Boing Boing: Praying woman struck by lightning

On Memorial Day weekend, Clara Jean brown of Baldwin County, Alabama, prayed to the lord to protect her family from a storm in the area. Seemed like a good idea, until she said 'Amen' and was struck by a bolt of lightning. From Associated Press:

The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.

Firefighters said its likely she was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house...

A family member said he will no longer assume it is safe to be indoors during a lightning strike.

The safety of praying is now up for debate though.

Nothing works.

Let's revise the old buddhist saying: Life is suffering, then you kill yourself.

Let's see; what's stopping me from killing myself. Let's make a list.

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Ok, that didn't work so well. I don't really know what the difference would be right now. I live every day dead. Dead dead dead. I'm just going through the motions. I have no passion. No one to share with. I don't care about tomorrow. Yesterday is just like this big ugly mud puddle of mistakes someone else made.

I have to do something different, but I don’t know what. It may be everything or it may be something small that changes everything. I remember standing in the room where the coats were, debating what to do. Change is pressed upon one. That was her translation from the French. The question was about change, about whether change is possible, and she quoted this from the French. When she arrived, she smiled and waved to me. Had she come over and talked, I would have welcomed it, but since she didn’t, I stayed where I was. It wasn’t a game. I was sitting on the couch, and there was room to my left, although in fairness to her, there were also some pillows there, which she would have had to move aside. Later, as people took their seats at the table, I saw an open seat beside her and almost sat down but instead went to the kitchen to get my potatoes. By the time I finished transferring the potatoes to a serving dish and placing the dish on a side table, the seat was taken. Each thing has its momentum. In the room with the coats I decided she wasn’t who I wanted, and vice versa, and that I would leave. I may have been wrong, but one must decide based on what one knows. You cannot divide yourself into two people and live two lives to see which is better. There is another world, she said, again quoting the French, evidently she spoke French, but it is in this one. oblivio

MAN DATES GAL ON INTERNET FOR SIX MONTHS -- AND IT TURNS OUT SHE'S HIS MOTHER!

MARSEILLES, France -- Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

"I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams," the rattled bachelor later admitted. "And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she'd said she would.

"But when I got close, she turned around -- and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn't know what to say. All I could think was, 'Oh my God! it's Mama!' "

But the worst was yet to come. Just as the mortified mother and son realized the error of their ways, a patrolman passed by and cited them for visiting a restricted beach after dark.

"Danny and I were so flustered, we blurted out the whole story to the cop," recalled matronly mom Nicole, 52. "The policeman wrote a report, a local TV station got hold of it -- and the next thing we knew, our picture and our story was all over the 6 o'clock news. "People started pointing and laughing at us on the street -- and they haven't stopped laughing since."

The girl-crazy X-ray technician said he began flirting with normally straitlaced Nicole -- who lives six miles away in a Marseilles suburb -- while scouring the Internet for young ladies to put a little pizzazz in his life.

"Mom called herself Sweet Juliette and I called myself The Prince of Pleasure, and unfortunately, neither one of us had any idea who the other was," said flabbergasted Daniel.

"The conversations even got a little racy a couple of times.

"But I really started to fall for her, because there seemed to be a sensitive side that you don't see in many girls.

"She sent me poems she had written and told me about her dreams and desires, and it was really very romantic.

"The truth is, I got to see a side of my mom I'd never seen before. I'm grateful for that."

When starry-eyed Daniel asked Sweet Juliette to send him a picture, Nicole e-mailed him a photo of a curvy, half-clad cutie she'd scanned from a men's magazine.

"The girl in the picture was so beautiful, I begged Juliette to meet me on the beach -- and Mom said yes," he recalled. "Mom says she was falling for me, too, and she just wanted to meet me, even though she knew I'd be disappointed when I saw her.

"As for me, I figured I was going to find the girl of my dreams.

"I guess that's about as wrong as I've ever been."

Daniel admits he and his mother could do little but stammer and stutter around each other for days after their cyberspace exploits came to light. And his father Paul -- Nicole's husband of 27 years -- wasn't too happy when the story hit the news and his beer-drinking buddies made him the butt of their jokes.

"Dad was ticked for a while and he forbid Mom to talk to anybody on the Internet ever again," said embarrassed Daniel.

US evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for "dividing God's land" of Israel, igniting his latest trademark controversy.

As the Israeli prime minister battled for life, Robertson seemed to suggest to viewers on his "700 Club" television show that Sharon was being punished for his policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

"The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who, quote, 'divide my land.' God considers this land to be his.

"You read the Bible, he says, 'This is my land.' And for any prime minister of Israel who decides he's going carve it up and give it away, God says, 'No. This is mine.'"

Robertson, who frequently provokes outrage with his remarks, said he was "sad" to see Sharon fall sick, and that he was a "very likeable person."

"I prayed with him personally. But here he is at the point of death. He was dividing God's land, and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations or the United States of America."

BREITBART.COM - US Christian broadcaster says Sharon's stroke divine retribution

"They were looking for things to do," Det. Ken Kelly said. "They told us, `We were going to have a baby Jesus burning party.'" One suspect told detectives, "We just wanted to see their heads burning," Kelly said.

The baby Jesus figures, now at the police station, were probably stolen from homes and churches around the Sayreville area within the past few weeks, officers said. "It looked like a maternity ward," Lt. Glenn Skarzynski said of the figurines. He added, "Anyone able to identify their particular baby Jesus will be able to be reunited."

oink

A cat in Oklahoma City survived being closed in a refrigerator for four weeks without food or water, according to a Local 6 News report.

Tyce Honer, 4, said he forgot he had put Louis the 10-pound cat in a refrigerator in the family's barn to keep it safe.

When the cat was missing, the family feared it may have been eaten by coyotes.

However, four weeks after the cat disappeared, the boy's father decided to clean out the appliance and found the cat weighing only 3 pounds.

local6.com - News - Cat Survives 4 Weeks In Refrigerator

A police spokesman said: "The law doesn't say you can't make love on the bonnet of a police car."