The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

By Matthew Philips



Newsweek



Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20227400/site/newsweek/



So it brings two questions to mind: What the forms to get permission to reincarnate look like. Also, do you fill them out before or after you die?



My guess is Before, but they expire in 48 hours, and you have to accurately describe your mode of death. If your window of opportunity expires before you do, subsequent filings cost additional. Submissions limited to 1 per month (some restrictions apply). In Communist China, soul reincarnates YOU.



This is why China isn't taking over the world. They're absolutely batfuck insane. (Or at least their government is, I mean, Bush is crazy sure, but, I don't even have words for banning REINCARNATION).

Finally started reading this. It's a page-turner in some places, laborious in others. And having followed the internet and read all the spoilers, I know what happens, so am reading just for the details. But what the fuck. They had to kill Hedgewig? There's a whole string of deaths in this book, each one piling up to lessen the impact of everyone dying. Cedric dying in Goblet of Fire, which was powerful stuff. Even more so than Dumbledore because until this book confirmed it, I still thought it was an elaborate hoax.



But 27 people dying in as many pages, no matter which they were, no matter the epitaphs in the pages that follows, that's too much. It's like she decided to make it like Hamlet, but then she forgot what made that good.



Finished the Book and here are my views:



1 - She sounds tired. The whole book seems like she's done writing the series, she hates her characters now, and she wants to disappear. The obvious plotlines with no twists indicate this. The killing off of characters for no reason indicates this. You killed Harry's owl? Why you horrible bitch? That was just rude.



2 - On the plus side, she turned Snape into something you could like for a good reason.



3 - The camping thing was horrid, and absolutely excruciating to read. I understand the need to isolate the characters from the outside world and to work in the feel of a society that's now against them, but going on and on with them in tents was pointless. The effect she wanted was achieved by Godric's Hollow and the Lovegood house encounters. We understood they were hunted; we don't need to know they are foraging for mushrooms nightly.



4 - The King's Cross thing is the Matrix. When I was reading it, I was thinking, wow this is the Matrix. It's exactly the same right down to the nonsensically complicated round-the-way dialogue.



5 - On the plus side again, the Battle for Hogwarts was awesome. Giants, walking suits of armor, Professor MacGonagal kicking ass, Trelawney launching crystal balls at people, and the showdown with Voldemort. All of that was well done and worth the price of admission. Now, if only more of the book hadn't centered on crawling around in the bush, I would not be bitching.

It's been a good year for scandals by idiots who think repressing people for things they're too scared to face themselves is a way to make a living. If this man had been a true Baptist instead of a charlatan, he'd have left the Vodka bottle at home.



http://www.wgal.com/news/13796466/detail.html



Quote:



A Baptist minister has been charged in Tennessee with indecent exposure and driving under the influence.



Police said 58-year-old Tommy Tester of Bristol, Va., was wearing a skirt when he was arrested last week after allegedly relieving himself in front of children at a car wash.



A report also accuses Tester of offering police officers oral sex and says an open bottle of vodka and empty oxycodone prescription bottle was found in his car when Tester was arrested Friday.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/AAMB4/aamsz=300x44_MULTILINK/4147483a6009.html



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These are the cries of the carrots! THE CARROTS! For you see, Brother Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day. And to the carrots, it is the APOCALYPSE!



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No sex, please, you're a carnivore.



A new phenomenon in New Zealand is taking the idea of you are what you eat to the extreme.



Vegansexuals are people who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of dead animals.



The co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, Annie Potts, said she coined the term after doing research on the lives of "cruelty-free consumers".



Cruelty-Free Consumption in New Zealand: A National Report on the Perspectives and Experiences of Vegetarians and other Ethical Consumers asked 157 people nationwide about everything from battery chickens to sexual preferences.



Many female respondents described being attracted to people who ate meat, but said they did not want to have sex with meat-eaters because their bodies were made up of animal carcasses.



"It's a whole new thing – I have not come across it before," said Potts.



One vegan respondent from Christchurch said: "I believe we are what we consume, so I really struggle with bodily fluids, especially sexually."



Another Christchurch vegan said she found non-vegans attractive, but would not want to be physically close to them.



"I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance," she said.



Christchurch vegan Nichola Kriek has been married to her vegan husband, Hans, for nine years.



She would not describe herself as vegansexual, but said it would definitely be a preference.



She could understand people not wanting to get too close to non-vegan or non-vegetarians.



"When you are vegan or vegetarian, you are very aware that when people eat a meaty diet, they are kind of a graveyard for animals," she said.



For many vegans it's not about biochemical content, but rather brain development that determines what they eat. Some less strict vegetarians will often eat some seafood and shellfish as it has little more than a midbrain. If people want to be selective in what they eat that's fine with me. I'm not so insecure as to let their opinions bother me.



-Isilmea