a list of exotic cuisines. Order them as toppings.
23. Change your accent every three seconds.
24. Order 52 pepperoni slices prepared in a fractal pattern as follows from an equation you are about to dictate. Ask if they need paper.
25. Act like you know the order taker from somewhere. Say "Bed-Wetters' Camp, right?"
26. Start your order with "I'd like. . . ". A little later, slap yourself and say "No, I don't."
27. If they repeat the order to make sure they have it right, say "OK. That'll be $10.99; please pull up to the first window."
28. Rent a pizza.
29. Order while using an electric knife sharpener.
30. Ask if you get to keep the pizza box. When they say yes, heave a sigh of relief.
31. Put the accent on the last syllable of "pepperoni." Use the long "i" sound.
32. Have your pizza "shaken, not stirred."
33. Say "Are you sure this is (Pizza Place)? When they say yes, say "Well, so is this! You've got some explaining to do!" When they finally offer proof that it is, in fact, (Pizza Place), start to cry and ask, "Do you know what it's like to be lied to?"
34. Move the mouthpiece farther and farther from your lips as you speak. When the call ends, jerk the mouthpiece back into place and scream goodbye at the top of your lungs.
35. Tell them to double-check to make sure your pizza is, in fact, dead.
36. Imitate the order taker's voice.
37. Eliminate verbs from your speech.
38. When they say "What would you like?" say, "Huh? Oh, you mean now."
39. Play a sitar in the background.
40. Say it's your anniversary and you'd appreciate if the deliverer hid behind some furniture waiting for your spouse to arrive so you can surprise him/her.
41. Amuse the order taker with little-known facts about country music.
42. Ask to see a menu.
43. Quote Carl Sandberg.
44. Say you'll be able to pay for this when the movie people call back.
45. Ask if they have any idea what is at stake with this pizza.
46. Ask what topping goes best with well-aged Chardonnay.
47. Belch directly into the mouthpiece; then tell your dog it should be ashamed.
48. Order a slice, not a whole pizza.
49. Shout "I'm through with men/women! Send me a dozen of your best, Gaston!"
50. Doze off in the middle of the order, catch yourself, and say "Where was I? Who are you?"

for more go to: http://www.jokesandhumor.com

50 Reasons To Be a Woman

2006-11-26T09:42:00.000-08:00

1. Free drinks.
2. Free dinners.
3. Free movies (you get the point).
4. You can hug your friend without wondering if she thinks you're gay.
5. You can hug your friend without wondering if YOU'RE gay.
6. You know The Truth about whether size matters.
7. Speeding ticket? What's that?
8. New lipstick gives you a whole new lease on life.
9. You never had to walk down the hall with your binder strategically positioned in high school.
10. If you have sex with someone and don't call them the next day, you're not the devil.
11. Condoms make no significant difference in your enjoyment of sex.
12. If you have to be home in time for 90210, you can say so, out loud.
13. If you're not making enough money you can blame the glass ceiling.
14. You can sleep your way to the top.
15. You can sue the President for sexual harassment.
16. Nothing crucial can be cut off with one clean sweep.
17. It's possible to live your whole life without ever taking a group shower.
18. No fashion faux pas you make could rival The Speedo.
19. Brad Pitt.
20. You don't have to fart to amuse yourself.
21. If you cheat on your spouse, people assume it's because you're being emotionally neglected.
22. YOU never have to wonder if his orgasm was real.
23. You'll never have to decide where to hide your nose-hair clipper.
24. No one passes out when you take off your shoes.
25. If you think the person you're dating really likes you, you don't have to break up with them.
26. Excitement is only as far away as the nearest beauty-supply store.
27. If you forget to shave, no one has to know.
28. You can congratulate your teammate without ever touching her ass.
29. If you have a zit, you can conceal it.
30. You never have to reach down every so often to make sure your privates are still there.
31. If you're dumb, some people will find it cute.
32. You don't have to memorize Caddyshack or Fletch to fit in.
33. You have the ability to dress yourself.
34. You have an excuse to be a total bitch at least once a month.
35. You can talk to people of the opposite sex without having to picture them naked.
36. If you marry someone 20 years younger, you're aware that you look like an idiot.
37. If you're wearing cologne, you don't have to pretend it's aftershave.
38. You'll probably never see someone you know while peeing in an alley.
39. You'll never have to punch a hole through anything with your fist.
40. You can quickly end any fight by crying.
41. Your friends won't think you're weird if you ask whether there's spinach in your teeth.
42. There are times when chocolate really can solve all your problems.
43. You've never had a goatee.
44. Gay waiters don't make you uncomfortable.
45. You'll never regret piercing your ears.
46. You can fully assess a person just by looking at their shoes.
47. You'll never discover you've been duped by a Wonderbra.
48. You don't have hair on your back.
49. You know which glass was yours by the lipstick mark.
50. You get to hate Kathie Lee in the way only another woman truly can.

via: http://www.aaaugh.com/jokes

20 Reasons to Love the Nintendo Wii

2006-11-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

1. The name isn’t as bad as you think. Really. Well, it’ll grow on you.
2. Innovative controls. The Wii-mote and Nunchuk that you use to play Wii games with make for a completely different kind of gaming. You wave, point, swipe and swing to play. It’s only as good as the games that make use of it though.
3. No graphical willy-waving. It’s a fair cop: Wii isn’t as powerful as PS3 or Xbox 360. But that means developers could and should be focusing on gameplay. And as a bonus, it means we don’t have to read endless game reviews dribbling on about textures.
4. Wii Sports. It comes bundled with your Wii, and is a collection of five sporty mini-games: tennis, baseball, golf, bowling and boxing. All show off the sheer fun of using the Wii-mote, and are the ideal introduction to what Nintendo’s console is capable of.
5. Full internet access. Yep, you’ll be able to surf the Web through Wii, using the Opera browser, which you’ll be able to download via the Wii Shop channel for free - at least until next Summer.
6. The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The latest installment of Nintendo’s classic adventure franchise is a launch title, and looks ace. Read our preview for more details.
7. It’s cheap. In the UK, a Will will cost you £180 at launch. That’s practically a pocket-money price! (if you’re Paris Hilton)
8. Play classic N64 games. The Wii’s Virtual Console lets you purchase ‘points’ which can then be exchanged for a host of retro games, which you download to the console. N64 titles announced so far include Super Mario 64, Starfox 64, The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, and Mario Kart 64.
9. Your mum can play it. The joy of Wii is that the Wii-mote makes gaming fun even for people who don’t like traditional gaming. Like your mum. Hell, even your gran. Although you might need to stock up on some Jointace before inviting her round…
10. A proper global launch. Like Microsoft before them, Nintendo have more or less managed to get Wii out in Asia, North America and Europe at the same time. Even if us Europeans are a few weeks behind. Grr.
11. Nintendo are making LOADS of them. Six million by the end of March next year, in fact. This probably still won’t be enough to meet demand, mind.
12. Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz. Monkeys, bananas, evil multi-coloured octopii and the Wii-mote in perfect harmony. Read our preview.
13. Wi-Fi (or should that be Wii-Fi?). Either way, Wii has it, so you’re not tied to your broadband socket, and if you’ve already got a wireless home network, you can connect to the internetweb straight away.
14. Wii is the ultimate party console. Invite friends round, ideally with their own Wii-motes, and play a bunch of mini-games. With booze, obviously. I’m writing the Super Monkey Ball drinking game as we speak.
15. Create your own Mii. Miis are cartoon avatars, which represent you in some games, and will hopefully be used online too. Make it look like you, or make it look like Brian Blessed. The choice is yours.
16. In fact, create your own Mii right now. Go here.
17. Wii Play. Assuming you’re not a Zelda nut, Wii Play should be your first purchase. It’s more mini-games to show off your Wii-mote, but more importantly comes with an extra controller bundled in. Read our preview.
18. C64 games on the Virtual Console. Oh yes. Publisher System 3 is bringing some classic Commodore 64 games to the VC. Confirmed are Impossible Mission, California Games and The Last Ninja. Still a rumour (in my own, fevered, imagination) is Emlyn Hughes International Soccer.
19. Cartman loves it. Read why here (even if the actual South Park episode has been removed from YouTube).
20. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2. Crazy anime fighting game. Whaddya mean you haven’t played the first one? Tsk.

