Pastor: Stay away from Facebook, married couples

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Michael

A nobody pastor from New Jersey has told married members of his congregation to stop using Facebook. He says the site too often leads to marital trouble.

‘I’ve been in extended counseling with couples with marital problems because of Facebook for the last year and a half.

‘What happens is someone from yesterday surfaces, it leads to conversations and there have been physical meet-ups. The temptation is just too great.’

It isn’t that surprising that religious leaders are struggling with change. It virtually always is religion that stands in the way or at least in opposition to progress. And every time, people eventually realize the strength of change and just brush past religion.

The fact is, Facebook is one of the most important creations of the past decade. It has contributed to the fundamental change in how we interact with each other, and I think it has done so for the overall good. While one of its drawbacks happens to be the use of the system by inept older people, this is also one of its strengths. But take note: when I say “older people”, I’m not simply referring to age. I’m talking about an “old person mindset”. That’s a mindset that dismisses new facts for old tradition. If anything does that, it’s religion. Facebook and other social media have the ability to bring people with old, obsolete perspectives into reality.

But two more points: First, it’s a load of garbage that this nobody has gotten so much attention. Provided that he has no formal training and is merely a Reverend goes to the point Gnu Atheists are always making: we give undue respect to people based upon religion. This guy appears to have absolutely no qualifications for giving marital advice any more than any random scrub does. I want a reason why I should listen to him, not an appeal to unearned respect.

Second, there’s a follow-up story about this nobody pastor.

The Rev. Cedric Miller didn’t need Facebook to be part of an extramarital affair. The pastor who banned Facebook had three-way sex affair.

Miller, 48, who gained national attention this week when he banned his church’s leadership from using Facebook because he said it is a portal to infidelity, had himself engaged in a three-way relationship with his wife and a man a decade ago, according to testimony he gave in a criminal case.

While entertaining, who gives a shit? If there’s anything I despise, it’s this persistent fallacy of dismissing arguments from people who are hypocritical. We have plenty of reasons to dismiss Miller’s points about Facebook. We don’t need to try to ignore his arguments by attacking him personally. Unless we have a reason to think he’s just making it all up and lying, Miller is irrelevant to the strength of the points being made.

Filed under: News, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The physics of how cats drink

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Michael

An unfunded, seemingly just-for-fun study of how cats drink was recently carried out. Results show that they only touch their the surface of their tongues to the water. They use inertia to bring the water into their mouths, closing their jaws before the counter-acting force of gravity takes hold. The rate at which cats lap matters, which is a testament to evolution, of course. Interestingly, one model the researchers used predicted that larger cats would lap at slower rates. It turns out that that is true. But what I find interesting is utilization of social tools by the researchers to find their results.

“It occurred to me that there were some interesting biophysics behind that process,” Stocker said.

So he borrowed a high-speed video camera from his lab and taped Cutta Cutta drinking. With several other curious researchers along for the ride, Stocker analyzed those videos, along with video collected from Zoo New England and YouTube.com videos of lions, tigers and other big cats drinking.

“It seems to be that this is the first study in Science that uses YouTube as part of the research,” Stocker said.

…

The model also allowed the researchers to predict that larger cats would need to lap slower to strike a balance between the inertia and gravity of the water picked up by their tongues. Sure enough, the videos showed that lions and tigers lap less than 2 times per second, about half the rate of domestic cats.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter…like it or not, they and their analogues are the future. (And personally, I like it.)

Filed under: Science | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The queen joins Facebook

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Michael

Facebook is one of the greatest tools with which the Internet Age has supplied us. One in every 14 people in the world use it; 90% of those in Indonesia have accounts. It is the reason I can talk about Mark Zuckerberg without linking to who he is. Facebook has become a part of life – whether young or old. And speaking of the latter, Queen Elizabeth has joined up.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth has joined Facebook, adding a presence on the world’s most popular social network to the royal family’s accounts on Twitter, photo-sharing site Flickr and YouTube.

The British monarchy’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/TheBritishMonarchy) does not allow users to “friend” the Queen or to send her messages, but offers updates on royal news and diary events.

By midday on Monday, a few hours after the page went live, 60,000 people had clicked to signal they liked it, meaning they will receive updates on the royal family’s activities in their Facebook news feeds.

The page does not display personal details such as the Queen’s relationship status, interests or political views.

Britain’s royal family prides itself on keeping up to date with new technologies.

