If Looks Could Kill - Graphic Art & Design

The ancient coelacanth fish was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs, a 4-foot, 110-pound fish… yet one was found ALIVE in Indonesia.

WTF do they do? They don’t release it, but keep it to ensure death. It lived 17 hours after being caught, instead of the 2 marine biologists would anticipate, further adding to how fucking amazing this very fish was.

Why would you snuff a rare creature? Surely more can be learned while it’s alive. It will eventually die, then you can study it more in depth.

However, in this case, I get the impression that it was more of a novelty, caught by a regular fisherman.

(Source)

Carter offered his harshest assessment for the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone.

“The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things in my opinion are quite disturbing,” Carter said. “As a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one.”

(Source) - Free signup required

The Bush administration’s response? To call Carter irrelevant. (Source)

This statement, from the jackass-in-chief’s ranch, is what’s irrelevant. How about an explanation, some answers, instead of a deflection?

I hardly think Carter’s irrelevant, when he is nobly combatting malaria and river blindness in Ethiopia. He’s contributing to the planet more than he destroys, which can’t be said for everyone. (Source)

Continuation of a prior post, here are some of the lesser known consequences, all broken down into succinct bulletpoints for those with limited attention spans.

How are we really affected?

• Soybean production could go up 15%
• Poison Ivy grows 2½ times faster
  • More potent skin irritant chemical
• Honeysuckle, woody vines and other hardier plants may run rampant
  • Could smother trees, even forests
• Flourishing Plants = Tons of Pollen
  • Antagonizing Allergy Sufferers and Asthmatics to entirely new levels
• Fewer frosts to kill off invasive species/pests
  • Mosquitoes
  • Rodents
  • Lice
  • Ticks
  • Fleas
• All Potential Transmitters of Infectious Disease:
  • SARS
  • Avian Flu
  • West Nile Virus

Source: Di Silvestro, Roger. “GLOBAL WARMING: COMING TO YOUR BACKYARD?.” National Wildlife 45.2 ([2007]): 14-17. Academic Search Premier. 11 February 2007. http ://search.ebscohost.com.

(Riddle of Epicurus)

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.

If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.

If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?

If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?

(Source)

—
…and on a similar note:

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
(To such heights of evil are men driven by religion.)
—LUCRETIUS, DE RERUM NATURA

“It is, after all, wholly man-made. And it does not have the confidence in its own various preachings even to allow coexistence between different faiths.”

Excerpt from ‘God is Not Great’

The article/book nails numerous fascinating and compelling concepts.

Even if you believe in the Jebus, it’s a great read, for surely you are secure in your beliefs. This would only serve to assist you in delving into it further, perhaps cement them.

I’ve got global warming on the brain, have just endured a semester-long exercise in discomfort that was a Speech class, where I spoke on this. Here are some things I found striking, from Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth:

• Over 650,000 years, the Earth has endured 7 ice ages and subsequent warming periods - the temperatures and carbon dioxide levels have NEVER been this high. What we are experiencing is NOT cyclical.
• Liken it to ice cubes melting in a glass of water. 1 cube melting is insignificant, but if several melt, your cup runneth over. With accelerated melting of glaciers, you’d better hope you’re not terribly attached to coastal cities or lower-lying areas!
• American cars are so piss-poor on emission standards that we cannot sell them to other countries because they have HIGHER STANDARDS than the US does
• A White House memo leaked reveals their strategy on Global Warming, and it is, “to reposition global warming as a theory, instead of a fact.” Well played, gentlemen! ;p

Rant on the vegetational & pestilence effects to follow. Also, were our “representatives” truly interested in our best interests, they could do so much by means of regulation.

In turn, the developments required could jump-start the economy - creating the means, advancing, enhancing, improving… Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be as personally lucrative to them or their corporate bedmates.

Sometimes this seems a preferable alternative to the bullshit that goes on, though of course it would be self-defeating. For someone as visually-stimulated as myself, this would be ghastly, though sometimes I would rather…

What has me agitated:

Blaming Video Games for Violence

Faith-based regulations passing

Lack of food-safety standards in China snuffing pets

Seeking a positive side… it spawned a painting.

See it larger in the Gallery and nab some Icons of it.