Mr. Pumpernickel:

It's great that you seem to live in some telemarketing eden where everything is respectful and there are candy canes growing on trees.

But it is basically irrelevant to this discussion. What you describe as your job, your tactics, your ethic, is not the case in the U.S., not the climate here. Unless you understand the American climate of telemarketing, you are really wasting your energy.

And you will simply never win the argument about whether it's okay to call people in their homes. The people in those homes are the authority on whether that feels okay to them, and they have spoken. Get over it.

The fact is that telemarketers are, to the American mind, the absolute lowest form of human life. I can understand how that fact would bother you, but you are better off carrying on with your life rather than behaving as if it is somehow your special calling to change the way telemarketers are perceived and treated. It's not a worthy mission, and it's making you seem dense. Move on.

Wow Universe--way to blame the victim. And is the guy behind Owens doing the Nazi gesture? Chilling, if so.

On a lighter note, Fright Elevator would be a great idea for a horror flick. And by great, I mean awful.

Agree with Peeves above. How hard is it to skip a feature you don't want to look at? I can't believe people telling those who run the site what's okay and not okay.

Down wiht proofreading! Neatorama rlues!

My favorite is "My loved one is corpse of the month at Riverside Funeral Home."

As far as I can ascertain, the most common arguments against homosexuality and, by extension, gay marriage, come from the Bible. And since we know the Bible has many other rather dubious prohibitions that are conveniently ignored, it always amazes me that people manage to cherry-pick the admonitions that seem to support their prejudices and still keep a straight face.

I think I'd respect the anti-gay contingent more if they just said, "We don't have a good reason. We fear the unfamiliar."

I can think of plenty of reasons to support, or at least not be bothered by, gay marriage, but I can't really think of any reason to attack it, or any way it affects anybody else negatively (bizarre notions of gay contagion aside).

Geez people. You know, if those photos were just of a bizarre rainforest plant or something, nobody would be freaking out, and believe me, there's some gross-looking but fascinating stuff in the natural world.

It seems to be that because it's a part of a female reproductive system, people are finding it scandalous. It feels weirdly puritanical. Honestly, if you didn't know what it was, you'd see it as what it is: a strange and interesting photo of a natural organism.

@ clinton: Curbing the procreation potential of pasty-faced basement dwellers? Where do I sign?

I kid, pasty-faced basement dwellers! Don't shoot me with your super guns!

@badgirl:

How is being contemptuous of other people, and experiencing pleasure at the prospect of their presumably wrath-filled meeting with your chosen deity, at all compatible with the teachings of that deity? Put simply, shouldn't a nasty Christian be an oxymoron? Because it's awfully common, and totally confounding.

My grandmother was a very loving Christian woman, and I think that the ugliness you present really perverts and dishonors the spirit and the attitude that she, for instance, embodied.

I guess I wasn't going to let myself believe it until I saw it with my own eyes. It really moves me that this is happening. It's inspiring and makes me proud.

Yeah, it's not so much that people follow the 5 second rule because they believe bacteria can't get into the food in under 5 seconds; it's just an arbitrary length of time that we feel psychologically comfortable with. The difference between "I dropped it" and "I'm foraging for scraps on the floor."

Whatever peeps. That was delightful. Does it hurt so bad? Relax.

Mmmm...I'll think on it some more, but I'm reasonably sure I don't know anything about the case of the shredded thesis. I'll have my people get back to you if they find anything, though.

Squatters' rights rule! Think of this guy in terms of his history--he's lived peacefully (I assume, unless he's a knife-wielding yahoo) for decades on his little piece of earth, and this system comes along to swat him away. Squatters' rights seems like such an unexpectedly respectful way to honor the way people have taken advantage of what others have ignored.

Similarly, abandoned buildings can be the arena for a squatter. They are making something useful out of what nobody has claimed or "called." Why not? I think it feels basic, wholesome, like how we cared for a piece of the earth long ago and by that virtue, that piece became our home.