Cliff's blog: "Cliff's SYDN"

In America we live in fear of death, thinking that we should never even think of such events happening in our life, and when it happens we don't look close enough at what the corporations are doing to us. Let's take a look at what awaits everyone down the road of life. In the 1900's American families had a very special room in their house used only for very special occasions. The room was called the 'parlor'. It was also the place where, if someone had died, the family would place the body of their loved one. They would lay him out and clean him up, giving him enough time to alert people if he wasn't really dead. This brought death into a natural light, people accepted it for what it was. Then, in 1910, fashion magazines deemed it a gross and (even worse) old tradition. The American public jumped on the bandwagon and turned their 'parlors' into 'living rooms'. Isn't that a huge 'fuck you' to the dead? The living room was a place to relax, and the tradition of taking care of your own dead fell out of the household. It was thrust into the hands of funeral homes. Right now in America, the average funeral costs $10,000 because of this industry. Not to mention that the funeral business takes in $25,000,000,000 a YEAR! How? They rip off nearly every family! You see, they know we make bad decisions when we're emotional (just like when we're horny) and exploit it. Let's look at the three biggest procedures that could be chosen for our loved ones. Let's start with Cremation. This procedure requires the body to be burned and placed into a container for the grieving. The problem with this is that laws require the body to be in a container before it's burned up. So you're paying to burn up a useless container along with a body. The container can start at $55 (cardboard) and go up to $1,400 (wood). Not to mention that the cremators are usally paid minimum wage and that there is no possible way to see if you are getting the actual ashes of your loved one. Now for the biggest choice in the world. Burial. Funeral homes offer a wide range of caskets, targeted towards the grieving family. It's horribly unfair to ask someone if they'd like the 'Standard' or the 'Eternal Love' casket. Not to mention that these caskets are almost always marked up by at least 30 percent. Another horrible item that they sell (besides containers for trinkets in coffins, paintings in coffins, thicker pillows/cushions in coffins) are gasket valves. This is how they sell them: The gasket valve keeps all moisture out of the coffin, the seal ensures that the body is never exposed to outside elements. True, but what does it hold in? See, when we decompose we let off gasses (I know, you see where this is going already) and these gasses cannot escape. Our body decomposes and what was once our arms and legs become a thick slime. Finally the pressure builds up so much that the gas makes the casket explode like a champagne bottle. Is this worth the extra $350? Finally, the big one. Are you afraid of death? Want to come back to life at a later date? Fine, we have Cryonics! The procedure is simple. You die, they freeze you, then thaw you at a later date. The problem? We have alot of proteins in us. When degeneration of protein sets in we get ice crystals in our protein to save it a bit longer (only if we undergo Cryonics) from complete destruction. When we're thawed, that protein liquifies and we become a thick mush. No chance of regeneration, just 'you soup'. The cost? $130,000-$150,000.....A YEAR! So if you truly want to have a great funeral remember that the funeral is for the grieving. Don't ask too much of them, let them grieve in the way that makes them feel better. Ask that the money that could be spent on flowers or other unnecessary items go to your loved ones or a charity. Ask that the coffin be cheap, since you won't feel it anyway. Infact, plan ahead before you die. Go shopping and compare prices, leave a web address to a cheap yet sturdy coffin. Or if you're planning for someone else, bring along an unemotional third party to help you select a coffin. The things you do with the one you love while they are alive matter so much more than what you buy them when they die. Hell, if you're lucky enough call your parents. If you can't call them, call your lover or friend over. Tell them that you love them, make them a snack, kiss them, hug them, or just talk with them. This will mean much more to them than any high priced coffin or urn. Remember that love is the best gift you can give, and that after death, material possesions don't mean shit. So go ahead, pick up that phone. Give them a call.

