Day: November 12, 2008

Religious Excuses Then & Now

Chris 8 Comments

Then:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.

Now:

Marriage is a reality authored by God in his very act of creating the human race. According to his irrevocable plan, the marriage relationship is only possible between one man and one woman. The purposes of this relationship are (1) the mutual loving support of husband and wife and (2) their loving service of life by bringing children into the world and raising them to be virtuous and productive. The experience of history — both ancient and in our own time — has taught us that no government has the power to change the order which God has inscribed in our nature.

RIP Mitch Mitchell

Chris 6 Comments

From OregonLive:

Mitch Mitchell, the iconic drummer who provided the heartbeat of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on rock classics such as “Voodoo Child” and “Purple Haze,” was found dead early today in a Portland hotel room.

Mitchell, 61, who pioneered a fusion style that allowed him and one of history’s greatest guitar players to feed off each other, died of natural causes, the Multnomah County medical examiner said. He was found about 3 a.m. in his room at the Benson Hotel in downtown Portland.

Garden Gnomes Banned From Church Cemetery

Chris 11 Comments

From The Telegraph:

The gnomes, along with plastic flowers and other decorations such as teddy bears, have been called “inappropriate” and tacky by the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

The church banned the garden figures from Wrington and Congresbury cemeteries in Somerset, and have said they will remove any that they find as part of new guidelines issued by the Chancellor of the Diocese, Worshipful Timothy Briden.

Wait for it…

A spokesman for the Diocese of Bath and Wells said: “There is no such thing as a real gnome so why should we have such unnatural creatures in churchyards?“

(via Arbroath)

Spam Gets 1 Response per 12,500,000 Emails

Chris 4 Comments

From TechRadar:

A new study details how spammers – the bane of our email inboxes – still make pots of money, despite only receiving a response to one in every 12,500,000 emails they spam out.

The study, by a team of seven computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) infiltrated the Storm network, which uses hijacked home PCs to relay much of the junk email you spend your days wading through while wondering ‘who the hell responds to this stuff?’

Well. Now you know. One gullible idiot in 12,500,000 recipients. Or thereabouts.