CREATE YOUR OWN RELIGION IN TEN EASY STEPS!

I was surfing the net and came upon this amusing article. . .

HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN RELIGION IN TEN EASY STEPS!

1) Create a God. One with a catchy name is best. Should be simple and out of the ordinary, but not too far out that people can’t remember it.

2) Make it in charge of something people already focus on, but don’t have a target for that focus.

3) Make it something that people will be reminded of frequently.

4) Make it easy for them to “buy into” the worship of your New God.

5) Make it ambiguous. Let both sides of an argument claim it as their own. Why define it when you can let people fight it out themselves. People are funny. They’ll fight over anything. Even something you just made up. Enjoy the show and try not to think too much about the Karmic issues you are creating for yourself.

6) Establish some standards by which the God should be referred to, creating an intrinsic reverence right from the start. Make sure that the Full Title and Name are Always Capitalized. This is because that everybody knows that something that has Capital Letters Is Much More Important than something that isn’t.

7) Make cool symbols. They should be things that people already know and see everywhere. And they should be easy to draw and say.

Okay, we’ve now created our first God.

Now, let’s see how easy it is to turn it into a Religion!

You can’t have a cool religion with just a single character, so….

8) You need an opposing force. Not necessarily an arch-enemy, but an opposite perspective so that people can pick sides and fight over things.

9) You need to confuse everybody. This will make sure that nobody can be really certain WHAT they believe, because it is all so non-sensical to begin with. And when you don’t spell it out exactly (or even if you do) you know how those funny humans will all magically just get along, right!

And last but certainly not least:

10) The Big Reward. You know everything you always wished you had in this life? After you die, you’ll get it! We promise! Hot women. Cute Guys. Flying Cars. Washboard abs. Rivers of Chocolate that won’t add an ounce or an inch to your perfectly fit, weightless body. And lots of cute, adorable fluffy bunnies to frolic with in virgin green pastures.

In our case, we guarantee that you’ll get everything listed above. And then some!

But wait! There’s more! All the people you love in this life will be there. But not the people you don’t like. They all go to “The Other Place”. Don’t worry. They’ll get theirs. And you’ll spend eternity in Paradise. Really. We Promise.

Oh yeah, one last thing:

The always present but never written down (written down here because I can’t whisper it in your ear) Eleventh Rule:

11) Get The Word Out!

What good is creating your own religion if you can’t get people to worship your Gods and beg you for guidance because they don’t trust themselves to navigate their own way through life? They’ll be much better having an uninformed random someone else tell them what to do than looking at their own situation objectively and determining a logical path to take that is likely to help them improve their lot in life.

And don’t forget the money!

Looking forward to this one . . .

Matt Groening (C), creator and executive producer of the Fox television network's animated television series 'The Simpsons', poses with characters from the series (L-R) Lisa, Maggie, Homer and Bart Simpson as he arrives for a block party on the Fox studio lot celebrating the series' 350th episode in Los Angeles, California, in this file photo from April 25, 2005. (Fred Prouser/Reuters)

Simpsons movie targets church, environmentalists

By Mike Collett-White 1 hour, 59 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - The upcoming Simpsons movie takes a typically irreverent dig at religion and environmentalists, and features a nude scene involving 'toon teen Bart that had the audience at a preview show applauding.

A 10-minute clip from "The Simpsons Movie," the first time Homer, Marge, their family and friends have made it to the big screen, was shown in London late on Wednesday ahead of its release worldwide later in July.

The clip offered several clues as to the plot, suggesting that the environment and religion would be major themes.

Rock band Green Day is booed and pelted when it starts speaking about the environment to a Springfield crowd, while Homer's daughter Lisa is a green campaigner shunned by the town's inhabitants who simply don't care.

She may also find love, however, after she swoons upon meeting a fellow campaigner from Ireland who insists he is not the son of U2 frontman and celebrity campaigner Bono.

The Simpsons also turn up late at church, where Homer's father has a seizure and warns of trouble to come.

When asked to explain this behavior, Homer flicks through a Bible, and mutters: "This book doesn't have any answers."

Perhaps the biggest laugh was for Bart, who skateboards through town naked after being challenged to do so by Homer.

After a series of scenes where strategically-placed extras and props protect his modesty, the audience gets a full view of his private parts through a gap in a hedge.

LIKELY TO BE OFFENSIVE

Series creator Matt Groening, speaking to the audience after the clips were screened, said he expected complaints.

"In America there's someone willing to pretend to be offended by everything and so we annoy people and that's part of the appeal," he said. "It's to entertain people and also to annoy a certain segment of the audience as well."

