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Why do we sometimes create morbid hypothetical situations that play out in our head when doing something normal?
These are intrusive thoughts.
Essentially they are a result of the fact that the brain doesn’t focus on/remember good or bad thoughts, but extreme thoughts. A beautiful woman walking past you and you think about her, that’s a REALLY good thought, you will think about it later. Getting a 25% raise is a great thought, it will stick with you. For the same reason if you happen to think about killing your own child (you don’t always get to choose what pops into your head) Your brain will recognize it as a terrible awful thing that you don’t want to happen. It’s so far to one side of the spectrum so your brain emphasizes it.
Sometimes the brain has to identify what the wrong thing is in order to not do it. When you think of somebody shooting up a movie theater your brain is just "indexing" it into the bad category.
The reason the thought seems so important is because your brain is telling you "make sure this doesn’t happen! this is a bad thing! Don’t let this happen!"
I have talked to a lot of people about intrusive thoughts and the big problem most people have with them is that they obsess over them. THey blame themselves for having the thought and feel like they are a terrible person for having the thought, but really all that’s happening is your brain is indexing it.
If somebody tells you not to think about killing your own mother, you will think about it at least for a moment simply to recognize what the person said. The thought will probably bother you and make you sad, and that’s what it SHOULD do. If more people just learned to recognize that the pattern of "have bad thought—>feel sad about it" is perfectly reasonable and normal, and move on, these thoughts would not bother us nearly as much.
My dad always told me I will never have full control over what I think, but I will ALWAYS have control of what I do. And that’s what matters.
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What are my rights when I get pulled over by the police?
Police can’t pull you over without probable cause.
Cops can’t just randomly stop you and look for drugs in your car. They need a reason, or “probable cause,” like speeding or a broken tail light.
Let’s say you are speeding, the police do pull you over, and they do find drugs in your car. But let’s say the officer wants to give you a break and forgoes a speeding ticket. Cops don’t need to ticket you for speeding to provide probable cause for the stop in court; their notes from the situation would provide enough evidence.
“It’s not enough to just not have a ticket as proof. The officer would have had to fail to write it in his narrative,” Daniel Kron said.
You don’t have to pull over until you can do so safely.
You should still pull over when you can do so safely, Martin Kron said. And if you can’t, you should notify the officer with a hand signal and drive the speed limit.
“The sooner, the better though. Don’t upset the officer. Sometimes you might end up with three tickets instead of one,” he added, implying officers might look for extra infractions if you made them angry.
You have the right to stay in your car.
“It’s perfectly legal for you to say in the vehicle, but doing so looks bad to the officer,” Martin Kron said.
Officers often ask people to “step out of the car” as a safety precaution — to make sure the driver doesn’t have any concealed weapons. But it’s probably best to get out of the car to avoid a tense situation.
It’s not a good idea, but you can refuse a breathalyzer.
Most states, including New York, have a statute called “implied consent.” When you get your driver’s license, you agree to a breathalyzer when pulled over. You can technically still refuse a breathalyzer, but in many states you could get your license suspended for six months if you do.
Now, if police suspect you of drug use, the protocol changes. Based on probable cause, the officer can take you back to the station for either a blood test or analysis from a drug recognition expert, according to Martin Kron.
You are required to stop at checkpoints.
Yes, drivers do have to stop at checkpoints. Police departments plan checkpoints ahead of time, but they must have a specific plan, such as stopping every third car (or every car), according to Martin Kron.
Cops can only search your car without a warrant for these 5 reasons.
1) If you consent, police naturally have a right to search your car.
2) “Plain view” also gives an officer the okay to search your car. “If an officer approaches your car and on the passenger seat he notices a baggie of marijuana … based on regular activities — meaning he doesn’t have to search too hard” then the pot is considered to be in plain view, Daniel Kron said.
3) The third reason is “search incident to arrest,” according to Daniel Kron. Basically, if an officer arrests you with probable cause, he or she can then search your vehicle.
