I kid you not. At the Progressive Universal Life Church (PULC) you can become an “ordained” minister with the “legal right to use the title ‘Reverend’” for a “small loving offering of only $19.50.” With this degree you are supposedly authorized to preform all functions including marriages, baptisms, funerals, and services.

So what does this “church” believe? “[The PULC wants] to help you reach your full potential in life. [They] want to help you become all God meant you to be. [They] want to help you achieve wholeness!” Ironically, they say that this church stands for “religious freedom.” “The freedom for each and every person to believe as they choose and the right to express that belief–so long as it harms no other.” The stated doctrine of the church is: “every man and woman has the right to determine what is right for themselves.”

BUT WAIT!!! (I’m not making this up.) “For a limited time only, we are offering our Doctorate courses for an unbelievably small donation… ACT NOW! You are guaranteed to pass all courses.” Here is a list of the available doctoral programs that upon completion, you “have the legal right to be known as ‘doctor’.” Ahh no, in the US, only medical doctors (allo and osteopathic) are legally titled Dr.

A common theme reverberating throughout the PULC’s webpages is the allure of obtaining wealth. This is on the page regarding the ministerial license: “As a point of passing, thousands of Ministers have become enormously wealthy performing simple religious ceremonies.” Wow, enormously wealthy. This is the kind of religion that I want to join! I not only will get a certificate of ordination printed on high quality paper perfect for hanging in a very visible spot in the house, but I will also be making upwards of “$500 for performing a simple ceremony”!

I put this under the category of “funny” because that is exactly what it is. This is a company with the sole purpose of making money. I find it hard to believe that donations to it are tax-deductible. They do not talk about worshipping God and only use the name of God when referring to how He can help us. The few quotes from the Christian Bible that they use are there only to motivate the reader to buy into the scheme. However, they are definitely not a Christian church…there is not one mention of Jesus anywhere on the site.

Sadly, I heard about this company on a blog that I read occasionally on Google Reader. This guy had actually gotten married by the PULC and then went on to become a “minister” himself. Some of the stuff that he writes is pretty interesting, but I’m not so sure about him now…

To read more about this “religion” and other strange ones, visit Breakaway Beliefs: That Old-Time Religion is So Passe

Found this article on ESPN.com today. It is called “Could Roddick beat an average player with a frying pan?”

Andy Roddick is a 25-year-old professional tennis player with 23 ATP titles to his credit, including the 2003 U.S. Open. Having spent his entire childhood training on the tennis court, sometimes for as many as 10 hours a day, he now has the ability to strike shots at speeds and with a level of accuracy that are almost impossible to comprehend. Andy has hit the fastest serve ever recorded, at 155 mph. If you had never played tennis before and hit with Andy, you would immediately understand that you were dealing with an incredible athlete. You wouldn’t win a point and would possibly get injured by one of his serves.

I play tennis, too! While Roddick was the world’s No. 1 player, I made it to No. 2 on my high school team the season I played. Like Roddick, I can hit all of the shots. Unlike Andy, I can’t hit any of them particularly well or with any kind of power or placement. I hit my first serve around 105 mph, which is slower than his second serve, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of action Andy’s ball does. I pray to God the first one goes in, because if it doesn’t, I could easily double fault.

The best way to make the comparison is to say that there’s no comparison. Roddick spends his time plowing through opponents in major tournaments, while I spend too much time on my couch watching him do so. Still, like Roddick, I am a tennis player and a competitive guy, so although I never had the dedication or the talent to play at his level, I wanted to know what a win over a player as great as he is felt like. In my heart I knew that I had what it took to beat him. I just had to figure out an unfair way to do it.

As to how unfair, well, that would take some thought. While someone with no tennis experience would not win a point from Andy in a set, I probably wouldn’t have a prayer of winning more than a point or two either. This is, in part, because I’m not that good, but also because the difference between a recreational player and an actual pro might be greater in tennis than in any other sport.

The story continues and is a very entertaining read. The story is actually an excerpt from Todd Gallagher’s book “Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan — Taking the Field with Pro Athletes and Olympic Legends to Answer Sports Fans’ Burning Questions.”

One of the comments at the end of the story is this: “No one on my college team could break into triple figures on a serve…..Todd, there is no way you serve 105 when Federer first serve average was 119 in US Open final…..but nevertheless, a very entertaining article.”

I don’t know where he went to college, but I’m not a Divison 1A college-level player and I can serve a 105 mph serve, though, not super consistently like any professional or college player could.

The Panflute Flowchart was “borrowed” from Toothpaste for Dinner. This site claims to be “The most addictive comic on the web.”

