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A San Diego woman has filed a lawsuit against Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Estee Lauder for selling anti-aging creams that allegedly employ false advertising.

Debra Scheufler says she wants to make advertisers tell the truth about “age-defying” creams that don’t live up to their claims. She filed a class action lawsuit in California.

“These products that tout themselves as anti-aging products really target women of my era and kind of suck us into the belief that the clock can actually be turned back, when in fact, it cannot be turned back,” Scheufler said. “I wasn’t getting any younger.”

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With its towering dinosaurs and a model of the Grand Canyon, America’s newest tourist attraction might look like the ideal destination for fans of the film Jurassic Park.

The new multi-million-dollar Museum of Creation, which will open this spring in Kentucky, will, however, be aimed not at film buffs, but at the growing ranks of fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

It aims to promote the view that man was created in his present shape by God, as the Bible states, rather than by a Darwinian process of evolution, as scientists insist.

The centrepiece of the museum is a series of huge model dinosaurs, built by the former head of design at Universal Studios, which are portrayed as existing alongside man, contrary to received scientific opinion that they lived millions of years apart.

Other exhibits include images of Adam and Eve, a model of Noah’s Ark and a planetarium demonstrating how God made the Earth in six days.

[..]

Other exhibits in the museum will blame homosexuals for Aids. In a “Bible Authority Room” visitors are warned: “Everyone who rejects his history � including six-day creation and Noah’s flood � is `wilfully’ ignorant.”

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Bill Frist, majority leader in the U.S. Senate, visited tsunami-stricken southern Sri Lanka on Thursday and pledged U.S. government support and American private sector for tens of thousands who lost homes and loved ones.

“The devastation is actually worse than I had anticipated,” said Frist, who flew by helicopter to the southern city of Galle from Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and viewed twisted railway tracks and the foundations of homes laid bare by the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Sounds noble, right? Wrong. He just saw a photo-op. From the same article:

Just before his helicopter lifted off, Frist and aides took snapshots of each other near a pile of tsunami debris.

“Get some devastation in the back,” Frist told a photographer.

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Sutadhara Tapovanaye, a Buddhist monk for 38 of his 48 years, tries to explain it differently. This, he says, is a part of life, the dynamics of nature, an always-changing world.

On Wednesday night, in a tearful memorial service at the Sri Lankan Embassy, he was asked to say a few words. “It was difficult,” he remembers.

He arrived in the District two months ago for a year-long sabbatical at the Washington Buddhist Vihara Society. “According to Buddhist explanations, life is very short,” says the linguistics teacher at Kelaniya University in Sri Lanka. “It is like a dream, but I never expected a nightmare like this.

“Now, in Sri Lanka, human bodies are piling up and with no identities. Nobody can recognize bodies as a part of any ethnic group or religious identification. Just human bodies. The medical workers give a number for each body,” he says. “That means, we have to think about this death as inevitable, but at the same time, we have to rethink about life. Though we have different barriers — man-made barriers, actually — the reality is beyond that.”

Tom DeLay’s thoughts on the tsunami, to the 109th Congressional Prayer Service. Quite unbelievable. No, on second thoughts, all too believable.

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This (Tuesday) morning at 9am, C-SPAN had a live telecast of the 109th Congressional Prayer Service from a church on Capitol Hill. There were some sentiments shared about the recently-passed Bob Matsui and Shirley Chisholm, and, amidst the scripture readings, reminders from a few Congressmen about the Christian foundation of our government. Others spoke of the Asian tsunami tragedy.

Then Tom DeLay gets up to the pulpit, and — striking a beautiful note in light of the 150,000 dead from the floods referenced by his colleagues — lets loose with some Matthew 7, beginning at verse 21.

(Many thanks to ben for the heads up on the exact wording, and to DemWatch for directing us to this transcription of the reading and MP3.)

Saith DeLay:

“A reading of the Gospel, in Matthew 7:21 through 27.

Not every one who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven; but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?

“Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you: depart from me, you evil doers.’”

Everyone who listens to these words of mine, and acts on them, will be like a wise man, who built his house on a rock:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, but it did not collapse; it has been set solidly on rock.

And everyone who listens to these words of mine, but does not act on them, will be like a fool who built his house on sand:

The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew, and buffeted the house, and it collapsed and was completely ruined.”

He finishes reading, says nothing more, and sits back down.

Clearly, someone needs to smite him.

It’s this kind of asshole that causes my tolerance of religion to slowly disappear. I know he doesn’t speak for all of you deeply devout people reading this weblog (or more likely reading Matt 25:31-46), but there’s just too many of these nitwits.

Sometimes there’s no need to translate a page… Like this one, for example.

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Plans to broadcast a London musical that features a nappy-wearing Jesus who admits he is “a bit gay”, have sparked a record 5,500 complaints, a television watchdog said.

The BBC nevertheless vowed to go ahead with its plan to show “Jerry Springer The Opera”, based on the controversial US talk show and which is still playing to packed houses in the West End of London.

The opera contains a total of 3,168 “f”-words and 297 “c”-words. The expletive-laden songs include Pregnant By A Transsexual and Here Come The Hookers.

British media regulator Ofcom said it had received 5,500 complaints about the plan to broadcast the show, which is due to be screened on Saturday as the centrepiece of Jerry Springer Night on BBC2.

That figure is three times as many as the previous record holder, Martin Scorsese’s film “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which sparked 1,554 complaints when it was shown on television here in 1995, it said.

The BBC added that it has received more than 15,000 calls from viewers concerned about the programme.

But the National Secular Society urged the national broadcaster to stand firm against “religious bullies”.

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The sign on the toilet brush says it best: “Do not use for personal hygiene.”

That admonition was the winner of an anti-lawsuit group’s contest for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year.

The sponsor, Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, says the goal is “to reveal how lawsuits, and concern about lawsuits, have created a need for common sense warnings on products.”

The $500 first prize went to Ed Gyetvai, of Oldcastle, Ontario, who submitted the toilet-brush label. A $250 second prize went to Matt Johnson, of Naperville, Ill., for a label on a children’s scooter that said, “This product moves when used.”

A $100 third prize went to Ann Marie Taylor, of Camden, S.C., who submitted a warning from a digital thermometer that said, “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”

This year’s contest coincides with a drive by President Bush and congressional Republicans to put caps and other limits on jury awards in liability cases.

An aerial shot taken from a US Navy Seahawk helicopter from carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Thursday, Jan. 6, 2005 shows a barge and a tugboat swept ashore by the Dec. 26 Tsunami near the coastal town of Lamno, south of Banda Aceh, in northwest Indonesia.

In this photo released by Durban Bridge, tsunami survivor Acehnese Rizal Shahputra stands on the tree branches and waves to a cargo ship after being spotted by the crew of a container vessel in the Indian Ocean, 100 nautical miles (160 kilometers) from the shores of Aceh province Monday, Jan. 3, 2005. The Indonesian man swept off shore by last week’s tsunami was found afloat on tree branches and debris, the second person to be found alive at sea by Malaysian ships days after the disaster, officials said Tuesday.

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Jimi Hendrix not only had the skills to become a rock legend � he apparently had the right look as well. A recent poll found that Hendrix had the best “guitar face” � the look guitarists get when trying to nail a high note or power chord.

Hendrix received 24 percent of the 3,000 votes cast online by the public and a poll by some 20 celebrity judges. B.B. King captured 18 percent of the vote, followed by Angus Young of AC/DC with 16 percent.

Gary Lucas, guitarist for Gods and Monsters, said he voted for Hendrix because he “channeled all the soulful ecstasy of the universe through his hands, and this was naturally mirrored in his face.”