I’m sure having this sticker on my suitcase will make going through airport security much more entertaining!

Take a stand against monotonous travel with Suitcase Stickers. Designed to stick to anything, they will draw attention to your bag making it easily identifiable and sure to make you some new friends.

Caution: Some of these stickers may cause offense to airport and immigration staff. But you would have figured that out whilst enjoying those cavity searches.

Suitcase Stickers

I just stumbled upon a news story about Simon Cowell, prominent English guy (for what I can’t remember – America’s Got Talent?) supporting the Katie Piper fund.

When I read the story I remembered where I’ve seen her – I saw a Channel 4 documentary about her a while back and was absolutely amazed at how brave she is and what a horrible ordeal she’s had to go through.

To make the story short (as as much as I remember from the film) she was a model and TV presenter, dating someone who seemed really nice but turned out to be the ultimate nightmare. After he’d raped her for hours, she made it home and broke off contact with him but was too afraid to press charges. Days later he had a friend wait for her outside her apartment and throw acid into her face, permanently disfiguring her.

The acid burned through all four layers of skin on her face, some spilled down her throat and she was left blind in one eye.
She has undergone more than 40 operations on her face and throat including groundbreaking surgery at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

I remember seeing that documentary and wondering if I would ever recover from that sort of thing – she had her whole life ahead of her, everything going for her – she was (still is, I think) beautiful, had a great career going, fun friends, etc. – and ended up in horrendous pain, needing constant care from her parents and countless operations. And for what, just because she had the misfortune of dating a lunatic. After the assault, she was afraid to leave the house, obviously everyone stared, but she made it. Would you? Would I? I don’t know. I think I might’ve spiraled into a life-long “why me?!” depression.

Until I read the news story with Cowell, I didn’t realize she’s started a fund. Treatment for people with severe burns and scars is enormously expensive and not every insurance covers it. Many victims have to live with the disfigurement fort the rest of their lives and simply can’t afford any help to get through it – this help would include treatments but also psychotherapy, or even makeup classes (there is such thing as „camouflage“ makeup, for example). It’s not only about trying to heal the wounds as best as possible but also rebuilding victims’ self-esteem and dealing with the way they look now, dealing with the looks they get from other people.

The foundation’s vision is to create a n advanced burn and scar management and rehabilitation clinic in the UK accessible to anybody who would benefit from specialised treatments. This will include daily pressure therapy using controlled, standardised and customised care with the help of LPG Endermologie machines, manual massage, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and silicone treatment.

The clinic will also be a place where people can learn to overcome the psychological barriers of living with disfigurement and concentrate on rebuilding their lives.

The foundation also aims to offer non-medical advice to empower people and build up their confidence by showing them how to look and feel their best again. This would include professional lessons on camouflage makeup and hair styling as well as a mentorship program that brings burns survivors together to support each other.

Yeah, I guess there are tons of other worthy causes – children starving, our world as we know it being ruined (thank you, BP), but pick whichever one you feel a connection to, I say. Helping any cause at all is better than doing nothing. Lots of people who have lost loved ones to cancer support cancer causes; if you have friends or family who have been disfigured by burns, this might be a good cause for you to support. I don’t personally know anyone who has been disfigured, by the way, but I just find her story very inspirational. Maybe because I saw the film, I don’t know.

Here’s more info:

The Katie Piper Foundation

Just my 2 cents for today…

Just what we need: GodBlock! Because really, porn, racism and general rightwing batshit aren’t the real filth of the Internet, are they.

GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.

The “names of religious figures” feature should be fun. Let’s see, that would mean that any site mentioning Aaron, Abraham, Andrew, Anthony, Benjamin, Christopher, David, Daniel, Elija, Elizabeth, Eve, Francis, etc. (we can take this all the way to Zachary) would be blocked?

World Cup is over. And Spain won. Well done, Spain. Now what do we look forward to?

Highlight:

(Click HERE for the appropriate background music)

I’ve been living in Germany off and on since about 1976. And every summer, when it was boiling hot, the Germans would say “well, we don’t need air conditioning, it is so rarely really hot here”. Yeah, that was true until the late 80’s. But global warming’s a bitch and it’s come to this country, too. Years ago. But hey, just keep on ignoring it because then it ain’t true, right?