4) Your car can be searched if an “officer has probable cause to suspect a crime,” Daniel Kron said. For example, it’s not illegal to have blood on your front seats, to have a black eye, or to have a ripped-up purse in the car. But all those things in conjunction could be suspicious to an officer.
5) Lastly, “exigent circumstances,” allow a warrantless search. Before an officer receives a warrant, he can “break every rule if he suspects the evidence is about to be destroyed,” Daniel Kron said.
This happens more often in specific locations, like residences, instead of vehicles. For example, if the police want to conduct a drug search and they hear a toilet flush, they can reasonably enter your home, Daniel noted.
You have to let the cops search your car if they have a warrant.
You have to let them search your car if they have a warrant, but some limits apply to the areas they can search.
“If a police officer believes you have a gun in your vehicle, he’s not allowed to search in an area too small to hold it,” Daniel Kron noted. In that case, the glove box may be fair game but not the cigarette lighter.
Even if police find something incriminating the warrant didn’t stipulate — like drugs in the glove box while looking for a gun — the “plain sight” exception applies. They’ll still charge you.
You should still pull over when you can do so safely, Martin Kron said. And if you can’t, you should notify the officer with a hand signal and drive the speed limit.
“The sooner, the better though. Don’t upset the officer. Sometimes you might end up with three tickets instead of one,” he added, implying officers might look for extra infractions if you made them angry.
If you’ve been stopped (but not arrested), you have the right to ask the police whether you’re free to go.
If they say yes, you should calmly walk — not run — away from the scene.
If you are arrested, you have the right to ask for an attorney and should do so immediately.
If you have only been stopped temporarily, you’re not entitled to an attorney at that point. But if you’re being held for an extended period of time, either they’re going to have to let you go or place you under arrest.
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Who was Martin Luther? What were his main contributions?
Martin Luther was a German monk and priest. He was a devout Christian. In 1507, he was ordained as a priest and in 1508 he began to teach theology.
During his lifetime, the Western Church was raising money to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. That in itself was a pretty well thought out plan. However, the methods by which they collected money were intolerable to Martin Luther.
The Roman Church taught that in order to be justified before God, you have to do charitable deeds. That too is a pretty well thought out piece of theology and many Christians believe this today (and many who don’t, do charitable deeds anyways because charitable deeds are just good overall). The problem with this is that the church said that if you donated money to the church, you could buy forgiveness from God in the form of what is called “indulgences”.
Many people today can see the problem here. The pope was one of the richest people in the world at the time and he even controlled a huge section of land in Italy and France, yet instead of paying for the Basilica himself, he got the poor people to give him money for forgiveness.
Martin Luther argued that the pope has no authority to give forgiveness and that the indulgences are a highly corrupt practice. Additionally he argued that forgiveness and justification for sins can only be given by God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Of course the indulgences were only 1 of numerous corrupt practices in the Catholic church that Martin Luther noticed.
Martin Luther being an educated priest not only knew how to write but he also knew how to read Latin and Hebrew, the languages that the Bible was originally written in. Most people at the time couldn’t read for themselves, so instead they just took the priests word for it and assumed that everything the priest said was in the Bible. Martin Luther compared the facts in the Bible to what the church officials at the time were saying and found numerous differences.
Martin Luther then took all of the ideas and wrote them down in a letter we now know as the Ninety-Five Theses. While we cannot be sure, legend has it that Martin Luther went to a major church and nailed a printed copy of his theses on the door.
In addition to his theses, Martin ended up translating the Bible from Latin and Hebrew into German so that everyone could read it for themselves. He then went to numerous towns and handed out copies of his theses and the Bible so that there were many copies.
Many people agreed with him about the problems in the Catholic church and protested against the church. This is why one of the religious denominations of Christianity is called Protestantism. Throughout Europe, the ideas of Martin Luther and other similar priests spread.