source: http://www.ps3network.com/forums

Reasons to Give Up Coffee

2006-11-26T09:08:00.000-08:00

11. You hate Sun Microsystems and all their products
10. Company now requires punching out to use the bathroom
9. You're operating too efficiently, finishing all your work well before the end of the day and therefore must slow down
8. You accidentally discovered how Office Jesus makes the coffee
7. Yesterday you passed a coffee bean
6. You're disturbing your cubicle neighbours with screams of "Get them off me! Get them off me!" while you tear at your skin
5. A homeless family has moved into your coffe mug
4. It's time to give up on your effort to prove the "100 cups of coffee" effect shown in Futurama
3. You were caught calling the brewer "my precious"
2. Your pee is sold as an energy drink
1. You haven't slept since the last Pope died

via: http://www.bbspot.com

20 Reasons Why We Can’t Change

2006-11-26T08:54:00.000-08:00

1.We’ve never done it before.
2.Nobody else has ever done it.
3.It has never been tried before.
4.We tried it before.
5.Another company/person tried it before.
6.We’ve been doing it this way for 25 years.
7.It won’t work in a small company.
8.It won’t work in a large company.
9.It won’t work in our company.
10.Why change–it’s working OK.
11.The boss will never buy it.
12.It needs further investigation.
13.Our competitors are not doing it.
14.It’s too much trouble to change.
15.Our company is different.
16.The ad department says it can’t be done.
17.Sales department says it can’t be done.
18.The service department won’t like it.
19.The janitor says it can’t be done.
20.It can’t be done.

via: http://www.surfarama.com

50 Reasons Women Don’t Leave Abusive Partners

2006-11-26T08:41:00.000-08:00

1. Fear
2. Children
3. Lack of money
4. She loves her partner
5. Her partner “loves” her
6. The children love them both
7. Law enforcement blame her
8. Clergy blame her
9. Relatives blame her
10. She blames herself
11. Therapists blame her
12. Her batterer blames her
13. She’s a drug addict
14. Her partner is a pimp
15. Her father abused her
16. Her mother abused her
17. Her partner is an alcoholic
18. Her partner is a drug addict
19. Her partner says, “I’m sorry”
20. Her partner says, “I love you”
21. Her partner says, “I’ll never do it
again”
22. Her partner says, “I’ll take the
children”
23. Her partner says, “I’ll kill you if
you leave”
24. Her partner says, “I’ll kill myself if
you leave”
25. Fear of losing custody of her
children
26. She’s deaf
27. She’s blind
28. She’s mentally impaired
29. She can’t read
30. She’s in a wheel chair
31. She can’t speak English
32. She doesn’t have papers to be in
this country
33. The shelters are full
34. She’ll become homeless
35. No one believes she is being
abused
36. She doesn’t think she is being
abused
37. She knows the welfare system will
abuse her more
38. She’s isolated
39. She’s depressed
40. It’s not the right time
41. She’s never told anyone
42. She’s afraid of the unknown
43. She’s a public figure
44. Her partner is a public figure
45. Her partner threatens to abuse pets
46. Her partner is her personal care
attendant
47. Her partner threatens to expose her
as a lesbian
48. She feels that there is no help
49. She’s tried to leave before
50. Her partner found her before

source: https://www.vcpionline.org

30 Reasons to Reject The Matrix

2006-11-26T08:21:00.000-08:00

1.The Wachowskis killed Jesus

Neo dies.
So let me get this straight. Neo dies and is resurrected in the original film, as a symbol of Christ's sacrifice to save mankind, the Wachowskis being in love with the idea of religious symbolism in their kung fu movies (notice that Morpheus wears sunglasses without earpieces, just like Allah).
According to them, therefore, Jesus, having been resurrected and taking his place as an invulnerable deity on Earth, will later die again in order to accomplish the exact same thing we all thought he had accomplished the first time around. I guess it's a good thing for us lost souls that your so-called "God" doesn't need sequels.

2.It's like rooting for the Cubs...

The Matrix survives. The machines are not defeated.
After spending every second of the first two films setting up the machines as evil, murderous slavemasters with predatory dreadlocked sentinels slithering through the darkness, we're forced to buy into a truce between man and machine in the last scene?
And what about the little girl in the film, supposedly the first love child merging man and machine? Does this not imply a thankfully-unseen man and sentinel sex scene, with a nude man, shall we say, "interfacing" with its so-called "female data port" using his "boner?"

3. He caught her! Oh, wait...

Trinity dies.

Boy, it's a good thing they based the entire second film around Neo keeping her alive. That was more than worth it. But don't worry, Trinity fans; your girl gets the same noble death as Cpl. Hicks in Alien 3.
Come to think of it, these films are like real life.

4. War crimes

Seraph is revealed to be a former one, as most of us guessed by his stand-off fight with Neo. What is not mentioned is that this man is also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Zionites in some previous incarnation of The Matrix since he obviously chose the other door in The Architect's TV shop.
Why was he not punished for causing this slaughter? And, being Japanese, we must ask if he pleasured himself at the thought of all that death?

5. There's the Matrix! Shoot it!

Great plan for defending Zion, using those mechs to try to shoot the sentinels out of the air using machine guns, a technology available since 1939. I mean, there's no reason in the world to set up EMP devices around the perimeter...
Wait a second. Where did the humans get the Mechs? Or the ships? If these are leftover scraps from the great war between machines and man, how could they continually hold off the same force that defeated the original army at full strength? Maybe the Merovingian isn't the only machine who's also French.

6. Neo is burning down the prom!

So we find out Neo was able to defeat the sentinels in Reloaded through a vague kind of telekinesis (you should have known, from the well-bent spoon handed to Neo by his young stalker in Zion). That would be fine, except there is no such thing as telekinesis. Here's proof: try to bend a nearby object with your mind.
See? You can't. Now try to shut down the nearest robot using the same method. Simply impossible.

7. I'm dreaming of a white... cast?

Two actors were abruptly cut from the third film's cast before production ended, both female minorities. Coincidence?
Aaliyah and Gloria Foster were unceremonially dropped after shooting some scenes for Revolutions. What's wrong, guys? They didn't test well with the predominantly white Matrix audiences?
Neither actress could be reached for comment.

8. More weird religosity...

So Agent Smith takes a human body, and the first thing we see him do is cut his palms, presumably in order to punish himself for his newfound masturbation ability? Bizarre.

9. "She was not kissing your face..."

So they base a whole scene in Reloaded between the Merovingian and Persephone around his having lipstick on his anus due to a ladies' room rimjob?
I think I'll skip the Reloaded DVD deleted scenes, thank you very much.

10. The Matrix Murders

The first film killed 13 students at Columbine High School, the disturbed trench-coated teens imitating the pipe-bombing, shotgunning film's finale. How many troubled teens are out there Reloading with the release of the sequels?
In fact, the only reason the U.S. Attorney General did not press murder charges against the filmmakers is because the movie was shot in Australia, giving it diplomatic immunity.

11. The aborted American dream

Warner Bros. devoted $300 million to the production of the two Matrix sequels.
In the time the films have been in production, over one thousand American children will have died of starvation. For the cost of these films, each of those children could have been given one million dollars.

12. Would You Like some Chicken with your Destiny?

In what had to be the most ridiculous product placement deal in history, Kentucky Fried Chicken paid Warner Bros. over $30 million to cast mascot Colonel Sanders as the Architect in the sequels.
"Finger-lickin' good?" I think that after this trilogy is finished, Matrix fans will be "licking their fingers" in disappointment.

13. Reloaded Ridiculousness

Several times in the sequel Neo is seen flying at almost supersonic speeds. NASA experiments prove that such a velocity would tear a man's genitals off.

14. Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time!

Can we please have just one major studio movie without a trick ending? I won't reveal it because some of you have requested that I not, but Revolutions has a shocking surprise near the end that the studio has bent over backwards (probably in slow-motion, while dodging bullets) to conceal. All I'll say is that it has to do with the surprise return of a certain treacherous character who we all thought was dead in the first film. Can any of you decipher what I'm saying here?

15.. Reloaded Ridiculousness, 2

The machines added two new enemies for Neo in Reloaded, called the Twins. Their first priority is to blend discreetly into the simulated world of the Matrix, to walk among the people unnoticed. So of course the Matrix made them huge albino men with bleach-white dreadlocks who occasionally transform into shrieking wraiths.
"What's that, honey?"
"Oh, nothing. It just looks like a simple Kung-Fu Swedish Rastafarian Helldemon. I'm sure there's no need to question our fragile, sheltered grasp of 'reality' as we know it."

