Pick Your God and Start a War

CATEGORY: Religious War

TAG: war, religion

COMMENTARY: The Good Reverend nails it - weep over real war, but make sure to wage your own war on a spiritual level where there can be no questioning or reasoning. The Satan bogeyman is always there, ready to take you on.

So what are you waiting for?! Pick your God and start fighting! Spiritual war makes the world go around. And the Modern Evil Company will be there to supply you with all your warfare needs.

We Have Special Weapons for the Fight Against Evil

By REV. JERRY FORTUNATO

Sat, Aug 05, 12:58 ET

THERE ARE times when we see evil so blatant, so powerful that we shudder with fear and weep in despair. The last several weeks our world has witnessed the horrific loss of lives and devastation in the Middle East as the battle between Israel and Lebanon has escalated and so many lives have been lost. Our world is filled with pain, suffering, cruelty, and exploitation - the result, directly or indirectly, of evil.

I have a declaration to make. You and I are at war right at the moment. In fact, we are engaged right now in the mother of all battles. No war in history can compare with the battle you and I are fighting. If you are a Christian, it can be either the cause of your greatest joy, or your deepest pain. The war I am talking about is the spiritual warfare that you, as a believer in Jesus Christ, became a part of the day you trusted him as your personal savior.

This war affects every area of our lives. There is no way we can avoid the conflict. There is no bunker or foxhole we can crawl into that will shield us from the effects of this battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan.

Since we are at war, how do we fight the battle and become successful? The apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus said: "For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms." (Eph. 6:12, NLT) So the real enemy then is demonic forces, not people, although we cannot excuse the wrong they do.

God has, however, placed at our disposal adequate spiritual weapons for the battle at hand and promises that we will not fight alone. And through faith in him we can be a victor and not a victim.

First, choose to live in truth. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Truth is not knowledge, nor is it education. Education is the favored weapon of those attacking our problems today as the most effective way of solving them. However, we must be committed to truth, which is found only in God's Word. It is not only our responsibility to know the truth; we must demonstrate it as well. Our lives are to be characterized by openness and honesty.

The second weapon is love. What a tired word. We love our spouse, ice cream, our dog, and our children - all different feelings. Biblical love, though, is without self-interest and Paul describes it in detail in I Corinthians (13th chapter), "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

This is the way we must love others. Godly love is a mighty weapon. It is a powerful change agent that transforms people caught in webs of sin into saints who honor God.

The third weapon is righteousness. Paul reminded the Ephesians to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Translated: Allow the Lord to change your life for the better. We replace common human traits with the character of Christ who is tenderhearted, accepting, forgiving, and loving. Because of the Spirit in us, there should be a quality, a radiance, which cannot be explained except by the fact that God is at work in you.

The fourth weapon is prayer. Prayer is a mysterious way to become an agent of good in a world besieged by evil and suffering. What a mighty weapon is put in our hands when we pray and believe that God hears and answers.

Truth, love, righteousness and prayer, these four all work together. We cannot isolate one from the other: They are all necessary. And when we begin to major on these weapons, we will be a tremendously potent force for God and the kingdom of heaven.

There is no place we can go to escape the effect of spiritual warfare. We need to learn how to fight. We can be victorious. That is God's promise.

A Meetup via Modern Evil

CATEGORY: Pet Disposal

TAG: frozen, dog, pet, preparation, preservation

EDITORIAL: "One man's junk is another man's treasure". When we at Modern Evil can bring people together to share their interests, then we know that we've done our job right.

Woman Finds Frozen Dog in her Fridge

Mon Aug 7, 2006 8:32am ET143

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman found a frozen dead dog when she opened the refrigerator freezer compartment in her new apartment in the southwestern town of Trossingen, police said Saturday.

The previous tenant later told police in the town near Stuttgart that his greyhound pup had died of natural causes several months earlier but he did not have time to give it a proper burial before moving out of the apartment.

Police said the man faces prosecution for violating the "Tierkoerperbeseitigungsgesetz" (animal cadaver removal law).


Dog Meat Popular with N. Korean Women

Wed Aug 9, 4:19 PM ET

Dog meat is increasingly popular among women in North Korea because the traditional Korean delicacy is believed to be good for the skin, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan reported Wednesday.

