Get Cynical

A question from a professional pilot’s BB about what was the strangest freight they have had in their cargo hold. Patrick submitted this to me and grabbed some of the highlights:

Sly Stallone’s Ferrari to the Sultan of Brunei
Gonorrhoea samples to DXB
a frozen indonesian fisherman (also dead of course).
HOOKERS OUT OF L.A. to St. Maarten Six in a Learjet Six in Six out What a life
Six whores (and a load of booze) to a mining camp in the middle of absolutely nowhere in lousy rainy weather
a flea circus for the Prince Nmbulu
Human genitals
Strange, lead lined, canisters into a grass strip in Holland, A BMW would turn up, swap the canisters over, then drive off.
A Dog with a Wedding Dress on

(Thanks Patrick)

Hmmmm

Atheist doctors are likely to practice medicine among the underprivileged than religious physicians, even though most religions call on the faithful to serve the poor, according to the results of large cross-sectional survey of US medical practitioners published in Annals of Family Medicine.

Researchers from the University of Chicago and Yale New Haven Hospital report that 31 percent of physicians who were more religious—as measured by “intrinsic religiosity” as well as frequency of attendance at religious services—practiced among the underserved, compared to 35 percent of physicians who described their religion as atheist, agnostic or none.

“This came as both a surprise and a disappointment,” study author Farr Curlin, MD, said. “The Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist scriptures all urge physicians to care for the poor, and the great majority of religious physicians describe their practice of medicine as a calling. Yet we found that religious physicians were not more likely to report practice among the underserved than their secular colleagues.”

Physicians avoid spending the bulk of their time caring for the poor as it could mean forgoing professional prestige, free time and academic opportunities.

Hitchens:

The Pace University incident becomes even more ludicrous and sinister when it is recalled that Islamists are the current leaders in the global book-burning competition. After the rumor of a Quran down the toilet in Guantanamo was irresponsibly spread, a mob in Afghanistan burned down an ancient library that (as President Hamid Karzai pointed out dryly) contained several ancient copies of the same book. Not content with igniting copies of The Satanic Verses, Islamist lynch parties demanded the burning of its author as well. Many distinguished authors, Muslim and non-Muslim, are dead or in hiding because of the words they have put on pages concerning the unbelievable claims of Islam. And it is to appease such a spirit of persecution and intolerance that a student in New York City has been arrested for an expression, however vulgar, of an opinion.

This has to stop, and it has to stop right now. There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of “hate crime,” I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

Finally, God speaks:

SAN FRANCISCO–For as long as he can remember, 7-year-old Timmy Yu has had one precious dream: From the bottom of his heart, he has hoped against hope that God would someday hear his prayer to walk again. Though many thought Timmy’s heavenly plea would never be answered, his dream finally came true Monday, when the Lord personally responded to the wheelchair-bound boy’s prayer with a resounding no.

“I knew that if I just prayed hard enough, God would hear me,” said the joyful Timmy, surrounded by stuffed animals sent by well-wishing Christians from around the globe, as he sat in the wheelchair to which he will be confined for the rest of his life. “And now my prayer has been answered. I haven’t been this happy since before the accident, when I could walk and play with the other children like a normal boy.”

Most people, after arriving at the conclusion that Jehovah is
not God, that the Bible is not an inspired book, and that the
Christian religion, like other religions, is the creation of man,
usually say: “There must be a Supreme Being, but Jehovah is not his
name, and the Bible is not his word. There must be somewhere an
over-ruling Providence or Power.”

This position is just as untenable as the other. He who cannot
harmonize the cruelties of the Bible with the goodness of Jehovah,
cannot harmonize the cruelties of Nature with the goodness and
wisdom of a supposed Deity. He will find it impossible to account
for pestilence and famine, for earthquake and storm, for slavery,
for the triumph of the strong over the weak, for the countless
victories of injustice. He will find it impossible to account for
martyrs — for the burning of the good, the noble, the loving, by
the ignorant, the malicious, and the infamous.

Robert Green Ingersoll – “Why I Am Agnostic”