Charity begins in someone else's pocket.

Suckers; One born every minute.

Someone¹ once said, charity is a quick-fix method for people to clear a dirty conscience. Charity is for the mentally weak who have been told that they must part with their hard earned wealth because it is the "right thing" to do.

And to the fucking idiot that even thinks about giving me the wealth, materialism and their fleeting existence and irrelevance to the "cosmos" bullshit; type your comment after you quit your job, donate all your money, sell your house/car, donate your computer, travel to sub-Saharan Africa and live off the land. Until then, shut your pie hole.

And if you are oh-so-brilliant and want to bring up how you won't be able to comment if you donate your computer/move to sub-Saharan Africa; that's the idea Einstein.

1. Probably just me.
   

In Defense of the Critic

Being a critic is a thankless job, most often. I admire real life critics who do it for a living. After all, it is the ultimate “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” profession¹. You are always going to hurt someone, cross someone off. Let me get straight to the point, for once, and only just this once.

I was accused, recently, of criticizing things far too much, having no authority in the fields I am criticizing people for, and while that is completely true, the premise is utter bullshit.

For the sake of coherence, which I doubt too many of my readers are comfortable with, I will go about this in logical sequence, another thing brainwashed sheep have difficulty doing. Having accepted the criticism that I have no authority in the fields I choose to criticize people in, the proposition on the table is that I should graciously accept defeat and cease any further attempts at criticizing things I do not understand. Well, I am willing to accept that proposition, but only as long as my one condition is met, and anyone with half a rational brain (again, it would appear I am singing to the tone deaf) would agree that what I am about to suggest isn’t too unfair.

So, all those of you, anxious to know the key to shutting me up, hear me well. The same rules must apply to you as well. Since none of you are authorities on music, movies, literature, politics, cars and practically everything under the sun, YOU HAVE TO SHUT THE FUCK UP as well. When you stop opining about how good the latest Michael Bay fiasco is, or how good Ledger’s joker was (oh, what a bitter-sweet was that is), or how great Michael Jackson’s mediocre song and dance styles really are (if you take out the pop out of it), then I will follow suit. When you admit that you have no basis to be showering laurels on these sorry excuses for “artists” and that you will forever purse your lips regarding your personal attempts to glorify these people, I will lay down my pen.

Before I end, I must clear the air. My comments on my facebook status message etc, about the mediocrity of the pedophilic Michael Jackson as an artist, were hardly to stir shit up. That is my true opinion. Would the world have lost out if Michael never sung a single note? Not mine. And while it is politically incorrect to diss the dead, I have never cared for being politically correct. So here is a big fuck you to Michael Jackson fans, and a vehement fuck you to Sacha Baron Cohen and Universal for bending over backwards. If you can’t handle the witty and not so witty snipes at “MJ” (funny, how that is so similar to OJ) then don’t fucking watch TV, don’t visit my blog and definitely DO NOT click on this next link.

Another contribution of MJ to pop-culture is definitely his contribution to costume design on movie sets, having inspired the alien in M. Shyamalan's Signs and the instantly noticeable Joker, from the crap-chute that was The Dark Knight.

Yes Michael, I know “You’re bad”. Now if we can only get rid of the Catholic Church, the kids will be safe.

And for those looking for a moment of sensitivity, Billy Mays just died last month as well. He will be missed. He did have a soothing voice. Or he just nagged the fuck out of you till you bought something. But he will still be missed by me; Funny guy.

1. Unfortunately, the professional critics are just whored out publicists. I have yet to come across a decent review of a “mega-hype” movie that does justice to the profession, whether it be favorable or not.
   
   
2. I was thinking about calling this post, “Fuck You, Michael Jackson”. Only one thing prevented me. The possibility that he really was a pedophile and that a title like that might be insensitive to the plight of the kids whose lives MJ touched.

Pissing In The Wind

Holy Coca Co(w)la. The Colas are doomed!

India is the land of useless regulation. We are world leaders in double standards and NO standards. A blog I visit, recently had a post about how Indian products make unsubstantiated claims, which in first world countries would be unacceptable. But in the land of hindutva¹, hypocrisy and lack of regulation make a perfect couple and no valentine's day for them either.

