SevenSeasJim

Whoooo Whhooooooo

McCabe still sucks my ass.

If the Leafs get it to the playoffs who starts in net?

Raycroft has been terrible the last couple.

Good exciting game. Where the fuck was Kovalev tonight? Mr Invisible!

Ottawa vs. San Jose. Sens win in 7.

Ottawa beats:

Pittsburg in 6

Buffalo in 7

New Jersey in 6

San Jose in 7

Maybe if they had a goalie. I just don't think that Emery has it.

Apparently building a snow fort.

Stop licking frogs!!

Interesting article.

By A. Chris Gajilan

CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "I just know God is with me. I can feel Him always," a young Haitian woman once told me.

"I've meditated and gone to another place I can't describe. Hours felt like mere minutes. It was an indescribable feeling of peace," recalled a CNN colleague.

"I've spoken in languages I've never learned. It was God speaking through me," confided a relative.

The accounts of intense religious and spiritual experiences are topics of fascination for people around the world. It's a mere glimpse into someone's faith and belief system. It's a hint at a person's intense connection with God, an omniscient being or higher plane. Most people would agree the experience of faith is immeasurable.

Dr. Andrew Newberg, neuroscientist and author of "Why We Believe What We Believe," wants to change all that. He's working on ways to track how the human brain processes religion and spirituality. It's all part of new field called neurotheology.

After spending his early medical career studying how the brain works in neurological and psychiatric conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, depression and anxiety, Newberg took that brain-scanning technology and turned it toward the spiritual: Franciscan nuns, Tibetan Buddhists, and Pentecostal Christians speaking in tongues. His team members at the University of Pennsylvania were surprised by what they found.

"When we think of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, we see a tremendous similarity across practices and across traditions."

The frontal lobe, the area right behind our foreheads, helps us focus our attention in prayer and meditation.

The parietal lobe, located near the backs of our skulls, is the seat of our sensory information. Newberg says it's involved in that feeling of becoming part of something greater than oneself.

The limbic system, nestled deep in the center, regulates our emotions and is responsible for feelings of awe and joy.

Newberg calls religion the great equalizer and points out that similar areas of the brain are affected during prayer and meditation. Newberg suggests that these brain scans may provide proof that our brains are built to believe in God. He says there may be universal features of the human mind that actually make it easier for us to believe in a higher power.

Interestingly enough, devout believers and atheists alike point to the brain scans as proof of their own ideas.

Some nuns and other believers champion the brain scans as proof of an innate, physical conduit between human beings and God. According to them, it would only make sense that God would give humans a way to communicate with the Almighty through their brain functions.

Some atheists saw these brain scans as proof that the emotions attached to religion and God are nothing more than manifestations of brain circuitry.

Scott Atran doesn't consider himself an atheist, but he says the brain scans offer little in terms of understanding why humans believe in God. He is an anthropologist and author of "In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion."

Instead of viewing religion and spirituality as an innate quality hardwired by God in the human brain, he sees religion as a mere byproduct of evolution and Darwinian adaptation.

"Just like we're not hardwired for boats, but humans in all cultures make boats in pretty much the same way, Atran explains. "Now, that's a result both of the way the brain works and of the needs of the world, and of trying to traverse a liquid medium and so I think religion is very much like that."

Atran points to the palms of his hands as another example of evolutionary coincidence. He says the creases formed there are a mere byproduct of human beings working with our hands -- stretching back to the ages of striking the first fires, hunting the first prey to building early shelter. Although, the patterns in our palms were coincidentally formed by eons of evolution and survival, he points out that cultures around the world try to find meaning in them through different forms of palm reading.

Anthropologists like Atran say, "Religion is a byproduct of many different evolutionary functions that organized our brains for day-to-day activity."

To be sure, religion has the unparalleled power to bring people into groups. Religion has helped humans survive, adapt and evolve in groups over the ages. It's also helped us learn to cope with death, identify danger and finding mating partners.

Today, scientific images can track our thoughts on God, but it would take a long leap of faith to identify why we think of God in the first place.

Link

Is this to help the Liberals in Quebec? :wink:

Good thing my hubby's the Candyman...

That's right. When you met him did he say "Would you like some candy little girl?" while hiding in the bushes? :wink:

Indoors? I guess Intellivision.

Lock n Chase ruled

Playing guns (back when it was ok to carry a fake gun around the street).