It seems that in this country we deem sex as an act that must wait for marriage and search for ways to make our children understand this. We pay for religious teachings that tell them that sex will send them to hell, teachers that tell them that sex is horrible outside of marriage, and a government system that claims it's unnatural.Could all of this be true? Now we must first understand that Abstinence is a very respectable achievement, it's not something to be looked down on nor something that should be made fun of. However, to think that those who are abstinent are above those who are sexual active is ignorant. Sex is a completely natural activity that many enjoy, yet many don't want them to do so. In America we spend $1 Billion dollars a year on Abstinence Only Education. However, the organizations that are supported by this money DO NOT teach children about birth control methods unless to state that 'Condoms are not 100 percent effective' without going on to state that they are 99.9 percent effective. They teach children that STD's are more dangerous today and that it's easier to catch them since so many more people have them today than they did in the 1950's. This is a complete lie. See, in the 1950's one out of every fourty-seven people were infected with an STD. Now, in 2000, one in ever four people are infected with an STD. Why the huge jump? Sex in the media? Looser morals? Nope, in the 1950's they didn't count Herpes as a STD. If they had it would be the exact same number as it is in 2000. But the schools teach children that condoms and birth control pills are basically ineffective. They teach them that everyone should have sex with only one other person after they get married. They teach them that masturbation is unhealthy and could lead to sex, and contrary to popular belief, only a small amount of people actually masturbate! The worst part? The government backs them up. In a 2004 pamphlet released from the United States government it was stated that "Sexual Activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects." Harmful PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL effects! I assume they want us to believe in the pamphlets they handed out in the 1950's that masturbation could kill you and make you go insane! Then they go on to state that on average people usually have sex with 2-3 people. Bullshit once again, since current studies have found (Kinsey Report 2004) that the average person will have 8.5 sexual partners in their lifetime. Back to the masturbation thing, almost everyone masturbates. The Kinsey Report states that 80 percent of women do it and that 90 percent of men do it (I think that they might be off by 19 percent for women and 9 percent for men). Infact, everyone should masturbate. Why? Masturbation has significant health benefits. It lessens menstration cramps, lessens stress, cleans the prostate, and more significantly: it's enjoyable! Infact, penetration has been found to help out public speaking! Harmful physical effects? Nope. But even worse, the teachers of this nonsense go against condoms since they could encourage sex, so they state that they don't prevent STDs. Incorrect. If you were to have sex with someone who is HIV positive you'd have a 1 in 500 chance to catch the disease, however with a condom you'd have a 1 in 500,000,000 chance to catch it! But the real reason Abstinence Only Education is taught in 35 percent of our public schools in the U.S.A is because of religious nutjobs who think that fucking will make God mad, so they make the children afraid of sex and try to make them pledge abstinence. Out of those children who do pledge abstinence, 88 percent break their pledge. What's worse? Out of those children 80 percent choose not to use a condom because they believe the lies the teachers spewed out. Do our children deserve this disrespect? Should we lie to them about something so natural? I believe not. Should we be paying our government to continue to spread this bullshit around the country? Hell no. I wish I could give you a simple statement about Abstinence Only Education, but I can't. However, I know who can! In the words of the multiple award-winning porno actress Flower Tucci*: "Abstinence Only Education is ignorant, people should be informed to make good, informed choices". I couldn't of said it better myself.

The Death Penalty is a tricky topic to go after. Before I start it I have to say that I have no idea how it must feel to have a loved one murdered. I pity anyone who has experienced this and can maybe understand feeling the same way about killing the bastard who did such a thing if I were in their shoes. Throughout America there is an ongoing controversy over the death penalty. Many believe that those who murder, rape, and abuse children deserve to be put to death. It is a very engrossing argument and one that I will avoid. The main question before going into this is whether or not you believe it is right to kill a human being? If you do, do you believe it is morally right to kill a human being if he is of no threat to you? It is a question of morals, and passion usually quells morals. In this society we have evolved