So what is the connection between colas and Indian hypocrisy? Not the pesticide thing… I really don't care about that. So if the pesticide scandal and the prospect of impending fatality are not big enough to bring a multinational corporation down, then what is? Piss. Yes, urine, and not just any urine, the blessed and holy piddle emanating from the saviors of the world, beef. This wee-wee is being branded by none other than the saviors of bharat mata, the RSS. As if the great Indian rope trick, images of free roaming elephants and dung laden streets weren't bad enough for urban India, now this.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are "doctors" and "scientists" that claim "research" on cow urine therapy has been performed to demonstrate its effectiveness.

"Our Aim is...

Our main aim and objective is to prevent and cure most of the diseases by applying a totally natural and highly effective new concept. We will be pround if we will be able to give some Relief to this world. We are trying to follow the path of serving humanity shown by God. We are trying to make this therapy much more simple and feasible."

In the face of this fundamentalist ignorance, I quote the words of my Goan brothers², "Aamcha Feni aamka jai, tujha mut tu pee" (roughly translated: "We want our feni, you drink your piss").

But before I end this post, I have a few questions. Will golden showers stop being a fetish in India and be part of the rejuvenation regiment? I guess you don't have to worry about taking a whiz in a pool anymore.

1. Hindutva isn't the only one I think is guilty of this hypocrisy, for the record.

2. I have never found any record of anyone having said this. As far as I know, the only person that has ever used this phrase is my uncle, Vijay Bijur. Therefore I attribute this to him.

His "story" goes like this. The slogan was raised by the goans during the prohibition era of Morarji Desai, who claimed that the reason of his good health was that he drank his own piss. As far as I know, this is a fabrication of his brilliant mind.

Holy Wars

“In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers.”

Taken from the Tuzk-e-Taimuri‎, Timur’s (alleged) memoirs recount a fateful day of “ethnic cleansing” as he looted and plundered and amassed wealth and a haraam harem. I could see Timur being an egotistical, religious maniac, exaggerating his escapades to sound impressive; to furnish a permanent place in the annals of lunatic murderers. But in spite of his bloated ego, Timur’s intent is clear. The infidels must be purged. Allah’s will be carried out.

Elsewhere, less than a couple of centuries away, the French Religious wars raged on, 36 years, probably desensitizing a couple of generations of brie lovers to violence. The culture shock the French must have faced was thankfully short lived. Nearby, less than 20 years later, the Germans and the British would start one of their own wars based on their inability to agree on the details of what god “instructed” some random asshole on some remote mountain over a millennium ago. Over these 66 years… and one day, an estimated 15.6 Million people would be wasted away at god’s command¹.

Almost instinctively, the apologist is certain to point fingers at the murderous tendencies of prominent “atheist” mad men, Hitler² and Stalin³. While this argument has swiftly and effectively been rebutted by the “four horsemen”, I choose to show that the genocides and wars that raged from religious and theistic impetus have been far more gory, gruesome, blood curdling than the major wars of the 20^th century, The World Wars.

In comparison, the two world wars overshadow the two major religious wars (that I can recall) by sheer volume of cadavers. With conservative estimates of 19 and 40 million chronologically, they far outyield the 15 million estimated of the religious wars.

Tanks, mines, missiles, gunships, bombers, fighter planes, submarines, and of course, Fat Man and Little Boy have made the body count of the world war’s possible; making wars a little more impersonal in the 20^th century. The days of staring into the eyes of the enemy had been left behind in the medieval ages, to those who could stomach the blood and gore; to the pious. Technology in battle had the ability to delay the effect of battle, the effect waste of human life can have on a rational mind, only bringing it to the foreground post mortem.

But what the religious wars lose in body count, they make up for in sheer callousness and underestimation of human life. Staring into the enemy’s eyes, day after day, for decades together, mercilessly slaughtering, is a task that the religious masses seem to effortlessly pull off and master. Only god knows what devastation these armies would be capable of, if they had the resources of the 20^th century, with enough enemy bodies as in the 20^th century⁴.

1. These remain just the most obvious, bloody, and patent representations of religious violence. James Haught recounts other atrocities that have been committed by religion and the pious.

2. Hitler’s religious beliefs are still highly debated, and to this day, attempts to prove his atheistic ideology have been inconclusive. However, Hitler was a practicing Roman Catholic and remained one until his death.

There is an obvious rebuttal to this point of mine, and I will preempt it by offering my rebuttal, saving us some time.

