After a short stint of fame following his critically acclaimed performances in Donnie Darko and Sexy Beast, Frank's career sadly lost impetus. He himself blamed his agent, whom he said allowed him to be "type" cast after his initial successes. He consoled himself with drugs and carrots, gained weight, and can currently only move from place to place with the help of his long-time friend, mentor and lover, Jon Voight.
Johannesburg - Religious leaders from all beliefs have hailed the winning of last week’s inaugural National Lottery by a Gauteng man as “a miracle” and “further conclusive proof that God exists”.
An unnamed chartered accountant from Benoni amazingly predicted all six numbers in the first South African National Lottery ever. The probability of getting all six numbers spot-on is approximately 1 in 14 million.
Bishop Derartu Tulu from the Catholic Mother Church in Gauteng said that all praise must go to Almighty God: “The Statisticians of the Church informed me before the lotto took place that a person is more likely to recover from a late stage of brain cancer than to win the lotto. However, God’s power is infinite, and I told them that it would not surprise me if someone actually did win the lotto in the very first draw.”
The Bishop also added it is wonderful that such an unlikely event had occurred in the public domain, and that it underlines the presence of the hand of God in the everyday lives of average citizens.
“We have all read or heard about cancer patients miraculously recovering, the unlikely survival of car accident victims, strange coincidences leading to the prevention of disasters and literally hundreds of similar events, but now the public can experience the boundless love and generosity of Our Saviour first hand.”
Prof. Martin Steele, department head of the Mathematical Sciences department at Stellenbosch, had a different take on things: “The probability of any one specific person winning the Lotto is one in 14 million. However, the probability that there would be at least one winning lottery ticket among the estimated 7 million participants was closer to 50%." - Reuters
Background reading: Tom Cruise interview on News24. The proof to this theorem should not be attempted without referring to the interview above.
Theorem: At least one of the following is true:
1. Katie Holmes hates Tom Cruise
2. Tom Cruise has a serious, contagious condition
3. Tom Cruise is an idiot and/or a barefaced liar
Lets attempt to prove the first part (1 and/or 2) of the theorem first, and assume (assumption 1) that Tom Cruise is not an idiot or liar (remember, it’s only hypothetical).
Proposition 1: Tom Cruise could stay with his girlfriend Katie and newborn baby Suri if both he and Katie wanted him there.
Proof:
After announcing to a packed Rome press conference that he was rushing home later on Monday to be with his family, but allegedly Holmes and his baby girl, Suri, were doing so well that he would continue to Paris and London.
Proposition 2: Tom Cruise wanted to stay with girlfriend and baby
Proof:
"My mission impossible was to be here today," Cruise told reporters in Rome, where he was promoting the premiere of "Mission Impossible III." or "I didn't want to come," he said. "My daughter was just born, and I didn't want to leave her and her mother."
Proposition 3: The only possible reason Tom did not stay with them is that she doesn’t want him there.
Proof
Taking into account Propositions 1 and 2, that the only other party involved in the decision is Katie Holmes, and under assumption 1 the statements made by Cruise are true, proves Proposition 3. Alternative proof: Propositions 1 and 2 and assumption 1 along with "I spoke with Katie and here we discussed it ... She said, 'You know, things change'," Cruise said.
proves proposition 3.
Now we inoke the axiom “a mother that doesn’t want her husband to be with her and newborn baby must hate the father, or the father has a contagious disease”.
Therefore, under assumption 1, follows that Katie Holmes hates Tom Cruise or he has a contagious disease. If assumption 1 does not hold, then by definition Tom Cruise is an idiot/barefaced liar, and again our theorem holds.
In fact, the above theorem can also trivially be proven by just proving that Tom Cruise is an idiot. This could be done by quoting:
"I realise the fans are going to be there in London and Paris and you know, everything is cool. So we're going to hit it. We're going to bang it." or "I look at Kate and my admiration and love and respect for her, although I didn't think it could get any more, it became more," Cruise said or "It was very beautiful" or any similar statement made by Cruise since flipping the fuck out a few years ago.
Although the proof above is less rigorous since some would argue that he’s quoting Katie and that she’s actually the idiot. Including a shortcut to a transcript of Oprah episode 20334 would also suffice.