Dog meat has long been regarded as a stamina food in both Koreas, widely consumed on hot summer days in particular.

North Korea is believed to have a greater variety of dishes with dog meat, known in the North as "sweet meat." South Korean gourmets who have tried the delicacy in the North, say Northern dishes taste better.

"Sweet meat has various vitamins, including Vitamin A and B and is good for digestion problems and fatigue," the Choson Sinbo newspaper said on its Web site seen in Seoul.

The paper quoted a cook at a dog meat restaurant in the North's capital, Pyongyang, as saying an increasing number of women are visiting the restaurant.

"Customers get convinced about the efficacy of sweet meat when they see the skin of our employees and cooks," the paper quoted the chef, Ryu Jong Mok, 47, as saying.

The paper said Ryu also has "resilient and fine" skin.

Dog meat is also widely consumed in South Korea, especially among middle-aged men on belief that it's good for stamina and virility. But women in the South are usually less willing to try the food.

Earlier this week, a poll showed that more than 35 percent of South Korean dog owners also eat dog soup.

Dog meat is also eaten in some other Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Laos.

Activists regularly criticize the practice and call for bans on eating dog meat.

Religious Supplies

CATEGORY: Santeria Sacrifice

TAG: animal, sacrifice, blood, offering

NOTE: For all your sacrificial duties, Modern Evil supplies the finest in cutlery and splayware - The EverSharp™ Line of Ceremonial and Traditional Tools [coming soon to our re-designed shopsite].

And for those looking for something beyond the local pet store offerings, be sure to call our 1-800 number and select "Service Exotique". There we specialize in fulfilling all your project demands with discretion.

Kill a Bird for Castro

Fri Aug 4, 2006 11:03 AM ET

MIAMI (Reuters) - The white dove looks warily at shopkeeper Oscar Osorio as he pulls it from a cage and holds it in his hands.

"I don't think he trusts me," Osorio says while he gently rubs the dove's feathers and spreads its wings for a visitor to admire. "I think he knows what's coming."

The bird has reason to be nervous, because the illness of Cuban leader Fidel Castro has moved adherents of Santeria to appeal for divine help in hastening either Castro's demise or his recovery, depending on which side of the Florida Straits they live.

Santeria is the voodooish Afro-Cuban religion that uses animal sacrifice to communicate with the gods, which makes these tough times for favorite sacrificial creatures such as chickens, goats and, in this case, doves.

As many as 3 million people in Cuba and 60,000 people in Florida are believed to be involved in Santeria, according to religious experts.

Osorio said about 20 people a day are coming into his "botanica" in Miami's Little Havana section to buy birds, powders and jewelry for rituals in which they ask the gods to please finish off Castro so they can return home.

The white doves are most popular at the moment because, as traditional symbols of peace, their significance is as much political as religious.

"People want peace for Cuba," he said.

Unfortunately for the birds, which sell for $15 each, the price of peace includes their blood and feathers.

Sometimes, said Osorio, a genial man with a round belly, his customers prefer to just clean the birds and let them fly away. "Those are the lucky ones," he said.

While Osorio disagrees with the concept of asking gods to kill someone, even if it is the hated Castro, from whom he fled a year ago, he does not question his customers' motivations.

"I need the money. I need the money," he shouted.

After Cuba announced on Monday that Castro had stomach surgery and put brother Raul in charge, Rigoberto Zamora, a babalawo, or priest, of what he calls Yoruba, the African name for Santeria, performed a fact-finding ritual.

After sacrificing a couple of black hens and a rooster to satisfy the hunger of the gods, he got the word from them: Castro is already dead; he died on Monday.

"We were astonished by such good news. It made us happy because politically we are against Fidel," said Zamora, who left Cuba in 1980 and lives in the Miami neighborhood known as Little Havana.

The news from the gods was not all good. It turns out that Castro's demise will be followed by three months of intense fighting before peace is restored, he said.

While Cuban-Americans in Florida beseeched the gods to kill Castro, in Cuba the same gods were asked to make him well.

"We are praying for him because it's a very painful situation for everyone," said babalawo Guillermo Diago in Havana.

