This is a sickening story

“TWO Victorian couples are suing doctors for failing to diagnose Down Syndrome in their unborn babies, denying them the chance to terminate the pregnancies.”

I hope the judge takes one look at this case and throws the couples on the street.

“The girl, 4, who now attends a specialist kindergarten, was born with heart, kidney and thyroid problems, can’t walk, and needs help feeding, her father said.

“Don’t get us wrong: we love our daughter. She’s part of our family, and we treat her like gold,” he said.”

So they’re saying “we love her, but we wish she had never been born.” That’s not love. That’s sick. You know who else wanted to breed disease out of the human gene pool through selective breeding programs…

July 22, 2010

Dry idea: atheists being “de-baptised” with a hairdryer

This is just silly. A bunch of atheists at a convention decide to have a little fun and “debaptise” themselves with a hairdryer and the Internet just about breaks. A bunch of fencesitters agnostics and Christians have condemned the action as cultic and proof that atheism is a religion (see the comments on this Gizmodo article, or this Neatorama one, here’s the coverage from the Friendly Atheist (and part two)). It’s a joke people. A joke. Thankfully, Fox News is on the job… reporting in an unbiased and completely level headed manner.

Under the headline “U.S Atheists reportedly using hair-dryers to de-baptize” the story’s lede reads:

“American atheists lined up to be “de-baptized” in a ritual using a hair dryer, according to a report Friday on U.S. late-night news program “Nightline.”

Leading atheist Edwin Kagin blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading “Reason and Truth.””


The guy doing the “debaptising,” Edwin Kagin, is one of the leading lights of the new atheist movement. He likes to call Christian parenting “child abuse”… but this Nightline story has been way overblown.

“Standing at a podium wearing a long brown monk’s robe, Kagin read with the oratorical skill of a preacher from a set of pages in his hand and invited participants to come forward to be de-baptized.

He recited a few mock-Latin syllables, to the audience’s amusement. An assistant produced a large hairdryer, labeled “Reason and Truth,” and handed it to Kagin. The man who’d elected himself to be de-baptized stood before him. Kagin turned on the hairdryer, blowing the hot air in his face in an attempt to symbolically dry up his baptismal waters.

“Come forward now and receive the spirit of hot air that taketh away the stigma and taketh away the remnants of the stain of baptismal water,” Kagin shouts.

Atheists poke fun at baptisms in this ceremony, saying they believe their waving around a hairdryer holds the same level of magical and spiritual powers as does the baptismal ceremony.”

Funnily enough, Kagin’s son is pretty much the “enemy”…

“And then there’s this interesting twist. His own son, Steve Kagin, is a fundamentalist minister in Kansas.

Kagin said that his son claims to have a personal revelation in Jesus Christ. “I am totally unable to say that’s not true,” he said. “There are examples all through history of quite sane people who have had such experiences. I don’t think it is but I’m not going to say it isn’t.””

This is a bit of a beat up. And it’s giving a little piece of attention seeking way more attention than it deserves.

July 22, 2010

Say it with manure: in the mail

Delivering a pile of steaming manure to the doorstep of your frenemy (or their letterbox) has never been easier.

Poopsenders have a selection of manures that they will mail, with the above card, to your most hated friends. They’ve got elephant and gorilla manure on offer – so it’s not just your run of the mill waste.

July 22, 2010

Pizza in a cone

Best. Food. Idea. Ever.

The pizza cone.

July 22, 2010

Keeping kids safe online…

I don’t often give serious parenting advice here. I know my audience. But my purpose for this post is twofold – first, to congratulate Steve Kryger from Communicate Jesus for this piece on Sydney Anglicans that has been syndicated on Gizmodo.com.au, and second, to share Steve’s list of ten tips for parents. I think they’re good, and a great acknowledgment that clean feed, or no clean feed, the issue requires a thought out approach from parents not a government mandate.

  1. Understand what your child is doing online (put the computer in a public space, talk to your children, use accountability software).
  2. Ask your child to explain to you what they are doing, and why they are doing it.
  3. Talk to your child about your values, and how these should be lived out, regardless of the environment.
  4. Filter the content that your family views online.
  5. Understand the minimum age requirements for different websites and technologies (children under 13 should not be on Facebook).
  6. Understand how these popular websites are used, and what the opportunities and threats are.
  7. Understand what avenues are at your disposal if something goes wrong (e.g. your child’s Facebook account is hacked).
  8. Consider how you will respond if you discover your child is acting inappropriately, or viewing inappropriate material.
  9. Decide when or if your child will get a mobile phone.
  10. Understand the new functions of mobile phones, and what the opportunities and threats are.