16. The Matrix: Reconsidered

But the first film was great art, you say?
In the spoon-bending scene, watch closely. First we see Neo bend the spoon almost into a "U" shape... now watch carefully (freeze-frame it, for you DVD owners). A second later it's back to its normal shape again. Ironic that a film meant for no-attention-span kids also had a no-attention-span editor.

17. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 2

After they sucked the "bug" out of Neo's abdomen, where was the gaping bloody hole the thing should have left? Even if Trinity had the medical training to re-tie the knot in his navel, we certainly didn't see her do it.

18. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 3

In the same scene, the "bug" is casually discarded in the street. Better hope no one comes along and steps on the squirming, burrowing thing with their bare feet.

19. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 4

You've worked as a policeman your whole life, protecting the innocent, enforcing the law. You retire with honors, then take a job as a security guard, working the metal detector on the ground floor of a skyscraper in order to help pay for your wife's arthritis medication. You're sitting there, on a slow day, reading your newspaper, when a girl walks in wearing a trenchcoat. She issues no demands, no warnings, no "freeze" or "drop your gun." She just tears you in half with a spray of machine-gun fire, then does cartwheels along the walls while killing all your friends.
Somewhere, faintly, you can hear a theater audience cheering.

20. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 5

Neo can move faster than sound, yet can't move blindingly through bullet time and simply disarm the security guards rather than slaughtering them? It looks like Neo learned his disarming techniques from George W. Bush.

21. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 6

Neo and his crew can generate an infinite number of guns in the construct, but can't come up with non-lethal weapons such as long-range tasers and sleeping gas?
Would not the "exciting" skyscraper shootout have been just as exciting if the two had been armed with the Vomit Sticks from Minority Report? Or are these lives not worth saving?

22. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 7

You are a hard-working single mother, making ends meet by doing time as a secretary in an office building during the day, a drug-store clerk in the evenings. You are on the office phone with the babysitter one quiet Wednesday afternoon, telling her how to calm little Dakota down, to get her to stop crying her eyes out asking why Mommy is never home, telling her that you'll be there soon, honey.
A split-second later your head is severed by a shattered helicopter rotor blade, the skull bouncing off a nearby wall, leaving a spray of arterial blood on a motivational poster. Your eyes bulge wide, your brain inside remaining alive just long enough to recognize the horror of your fate. Aviation fuel splashes in through the shattered windows and ignites, incinerating mothers, husbands, fathers, best friends.
And somewhere, a theater full of young, chubby males cheers because Trinity made it out before the crash.

23. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 8

"If you wanna give me that juris-my-DICK-tion crap, you can kiss my ass."

24. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 9

You infiltrate a building to rescue a hostage who you can't afford to lose. Either his death, or your own death, would have unimaginable consequences for the entire living world. So, once you're inside and riding up the lift, it's a good idea to go ahead and set the building on fire by dropping a bomb on the first floor.

25. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 10

It's the film's climactic battle between Agent Smith and Neo. It begins with Agent Smith walking down the subway platform toward Neo. Neo's friends tell him to run. But no; he stands and fights.
They fight for what seems like an hour, back and forth, an epic battle of good and evil. Neo takes a beating, comes back, finds his courage, becomes The One. He goes toe-to-toe with the baddest of the bad. After this long, choreographed, pivotal moment of the film, Agent Smith is left...
...walking down the subway platform toward Neo. Neo's friends tell him to run.
He runs.
Excuse me, ticket lady? I'd like a refund of the last fifteen minutes of my life. It would be like if at the end of Rocky, after sitting through the whole film, the main character just lost the fight anyway.

26. Excuse me?

"I hate this place, this... zoo. It's the smelt."

27. By their fruits ye shall know them

I had attended a showing of The Matrix in May of 1999 with a lady friend, because we are both big Morgan Freeman fans. An hour into the film, as I observed what dreck we were wading in, I walked up and stood before the screen and tried to explain to the audience that this vomitus was below their dignity.
I was greeted by some of the most vulgar insults imaginable, until some began throwing objects and one man even knocked my pipe from my hand. Do you wish to be associated with a group of such character?

28. By their fruits ye shall know the staff, too

After the above incident, I was the one asked to leave.

29. The Matrix: Reconsidered further

If you need to get in touch with a person, you can simply call them at their office. You do not need to actually mail the phone to them.

30. Two words:

Keanu Reeves.

source: http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com

20 Reasons When A Woman Should Call It A Night...

2006-11-25T16:58:00.000-08:00

1. You have absolutely no idea where your bag is.

2. You truly believe that dancing with your arms overhead
and wiggling your bottom while yelling WOO-HOO
is truly the sexiest dance around.

3. You've suddenly decided that you want to kick someone's @ss
and honestly believe that you could do it too.

4. In your last trip to "pee" you realize you now look more like Lily Savage
than the goddess you were just four hours ago.

5. You drop your 3:00 a.m. kebab on the floor
(which you're eating even though you're not the least bit hungry),
pick it up and carry on eating it.

6. You start crying and telling everyone
you see that you love them sooooo much.

7. There are less than three hours before you're due to start work.

8. You've found a deeper/spiritual side to the geek sitting next to you.

9. The man you're flirting with used to be your biology teacher.

10. The urge to take off articles of clothing,
stand on a table and sing or dance becomes strangely overwhelming.

11. Your eyes just don't seem to want to stay open on their own so you
decide to keep them half closed and think it looks exotically sexy.

12. you seem to think that its a really good idea to get your mates
to push you down the street in a shopping trolley.

13. You yell at the bartender,
who (you think) cheated you by giving you just lemonade,
but that's just because you can no longer taste the vodka.

14. You think you're in bed,
but the pillow feels strangely like the kitchen floor.

15. You start every conversation with a booming,
"DON'T take this the WRONG WAY but..."

16. You fail to notice that the toilet lid's down when you sit on it.

17. You're hugs begin to resemble wrestling take-down moves.

18. You're soooo tired you just sit on the floor
(wherever you happen to be standing) and take a quick nap.

19. You begin leaving the buttons open on your button fly pants
to cut down on the time you're in the bathroom away from your drink.

20. You take your shoes off because you really believe
it's their fault that you're having problems walking straight.

via: http://amuzensantics.com

Over 40 Reasons to Bike to Work

2006-11-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

1. Bicycles Increase Mobility For Those Who Don't Have Access To Motor Transport.
2. Bikes Increase Mobility For Those Who Don't Qualify To Drive A Car.
3. Bicycles Increase Mobility For Those Who Can't Afford Motor Transport.
4. Bikes Increase Mobility For Those Who Don't Want To Drive Motor Vehicles.
5. You Get Exercise Form Bicycling
6. Save Travel Money By Biking
7. Reduce Stress
8. Some companies actually pay you to bike to work
9. Biking Is Therapeutic For The Mind & Spirit
10. Cycling Is Therapeutic For The Body
11. Your commute will be the best part of your day instead of the worst part of your day.
12. Cycling Improves Self-Esteem
13. Save On The Membership To A Health Club, Get Your Exercise Bicycling To Work
14. Cycling Is Low Impact On The Body
15. Cycling Is Low Impact On The Environment
16. Bicycling In Your Neighbourhood Is A Great Way To Meet Your Neighbours
17. Camaraderie of Cyclists Makes It A Great Way To Meet A Nice Stranger With A Similar Interest
18. Bicyclist Can Ignore the Traffic Reports
19. Feel the Self-satisfaction Of Biking Past A Traffic Jam In The Bike Lane.
20. Predictable Commute Time
21. Easier Parking
22. Cheaper Parking
23. Leaving Your Car At Home Provide A Parking Space For Someone Less Fortunate
24. If You Are Lazy, Your Bicycle Provides Door-To-Door Transport (You Don't Have To Walk Across A Vast Parking Lot)
25. Reduce Demand For Parking Lots
26. Reduce Energy Consumption (see below)
27. Reduce Air Pollution -- Bicyclist Emit Few Gases
28. Reduce Water Pollution -- Bikes Don't Drip Brake Fluid, Anti-Freeze, Transmission Fluid, Etc.
29. Reduce Noise Pollution -- Even Without A Muffler Bikes Are Quiet
30. Reduces Road Wear -- Even If Cyclist Feel Like They Have The Weight Of The World On Their Shoulders.
31. Prevent and protest the sanctioned murder of responsible citizens.
32. Bikes Small Profile Reduce Congestion
33. Reduce Need To Lay Additional Asphalt And Concrete
34. Easier to Vary Your Route By Bicycle
35. Bicycling Improve Cardiovascular Health
36. Better muscle tone, bone mass improvement, clearer skin
37. Healthier People Have Lower Health Care Expenses
38. The Exercise Increase Your Productivity At Work
39. Increased Bike Uses Generates Bike Facilities Which Increase Property Values
40. Bicycling Gives You More Fresh Air Than A Sauna And You Can Still Sweat And Clean Your Pores
41. Bike Commuting Is A License To Dress Weird And Still Feel Smug
42. Urban Cycling Keeps You Humble
43. Biking Is Virtually Life Long Activity
44. Bicycling Can Be Enjoyed In A Wide Variety Of Topography
45. Cycling Can Be Enjoyed In A Wide Variety Of Climates
46. Bicycles Are A Great Means To See The World
47. Bicycling is cool.
48. Biking Is fun.