Many claim that Hitler, an irreligious man (at least one who was against Christianity in his heart), used his ties with the roman catholic church to gain the sympathies of the catholics and protestants, and was nothing more than shrewd confidence trick. Having said that, it was the above mentioned churches that lent credibility to Hitler among the people of Germany, and more importantly, they were not against the bloodshed and means of the Nazis and Hitler. So as co-conspirators, the above mentioned churches are just as guilty as Hitler’s ideology (whatever it may be).

3. Hector Avalos, a scholar of the Bible, has in his book “Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence” claimed that Stalin “had a complex relationship with religious institutions in the Soviet Union.” I say claimed, as I have not read the book myself and rely on a source, while not completely reliable, certainly no worse than the monkey work contained in certain other texts.

4. The world population and its explosion has been a primarily 20^th century phenomenon. During the period of the two world wars, the population rose from about 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion, in spite of the massive bloodshed in the two wars, of 131 million or 0.131 billion, or more importantly 6.5 percent of the mean population. While the world population during the 100 year period of the two religious saw a negligible rise from 427,000,000 to 500,000,000 and the death toll at 3.5 percent.

While that figure might seem to indicate the brutality of the world wars, it is limited, as almost all statistics are by the “big picture”. The big picture here shows of a zealous war, fought with no major technological assistance, in just a small portion of the earth (the world wars were fought by 35 and 68 countries compared to a handful during the two medieval wars).

Gun Shy

"There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handguns use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution."

-- Michael Gartner

NY Times: Daily gun deaths in USA

Gun control is probably one of the most controversial debates in current day United States. After LGBT rights, abortion and possibly the death penalty, gun control is probably the most hotly debated issue. A pacifist for as long as I have thought about this question, everything seemed black and white. People for the right to bear arms have always struck me as a little crazy.

My first experience with a handgun was not so long ago. Even though it wasn’t loaded, the safety was on, I felt a bit like a geeky teen at the prom, just approached by the prettiest girl; apprehensive, panicky and definitely sweaty. I was silently relieved when the firearm was put back into its gun safe. Okay, not so silently. I even made it a point to vocally point out how uncomfortable I was, if my body language hadn’t already betrayed the fact.

Don’t get me wrong, I have always been in reverence of handguns. During my high school years (Junior college back home) I was quite the gun enthusiast, admiring their inherent beauty, while awestruck at their immeasurable power, but always too much of a pussy to ever venture into the real world of guns. Forensic science and firearm forensics especially, held me captivated. Fortunately, I told myself, firearms let go that strangling grip, of an invention that definitely would have been the end of me, and from a career that would definitely be a dead end. My knowledge of firearms, therefore, always remained nascent and underdeveloped.

It has been said that fear always springs from ignorance. It could be argued that this was the case with me and firearms. They would be right. I was soon to re-discover and re-think firearms; though not as blue eyed as my teen self. Having been on the Pro-gun control side of the issue, the arguments for gun control were sufficiently convincing to me. After all, who needs more guns in the hands of the corrupters of society?

But things would turn gray soon. Thanks in part to an “indie” movie that I accidentally came across (a sign from god? *^%K, I’m republican) tackling the very issue of gun control. Dear Wendy, probably one of the most hated movies (because it is “ideologically doctrinaire on the one hand and a wannabe hot youth movie on the other”) seemed to make sense to me. I guess I am THAT insane. The movie is about a pacifist youth, exploring guns, his fascination for it, and the eventual demise of his pacifist views when he is forced to use his guns, and on the law too!

People dislike this movie, because it is supposedly anti 2^nd amendment, and “talks about an issue the filmmakers know nothing about”, but for some reason I found it the exact opposite (again, only cranial misfirings to blame). The movie was a romanticized commentary on perceptions of guns, pacifism, pacifism and guns, their incompatibility etc. And for me, it began the dreaded thought process of the “morality” of gun culture.

While the movie had barely begun to make me think, barely budging me out of my comfort zone, another incident would force me on a fast track to reconsider my stance. The Mangalore Pub incident (where 40 politically backed psychopaths violently evacuated a pub of all its women, while battering them and assaulting any men that came to their aid, all in the name of Indian culture, while media and law enforcement paraded and silently witnessed, respectively) while initially leaving me unaffected and unruffled, as my capacity to withstand Indian stupidity and idiocy was assumedly at its limits; would soon turn to shock and squeamishness, as I witnessed the videos of the act. This was further compounded by the reactions to the incident, which I thought Indians would unanimously find revolting. What I was to discover, painted a very different India, from the one I was exposed to, during my formative years in three of India’s four metropolitans.