Members of the Yoruba Cultural Association of Cuba said they were collecting money to buy animals to sacrifice for Castro's health.

"Our position is to follow the plans of the gods, which are to understand and support the decisions taken by our maximum leader," the group said.

Santeristas are not the only religious types preoccupied with Castro's future.

In Miami's Roman Catholic churches with heavily Cuban congregations, priests spoke about the events in Cuba and urged patience.

But Little Havana shopkeeper Maria Vazquez, who sells toilet paper imprinted with Castro's image and T-shirts with anti-Castro messages, said, "We are praying every night that he is dead."

"It's probably not the Christian thing to do, but it is very human," said Vazquez, who fled Cuba with her family when Castro took power 47 years ago and longs to return.

The Modern Evil Medical Line

CATEGORY: Home Surgery

TAG: DIY, surgery

NOTE: Our Solo Surgery™ line of products and complete DIY kits would have greatly improved the success of this service. As demand for home medical procedures has rapidly increased, we at Modern Evil have expanded our Solo Surgery™ line to cover a variety of special interests: Quick-Re-Connect, Brain Drain, Organ Swap, Suck 'N Tuck, and the massively popular, Plastic4U.

All of these products are AMA Approval Pending and readily available through our 1-800 line, as well as our website [currently under reconstruction].

Basement Surgery Horror Story

Fri Aug 4, 11:52 AM EST

Much has been made about the rise of TB cases in Framingham and how the rising immigrant population is its source.

This week, the big story was the death of a Brazilian woman following illegal plastic surgery in the basement of a duplex. The unlicensed surgeon was from Brazil, here legally with a visa and apparently made the trips to Framingham with regularity in the past two to three years to perform liposuctions, Botox treatments and other aesthetic plastic surgery procedures.

Descriptions of the dingy basement where he cut into willing young women wanting to nip and tuck question both the greed of the physician and the women’s desperation and lack of judgment. Fabiola DePaula was not a fluke for Luiz Carlos Ribeiro as other women have told investigators they too were injured as a result of the basement doctor. Ribeiro, his wife Ana Maria Miranda Ribeiro and the woman who owned the apartment where the surgeries took place and also allegedly arranged the surgeries, Ana Celia Sielemann, have all been arrested.

The horror of this story is beyond words. A woman who almost had the same procedure described the basement in the following way:

In the apartment’s basement, said the woman, there were five other girls, including DePaula, waiting in line for their turn to be operated on by Ribeiro. There was a small bed where the operations were being performed. As for surgical tools, they were sterilized in a pot with boiling water in the kitchen upstairs, she said. And the doctor smoked between procedures, the woman said.

Investigators found plenty of evidence of blood on the basement floor.

Ribeiro was in the country legally on a 30-day visa. As a doctor in Brazil (he reportedly is a dermatologist) he is able to travel easily from his country to the United States. How else do you think foreign doctors attend special trainings, seminars, etc?

The most troubling aspects of the story are that his practice in the underground medical community was fairly well known by Brazilians. It was also reported that he taped a cable access show in Framingham warning immigrants about the dangers of having medical treatment done by unlicensed physicians.

One has to wonder where he obtained the equipment and drugs used in his procedures. The DAs office says the drugs were obtained by illegal means but these are the types of drugs (lidocaine, glucose, etc) that street dealers don’t sell. They are the kind of drugs found in hospitals and doctors offices.

Surely there will be some who will point the finger at this situation as another reason to crack down on illegal immigrants, specifically Brazilians.

Attempting to address a public heath problem as an immigration problem is inefficient and misguided. Instead of trying to crack down on illegal immigrants, public health officials should be trying to crack down on TB cases, bed bugs and underground plastic surgery operations. To try and make this into an immigration issue takes valuable time and energy away from stopping people from being injured, sickened and killed. It’s a classic example of misplaced energy.

Death Email

CATEGORY: Obituary Database

TAG: death, technology

EDITORIAL: A Death Database is useful in more ways than just planning a funeral. The mash-up potential with florists, real estate sellers, charity donations, retirement centers and dozens of other related businesses is tremendous. The Modern Evil Company is looking to acquire this technology.

