Why?

Why do men who think there are no decent women (or women who think there are no decent men) out there, expect to find one???



Just curious...

Powered by ScribeFire.

Why All the Suspicion???

I do NOT understand why people call me up for service (I work in financial services) and then proceed to grill me - a total stranger - as if I've done nothing but screw them over for the last five years!

In the last week, two potential clients have done this - called me and then via their tone of voice and questions, let me know that they do not trust me or the process and that they're sure I'm screwing them over.

The STUPID PART is this: I am not paid by them, so first of all, they're not going to get stuck by me; secondly, It's my job to do the best work for them.

Here's my advice: if you call me, you better have YOUR ducks in a row. Inform yourself about the marketplace and the products you're looking at. I deal with over 30 lenders and NO, I do NOT know everything about all the products each of them offers.

It is entirely possible that there are better rates if out there or different deals. However, if you call me up and say, "Hey, I heard about such-and-such," I'll find out for you whether that product fits your needs and if you qualify for it.

If you don't qualify, don't get up in my face about it. You don't qualify either because you've paid no attention to your credit and your credit history sucks, or you don't make enough money to afford what you're after, or you can't prove your income, or the product you're after doesn't fit your needs, or, or, or.

The bottom line is, if you don't get what you're after, YOU are usually the cause. I am only as good as the information my clients provide me. If you don't want to tell me the whole scoop, then you're not going to get what you want.

It isn't because I'm untrustworty; it's because you're probably not!

Ted Haggard

'Kay, only my opinion, but Mr. Haggard is gay.

He's also a liar.

I have no problem with people being gay, being born gay, choosing to be gay, trying out the gay lifestyle. Whatever.

Liars suck though.

Ok. sometimes, one has to not say everything. Sometimes, perhaps one must lie. BUT when one is the leader of a massive congregation and also of a huge fundamentalist network, one should perhaps step down rather than lie.

My favourite is Haggard's interview (on YouTube and other places) with Richard Dawkins and how he mentions 'arrogance,' and how, when Professor Dawkins is older (he's obviously older than Haggard), he'll understand things better.

What an idiot.

Bloody US, Stupid President, Scary Religious Zealots.

Y'know what strikes me as really funny, in that scary ironic way?

How the massively uneducated US (yes, massively uneducated and worse now that their idiot of a president has pulled $75 BILLION OUT of education and healthcare) public freaks out about the fact that Obama attended a Muslim school for two years, starting when he was six, and how they're so fearful of fundamentalists and those who are actually educated in madrasas, but who draw NO comparisons between the state of their country, the absolute lack of separation between church and state, the fact that hundreds of thousands of US children are 'educated' in religious schools, that fact that other-than straight, white people are still marginalised, and the fact that their government is run by a radical christian who is surrounded by uneducated radical christians, educated in 4th grade colleges.

*Go HERE for more on this subject, courtesy of Bill Maher, who is brilliant and honest and cutting and calls Bush names on TV.

What's happened in the US over the last 7 years has caused the most important negative impact on world politics and peace that has ever happened and it is irreparable due to the very serious lack of education in the US. 250Million under or uneducated people voting for assholes like Bush, who is now, but was not previously even legally elected!

Add to that the HUGE push for fundamentalist christians, the impact of liars and nuts like Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart and what you get is a HUGE problem that has a different name but the same problems as radical muslims pose.

Bluntly put, Americans put far too much faith in their stupid president, their ridiculous political system, their subversive, false and manipulative media and in their religious leaders who have PROVEN they have an agenda and that it is not a humanist agenda. How people in the US can allow so-called religious leaders to lie to their children and to let their children go to places like Jesus camp, is beyond me but scary has anything.

If there is a 3rd world war - and the stage was set for it with the Bush Pere administration, the US and its deluded political ego will lead the world into it and will divest itself of all responsibility when it's all said and done and the planet has been devastated.

