Like Horny Goats to the Slaughter

Article

The English are weird. I'm just going to put that right out there. Not that we don't have our own oddities, but you have to admit, this makes a whole lot more sense when you realize where it happened.

Joanne Hale, 39, gave her husband Peter an herb called horny goat weed before cutting his throat in woodland at Stoke Bishop, Bristol, on 27 December 2008.

Bristol Crown Court heard she then left the scene to have a romantic liaison with a man she had met on the internet.

Hale, of Stapleton, will be sentenced at a later date.

The trial jury heard that after taking the aphrodisiac, Mr Hale was led to the woodland by his wife believing they would have sex.

Instead Joanne Hale inflicted a 12cm (4.7in) cut to his throat and then stabbed him, leaving a wound to his chest which caused lung collapse, cardiac arrest and heart damage.

Christopher Armstrong, the surgeon who treated Mr Hale, said that he had come "close to death".

At least in America, we only use the internet to make asses out of ourselves because people are picking on Britney Spears, or to find our long-lost sons so we can sleep with them...like I said, the English are weird.

The rats told her to do it...

That horny goat weed must be some primo stuff, because I'm still trying to figure out at what point you don't tell someone there's no way you're going into the woods to have sex.

After the attack, she left Mr Hale in the care of a passer-by and went to Bristol Parkway railway station to meet Philip Sudol, a married postman from Leeds, with whom she had been having an internet relationship.

Mr Sudol told the court of his shock as he arrived back at the Hales' home in Hawksmoor Lane to be met by a large number of police.

"I heard the police say there had been some sort of incident, and she had been accused of being involved with that incident and they arrested her on attempted murder.

"A couple of minutes later someone came over and arrested me as an attempted murderer - I was quite taken aback by that. I'd been in Bristol for an hour, maybe less," he said.

Mr Sudol was subsequently released.

Joanne Hale declined to give evidence at her trial but she had told police that Mr Hale had cut his own throat after an argument.

She was convicted by a majority verdict.

I see, the old he-cut-his-own-throat-and-left-himself-for-dead defense. She probably should have doused him with petrol and set him on fire. The jury would have believed spontaneous combustion.

When A Good Idea Becomes A Great Idea

I write this Blog as a way for me to do two things which I enjoy: exercise my God-given right to freedom of expression and write. This Blog is not a myriad of passing, scatterbrained thoughts swimming through my brain like a dog chasing cars, which I then sporadically post at my whimsy. They are well drawn, thought out, and delivered articles.

Some of them are crazy things happening in the World, which I like to highlight because they get swept under the carpet to more important issues like who's dating Jennifer Aniston. Others are things I think about which build up until I have to write it down. All of them are tempered with humor and wit.

When I started this Blog, I did something that many would say is a bad idea--I turned the comments off. Although some would definitely spin that fact into me not being able to handle the heat, the truth is actually a lot simpler.

I have avoided partaking in the more popular aspects of the internet for a long time. I didn't blog when blogging was the new big thing. I didn't join Myspace until it was already yesterday's news, then I realized how useless it was and I dumped it. I don't have a Facebook page, and I'm still trying to figure out why I should care about Twitter.

When I came to the realization that I wanted to write, and that no one in their right mind would ever let me write articles in a newspaper, I decided blogging was for me. When I started going through my thought process and planning my Blog, I made two major decisions:

The first decision, was that I would remain anonymous as long as I could. I don't need death threats or general pathetic drama because I'm expressing myself on the internet. I'm not afraid of the quote "Cyberbullies", I just don't have that kind of time. I suppose it's kind of ridiculous and doesn't matter, but whatever. It gave me the option to not post my real name, and I took it.

The second decision, was that I would turn off the comments. My posts are genuine articles. The subject matter is my opinion. When they're posted, that is the final word. When you read an article in the newspaper, you don't get to write your opinion of their opinion down on a blank spot underneath the article and then redistribute it for everyone to read. You get to write a letter to the columnist and tell him what a twit he is. This is why my e-mail address is in the top right corner of this blog.

I don't know who made this picture, but trust me, I give them full credit.

I have been on the internet since its inception. If there's one thing I know about, it's how easy it is for someone to hijack a blog, post forum, or any website which allows for posted comments.

Do I value your opinion? If you write me an e-mail, whether in agreement or disagreement, maintaining civility and restraint (no expletives), then the answer is yes. If you give me a garbled, incoherent, expletive-laden brain-flush, then the answer is no.

If required, I have all the time in the World to reply to your mail. However, I do not have time to get into a big internet drama where I get 4200 comments to one of my post and then spend the next week rebutting every comment. I don't have that kind of time or energy; I have another article to write and post.

Some people would consider this to be the coward's way out. I consider this to be the subject of this article.

Young Nathan and a few others have a blog called St. Eutychus. Nathan decided to post a blog entry entitled "Five things that would make atheists seem nicer". PZ Myers didn't like Nathan's post and decided to make his own blog entry "Advice for atheists?", and that's when the circus came to town.

Approximately two hundred comments from angry Atheists flaming Nathan ensued. This is my rough estimate, because some of the two hundred and twenty-two comments made were rebuttals from Nathan. Due to the influx in both comments and traffic, the blog was killed for nine hours until Nathan and his fellow bloggers could find a new host.

There are moments when we think we have good ideas. Then events happen which make us realize those good ideas were actually great ideas. As I'm standing in that moment, I would like to impart some wisdom to someone who is not.

Dear Nathan,

1. Turn the comments off.
2. Next time, and we all know there will be a next time, entitle your blog entry: Five things that would make me care what an Atheist thinks.

Then leave the entry blank.