Hopping fences was always great at night.

Okay' date=' that is the perfect example of why sharks are not a threat.[/quote']

Exactly, I thought the line "Last year, Florida maintained its status as the world's shark attack capital with 23 recorded attacks" illustrated the point quite well.

I bet more people are attacked by phone booths.

Just because you posted these horrific stats we have to kill more sharks now.

It is a documentary that teaches us that sharks are actually not a threat to humans

I blame JAWS 1-3 for scaring us. Especially those of us who have never been in the ocean.

wow. my profile was the first thing that showed up.

"Your butt is mine"

--Michael Jackson's 'Bad'

Some more fuel for the fire

[color:red]Smokers call in sick more, have poorer performance: study

Last Updated: Thursday, March 29, 2007 | 1:16 PM ET

CBC News

Smokers showed poorer job performance and took more sick days than their non-smoking colleagues, researchers have found.

In the current issue of the journal Tobacco Control, researchers tracked the career progression of more than 5,000 women over eight years after they entered the U.S. Navy.

Compared with non-smokers, frequent smokers were more likely to:

* Quit before serving their full term.

* Be discharged early for medical reasons, bad behaviour, or misconduct, including drug misuse.

* Show a higher rate of personality disorders.

On average, non-smokers were paid significantly more than daily smokers, after taking into account education and time in service.

About 45 per cent of the women had never smoked, 27 per cent were daily smokers when they enlisted, and the rest were ex smokers or smoked occasionally.

It is not clear if cigarette smoking is directly linked to slacking off.

"Cigarette smoking might simply be a 'marker' for other underlying factors, such as non-conformity and high risk taking, that contribute to poorer performance in the military," Dr. Terry Conway of San Diego State University's school of public health and his colleagues said.

More sick leave for smokers

A second study appearing in the same issue found Swedish smokers take nearly eight more days of sick leave per year on average than their non-smoking colleagues.

Smoking has been linked to missing work, but the studies often had small samples and did not take into consideration other factors such as socio-economic background.

To reduce the risk of measurement errors, Petter Lundborg, an economist at Free University Amsterdam in the Netherlands, used a nationally representative database on sickness-related absences among more than 14,000 workers in Sweden from 1988 to 1991.

Among workers aged 16 to 65 with a range of occupations, the average total number of days taken as sick leave was 25.

Overall, smokers took the most sick leave, an average of 11 extra days, or more than two weeks of full-time work, compared with non-smokers.

"The results suggest that policies that reduce and/or prevent smoking may also reduce the number of days of sick leave," Lundborg concluded.

The results of both studies suggest smoking cessation policies may increase worker productivity.

Since factors other than smoking-related health were related to the higher number of sick days, more research is needed to assess the cost-effectiveness of stop-smoking campaigns and the societal costs of the habit, Lundborg said.

"Young, black and famous

With money hangin'

Out the anus"

--Puff Daddy and Mase's 'Can't Nobody Hold Me Down'

Haha. To be honest I only moved here 7 years ago and didn't really know much about Bobby up till then.

Hey Baj, I agree completely with you and Baj.

Must be one of those days at work. I can't stop laughing at this.

I remember this vividly

And besides my Rights are more important than yours!!

This will be interesting to watch.

Smoking fight moves to apartments

Mar 28, 2007 04:30 AM

Isabel Teotonio

Staff Reporter

When chain smokers moved into the unit below Pamela Schuller's, she got a lot more than a couple of new neighbours.

Despite asking them to open their windows, the smell of smoke found its way into her apartment – and into the very fabric of her children's clothing.

"I would come home from work, into my own personal environment and I couldn't breathe the air," recalled Schuller, a resident of the Bain Co-Op in Riverdale, who helped set up a residents' group that is pushing for a smoke-free policy in some units.

"(Smokers) say it's their human right to smoke, but we have the right to clean air," said Schuller, who isn't alone in her complaints.

According to a study released yesterday, neighbours' smoke penetrates almost half of all Ontario apartments.

The study by Ipsos Reid, the first to gather data on how people in multi-unit dwellings feel about second-hand smoke, was commissioned by the Ontario Tobacco-free Network (OTN), a coalition of the Canadian Cancer Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and The Lung Association.

The survey of more than 1,800 Ontario residents, conducted in March and November 2006, found 46 per cent have had tobacco smoke seep into their unit in the past year; 64 per cent would likely choose a smoke-free building and 57 per cent would support a smoking ban in their own building.