The pope was livid and on January 3, 1521 he excommunicated Martin Luther from the church. But it was too late! Martin Luther’s ideas had spread, printing presses around Christendom were copying his theses.
It is fair to say that Martin Luther never intended to split the Roman Catholic Church. He called for reform, the end to corruption and the teaching of factual statements that are in the Bible. However Martin Luther lost control and the church was forever split.
Today numerous Christians around the world believe different things. Many fight with each other about it in wars and persecution. But the fighting should not be blamed on Martin Luther, that is not his doing.
Martin Luther should be known as the guy who brought transparency to the church.
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What is the ‘dark side’ of the Dubai justice system?
I lived in the sandpit for just under a year and most people have no idea how bad it is, and I want more people to know what the less fortunate experience there. What the migrant women experience there is what real oppression and real “rape culture” look like. The things that the locals get away with there are beyond your imagination:
4 Emirati men kidnapped an Ethiopian maid, gang-raped her twice in different locations, then ran her over with a car and then proceeded to stone her to death with large rocks which smashed her skull into pieces. After paying 200k dirhams ($50k) “blood money” in total (so around $12.5k each, a few months salary for an Emirati), they were released from prison. One of the attackers 13 years prior had raped and murdered a Pakistani little girl, but her father who was an imam forgave him.
So just to be clear, 4 Emirati men, one of whom was already a known rapist and murderer, gang raped and then brutally murdered an Ethiopian housemaid, smashing her skull into pieces, and they were released after paying just over $10k each. Because in the UAE foreign victims are practically forced into accepting blood money by their lawyers (always Emirati), none of them received their sentence. This was the “Al Dhaid murder”, I strongly insist people look it up because it’s even worse than you think. Search “Al Dhaid murder” on google for a proper set of results on how serious it was, it’s even more grotesque than you think. So basically, this disgusting crime is not as bad as just normal consensual sex because as we know, Emiratis can do no wrong.
Here’s a story of how a French 15 year old teenage boy “Alex” was gang-raped by 3 Emirati men and it turns out that they gave him HIV/AIDS. Anyway, before outcry from human rights groups, it was he, rather than the rapists, that was arrested and blamed. The boy was actually quite lucky his mother was well connected with the diplomatic circles otherwise like the vast majority of other cases he would have been jailed for being raped.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/world/middleeast/01dubai.html
A doctor examined Alex the night of the rape, taking swabs of DNA for traces of the rapists’ sperm. He did not take blood tests or examine Alex with a speculum. Then he cleared the room and told Alex: “I know you’re a homosexual. You can admit it to me. I can tell.” Alex told his father in tears: “I’ve just been raped by three men, and he’s saying I’m a homosexual,” according to interviews with both of them. The doctor, an Egyptian, wrote in his legal report that he had found no evidence of forced penetration, which Alex’s family says is a false assessment that could hurt the case against the assailants.
In early September, after the family learned about the older attacker’s H.I.V. status and the French government lodged complaints with the United Arab Emirates authorities, the Dubai attorney general’s office assigned a new prosecutor to the case. Only then were forensic tests performed to confirm that sperm from all three attackers had been found in Alex.
Alex stayed in Dubai in order to testify against his attackers, and went back to school in September, despite suffering unsettling flashbacks. In early October, however, the family said, their lawyer warned Alex that he was in danger of facing charges of homosexuality and a prison term of one year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/world/middleeast/01dubai.html
There was another case involving a French girl where an Emirati singer, Saoud Abou Sultan, lured the girl to his room, spiked her drink and gang-raped her with others while she was unconscious. She woke up in the middle of the desert found by a police officer and apparently she had bruises all over her stomach and private parts. Anyway the most shocking thing about this was that Saoud Abou Sultan, being an Emirati, was not convincted of rape but for “consensual sex”. He did receive 6 months of jail time which is impressive for a local who usually get nothing, but it was only because of “consensual sex” not rape. How the fuck is spiking a girl’s drink, gang-raping her and dumping her in the desert consensual”? Is that worth 6 months in jail?
