End-times Trivial Pursuit

Spent plenty of time hearing about Ragnorok, or something similar, the past couple weeks.

Here was the question I posited in the interwebs and so far the answers just seem to pick apart the question. Perhaps there are two many theoreticals (or too many people convinced they can't be wrong) but I thought it was fun and end-timey, topical in a truly American drive-thru religion type of way. If you die and find that you retain some consciousness - let's say like a spirit. But that your way to eternal life and salvation is denied (due to your religion). If you had the ability to somehow tell your loved ones to convert - would you do so?

The closest I got to an answer I liked was that there are three possible solutions (1) there is no afterlife, (2) there is an afterlife but no ability to communicate about it or (3) there is an afterlife and an ability to communicate about it and all of our ancestors are assholes. That responder said she favored doors No. 1 or 2.

Can you tell which news story is fake and which one actually appeared in the Onion?

Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M.

According to the panel, the final event will occur at 3:32 p.m., when a tourist, believing the impressive structure to be a giant mall, will enter Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, and, not finding what he is looking for, ask where "the damn Radio Shack is supposed to be."

The man, dressed in Crocs and sweatpants and determined by researchers to be the final catalyst in humanity's epic downfall, will then loudly expel gas.

"This horrible but inevitable day has been a long time coming," said Davidson, before picking up a black marker and, seemingly without thought or intent, drawing a long, thick phallus on his chart. "And by the looks of things, it's almost here."

Some analysts believe the coming cultural sinkhole—the most intellectually and spiritually degrading moment conceivable by science or philosophy—will signal the end of mankind's decay and lead to a steady upward climb. Still, they warned, the event itself could be catastrophically lowbrow.

"With each passing minute, we're getting closer to a second Dark Ages," said noted art critic Mark Lefevre, tearing out pages from his report, folding each into a paper airplane, and tossing decades of hard work around the room. "Unless something is done to protect what little sophistication and refinement we have left, Western society may soon regress to a point of no return. We need to act, and act fast."

"Come on," added the two-time MacArthur "genius grant" recipient, before stripping down to his undergarments and brandishing an automatic assault rifle. "Let's get 'er done!"

Ammo Sales Spike Continues Months After Obama Elected

Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition.

Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation — even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

End Times Chronicles

Ron Santo denied Hall of Fame entrance
Tribune Company files for bankruptcy
High court turns down appeal on Obama's birth
Blagojevich: 'Nothing but sunshine hanging over me'
Bears are surviving ... for now
Skilly's weather: Icy today, worse to come
Studies: Dogs sense fairness, resent if other dogs treated better

Gary Effin Sheffield?

That's who hit the big 250,000th home run in Major League history? Color me disappointed and unimpressed.

I drank what?

Maybe I'm just to pessimistic. I think that from the perspective of the average voter, the Republicans have been delivering good speechs and getting some good hits on the Democrats. Do I disagree with most of their attacks, yes. Do I think their policies are destroying and will destroy several of the people who are lining up to vote for them - yes.

But then there is the evil side of me. Another Republican administration will likely mean more massive tax cuts for my family which is earning enough not to be included in Obama's tax cuts. Of course, I normally think we should be paying more in taxes, because we are making so damn much money, but I seem always in a minority of one on that topic.

And then there is the even more evil side of me. I think a McCain administration means we will be going to war with Iran. I think a McCain administration means I will not oppose a war in Iran. I presume thousands of American lives will be lost in a war which may ensure that Iran doesn't have nukes, but will ensure that a dozen other countries will agressively pursue nuclear armament and countries like China and Russia will be more likely to provide them. How can I be concerned about the loss of American lives when a war hero tells me different? If you read Jain's, you know that Iran is not going to be a pushover. More cities than just Tehran will be lost.

And we will fight the war on terror like there is a terrorist under every rock. Perhaps soon there will be. Especially when you identify everything under a rock as a terrorist. The fight will not be won until we have eliminated evil from the universe. Good luck with that. Let me know when I have to buy a gun and metal detector for my house.

And though my years of having kids are over, I can rest assured that lots of abstinance-educated kids will be having kids of their own, and because they are not all governor's daughters, that they will be sinking further into poverty, thus making me more comparatively wealthy. Maybe I can pay some of them $3 or $4 an hour to clean my toilet. Meanwhile I'll be telling my kid to cover up and take advantage of these repressed rebellious girls.

I suppose the only thing that can really trip me up is the religion thing. But after all, I can lie about that. There isn't really a test to see if you believe whatever bullshit you are willing to spew about religion. And thats a good thing, because if there was, I would guess that a lot of Republicans would be shown the door. So I guess I can chalk up all my good fortune to Christ. (Don't ask him though). By the time anyone is the wiser, I'll be burning for all eternity I suppose, but at least I'll be with my cats.

I think a McCain administration will hasten the end, and right now I'm not sure that is a bad thing. It's like the philosopher's gambit in bizarro world. If McCain is elected, and things go well for me, that is good. If McCain is elected and the country goes to hell in a handbasket, also good. If Obama is elected and things go well, that is the best of all possible worlds, but if he fails, it is the worst.

Damn Libruls

And dat Ron Paul guy - trying to hasten the end times...

Legislators take on pot policy

Look, people, pot is not like alcohol and tobacco. It's way, waaaaay more dangerous. Because then you'll do other illegal drugs. Which are not the legal drugs that American Pharma has for you to take. That's when you're not taking what InBev and SAB Miller and Altria have prepared for over the counter medication. These are dangerous times, my friends. If this goes through, well, I'm not saying the rapture is coming, but I am.

Because it Simply Can't be Posted Enough

$h!tcag0 C****? That's the best he can come up with?

The fans of a baseball team in a city about 300 miles southwest of Chicago like to proclaim themselves the best baseball fans in the world. They aren't, but their delusions of grandeur tend to lead to a paranoid schizophrenia type condition. This one is unhinged even by inbred redneck hillbilly standards.

The disappearing bees won't matter when this happens

Will drought erode the competitiveness of Australia’s wine industry?

Australia’s 2007 vintage was smaller than the previous few vintages as a consequence of drought and frost in 2006. Then the worst happened in the following year with an unprecedented second year of drought that resulted in severe cuts to water allocations for irrigators in the southern Murray-Darling Basin.

I think if there were knots and strings above my head, I could see them...and how does this fit with hating on the gays?

"The last two years in particular, I've really seen Todd's faith mature. I think it's greatly due to his increased desire to read and study the Word of God. Not that he didn't do that before, but he's had a greater passion for that in recent years."--Jeff Totten, Baseball Chapel leader to the Tigers, on closer Todd Jones.

"I had fallen from grace. I wasn't worthy. The ninth inning is pretty important to teams. I wasn't doing my job. I had to earn my way back into that."--Tigers closer Todd Jones

"I think humans are underneath a crochet piece of cloth. We're underneath and we see all the knots and the strings hanging loose, but God is looking from the top of it and sees the picture being knitted around you. We can't see it because we're underneath. God is making this big masterpiece in your life."--Jones

It's the end of the world as we know it

Satellite is weeks away from hitting Earth

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said.

But not to worry, our government is on the ball, as always...

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

just anudder bump on the End Times highway

Of course, these are probably the same dopes who said it was going to snow in Philly last Sunday night, so dere's a good chance of either nothing happening or the world coming to an end without warning... and anudder reason not to get a cell phone.

From NOAA via "GIM International" newsletter:
http://www.gim-international.com/news/id2773-NOAA_Forthcoming_Solar_Cycle_Could_Disrupt_GPS,_Communications.html
Source: NOAA Website: http://www.noaa.gov

NOAA: Forthcoming Solar Cycle Could Disrupt GPS, Communications
10/01/2008

A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for military and civilian communications, including GPS signals, showed signs it was on it its way with the appearance of the cycle's first sunspot, NOAA scientists said.

The sunspot appeared in the sun's Northern Hemisphere, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of Nova's Space Weather Prediction Center. "In this case, it's an early omen of solar storms that will gradually increase over the next few years."

A sunspot is an area of highly organized magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. The new 11-year cycle, called solar cycle 24, is expected to build gradually, with the number of sunspots and solar storms reaching a maximum by 2011 or 2012, though devastating storms can occur at any time, according to NOAA.

During a solar storm, highly charged material ejected from the sun may head toward Earth, where it can bring down power grids, disrupt critical communications, and threaten astronauts with harmful radiation. Storms can also knock out commercial communications satellites and swamp GPS signals. Routine activities such as talking on a cell phone or getting money from an ATM could suddenly halt over a large part of the globe, NOAA warned.

"Our growing dependence on highly sophisticated, space-based technologies means we are far more vulnerable to space weather today than in the past," said Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "[NOAA's] space weather monitoring and forecasts are critical for the nation's ability to function smoothly during solar disturbances."

Last April, in coordination with an international panel of solar experts, NOAA issued a forecast that solar cycle 24 would start in March 2008, plus or minus six months. The panel was evenly split between those predicting a strong or weak cycle. Both camps agree that the sooner the new cycle takes over the waning previous cycle, the more likely that it will be a strong season with many sunspots and major storms, said Biesecker. Many more sunspots with solar cycle 24 traits must emerge before scientists consider the new cycle dominant, with the potential for more frequent storms, NOAA said.

The new sunspot, identified as #10,981, is the latest visible spot to appear since NOAA began numbering them on January 5, 1972. Its high-latitude location at 27 degrees North, and its negative polarity leading to the right in the Northern Hemisphere are clear-cut signs of a new solar cycle, according to NOAA experts. The first active regions and sunspots of a new solar cycle can emerge at high latitudes while those from the previous cycle continue to form closer to the equator.

the democratic process

Dear MoveOn member,
In the last year, the major TV networks asked the presidential candidates 2,679 questions. Pop quiz: How many were about global warming?

A) 514 — after all, it's one of the top issues facing the country
B) 165 — as many as were asked about illegal immigration
C) 3 — the same number asked about UFOs

no End to these Times

the shockingness continues

News item: President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

Mike Huckabee...

a "Christian goofball of the highest order..."

Huckabee has also been accused of paying himself as a consultant to his own senatorial campaign, allowing special interests to pay for airline tickets for his daughter, receiving a canoe from a Coke bottler and — hilariously, if you're wont to laugh at the sheer small-town gauche greediness of it all — setting up a "wedding registry" at Target and Dillard's department stores so citizens could lavish the Huckabees with gifts as they renewed their marriage vows. The long list of desired goodies included twenty-four settings of Lenox "Holiday Nouveau" china, a KitchenAid mixer and a "Jack La Lanne power juicer." If you didn't want to pick out something yourself, the Huckabees were glad to take straight cash. "Message from the couple," the registry noted. "Target GiftCards are welcome."

happy anniversary

It was a year ago today that they came for us, were unable to land, and left without us.

Well, tell the kids "GFY"

Sure, she probably sings songs that make Brenda Lee seem like Billy Holiday, but will the quest for profit eventually turn everybody into the most horrible person alive?

Ticket Brokers are about as useful as mosquitoes. And they're assholes.

Brokers snatch joy from Hannah Montana fans

DAVIE, Florida (CNN) -- It's 7 p.m. Homework is done, and cheerleading practice is over.

Sisters Cara and Casey Von Minden, and their cousin, Amanda Flaherty, are more than comfortable on their couch in Davie, Florida. They're doing what millions of tweens across America are doing -- they're watching, "Hannah Montana."

"We didn't miss, like, any episodes of her, unless something really big was happening," said Cara, 12.

The hit Disney Channel show -- which stars 14-year-old Miley Cyrus and her country singer dad, Billy Ray Cyrus -- is about a teenage girl who's a typical high-schooler by day but has a secret pop-star alter ego by night.

If you have a child between 6 and 14, there's a pretty good chance you know Hannah. Nielsen Media research says more than two-thirds of U.S. kids in that age group watched the show in the third quarter of 2007.

So when Disney announced a 54-city concert tour, starting October 18 in St. Louis, Missouri, it was an obvious birthday present for Cara. But the day tickets went on sale, Cara's mom, Maureen Von Minden, found she was shut out before she got started.

Ticket brokers swooped up thousands of tickets within minutes of them becoming available online and shut out legitimate Hannah followers. Desperate fans found they would have to pay brokers $350 to $2,000 for the $63 concert tickets. Video Watch Billy Ray Cyrus talk about the soaring prices »

Von Minden lives in Florida -- in "Hurricane Alley." "We're hurricane people," she said. "It's price gouging ... price gouging at its best. It would have been my daughters' first concert for both of them, and we were looking forward as a family to going, and we can't," she said.

