And if we had basically no gun restrictions…whoops. We don’t. And gun crime is rampant, and accidental shootings as well, and mass slaughters are becoming more and more common.

One political party in America wants to have meaningful regulations, regulations that would not infringe on the right to gun ownership any more than speed limits infringe on the ability to drive your car. The other party wants mayhem and murder, crime and terrorism, mass shootings, 5 year old boys shooting their 2 year old sisters, and they will fight to the death to keep as many of those things happening as possible.

Sometimes life is very simple: Democrats are good people, Republicans are evil. May the Force be with us, always.”

via Grammar Jedi

Travelers are enjoying the spectacular Danxia Landform scenery in Zhangye, northwest China, on September 8. Zhangye Danxia Landform Park is located on the border of Nijiaying Village and Baiyin Village in Gansu Province, northwest China, having an area of 510 square kilometers. [Photo: Xinhuanet]

I found this awesome image at Absolute China Tours.

“A deadline to remove illegal loggers and settlers from the lands of one of the most threatened tribes on Earth appears poised to pass without action in Brazil.

The Awá, a tribe of about 450, have won multiple legal battles granting them the rights to their territory, which are also guaranteed in the Brazilian constitution. But enforcement of those rights has been lacking, with reports of illegal logging camps operating only 3 miles (5 kilometers) from one Awá settlement.

“It’s a complete joke, really,” said Sarah Shenker, a Brazilian campaigner for Survival International, a group that advocates for the rights of indigenous people.

A judge, in a declaration published in March 2012, ordered the eviction of illegal loggers, settlers and ranchers from Awá land within a year. Even with the March 31 deadline approaching, no one has been removed.”

Read more @ ‘Most Threatened’ Tribe Sees No Relief from Illegal Loggers | LiveScience.

ANXIETY is the body’s way of responding to danger. It’s a survival mechanism designed to keep us alive.

But the danger we perceive doesn’t actually have to be there. We just have to think that it is.

Whether the danger is real or imagined, our automatic survival mechanisms will kick in and we will try to escape or avoid the danger.

We might avoid certain people or places. We might refuse to go out. Perhaps we’ll only go out with someone else present and then leave early.

If we choose to face the danger, we might use coping behaviours to get us through, like smoking more, fiddling with our clothes, avoiding eye contact or taking medication.

Whilst our coping behaviours get us through the perceived danger, they actually keep our anxiety going. As long as we depend on them to cope, we don’t give ourselves the opportunity for the anxiety to go away on its own.

Learning to confront our anxiety might be uncomfortable in the short term, but it helps us take control and feel better in the long term.

If you feel anxiety starting to overwhelm you, ask yourself if you have any proof that what you fear is actually going to happen. What is the worst that could happen and how would you cope with it if it did? Imagine it is six months from now. How important will this feel then?

Just because you feel bad, doesn’t mean things really are bad. Imagine yourself coping with this situation. If you can handle it in your imagination, you can handle it in reality.

via Inner Child Healing.

“I dreamed there were a whole bunch of fireworks that shot to the sky and exploded. They made a big picture of Mickey’s face.”

As has been proclaimed by the Pirates, Ahoy! for a New Age has come.

Let the printed idols fall before the Awesome might of the Noodle! Let there be singing in the streets and countrysides of the great divinity that is The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Let the Saviors of the past degenerate into the myths they are. Let Boyardee be raised up and with a mighty “Arrr” let the Holy Land be found. And once there let a great monument to the Midget, the Mountain, and the Tree be built and consecrated in the name of the image of the Skull and Crossbones.

The Swords are drawn. The flags are waving and the ships are coming to assault the port of Untruth! Pillaging, plundering, and wenching will commence and when that is done, a great cloud of saucey awesomeness will billow in the image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the highest and most powerful Noodle!

RAmen.

Now let us pray.

Our Pasta, who “Arghh” in heaven, Swallowed be thy shame. Thy Midgit come. Thy Sauce be yum, On top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread. And give us our cutlasses, As we swashbuckle, splice the main-brace and cuss. And lead us into temptation, But deliver us some Pizza. For thine are Meatballs, and the beer, and the strippers, for ever and ever. RAmen.

via Sexy Atheists.

 Which Game Of Thrones Character Are You? 

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

-Lord Byron

“Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle’s Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top.”

 
― Sarah Vowell

 

 

 

P1030821 (Photo credit: Ronald HN Tan)