Apart from an unprecedented culture shock (one that I didn’t even notice when I first stepped onto US soil), these incidents forced me to empathize, (not with the women, for that would be patronizing) with the men that tried to protect their women (be it sister, girlfriend or just out of humanitarian kinship). I was forced to relive the scenario, for the terrible fear that gripped me, warned me of my unpreparedness for such an eventuality. “What would you do under these circumstances?”

The answer would not come, possibly because I really was unprepared, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. And being as physically advantaged as I am, there was no recourse in sight. That is when I came across Thomas Jefferson’s own views over guns. He opined that guns (as a symbol of power) are necessary for every citizen to hold onto, not to shoot down their neighbors dog, but to make sure no one else gets to shoot him down, or his rights.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
--- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785.

It can be argued, and rightly so, that Jefferson was in an era of the Wild West, where an honor code was sufficient to keep people from killing each other, which has been eroded away by people and, I hypothesize, their religion. In fact, since we are quoting Jefferson, here are some more, to get some perspective:

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

"We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

While the debate in America is a lot more complicated than Jefferson could have visualized, with all the (religious) nuts that roam around freely, I feel that India, which is in this regard more than a 100 years behind it’s time (arguably more), is yet to embark upon its true revolution. We are yet to fight for our freedom, and show that we will not stand for an aggressor, whether it is from within the state or from outside of it. All Gandhi did, was show to the world that we have the capacity to withstand immeasurable amounts of cruelty and injustice. And while Gandhi’s non-violence might have earned us some brownie points in international opinion, on our non-violent and non-aggressive stances, it has long been nullified with the history of violence since then. It is time; I think, that Indian’s re-evaluate their stance on guns. It is time we lose our sheepish naiveté, our misplaced mistrust of guns and our indoctrinated fear of revolutions.

Butter-fry Effect.

The insignificant flutter of a butterfly’s wings on the remotest corners¹ of the earth may be elemental in the production of large disasters. The mystique of cause-effect relationships that seem outwardly unconnected is explained by the butterfly effect. But so potent is this perception that its agents are visible in every facet of our lives, on every avenue.

Even so, on my first work related “road trip”, leaving as early as 5 A.M. for Wisconsin, the work of this miraculous agent was quite visible.

Road trips have often been a topic of Hollywood flicks, from the absurdly retarded Road Trip series to much more endearing dramas, these movies offer a snapshot into country America.

As dissociated as events in some of these movies may be to real life, they mimic life in the most uncanny of ways. They cross barriers, geographic, cultural and perhaps even economic. I am, of course, talking about “rest stops”.

But as we stopped for breakfast, the reality of the butterfly effect and its unpleasant bedfellow; globalization, dawned on me. The oasis we had breakfast at a glaring example of the adulteration of our modern day lives by the whorifying enabler of globalization; Consumerism. With McDonalds at the right, taco bell to the left and everything in between a sampling of the finest in franchise cuisine America has to offer. As we embrace the gifts of globalization, the cost-cutting it affords us, we choose to ignore the local businesses that rely on our continued patronage for survival.

But in our pursuit of wealthiness, we have let slip the very essence that made those movies endearing. The small town cafes, bistros, pancake houses, moronically replaced by corporate food cloners that serve only to stifle the creativity that makes us unique, the servers grudgingly serving a daily dish of rude awakening. As we pinch pennies, filling the coffers of big business, we pay the ultimate price as we let them control our lives, our choices, our individualism; and effectively our freedom. I guess this fast paced life will overwhelm the abilities of our generation to sample the diversity of human evolution as we zombify our very existence.

Note:
1. A turn of phrase, obviously, originating in the day of old world "knowledge" where the earth was flat. Just as we keep the phrase and its intended meaning in spite of dispelling the darkening myth that gave birth to it, so it isn't entirely inconceivable for an atheist like me to use common phrases of language that invoke the imaginary supernatural being that supposedly gave birth to all that exists.

You have been warned. The next person to question the hypocrisy of using these phrases gets punched in the face.

Rest in Peace, My Love!

My 500 gig external hard disk died on me a few days back, just as I was about to load a movie I had backed up on it. I spent a little over 2 hours trying to figure out if I could revive it somehow, even if briefly to transfer all my saved files, or just the important ones. Along with my movie collection, I lost all my music and all my saved files from when I had formatted my laptop last.