Yes, the presidency of the idiot will shortly end and yes, possibly there will be a thinking human in that chair after the next election, but the damage that has occurred and many of the most significant swings in public perception will still be there.

Fundamentalists of any stripe are very difficult to convince via facts, because convincing them requires them to go exactly opposite to what they believe and to risk their souls and their 'eternal life' in the bargain.

Fundamentalists are terrified of death because they're never sure they're good enough and that they won't for sure go to hell, so they'd rather err on the side of the fantastical than possible burn for eternity, however dumb and illogical that sounds.

Athiests, on the other hand, acknowledge there is no after life. You die. Period. You don't wake up the next day and go "wow, that was weird," or "good thing I went to heaven," because there's no waking up, no heaven and no deals to be made with any mythological figure who is always ready to pounce and punish, so let's just live on the planet and be nice to each other. If you have to believe in ghosts and nadirs, do so, just keep it to yourself and out of the political system.

If/When there's a 3rd world war, it will be because fundamentalists - and their spawn, the sorta-christians, have completely lost touch with all reality (this could happen at any second, as their hold on reality is so tenuous), become the terrified xenophobes they aspire to be and because, in their false, illogical terror, they've started shooting at anything to prevent the possibility that they die before they've convinced their nasty made-up playmate that they're good enough to go to the good place.

George Bush, his administration, his religion and his support staff are the worst scourge on the planet since Mussolini and Hitler. Worse, actually, becuase Bush is demonstrably stupid.

* WAR IS PEACE (we're brining in a era of peace for the Iraqi people)
* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY (without god.... (insert crap here)
* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH (focus on the task at hand. Don't question your gov't).

Apply that to the situation and the realities in the US right now - today! SCARY, hey???


Disgusting.

Guess

 

READ the CONTRACT!

If you don't read it, you're still liable...



read more | digg story

Just STOP it!

I'm just writing to complain about the use of the words "around" and "myriad."

We do NOT talk "around" issues; that would indicate avoidance of the issue. We do not make comments "around" a subject. We talk ABOUT things and make comments ON things.

JUST STOP IT. Using "around" in those ways indicates a blind buying-in to stupid corporate speak and also shows the speaker has given up speaking correctly in order to somehow belong to some pseudo-intellectual group.

Now. MYRIAD. It is used as a synonym for "MANY." As such, a thing has myriad (or many) uses, not "a myriad of." I realise that there is a school of thought that allows "a myriad of," but it is grammatically incorrect in the same way as Nu-cue-lar or Real-A-tor.

For the record - and PLEASE take note - these words are correctly said as New-Cleee-Are and Real-TOR.

Just 'cause someone 'important' says a word incorrectly, doesn't mean everyone else should act like lemmings and jump off the bad grammar cliff! And just because a bunch of corporate wanks have adopted some weird word usage doesn't mean the rest of us should abandon our education and integrity to jump on their bandwagon!

What really bugs me is when news organisations use these words. Talk about dumbing down. GEEZE. If Nancy Grace says it, YOU should NOT!

Ok. I'm done. For now....

Can you become "Ex-Gay"

Two men talk about being gay and how they tried to be Ex-Gay. One was successful, the other thinks he's full of crap!



CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY AND VIDEO | DIGG HERE

The fatal flaw with this story, and with all stories that cover human sexuality from a religious point of view, is that religion and sex are entirely unrelated issues. The church, which is based on unprovable premises and, in many cases false and made up information, is terrified of sex, human sexuality and expressions of such. Sexuality of any type cannot be viewed through this lens. More on this at Richard Dawkins' site.

In my experience, in some cases, homosexuality looks to be nature and in others, choice. Two people, who I've known since birth, are both gay and there was never, much question that they would be otherwise. I know another person, also since birth, and was very surprised two years ago to know what path they'd chosen. Interestingly, this person was nearly killed in a car accident in November 2006. As a result of that, the person has taken an entirely different view of life and is now decidedly straight. In none of these cases was there a church anywhere in the vicinity.

