Wear Orange Tomorrow

Cause. Effects

On the importance of empathy and understanding

Missourians on guns and background checks

Quote of the day

“Go outside and get some fresh air or cuddle with a loved one and you don’t feel any better, only more upset at being unable to feel the joy that everyone else seems to feel,” Swartz wrote. “Everything gets colored by the sadness.”

Link:
Tech Prodigy and Internet Activist Aaron Swartz Commits Suicide

Reasons why you don't call for the end of the world, you irresponsible chucklehead

Sure, it's one thing if you're a fool and "there's no fool like an old fool" but there's a great deal to be said for being responsible and going off half-cocked, even if you think it's for your god and whatever you think salvation is.

This is some of what this Harold Camping's handiwork did last week, with his call of the end of the world:

A California woman named Lyn Benedetto was one of millions who heard Camping's message, and became concerned that her daughters would suffer terribly in the coming apocalypse. She allegedly forced her daughters, 11 and 14, to lie on a bed and then cut their throats with a box cutter. She then tried to kill herself, though police arrested Benedetto and all three survived.

Others were not so lucky. An elderly man in Taiwan reportedly killed himself on May 5 ahead of the Rapture by jumping out of a building. He had heard that doomsday was imminent, and had taken recent earthquakes and tsunamis as early warning signs.

There were other unconfirmed reports of doomsday-related suicides around the world as well.

But what does "Mr. Apocalypse" do instead of clamming up and making sure the world never sees or hears from him again?

He calls for another end of the world this October.

Someone needs to tell this old fool to shut up.

Isn't that what wives are for?

Link to original post:  Failed doomsday prediction has real deadly consequences

Related stories:

• When Doomsday Isn't, Believers Struggle to Cope
• Doomsdays Past & Present (Infographic)

Next up on the "Democracy March": Algeria

You saw it here first:

Algeria braces for pro-democracy protest


ALGIERS, Algeria – Hundreds of police began taking up positions the night before a pro-democracy protest march in Algiers by militants who have vowed to defy an official ban.
 
The planned march on Saturday is aimed at pressing for reforms to push this oil- and gas-rich North African giant toward democracy.

The weeks-long uprising in Egypt that forced Hosni Mubarak to abandon the presidency after 30 years was bound to fuel the hopes of Algerians seeking change — as did the "people's revolution" in neighboring Tunisia. A month of deadly uprisings there pushed Zine El Abidine Ben Ali into exile Jan. 14.

However, many Algerians fear any prospect of conflict after years of a brutal insurgency by Islamist extremists that has left an estimated 200,.000 dead. There is no specific call by organizers of the protest march to oust President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

With scattered strikes and clashes, including five days of rioting in early January, the atmosphere in Algiers has been tense.

There have been numerous copy-cat suicides, and attempted suicides, in Algeria like the self-immolation attempt by a young man that set off the Tunisian protests in mid-December.

The Coordination for Democratic Change in Algeria, an umbrella group of human rights activists, unionists, lawyers and others, insists the march will take place despite numerous warnings by authorities to stay out of the streets.

Buses and vans filled with armed police were posted at strategic points along the march route and around Algiers, including at the "Maison de la Presse," a small village in Algiers where newspapers have their headquarters.

The daily El Watan said Friday that barrages were thrown up on roads leading to Algiers, apparently to stop busloads of potential demonstrators expected to descend on the capital.

In a clear bid to placate militants, Algerian authorities announced last week that a state of emergency in place since 1992, at the start of the Islamist insurgency, will be lifted in the "very near future." However, it maintained a ban on demonstrations in the capital. Authorities offered to allow Saturday's demonstrators to rally in a meeting hall.

The army's decision to cancel this nation's first multi-party legislative elections in January 1992 to thward a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party set off the insurgency. Scattered violence continues.

It doesn't sound as though this one is going as well as the one in Egypt.

Here's hoping it goes well.


Enjoy your weekend, y'all.

Link to original post:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110212/ap_on_re_af/af_algeria_protest

What it's finally come to for this pope and his Catholic Church

Finally, finally--though it's far too little and far too late--this pope has come around to doing what he, his predecessors and the Catholic Church have told their followers to do for centuries. That is, he and they have finally a) humbled themselves and b) asked for forgiveness for all their child molestation scandals. Wow. Let's see, it's only centuries and thousands of cases, at least, overdue. From NPR today: Pope Benedict XVI met Saturday with five people who were molested by priests as children and apologized to them, even as abuse survivors and thousands of people opposed to his visit marched in central London in the biggest protest of his five-year papacy. Benedict met for about 30-40 minutes with the victims at the Vatican's apostolic nunciature in Wimbledon, according to the Vatican and Bill Kilgallon, chairman of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission — a church group that organized the encounter. Benedict "expressed his deep sorrow and shame over what victims and their families had suffered," according to a Vatican statement. Well, to this pope and his Catholic Church I'd have to say thanks. But I also have to add, again, that it is far too little. And it is far too late. Sinead O'Connor, I'll also repeat, has been vindicated, sadly, many, many times over. Link to original story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129953080