Now, I’m usually quite unorganized, so I have no clue about what files I had on them. I felt a little saddened at this loss, because I had spent a lot of time tagging my music collection. I’d spend an hour or two every week as and when I could spare it to tag my collection, rate them and make play lists. Not to mention the more important files.

But what I didn’t expect was the reaction of people. The first people that found out about this “sudden loss” were my roommates and a few friends. Their tones were grave and almost condolent, with one sounding like I had lost a family member or close friend. I joked about the reaction wondering why it had evoked such a reaction.

However, a few minutes ago, another friend, responded in the same manner, in a chat conversation when I broke the news.

TDD: oh... my external hdd conked out
lost all my data
and the hdd
Anon1: yikes
TDD: yeah
Anon1: how many movies was it?
TDD: I think that’s why I didn’t reply the last time
over 350
Anon1: uh-oh
am sorry

Now this seemed far from a coincidence. Too many people had reacted that way. Sure I was sad that it had conked out. Sure I would have to re-sort and re-tag all my audio files. Sure I will have to rebuild my collection without a clue as to what it included. But, people, let’s be realistic, it is only a bit of electronic equipment. All the files that I lost, I can re-acquire! We are truly in an age where malfunction of electronic equipment is a heartfelt loss. The expression of sorrow was probably more genuine than if it were the actual loss of life. We are truly desensitized, truly fucked.

Just Another Day...

Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, New Years Eve; I don’t attach too much stock to any of these. After all, they do come every year! And there is a reason for that. It’s called a calendar. The same goes for birthdays. So when people ask me what I have planned on my birthday, I usually give them an uncomfortable “I-don’t-know”. Uncomfortable, because I know they expect something generic; for instance, going out with my buddies to get drunk so I can’t distinguish vodka from grape juice.

I don’t need my birthday for that. Heck, I got drunk on some random day, at a party. Let’s call that my birthday and New Years Eve all rolled into one. Wait, it was New Years eve! But the point is birthdays are irrelevant. They were created by us, and I still don’t get the reason! Sure, it indicates we are getting older. But I’m older today than I was yesterday. Yay! Let’s go celebrate with some ice cream. Wait… I just did that.

Here is how birthday’s and New Years Eve are similar. It’s almost expected for people to look at the past year of their lives and introspect, relive good times and take notes on where to improve, which brings us to resolutions. After all life is a lesson right? And then there is of course dreaded milestones, be it quarter-life crises or Y2K.

Well this year I did just that, looked back on the year gone by. It has been a wonderful year, filled with so many lessons, and heart-warming experiences, some gastric delights, and some plain silly stuff. So here are the 10 most memorable moments that transpired during year 24 of my life.

1. In the spirit of the Olympics, let’s start with this one.

October 8, 2007 - Track and field star Marion Jones surrenders her five Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Sydney Games after admitting to doping.

Marion Jones got screwed. She surrendered her fucking medals; they should have taken away. She lost 5 Olympic medals and about fucking time. The only lesson to learn from this experience is; DON’T GET CAUGHT. Indian weightlifters are dumb. They get caught. Had they not gotten caught we’d have medals lined up on our walls too! So cut them some slack. When they ask you to pee in a cup next time, oblige. Don’t ask questions. It’s all in the Olympic spirit. But what takes the Birthday cake is the fact that the bitch was banned for 2 years. OH fucking really!! Is she planning on taking part in the senior citizens Olympics?

2. December 20, 2007 - A group of activist Lakota Indians send a letter to the United States State Department declaring their secession from the Union as the Republic of Lakotah.

This one is amazing. Mount Rushmore might end up in another country! If RoL succeeds; do they bring down Mount Rushmore the way the Americans brought down Saddam’s statue? I can’t wait.

3. November 5, 2007 - The Writers Guild of America goes on a strike that lasts until February 12, 2008.

For 3 months, no TV, no news. That’s not a lot of fun. Where would we get our news if it wasn’t for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? To put things into perspective, I watched 27 Dresses. Yep, that’s how much the writer’s strike affected me.

4. April 22 - Surgeons at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital perform the first operations using bionic eyes, implanting them into two blind patients.

Robocop! Awesome! But in all seriousness, I’m glad scientists are figuring out how to stick it to the retarded religious creeps. Screw god’s mysterious ways. No wonder they don’t like stem cell research and genetic research. That’s probably all the proof any rational person needs… that THERE IS NO GOD!