Series writer Al Jean agreed that there were big themes in the film, particularly the environment, but that the movie's makers did not obviously take sides.

"They are big themes, especially the environmental theme, but we always like to approach it from both sides, so later in the film when Lisa's giving a lecture about the pollution, the label of the lecture is 'An Irritating Truth'."

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore inspired Oscar-winning climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

Groening said he had been thinking about making a movie based on the hit animated television series as early as 1992, but struggled to find the time.

Asked what the main message of the movie was, Jean replied: "It's that a man should listen to his wife."

Groening added: "And it's a romantic movie. Homer falls in love with a pig."

"The Simpsons Movie" enters a crowded animation movie marketplace, but Groening argued that it stood out from the majority of films in the genre.

"This really is a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation which is basically disappearing," he said. "All the animated movies these days are computer-generated, and this is the old-fashioned, clumsy, hand-drawn ... way."

I hate when people tell me what I can and what I cannot say

Click on image to enlarge

This cartoon really hit a nerve because one of the things that bothers me the most in recent years is people telling me what I can and cannot say, or what I can or cannot write. It never works for me in reverse, however. These same people get pissed if I do it back to them. I have only done it in reverse, to make them see how it feels...but they didn't get the point and would not even try to understand why when I tried to explain it. Anyway, if they have a cartoon about it, this must happen to a lot of people and there must be a lot of control freaks in the world.

Night-Shining Clouds

Click on image to enlargeCredit: Cloud Imaging Team (LASP, Univ. Colorado), AIM project, NASA

Explanation: Alluring noctilucent or night-shining clouds lie near the edge of space, some 80 kilometers above Earth's surface. Of course, when viewed from space the clouds are more properly called polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) -- seen here for the first time in image data from the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite. The clouds form over the poles in the corresponding summer season and are now being seen more frequently at lower latitudes. This paticular view from June 11 details the PMC structures forming over the north polar region in white and blue. (Black indicates no cloud data was available.) The AIM satellite should be able to track two complete cloud seasons over both poles to investigate possible connections between the high altitude night-shining clouds and global change in the lower atmosphere.

Link: Noctilucent Clouds Photo Gallery

JFK-Separation of Church and State

‘I Believe in an America Where the Separation of Church and State is Absolute’
John F. Kennedy
September 12, 1960,
address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured–perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again–not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me–but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute–where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote–where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference–and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish–where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source–where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials–and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew–or a Quaker–or a Unitarian–or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim–but tomorrow it may be you–until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.

Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will someday end–where all men and all churches are treated as equal–where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice–where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic vote, no bloc voting of any kind–and where Catholics, Protestants and Jews, at both the lay and pastoral level, will refrain from those attitudes of disdain and division which have so often marred their works in the past, and promote instead the American ideal of brotherhood.

That is the kind of America in which I believe. And it represents the kind of Presidency in which I believe–a great office that must neither be humbled by making it the instrument of any one religious group nor tarnished by arbitrarily withholding its occupancy from the members of any one religious group. I believe in a President whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

Happy 4th

sharply_done's photostream

Click on cartoon to enlarge

I like organized fireworks displays. Chicago's is fantastic, with the Grant Park Symphony adding music to the art show in the night sky over Lake Michigan. However, the "bombs" going off in my neighborhood are far from delightful. Apparently people have a bunch of money to burn and blow up. The booms are louder, and the neighbors are more inconsiderate about where they shoot the damn things off with each passing year. It scares the shit out of pets and other animals. My parents have to sedate their little dog and my Bearded Dragon flattens in the bottom of her tank and turns a dark color because she is afraid. Poor things. There are no nightbirds singing in recent nights, and we won't hear them again till all this bullcrap stops.

Call me unpatriotic, but this is the holiday I like the least anymore. (Halloween being next on my least favorite holiday list.) I have to have windows closed even if weather is nice because of the noise, and because of all the sulfur in the air. Being asthmatic, it makes me wheeze. I did watch the Chicago fireworks on television, so I am not a total party-pooper. It was a fantastic show, as always and the livingroom sofa is the best seat. We went downtown only a couple of times for the fireworks display and there are just too many people. When it's all over with, people flood through Grant Park, down Michigan Avenue in droves, like scenes from a Godzilla movie. Then takes forever to drive home, so we just stay home now and watch it on tv.