source: http://www.crazycolour.com

20 Reasons Star Wars is Better than Titanic

2006-11-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

1. Titanic's big, but it doesn't have hyperdrive.

2. Star Wars has WAY cooler action figure potential.

3. Yoda could use the Force to lift Titanic out of the water.

4. Leia is a princess, a senator, a freedom fighter, and Jedi material; Rose is just marriage bait.

5. Ewoks throw better parties than either first class or steerage.

6. When flying towards the Titanic, Wedge can't say "Look at the size of that thing!" and really mean it.

7. It would be much scarier to get chased around the boat by a raving madman with a lightsaber as opposed to a handgun.

8a. Titanic is egalitarian by portraying poor people as sympathetic characters. Star Wars is egalitarian by promoting bug-eyed amphibians to Admiral.

8b. Said bug-eyed amphibious Admiral manages NOT to lose his ship.

9. We know Cal is the bad guy because he sneers at the poor and treats his fiancee like property. We know Darth Vader is the bad guy because he strangles people and blows up planets for fun.

10. Yeah, Leo can dance, but can he fly an X-wing?

11. People have not lost their lives trying to recreate scenes from Star Wars on the bow of a cruise liner.

12. Rose braves icy water to rescue her man. Leia braves Jabba the Hut.

13. Two words: John Williams.

14. There are always enough escape pods in Star Wars.

15. Do you know what the Empire does to self-proclaimed "kings of the world"?

16. If Luke were handcuffed to a pipe below decks in a sinking ship, he would use the Force to get the key.

17. "I'd rather be his whore than your wife" just doesn't have the same sting as "I'd rather kiss a Wookie."

18. Han is frozen in carbonite and turned into a wall ornament. Leo simply freezes.

19. We knew the boat was gonna sink. But who could've anticipated "Luke....I am your father." ???

20. Han Solo would've missed that damn iceberg!

via: http://www.chainletters.net

10 Reasons To Be On The Internet

2006-11-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

1. Its too big to ignore
The number of Internet users over the age of 16 in the U.S. and Canada has reached 79 million, while the number of people buying products and services via the Web has hit 20 million according to a June 1998 Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet study on Internet commerce. The study said that the number of US & Canadian Internet users had increased 36 percent since their last study 9 months earlier. The study also shows that the number of Web shoppers -- people checking out or comparing products and services on the Web -- is now 48 million and growing at an astonishing rate of 8% per month. And what about users throughout the rest of the world?
A recent survey by The Thomas Register says that 58.4% of the companies surveyed said they would use electronic commerce for at least 25% of their purchases in the next 12 months. At a recent publishing conference, analysts predicted ecommerce could reach $1 trillion per year by 2000.
Most forecasts predict that Internet retail sales during the 1998 holiday season will reach 3.25 Billion Dollars! No matter what your business is, you can not afford to ignore this market. And you can't service them if you are not on the Web! Do you know what your competitor's are doing?

2. To Network
A large part of business is connecting and communicating with others. How often do you pass out your business card to someone you have just met? How often has a chance encounter turned into a big sale for you? Suppose you could be telling your story to hundreds, or thousands of people every day - 24 hours a day? You can on the World Wide Web!
Its amazing how far this networking can go. Recently, we were recommended to a potential client in Long Island, New York by a friend of his in Nebraska. The friend had seen our web site and been impressed. In another case a satisfied client of ours in Pennsylvania recommended us to a company within his industry located in Germany. The first order that our customer New York Italian Food Specialties received from their web site www.salami.com was from Tokyo! And that customer continues to reorder to this day. The world is getting smaller every day!

3. To Tell the World About Your Business
Just what is basic business information? Don't just think of a Yellow Pages ad. Its a lot more than "What do you do? Where are you located? What are your hours? " Suppose you had a score of salesmen manning your phones 24 hours a day who could instantly answer virtually any question. "Can I see a product brochure? What's on sale today? Can I order it now? Do you service my area? What kind of experience do you have . . ." If you could provide this sort of information to your customers and potential customers and tell them how they can benefit by doing business with you, do you think you would do more business? Well you can do this at a low cost on the World Wide Web.

4. To Service Your Customers
Providing business information is certainly one of the most important ways to serve your customers. But, a large percentage of companies who are extremely satisfied with their presence on the WWW point to increased customer service at lower costs as the reason for their success. Have you ever used the FedEx, UPS, or US Postal Service web sites to track down a package? Remember how long it took you to do this before the Internet?
We recently installed a UPS tracking service on a couple of our web sites. In the first 2 weeks of December 1998, 56 people used the tracking service at www.salami.com to track their orders. That's 56 customers who were serviced better and 56 phone calls the guys at Salami.com didn't have to make.
If you look at better ways of serving your customers, you'll find even more ways to use WWW technology. How about making forms available to pre-qualify for a loan?, or have your staff do a search for that specific part your customer needs without spending time taking down the information on the phone? You can do all of this quite easily on your web site.

5. To Increase Public Awareness
You might have difficulty in getting a National Magazine like Time to write up your business, but they might write up your Web Site if it contained something new and interesting. Even if you managed to get a story about your business in a national magazine could you benefit from someone in a distant city reading about it?
With a Web Site anyone, anywhere, at anytime can access your web information and become a potential customer. Our customer's www.salami.com site has been written up from Shanghai to Russia. They have been featured in Business Week Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press, Newsday and many, many more. Once, they were even asked to address via video conference a convention of Italian Industrialists in Bari Italy! They have even had stories done on TV about them on CNBC! Not bad for two Italian Grocers from Long Island, N.Y.

6. To Sell Things
Most people think this is the number one use of the World Wide Web. We placed it here because we think you should only think about selling things on the Internet after you have done all the things we have previously mentioned.
Why? Because building a business in cyber space is really no different than building a business in the real world. It doesn't happen by accident. You have to market and publicize your business. Government figures show Internet commerce totaled more than $8 billion in 1997, but is expected to grow to more than $300 billion by 2002. The right use of your web site can get you into this exploding market.
Currently 1.6 million small businesses are on the Internet with an estimated one million more joining them this year. 25% of these businesses say that their Internet presences have generated increased sales. But what about the rest of them?
Too many people think that they can put up a web page and miraculously the mailman will start delivering checks to their door. Too many companies put up Web Sites and then ignore them. You have to incorporate your web site in your overall marketing effort Think of it as a tool like the telephone. By itself the telephone won't sell anything. But it is a tool which allows you to communicate with your customers, which then allows you to Sell things
The number one deterrent to selling on the Internet is the credibility of the seller . Think about it - would you have a problem placing an online order with Macy's or Lands End? Certainly Not! Because they are known entities. Before people will become customers they want to know more about you. They want to know what you do, and how it will benefit them. You can do this very easily and inexpensively with your web site. Then you will be able to turn your web site visitors into customers!

7. To reach a highly desirable demographic market
The demographics of WWW users shows them to be a very upscale group. They are members of the highest mass-market demographic available with high income and high levels of education and professions, consider these statements:

* The mean average household income is $53k (USD)
* Close to 17% of US Internet users report incomes in excess of $75,000.00
* 45% have a college degree or better. An additional 35% have some college education
* 42% of users surveyed are married
* According to FIND/SVP's 1997 American Internet User Survey the average Internet user is 36.5 yr. old
* 32% are between the ages of 31 - 45
* More than 40% are women

There is a lot of disposable income within this group and they have demonstrated an ever-expanding willingness to purchase online. In fact, the number one reason they give for purchasing online is that it is more convenient!

