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The End Not As Near As We Thought
HiyaPower writes: "According to recent calculations cited by this article in TheAge, the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong. It will expand, but due to the loss of solar
mass over time due to the conversion of mass into energy, the earth will spiral enough further away thus avoiding the fate of Venus and Mercury. Personally I find this a great relief, I had some long term plans that I had been putting off..."
This matters why? I mean, sure, they have to update the textbooks, but why is this worth researching, let alone newsworthy? Can this problem help us solve other problems that need to be solved?
Any astrophysicists mind?
-- Dan
This early post is dedicated to osm!
JON KATZ: PORTRAIT OF A PSYCHOPATH by osm
"mickey and mallory know the difference between right and wrong. they just don't give a damn." - steven wright, natural born killers.
jon katz. champion of the outcast teen. what has made him so sympathetic to the cause of the columbine killers? why has this event seemingly resonated so deeply within him? is jon just sympathetic to the life of the modern teen? or is there something more? something insidious?
these are the questions i've been asking myself as i've read katz's obsessive columbine writings. these were the questions i was asking myself as i sat mesmerized by my natalie portman poster. like a torrent of sudden rain, my spirit guides bombarded me with the heinous images of jon's life. i was so disturbed i could barely bring myself to write this.
jon was born and raised in a small, southwestern town. his father, carlito, was a mexican immigrant who worked for the department of transportation, building highways. his mother, juno, was a gypsy who earned money by performing card readings. the family made a comfortable living and jon was a happy, outgoing child, who even contributed to the family income by cleaning dog excrement from the neighborhood sidewalks.
carlito was a hard-worker. in fact, he worked too hard. one particularly hot, sunny day, he was overcome with heat exhaustion. the incident had changed carlito forever. the charming, jovial, caring carlito became a vile, egomaniacal, misogynist. carlito soon lost his job and spent the rest of his days lounging around the house.
the first incident of abuse happened when jon was but 6 years old. juno had lured a siamese cat into the house. she let the cat roam around until it was time for her to prepare it for the family's dinner. jon had just come home from a long day of sidewalk cleaning. carlito was laying on the couch with a 40 ounce schlitz. the putrid stench of dog manure flooded the house as jon closed the door. carlito was roused from his wrestling match. infuriated, he jumped off the couch, grabbing juno's cat by the tail. carlito stormed over to jon, who had backed himself into a corner. jon could do nothing but cry as carlito severely beat him with the screeching cat.
the more jon cried, the more carlito beat him. after fifteen minutes of abuse, carlito plunged his hand into the stomach of the dead animal and gutted it right there in front of jon. he ate the entrails and forced his stunned son to wear the pelt as a hat for the rest of the week.
the beatings continued for a few more years, at a lesser severity. until just after jon's 10th birthday. jon invited his friend ron over to spend the night. carlito would usually hide in the bedroom whenever anyone visited, so it was always a good way for jon to escape the beatings. the boys had had fun roaming the neighborhood that evening, making castles with the dog excrement they found and then pretending to be giant monsters, from a japanese science fiction movie, going on a rampage and smashing the castles. the boys played hard that night and went to bed early.
but the boys could not sleep. instead, they decided to play doctor and various other games. the laughter awakened carlito. he stormed into the bedroom and flipped on the light. there, he beheld his son on all fours with his little friend mounting him from behind. the boys were playing "dog." carlito lost control. he threw ron out of the house, sending him walking home and picked jon up by the feet.
carlito stormed outside, carrying his naked son by the feet. he rampaged throughout the neighborhood stopping any time he ran across a dog. carlito would beat hapless animal to death, using his son as a club. once again, he would plunge his hand into the dead animal, remove its organs and devour them. he then collected the pelt.
after carlito had slaughtered twenty dogs, he tied together all of the pelts into a make-shift body-suit for jon. exhausted, and with jon bruised, bloodied and crying, carlito stumbled home. carlito wrapped jon in the gruesome clothing he had made and threw him into bed. he left the room momentarily, only to return with an empty 40-ounce. he stuck the open end into jon's rectum. jon cried himself to sleep.
jon grew sullen and withdrew from his classmates. his grades slipped into oblivion. the teachers knew what the problem was, but dared not speak up. jon would sit in class, staring blankly out the window. nothing seemed to interest him. he never did his assignments. he began to arrive at school wearing ozzy osbourne and motley crue t-shirts. the faculty continued to ignore him. jon had become lost in a nether-world and none could pull him out.