our methods of killing these criminals to the point that we have reached the process of 'Lethal Injection'. The process involves four steps. First, the prisoner is strapped down and read his rites while getting stabbed with the first two needles. Two are needed for this second step since the first sometimes gets jammed up. These needles contain 500 milligrams of Sodium Thiopental. The second step is injecting the prisoner with this solution, which knocks him out cold for half a minute to a full minute. Immediately after this the injector injects the prisoner with 100 milligrams of Pancuronium Bromide, which cause paralysis and stops breathing. Finally, an injection of Potassium Chloride causes a mass cardiac arrest in the prisoner and he's finally deemed 'dead'. The problem with this lies in a study of executions found in the medical journal called The Lancet. They found that within 49 executions that 43 of the prisoners had lower doses of Sodium Thiopental than required by law, and that 21 of the prisoners were more than likely awake and concious. This means that they felt suffocation and their hearts stopping, creating a mass pain that they endured until their final moments. The worst part? They found that the method of lethal injection administered to humans failed to meet the standards of putting down animals! Fine, but they're gone now. This execution caused a deterrance in crimes, right? Wrong. In 1999 a study found that the murder rates in death penalty states were higher than those of non-death penalty states (5.5 in death penalty states, whereas it was 3.6 in non-death penalty states). Also, in 2004 they found basically the same thing! A rate of 5.1 compared to non-death penalty states murder rate of 2.9! Why did it have no deterrence? Because murder happens mainly for three personal gains. 1) Passion. This is when you come home and find your spouse sleeping with another person. In a fit of rage you grab a gun and shoot them both. Since you're filled with passionate rage you can't control your emotions and can't reason. That's why it's called 'losing it'. 2) Profit. This is for significant monetary gain, and most of these murderers are convinced that they'll never be caught. The examples for this would be a hitman or members of a mafia. and finally, 3) Compulsion. These are the sick bastards that are mentally unstable. Take the BTK killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy. They killed and then hid the bodies, knowing fully well that what they did was wrong, yet they weren't able to control it. So now we know that the deterrence factor is null for the vast majority of cases, so let's turn to the most abhorrent part of the death penalty. Information provided by the Death Penalty Information Center states that since 1973 there have been 121 people convicted of murder who were later released due to information showing their innocence. One such case was of Alan Gell, who was accused of murderand sentenced to death by lethal injection. He spent five years fighting for his life and finally got wide publicity when information that the people who had accused him were the actual murderers. With this information out the state looked into his case and asked for a retrial. This took two more years, and he was still on death row. What did the state find? On the day of the murder Alan Gell was already in jail because he hotwired a car. Infor-fucking-mation that could've been found within thirty minutes caused this man to be locked up for seven fucking years! Think about that! He's not the only one either! Remember that 121 were let off, imagine how many were too late to be saved. Killing a human being for any reason is wrong, but imagine having a man killed who is later found to be innocent. Not to mention that the whole system is mixed up. Take Gary Ridgway for instance. He killed 48 people and received life in prison, compared to David Hocker who killed one person and was executed a day after his trial. Oh yeah, I forgot. DAVID HOCKER WAS MENTALLY HANDICAPPED! He didn't understand what he did. I'm not saying we should let these people go, but don't kill them. Lock them up. Who cares if Tookey Williams wrote childrens books and issued an apology? He killed four people including a little girl. Don't kill him, but let him spend the rest of his life thinking about what he did just like the rest of the murderers. I know what some of you are thinking though. What about the cost? Well, statistically it costs two million dollars to execute one person when adding in all the expenses compared to the cost of life in prison, which is roughly 500 thousand dollars per person. A human being is a human being. Killing a human being is not morally right. Even if we agree that those who murder deserve to be murdered we fall into a dangerous setting. See, when that day comes when we know, without any doubt, that we sentenced an innocent man to death we will all become murderers. Until the day we know for sure that a man is guilty or innocent I plead that we stop this barbaric act. Let the sick bastards live locked behind bars for the rest of their lives away from the public. Thank you for your time.

