In a big case of the "Ewwwww!"s, a 21 year-old woman fell asleep on a flight from Dallas to LA only to wake up and find a man masturbating beside her... and that's not the worst part. In embarrassment she turned to face the window and nervously ran her hand through her hair and found "a substantial amount of an extremely sticky substance in her hair".

Man, people are weird (him, not her). I assume his application into the ^{mile high club} will be rejected since I don't think flying solo qualifies. The conclusion: he was arrested. She's suing American Airlines. In other words, more of the same for America. And if this post made you squeamish, first my apologies, second the Globe & Mail has an article on everyday language pushing the envelope. I'm just trying to do my part.

"Personally I don't plan to see ROM's new dinosaur gallery. I believe that the age of dinosaurs was over at least 65 million years ago. The new dinosaur gallery consists of fossils which archaeologists dig out. It's like digging out someone's grave Would you like it after you died someone dug out your grave and put the bones in a museum so people could come to look at it. I believe we should study dinosaurs but not put them up on display. Next thing we know in the near future we might create replicas. What's gone is gone and it is not coming back?"

Wasam Arshad, Toronto
in response to the Toronto Star web forum question: "Are you planning to see the ROM's dinosaur gallery?"
Monday, December 17th, 2007

While there is little argument that violence against women is cruel, unnecessary and should be condemned, one should consider how that message is being presented. In the case of Marc Lépine, there is good evidence that he was psychotic, anti-social, traumatized, and by all accounts not a normal, functioning member of society. Beyond that, he was suicidal, and that was his primary motivation. So, what we have is a psychotic individual who chose a group he saw as the enemy and went to wipe some out before he took his own life.

Yet, somehow, these actions of a madman have come to serve as a memorial to all violence against women. The problem here is that this kind of mass killing is not representative of most violent attacks on women. In Canada, more violence done on women is from someone known to the women, and more often in immigrant couples (The Star). For this reason, using this massacre as a memorial raises problems:

The feminist movement is periodically criticized for appropriating the massacre as a symbol of male violence against women. For example, Charles Rackoff, a University of Toronto computer science professor, compared those organizing vigils marking the event to the Ku Klux Klan. "The point is to use the death of these people as an excuse to promote the feminist/extreme left-wing agenda", he wrote, adding that it is "no more justified" than the KKK using the "murder of a white person by a black person as an excuse to promote their agenda."^[44]

Less provocative critiques argue that Lépine was a "lone gunman" who does not represent men, and that violence against women is neither condoned nor encouraged officially or unofficially in western culture. In this perspective, feminist memorializing is considered socially divisive on the basis of gender and therefore harmful by bestowing guilt on all men, irrespective of individual propensity to violence against women.^{[4]
from Wikipedia}

As more and more disenfranchised youth in the United States (in particular) are plotting mass killings, there is certainly a need to address what societal problems are leading to this event. Mass killings by teenagers are no longer isolated incidents, but a growing problem. In contrast, the Montreal Massacre never became epidemic or repeated, for which we are grateful. This suggests that the mass killing of women is not a societal problem that needs fixing. The real problem occurs in homes, hidden from public view - instances where women are degraded, abused, beaten, or raped, and in extreme cases, murdered.

I think there is a place for discussion and action for violence against women - I don't think it's in the context of the actions of a psychotic killer. Maybe it's time to re-frame the issue?

Author's Edit: This National Post article says what I'm saying better than I do.

Comments and rebuttals welcome.

Halton regional police said the rampage started at about 8:45 p.m. Sunday, when a woman who was arguing with her 26-year-old boyfriend grabbed a samurai sword he had on display in his apartment and sliced him on the shoulder, arm and side of the head.

The man's brother, who was also in the apartment, ordered the woman to leave, and she complied.But that apparently did little to quell her fury.

Still wielding the sword, the woman then went to a gas station across the street and confronted a man — an off-duty firefighter — who was filling up his vehicle.
from: globeandmail.com

This is both terrible and strangely amusing. You can almost hear the story told at the bar to his friends, "So, my ex-girlfriend is a crazed samurai ninja that duels with firefighters at gas stations. Too bad about the crazed part."

I always thought a samurai sword would be a great thing to have hanging on the wall in case of self-defense and home invasion. Now, I'm not so sure.

Limbo, the state between heaven and hell where almost eight centuries of traditional Roman Catholic teaching consigned the virtuous but unbaptized, is expected to be abandoned soon by Pope Benedict XVI.

The only one entitled to sanction the limbo’s abolition, the Pope has blessed a 41-page report of the International Theological Commission, titled, "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized."

An advisory body to the Vatican, the 30-member commission concluded that the concept of limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation."

"There is greater theological awareness today that God is merciful and wants all human beings to be saved. Grace has priority over sin, and the exclusion of innocent babies from heaven does not seem to reflect Christ's special love for the little ones," the report, posted on the Catholic News Service Web site, said.

Augustine’s view was based on the assumption that only baptism removes the stain of original sin ­— which all children are born with. Thus, unbaptized babies would simply go to hell, though their punishment would be the mildest of all.

...Forty-five years ago, 12-year-old Frank Colgoni built a plastic model of one, which earned him first prize in a model contest. Today, he's finishing up a full-size one that, in honour of the Deuce's anniversary, will lead a caravan of hot rods from Toronto to Victoria, B.C. this July.

"The tour sprang out of the car," says Colgoni, a Markham-based Web designer whose popular hobbyists' site, CanadianRodder.com, was originally set up to hone his computer skills. "I wanted to build a car to drive this summer to an event in Victoria called Northwest Deuce Day, which is being promoted by a friend of mine...

Toronto Star; April 7th, 2007

Normally he has a top of a head

If you don't feel like clicking the BBC News link above, here's the list of top films according to SFX readers:

1. Serenity

2. Star Wars

3. Blade Runner

4. Planet of the Apes

5. The Matrix

6. Alien

7. Forbidden Planet

8. 2001: A Space Odyssey

9. The Terminator

10. Back to the Future

If you were to ask me, my personal favourite would be No. 6 on the list. Serenity has a special place in my heart, and Lucas created a universe and mythos which has had incredible influence on everything after it - but Alien, to me, is the best made film of the bunch. (2001, while amazing - is science fiction in setting only - it's hard to judge it on the same merits as these other films)

*reflecting, perhaps, the problem with informal polls of closed member groups. The Beeb website has Star Wars leading, as you might expect amongst the general populace.

"While fraternity members were eating in the dining room, a woman entered the house's living room, took off her clothes and started masturbating, said LSA junior Dan Nye, the president of the Washtenaw Avenue fraternity...

...Fraternity members asked the woman to leave the house, but she refused and continued masturbating for about half an hour, Nye said...

...She walked out of the front door wearing only a thigh-length black coat after a fraternity member called the police, Nye said. When police arrived minutes later, the woman had already left."

Michigan Daily News through YesButNoButYes

Having a blog and writing about things is a great excuse to look up pictures of TV babes.
(and you can't complain, girls, because we know that girls like to look at pictures of hot chicks too.)