Sick

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine... not entirely.

I know that Amsterdam is a place where you can be who you want to be. You can be gay and be happy. Or you can smoke all the pot you want and no policeman will bother you. But these bunch of asshats are pushing it too far.

Pedophiles here are organizing and forming their own political party, which will push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations from 16 years old to 12. Dude, I don't know what 12-year-olds are doing today but I'm nasty sure having sex with pervs as old as their grandfather is not in their to-do list.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said on its Web site it would be officially registered Wednesday, proclaiming: "We are going to shake The Hague awake!"
Their argument is that banning kids from having sex only make them curious. Yeah, well I'm curious as how you would look if I bloody carve your eyes out from your face. So let's lift the murder ban, too, while we're on the topic of releasing the evils inside Pandora's box.

One of the party's perv founders, Ad van den Berg, told local newpapers that the party wants to make pedophilia a subject for discussion. "We want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals!"

I've got news for you: YOU ARE!

Oh, these freaks of nature are also lobbying for the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, btw.

What are you doing to your children?

I Just Want A Phone

I currently own this Motorola cell phone with minimal features. Well, mainimal if you compare it to other more sophisticated models kids nowadays carry around.

Colored screen, browser, scheduler, camera. It lacks an mp3 player, or fm/am radio, no infrared, no bluetooth function, and whatever else manufacurers want to put into their products.

Still I rarely use those features. I don't use my phone to browse the Internet, I have my computer for that. I don't use the phone camera, I recently bought a decent digital camera with very good resolution. I don't use the scheduler because I'd rather write my schedules on a piece of paper.

I certaintly don't miss the radio or mp3 player, I have a boom box with a fine-sounding CD player. Nor the infrared and bluetooth because I don't use them.

I only needed a phone for chrissakes, one I can use to make a call and send text messages with occasionaly. Now there's the 3G technology. Frankly I'm not interested in seeing whom I'm talking to. I already know who they are most likely.

Cell phones are the biggest marketing scam of this generation. Trying to input all these innovations in one little gadget yet not giving us enough battery power is absurd. Consumers are the worse because we fall for it.

And not surprisingly, manufacturers find themselves entangled with all these product features that they have forgotten the very simple concept of usability. As CNN reported, cell phone makers find making their products simple & easy to use.

"(Consumers have) shown a growing frustration with how confusing those added features can be... That has providers working hard to make their devices easier to use -- fewer steps, brighter and less cluttered screens, different pricing strategies -- so consumers will not only use data functions more often but also be encouraged to buy additional ones."

I know going back to the basics will sound primitive to some, but many of us would rather that we have a choice between a basic phone and a communications-entertainment-gadget-rolled-into-one without the so-called techie trend watchers looking at us like we were trapped in a bomb shelter somewhere for 40 years.

One fellow confused cell phone user share this experience:

You would be amazed at how hard it was to convince the people at the cell phone store to get me a plain phone. Last November when I traded in my three-year-old Kyocera (an antique in cell phone terms), I looked all over the store for, as I told the salesman, a phone that just makes and receives calls and nothing else. You could practically hear his crest falling. He finally found a little Samsung model that had what I wanted -- nothing -- and when I told him to disable the text messaging reception, it looked like I told him that his dog had died.

Truth is if you have your phone leading multiple lives as a PDA, radio, mp3 player, camera, video players and all those whatnots, you're getting shortchanged. Because you're actually getting these features in small doses.

Therefore you don't get to enjoy them in full despite what those million dollar adverts tell you. You're only settling for style, what's hot in the market and what goes with your outfit.

When all you really need is a functional, sturdy phone.

Why, Lord, did you remain silent?!!!!

"OSWIECIM, Poland (AP) -- German-born Pope Benedict XVI, visiting Auschwitz as "a son of the German people," on Sunday denounced the "unprecedented mass crimes" of the Holocaust, and underlined the reality of Hitler's campaign to wipe out Europe's Jews.