8. To Answer Frequently Asked questions
The people who answer your company's telephones and those of your customer services departments can tell you that they spend a large amount of their time answering the same questions over and over again. These are the questions that customers and potential customers want answered. Put the questions and answers up on your web site and you will make it easier for them to do business with you. Not to mention freeing up a number of hours of your staff's time every day!

9. To Create a 24 Hour Service
How often have you forgotten to make a phone call to the opposite coast at the right time of day. Face it business is becoming more and more a world wide operation. And everyone is operating on a different time schedule. But with your Web Site you can serve your customers, clients and partners 24 hours a day - seven days a week. And without overtime!
You can customize information for your visitors which will be available to them at their convenience. You can collect valuable information that will put you ahead of your competition while you sleep! This morning there were 8 requests for information from potential customers waiting for me when I turned on my computer, and its like that practically every day. How would you like to start every day with 8 new qualified sales prospects!

10. To Make New or Changed Information
Available Quickly.

Some times information changes so quickly you are stuck with a pile of outdated brochures or have just spent the money to mail out new price lists and information only to have to do it all over again. Electronic Publishing on the web solves this problem no paper, no printer's bills, no postage! You can even operate an inexpensive mailing list program on your site to publish information to your customers and potential customers as soon as it exists. You don't even have to wait for them to visit your web site. You can go out and get them!

source: http://www.beonthenet.com

20 Reasons Why Chocolate Is Better Than Sex

2006-11-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

1. You can GET chocolate.
2. "If you love me you'll swallow that" has real meaning with chocolate.
3. Chocolate satisfies even when it has gone soft.
4. You can safely have chocolate while you are driving.
5. You can make chocolate last as long as you want it to.
6. You can have chocolate in front of your mother.
7. If you bite the nuts too hard the chocolate won't mind.
8. Two people of the same sex can have chocolate without being called nasty names.
9. The word "commitment" doesn't scare off chocolate.
10. You can have chocolate on top of your workbench/desk during working hours without upsetting your work mates.
11. You can ask a stranger for chocolate without getting your face slapped.
12. You don't get hairs in your mouth with chocolate.
13. With chocolate there's no need to fake it.
14. Chocolate doesn't make you pregnant.
15. You can have chocolate at any time of the month.
16. Good chocolate is easy to find.
17. You can have as many kinds of chocolate as you can handle.
18. You are never to young or to old for chocolate.
19. When you have chocolate it does not keep your neighbors awake.
20. With chocolate size doesn't matter; it's always good.

via: http://www.zromance.com

20 Reasons to Practice Yoga

2006-11-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

1. Reduces your risk of getting heart disease.
2. Improves the functioning of your immune system.
3. Helps you to manage stress more effectively.
4. Can help relieve the pain of tension headaches.
5. Reduces the risk of developing hypertension ( high blood pressure )
6. Reduces your risk of developing non-insulin dependant diabetes.
7. Can help improve short term memory, focusing and concentration.
8. Increases your maximal oxygen intake.
9. Strengthens your respirtory system.
10. Helps to boost creativity.
11. Helps you sleep easier and better.
12. Helps the body resist upper respiratory tract infections
13. Increases ability to supply blood to the skin for cooling.
14. Reduces the rate and severity of medical complications from hypertension.
15. Reduces your risk of having a stroke.
16. Helps you to relax.
17. Helps to increase your overall health awareness
18. Helps give you willpower to lose weight.
19. Lowers your resting heart rate.
20. Helps to relieve constipation

via: http://www.bellaonline.com

10 Reasons for Animal Rights and Their Explanation

2006-11-25T11:32:00.000-08:00

1. The philosophy of animal rights is rational
Explanation: It is not rational to discriminate arbitrarily. And discrimination against nonhuman animals is arbitrary. It is wrong to treat weaker human beings, especially those who are lacking in normal human intelligence, as "tools" or "renewable resources" or "models" or "commodities." It cannot be right, therefore, to treat other animals as if they were "tools," "models and the like, if their psychology is as rich as (or richer than) these humans. To think otherwise is irrational.

"To describe an animal as a physico-chemical system of extreme complexity is no doubt perfectly correct, except that it misses out on the 'animalness' of the animal."

-- E.F. Schumacher

2. The philosophy of animal rights is scientific
Explanation: The philosophy of animal rights is respectful of our best science in general and evolutionary biology in particular. The latter teaches that, in Darwin's words, humans differ from many other animals "in degree," not in kind." Questions of line drawing to one side, it is obvious that the animals used in laboratories, raised for food, and hunted for pleasure or trapped for profit, for example, are our psychological kin. This is no fantasy, this is fact, proven by our best science.

"There is no fundamental difference between humans and the higher mammals in their mental faculties"

-- Charles Darwin

3. The philosophy of animal rights is unprejudiced
Explanation: Racists are people who think that the members of their race are superior to the members of other races simply because the former belong to their (the "superior") race. Sexists believe that the members of their sex are superior to the members of the opposite sex simply because the former belong to their (the "superior") sex. Both racism and sexism are paradigms of unsupportable bigotry. There is no "superior" or "inferior" sex or race. Racial and sexual differences are biological, not moral, differences.
The same is true of speciesism -- the view that members of the species Homo sapiens are superior to members of every other species simply because human beings belong to one's own (the "superior") species. For there is no "superior" species. To think otherwise is to be no less predjudiced than racists or sexists.

"If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one."

-- Dick Gregory

4. The philosophy of animal rights is just
Explanation: Justice is the highest principle of ethics. We are not to commit or permit injustice so that good may come, not to violate the rights of the few so that the many might benefit. Slavery allowed this. Child labor allowed this. Most examples of social injustice allow this. But not the philosophy of animal rights, whose highest principle is that of justice: No one has a right to benefit as a result of violating another's rights, whether that "other" is a human being or some other animal.

"The reasons for legal intervention in favor of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves -- the (other) animals"

- John Stuart Mill

5. The philosophy of animal rights is compassionate
Explanation: A full human life demands feelings of empathy and sympathy -- in a word, compassion -- for the victims of injustice -- whether the victims are humans or other animals. The philosophy of animal rights calls for, and its acceptance fosters the growth of, the virtue of compassion. This philosophy is, in Lincoln's workds, "the way of a whole human being."

"Compassion in action may be the glorious possibility that could protect our crowded, polluted planet ..."

-- Victoria Moran

6. The philosophy of animal rights is unselfish
Explanation: The philosophy of animal rights demands a commitment to serve those who are weak and vulnerable -- those who, whether they are humans or other animals, lack the ability to speak for or defend themselves, and who are in need of protection against human greed and callousness. This philosophy requires this commitment, not because it is in our self-interest to give it, but because it is right to do so. This philosophy therefore calls for, and its acceptance fosters the growth of, unselfish service.

"We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central."

-- Iris Murdoch

7. The philosophy of animal rights is individually fulfilling
Explanation: All the great traditions in ethics, both secular and religious, emphasize the importance of four things: knowledge, justice, compassion, and autonomy. The philosophy of animal rights is no exception. This philosophy teaches that our choices should be based on knowledge, should be expressive of compassion and justice, and should be freely made. It is not easy to achieve these virtues, or to control the human inclinations toward greed and indifference. But a whole human life is imposssible without them. The philosophy of animal rights both calls for, and its acceptance fosters the growth of, individual self-fulfillment.

"Humaneness is not a dead external precept, but a living impulse from within; not self-sacrifice, but self-fulfillment."

-- Henry Salt

8. The philosophy of animal rights is socially progressive.
Explanation: The greatest impediment to the flourishing of human society is the exploitation of other animals at human hands. This is true in the case of unhealthy diets, of the habitual reliance on the "whole animal model" in science, and of the many other forms animal exploitation takes. And it is no less true of education and advertising, for example, which help deaden the human psyche to the demands of reason, impartiality, compassion, and justice. In all these ways (and more), nations remain profoundly backward because they fail to serve the true interests of their citizens.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way its animals are treated."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

9. The philosophy of animal rights is environmentally wise.
Explanation: The major cause of environmental degradation, including the greenhouse effect, water pollution, and the loss both of arable land and top soil, for example, can be traced to the exploitation of animals. This same pattern exists throughout the broad range of environmental problems, from acid rain and ocean dumping of toxic wastes, to air pollution and the destruction of natural habitat. In all these cases, to act to protect the affected animals (who are, after all, the first to suffer and die from these environmental ills), is to act to protect the earth.