Rape victims, usually maids, are arrested for “seduction” or “extramarital sex” in the UAE while the rapist Emiratis have impunity: https://news.vice.com/article/rape-victims-are-being-jailed-under-extramarital-sex-laws-in-the-uae One BBC article apparently showed a rape victim being chained up after revealing her rape: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/26/hundreds-of-women-prosecuted-for-extramarital-sex-in-uae-finds-bbc Apparently one Ethiopian servant who was raped was arrested and when they found she was pregnant, chained her to the hospital bed to prevent her from absconding from her crime of being raped.
Another recent story in the UAE where an Emirati woman gruesomely tortured an Indonesian maid for months and then starved her to death. The police recovered her starved, battered and bruised body with torture marks everywhere and found blood stains all over the house. They then realized the Emirati woman had been torturing and starving maids for a decade but they did not punish her or even arrest her, because the maids did not end up dead. Only when the Emirati finally managed to starve a maid to death did the Emirati police bother arresting her. There was a similar case which happened slightly before, where an Emirati tortured an African woman to death after months of abuse. Neighbours siad they heard screams and wails for months through the walls. Read it: http://www.emirates247.com/crime/local/woman-starves-maid-to-death-dubai-court-told-2016-02-26-1.622369
Another case of what Emiratis are allowed to do with impunity:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/24/the-vanished-filipino-domestic-workers-working-abroad
“My employer was like a lion with no mercy,” she says. Marina says she was forced to work 22 hours a day without rest. She woke at 4am to start cleaning the family’s fleet of cars and worked through to 2am the following morning. “I had no time off, no time to rest ever. Even when I was trying to eat, she would be calling me: ‘You are not here to rest. I paid a lot of money for you.’ To her, I was a slave. I was not a human.”
After a month of working constantly on two hours sleep and little food, Marina’s health was deteriorating fast. She lost sensation in the right half of her body and couldn’t use her hands. “I was so tired it felt like I couldn’t control my brain. After a few weeks I was in so much pain, I couldn’t walk or lift anything. I didn’t know if my children were OK. I felt so alone.”
Yet her female Emirati employer told her, ‘You can’t go back to the Philippines because I paid money for you,’” Marina says. She claims her employer threatened to get her sent to jail, or kill her, and screamed that she would dump her in the desert. “She told me, ‘If I killed you, nobody would care and nobody would find you.’ I said, ‘Madam, if you want to kill me, go ahead.’” After this, Marina says, her boss tried to poison her. The husband of the house then threatened to beat her with a baton, and locked her in a prayer room for three days and nights with no food or water.
“I would just say to anyone who is thinking of going to work abroad, don’t trust anyone,” she says. “They will kill you and nobody will do anything to help.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/24/the-vanished-filipino-domestic-workers-working-abroad
In short what I am trying to say is that if you are not an Emirati, you are a subhuman slave to them, a beast of burden. The Gulf states are truly the most racist and dehumanizing places on earth for non-locals. Anyone who has lived in the Arab world for more than a few months knows full well that many of them genuinely and sincerely do not view migrant workers from Asia/Africa as fully human and treat them as animals. E.g. http://www.99media.org/slavery-in-the-arab-world/ “The host, the mother of my acquaintance, reeled around laughing. “This is not a human being, she [her maid] is an animal and will be treated as such” Sometimes the level of prejudice is actually quite amusing because it’s so farcical. For instance (and if you don’t believe me on this, ask anyone who has lived in the Gulf), the way the police figure out who is responsible for a crime is not based on evidence but based on nationality. So for instance, if an Emirati man crashes into the car of an expat or migrant worker etc, that would be the fault of the expat because he’s not Emirati and the former would be arrested.
Always remember these incidents before you go to Dubai. Or just don’t go at all. Don’t give these kinds of people your money. Make sure people know things like this happen.
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