"To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible -- and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a pope from Germany," he said.

"In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence," he said, "a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent?"" [CNN]

It wasn't God who remained silent while the Holocaust was happening. It was the Church who lost its tongue.

Adolf Hitler was a devout Catholic. Did the church speak out against these horrors while it was happening? Did the Pope release any defiance, outrage, or any statement against Hitler while he was executing his mission towards race and religious purity?

No, it wasn't God's act. It was the cruelty of men and the cowardice of others that is to blame for permitting the holocaust to happen.

PostScript on the DaVinci Code

I finally saw the film, a week after its release. I'm never one to go with the hype rushing to the theaters on the first day of big movie events. I hate the crowd. And yes most times I hate people.

Quite frankly, I don't know what the fuss was all about. All these nincompoops crying and demanding to ban the movie obviously have not even a slight inkling of what they're talking about. Watch the movie, then wail if you hate it.

If anything, I felt the movie was very cautious and apologetic. I read the book so I saw the stuff, big and small, that was changed for cinematic license. I know that in the book Robert Langdon was not cynical to the Holy Grail tale that was perpetuated by the book. In the film version, Langdon's character appear to be confused with the concept.

Then there was the line among the bishops: "You do know if the Vatican finds out about this, we will be excommunicated." Therefore, directly telling us that Rome had nothing to do with the conspiracies.

So where was the blasphemy? Oh yeah, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and they had possibly passionate sex resulting to an offspring. And a daughter at that. On this issue, Langdon himself put to words my sentiment: Why can't Jesus be a father and still do all those miracles?

What difference did it make that he was human who had carnal needs and still preached about loving thy neighbor and following God's commandments? And we're just in the argument of him being human.

What if God turns out to be a woman, a black guy, a gay man...or a giant ape? That doesn't change the fact that he's a genius who created all things with a grand design. That doesn't change the fact that he/she/it is this omnipotent being who created the whole universe.

So what is wrong with these people shoving down our throats their brand of morality and worship? The answer is they're just plain stupid.

Stupidity should be a mortal sin. Because God gave humans a superior brain, putting it to waste should be the highest form of blasphemy as far as I'm concerned.

I liked the movie, not because it was a masterpiece. Nor do I think it deserves any cinematic award. I like it simply because it makes us think.

Apparently, the stupid feels thinking is dangerous.

When The Pope Comes To Town

One sure way to take out all the fun in your town is to invite the Pope for a visit. The folks over at Warsaw are finding that out, understandably they're not so cool about it.

First a liquor ban was imposed. Then sexy advertisements were told to put some clothes on because Pope Benedict the sixteenth is coming to town.

As CNN reported:
"An eye-catching outdoor poster for an anti-cellulite cream was covered up after a conservative group in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country complained that the sight of a woman's bare backside and thigh was offensive.

Tabloid newspapers refrained from publishing their customary topless models on their back pages on Thursday, while Warsaw bars were either closed or served only low content beer."

And that's not all. Television ads were also censored during the period of his visit. Ads for alcohol were banned along with those for contraceptive, lingerie, and tampons.

Sure for a widely Catholic nation, the Pope coming is a big deal. Why, that's a "cute point" in heaven. You can tell St. Peter: "I came from Warsaw...you know two popes visited there! Wink-wink..."

However it's totally never cool when your whole town is sent back to the middle ages in a weird time warp.

Contraceptives?! Lingerie?! Tampons?! Is the Pope unable to handle even seeing or hearing about tampons on TV, especially considering that his Polish is not too advanced yet? Why do we need to cover up such things and pretend they don't exist at every opportunity?! As if he'll be watching TV to be offended anyway! One hot reaction says.

And considering he'll be staying in a convent, I'd assume they have pre-filtered channels on their TV programming, right? Or not? Just wondering, not implying anything.