"Until we establish a felt sense of kinship between our own species and those fellow mortals who share with us the sun and shadow of life on this agonized planet, there is no hope for other species, there is no hope for the environment, and there is no hope for ourselves."

-- Jon Wynne-Tyson

10. The philosophy of animal rights is peace-loving.
Explanation: The fundamental demand of the philosophy of animal rights is to treat humans and other animals with respect. To do this requires that we not harm anyone just so that we ourselves or others might benefit. This philosophy therefore is totally opposed to military aggression. It is a philosophy of peace. But it is a philosophy that extends the demand for peace beyond the boundaries of our species. For there is a war being waged, every day, against countless millions of nonhuman animals. To stand truly for peace is to stand firmly against speciesism. It is wishful thinking to believe that there can be "peace in the world" if we fail to bring peace to our dealings with other animals.

"If by some miracle in all our struggle the earth is spared from nuclear holocaust, only justice to every living thing will save humankind."

-- Alice Walker

via: http://www.cultureandanimals.org

10 Reasons To Eat Fruit

2006-11-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

1 - It's a healthy snack that can cure a sweet tooth

2 - There are lots and lots in season right now

3 - You can set a good example for your kids (or spouse, partner, or roommate!)

4 - You can always find a few different kinds on sale each week

5 - Their antioxidants helps prevent cancer

6 - Fruit is a quick and easy snack

7 - You'll be a hit when you arrive at a picnic with a gorgeous fruit s alad

8 - Fruit can be dipped in chocolate (but remember...everything in moderation!)

9 - It adds excitement to bland chicken dishes

10 - Because you can find lots and lots of great recipes to create throughout the summer!

source: http://web.mit.edu

Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids

2006-11-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Italy, Israel, Germany and Austria, it is illegal for a parent, teacher, or anyone else to spank a child. In some states and provinces, it is only illegal for a teacher to spank. In all areas of North America, physical punishment by a parent, as long as it is not severe, is still seen by many as necessary discipline, and condoned, or sadly, even encouraged.

Ten reasons not to hit the kids:

1. Hitting children teaches them to become hitters themselves. Extensive research data is now available to support a direct correlation between corporal punishment in childhood and aggressive or violent behavior in the teenage and adult years. Virtually all of the most dangerous criminals were regularly threatened and punished in childhood. It is nature's plan that children learn attitudes and behaviors through observation and imitation of their parents' actions, for good or ill. Thus it is the responsibility of parents to set an example of empathy and wisdom.

2. In many cases of so-called "bad behavior", the child is simply responding in the only way he can, given his age and experience, to neglect of basic needs. Among these needs are: proper sleep and nutrition, treatment of hidden allergy, fresh air, exercise, and sufficient freedom to explore the world around him. But his greatest need is for his parents' undivided attention. In these busy times, few children receive sufficient time and attention from their parents, who are often too distracted by their own problems and worries to treat their children with patience and empathy. It is surely wrong and unfair to punish a child for responding in a natural way to having important needs neglected. For this reason, punishment is not only ineffective in the long run, it is also clearly unjust.

3. Punishment distracts the child from learning how to resolve conflict in an effective and humane way. As the educator John Holt wrote, "When we make a child afraid, we stop learning dead in its tracks." A punished child becomes preoccupied with feelings of anger and fantasies of revenge, and is thus deprived of the opportunity to learn more effective methods of solving the problem at hand. Thus, a punished child learns little about how to handle or prevent similar situations in the future.

4. “Spare the rod and spoil the child”, though much quoted, is in fact a misinterpretation of Biblical teaching. While the “rod” is mentioned many times in the Bible, it is only in the Book of Proverbs that this word is used in connection with parenting. The book of Proverbs is attributed to Solomon, an extremely cruel man whose harsh methods of discipline led his own son, Rehoboam, to become a tyrannical and oppressive dictator who only narrowly escaped being stoned to death for his cruelty. In the Bible there is no support for harsh discipline outside of Solomon’s Proverbs. By contrast, the writings in the Gospels, the most important books in the Bible for Christians, contain the teachings of Jesus Christ, who urged mercy, forgiveness, humility, and non-violence. Jesus saw children as being close to God, and urged love, never punishment.3

5. Punishment interferes with the bond between parent and child, as it is not human nature to feel loving toward someone who hurts us. The true spirit of cooperation which every parent desires can arise only through a strong bond based on mutual feelings of love and respect. Punishment, even when it appears to work, can produce only superficially good behavior based on fear, which can only take place until the child is old enough to resist. In contrast, cooperation based on respect will last permanently, bringing many years of mutual happiness as the child and parent grow older.

6. Many parents never learned in their own childhood that there are positive ways of relating to children. When punishment does not accomplish the desired goals, and if the parent is unaware of alternative methods, punishment can escalate to more frequent and dangerous actions against the child.

7. Anger and frustration which cannot be safely expressed by a child become stored inside; angry teenagers do not fall from the sky. Anger that has been accumulating for many years can come as a shock to parents whose child now feels strong enough to express this rage. Punishment may appear to produce "good behavior" in the early years, but always at a high price, paid by parents and by society as a whole, as the child enters adolescence and early adulthood.

8. Spanking on the buttocks, an erogenous zone in childhood, can create in the child's mind an association between pain and sexual pleasure, and lead to difficulties in adulthood. "Spanking wanted" ads in alternative newspapers attest to the sad consequences of this confusion of pain and pleasure. If a child receives little parental attention except when being punished, this will further merge the concepts of pain and pleasure in the child's mind. A child in this situation will have little self-esteem, believing he deserves nothing better. For more on this topic, see "The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children" (also in French).

Even relatively moderate spanking can be physically dangerous. Blows to the lower end of the spinal column send shock waves along the length of the spine, and may injure the child. The prevalence of lower back pain among adults in our society may well have its origins in childhood punishment. Some children have become paralyzed through nerve damage from spanking, and some have died after mild paddlings, due to undiagnosed medical complications.

9. Physical punishment gives the dangerous and unfair message that "might makes right", that it is permissible to hurt someone else, provided they are smaller and less powerful than you are. The child then concludes that it is permissible to mistreat younger or smaller children. When he becomes an adult, he can feel little compassion for those less fortunate than he is, and fears those who are more powerful. This will hinder the establishment of meaningful relationships so essential to an emotionally fulfilling life.

10. Because children learn through parental modeling, physical punishment gives the message that hitting is an appropriate way to express feelings and to solve problems. If a child does not observe a parent solving problems in a creative and humane way, it can be difficult for him to learn to do this himself. For this reason, unskilled parenting often continues into the next generation.

Source: http://www.naturalchild.org

10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage is Wrong

2006-11-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

via: http://www.craigslist.org

Ten Reasons Not to Smoke

2006-11-25T10:16:00.000-08:00

1.) It is estimated that every cigarette you smoke takes 12 minutes off of your life.

2.) Smoking causes more than eight of every 10 cases of lung cancer. There is no cure for lung cancer and the Victims usually die within five years.

3.) Tobacco contains a poison called nicotine. An injection of one drop of nicotine in its purest form (70 mg) will kill an average-sized man. Cigarettes contain a very small amount of nicotine (between .1 and 2.2 mg). This amount will not kill you, but will make your heart beat faster and can make your hands shake.

4.) Smoking increases your risk of getting many serious diseases including cancer, heart disease, emphysema and bronchitis

5.) Fires started by cigarettes cause 25,000 deaths each year in the United States alone.

6.) Smoking is dangerous for nonsmokers who breath the smoke from smokers' cigarettes. During the 12 minutes a cigarette burns, smoke from the cigarette fills the room with poisonous gases.

7.) Smokeless tobacco increases the risks of mouth cancer and other diseases of the mouth like tooth decay and gum recession. Early signs of mouth cancer may occur after just a few years of use.

8.) Smoking during pregnancy can harm the developing baby, it can cause conditions such as low birth weight and premature birth. As the child grows older it may develop problems such as the ability to process what they are hearing and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder).

