Duuuuuude

"An inquest into the death of Welsh gym owner Gerald Mellin has found the businessman decapitated himself in his Aston Martin DB7 after an argument with his estranged wife. According to the court, Mellin tied one end of a rope to a tree, climbed into his DB7 and wrapped the other end around his neck. Mellin then jammed the pedal down on the $173,000 car, driving into a busy main road, forcing other drivers to watch his horrific death. Police found his headless body still in the driving seat and his head on the back seat."

Not quite a ringing endorsement

"It was like the film was raping my face."

I'm all for artists taking chances, challenging norms, even trying to "shock" or "offend." Still, at least try to have a point.

I challenge you to read that four paragraph review and tell me you can find ANY reason to see that flick.

Does your god approve of your current course of action?

Ugh.

A Granville man is accused of driving 40 hours nonstop across the country and threatening to rape two girls -- ages 15 and 6 -- whom he met playing an online video game.

Joshua R. Stetar, 20, a self-described "very conservative" Christian who hoped to someday be a Christian school teacher, used mobile text messages to threaten the girls as he drove near their home in Spokane, Wash., police said.

It came after months of stalking the older girl through hundreds of text messages, police said.

"Tell the cops that I'm gonna rape you and your sister," Stetar allegedly wrote to the 15-year-old girl, last week.

...

Stetar sent packages and flowers to the older sister at her family's home several times this year, flooded her cellphone with several hundred text messages -- and even flew to Spokane on Oct. 23 to stake out the girl's home, Kirkpatrick said.

Stetar's Myspace page is filled with Bible verses and also includes the message: "How can I know for sure that I am going to Heaven? First, you must accept that you are a sinner."

His page also includes a video clip of talk show host Bill O'Reilly criticizing Hollywood actors for their anti-war stances.

(emphases mine)

No, really, my question was serious. Where does stalking and threatening to rape a 15- and a 6-year old fit into your god's plan? Is that something you picked up in Sunday School? Also, shouldn't part of "accept[ing] you are a sinner" be trying to not sin? Or is sinning OK, as long as you have the self-awareness?

Maybe that's where we normal folks get it wrong. We don't have the temporary cleansing effect of confession, or the option to become "born again;" we just have to live with our consciences. Then again, we don't consider the filthy things we did to our S.O.s last night sins, so that's one less burden to carry.

Anyway, as we were discussing this over a hungover breakfast this morning, the thought that kept running through my head was "how didn't he, at some point in the 40-hour odyssey, realize what he's doing was wrong?" Being a "very conservative Christian" and all? Where was god, in all of this?

I mean, I understand a crime of passion. Not excuse it, mind you, a crime is still just that. But a flash of wrong-headed thinking, I get. If this were me (this guy lives about 40 miles away), I'd get half-way to Syracuse, and ask myself "did I bring enough diapers?" No... wait... scratch that. I'd ask myself "what the fuck are you doing?" Two hours, max. That's all it would take.

This is why the product you buy is cheap...

Yowza.

Of course, regulations can be ridiculous and overbearing.

But come on.

I guess anything that keeps taxes low is worth a few crippled and disfigured furriners.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lawsuits, baby. Lawsuits.

Possibly the most ridiculous thing I've read this week.

Well, what my friend Ari discovered is that some of the personal details listed on your Facebook profile aren't things that you listed, or things that you even knew were listed about you at all. In fact, they're details about your life that Facebook has decided to publish to the world on your behalf. In Ari's case, he found out that his Facebook profile reported that he had bought tickets to a movie the other night - it even listed which movie and the date and time he bought them (oops, and his boss thought he was working). Kind of creepy if you consider that Ari could have told his fiance that he was working late that night while Facebook said otherwise (he didn't, but I'm just saying). Or how about if Ari kept buying tickets to gay films, would that have been an interesting fact for Facebook readers to know about, let alone Ari's fiance? (Again, he hasn't... well I think he hasn't, maybe I need to check Ari's Facebook profile.) And God only knows if Facebook has similar info-sharing deals with Amazon or other book vendors. Buy any books lately on herbal remedies for cancer, AIDS, or any other disease? Or how about a book entitled "So you've had an affair" or "So you're gay" or "Coping with mental illness." Buy any sex toys or condoms online? You get the picture.

From what we've been able to glean, Facebook automatically opts its users in to this privacy-violating pyramid scheme and the only way you can get out of it is by visiting every single one of Facebook's corporate partners (whoever they are, we only know about Fandango at this point), and telling each and every one (if you can figure out where to tell them this) to stop publishing your private information on Facebook. God forbid that Facebook asked its members to opt in to this little scheme and/or gave its members a one-button opt-out rather than requiring them to visit every site on the Internet and search for the Facebook-privacy-violation-opt-out-button. And, even after you do that, it's still not clear if Fandango and others are still sharing your movie-going habits and other purchases with Facebook.