But the weirdest thing for the Polish people, who suffered unspeakable devastation at the hand of the Nazis, is warmly welcoming a German Pope who was a confessed former Nazi fighter but now preach the message of love and peace.

From the same country that wrought such havoc and unspeakable horror now comes a peacemaker and beloved figure, worldwide, and in Poland, most Catholic of countries.

Yeah, well lest we forget, Hitler was a Catholic. So the Pope going there to appease his religion doesn't really do much for the real victims of Auschwitz.

For Sale: The Air We Breathe

A very strange sign of our times, indeed.

In Japan, consumers will soon be able to buy a product called O2 Supli. The product: canned oxygen.

It was reported that Japanese workers are so stressed out and not getting enough exercise because they spend almost all their working hours sitting in front of their computers.

"People are under a lot of stress and can't get much exercise, so they aren't getting enough oxygen," said Minoru Matsumoto, a spokesman for Seven & I Holdings Co Ltd, Seven-Eleven's parent company. [Reuters]

So they manufactured an oxygen in can instead of telling people to get a life. No wonder the suicide rate in the country is hitting the roof.

It was about 10 years ago when most of us found it ridiculous that water should be sold in bottles. Water is a natural resource that should be accessed free for all. Now it has become a multi-million dollar commodity.

Will the air that we breathe follow suit in the not so distant future?

It's Tom Hanks. Period.

The DaVinci Code heads to the movie theaters and the bull session heats up between the Catholic Church and, well, Catholics who never listen to them in the first place.

In the last few weeks, there have been talks of a move to ban the movie. Yez the Vatican, which calls the movie blasphemous and full of bollocks, are calling its minions all over the world to boycott the film.

Opus Dei even went as far as demanding a disclaimer be put before the start of the movie, insisting what we already know: That it's a work of fiction. But director Ron Howard said No!

"Those characters in this work of fiction act and react on that premise. It's not theology. It's not history. To start off with a disclaimer ... spy thrillers don't start off with disclaimers." Howard says.

Problem is, when did majority of Catholics ever listened to them anyway? Ergo Catholic bosses are frustrated at their failed attempts to create boiling point indignation comparable to what The Satanic Verses and the Mohammed cartoons did for the Islam community. Or in recent filmmaking history, what The Passion of the Christ did to the Jews.

In fact, it won't be surprising if instead of a boycott, Catholics and Christians around the globe make the DaVinci Code one of the top blockbuster movies of the year.

I can give you some reasons:

1. It's a Tom Hanks movie. It's Tom, no one can resist that Mr. charming good boy appeal. Plus if it's a Tom Hanks movie, odds are it's something worth spending your money.

2. Christianity is a very diverse religion that most of its followers disagree on what it is and how to worship its god. Even Jesus will be confused if he were alive today, he'll probably break away and form a new religion.

3. Many Catholics don't like being told what to do. Blame it on the long history of the church's dubious historical and political manipulation, the Inquisition, the beheading of Gallileo, and many many more blunders on its part.

4. People love controversy and conspiracy theories. There's a whole cottage industry making money on outrageous conspiracies and we all like talking about them.

5. Sex sells. Did Jesus and Mary Magdalene got married and had a child? The idea of Jesus having sex is blasphemous for many conservative Christians. He was a 33-year-old Jewish man, he was famous and with superstar qualities. He was a MAN, of course he had sex at least once in his lifetime.

6. Did I mention this is a Tom Hanks movie?

The DaVinci Code has sparked our imagination and has made the image of Jesus more interesting and multi-dimensional.

The more the church calls for its boycott, the more attention it attracts. People would want to know what they're boycotting in the first place. And whether you agree with Dan Brown or not, too late. You already bought the book and made Brown millions more richer.

And lest we all forget, we will be watching a fictitious movie. It's not fact, it's a story. "It's a damn good story and a lot of fun.... That never hurts,” says Mr. Hanks himself.

So relax. See a movie.