San Francisco is considering a facility like Vancouver’s InSite program. Vancouver’s program, “[is], exempt from federal drug laws so users can visit without fear of arrest, has 12 private booths where addicts inject drugs such as heroin, cocaine or crystal. They can use equipment and techniques provided by the staff, and then relax with a cup of coffee or get medical attention in the ‘chill out’ room where they are observed, said program coordinator Sarah Evans.” Addicts would be able to “shoot up heroin, cocaine and other drugs under the supervision of nurses.” (Continue reading…)

There does appear to be some promising results that show that Vancouver’s site may in fact be increasing the amount of people seeking drug treatment while decreasing drug-related crime.

My gut instinct was “what a waste of taxpayer dollars!” Why would anyone think that giving people the right to take illegal drugs and then expect nurses to care for them is an appropriate thing to do? Part of me feels that they screwed up their life and should have to deal with the consequences. Society shouldn’t have to pay to provide care for the people that abuse the system. It just doesn’t seem right. And I, for one, would sure as heck not want such a site anywhere near where I live. I guess, though, that in some parts of the country/world, it would be much better to have a safe area for drug users to take their drugs than have the whole neighborhood “shot to pieces” by a bunch of homeless HCV+ men walking around tossing contaminated needles all over the place. This way the homeless men get their place to stay (hey, why not allow them to sleep there too; it would keep them off the streets) and the city can keep the streets safe. I thought the section about using equipment and techniques provided by the staff especially funny. And then the fact that they can get a cup of coffee while they are “chilling out” even more ludicrous.

On the other hand, we are spending a lot of money on the “war on drugs.” And, without spending much time researching the issue, it seems that much of the reason for drug trafficking into the US is an economic issue. The street drugs that a minority of the citizens want is illegal. It is this very illegality that makes it expensive to run the operations necessary to covertly bring them into the US. The more difficult it is to bring the drugs into the US, the more the drug dealers can charge the end users. This results in more profits for the people that finance the drug trafficking business and more of a financial hardship on the users of the drug. Also, the drug money leaves the general economy and does not get taxed. If the US were to end its war on drugs, the profit incentive for bringing drugs into the US might decrease, forcing drug dealers out of business. The drugs would become relatively “cheap” and the incentive to bring them to the US would go down. Hopefully this would result in less drugs coming to the US and then less people starting or continuing to use them.

I do worry that if this were to happen then people may begin experimenting with drugs because a) they are no longer illegal, and b) the drugs are more affordable. I personally would have no inclination to begin using drugs because I understand the neurochemical long-term damage they can cause. (And I don’t need drugs to help me have fun in my life.) I also find smoking to be a horrible thing and despite it being legal, tend to stay as far away from it as possible. Just because it is legal doesn’t make it safe. Part of me doesn’t want the government to interfere with our lives. Yet, banning smoking in public places would go a long way to protecting my right to have a safe and clean environment.

It will be interesting to see how or if the San Francisco facility will go. After thinking through it, I kind of hope it does go through so that the Freakonomics guys will be able to analyze it. Maybe the government could even use its buying power to purchase drugs in bulk at less than cost for the users of this facility. Do you think that would work??

A friend of a friend (OK, so this is probably just a joke…) is entering Australia for an extended work contract, and the immigration official asks him if he has ever been convicted of a crime in his country of origin. He replied, “I didn’t realize that was still a requirement for entry.”

Bill Gates Denied Visa To Nigeria

Interesting story about a person who scams an Ebay scammer.

A compilation of clips submitted by Gmail fans as part of our collaborative video project. Selected from over 1,100 clips from fans in more than 65 countries. Learn more at http://mail.google.com/mvideo

This was very well done!

Not that I look at all the spam I get, but I do like to occasionally look to see if the amount is abating or to see the email addresses that are receiving the spam. Just recently I started to get some really strange ones. In order to try and bypass spam filters, spammers are attempting to mask the spam with pictures, crazy spellings, “hidden” poetry or meaningless phrases, etc. It seems the more they try to obscure the fact that it is spam, the harder it gets to actually attempt to understand what they are selling. The latest spam was sent to one of my email aliases. Why anyone would buy the stock this guy is pumping, I have no idea.

R’umor N.e.w’s+:

Onco-*logy M,e+d+. I.n.c_. (OT C: ON CO) a Can cer Tr.,eatment Solutio+n’s Gro_up is s a.i.d to h a+v-e
ex-per’ienced o*v,e-r a 1*000% in crea.se in re,ven.ues f,o+r t*h_e fi.scal 3_r+d quar’ter end.ing J’u*l-y-,

2.0+0.7 comp are*d w_i+t.h t.h*e p,rior y e_a r w+hile fisc*al fou*rth quart*er r*esults f+o*r 2 0*0-7 a r,e on
t*rack to e’xceed t_h+i’s yea+r’s t_hird q’uarter result’s.