Galactic Cannibalism

Credit: F. Summers/C. Mihos/L. Hemquist

Like life on Earth, galaxies can "eat" each other and evolve over time. The Milky Way's neighbor, Andromeda, is currently dining on one of its satellites. More than a dozen star clusters are scattered throughout Andromeda, the cosmic remains of past meals. The image above is from a simulation of Andromeda and our galaxy colliding, an event that will take place in about 3 billion years.

From LiveScience: Strangest things in space

Blasphemous spawn of a hairball

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Don't miss the Venus-Saturn conjunction on June 30th and July 1st!

Link: The Evening Star Meets the Ringed Planet

"On Saturday and Sunday evenings, June 30th and July 1st, for observers all around the world, Venus and Saturn will be within 50' of each other. That means that they will fit together comfortably in the field of view of most telescopes at 50x — ample magnification to show both Saturn's magnificent rings and Venus's crescent phase.

"Venus is the brightest celestial object besides the Sun and Moon, making this pairing exceptionally simple to locate. Both planets should be easy to see fairly high in the western sky a half hour after sunset. Even if you don't own a telescope, you'll get spectacular views through binoculars or with your unaided eyes.

"Through a telescope, the planets will probably look best within an hour after sunset."

FULL STORY FROM SKY AND TELESCOPE

Oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe

Very interesting news item today from Yahoo News:

Million-year-old human tooth found in Spain

Fri Jun 29, 3:22 PM ET

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish researchers on Friday said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old, which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe.

Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the Atapuerca site said the molar, discovered on Wednesday in the Atapuerca Sierra in the northern province of Burgos, could be as much as 1.2 million years old.

"The tooth represents the oldest human fossil remain of western Europe. Now we finally have the anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago," the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.

FULL STORY HERE

Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton on Hardball

Did any of you happen to catch yesterday’s Hardball with yet another debate between atheist Bush lover Christopher Hitchens and big-mouthed Al Sharpton? If not, below are three YouTube videos of the entire program.

I forced myself to sit and watch the entire thing and just took an extra blood pressure pill afterwards. Sharpton has serious diarrhea of the mouth. Hitchens, while I may not agree with him on his political stance, could at least express his point in an intelligent manner, whereas Mr. Media-Attention-Whore-Loud-Mouth barely let Hitchens have a word in edgewise much of the time. I particularly didn’t like Chris Matthews’ sarcastic comments aimed at Hitchens at the close of the program (not on the YouTube video, but I am trying to find it somewhere.)

Overall, for me, it was an extreme overdose of religion/anti-religion dialogue and anti-war from the religious side, and right-wing politics and pro-war comments coming from the atheist side… very weird interview.

Part 1



6/28/07 Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton Hardball pt2




6/28/07 Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton Hardball pt3.

"Yawn" is right . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Tagged again . . .

This time been tagged by The Honest Doubter to write eight random facts about myself or habits I have. So, after a little bit of thinking over what I wanted to list, here goes:

First, as instructed, the rules:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Now the facts about me:

1. I have a book obsession and keep buying them even though I have dozens waiting to be read.
2. I love to color in coloring books with crayons. (It's quite therapeutic.)
3. My favorite color is blue, like in my flashing Stardust icon.
4. I sleep in a waterbed, like the kind from the 60s & 70s.
5. I think that people can accomplish whatever they put their mind to if they are willing to put forth the necessary effort.
6. I have more than 60 international penfriends from 25 different countries.
7. I will be married for 32 years this August to my high school sweetheart. We were children when we married. ;-)
8. Eight is my favorite number.


And the eight folks I now tag are:

Danica at Dirty Dishes
Uma at Diary of a Laidback Rebel
KA at bibliography
Mikayla at bits of starstuff
Michael at Silly Humans
Naomi at Blue.Coffee
Andrea at andrea after hours
Toni at My Crap

1908 Tunguska Meteor Mystery

From NEXUS

One year from now, 30 June 2008, will be the 100th anniversary of one of the most mysterious catastrophes: the explosion of a body from space near the Podkamennaya (or Stony) Tunguska River in Siberia. There can scarcely have been another event in the past century to compare with it. The total power of the explosion exceeded the combined power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki more than 2,000 times over! Apart from that, the Tunguska explosion caused:
• an anomalous glow in the sky that was observed as late as 10 days afterwards, and the intense appearance of silvery clouds;
• massive radiation of light and heat;
• disruption of the normal functioning of meteorological instruments and the appearance of surface earth tremors;
• a tremendous sound wave that travelled twice around the globe;
• the felling of trees over an enormous area of over 2,000 square kilometres;
• weak traces of radioactivity, detected in tree samples and the polar ice layers dating from 1908;
• anomalous properties of the soil and minerals in the area of the Tunguska explosion;
• the unusually rapid growth of vegetation at the epicentre of the Tunguska explosion;
• cooling of the Earth's climate in the following few years.