As an increasing number of tenants complain of second-hand smoke, a new frontier is emerging in anti-smoking policies: the very sanctity of one's private home. The battle is being waged by tenants, landlords and health groups that recognize the dangers of second-hand smoke, particularly for children, the elderly and those with respiratory diseases.

Yesterday, Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman said the time has come to debate the issue, although he said he would rather see market forces drive landlords to declare their buildings smoke-free.

"We've got to look at it from a regulatory standpoint," he said. "We sure will do that. There will be a good discussion. But there is a lot of power in the hands of the people."

Irene Gallagher of the tobacco-free coalition said it's important landlords know they have the right to ban smoking inside units and respond to market demand in a province where just 16 per cent, or 1.6 million Ontarians, smoke. Advocates say smokers aren't protected under human rights laws and there is no legal right to smoke, so landlords can refuse to rent or sell to smokers.

But critics argue refusing accommodation to smokers is discriminatory and say banning a legal behaviour in people's homes is an infringement on their rights.

"It's prohibition through the back door and it's pitting neighbour against neighbour," said Nancy Daigneault, president of mychoice.ca, Canada's largest smokers' rights group.

Toronto Public Health routinely receives complaints from tenants about second-hand smoke, but there are no plans to get people to butt out in their homes, said spokesman Rob Colvin.

Under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, all common areas in residential buildings must be smoke-free, including hallways, stairwells and laundry areas. Premier Dalton McGuinty and Progressive Leader John Tory said yesterday there are no plans to ban smoking in apartments. Nowhere in the United States or Canada is it illegal to smoke in your home.

Legal opinion remains divided on whether landlords can impose smoking bans inside apartments, said Colvin, who tells inquiring property owners to contact a lawyer.

Although smoke-free policies in large private dwellings have yet to be initiated here, one of the biggest landlords in Western Canada, Globe General Agencies, garnered headlines and waiting lists after it introduced a smoke-free policy last fall.

The company has banned smoking in its Manitoba and Alberta buildings and is currently implementing the ban in Saskatchewan. The firm aims to introduce the ban in Quebec within a year.

The trend is growing south of the border, particularly in Michigan, where more than 6,000 apartments have gone smoke-free since 2005. Not only are privately owned buildings becoming smoke-free, but 13 public housing commissions have adopted similar policies. Landlords cite benefits such as paying less insurance, fewer maintenance costs, less tenant turnover, fewer complaints and lower risk of fire.

Overall, landlords say the transition has been smooth, largely because it is a voluntary effort.

In Michigan, there have been no problems with compliance and no evictions, said Jim Bergman of the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project in Michigan.

The policy is typically phased in.

Tom Tourville, owner of two apartment complexes Marquette, Mich., did not dream a decade ago of moving toward a smoke-free policy because it would have been "financial suicide."

But the pendulum has swung and the change is welcomed by Roy Struble, who manages a building run by the Marysville Housing Commission, which on Sunday adopts a smoke-free policy for all new residents and forces existing smokers to butt out by Oct. 1, 2008.

"I don't think smokers have any rights when it comes to bothering other people," said Struble, who often fields complaints about second-hand smoke.

We had one here last Thursday.

PARRY SOUND - One person is dead and another injured after being struck by lightning on the Parry Sound High School roof early Thursday.

Lightning struck two Morgan Construction workers on the roof of the school during a rain storm around 7:30 a.m on March 22.

The Parry Sound Fire Department was called at 7:41 a.m. to help get the two people off the roof. Ambulance attendants were already on scene, Fire Chief Laurence Green said.

The second man remained in the hospital Thursday morning. The Beacon Star could not confirm the extent of the injuries.

School continued as scheduled, but a trauma team was readied if needed by students, said school principal Shahina Butt.

As of 10 a.m. Thursday, two students had used the service, she said.

Morgan Construction was working to replace parts of the school’s leaking roof.

Coaches Corner was funny on Sat. It's been awhile since I laughed during that segment.

While it would be nice to have the other games updated more often at least we don't have to put up with TSN or SPORTSNET's stupid, irrelevant poll of the night. Fuck those bug me.

And another thing that I can stand is the new Molson Canadian ad's. "Do Canadian really know anything about beer?" It wasn't funny the first time so it isn't getting any funnier the next 87 times. Fuck