And though I had slain a thousand foes less one,
The thousandth knife found my liver;
The thousandth enemy said to me,
'Now you shall die,
Now none shall know.'
And the fool, looking down, believed this,
Not seeing, above his shoulders, the naked stars,
Each one remembering.
--John M. Ford, The Final Reflection

The Asylum Director

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"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." - Russel Baker

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Yes. Yes. I Know Already.

I know I really ought to stop posting so damn often (if only because it makes it so damn hard for my non-existent readers to actually catch up), but there are just some days when the good stuff is too hard to pass up.

Let me start out with this:

What is your Alignment?
created with QuizFarm.com
You scored as Lawful Evil

A Lawful Evil person is someone who respects laws, customs, or traditions, but will try to bend them to suit their own needs. These people have little concern for others they hurt, being intrinsically self motivated. Despite this, they value order and obedience to authority.

Lawful Evil

75%

Chaotic Good

75%

Chaotic Evil

70%

True Neutral

70%

Neutral Evil

70%

Neutral Good

55%

Lawful Good

55%

Lawful Neutral

40%

Chaotic Neutral

30%


It's frightfully accurate, methinks.

This one is just weird.

Officials in Mexico City are investigating a suspected serial killer eating parts of his victims, after police arrested an unknown horror-story writer who allegedly dismembered his girlfriend to eat her, authorities said Thursday.


Here's one more reason to drink:

Australian doctors have kept an Italian tourist alive by feeding him vodka through a drip for three days, medical staff in Queensland say.

The 24-year-old man, who had swallowed a poison in an apparent suicide attempt, was treated while in a coma.


And finally, this guy is just damn impressive:

EMEK HEFER, Israel - With eight wives and 67 children, Shahadeh Abu Arrar has given new meaning to the term “family man.”

Abu Arrar, 58, is a member of Israel’s impoverished Bedouin Arab community. But even in a traditional nomadic society where men commonly have several wives and many children, Abu Arrar is exceptional.

“I’m thinking about a new wife, No. 9,” he told the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot in a recent interview. “There are many women who wish to marry me and there is no lack of women. I never had a problem with such things.”

Abu Arrar, whose oldest child is 37, was photographed by the newspaper in a long Bedouin robe and head cover, surrounded by a dozen of so of his kids.

During a visit to his multistory home in central Israel, The Associated Press spotted 17 of the children milling about, dressed in bright red, blue and green-embroidered Palestinian dresses and headscarves. Four veiled women, including two who said they were his wives, sat on the porch peeling vegetables.

Abu Arrar refused to talk to an AP reporter.

Bedouin society allows polygamy
While Islam allows Muslim men to have four co-wives, it is a custom in Bedouin society to flout the already-generous ruling — and an Israeli ban on polygamy — by marrying women one at a time, divorcing them and marrying others, experts on Bedouin culture said.

Culturally, it’s understood that the renounced wives are still married to Abu Arrar, the experts said.

It’s unclear how Abu Arrar supports his massive family. Camels, goats and a cow were grazing on his property. Yediot said he also receives about $1,700 in government handouts each month.

According to the Israeli Interior Ministry, Abu Arrar has 53 children registered as Israeli citizens. He has 14 other children born to Palestinian wives in the West Bank and who are not eligible for Israeli citizenship, his other wives said.

Either way, his family size pales in comparison to the size of the average Israeli family: 2.3, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

Splits time among wives
Abu Arrar claims to remember all his children’s names, and says they are split almost evenly between boys and girls. And he’s still going strong.

“My first wife is my age, and today I hardly spend any time with her. Her children are big, and I leave her alone. I have younger wives to spend time with. Every night I decide which wife to be with,” Abu Arrar told the newspaper.

Activists said Abu Arrar’s story showed the urgency of raising literacy and education among Bedouin women. Many are pressured into marriage or feel they have no other options beside raising children, said Khadra al-Sani, director of Sidra, a Bedouin women’s rights group.

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