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An exorcist should be called when "the moral certainty has been reached that the person is possessed", said Father Nanni, a member of the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints. That could be indicated by radical and disturbing changes in the person's behaviour and voice, or an ability to garble in foreign languages or nonsensical gibberish. Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron, scream, dribble and slobber, utter blasphemies and have to be physically restrained

Dear Vatican,
 
My child has autism. She puts stuff in his mouth - anything. Most of the time she just speaks gibberish but she also does the echolalia thing to the point some people think she speaks fluent Japanese! One day, after ingesting some shards of glass and pieces of iron, she threw them up and started dribbling and slobbering. I suppose she was in pain or perhaps just upset because she was screaming and uttering blasphemies too. This all happened at school and as she was uncontrollable, she was deemed to need to be physically restrained.

Should I call an excorcist?

Love,
H.

This is 4Chan made in China.... or dare I say ChinChan...

I think that'd be SiChan.

I don't know of any dialect where the number 4 translates to "Chin". Unless you are counting the chins on a really fat person....

damn it wrong link

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art2581.asp

People love to demonize parents for not getting involved in the lives of the children but when those children are outside of their control for eight hours a day what are they to do?

Homeschool.

Yeah, you're REALLY gonna need to cite that.

Are you REALLY that lazy, or do you just feel the need to feign ignorance?

I heard about it on TV, months ago, so I don't have a URL handy, but you know, the first handful of search results are perfectly good:

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art43105.asp
http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2003/05/06/breeding/index.html
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/parenting/children-do-not-make-couples-any-happier-1245184.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1941195/Marriage-without-children-the-key-to-bliss.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/143792

You may be happier for a few years, but if your last decades are spent wishing you had a family, are you really happier overall?

You're assuming you'll be wishing for a family if you don't have one. You're REALLY going to need to cite that!

How many people are on bad terms with their families? How many people raise children, only to have them turn out as selfish, sociopaths, criminals, etc.?

Raising children also happens to be an unimaginable amount of endless, thankless, work.

and as for "a reputable and verifiable source for everything you said."

So, you don't watch the news, Old people and young or "special" children are the number one customers.
http://media.www.dailyvidette.com/media/storage/paper420/news/2008/02/18/News/Nintendo.Wii.Used.For.Rehabilitation.Purposes.wiihab-3215373.shtml
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2007/02/nintendos-wii-in-nursing-home.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260990,00.html
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/23/nintendos-wii-a-hit-with-the-geriatric-set/
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art58580.asp
http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=65566
http://www.specialkids.com/my_weblog/2008/09/research-shows-rehabilitation-benefits-of-using-nintendo-wii.html
http://www.nypsystem.org/press/2008/04/st-marys-at-forefront-of-thera.html
https://www.mywii.com.au/NewsDetail.aspx?id=2150

In Ames, Iowa, it is still illegal for men to have 3 sips of beer while they are in bed with their wives

Moral issues aside, willfully engaging in behavior contrary to basic biological drives (reproduction) indicates something seriously wrong with an individual. It's a trait which, if present in all members of a species, would result in the death of said species very quickly. There are obviously benefits to marriage - if there weren't, homosexuals (presumably) wouldn't seek it. Given that marriage is an artificial construct created by society, why should society provide such advantages to behavior which it finds to be detrimental to it?

Wow. This is so ridiculous that I suspect you're trolling, but just in case somebody believes this stuff, let's try a few facts.

One, that something is natural does not make it right. Violence (in particular, male violence) is clearly natural; see Wrangham's Demonic Males for a good summary and pointers to the research. The next time I hear somebody spout the naturallistic fallacy at me, I'm going to give 'em one in the snoot. Pow! My anger will be entirely natural, so I'm sure they'll be fine with it.

Two, there appears to be no risk that everybody will suddenly turn gay and stop having kids if we allow civil unions, so the end-of-the-species argument makes no sense. Is the ability to get married all that keeps you chasing pussy? I hope not, but if so, find a therapist and ask about projection.

Third, if behavior contrary to basic biological drives indicates pathology, then you have much bigger problems than homosexuals. 98 percent of US women who have had sex have used contreception. And god knows how many people have had oral sex, gone on a diet, or worked third shift.

Fourth, if marriage without children is a problem, why not start with the straight childless couples? There are a lot more of them. And shouldn't you be a lot more worried about organizations that promote a child-free lifestyle for straights?

Fifth, homosexuals have kids. I know that fundies are often a little confused by this, but think of it this way: if artificial insemination was good enough for Baby Jesus, it can work for others. And gosh golly, some families with kids would like to get married. Why stop them?

"Would you help me cross the river?" The scorpion asks the turtle.

"Hop on!" Says the turtle generously, "but you have to promise not to sting me?"

"I promise." The scorpion declares.

He then hops on. The turtle swims across the river. Just as they get to the other bank the scorpion stings the turtle.

"Why did you do that?" Asks the turtle painfully right before he takes his last breath and sinks under the water.

"it is in my nature..." The scorpion answers. (copied from here)


Not long ago I worked for a company with a similar situation. We asked this brilliant coder why he left his last job. He very honestly answered that he was a drunk and it caused him not to be able to do his last job, but assured us he was getting help and now clean and sober.

A couple months later he was doing terrible work, and back drinking. We confronted him about it.

All he had to say was, "What'd you expect? I told you that I was a drunk.".

Forty-eight countries are publicly committed to the Coalition

countries? yes
public no.
most of the world does not approve of what the US is doing in the war against terror.

Read these news items. These are countries from the coalition. None had a public opinion that supported starting the war in Iraq.

Japan: 65% opposed
Britain: two-thirds opposed
Spain: 91% opposed
Hungary: 82% opposed
Poland: 63% opposed
Czech republic: 12% supports it
britain spain Japan Eastern Europe

While injecting aquarium fish to change their colours is not new, (as we see here) nor is breeding them into untenable forms, the direct genetic manipulation producing the glofish poses more far reaching concerns. Animal cruelty is a serious issue, don't get me wrong. I think that GMOs are far more of a threat. The company claims that the glofish will not harm animals that eat it, nor secrete into the water any harmful substances. Let's see the 10 year study.

One way would be to use the browser ID to add a little 'info' strip to the top of pages, specifically for IE users. It could be just a small one-line table at the top of pages -- maybe with a contrasting background to be noticeable, and say something like:

"Internet Explorer has several vulnerabilities that may allow others to take over your machine. You may want to apply fixes or try alternatives.

I can't find the link to the 'master list' of unpatched IE flaws, I had it bookmarked somewhere.. But I would imagine using the browser ID string the client sends to apache, this could be done in PHP or something similar. Yeah, it'd probably be a performance hit, but for anything but the biggest sites, it might work.

I've also noticed that some IE browsers appear to be sending the actual patch revision! Example:

217.81.215.xxx - - [06/Nov/2002:00:00:19 -0600] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 34629 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; QXW0339a; Q312461; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"

Q312461 leads us to a MS Knowledgebase

article. I've no idea what the QXW0339a is, though.

Interesting. So one could go so far as to take the patch version off the browser ID string, check it against a database of strings, and return a comment that mentions the serious vulnerabilities affecting that version. I'd be happy to just run something that added a small tagline to the top of pages for all IE browsers, though. The more sites that did something like this, the more the word would get out. I think it'd be productive. :)