O-N+C,O a_ddi’tionally plan s to incre-’ase serv.ice offe.ring_s whi’ch a-r’e cur*.rently underway +.
Do*n’t w a i,t f.o’r t+h’e n_e-w’s to c+o-m-e o.u-t a+n_d l_o_s_e t*h-e opport_un,ity to g*e,t in fr_ont of the

g eneral inve_s.ting publ’ic. On’colog-y M e’d is in a mu-ltibilli+on do*llar in.du’stry w_h_e_r+e

t-h+e y a r*e g aining mar-ket sha+re rapidly*.

C,a l’l y+o,u r brok,er n’o w f_o-r O+N.C O*.

I’ve received this email multiple times with these subjects: nglawyer; avedevir (Google search brings up some strange sites full of random text); ergytihw; and tsetuats.

If you work really hard you can just barely read about the stock.

Homeopathy is a controversial form of alternative medicine that aims to treat “like with like”. Substances that cause symptoms similar to the disease in large quantities are heavily diluted, with shaking at each stage of the dilution. Homeopaths contend that the shaking causes some imprint (or memory) of the diluted substance, despite the fact that at many common homeopathic dilutions, no molecules of the original substance are likely to remain. Homeopathy is based on a vitalist world view, which sees the underlying causes of sickness as imbalances in a hypothetical vital force and claims that homeopathic treatment can harmonize and re-balance the vital force in the body, so restoring health, which is unsupported by modern biology or medicine.

Source: Wikipedia

Disclaimer: I am a student of allopathic medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. (The allopathic doctor is an MD, while a similar legally-recognized medical doctor of osteopathy receives a DO.) Since allopathic medicine is a term for scientific, research-based orthodox medicine, I am inherently biased against “medicine” that does not have a scientific basis.

Article that got me started reading about homeopathy: Diluting the scientific method: Ars looks at homeopathy

Homeopathy “works” in the sense that it won’t hurt you (unless it limits access to necessary medicine or treatment) since you are drinking pure water as a cure and its “official” recognition in the past (and surprisingly even today) offers a strong placebo effect. When homeopathy became popular, the other main medical treatment was bloodletting. It makes sense that drinking pure water would be more beneficial than bloodletting in most cases. Homeopaths believe that “like cures like.” Therefore, they find a chemical that is felt to cause the illness and then dilute it in water. They feel that the greater the dilution, the greater the benefit of the chemical. So, substances in strong concentrations are bad, while the more highly diluted a substance is, the better it is for you. (Arndt-Schulz rule) The funny part is that the dilutions are so great that it is impossible (with today’s technology) to detect any trace of the substance in the water. Homeopaths claim that the shaking after each dilution imparts the substance’s properties into the water. The water supposedly retains a memory of the substance and this is how the medication works. “Water memory” is shown in the second video below to be false. You’ll also see in the video that the “weaker” dilutions are so great that it is equivalent to adding one drop of the substance to all the oceans of the world. The “Homeopathy Explained” video explains it with an even more incredible analogy. How anyone can believe this I don’t know…
Read the rest of this entry »

Since I haven’t written in awhile, I thought that I’d advertise my brother’s blog. He’s really creative so much of his blog posts involve art or music. His description of the blog sums up what you’ll find:

This blog has no real purpose and it is doubtful that a real purpose will ever be stumbled upon. Un-arguably the greatest achievement of this blog is existing— and its second greatest achievement is containing a post detailing its purpose (none, as stated previously). Further, in the case that a purpose is ever found, it is likely to be a poor one characterized by a focus on celebrity gossip, cute purse-sized dogs, and an almost suspicious obsession with the price of crude oil.

I’m disappointed about his blogging effort in that I have yet to see a reference or at least an allusion to the Britney Spears VMA fiasco (celebrity gossip), a review of the GiGi Olivia Purse Style Small Dog Carrier (thanks Google!) (cute purse-sized dogs), or any commentary about how oil has peaked over $80 a barrel (obsession with the price of crude oil). And since he doesn’t own any oil-related stocks I don’t see what is holding him back…it’s not as if he is scared to disclose any financial ties.

A positive thing is that he does link to my frequently updated blog at the top of his links section. For those of you wondering why entries mysteriously appeared overnight from throughout the summer, are you sure you have been reading my blog carefully? Granted, it does appear as if I added entries retrospectively via clever post timestamp changing. However, I have a feeling that if you go to my blog in that tab you always have open and click “refresh,” the old posts that you missed will load right up. They must have been there all the time!