For decades, folklore spread about mysterious space aliens landing to be the source of a great fireball which exploded over remote Russian forests in Siberia almost a century ago. However, scientists now think that the object was a meteor and may have found some very substantial evidence.

Dave Mosher Staff Writer SPACE.com Tue Jun 26, 6:46 AM ET

In late June of 1908, a fireball exploded above the remote Russian forests of Tunguska, Siberia, flattening more than 800 square miles of trees. Researchers think a meteor was responsible for the devastation, but neither its fragments nor any impact craters have been discovered.

Astronomers have been left to guess whether the object was an asteroid or a comet, and figuring out what it was would allow better modeling of potential future calamities.

Italian researchers now think they've found a smoking gun: The 164-foot-deep Lake Cheko, located just 5 miles northwest of the epicenter of destruction.

"When we looked at the bottom of the lake, we measured seismic waves reflecting off of something," said Giuseppe Longo, a physicist at the University of Bologna in Italy and co-author of the study. "Nobody has found this before. We can only explain that and the shape of the lake as a low-velocity impact crater."

Should the team turn up conclusive evidence of an asteroid or comet on a later expedition, when they obtain a deeper core sample beneath the lake, remaining mysteries surrounding the Tunguska event may be solved.

The findings are detailed in this month's online version of the journal Terra Nova.

Submerged evidence

During a 1999 expedition, Longo's team didn't plan to investigate Lake Cheko as an impact crater, but rather to look for meteoroid dust in its submerged sediments. While sonar-scanning the lake's topography, they were struck by its cone-like features.

"Expeditions in the 1960s concluded the lake was not an impact crater, but their technologies were limited," Longo said. With the advent of better sonar and computer technologies, he explained, the lake took shape.

Going a step further, Longo's team dove to the bottom and took 6-foot core samples, revealing fresh mud-like sediment on top of "chaotic deposits" beneath. Still, Longo explained the samples are inconclusive of a meteorite impact.

"To really find out if this is an impact crater," Long said, "we need a core sample 10 meters (33 feet) into the bottom" in order to investigate a spot where the team detected a "reflecting" anomaly with their seismic instruments. They think this could be where the ground was compacted by an impact or where part of the meteorite itself lays: The object, if found, could be more than 30 feet in diameter and weigh almost 1,700 tons-the weight of about 42 fully-loaded semi-trailers.

Caution for now

From a UFO crash to a wandering black hole, wild (and wildly unsupported) explanations for the Tunguska event have been proposed. Alan Harris, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said the proposal by Longo's team isn't one of them.

"I was impressed by their work and I don't think it's something you can wave off," said Harris, who was not involved in the research.

Longo and his team "are among the recognized authorities on Tunguska" in the world, Harris told SPACE.com. "It would be thrilling to dig up chunks of the meteor body, if they can manage to. It would lay the question to rest whether or not Tunguska was a comet or asteroid."

Some researchers, however, are less confident in the team's conclusions.

"We know from the entry physics that the largest and most energetic objects penetrate deepest," said David Morrison, an astronomer with NASA's Ames Research Center. That only a fragment of the main explosion reached the ground and made a relatively small crater, without creating a larger main crater, seems contradictory to Morrison.

Harris agreed that physics could work against Longo's explanation, but did note that similar events-with impact craters-have been documented all over the world.

"In 1947, the Russian Sikhote-Alin meteorite created 100 small craters. Some were 20 meters (66 feet) across," Harris said. A site in Poland also exists, he explained, where a large meteor exploded and created a series of small lakes. "If the fragment was traveling slowly enough, there's actually a good chance (Longo's team) will unearth some meteorite material," Harris said.

Longo's team plans to return to Lake Cheko next summer, close to the 100th anniversary of the Tunguska Event. "This is important work because we can make better conclusions about how cosmic bodies impact the Earth, and what they're made of," Longo said. "And it could help us find ways to protect our planet from future impacts of this kind."

• Video: The Asteroid Paradox
• Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism
• Gallery: Earth's Meteor Craters

• Original Story: Crater Could Solve 1908 Tunguska Meteor Mystery

Banana trees and space aliens

I read some strange stuff in the Odd News section of Yahoo sometimes, and I found this story to be quite strange and amusing. It also shows that even in our age of technology, superstition still prevails.