none but timmy. timmy's family had recently moved into town from california. jon felt him come in the room and turned from the window to behold his first real crush. timmy was tall, muscular, tanned and blonde. it was instant love for jon. but he dared not express his true feelings. he became best friends with timmy. they did everything together. jon's emotions were tearing him apart.
jon couldn't stand it and his father had taught him well. jon invited timmy to go searching for peyote. the two wandered deep into the desert, the hot sun beating down on them. the intense heat slowly began to affect jon. he turned pale. he began to shake uncontrollably. then timmy made a fatal mistake.
timmy put his hand on jon's shoulder and asked him if he was ok. jon became enraged. he picked up a rock and hit timmy in the head with it, knocking him unconscious. jon plunged his shaking fist into timmy's stomach and removed his organs, eating them on the spot. jon then removed the skin from the withered corpse and carried back to his car.
jon kept the skin in his room, making passionate love with it at night. snuggling with it in the morning. he would whisper sweet nothings into its ear and run his fingers through its golden head of hair. jon was in a state of bliss. until carlito detected the scent of rotting flesh. jon was given another gruesome beating.
jon fell in and out of love several times throughout highschool. each of the unfortunate objects of his affections would suffer the same fate and, once they mysteriously vanished from school, jon would return to his withdrawn state. only one teacher had the courage to try to help jon his senior year of highschool.
jon had signed up for a computer class that year. his computer teacher recognized jon was troubled and took special care with him. jon soon developed a deep love for his teacher. but jon was ashamed. he couldn't quite grasp the complicated concepts that were part of the course: basic wordstar usage, lotus 123 and flipping the power switch. jon felt like a fool in front of his new love. he could not deal with his feelings.
jon began to amass a deadly arsenal in his bedroom. he collected all manner of guns, rifles and bombs. he drew a detailed map of the school and devised a plan for decimating the entire building and everyone in it. jon dreamt of becoming a notorious mass-murderer, no longer ignored. no longer a powerless worm in the eyes of his beloved mr. donacelli.
the night before "senior day." jon decided to celebrate by getting drunk. tomorrow his glorious plan would come to fruition. jon got drunk off of a gallon of cheap vodka. utterly incoherent, he climbed onto the roof of his house with the remains of his bottle and a fat cigar. he danced, naked, on the rooftop and yelled at the top of his lungs, "i'm gay, touch my balls!"
jon's father woke from his alcoholic coma, not knowing that the neighbors had called the police. he ran outside and found jon on the roof. carlito climbed the side of the house and grabbed his son by the hair, throwing him onto the ground below. carlito spotted a lizard in the grass near jon. he jumped down, caught the lizard and began to severely beat jon. the police arrived within minutes.
the police immediately took carlito into custody. they searched the house and found jon's arsenal, which they confiscated, thinking it belonged to carlito. carlito was subsequently convicted of assault and conspiracy. jon would never be beaten again.
april 20, 1999. jon sat in front of his television watching with fascination as the columbine tragedy unfolded before his eyes. wistfully, jon thought back to his days in highschool. he knew these two young men were heros. they pulled it off. an accomplishment he had only dreamt of. jon took out his pen and paper and began work on his next slashdot article.
The worst terrorist attack in recorded history occurred three months ago, and now we're involved in a WAR and you people have the gall to be discussing the fact that the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong???? My *god*, people, GET SOME PRIORITIES!
The bodies of the thousands of innocent civilians who died (and will die) in these unprecedented events could give a good god damn about the fact that the calculations that the sun would expand to a red giant and engulf the earth are wrong, your childish Lego models, your nerf toy guns and whining about the lack of a "fun" workplace, your Everquest/Diablo/D&D fixation, the latest Cowboy Bebop rerun, or any of the other ways you are "getting on with your life" (here's a hint: watching Cowboy Bebop in your jammies and eating a bowl of Shreddies is *not* "getting on with your life"). The souls of the victims are watching in horror as you people squander your finite, precious time on this earth playing video games!
You people disgust me!
after all what are the chances your going to survive...
You are a flaming moron. If you cannot learn the difference between the words your and you're you have no right posting here. In fact, you have no right graduting from the 8th grade. Just because CmdrTaco is the poster boy for illiteracy and works for slashdot is no excuse.
You should be summarily ashamed. No go out and get an education and don't return until you do.
P.S. If you do not know the difference between to and too, you should also have them teach you that as well.