Those who rail against expressions of sexuality first of all do not understand human sexuality and secondly are usually bound up in religious tenets which origins they know little or nothing about. The church is in no way a reliable expert on issues of sex and is the last place a logical person looks for support and information on the subject, regardless of their religious or spiritual bent.

Not surprisingly, there is myriad information on line, from every point of view, about homosexuality. This article, How America Went Gay, is an interesting example of the choice point of view. This link, Human Sexuality, is decidedly Catholic in its point of view.

What surprises me is the extent that people, experts, the religious, etc., will go to explain something I think to be rather simple: humans are biologically driven to certain behaviours, breathing, eating and having sex being a few examples.

Humans are also driven to express their sexuality in a manner unique to themselves. Often such expressions are seen as conventional. Occasionally, however, those expressions are unusual or strange or weird or 'bad' (and this is where personal and societal mores and norms come into play). Those are value judgements, however, and they change nothing fundamental about expressions of human sexuality; value judgements do nothing more than reveal the mindset of the judger and (here's my value judgement) those who are have the loudest opinions and who tend toward greatly restricting, legislating and religifying human sexuality are almost always those who struggle the most with their own.

Back in the 80s, I lived in Montreal. A very close friend of mine then worked in medical records at a Montreal hospital. I remember being shocked but not surprised by how often she said the hospital had area nuns in for abortions. Humans are sexual beings and repressing that biology is as impossible as telling someone god doesn't want them to breath ever again. It does NOT work and they will die.

More on that point:
Ted Haggard
Jimmy Swaggart

There are thousands of example of religious and other leaders who do not acknowledge their own sexuality - repress it - to the point that they are eventually outed.

And if you want to see the full-on, crazy as all git-out version of religion going off the rails, go to - and I"m serious, this is really a webstie - www.godhatesfags.com.

Yah, Right.... More on the BONES

This comment added March 10th:

So, last night I read a recent article in MacLean's Magazine about the discovery of these ossuaries. I am massively fascinated by this discovery now, not only because James Cameron is involved, but because of the time frame. It did not come out in previous articles how long these ossuaries have been known about - something like 20 years, it sounds like.

The other interesting thing I read is about the "James" ossuary, which was said to be a hoax. It sounds, from the MacLean's article, that the ossuary is not a hoax but that whoever discovered it attempted to make it really important by adding some text to it, which was overkill: there is a "fingerprinting" technique used in dating old objects where the patina on the item is compared to patinas on other items found with it. If the patinas compare in chemical make-up etc. then the items belong together.

MacLean's Magazine of March 12th 2007 has more.

As much as I wish the truth could come out, I doubt very much it ever will - and I think these ossuaries are genuine - because the church cannot allow the public, verified-by-DNA destruction of the myth upon which it is based.

The reality is, whether the church likes it or not, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man, born of a human woman and a human man. For whatever reason, he created a huge stir way back when and then some other people wrote myths about him.

Later, when Rome was grabbing up lands and peoples in Europe, it used this mythology to subdue, change, subvert and politicise the "pagan" populations.

I'm leaving the rest of this post alone for reference, but I am looking forward to reading the ongoing reporting on these ossuaries and to inevitable fallout from the church. If The DaVinci Code pissed the church off, having its pet myth debunked is really going to light them up.

_________________________________________________________________________
Ok, let me get this straight: FILM MAKER James Cameron is somehow involved in the discovery of ossuaries said to contain the remains of Jesus (no indication if this is Jesus of Nazareth, who may or may not have ever existed), his wife, son, mother and FATHER...

Father?

What?

The myth I grew up with was that Jesus was born of a virgin. Last time I checked, that's both impossible and an oxymoronic. That claim is about as valid and non-suspect as the biblical claim that Jesus was descended from the royal lineage of King David: lineages always -and still do - pass through the father, so that claim cannot be true unless Christians are willing to forego the whole 'virgin' thing. I bet they're not....