Buried 'aliens' are really tree trunks

Tue Jun 26, 7:40 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysians in a northern village were alarmed by rumors that space aliens had been laid to rest in their neighborhood cemetery, but authorities learned the graves had merely been filled with banana tree trunks for a superstitious ritual, police said Tuesday.

Residents feared a local witch doctor had instructed grave diggers to bury extraterrestrials in the rural district of Pasir Mas on Sunday, causing police to detain the man for investigation, said district police chief Haliludin Rahim.

The man was freed after he explained that banana tree trunks, not aliens, had been buried in a ceremony for "medicinal purposes," Haliludin told The Associated Press.

The New Straits Times newspaper said the rumor started because of a misunderstanding after some of the grave diggers claimed to other people that they had been told they were burying aliens.

Witch doctors and spiritual healers are common in rural parts of Malaysia where superstitious beliefs have long been entrenched.

As a public service . . .

On a serious note, there are NO justifications for suicide bombings. NONE. NEVER.

Pixel addiction epidemic

It's not only kids who are affected by pixel addiction. It also affects adults in large numbers, whether it be video games, surfing the internet, YouTube addiction, blogging (heh-heh), or watching television.

Back to kids and computer games, neighborhoods used to be noisy in the summer months with kids running around playing outdoor games and sports, but now all we can hear are birds singing, cicadas whirring, random dogs barking, an occasional plane going overhead and the hum of air conditioners and pool pumps running keeping non-used swimming pools clean. But the sound of laughing or screaming children is rarely heard anymore.

Does it really matter?

From an atheist/agnostic perspective, this story is quite amusing. Most religious folks don't realize or care to think about how many "ordained" doubting or unbelieving priests/ministers/pastors are out there pretending to believe in the existence of God so they can have a job and get paid and a place to live. I am not saying they are all like that, but few believers questions one way or the other. And there is no way of truly knowing for certain . . . believers just take the "man/woman of God's" word on "faith".

If a God does exist, would he/she/it consider Baptism, marriage, or any other sacred rite invalid if the person performing such ceremonies were indeed a fake church official?

Fake priest arrested baptising baby

LISBON (Reuters) - A man pretending to be a priest was arrested by police as he prepared to baptise a baby in a small town in the north of Portugal.

"When the man said 'in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit' police came in and grabbed him," a member of the church was quoted by local daily Jornal de Noticias as saying.

A spokeswoman for the Portuguese police said the 34-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a priest and had several similar arrest warrants to his name.

"We had to interrupt the religious ceremony to identify the suspect," said spokeswoman Amelia Moutinho, adding that the public prosecutor would now investigate the case.

The baby was later baptised by a real priest, the local daily said. The man was arrested on June 16.

Stars and the Solstice Sun

Click on image to enlargeComposite Credit & Copyright: Jerry Lodriguss (Catching the Light)

Explanation: If you could turn off the atmosphere's ability to scatter overwhelming sunlight, today's daytime sky might look something like this ... with the Sun surrounded by the stars of the constellations Taurus and Gemini. Of course, today is the Solstice. Traveling along the ecliptic plane, the Sun is at its northernmost position in planet Earth's sky, marking the astronomical beginning of summer in the north. Accurate for the exact time of today's Solstice, this composite image also shows the Sun at the proper scale (about the angular size of the Full Moon). Open star cluster M35 is to the Sun's left, and the other two bright stars in view are Mu and Eta Geminorum. Digitally superimposed on a nighttime image of the stars, the Sun itself is a composite of a picture taken through a solar filter and a series of images of the solar corona recorded during the solar eclipse of February 26, 1998 by Andreas Gada.

How suddenly things can change

This will scare the crap out of any kid that has been told if they aren't good the boogeyman will come up out of the ground and pull them under! A whole lake has disappeared in Chile. . .here one month, gone the next! While we may marvel at the spendor of a gorgeous summer sunset, natural events such as this show us just how vulnerable we really are in this random world and universe.

Missing: Large lake in southern Chile

Wed Jun 20, 6:44 PM ET

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

Outsourcing customer service

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Does this piss you off as much as it does me? It seems that when I need to call a company for customer service about even the smallest question anymore, I either get the automated bullcrap, or I am talking to someone in a far-off land who can hardly speak or understand English. This is even more frustrating when the problem is a bit bigger and urgent. For instance, not too long ago I had a problem with a credit card company.