Cute puppies and cuddly kittens gently snuggling in your bed gently licking you. Ah, how animals make even the meanest bastard turn into a light hearted little child. No wonder people want to protect them, they make great companions! They can be your best friend as a pet or your savior if you're blind. But is P.E.T.A. what everyone thinks it is? Founded in 1980 by President Ingrid Newkirk, The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals took off to become the largest animal rights organization in the world. They claim to be against anything that exploits animals and are willing to do whatever it takes to free the animals from such cruelty. They do this by charitable donations made by kind-hearted people around the world. The problem is that most of these people go against PETA's moral beliefs. See, PETA wants "total animal liberation" from the enslavement humanity put on it. Now that literally means that any animals in captivity (lions, bears, dogs, cats) would be set free in the world to live as they will. Before I go into that bullshit let me start things that PETA finds morally unacceptable that you probably have done in your lifetime. Have you ever fished? That's cruel and inhumane. How about going to a circus, a dog show, or riding a horse? You fucking scum! You're exploiting animals according to this group. But the big one....have you ever had an animal as a pet? Yes, PETA is even against pets, not to mention that they hate the cruel blind bastards who enslave seeing-eye dogs! But the big thing PETA stands up against is Animal Testing, claiming that any testing done on animals does not produce medical technology that can be used on humans. Then why are we doing it? I know, because they're full of shit. Since we implimented humane animal testing (mostly on rats) we have found vaccines for Anthrax, Chicken Pox, Cholera, Flu, Hepatitis A and B, Rabies, Measles, Mumps, and Small Pox. We've found medications such as Insulin, Penicillin, Pain Killers, Anti-inflammatory drugs, and even found Chemotherapy though use of animal testing. Let's not even mention the discovery of Pacemakers, Artificial limbs and organs, Angioplasty, and a multitude of transplants! If we didn't have animal testing we'd lose 90 percent of our medical research! But it's not like PETA can do something to stop this, right? Wrong. In 1992 Ingrid Newkird gave $45,300 to Rod Coronado after he firebombed an animal testing facility in Michigan. She went on to call him a 'fine young man' and give his father a $20,000 'loan' which he never had to pay back. When confronted with this allegation PETA stated that they neither agree nor disagree with violence, but meerly 'understand' it. When asked about animal tested medications and the like PETA claimed that it was 'an abhorrently cruel procedure that must end' and that anyone who used such animal tested derived materials were 'harming the animals'. Enter Mary Beth Sweetland. Mary Beth Sweetland was diagnosed with type II diabetes and injects doctor-approved and animal-tested medication known as Insulin. The problem? She's the Vice-President of PETA! That, my friends, is the definition of a hypocrit. This woman, who strictly claims that animal-testing must be stopped, is using the benefits of such testing to save herself. But now for the bombshell. Hidden away from the general public in a 2002 research of how the general publics money was spent is a sinister item. Way down at the bottom of the paper is a receipt for a walk-in freezer that cost $9,370. Now why would anyone have such a giant freezer? Two reasons. First, to store meat. Now we all know PETA wouldn't do that, but the second is what will break the hearts of many PETA supporters. Cadavers. That's when I found this quote on the PETA website.. "Sometimes the only kind option for some animals is to put them to sleep forever." This quote was taken from President Ingrid Newkirk, when she wasn't busy planning campaigns of handing out horrific comic books and trading cards to children or making short movies comparing the Holocaust to what happens on farms*. That's right, PETA kills animals. In 2002 we have found that 2103 animals were taken in and only 778 survived. PETA, in 2002, KILLED 1325 animals! Hopefully this has opened your eyes to the hypocracy that is PETA and will get you to find a much more caring Animal Rights Organization. Thank you for your time. * = PETA has been proud of their campaign of giving elementary school children comic books depicting their parents torturing and killing animals. On one such comic book, titled 'My Mommy Kills Animals', there is a picture of a sterotypical 1950's mother brutally stabbing a rabbit to death on a cutting board. They also spread exaggerated trading cards claiming that milk causes mucus to be created and showing a little boy with what appears to be half a gallon of snot dripping from his nose and mouth. This is the propoganda that they expose our innocent children to. Go online and search 'My mommy kills animals' or 'My daddy tortures animals' to see the horrific comics.