I’m not sure the royal family can point to joining Facebook in 2010 and say they’re really on the technological ball, but I am glad to see more and more people joining the site.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

The dishonesty of the LePage campaign

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Michael

Paul LePage has been running a pretty shoddy campaign so far. Take his Facebook fan page, for instance. It has this disclaimer.

Paul LePage, Maine’s Next Governor is a fan page.

It was created by volunteer supporters of Paul LePage’s candidacy for Governor of Maine. For that reason, we cannot get into answering policy questions that get posted here.

Therefore, our rule on this page is to NOT respond to policy questions, but rather refer people to Paul LePage’s contact form on his official campaign website.

We do encourage discussion and debate by other fans, but ask that you refrain from vulgarity or other language that could be deemed offensive or demeaning to others. The page admins reserve the right to delete such posts, or posts that are unrelated to the content of this page (SPAM).

Thank you for your understanding on this issue.

Fans of Paul LePage, Maine’s Next Governor

As I’ve documented already, I’ve asked on creationist Paul LePage’s page why he wants to teach creationism in public schools. I originally blame him or his people for deleting my question and preventing me from posting any further. But according to this, these are just some random schmucks running a fan page, right? Oh, hang on.

Want to be a part of the success? Come join our team and help spread the message!

Simply drop us a line at any of the methods below:

* Paul’s campaign Twitter Page.
* Paul’s campaign Facebook Page.
* Call us at (207) 877-7616
* Email paul@lepage2010.com
* US Mail:
Committee To Elect Paul Lepage, Governor
c/o Rick Swanson Treasurer
P.O. Box 1788
Waterville, ME 04903

Guess where that link to “Paul’s campaign Facebook Page” links. Can you guess? That’s right – directly to the page that claims to have no affiliation with the actual campaign. (Here’s a screen shot in case they edit and deny all this.)

This is all just a big excuse to not be held responsible for anything. The LePage campaign wants to run an unofficial fan page so he doesn’t have to actually answer anything. Fortunately, my calls for people to continue asking LePage why he supports creationism has spilled over to Eliot Culter’s page.

Regina Karapetyan: So Mr. Cutler, I was going to vote for Paul LePage… But, I asked a simple question on his facebook page about his beliefs on whether creationism should be taught in public schools… well my post was deleted and I was removed from the fan page. I don’t believe that my question was rude or disrespectful in any way, I simply would have liked to know his view on the subject if the man is to be voted into office. I think the question should have been answered and left on the page but instead was deleted. So Eliot Cutler, what is your view of creationism being taught in public schools?

Regina happened to miss my question to Cutler earlier where he responded that he does not support teaching garbage to children. But something did come from this because an administrator from LePage’s officially unofficial fan page was lurking.

Aaron Prill: Regina that is not true. I am co-admin of Paul LePage’s facebook page and we don’t delete questions, and we definitely don’t remove people from the pag (it’s not even possible on pages). Paul LePage’s vision is a fiscal one for Maine to save our state from generational debt. He will bring fiscal responsibility and welfare reform to a state that needs both. Social issues like the one you mention are not even on the radar.

Lies, lies, and lies. After receiving a thorough shellacking, Aaron Prill eventually apologized.

Regina- let me first apologize for saying you weren’t being truthful. You are right on the ability to Remove people. I didn’t notice the “X” next to people’s names that does allow them to be removed. I am in fact the creator of that page. I said co-admin just so it was clear I wasn’t the only admin. I am following up with the other co-admins now to find out what happened in your case.

Our rule on that page is to NOT respond to policy questions, but rather refer people to Paul LePage’s contact page on his website. This is because that page is a fan supported page created by a supporter (me) back in February, it is not run directly by the campaign… nor is it a place to discuss policy questions.

So, in short, what the admin should have done is explain the above policy to you and refer you to the campaign website. If we got into debates on every issue, then that wouldn’t be a “fan” page now would it? Other fans are allowed to respond to people when they ask questions like yours, but the admins typically don’t.

Again- I’m sorry you (or anyone) was removed, and you are welcome back anytime…

I’ve since sent a private message to Aaron telling him that I was also banned from the page. I really hope he does fix the LePage campaign’s unofficial officially unofficial official error because someone has been answering policy questions over there ever since one of my reader’s asked why LePage supports teaching creationism.

