Brain Damage’s original motion picture soundtrack has been reissued on vinyl via Terror Vision Records. Composed by Clutch Reiser and Gus Russo (Basket Case), the audio has been remastered from the original tapes.
Priced at $30, the album is pressed with new lacquers on “Aylmer’s Bite” colored vinyl (pictured below), limited to 300. It’s housed in
a gatefold jacket designed by Earl Kessler Jr. with liner notes by Russo.
The Brain Damage soundtrack is also available on yellow cassette, limited to 100, for $13.
I have a story that’s topical; I’ve told it before on tumblr, but it’s topical to this and thus worth repeating.
Back around 2005, I ran into a Baptist missionary who spotted my kippah and basically took that as permission to attempt to missionize at me.
I defended myself, using the basics of the knowledge I have of Christian theology and texts that I learned specifically to fend off missionaries.
We went back and forth and back and forth, and he wouldn’t leave me alone for… oh, probably the better part of an hour.
And then…
Then this part is seared into my memory. I have nightmares about it.
He smiled at me and said that, with my knowledge of the Gospels, I am sure to be one of the Elect when the time comes.
I asked what the hell that meant.
And he told me. He told me in a tone of utmost sincerity–even envy, because to his belief system, it was a good and enviable thing…
Because to be one of the “Elect” is to be one of the 144,000 Jews who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior at the Apocalypse. This will happen when all of the Children of Israel have been Gathered in the Land of Israel; war will break out, the Assembled Jews will have the Gospels preached to us, and 144,000 Thousand–Twelve Tribes times Twelve Apostles times One Thousand–Jews will spontaneously convert to Christianity.
Once that occurs, all of the Jews die in the Apocalypse, but the Elect ascend to Heaven to be Jesus Christ’s personal escorts down to Earth for his Second Coming (the rest of the Jews go to hell for eternity, in case you’re wondering).
In short…
He told me that I existed to be a human blood sacrifice to bring back his god. I was not a person to him. I was nothing more than a means to that end.
And he was jealous. Jealous of the fact that he viewed my knowledge of his religion, something that I had learned specifically to fend him and his kind off, as proof that his religion was right and correct and inevitable. That in learning it, I had made myself more valuable to his worldview.
Jealous that, because I was more valuable, because I existed to die for his god, I would meet that god before him.
It was terrifying, to be told that I was to die… and he thought that it was a good thing.
This is how Evangelicals view death. Not as something to be avoided, but something to seek, something that is a positive, and not just for themselves… but for everybody.
They are the closest thing to a full-fledged Religion of Evil on the planet, and I say that without hyperbole.
When you guys say the US is being controlled by a death cult, you werent kidding!
A Florida Republican introduced a bill that would make it easier for
religious people to sue those who call them out as homophobic or
transphobic, a bill built on a suggestion from Gov. Ron DeSantis ®.
State Rep. Alex Andrade ® filed H.B. 991 on Tuesday. The
bill would make it easier to sue journalists, publications, or social
media users for defamation if they accuse someone of racism, sexism,
homophobia, or transphobia. The bill specifically says that publications
can’t use truth as a defense when it comes to reporting on people’s
anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments by citing the person’s “constitutionally
protected religious expression or beliefs” or “a plaintiff’s scientific
beliefs.”
And the bill isn’t limited to professional journalists in scope – it affects anyone in public, including people on social media.
Transgender Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo called the bill “absolutely chilling.”“If someone calls you a fa***t or tra**y and you say they
discriminated against you, they can now sue you for at least $35k and
cite their religious beliefs,” she noted on Twitter. “This would apply
to the internet as well. This would empower bigots to target the LGBTQ
community with impunity.”“This applies to the internet as well so if the person is in Florida,
you could be liable even if you have never stepped foot in Florida.”
Mike DeWine, the Ohio governor, recently lamented the toll taken on the residents of East Palestine after the toxic train derailment there, saying “no other community should have to go through this”.
But such accidents are happening with striking regularity. A Guardian analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and by non-profit groups that track chemical accidents in the US shows that accidental releases – be they through train derailments, truck crashes, pipeline ruptures or industrial plant leaks and spills – are happening consistently across the country.
By one estimate these incidents are occurring, on average, every two days.
“These kinds of hidden disasters happen far too frequently,” Mathy Stanislaus, who served as assistant administrator of the EPA’s office of land and emergency management during the Obama administration, told the Guardian. Stanislaus led programs focused on the cleanup of contaminated hazardous waste sites, chemical plant safety, oil spill prevention and emergency response.
In the first seven weeks of 2023 alone, there were more than 30 incidents recorded by the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, roughly one every day and a half. Last year the coalition recorded 188, up from 177 in 2021. The group has tallied more than 470 incidents since it started counting in April 2020.
The incidents logged by the coalition range widely in severity but each involves the accidental release of chemicals deemed to pose potential threats to human and environmental health.
In September, for instance, nine people were hospitalized and 300 evacuated in California after a spill of caustic materials at a recycling facility. In October, officials ordered residents to shelter in place after an explosion and fire at a petrochemical plant in Louisiana. In November, more than 100 residents of Atchinson, Kansas, were treated for respiratory problems and schools were evacuated after an accident at a beverage manufacturing facility created a chemical cloud over the town.
Among multiple incidents in December, a large pipeline ruptured in rural northern Kansas, smothering the surrounding land and waterways in 588,000 gallons of diluted bitumen crude oil. Hundreds of workers are still trying to clean up the pipeline mess, at a cost pegged at around $488m.
The precise number of hazardous chemical incidents is hard to determine because the US has multiple agencies involved in response, but the EPA told the Guardian that over the past 10 years, the agency has “performed an average of 235 emergency response actions per year, including responses to discharges of hazardous chemicals or oil”. The agency said it employs roughly 250 people devoted to the EPA’s emergency response and removal program.
[…]
The EPA itself says that by several measurements, accidents at facilities are becoming worse: evacuations, sheltering and the average annual rate of people seeking medical treatment stemming from chemical accidents are on the rise. Total annual costs are approximately $477m, including costs related to injuries and deaths.
“Accidental releases remain a significant concern,” the EPA said.
In August, the EPA proposed several changes to the Risk Management Program (RMP) regulations that apply to plants dealing with hazardous chemicals. The rule changes reflect the recognition by EPA that many chemical facilities are located in areas that are vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, including power outages, flooding, hurricanes and other weather events.
The proposed changes include enhanced emergency preparedness, increased public access to information about hazardous chemicals risks communities face and new accident prevention requirements.
The US Chamber of Commerce has pushed back on stronger regulations, arguing that most facilities operate safely, accidents are declining and that the facilities impacted by any rule changes are supplying “essential products and services that help drive our economy and provide jobs in our communities”. Other opponents to strengthening safety rules include the American Chemistry Council, American Forest & Paper Association, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute.
Many worker and community advocates, such as the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America, (UAW), which represents roughly a million laborers, say the proposed rule changes don’t go far enough.