QED
I can’t believe I wasn’t aware of this. They went ahead and did it. They proved that religious people are on average dumber than non-religious people. Wikipedia I could kiss you. Of course the religious cry-babies that they are, those of faith are now complaining that the tests are unfair or inconclusive bla bla bla. But the simple fact of the matter is “all but four of the forty-three polls listed support the conclusion that native intelligence varies inversely with degree of religious faith”.
However, credit must go to some Christians who are being very sporting about the whole thing and not denying anything, even saying that the research gels with 1 Corinthians 1 v 26-27:
"But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong."
So if the research says so, and God says so, then surely religious people are, in fact, stupid (click here for a technical definition of stupid)?
While we’re on the subject of intelligence, Wikipedia also has an interesting article on IQ. Some interesting results: 
This last table is a bit confusing. The 67 must be interpreted as the % of people with IQ's above a 125 that are married by the age of 30.
One particularly relevant section in this Wikipedia entry is the one regarding Public Policy. It says that very rarely will someone with an IQ below 70 be sentenced to death in the US. Although there are no explicit laws against it, it goes against the spirit of the eighth amendment, which protects the people against “cruel and unusual punishment”. Essentially there is a national consensus in the US that an IQ below 70 means that you cannot be held accountable for your actions. At this point I can’t help but recall Hein’s earlier entry “You, sir, are an idiot”, which states that the average IQ in South Africa is 72. This means that, by US standards, almost half the population of South Africa should not be legally held accountable for their actions. Taking all this into account, and adding to mix the fact that SA is actually a very pleasant place to live in, I am tempted to believe in some kind of God.
and have yourself nailed to a cross:
Good Friday: 11 People Nailed To Crosses In Philippines
SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines -- A 45-year-old commercial sign maker in the Philippines is among 11 people who had themselves nailed to crosses Friday in observance of Good Friday.
For him, it was the 20th time he's taken part in the extreme ritual. He said it's his way of thanking God after miraculously surviving a fall from a building when he was a construction worker.
The Good Friday re-enactments mark the final hours of Jesus Christ.
Religious leaders in the Philippines oppose the event. But the annual Lenten ritual has become one of the country's most-awaited seasonal attractions in two villages north of Manila. Thousands watch as the devotees are crucified with 4-inch nails soaked in alcohol to prevent infection.
An estimated 15,000 people are on hand to watch.
And I know Jesus' life is supposed to be an example to live by, but I doubt he was talking about this part. Also, am I the only person to enjoy the pun in that last sentence?
Be enticed by Paul Gallico’s repertoire of outstanding novelettes and short stories. He is one of my favourite authors, with Love of Seven Dolls still at the zenith of my readings. If the reading rivalry were all Gallico Jennie would claim second place with The Lonely in a close third.
This has GOT to be one of the dumbest sequels of all time: A 48-year old slut with no sense of personal hygiene or social norms, foils London’s finest with the help of a few strategically timed leg crossings. I haven’t seen the first since it first aired one M-Net (if you do math you’ll figure out why I’m afraid of women), but even then Stone was getting a little squidgy around the edges. I have read that Sharon Stone’s IQ is in the top 1 percentile too many times to put with this shit. What was she thinking? What happened? “I had a few drinks with Ed Wood having a marvellous time, next thing I know I’m lying in bed wearing an angora sweater. And oh, yes, I seem to have signed up for the long awaited sequel to Plan 9 from outer space: Plan 10 from outer space.” I demand to know who fucked who and exactly where for this to have happened. For somebody that’s supposedly a philanthropist Stone sure is set on inflicting a lot of pain on the movie-going public.
The director is, of course, a genius, a visionary if you will: “The film is set in England to differentiate it from the first one.” Wow! That changes EVERYTHING! If you need to change countries to differentiate a sequel from the original, you’ve obviously stumbled across the next Godfather Part II.
In their defence, they did acquire the services one of the world’s most famous and accomplished actors: Paul Morrissey. You may remember him from such classics as “The Man with no Career” and “Who am I anyway?” I heard they first approached Daniel Day Lewis, but after the lawsuits for defamation of character subsided, wisely settled on Paul Morrissey (I refuse to mention his surname without his name right there in front of it).
At least the first one was directed by Paul Verhoeven, who does get things right from time to time.
To summarise: This movie fills a much needed gap.