To quote the BBC, "According to the Israel Antiquities Authority, six of those coffins were marked with the names Mary; Matthew; Jesua son of Joseph; Mary; Jofa (Joseph, Jesus' brother); and Judah son of Jesua."

The BBC article goes on to report that the film makers say "...a tomb found near Jerusalem ...belonged to Jesus and his family.... The Oscar-winning director of Titanic (Cameron) says statistical analysis and DNA back the claim.

Well I'll be. Who's DNA are they testing, exactly and how is it that the DNA found in those ossuaries has survived who knows how long?

It should be noted that another ossuary discovered a few years ago, and said to hold the remains of James, brother of Jesus, was proved to be a hoax.

But of course, there's nothing at all strange in the participation of a film maker who counts among his successes the epic "Titanic."

Ahh Hollywood and the church; partners in crime, making up stories for 2000 years.

Things that get top billing as STUPID!

If you read this blog on any kind of regular basis, you'll know that generally, I think adults are idiots. Here's yet more proof....


This item is in newspapers across Canada today:
MUSLIM GIRL EJECTED FROM TOURNAMENT FOR WEARING HIJAB

First of all, that is INCORRECT! The girl's coach caused her team to walk from the tournament. The team was not forced to do anything. Their coach CHOSE to forgo the game. The ADULTS chose to leave the tournament.

The coach's last comment was something to the effect that muslim girls are not allowed to play soccer. I CANNOT STAND stupid adults.

I am entirely disgusted by the adults in this story, not because this child was asked to remove her hijab, but because the adults around her have hijacked a safety issue and turned it into yet another ridiculous opportunity to create discord.

Any item around the head or neck or finger or waist of a player can easily be caught during a soccer game will very probably cause injury to the wearer and likely other players as well. This is why there are rules that players must remove anything from their bodies that might cause them injury. Those rules are not related in any way to religion.

Secondly, sports in this country are secular pursuits. Go ahead and participate, but leave your religion at home, where it belongs.

It is frankly irresponsible for any parent or coach to put religious symbolism before the health and safety of a player and team mates and to then abscond responsibility by making an issue of discrimination and persecution. Children learn discrimination, hate and discord from adults and this is a prime example of how it happens.

How dare these adults inflict their narrow, personal interpretations of this religion on this girl and all the other players in this tournament – and all the others that will be affected by this incredible stupidity. It cannot be that the muslim god is so intolerant of a CHILD removing a scarf for the sake of her safely.

The other point that needs making here is that this girl is not a "Muslim" child. She is a child who follows her family's religion, Islam, because, at the age of 12, she doesn't have a lot of opportunity to dissent, nor does religion offer much to children in the way of rationality. To label a child assumes that the child has made some choice, which cannot be the case when it comes to religion.

Children are indoctrinated and there cannot be any dispute about that. I dare say that most religious families do NOT say to their children, "when you're old enough to make considered, logical, rational observations on issues of philosophy or religion, you can come to church/mosque/synagogue.

If you're unconvinced about indoctrination, go find the film called "Jesus Camp" and watch what they do to the kids - little kids - there. Suspend your own religions indoctrination long enough to consider what is going on there - and in any religious organisation - from the point of view of rationality.

You're a christian so it's ok? Well guess what; I PUT MONEY ON IT, that you do NOT think it OK when the same type of indoctrination is going on in madrassas overseas or in any organisation that teaches philosophies that differ from yours. Such is the great and profound insecurity of all religions and religious people: so unsure are they that they will kill other people to protect something that is not real.

Religion, which is based on all sorts of crazy interpretations and millions of falsehoods, is a personal pursuit. It belongs with the person in private. It is not something to be sold, bartered or forced on other people and it should be a criminal offence to brainwash children under the guise of 'religion.'

MORE? The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins.