From here.

This has been blitzkrieging through the blogosphere so I guess it’s my turn to post it.

Video of a guy scaring his aunt by donning a Jason mask and hiding in her kitchen. He’s pretty lucky she didn’t drop dead from a heart attack.

How are we supposed to ignore the carnage and death we have brought to Iraqi civilians when the damn newspapers show pictures of dead children? Shouldn’t they be covering last night’s American Idol?

WASHINGTON — Some readers resented The Washington Post for publishing an Associated Press photograph of a critically wounded Iraqi child being lifted from the rubble of his home in Baghdad’s Sadr City “after a U.S. airstrike.”

Two-year-old Ali Hussein later died in a hospital.

As the saying goes, the picture was worth a thousand words because it showed the true horrors of this war.

Neither side is immune from the killing of Iraqi civilians. But Americans should be aware of their own responsibility for inflicting death and pain on the innocent.

The Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, said about 20 readers complained about the photo, while a few readers praised the Post for publishing the stark picture on page one.

Some mothers said they were offended that their children might see the picture, though one wonders whether their youngsters watch television and play with violent videos in a pretend world.

From the start of the unprovoked U.S. “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, the government tried to bar the news media from photographing flag-draped coffins of American soldiers returning from Iraq. A Freedom of Information lawsuit forced the government to release pictures of returning coffins.

Howell said some readers felt the photo of the Iraqi boy was “an anti-war statement; some thought it was in poor taste.” Well, so is war.

(via IdleWorm, a great blog that desperately needs an RSS feed)

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? It’s not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?” - Barbara Bush

According to IdleWorm (A great blog that desperately needs an RSS feed), this is a Polish soap opera re-dubbed by Irish actors.

No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he would the body. He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe — that evidence is not essential — that faith is independent of facts and that religion is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their natural sense — not to tell what they really think — not to entertain a doubt — not to ask wicked questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers say. In this way minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and conquered. Would an educated man send his child to a school in which Newton’s statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation was denied — in which the law of falling bodies, as given by Galileo, was ridiculed — Kepler’s three laws declared to be idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd?

Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be taught to seek for the truth — to be honest kind, generous, merciful and just. They should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal.

Robert Green Ingersoll - “Should Infidels Send Their Children to Sunday School?”

From Time.com including this jaw dropping tidbit:

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game. That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state’s 370 delegates. It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all. Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified — and let Penn know it. “How can it possibly be,” Ickes asked, “that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn’t understand proportional allocation?” And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don’t get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she’d be the nominee.

So in other words, you did a heckuva job Mr. Penn.

From this Flickr user.

This guy was on the corner of Stockton and Columbus in San Francisco yelling at a homeless man. Anger, conflict, drama — sounds like a great shot to me. I crossed the street but was unable to get anything interesting, since I only had my 50mm lens on the camera and I was just too far away.

However, Mr. Angry Overreaction Man decided that he now had a problem with me. He confronted me, demanding my camera. Of course, I refused. He got in my face and started threatening me, telling me that I cannot take his photo without his permission. I told him that yes, in fact, I can. He then walked up and bumped into me, trying to act tough. I told him that one more touch and I would call the police.

Of course, he didn’t like that very much, and at that point told me that if I put his picture on the internet, he would call his laywer. I assured him that his photo would be on the internet, and he then walked up and grabbed my camera lens. Well, that’s just not something that I will put up with, so I pulled the camera away from him and reached for my phone and started dialing. Once he saw that he turned away, still yelling threats, and continued on his way.

(via Marco.org)

It’s a slow, slow day.

Hillaryis404.org

(via Clusterflock)

From Flickr:

An ongoing series of chalk-outlined shadows at night. Cities include New York, San Francisco and Seattle.