Is this the dumbest sequel of all time? Your thoughts please.
The other day I chanced upon this analogy by the philospher Bertrand Russell, which I haven't read in years. As true now as in the 50s:
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
From Wikipedia's entry on Russell's teapot, Dawkins' extention of the analogy is worth noting:
The reason organized religion merits outright hostility is that, unlike belief in Russell's teapot, religion is powerful, influential, tax-exempt and systematically passed on to children too young to defend themselves. Children are not compelled to spend their formative years memorizing loony books about teapots. Government-subsidized schools don't exclude children whose parents prefer the wrong shape of teapot. Teapot-believers don't stone teapot-unbelievers, teapot-apostates, teapot-heretics and teapot-blasphemers to death. Mothers don't warn their sons off marrying teapot-shiksas whose parents believe in three teapots rather than one. People who put the milk in first don't kneecap those who put the tea in first.
Although this 'logic' is all good and well, I still feel that the ultimate truth lies in the touch of His Noodly Appendage
if god is a dj, and life is a dancefloor, what do you do if you're a quadriplegic with bad skin?
“This White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war,” he said. The danger, he said, was that “it also reinforces the belief inside Iran that the only way to defend the country is to have a nuclear capability.”
The church’s opinion on the matter...
"The Squid and the Whale"
In my opinion the best film since "Sideways".
Director/screenwriter Noah Baumbach (co screenwriter on "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"), produced by Wes Anderson.
This is the way to go, get those hits mr. If you can’t beat em use em as bait!
2 million in three days... where she offered an entire year! Silly girl.
For all those falsely stating that some sort of 'missing link' is required to prove evolution, well guess what:
Discovered: the missing link that solves a mystery of evolution
Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago.
Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action - like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds.
Dr Clack said that, judging from the fossil, the first evolutionary transition from sea to land probably involved learning how to breathe air. "Tiktaalik has lost a series of bones that, in fishes, covers the gill region and helps to operate the gill-breathing mechanism," she said. "The air-breathing mechanism it had would have been elaborated and having lost the series of bones that lies between the head and the shoulder girdle means it's got a neck, it can raise its head more easily in order to gulp the air.
"The flexible robust limbs appear to be connected with pushing the head out of the water to breathe the air."
Can god be an animal?
This week's Man of the Week goes to Mr. Jacob Zuma, for his selfless act of having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman because "she also has needs".
Zuma testified in his own defence in the ongoing trial in which the woman is now ungratefully accusing the HIV-negative former Deputy President of rape.
Mr. Zuma, as ever the embodiment of modesty, said that he knew the risk of his contracting HIV through sex with her was “minimal”. He developed a deep understanding of the disease while serving on the South African Aids Council. No doubt the ANC’s unofficial stance that poverty causes AIDS (and not HIV as alleged by conspiring medical scientists worldwide), made his chivalrous act significantly more palatable.
In a compelling display of a humble, communist mind-set, Comrade Zuma denied that there had been a large power imbalance between them. The unnamed accuser of the former Deputy President of the Republic of South Africa was a contract “wellness” co-ordinator for the ANC at the time of his gallantry.
We are not fooled by Mr. Zuma’s modesty, which is why he is a pattern tub’s runaway “Man of the Week”. We especially commend him for making the experience as pleasurable as possible for her by graciously not using a condom. Congratulations Comrade Zuma, and keep up the good work! Viva Jacob Zuma!
It is perfectly absurd for religious moderates to suggest that a rational human being can believe in God simply because this belief makes him happy, relieves his fear of death or gives his life meaning. The absurdity becomes obvious the moment we swap the notion of God for some other consoling proposition: Imagine, for instance, that a man wants to believe that there is a diamond buried somewhere in his yard that is the size of a refrigerator. No doubt it would feel uncommonly good to believe this. Just imagine what would happen if he then followed the example of religious moderates and maintained this belief along pragmatic lines: When asked why he thinks that there is a diamond in his yard that is thousands of times larger than any yet discovered, he says things like, “This belief gives my life meaning,” or “My family and I enjoy digging for it on Sundays,” or “I wouldn’t want to live in a universe where there wasn’t a diamond buried in my backyard that is the size of a refrigerator.” Clearly these responses are inadequate. But they are worse than that. They are the responses of a madman or an idiot
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