So here’s today’s news, link is in German so I will translate it for you. Basically it says that an ICE (German “fast” trains, no windows for opening) air con system wasn’t working. Temperature went up to over 125 Fahrenheit (50 Celsius). One mother used the emergency hammer to smash a window, because her son was suffocating. 27 students from North Rhine Westfalia, on a field trip with their school, collapsed and had to be medically treated.

But yeah, just keep on saying “oh, it’s just a few hot days a year, we don’t need air conditioning”. How about a study about how much less work gets done during these temperatures and its effects on the economy? Get with the program - times are changing! I’ve been long enough to notice that each summer gets hotter. By the way, the Germans (who love to make fun of fat Americans) keep getting fatter, too, but that’s worth another post, isn’t it.

I don’t think I need to add to this that the heat is making me REALLY F***ING CRANKY! GRR!

but also pretty disgusting.

Michael Douglas’s ex-wife Diandra Douglas wants a cut from Wall Street sequel

Wow. Has she already gone through the $ 45 million divorce settlement?

So Germany won 3rd place… Sorry if I’m not impressed, they did that 2006 already. As John Wayne once said (in Trouble Along the Way): “Winning isn’t everything…it’s the only thing.”

Since I have Dutch friends (hello Hans, Robert and (sort of Dutch) Gustav!), I am now rooting for Holland.

Body scanners will not be used at Dubai airports

Full-body scanners will not be used in Dubai airports as they “contradict Islam, and out of respect for the privacy of individuals and their personal freedom.”

As a frequent international traveler, I have been subjected to sexist, abusive, pervert behavior at airports many times before the idea of full body scanners even existed. I’m not saying that all airport security personnel are perv, but if you travel enough, you will encounter lots of it.

I remember too well, for example, walking through security at San Jose airport with nothing at all beeping. Once I got to the gate, I found out the flight whose passengers I was waiting for was delayed, so I walked back out. The next time I walked through security, there were two different (male) security guards. And funny enough, all of the sudden I made the scanner beep and they (with a grin) asked me to remove my belt, and was I wearing an underwire bra? Because if so, I should please remove that, too. Funny, it was the same scanner I’d walked through before, why had it not beeped then? The solution: The sensitivity of those beepy thingys is absolutely adjustable and consequently abused by sleazebags.

My most recent experience of “security abuse” was not even by a man. This was at the Cologne/Bonn airport. They act like they’re enforcing the “pull out a random passenger” or whatever rule, and pull you out to give you a “special” onceover. Well this includes you having to stand on a 2 foot high box. Where every other passenger can have a nice view of you being felt up. In my case, it was (no offense to lesbians, but it just didn’t seem right) a female pit-bull who not only grabbed my crotch (and I mean “ouch!” grabbed!) but also grabbed my boobs. Full frontal grab, no messing about. The male passengers looking on really seemed to be enjoying it. Absolutely humiliating. So if this is how it already is, I can only imagine the abuse that will go on when full body scanners are in use. I hope they have special wet wipes for all the sperm-stains that will be on the monitors.

More reasons against naked scanners:

Update: Just noteworthy: Right after I posted this, I had a visitor from Kuwait. Now I get visitors from all over the world (I have to say, the owner of Islamictube is still my favorite), but not usually from countries in which Islam is the majority religion of the people. Weird… I wonder if there are watchdogs that have some kind of “Islam”-Filter on their daily Google.
Salam aleikum!
أهلا صديقي

’70s board game contains eerie BP oil spill scenarios

The game BP Offshore Oil Strike, which came out in the 1970s and is adorned with an old BP logo, revolves around four players exploring for oil, building platforms and constructing pipelines – all in the name of being the first to make $120 million.

But like the real-life oil game there are some big hazards, too. Players have to deal with the possibility of large-scale oil spills and cover cleanup costs. You struggle with “hazard cards” that include phrases now part of our daily vernacular, including: “Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick cleanup costs. Pay $1 million.”