5. November 1 - London's Metropolitan Police Service is found guilty of endangering the public following the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian whom officers mistook for a suicide bomber.

How do you mistake someone for a suicide bomber? This is a suicide bomber!

This however, is not

6. August 30 - 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident in which a B-52 flew from Minot AFB , ND to Barksdale AFB, LA carrying six nuclear warheads.

Whoops! Nuclear war anybody? Come on, it might be fun. In fact, it might be more fun than dying the slow death that we will eventually see.

7. September 6 - "Operation Orchard": an Israeli airstrike occurred against a suspected nuclear site in Syria

Oh… I didn’t realize that it was enough to blow another country up if you suspect them. That changes everything. Now all Russia needs to do is say they suspected Georgia of the same. Go Russia!

8. July 15–20 - World Youth Day takes place in Sydney, Australia. Pope Benedict XVI appears at the event.

Holy sodomy! I nearly had milk coming out of my nose when I read this. The pope with kids… do I need to paint a picture?

9. November 16 - Over 3,000 people are believed to have died after Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, with the death toll expected to rise.

December 20 - An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 M_L hits the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, causing one death and significant damage in the town of Gisborne.

October 20 – November 9 - Wildfires in Southern California result in the evacuation of more than 1,000,000 people and destroying over 1,600 homes and businesses.

September 19 - Typhoon Wipha hits Fuding, China. Authorities had evacuated over two million people prior to the storm's landfall.

September 4 - Northeast Nicaragua takes a direct hit from Hurricane Felix. The hurricane was a strong Category 5 storm when it reached the coast.

August 25 - Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis declares a national state of emergency after a series of devastating wildfires ravage western Peloponese and southern Euboea, killing 68 people.

August 18 - Typhoon Sepat makes landfall in eastern Taiwan.

August 18 - The remnants of Tropical Storm Erin re-strengthen into a tropical storm over Oklahoma, causing widespread flooding and wind damage.

August 21 - Hurricane Dean, a powerful Category 5 storm, slams into a largely evacuated Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.

February 5–6 - A tornado outbreak, the deadliest in 23 years, kills 58 in the Southern United States.

March 25 - A 160-square-mile (414 km²) chunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegrates, leaving the entire shelf at risk.

August 15 - An 8.0 earthquake strikes Peru, killing 512 people, injuring more than 1,500, and causing tsunami warnings in the Pacific Ocean.

January 25 - China's worst snowstorm since 1954 kills 133, delays traffic, and causes massive power outages in central and southern parts of the country.

May 3 - Over 133,000 in Burma/Myanmar are killed by Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest natural disaster since the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.

May 12 - Over 69,000 are killed in central China by an earthquake measuring 8.0M_w. The epicenter is 90 kilometers (55 miles) west-northwest of Chengdu.

June 14 - A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, kills 12 and injures more than 400.

June 22 - Typhoon Fengshen hits the Philippines and capsizes the ferry MV Princess of the Stars, leaving hundreds dead or missing.

Source: The International Emergency Disasters Database

Climate change? Nah, that’s just the biggest hoax perpetuated on the American people. All these disasters were just staged. Come on, you can’t really believe these incidents are true, can you? The only events that we can be SURE about are when there is NO ONE else around but a chosen few, like the passing down of the ten commandments on a mountain, or the first men walking on the moon. Nah, these are truly staged. After all, climate change has no evidence, but we did see the moon landing on TV!

10. December 25 - An escaped tiger at the San Francisco Zoo kills one person and injures two others.

That gastric delight I was talking about, mmm. I never said it was something I would eat (maybe I would)! And before anyone decides to jump down my throat, hear me out. It’s about fucking time those tigers eat some of those pesky little runts. First you take those tigers out of their habitat, then you put them in a little cage that is smaller than the one you have your newborns in, and then your little angels think it’s smart to tease, and agitate the animal by throwing their peanuts or rattling their cages. You know why kids today are dumb? It isn’t our education systems! It’s the fact that we don’t let natural selection take its course. What happened was natural selection at its best, 1 dumbass down, 6.5+ billion to go.

Incidents like these almost make me hope climate change fucks us up and spirals us into extinction.

(2 months ago) (in reply to this)

lionheart209

God gave man dominion over the animals. Peple need to carry weapons, legally of course. I'm a peace officer and carry an off duty weapon, had I been there, the tiger would have been shot upon reaching the outer gate.

An armed citizen is a safer citizen;)