I wrote one of those checks to pay off the balance of another card. It was a few dollars over my limit (so they said, but wasn't true), and so they declined it. Then the other credit card company I wrote the check to charged me a bounced check fee AND a late fee for not making a payment on time...the check was put through AGAIN by the first credit card company and once again was bounced and another fee was added...each credit card company charging me a fee...playing ping-pong with the check, and me not being able to get ahold of a PERSON. Finally, I did speak to someone and that person had a serious accent, then was put on hold, another person with a little better clarity, however still difficult to understand. Then I was told to call the other credit card company.

Each time I asked who I was talking to and was given, most likely, fictitious first names. When I called back and asked for one of those specific names, I was told that person didn't work there, that they have many "service centers" scattered all over the country and the world so chances on talking to the same person are like winning the freakin' triple million dollar lottery. We finally wrote a letter, sent it to the corporate Appeals Department, and we got a letter back from a person with a big-ass long, long name. There was also, hallelujah, a phone number! My husband called and asked for Mr. Jambalihoiuhoegnuha, and was told..."oh, you can't talk to him...his office is in India." The letter was from INDIA,postmarked USA? Preprinted in advance? Unfuckinbelievable.

We ended up paying all late fees, canceling that credit card and writing a futile letter telling them to stick their cards &*^%$$#&. We are the ones who are always screwed while corporations laugh, laugh, laugh and count the money they steal from us. And what can we do about it?

Space Station and Shuttle Visible Together in Night Sky

Newsblurb: All of you amateur astronomers here might want to drag out those telescopes and binoculars tonight and tomorrow night.

MISSION ATLANTIS

Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
SPACE.com Mon Jun 18, 4:00 PM ET

With the Space Shuttle Atlantis scheduled to undock from the International Space Station, on Tuesday, skywatchers across much of the United States and southern Canada are in for a real treat on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.

Should weather conditions permit to offer clear skies, there will be a few opportunities to see both the Atlantis orbiter and the ISS flying across the sky from many locations.

The sight should easily be visible to anyone, even from brightly-lit cities.

The appearance of either the Space Shuttle or the Space Station moving across the sky is not in itself unusual. On any clear evening within a couple of hours of local sunset and with no optical aid, you can usually spot several orbiting Earth satellites creeping across the sky like moving stars. Satellites become visible only when they are in sunlight and the observer is in deep twilight or darkness. This usually means shortly after dusk or before dawn.

What makes the prospective upcoming passages so interesting is that you'll be able to see the two largest orbiting space vehicles in the sky at the same time.

What to expect

Both vehicles will be traveling across North America on northwest-to-southeast trajectories.

Appearing as a pair of very "bright 'stars," the ISS should appear as the somewhat brighter object and will appear to be trailing Shuttle Atlantis as they move across the sky. A large telescope would be needed to make out details of the sprawling station. Traveling in their respective orbits at approximately 18,000 mph (29,000 kilometers per hour), both should be visible from about one to four minutes (depending on the particular viewing pass) as they glide with a steady speed across the sky.

The "Drivers' Ten Commandments,"

With the increase of road rage and traffic accidents and other forms of traffic-related violence, here is some very excellent advice from the Vatican for ALL people who drive a vehicle. Many people really do need to "get a grip" and stay cool when they are behind the wheel. Here is the list:

1. You shall not kill.

2. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.

3. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.

4. Be charitable and help your neighbor in need, especially victims of accidents.

5. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.

6. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.

7. Support the families of accident victims.

8. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.

9. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.

10. Feel responsible toward others.

When can we hear discussion on the real issues?

The Planetary Nebula Show

Credit: Courtesy Adam Block (KPNO Visitor Program), NOAO, NSF

Explanation: What do the Owl, the Cat's Eye, the Ghost of Jupiter, and Saturn have in common? They're all planetary nebulae of course, glowing gaseous shrouds shed by dying sun-like stars as they run out of nuclear fuel. Beautiful to look at, the symmetric, planet-like shapes of these cosmic clouds, typically 1,000 times the size of our solar system, evoke their popular names. Flipping through digital pictures made by participants in the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center's Advanced Observing Program, astronomer Adam Block created this delightful animation. Ten different planetary nebula images are presented, each registered on the central star. In order, their catalog designations are NGC 1535, NGC 3242 (Ghost of Jupiter), NGC 6543 (Cat's Eye), NGC 7009 (Saturn Nebula), NGC 2438, NGC 6772, Abell 39, NGC 7139, NGC 6781, and M97 (Owl Nebula). This glorious final phase in the life of a star lasts only about 10,000 years.

Mess o'Potamia

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”