July 22, 2010

Rapping Paper

A beginner’s guide to making a pun based product would look something like this…

1. Think of a funny and cheap pun based product.
2. Buy a colour printer.
3. Print the lyrics of rap songs on wrapping paper.
4. Sell on the Internet.

Here you go. Rapping Paper.

Eminem.

Run DMC.

July 21, 2010

Awkward Stock Photos

Have you ever used or searched through stock photo libraries just trying to find the right image for your design? I have. Stock photos are heaps cheaper than photo shoots, and a great way for photographers to make a little pocket money. Good stock photos are awesome. You can search for photos by obvious keywords.

There are, however, a litany of awful stock photos in libraries around the interwebs. This blog, Awkward Stock Photos, exists to record the worst offenders.

One wonders what possible application this image has, and what keywords one would be using to find it: “criminal school girl with walkman and balaklava” is hardly likely to be a common request.

This one is too disturbing to feature in image form – only click it if you can stomach artistic elderly nudity (a bottom) in anatomically impossible situations.

July 21, 2010

New tools for surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

You might not be worried about the Zompocalypse – but not being worried is not an excuse for not being prepared. One of the services we offer here at st-eutychus.com is keeping you and yours abreast with the latest in zombie fighting science, methods and technology.

You can check out some of what we’ve had to say previously here, here, and here.

Today I have collated some hints, tips, resources and how-tos from around the interwebs to aid you in your preparations should the unlikely event of a zombie outbreak occur.

First, the latest in anti-zombie weaponry…


via: Unreality Mag

This list is a bunch of survival tips gleaned from one of the recent seminal Zombie texts, the movie Zombieland.

10- Only pull the trigger if you’re ok with every ghoul within hearing-distance knowing exactly where dinner is.

11- Stay nourished and healthy.

12- Drive safe! (And by that of course I mean drive in a hummer or a large SUV with bars welded to all the windows, and if possible an escape hatch in the roof)

13- If you can avoid it, then do.

This little article has a nice guide to the theories behind surviving a zombie attack – the best bet is to pick a local shopping centre. For the US it’s an obvious choice – because Walmart carries firearms. In Australia it’s less simple. A Bunnings, next to an Anaconda, with a supermarket nearby is probably ideal…

“…scout out all the big box retailers that carry ammo and food. Not too many eh? Tough luck, blue-stater. Someplace like WalMart is ideal, especially with the Garden Center for seed and stuff for longterm survival. A big bonus would be a nearby Home Depot or some such place so you can get plenty of lumber and quick-mix concrete for fortification.

While you’re preparing, always keep in mind locations where people congregate – you’re likely to find lots of zombies there when things turn ugly. Highways, malls, and schools are especially bad. You also might want to mention to your friends and family in passing how well your hiding place could be defended, etc. That way, when the zombies come, they’ll remember you said that and come help you. I don’t recommend telling them you’re preparing for a zombie invasion. “

This piece has a guide to recognising zombies, and more importantly a guide to fighting them.

  1. Never physically wrestle a zombie. You will only wind up getting bit. 
  2. Anything you can lift, throw or swing is a potential weapon.
  3. If you only have a blunt object, like a pipe or crowbar, aim for the head and smash.
  4. Small objects, like butter knives, forks or even pens, can be lodged into an eye socket at close range.
  5. Decapitation is an option if you are able to get close enough.
  6. When defending your hide out, put together an arsenal of homemade explosives from the stock of cleaning supplies. 
  7. Guns put distance between you and the enemy, minimizing your chances of being bitten. 
  8. Because fire is also a great weapon, use it to your advantage whenever possible. 
  9. Do everything you can to notify Armed Forces. 
  10. If all else fails, and you find yourself weaponless among a horde of zombies, you can try to act like one of them, but only long enough to get out of reach.

Here’s a handy guide to zombies in English:

And here’s another batch of ten tips from some zombie fighting experts.

“Choose Your Weapons Wisely: Not all weapons work for all people, and the trendiest zombie-fighting armaments aren’t always the best. When in doubt, melee weapons are a fine tool against the undead, but think twice before picking up that giant hammer. As satisfying as squishing zombie skull may be, swinging the hammer creates a sizable arc that gives zombies plenty of time to nibble at your armpits. GLAZS advises that you invest in a machete, which is cheap, lightweight, and neatly separates a zombie’s head from its bodies. As for ranged weapons, you may want to reconsider that sawed-off shotgun you’re so fond of. Bolt action rifles are both powerful and accurate, without the ammunition restrictions of the close-range shotgun.”

July 21, 2010

Style Guide: to infinitives and beyond

The Chicago Manual of Style is one of the seminal style guides in the world. If you’ve got a grammatical question or are pondering an obscure rule governing the use of the English language (like whether or not to capitalise the E in english, or the names of birds in a tourism brochure) then you should check it out. Especially interesting is the FAQ/Q&A section.