Today I'm going to tackle a topic I thought wouldn't need to be tackled, but it's come back into the mainstream in America. Psychics. Slyvia Brown, John Edwards, Peter Popoff....what do these people have in common? Well, first of all they all claim to be psychic. Also, they are all full of shit. In the 1930's a Duke University experiment gave the theory of ESP, or extrasensory perception, popularity and credibility by testing subjects with guessing the shapes on special playing cards. This led to the government allowing a study to be taken using tax payers money. For 27-29 years the CIA financially supported research of this psychic ability and cost us around 20 million dollars. The results: There was no psychic ability presented by ANYONE IN THE ALMOST 30 YEARS OF RESEARCH!!! Fine, we lost 20 million dollars as a society. Not that bad, except for the fact that it was complete bullshit. It didn't hurt anyone at all, just took money out of our pockets. So lets turn to psychics. In this day and age we are still using psychic detectives to solve crimes. Also, to this day, not one psychic has helped a case at all. Why would people offer help when they know they don't know anything? Simple. Financial gain. Imagine a father who just lost a child. A random 'psychic' comes up to him and claims that he has contacted his child and can provide information to where they are. The desperate father, like any good parent, agrees since he'd do anything to see them again and pays the psychic some money to conduct his 'research'. If they provide any facts that appear to be of help they are heralded in the media and can use this fame to sell books, videos, and other items. If they don't help at all they sink away with the money the father gave them. The worst part? The father was filled with false hope. Another form of psychic behavior would be the simple Tarot Card Reader. They look at the person they are 'reading' and determine what they are like in outside life. A business suit wearing man is obviously wealthy or overworked, thusfore the cards read the same thing. If the man is wearing welfare clothing and smelling of cheap whiskey then he must be down on his luck and looking for work, and behold! The cards say the same thing. Ofcourse the cards don't say a damn thing, it's all a matter of appearance's that brings the reader to falsify the card's message. What do these poor saps lose? Anywhere from 10 to 150 dollars a reading. Not a big deal. After all it's just a cheap gimmick to entertain, but the psychics would never admit that they are just reading your posture, attire, and behavior. That means that they are lying to you about their 'abilities' to scam money off of you. But the worst is also the least noticed. The psychics who can talk to the dead via telepathy. This includes the biggest douche of the universe (John Edwards) and an extremely disgusting asshole name Peter Popoff. Let's start with the most disgusting, shall we? Peter Popoff is a Christian Minister who gained popularity in the 1980's by correctly telling audience members their addresses and ailments without ever having met them before. Those who stop there would assume God was talking to him telepathically, which was untrue. Infact, his wife collected the information of audience members before the show and told her husband, via earpiece, about certain audience members during the live tapings. James Randi uncovered this by bringing a transmitter recorder to a presentation and discovering what was being said over the headpiece. One graphic and disgusting segment featured Popoff approaching an aging African American woman, this is what his wife said over the earpiece unedited.... "Now walk to the back. Yeah, see that big fat Nigger? Go over to her and keep your hands off those tits! I'm watching you Petey!" That's right. Sickening, isn't it? After the show Mr. Randi went to the back of the studio to the alleyway and saw men throwing cases of money and checks into the back of a van...but he also noticed them throwing some of them in the trash. Upon searching the dumpster he realized that these bags contained checks worth less than 5 dollars each. It seems it would've been too hard for Mr. Popoff to have his accountants write down the information for all of these checks so they were just thrown away. The fucker was hit hard when the footage, including the transmissions of his wife, were aired on the Johnny Carson Show but people continued to follow him. Ofcourse alot stopped their donations, which caused him to go bankrupt, but he came back on the scene by healing people from wheel chairs. They later discovered that these people could always walk. On to a lighter asshole, John Edwards. He claims to talk to the dead and have psychic abilities. The problem is that he actually believes this. See, anyone can be a psychic like Mr. Edwards. All they would have to do is master the art of cold reading (guessing and throwing out light information to receive bigger information from the audience...aka the Shotgun Effect) and hot reading (getting someone else to supply the information beforehand). I've done it on occasion as a cheap trick, but always admitted to its falsehood. The people who don't admit that it's a trick are doing serious damage by altering the memories the grieving have of the dead. This doesn't comfort the bereaved! It just provides false hope and depression when they later find out that it's all a lie. Back to televised psychics, one would wonder why they haven't been debunked by audiences yet. The fact of the matter is that any popular psychic requires his audience to sign a contract promising not to discuss any of the events taped to the media. Why? I think you know. Take Mr. Edwards for example. His live tapings last 2 or 3 hours each and the show on television is only 22 minutes long (excluding commercials from the 30 minute set-up). What does this allude to? I think you know already. The other reasonable questions are why such psychics can't just call out one name and point to one person. Are the dead busy doing something or having coughing fits that would cause the psychic to misunderstand them? No, it's all just a cheap marketing gimmick set to put asshole liars on television so they can go on to sell their asshole, full of shit books and bullshit videos or CDs. When Mr. Randi offered Mr. Edwards a chance to prove himself he responded with a letter that read 'I do not respond to criticism.' What do you have to hide, Mr. Edwards? Remember that you can't blame the victim, though! They want to believe so badly that they will take great chances to hear some sort of news from their loved ones who have passed on. The problem is that these 'psychic' assholes know that and exploit it for their own self-interests. Thank you for your time and I hope you enjoyed another installment of SYDN. ***For any psychic who disagrees with my assessment I offer you a chance to prove yourself to the world. Visit www.randi.org and take the challenge. No one will call you a liar and you'll walk away with a clean million dollars. If you don't need the money than you can donate it to charity. I will then offer a full apology and delete this blog, leaving only the official unchanged apology in its place