He just thinks knowledge is a good thing, the more knowledge you have, the better off you are. And he has alread said that school curriculum should be decided on the local level, local school boards should be deciding what they want taught in their schools.

Why, Michael, you say, that is but one random fan! Yes, yes, it is. Well, sort of. It’s hard to say she’s random when her name is Lauren LePage. I’ve been unable to confirm any details, but it appears this is Paul LePage’s daughter. And lo, she is answering policy questions without being deleted. Hell, my question was deleted within 4 hours. And that wasn’t even a violation of the officially unofficial official unofficially official fan page policy.

Oh. And Eliot Cutler responds on his fan page routinely. It isn’t a violation to state a candidate’s policy positions – especially when that candidate lists the fan page as his own.

Thanks to Dave for much of the information here.

Filed under: Creationism | Tagged: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Facebook caves to religious demands

Posted on May 31, 2010 by Michael

A short time ago there was a Facebook group which advocated drawing Mohammed. It was part of a larger project to bring home the point that nothing so silly should be held sacred. (And, in fact, nothing at all should be held sacred.) In response, Pakistan blocked Facebook. They were apparently outraged at all the depictions of their prophet child rapist. In response to that, Facebook caved.

“In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL,” said Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan’s information technology ministry, referring to the technical term for a Web page.

Facebook assured the Pakistani government that “nothing of this sort will happen in the future,” Malik said.

You got that, you 500 million Facebookers? You can communicate with your friends, family, co-workers; you can share ideas, links, videos, pictures; you can discuss politics, religion, philosophy, science; you can do it all! You just have to do it within a narrow framework which gives undue respect to a murderous, misogynistic religion that advocates dogma and ideology.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social, Religions | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

More Facebook lies

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Michael

Facebook’s failed privacy policies are an ongoing problem for the company. Now that blogs and other media have helped to bring attention to them, Facebook has taken to lying.

In an open letter published Monday in the Washington Post (whose chairman, Donald E. Graham, just so happens to sit on Facebook’s board of directors), Zuckerberg wrote that Facebook has been “growing quickly” and admitted that “sometimes we move too fast.”

“Many of you thought our controls were too complex,” Zuckerberg’s letter reads. “Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls” — uh, you can say that again — “but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark.”

Zuckerberg promised, in “coming weeks,” privacy controls that will be “much simpler to use” — including an “easy way to turn off all third-party services” that can access your account.

The concern is false. It’s a lie. The company is pretending like they’re going to vastly improve things – because any change sounds nice – but they’re going to make slight modifications which still favor the invasion of privacy by default. It may become easier to say “No, don’t take my private info”, but it’s going to remain necessary for people to go out of their way and do it. And that’s the complaint; Facebook just doesn’t get that people are mad because most users sign up with the presumption of default privacy.

Not that the owner, Zuckerberg, cares:

But Zuckerberg is also being dogged by an embarrassing IM thread from when he was a 19-year-old Harvard student, bragging that he’d gathered personal information from thousands of users for the nascent TheFacebook.com. “People just submitted it,” Zuckerberg messaged, “I don’t know why. They ‘trust me.’ Dumb [expletive].” (This comes via Silicon Alley Insider.)

Awesome.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Facebook’s continued failed privacy policies

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Michael

It’s long been known that Facebook is really bad with its privacy policies. Apparently they’ve forgotten about all the issues MySpace had with sex offenders finding whoever they wanted.

If you don’t spend your days glued to tech blogs, you might not know about the latest trend among hipster techies: quitting Facebook. These folks, including a bunch of Google engineers, are bailing out because Facebook just changed its rules so that much of your personal profile information, including where you work, what music you like, and where you went to school, now gets made public by default. Some info is even shared with companies that are special partners of Facebook, like Yelp, Pandora, and Microsoft. And while there are ways to dial back on some of this by tinkering with your privacy settings, it’s tricky to figure out—intentionally so, according to cynics.

The big-wigs are scampering to lie their asses off – to no one’s surprise – but this is all so obvious. Facebook wants to make more money, fuck its users, and fellate all the companies that are willing to give them money. They have no concern over privacy or the safety of its users. They want more money. That is it.