"Welcome...You've Got Death..."

Tue Aug 1, 8:49 AM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A social networking Web site for Americans aged 50-plus went live on Monday -- complete with an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service.

The founder of Internet job site Monster.com, Jeff Taylor, launched Eons.com, a similar site to the popular online teen hang-outs MySpace or Facebook for the 50-plus crowd.

Instead of career and school sections, Eons.com has interactive games to build brain strength, news on entertainment and hobbies for older people, a personalized longevity calculator and tips to live longer.

It also has a nationwide database of obituaries dating back to the 1930s to which people can add photos and comments.

"The death business is growing," Taylor told Reuters, offering figures showing the number of deaths in the United States rose to 2.4 million in 2005 from 2.2 million in 2000, and was projected to rise to 4.1 million by 2040.

In addition to adding photos and videos to obituaries, members of Eons.com can sign up to receive an alert when someone from a particular area dies or in response to pre-defined keywords such as a company or school name.

This is similar to e-mail services offered by various other Web sites that alert people when a friend or colleague signs onto a certain site.

"Many people no longer live where they grew up so the idea of a rich story about someone's life in a local newspaper is often lost," said Taylor, who sees online obituaries replacing the traditional death announcements in newspapers.

He said baby boomers, the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, also wanted to have a greater input into their own funerals. This prompted Eons.com to look into a service where people could plan for their favorite songs to be played at their funeral and where friends and family can go afterward for food and drink.

But Taylor, who quit Monster.com last year, said Eons.com's main focus was not death but celebrating turning the Big 5-0 and living the grandest life possible.

Taylor, who is only 45, said he saw the need for Eons.com, for about 44 million of the 86 million Americans aged over 50 are online, but only a few use social networking sites.

This is also a wealthy group, controlling about 67 percent of the nation's wealth -- and with plenty of time ahead.

"We now live about 20 years longer than our grandparents," said Taylor. "These are people who want to spend money to save time rather then spend their time trying to save money."

The Amputation Business

CATEGORY: Profitable Amputations

TAG: amputation, business, doctor, ethics

COMMENTARY: This poses the question - "Which body part would you be willing to give up and for what amount of money/power?".

Doctors Offer to Maim Beggars in TV Sting

Tue Aug 1, 1:58 PM ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Three Indian doctors caught on camera apparently agreeing to amputate the healthy limbs of beggars are to be questioned by the Indian Medical Council, an official said Tuesday.

Secretly filmed footage taken by the CNN-IBN news channel and broadcast Saturday showed one of the doctors asking for 10,000 rupees (about $215) to amputate a lower leg, leaving a stump that may draw sympathy -- and a few rupees -- from passersby.

He then suggests chopping off three fingers from the man's left hand.

Police said one of the three doctors had been questioned and denied the allegations, but that no arrests had been made.

The doctor, from Ghaziabad in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and a satellite town of the capital, New Delhi, explains how he can stitch up blood vessels in a healthy limb, causing it to blacken with gangrene over a few days.

A prospective beggar can be booked into the doctor's claiming to have had an accident, and then have the amputation carried out without raising eyebrows, he explains.

"Believe me if there are two beggars in front of you and one of them is lame, you will give the money to the lame beggar," the station recorded him as saying in Hindi.

Dr Indrajit Ray, who chairs the Medical Council of India's ethics committee, said the three doctors would be summoned to appear before the committee later this month but was unable to say whether they were registered with the council.

If found guilty, they would almost certainly be permanently banned from practicing in India, he said.

"This is a very painful situation for me as a member of the medical profession," he said. "This is most uncivilized and butcher-like activity. It cannot be supported under any circumstances."

The TV station sent a "fake beggar" along to see the doctor at his Ghaziabad clinic after hearing he offered the amputations. Their meeting was secretly filmed.

CNN-IBN said it was trying to expose the activities of a country-wide network of "beggar mafia dons" who exploit the destitute, forcing beggars working in their patch to hand over their alms, and maiming them to maximize revenue.

A beggar in New Delhi told the channel he had been tricked into going for a medical check-up on the promise of a job. He came round after an injection to find one of his legs missing.