Concert promoters saw the phenomenon happening all over the country.

"Absolutely every show sold out within the same amount of time," said Debra Rathwell of AEG Live, the company handling the concerts for Disney. "Whether you were in Moline or Omaha or New York or Los Angeles, it sold out in minutes."

Ticket brokers use the Web to buy sports and concert tickets ahead of real fans, creating an almost $2 billion secondary market.

"Up to 80 percent of inquiries of tickets come from these brokers," said Gary Bongiavanni, editor-in-chief of Pollstar, a weekly media magazine that tracks concerts.

"The average fan is competing with a pro whose mission is to score these tickets. Fans are at a disadvantage," Bongiavanni said.

The profits go to brokers, not the artists or promoters. CNN tried to contact several different ticket brokers that did not return phone calls or e-mails. But the National Association of Ticket Brokers did return calls.

"When a ticket is hot, people sell them," said general counsel Gary Adler.
Don't Miss

* Scalpers smiling, parents steamed

Only five states -- Michigan, North Carolina, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Rhode Island -- limit brokering, according to the National Association of Ticket Brokers. Regulations vary. For example, in Rhode Island, the cap on the amount of the increase is $3, or 10 percent above face value, whichever is greater.

Ticketmaster says online some brokers cheat to beat the system and the fans. Ticketmaster has filed suit in U.S. Federal District Court in Los Angeles against a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, software company that it claims developed software for ticket brokers that illegally "allows them to cut in line", said Ticketmaster vice president Joe Freeman.

The software company, RMG Technologies, denies that allegation. It says the company should not be held accountable because Ticketmaster is getting paid for the tickets it sells.

"This may be the only time in history ... that any seller sued its customers for paying them too much money," the attorney for RMG Technologies wrote in court documents.

Promoters and artists have tried different methods to recoup lost revenue.

For the Hannah Montana tour, AEG Live and Ticketmaster held an auction for tickets in some cities. But the auction, AEG concedes, was not for the average fan. The minimum bid for a single front-row seat at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was $2,605.

"... If the tickets go to brokers, then they pay a lot of money for them. And if the brokers are going to end up with the tickets, then the artist should get paid for them,"said Rathwell, whose company is handling the Montana tour.

The Hannah Montana concert ticket debacle also has gotten the attention of law enforcement. Attorneys general in Arkansas and Missouri have filed a suit accusing ticket brokers of illegally reselling tickets to Montana's "Best of Both Worlds Tour."

"When you allow the hijacking of the market, it's literally the worst of both worlds. You get charged too much, and there's no access for the locals," said Jay Nixon, Missouri's attorney general.

Experts say Disney and the Hannah Montana franchise are victims, too, but they see nothing that will hurt the Disney brand. Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley's dad, has commented on the issue.

"There is a law of supply and demand, and ... quite frankly, it's beyond our control. We put together a concert tour, and I was really excited about Miley going out and playing for the fans," he said. "That's what her tour is about. It's for the kids and all the families that are watching Hannah Montana."

A Disney representative told CNN, "It's really unfortunate, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. These inflated costs only benefit the brokers. We were very pleased to hear that various law enforcement agencies are beginning to look into these practices."
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Experts say that unless ticket broker prices drop as concert dates approach, there will be sold-out arenas with empty seats.

Lawsuits will not put smiles on the faces of disappointed kids and parents. But Casey, 10, said she has a suggestion on how to afford Montana tickets, and it falls on her 12-year-old sister: "Cara needs to get a job!" E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

"Or else, she needs to throw bombs at the bastards who make even horrible corporate empires seem tame and non-threatening by comparison."

shocking!

People are still peddling this myth.

i'm sure global warming is to blame somehow...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A pet store has bought a two-headed turtle from a collector and plans to keep it on display, the store manager said. The 2-month-old turtle, actually conjoined red-eared slider twins, fits on a silver dollar. It has two heads sticking out from opposite ends of its shell, along with a pair of front feet on each side. But there is just one set of back feet and one tail. The turtle is apparently healthy, and the species can live 15 to 20 years, said Jay Jacoby, manager of Big Al's Aquarium Supercenter in East Norriton. The turtle has not yet been named. It is also smarter than President Bush.