9.) Over 400,000 Americans die each year from smoking-related diseases. That's more than from AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, fires, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined.

10.) A very strong relationship exists between smoking and academic performance. Of all high school seniors with an A average in their senior year, only 7% were currently daily smokers; of those with a D average, 46% were daily smokers.

via: http://mason.k12.il.us

Few Reasons Not To Anger Women

2006-11-25T09:56:00.000-08:00

Few Reasons Not To Anger Women - video powered by Metacafe

10 Reasons Woman was Created

2006-11-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

10. God was worried that Adam would frequently become lost in the garden because he would not ask for directions.

9. God knew that one day Adam would require someone to locate and hand him the remote.

8. God knew Adam would never go out and buy himself a new fig leaf when his wore out and would therefore need Eve to buy one for him.

7. God knew Adam would never be able to make a doctor's, dentist, or haircut appointment for himself.

6. God knew Adam would never remember which night to put he garbage on the curb.

5. God knew if the world was to be populated, men would never be able to handle the pain and discomfort of childbearing.

4. As the Keeper of the Garden, Adam would never remember where he left his tools.

3. Apparently, Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.

2. As the Bible says, It is not good for man to be alone!

And finally, the Number 1 reason why God created Eve . . .

1. When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched his head, and said, “I can do better than that.”

via: http://www.beallmansion.com

10 Reasons Women Don't Want Sex

2006-11-24T15:13:00.000-08:00

1. Use of oral contraceptives. Some women will find that their sexual drive is decreased by the Pill (or any of the other hormonal approaches to birth control -- patch, ring, and shot).
2. Use of antidepressants. Not everyone experiences a decrease in sexual desire, but many do.
3. Breastfeeding. Prolactin (the hormone that facilitates breastfeeding) decreases sexual interest.
4. Lack of sleep. For most women, sleep comes before sex once the relationship has been established.
5. Stress. Due to work, financial issues, educational stress, extended family, and other important issues in life. When stress is increased, many women do not see sex as a solution to it.
6. Disagreements with one's mate. Any relationship will bring with it the challenges of conflicting feelings and desires. That can play itself out in sex.
7. Low levels of free testosterone. While knowing the level of total testosterone in the bloodstream can be helpful, finding out the free testosterone is very essential to discovering the possible physiological causes of low sexual desire.
8. High levels of SHBG. A woman with high levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), may have low sexual interest. This is because it combines with free testosterone (making it "unavailable") and that decreases libido.
9. Fear of intimacy. The inability to handle the level of intimacy that sex brings and maintains in a relationship is a very common reason for a decrease in sexual desire for one's partner.
10. Body image. Women who view themselves as unattractive to their mate and/or in their own mind's eye.

via: http://top-10-reasons.blogspot.com

10 GOOD REASONS FOR BEING...

2006-11-24T14:59:00.000-08:00

IRISH
1. Guinness
2. 18 children because you can't use contraceptives
3. You can get into a fight just by marching down someone's road
4. Pubs never close
5. Can use Papal edicts on contraception passed in the second Vatican Council of 1968 to persuade your girlfriend that you can't have sex with a condom on
6. No one can ever remember the night before
7. Kill people you don't agree with
8. Stew
9. More Guinness
10. Eating stew and drinking Guinness in an Irish pub at 3 in the morning after a bout of sectarian violence

FRENCH
1. When speaking fast you can make yourself sound gay
2. Experience the joy of winning the world cup for the first time
3. You get to eat insect food like snails and frog's legs
4. If there's a war you can surrender really early
5. You don't have to read the subtitles on those late night films on Channel 4.
6. You can test your own nuclear weapons in other people's countries.
7. You can be ugly and still become a famous film star
8. Allow Germans to march up and down your most famous street humiliating your sense of national pride.
9. You don't have to bother with deodorant
10. People think you're a great lover even when you're not

ENGLISH
1. Two World Wars and One World Cup doo-dah doo-dah
2. Proper beer
3. You get to confuse everyone with the rules of cricket
4. You get to accept defeat graciously in major sporting events
5. Union jack underpants
6. Water shortages guaranteed every single summer
7. You can live in the past and imagine you are still a world power
8. Bathing once a week — whether you need to or not
9. Ditto changing underwear
10. Beats being Welsh or Scottish

AMERICAN
1. You can have a woman president without electing her
2. You can spell colour wrong and get away with it
3. You can call Budweiser beer
4. You can be a crook and still be president
5. If you've got enough money you can get elected to do anything
6. If you can breathe you can get a gun
7. You get to be really obese
8. You can play golf in the most hideous clothes ever made and nobody seems to care
9. You get to call everyone you've never met "buddy"
10. You can think you're the greatest nation on earth, when you're not, at all

via:http://forums.canadiancontent.net

Reasons to Believe in the Christian Faith

2006-11-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

1. The Integrity of its Founder
Christ said He came from heaven to fulfill prophecy, to die for our sins, and to bring to His Father all who believe in Him. His first-century followers drew their own conclusions. They said they saw Him walk on water, still a storm, heal crippled limbs, feed 5,000 with a few pieces of bread and fish, live a blameless life, die a terrible death, and alive again.
During His ministry, when some of Jesus' followers took issue with His teachings and left, He asked those closest to Him if they too wanted to leave. Peter spoke for the others when he said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (John 6:68-69).
One of the most powerful evidences that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead is the changed lives of His disciples, from those of the first century to those in the present time.
To know Jesus from history is to know Him from afar. It is only to know "about" Him rather than to actually "know" Him. Do you know Jesus? Would you like to learn how you can know Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

2. Its Book is Reliable
The Bible was written in three different languages over a period of about 1,500 years by 40 different authors from every walk of life - kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen scholars, and tax collectors. The book on which the Christian faith rests tells one single story that begins with creation and concludes on the threshold of eternity. The integrity of its historical and geographical record is supported by archeology. The accuracy with which it has been copied and handed down to us has been confirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran, which brought the world manuscripts 1000 years older than any others previously in existence.
The subject matter of the Bible includes many topics, some that are controversial, and others that are not. Yet, the biblical authors spoke with continuity and harmony from Genesis to Revelation, telling one unfolding story: "God's redemption of man."

3. Its Claim
The first Christians were not driven by political motivations or religious dissent, they spoke of Jesus life, death, burial, and resurrections because they were witnesses. They risked their lives to tell the world that with their own eyes they had seen an innocent man die and then miraculously walk among them 3 days later (Acts 5:17-42). Their argument was very concrete. Jesus was crucified under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. His body was buried and sealed in a borrowed tomb. Guards were posted to prevent grave tampering. Yet after 3 days the tomb was empty, and witnesses were risking their lives to declare that He was alive.
These Christ-followers went even further in their effort to make it clear, that their faith is not based on myth or legend. The Apostle Peter speaks of them, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).

4. Its Impact on the World
A carpenter rabbi from Nazareth changed the world. Calendars and dated documents bear silent witness to His birth. From rooftops, necklaces, and earrings, the sign of the cross bears visual witness to His death. The Western world-view, which provided a basis for social morality, scientific methodology, and a work ethic that fueled industry, had roots in basic Christian values. Social relief agencies, whether in the West or East, are not fueled by the values of Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism, or secular agnosticism, but by the direct or residual values of the Bible and the Christian faith..

5. Its Offer of Grace
No other religious system offers everlasting life as a gift to those who trust One who has overcome death for them. The salvation Christ offers does not depend on what we have done for Him, but on our acceptance of what He has done for us. Instead of moral and religious effort, this salvation requires a helpless admission of our sins. Instead of personal accomplishments of faith, it requires confession of failure. Unlike all other options of faith, Christ asks us to follow Him -- not to merit salvation but as an expression of gratitude, love, and confidence in the One who has saved us (Ephesians 2:8-10).

via : http://whbc.org

10 reasons to learn and use web standards

2006-11-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

If you’re a web developer or designer new to the concept of web standards and are undecided on whether you should spend the time to learn all about them or not, here are some of the most important reasons for doing so.
For web professionals who are already using web standards, this list may come in handy when you need good arguments. And feel free to add any additional benefits you can think of.

1. Make yourself look professional
Other web developers and potential employers will be able to look at your work and know that you are a person who likes to keep up with changes in technology and make sure that your knowledge and skills are always current. It will make you look like a real web professional.

2. Make your clients look good
Use web standards combined with best practices for accessibility and give your clients a chance to talk about how they cater to all people, and how they find it important that everybody can use their services or find information about their products. You will also avoid the bad publicity that can be caused by shutting out visitors like disabled people, Mac users, and mobile phone users.

3. Maximise the number of potential visitors
You don’t know which device visitors will use to access your site. You may think you know, but unless you’re building an Intranet for a company that has a policy on which browsers may be used you really have no idea.

The only thing you can be reasonably sure of is that they are using something that can parse HTML. By using web standards properly you make sure that you have done your part in making your site work with the largest possible number of browsing devices.

4. Faster loading and reduced bandwidth usage
Well-structured markup that separates structure and content from presentation is generally much more compact than table-and-spacer-image-based tag soup. Documents will be smaller and faster for visitors to download. Like it or not, there are still many, many people connecting to the Internet through dialup.
If your site has a hosting plan with a limit on free bandwidth usage, smaller documents will reduce costs - provided traffic doesn’t increase.

5. Provide the foundation for accessibility
Using web standards does not guarantee that all aspects of your site will be accessible to people with disabilities, but it is a very good start. Make sure your documents are valid, well-structured, and semantic, and you’re well on the way towards having an accessible site.

6. Improve search engine rankings
Well-written content delivered through clean, well-structured, and semantic markup is delicious food for search engine spiders and will help your rankings. This, of course, will lead to increased traffic, which is what most website owners want.

7. Make your markup easier to maintain
Would you rather wade through many kilobytes of multiply nested tables and spacer images or just browse through a clean and well-structured document when you need to update your site?
Removing, inserting or editing presentation-free content is much easier and more efficient than having to make sure you get all the presentational cruft right. Using CSS to control layout also makes it much easier to make site-wide design changes.

8. Future-proof content
There is no way anyone can guarantee with 100% certainty that the documents created and stored electronically today will be readable in a hundred years. Or even fifty years. But if you separate content from presentation and use current web standards, you have done the best you can to ensure that your content can still be read even after you’re gone.

9. Good business sense
Why would any business owner say no to more visitors? A faster site? Improved search engine rankings? Potential good publicity? It doesn’t make sense to do so.

10. It’s the right way to do things
The web standards way is the way we should have built the web from the beginning. And now that we can, why not do something the right way and have a really excellent reason to feel good about yourself.

via: http://www.456bereastreet.com

Reasons why "Lord of the Rings" as they say in America, "sucks"

2006-11-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

1.Fellowship of the Rings and Two Towers were shoved down our throats.
I've heard some students are even forced to read some novelization of the movie in
their literature classes. Ridiculous. Does Hollywood run our classrooms now?

2.Greed.
Hollywood can't make a movie these days without crapping out a sequel the next year to squeeze more money out of the sheep. Guess what; there's ANOTHER LOTR movie coming this Christmas. Gee, I wonder what will bring Rocky out of retirement this time?

3.Quality Control at New Line.
Millions of copies of the LOTR DVDs have thick black bars at the bottom and top of the screen throughout the film. Didn't anyone catch this? You know what happens at the end, in the extreme foreground and extreme upper sky? Neither do I. Bush league, guys.

4.They switched Darrens on us!
Look closely in Fellowship and you'll notice the human member of their party is played by two different actors at different points of the movie (it takes a sharp eye to notice, but one of them has red hair, one black).

5.Quality Control at New Line, II.
In the massive Mt. Doom battle scene at the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, a DVD pause reveals at least half a dozen of the 50,000 Orc Warrior extras are wearing modern tennis shoes.

6.Speaking of Orcs...
The Orcs were obviously stolen from PC game maker Blizzard and its Warcraft series. Too bad Blizzard is apparently too scared to sue New Line over it.

7.Racism.
Percentage of protagonists in Fellowship who are white: 100. Meanwhile the black antagonists and their black crow spies and their black glass seeing ball inhabit their black towers and perform black magic. Gosh, I wonder if there's some symbolism there?

8.Gold: The Stretchy Element.
The ring, which is seen to be at least two inches in diameter at the beginning to fit the polish sausage-sized finger of Sauron, suddenly fits Frodo's child-sized finger later. I guess this movie takes place in a world where rings magically change sizes on their own.

9.Violence.
Give me one reason that story couldn't have been told without all the fighting.

10.Horse sense.
Why didn't they take horses on their quest? Or even better, why didn't Gandalf's giant flying bird friend haul them into Mordor? Watch out, Frodo! All of your methods of transportation have been swallowed by the Dark Lord of the Plot Hole!

11.Retracted.*
See below.

12. Return of the Living Dead.
In FOTR, if you watch closely during the Inn scene, Frodo and his crew are shown getting stabbed by the Ring Wraiths. Then, five seconds later, they are fine again. Note to the director: try proofreading your movie before you release it to the public.

13.Did someone say plot hole?
Liv Tyler's character is seen easily defeating nine strong supernatural beings, even though she is clearly a woman.

14.The Battle Droid Syndrome.
The mutated muscular soldiers of Mordor turned out to be hilariously ineffective fighters, a dozen of them held off by a single dying human. Apparently they made the beasts by crossing Orcs, Goblins and the French.

15.Sloppy CGI.
Gandalf's smoke boat at Bilbo's party is pretty impressive, but smoke cannot be made to travel horizontally, thus revealing it to be nothing but a cheap special effect.

16.The Asbestos Wizard.
We all saw Gandalf fall into the molten core of Middle Earth after his battle with the firebeast thing in part 1. Well, I guess the Gandalf action figure must have sold well, because in the slap-together sequel Two Towers, Gandalf is back. Perhaps it was voodoo, a la the corpse in Weekend at Bernie's II (look closely and you'll notice LOTR steals several elements from the WAB films).

17.Invisible Implausibility.
Every time Frodo or Bilbo went invisible with the ring they should have also gone BLIND. Your eyes cannot function unless light is reflected off the cornea. If light passes through it (as must be the case with invisibility) sight is no longer possible. Also, rings do not turn you invisible.

18.The Asbestos Wizard, II.
The giant fire beast thing at the end of part 1 was breathing a firey breath hot enough to send heat-distortion waves through the air. The sheer temperature of the air should have burned off Gandalf's beard and eyebrows. None of my reading on evolutionary biology reveals a single reason why a particular race of humans would develop unflammable facial hair as this would provide practically no advantage in either survival or mating.

19.I'll have to rent that one.
The rushed-through story the screenwriter threw in as the first ten minutes of Fellowship of the Ring looked a lot more interesting than the movie we were forced to watch. Why didn't somebody make a movie off that instead?

20.Magic Mechanics.
Experts on the occult say in order for a wizard to floorspin a fully-grown man like Gandalf, he'd need three magical staffs, not two.

via:http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com

Windows Messages

2006-11-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

The following are new Windows messages that are under
consideration for the planned Windows 2000:

1. Smash forehead on keyboard to continue.

2. Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue.

3. Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.

4. Press any key except... no, No, NO, NOT THAT ONE!

5. Press Ctrl-Alt-Del now for IQ test.

6. Close your eyes and press escape three times.

7. Bad command or file name! Go stand in the corner.

8. This will end your Windows session. Do you want to play
another game?

9. Windows message: "Error saving file! Format drive now? (Y/Y)"

10. This is a message from God Gates: "Rebooting the world.
Please log off."

11. To "shut down" your system, type "WIN."

12. BREAKFAST.SYS halted... Cereal port not responding.

13. COFFEE.SYS missing... Insert cup in cup holder and press any key.

14. CONGRESS.SYS corrupted... Re-boot Washington D.C? (Y/N)

15. File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)

16. Bad or missing mouse. Spank the cat? (Y/N)

17. Runtime Error 6D at 417A:32CF: Incompetent User.

18. Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)

19. WinErr 16547: LPT1 not found. Use backup. (PENCIL & PAPER.SYS)

20. User Error: Replace user.

21. Windows VirusScan 1.0 - "Windows found: Remove it? (Y/N)"

22. Welcome to Microsoft's World - Your Mortgage is Past Due...

23. If you are an artist, you should know that Bill Gates owns you and
all your future creations. Doesn't it feel nice to have security?

24. Your hard drive has been scanned and all stolen software titles
have been deleted. The police are on the way.

via: http://www.anvari.org