Free Rice

http://freerice.com/

For every correct word definition, 10 grains of rice are given to starving people. It's your way of helping poor Africans without leaving your home computer!

The Line between Life and Death

As morbid as it sounds, it's an intimate thing, listening to someone's voice as death snatches them away unexpectedly. And the poor guy hyperventilating in the second video probably covers stories with those same bastards every day and gets drinks with them after work. It's like watching 4 of your friends from work get in an accident on the freeway and die.

Tard or bad photo?

either way, I'm probably going to burn in the lake-fire eternal... he's on the left

So what then?

After reading this article about the impact of illegal immigrants on the economy of the US, I am confused as to why politicians still use the old "they take our jobs and drain government spending!" as their primary reason for wanting illegals out. Well, if the overall impact of illegals on the average American is that they increase our total wealth by slightly less than 1%, wtf? Could this be a socially acceptable way for old white politicians to express their racist views, but be deemed patriots and real Americans instead of bigots and xenophobes?

Are you for Serious?

Give me a break. I think our generation has lost touch with the physical world. People could pass around photos of you, letters you've written, spread nasty rumors and give out information about you in the old days too. Just because a new social medium is in place, and people talk more on the internet than they do face to face, doesn't mean their social networking will change much; they'll still have friends and acquaintances, enemies and undesirables. Granted that the anonymity that the internet allows seems to facilitate jackass behavior in some people, I posit that these people were already jackasses, and would have done asshole things no matter where you ran into them.

This article is unnecessary and fails to connect basic human nature with the world around us. FOR SHAME!

TV

So I sat down and actually watched some tv tonight for the first time in probably months (or since the last movie i saw), when on popped an infomercial aimed toward an older demographic. The product was a sound amplifier for old people with hearing loss, for only 14.99! It showed and old man getting yelled at for having the tv too loud, and an old lady listening in to a pair of jogging mothers' gossip.

After the commercial was over, it occurred to me that these people might have chosen the wrong demographic to fuck with. When old people were our age, they had to dodge scheisty gypos and 2-bit, back alley peddlers of knick-knacks and kajiggers. They might be confused by technology, but I reckon that they know the ol' balls and cups game when they see it. Only in today's fat and lazy consumer society can the infomercial blossom, with the digital kids and the better-quicker-cheaper mentality. So I hope your product fails, and you die for trying to con the old.

Freedom of Speech?

I'm not sure where I stand on this yet; I'll write more tomorrow after a good nights sleep.

So I've had some time to think about it, but it seems to be a relatively tough call. On the one hand, I think that any stifling of someone's right to free speech (especially at a school, where students should be taught to exchange ideas respectfully whether they agree or not) is treading on very very dangerous waters. Just because you don't agree with what someone is saying, does not mean you have the right to keep them from saying it... in this country anyway (supposedly).
But on the other hand, in a public (non-university) school, where there are still young and impressionable kids, it seems like the school should be responsible for the type of environment its students are exposed to. Although I don't agree that marijuana should be illegal in the first place, promoting its use around kids as young as 13 (young freshmen) is irresponsible.

In the end, although I sympathize with feelings to the contrary, I would have to say that he should not have been punished or his banner torn up. He was doing it for attention, but was not hurting anyone, and I can't imagine that he was "inciting" anything more than a few laughs. Simply passing over him with the camera and not putting him on tv should have been enough to dissuade any future shenanigans along the same lines.

Perhaps this was more a case of people's hyper-sensitivity to drug related issues (OMG NOT MARIJUANA!!! I've seen the adverts that warn how recreational smoking in your own home destroys livesssssss!!!!11). It's amazing at how quickly people are willing to trample the first amendment when someone is saying something they are scared of or disagree with.

*sigh* chalk another one up for the witch-burners.

Edit: It turns out that he wasn't even at school at the time... how much more ridiculous is that?