"Nowadays, a candidate must believe not just some but all of the following things: that abortion should be illegal in all cases; that gay marriage must be banned even in states that want it; that the 12m illegal immigrants, even those who have lived in America for decades, must all be sent home; that the 46m people who lack health insurance have only themselves to blame; that global warming is a conspiracy; that any form of gun control is unconstitutional; that any form of tax increase must be vetoed, even if the increase is only the cancelling of an expensive and market-distorting perk; that Israel can do no wrong and the “so-called Palestinians”, to use Mr Gingrich’s term, can do no right; that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and others whose names you do not have to remember should be abolished."

- The Economist—on the Republican primary | The Economist, December 31, 2012

(Source: economist.com)

6:20 Jan 22nd, 2012 | 2 notes

Of Spam and God

10:09 May 19th, 2009 | Notes

It would seam that spam has gone down another disturbing path.

In the past, spam emails came in the form of “Bloody Mary will come out and kill you if you don’t send this to your entire address book in 20 minutes!” and “The hospital said they would pay for my oporation if this email was sent to 2000 people” and “WORLD’S LONGEST CHAIN EMAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!! PLZ SEND TO ALL YOUR CONTACTS!!!!!!”

I still have no idea why chain emails exist. It’s probably to build up a huge mailing list so that spammers can target people using commercial content later on. There are not enough words to tell you just how much I hate people using religion as a way to spam me in the future, or give YOU a virus (I know I won’t be getting one. Mac!)

It’s not just the thought of using religion and God to create a spam mailing list, it’s the way they get you to send on the email. The one I’ve been getting recently has phrases designed to make you feel incredibly guilty. For example:

  • Isn’t it funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me?
  • Isn’t it funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them?
  • Isn’t it funny how you can send a thousand jokes through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing?
  • Why is it so easy to delete a Godly e-mail, but yet we forward all of the nasty ones?
  • I pray, for everyone who sends this to their entire address book, they will be blessed by God in a way special for them.

Personally, the thought of using religion to guilt trip people into participating in a chain is dishonest, deceitful and downright disgusting. The tone of the email I received (which you just read parts of) is so condescending that it brought me so close to reminding the sender of what they were actually doing. Then I thought to myself, the people sending this around don’t know why it’s a problem. They are innocently sending it as a sign of their devotion to God (however, it’s a very strange way to profess your faith). that made me think, this is what the spammers are using. They are using people’s innocence and faith. They are playing on people’s gentle innocence and playing on their faith in order to get them to send a spam list to as many people as possible.

This is a highly offensive and appalling act. The people behind them should be ashamed.