On split infinitives:

“CMOS has not, since the thirteenth edition (1983), frowned on the split infinitive. The fifteenth edition now suggests, to take one example, allowing split infinitives when an intervening adverb is used for emphasis (see paragraphs 5.106 and 5.160). In this day and age, it seems, an injunction against splitting infinitives is one of those shibboleths whose only reason for survival is to give increased meaning to the lives of those who can both identify by name a discrete grammatical, syntactic, or orthographic entity and notice when that entity has been somehow besmirched. Many such shibboleths—the en dash, for example—are worthy of being held onto… euphony or emphasis or clarity or all three can be improved by splitting the infinitive in certain situations. It’s one of the advantages of a language with two-word infinitives.”

Cop that one grammar nazis…

July 20, 2010

Lens Cap On

Have you ever been so focused on capturing the perfect shot that you haven’t noticed the obvious – your lens cap is still on. Don’t let those moments go to waste. Maybe start your own version of this Lens Cap On tumblr.

The best/worst dive bar in Brooklyn? YES. You can’t tell, but the jukebox is all Tom Waits records.

July 20, 2010

The death of the headline

SEO1 killed the headline. So says this piece from the Washington Post.

“My biggest beef with the New Newsroom, though, is what has happened to headlines. In old newsrooms, headline writing was considered an art. This might seem like a stretch to you, but not to copy editors, who graduated from college with a degree in English literature, did their master’s thesis on intimations of mortality in the early works of Molière, and then spent the next 20 years making sure to change commas to semicolons in the absence of a conjunction. The only really creative opportunity copy editors had was writing headlines, and they took it seriously…

Newspapers still have headlines, of course, but they don’t seem to strive for greatness or to risk flopping anymore, because editors know that when the stories arrive on the Web, even the best headlines will be changed to something dull but utilitarian. That’s because, on the Web, headlines aren’t designed to catch readers’ eyes. They are designed for “search engine optimization,” meaning that readers who are looking for information about something will find the story, giving the newspaper a coveted “eyeball.” Putting well-known names in headlines is considered shrewd, even if creativity suffers.”

I struggle to decide whether to write headlines for googlers or headlines for my own amusement. I mostly settle for the latter, unless I can’t think of anything punny.

1 Search Engine Optimisation

July 20, 2010

Spider man helps find lost cat…

David Thorne, you’ve heard of him right? The guy who tried to pay his debts with a picture of a spider. Amongst other things (hit the David Thorne tag below for all his hijinks that I’ve previously featured).

You’d think, if you worked with such a renowned internet prankster, he’d be the last person you’d turn to for design help. Which is what his colleague did after her cat went missing. She asked for a “lost cat” poster – here are some of the suggested designs (read the email thread here).

July 20, 2010

Shirt of the Day: Game on

All games actually come from the same place. Did you know that? Don’t believe me? Here’s the shirt to prove it.

July 20, 2010

This (the Devil) is why you’re fat… Part One

You’ve seen the imagery – and now it’s time for the substance. If you’re carrying a few extra kilos (and trust me, I can relate) then this book should spur you on to greater physical fitness. Because we all know that when it comes to God’s love it’s not what’s inside that counts – it’s how good you look.

Chapter One of “Help Lord – The Devil Wants Me Fat: a spiritual approach to a trim and attractive body” is entitled “The Satanic Food Conspiracy!”…

Let me quote to you from the opening paragraphs.

“I don’t see how a really fat person can be a true Christian!”

Normally I ignore such remarks. We all know that being fat or skinny has nothing to do with being saved. But the brother making the statement was so sincere, I thought I’d better hear him out.

“Oh, I replied, “How come?”

See what he’s done here. He’s disassociated himself from the heresy but then given it credence, and indeed, produce a whole book on the basis that you need to be skinny.

“Well, in Philippians 3:19, the apostle Paul speaks of those whose god is their belly. When a person is overweight it seems to me that food is his real master, not the Lord Jesus. Those extra pounds are proof he puts his stomach ahead of the Lord.”

This prompted some soul searching. Our author used to be “large.”

“Then I looked down at the rolls around my waistline. One thing was obvious – I was eating more food than I needed… Is it possible the Devil was using food to weaken the Lord’s rule over my life? Ugh, I didn’t like that idea. Probably because the answer I was getting back was a “yes.”

From what I knew of the devil, food was something he would definitely use. He’s skillful in turning good things to evil purposes… we could consider sex. Here is a beautiful thing God has given us, a drive of the organism to remind us how incomplete we are in ourselves. Just as we need a mate to make us complete in the flesh, so do we need the Lord Jesus to be complete in the Spirit… If Satan has the ability to turn God given drives and turn them to evil, why would he ignore something as vital as eating.”