In our society today we are threatened with the destruction of traditional families constantly. Politicians and Conservatives are quick to warn us of the woes that will fall upon our society if we were to allow swinging couples or, even worse, homosexuals from marrying. People claim that allowing homosexuals to marry will permit people to start marrying animals, and how it would affect the well-being of such children that live with such person. However, are these threats even logical? The first claim, of the destruction of the traditional marriage, is quite odd as seeing that traditional marriages are…..well, not traditional. We are constantly evolving our ways of living with people. The most historically common marriage system involved one man marrying multiple women. These women had little to no power and were mainly used as sexual gratifiers, house cleaners, cooks, and people responsible for the upbringing of the children. However, we cut through this 'traditional' marriage and settled upon one man and one woman and deemed it more 'moral'. That's right, we deemed monogamy (which is quite non-traditional AND unnatural) as morally right and the only way to keep a happy and healthy family together. This new system of marriage was still flawed in our current views since the parents of the child would deem who the child would marry when they grew up, mainly to gain political or financial power to their family unit. One thing didn't change though; homosexuals were deemed second class citizens and were unable to get married. Today we are faced with the challenging question (well, challenging to some) that makes us decide whether we will allow homosexuals to get married. Multiple conservative 'studies' have been produced showing the harm of such events, but actual scientists are quick to debunk their nonsense. Here are a handful of the thoughts…. 1) Homosexuals will raise homosexual children. This is just ridiculous, study after study shows that homosexuals raise children who grow up with their own personal sexual preferences. Just because homosexuals raise the child doesn't mean they will indoctrinate him into a gay lifestyle. 2) Homosexuals are an affront to the Christian marriage system. Quite simply, who cares? We now know that a stunning 50 percent of marriages end in divorce. Even without this knowledge we know that this country was not founded upon the Christian theology at all and that 'all men were created equal'. Imagine the argument of this being pointed out upon African Americans (as it has) and upon Atheists (which I assume it will eventually). 3) Homosexuals cannot provide a stable environment for the child since a mother figure or father figure is missing. Incorrect. Scientists debunked this one by finding that men actually have the tendency to share the same emotional characteristics of women, just as women can share the same emotional characteristics of men. Thus fore homosexuals can provide both role model figures as heterosexuals can. The only negative aspect of homosexuals raising children is the fact that they are exposed to bigotry at such and early age, and that comes from conservative heterosexuals and their children. No matter how badly the average theologian wants to use such arguments it is clearly shown that parents are parents. An 18 year study of 2000 homosexual couples raising children showed that they are 'average' parents. Not better, nor worse…just the same as heterosexuals. Then what fucks up children? Simple, bad parenting and authoritarian parenting…and heterosexuals have a bigger chance of falling into such techniques. Along side these arguments are the age old arguments about anal sex being unnatural, gays being sinners, and how if we'd allow gay marriage then we'd have no problem allowing people to marry animals. How odd this is to me, since I request facts for statements like these. Anal sex is not an unnatural way to have intercourse. Romans took advantage of the anal cavity for its ability to be a form of contraception. If you ejaculate inside the anus of a man or woman there is a very low chance of an unwanted pregnancy. This practice continued for years to come, and is still used to this very day. So we can safely say that anal sex is just as unnatural as masturbation (which too was fought against by the Christian movement of the 1900's). Prudeness is not something we should ascribe to deem as moral. Next is the thought that homosexuals, since they have homosexual sex, are sinners and are thusfore immoral. This is just ridiculous theological dribble and something that should be thrown out in a free society and ridiculed by the intellectual community. Christians, as it is well known, pick and choose what rules they derive from the Bible. Why not just choose not to pick this one? Perhaps because it gives a false sense of superiority? I do not know, but it matters not to me. Last, we see the slippery slope fallacy of the animal marriage becoming legal if homosexuals can marry. The oddity here is that there are actually organizations that will allow both of your pets to get married, such as what Pam Anderson has had done ( http://www.tv.com/story/576.html ). Think of how the average homosexual feels about such headlines. It's like some bigoted person saying 'Sorry faggot, you aren't even equal to an animal.' No outcry came from Pam Anderson having her two dogs married or from any other pet lover having their pets married. How can we, as a moral society, still view homosexuals as second class citizens? It makes absolutely no sense to me as how allowing two people of the same sex would actively affect a heterosexual couple's marriage. Perhaps one day we will grow and view homosexuals as equals, which will undoubtedly happen eventually. Hopefully we won't have to wait too long and that we won't adopt another minority as our cultures whipping boy.