Filed under: Politics and Social | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

A quick quack reminder

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Michael

Every once in awhile I’ll get a notice from Facebook that some stupid shit got deleted for some stupid reason. In almost all cases, it comes back to Andreas Moritz (hi, Andy!*). He’s a quack. He wants money from sick people and that makes him a giant pile of shit. And just to compound the problem, he has no education in any science or medicine. (Hell, I doubt his education level exceeds the 9th or 10th grade. He’s a frackin’ moron.) And since he’s a greedy POS with no real education that takes advantages of the ill, I will sometimes reflect that on Facebook (though not as much as I do here). Recently, a few items were deleted from my Facebook fan page. Since there’s little rhyme or reason to which posts from here I stick up there, it’s nearly impossible to know just what was deleted; Facebook only told me “various posts”. I am, however, relatively sure that this one was deleted. I won’t know until they get back to me on my copyright appeal.

So since Moritz is actually thankful for all the attention I give him (which undermines his entire bullshit, charlatan threat of suing – because he’s just that smart), I thought I’d put out a reminder. And even if he isn’t the reason for the recent content issue, he’s still a greedy POS that takes advantage of sick people because he has no moral compass, so this is justified anyway.

*A double reminder: Moritz is obsessed with learning all about why he’s a quack, so he actually bothers to read FTSOS frequently, hence the greeting. Unfortunately, it’s likely he is seeking better ways of hiding his general evil from those he will harm with his ignorant, inane, sans all qualifications ‘advice’.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Dear Facebook

Posted on March 30, 2010 by Michael

Please stop spamming my email with new notifications about nothing. I’ve already told you I want nothing from you; don’t make me unsubscribe to every little thing because you hate your users, their privacy, and leaving people alone.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

This shit is why I hate Andreas Moritz

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Michael

Andreas Moritz, frequent reader and big fan of this blog, says some of the most vile things.

Many cancer patients have devoted their entire lives to helping and supporting others. Their selfless service can be very a noble quality, depending on the motivation behind it. If they sacrifice and neglect their own well being to avoid facing any shame, guilt or unworthiness within them, they are actually cutting off the very limb they are hanging on. They are ‘selflessly’ devoted to please others so that, in return, they may be loved and appreciated for their contributions. This, however, serves as an unconscious acknowledgment of not loving oneself. This may lock up unresolved issues, fears, and feelings of unworthiness in the cellular memory of organs and tissues in the body.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is one of the most basic requirements for curing cancer.

I despise Moritz’s blame-the-victim routine. “Don’t love yourself? Yeah, that’s probably why you have cancer. Oh, what? You feel worse? Well, buy my quacking bullshit. If it doesn’t work, that’s your fault, too.”

As DNA research has recently proved, you can literally alter your DNA’s genetic setting and behavior within a matter of a moment. Your DNA listens to every word you utter to yourself and it feels every emotion you experience. Moreover, it responds to all of them. You program yourself every second of the day, consciously and unconsciously.

Wow. That’s pretty hefty stuff. I’m sure Moritz can cite in what scientific paper he read this, right? I mean, what a survival mechanism this could be. And DNA listens?! Wowzie!

But I’m just kidding. Moritz has not the background to comprehend scientific papers. I’m sure he got his information from one of those real-medicine-is-evil networking sites that absolutely distorts every piece of information it presents.

If you choose to, you can rewrite the program in any way you want to, provided you are truly self-aware.

I’m not so sure Moritz actually knows what DNA is, how it works, or why he’s an idiot.

It is known that widows and people who are socially isolated, or have nobody to share their deepest feelings with, are the most prone to developing cancer.

Really? Old people are more prone to developing cancer? Oh, oh, oh. It isn’t that they’re old; it’s that they are sad. And, of course, they are sad because they aren’t buying this quack’s bullshit.

But I know, I know. I’m sort of assuming he’s doing this to make a buck. I mean, where has he said anything about giving him money? In fact, I made this entire post while reading what Moritz wrote (as opposed to reading the whole thing and then responding section by section). I obviously must have been going into his article with assumptions…

This is an extract from the book Timeless Secrets to Health and Rejuvenation, to order your own copy please click here.

Please share this knowledge with your friends by clicking on share and also connect with Andreas on his personal facebook page by clicking here .

The thing is, during the whole process of making this post, I was reading a paragraph, responding to particular bits, and then hoping the next section would be him asking for money just so I could point out his quackery a little more vividly. But now I’m ashamed. I mean, why was I was hoping? Aside from the displeasure of knowing people’s lives are at risk because of Moritz’s advertising, I should have been certain. This man is a pile of manure, a practitioner of malarkey. I should always know he’s going to attempt to swindle people.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , | 64 Comments »

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