Here’s the clincher for his argument (and if you read this conclusion with his sex analogy in mind you can understand why he thinks a glass of water is a satisfying start to the day).

“When we’re eating, do we think in terms of what our bodies need? No, we think of how good it tastes or how satisfying it is to stuff ourselves. That’s got to be the work of Satan. He gets us to shift our focus from eating what we NEED to eating what we WANT… Beyond that there seems to be a FOOD CONSPIRACY in our land. Fast food stands are springing up like gas stations. Household magazines are filled with colour photos of delicious pastries and desserts. Everywhere you look it’s food-food-FOOD…

“Most Christians seem to think it [their body] belongs to them; that they can do with it as they please. As a result they pollute it and defile it. We’re familiar with the usual things that defile the body: drugs, alcohol, tobacco and sex sins… But most subtle is the way the devil gets us to defile our bodies with food. Many who profess to put Christ first in their lives, deny His lordship with a knife and fork.”

No doubt Keller would enjoy this bit…

“Thus we have Christians who wouldn’t think of lying or stealing or committing adultery, unashamedly going around with bulging bellies. By this they are announcing to the world, “I’ve got another god in my life!” This is in direct violation of the First Commandment.”

The problem though, is Television. If this book were written today the problem would no doubt be all the food ads – but back in 1982 it was the breaks for “station identification”… this was an opportunity to get up to mischief.

“You’re watching TV. There’s a break for station identification. Do you just sit there? No. You ease out of your chair and head for the kitchen. The refrigerator door swings open. You peer inside. Are you hungry? No. does your body need food right now? No. Do you know why you’re standing there staring like that? No…

If nothing is available from the refrigerator you may open a cupboard or two. Some more staring. If you spy something that can be eaten conveniently, you reach for it. If not, you close the door… “I don’t need it anyway” but that’s a victory of the moment. You’ll be back shortly. You win sometimes and you lose sometimes, but the final score is totaled up on the bathroom scale. If you’ve gained weight you are clearly losing the war.”

If you haven’t been offended by this pastoral method before, you probably will be now…

“The devil doesn’t care about fat. He’s concerned with what happens to Christians when they’re fat… in spite of the common notion that fat people are more jolly, the real truth is they’re often more lonely. They make good pals, but not sweethearts. As a result, fat people do a lot of pretending.”

Basically, if you know a happy fat person they’re just faking it. And Satan spends his time helping them weave a fantasy web of self-satisfied delusion…

Except, of course, for those who are fat because of glandular conditions. There’s a disclaimer at the end of this chapter. I would have put this at the front personally… the disclaimer points out that fewer than 1% of the population have this problem and that these people are not the target of this book.

Here are the reasons Satan wants us fat.

  1. Despair – How many overweight Christians cry out to the Lord for victory over food? Until a Christian dedicates his stomach to the Lord he can pray all he wants and nothing will happen. The body is the Lord’s. And the relationship between the body and the spirit is so close that the power of the Holy Spirit in one’s life DEPENDS ON THE YIELDING OF THE BODY TO CHRIST. Frequently the greatest barrier to surrender of the body is the STOMACH. Until it is surrendered, the person can pray until he is blue in the face and there’ll be no answer. He prays in disappointment. When his disappointment becomes despair the devil has acquired a destructive emotion to use against him.
  2. Foothold – What Satan really seeks is a foothold on our WILLS… when we take ONE BITE of food more than we need, it provides him with a chink in our armour… When he can get us to eat more than we need – at his suggestion – he has gained the foothold he wants. That is why a few extra pounds is such a serious matter. They become an unanswerable proof of his dominion.
  3. Enslavement – This is what the devil is finally after. He doesn’t want us in control of our flesh. He wants us SLAVES of our flesh. Why? The flesh is his territory.

Lest you be thinking that this issue is simply limited to your own stomach (and no doubt gluttony does lead to being overweight, as do other factors like poor nutritional education… and the types of processed foods that are part of modern diets…)…

“As far as I can determine we are in those days of “eating and drinking” of which the Lord spoke (Matt 24:37-39). It is one of the signs of the last days.”

The chapter finishes by assuring us that being overweight is just as bad as being an adulterous pastor…

“Some years ago a well known evangelist on the West Coast was shot and killed in a motel room by an enraged husband. The preacher was caught in bed with the man’s wife… But let me ask this: “is it any worse for the Lord to find you in bed with someone else’s wife or husband? Or to have him find you 20-50 pounds overweight?

July 20, 2010

The reason I don’t post very often…

is because

I write like
William Shakespeare

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

& I don’t want to risk raising the tone above what the usual author is able to maintain.

July 20, 2010