On September 11, 2001 a terrible tragedy occurred. The World Trade Towers were destroyed and the Pentagon suffered terrible damage. Thousands of innocent people died in fear and pain, leaving their families mourning and devastated. But then something caught on in the internet community…proof that the government was behind it. Did our government destroy the World Trade Towers? Did our government kill thousands of innocent Americans to go to war? Were the towers planted with explosives? The battle cry goes out this very day is that 9/11 was 'an inside job'. Such sites as loosechange and 911truth claim this to be true and provide various 'facts' and 'proof' to back up their views. Some of the proof being offered is that the World Trade Towers fell due to controlled demolitions and that burning jet fuel could not at all create such a fall because steel melts at 2800 degrees Fahrenheit whereas Jet fuel burns at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. The question is: Is it true? No. See, when a demolition takes place the floors fall in one steady movement. This clearly didn't happen to the World Trade Towers because, with video reviewing, you can see that the area where the plane hit on both towers falls first, creating a tilt fall. The parts of the towers below the impact point do not fall until the higher floor fall onto them. This is not what happens when a building is demolished at all. Those who claim that it was rigged to fall this way are being psychotic. What are the chances that the bomb planters would know exactly where the plane would strike? Not only that, but the so-called Truth Movement claims the steel beams would've needed to melt to allow the buildings to fall. Not true at all. The fires in the towers were estimated at 1500-1900 degrees Fahrenheit. This doesn't touch the 2800 degree limit that steel has, but engineers estimate that steel loses 50% of its strength at 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and when temperatures reach 1800 degrees Fahrenheit steel loses 90% of its integrity. The unique structure of the towers, where support columns held up steel trusses, caused the fall. The trusses sagged and created stress upon the much weaker columns causing them to break off and release the floors of the tower. However some claim that there was melted steel at Ground Zero. These reports are all gathered from civilians, not engineers or anyone with a real education about metals. To most people grey molten liquid is obviously steel, but to engineers with knowledge of metals it could be various other metals. Contractors came forward to state that the molten liquid was indeed aluminum, not steel. As for the 'squibs' (explosive devices used to weaken building structure during demolition) that conspiracy theorists claim were used, this has been proven false as well by demolition experts. During the collapse there are blasts of smoke and debris ejected from the building due to pressure from the tons and tons of floors coming down. These blasts do not occur until after the towers begin falling and they even INCREASE in intensity as the collapse continues. This would not happen during a demolition. Infact, no seismic evidence of explosions were found by independent sources. How about the planes? Could NORAD of shot them down in time? Once again, no. NORAD wasn't even prepared to do so since they had only intercepted one plane during the decade before 9/11. From Popular Mechanics: "In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts." Notice that it took an hour and a half to get to the jet, and this jet still had it's transponder on. The planes that hit the towers turned off ALL transponders and radios, creating it to look like a small blip mixed with hundreds of other small blips on NORAD's screens. So what makes more sense? That the government, controlled by a C-student idiot, created the greatest cover-up known to man OR that a group of people bent on destroying a part of America, who have tried multiple times to do so, used their cunning to harm us? The fact that such websites spouting such dribble aren't censored should show that it's bullshit. Wouldn't the owners of the website mysteriously disappear? Wouldn't the lame conventions they throw be spied on so the government could effectively shut up these 'wise men'? Such is the idiocy of this conspiracy theory. Hopefully the real truth will be presented to people rather than the romantic thoughts of our government pulling off the greatest cover-up with arguably the worse president in charge.