Things like this only go to reenforce my general ideals about certain things..

The American Red Cross collected hundreds of thousands of blood donations after Sept. 11 knowing that the blood could not be used for victims of the terrorist attacks.
After selling some of the surplus blood to hospitals, the Red Cross has begun to destroy thousands of pints that have outlasted their shelf life. Directors of several Red Cross blood centers said their sites may discard as many as 1 of every 5 donations and the national total could easily reach tens of thousands.
The charitable outpouring offered an opportunity for the $2.5 billion-a-year organization to restock its depleted blood inventory. Although the Red Cross told the public that surplus blood would be frozen, it did not have the resources to freeze large amounts of excess blood, according to documents and interviews.
The Red Cross, which is the nation's largest blood supplier, declined to answer questions about how much extra blood was collected. Spokesmen said the Red Cross kept collecting blood because it did not want to turn away donors and hoped to create a reserve in case of more terrorist attacks. They noted that every blood donation yields some lifesaving byproduct, such as plasma.
The nonprofit Red Cross collects more than 6 million pints of blood annually and earns about $1.5 billion, or 60 percent of its revenue, by selling donated red cells, platelets and plasma to hospitals for more than $225 a unit.
The Red Cross estimated that less than 10 percent of the donations will be discarded, but some of its blood-bank directors disputed that. They said the Red Cross collected at least 250,000 and perhaps as much as 400,000 extra pints in the month after the attack.

I like the last part... "He was terrified, just terrified."


Would you tell someone that their fly is open? Michael Gelman had to do just that during "Live with Regis and Kelly" on Wednesday's show. Gelman told Regis after an interview with Tony Bennett. Then on Thursday's show, Kelly took several jabs at Regis when they discussed the incident. "In all honesty, I never looked down there, but now I will," Kelly asked how she should let him know, adding that she thought they should have a code. "The chicken is out of the pot!" she said she would say or "The Fighting Irish is out of the Field." Kelly told her co-host that the fly being down made her day because he's always so well groomed. Although it was all in fun, Regis said that he didn't want to talk about it anymore, but he said that he will never forget the look on Gelman's face. "He was terrified, just terrified."

'Gifted' children often become troubled adults


Intelligent children who are told they are gifted are more likely to have emotional problems than bright ones told nothing.

A survey has revealed that 40% of them had difficulty forming relationships in later life and normally ended up in mundane jobs.

The findings were made after both types of children and a randomly selected group were compared between the ages of 14 and 27.

None of those in the other groups had any such problems.

It was found many parents who encourage their children to believe they are gifted discourage them from having relationships with youngsters they believe are not good enough.

This leads to boredom at school and an attitude which persists through life,

Drugs aren't so bad. It's the addiction that is bad. So shouldn't it be "The war on Addiction". I am addicted to lots of things. Like coffee, tea, music, money, driving fast, being bad, not cleaning up my room, internet, work, sleep, air, information, knowledge, and the ladies. So shouldn't there be a war on this stuff as well?

The number of adults behind bars, on parole or on probation reached a record 6.47 million in 2000 -- or one in 32 American adults, the government reported Sunday.

We will all be under lock and key someday

I like being blobby. Nowadays, it seems like a lot of punk bands are getting buff. I don't really get it. Tim from Rancid looks like he could lift me over his head. Davey from AFI looks like he could lift 2 of me over his head. H20, Bouncing Souls, even Green Day are lifting weights. Backstage of the warped tour looks like World's Gym. Call me old fashion, but I like being lazy and sluggish. Being fat is a state of mind, not just a body type. Being fat is punk. It's telling society you don't care if they think you're a big fat slob. Who would you rather be in Animal House, Bluto or Neidermeyer? John Goodman from Roseanne, or Bob Saget from Full House? Misfits or Poison Idea? Well, that's a tough one. I'm not saying you should strive to be a 6.

FATMIKE---

Sasha Abramsky ... My hat is off to you. Anyone... Do a search on Yahoo and read anything Sasha has ever wrote.

READ THIS

In October, Human Rights Watch and the D.C.-based Sentencing Project released a twenty-six-page report titled "Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States." The report revealed that throughout the country, 3.9 million parolees, ex-prisoners, and prisoners cannot vote. And because of several little-known laws in fourteen states -- mainly in the South -- more than two million of them will never vote again: convicted of a felony, their disenfranchisement is permanent. Of those, 1.4 million are black men, including one in three black men in Alabama and Florida. In Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming, one in four black men cannot vote.

THEN GO HERE. AND SEE WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON

I believe it is time for a serious re-evaluation of human priorities. As a species of such advanced intelligence and technology, we have the tendency to think of nothing but human advancement. We view the human race as being separate and above the life cycles of nature. This ideology of superiority over all things living and of the very land itself is leading to a large rupture in the natural order. One need not look far to see the ill effects of the "beneficial" technology.

Just count the number of super-fund sites or toxic/nuclear waste dumps. The hole in the ozone layer, that grows larger year by year with the ever rising climate temperature. The loss of wild areas, in search of more, always more, resources. These are just a few of the examples of destruction (there are many more) that the mindset of "human first" is causing. The very fact that we know the use of petrol chemicals releases toxins and pollutants into the ground water and the atmosphere attests to our continued willingness to ignore our impact upon our environment.

The reason for this willingness is, of course, that we have not yet significantly suffered the results of our actions. Although cancer is on the rise, the rate of extinction is increasing and natural disasters that have never occurred in certain regions of the world are becoming common,(i.e. tornadoes in Southern California), as a general rule we wish not to think of these things. No longer can we separate ourselves from wild nature, pretending that technology will keep us safe and intact. We must accept and embrace the fact that we, too, are a part of the natural life cycle, not above it, not on top of it. We must scrutinize the effect that we are having.

It is time for us to once again learn to live in harmony with the Earth and the other inhabitants of it. I am not suggesting that we go back to a completely primitive lifestyle, for we have forgotten far too many survival instincts for that. But we must have a reprieve of advanced, oppressive, life controlling technology. We must learn to live sustainably or become completely artificial. We have the means to change, the question is, do we have the desire?

FREE-