Tully Mars

Be afraid, be very afraid. Questioning God's hate and wrath just can't be good for you. Who knows what he going to do to you now. Umm, you don't live near a zoo do you?

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Charlatan

It's OK. Most of us who post here are going out the same way... God's wrath is unflinching.

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mixedmedia

Actually, sometimes I think I live in the zoo. nyuk, nyuk, nyuk

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Baraka_Guru

Doesn't God make gays and lesbians?

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

noodle

You know, part of me wants to go out and see the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit, just because the Baptists hate it so much. By the way, that's my new insult. Shut the hell up, you sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit!!!!!

And when did their god start hating people? I think I was absent that day.

Whatever, but people die every day. Brad Renfro died and no one really made ginormous fuss. This guy died and people are crying in the streets. I just doesn't make sense to me.

Hi! I'm your desensitized-to-death Hospice Social Worker! I work with dying kids every day, this doesn't phase me. Sorry.

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Tully Mars

Anyone catch the news of Fox News' John Gibson making fun of Ledger death. Called him a weirdo with a "serious drug problem." He played several clips from "Broke Back Mountain" with the funeral march playing in the back ground.

Is John a member of the WBC? Or merely a fan?

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

silent_jay

Here's the audio of the show. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/23/...-mocks-ledger/

Rather funny how this asshole says TMZ is right about 90% of the time, really? 90%, and the National Enquirer is serious news.

Don't really expect much else from anything associated with FoxNews, seems they only hire assholes and blow hards, who wouldn't know the truth if it kicked them in the cock.

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Tully Mars

I'm no expert on the WBC's postion on this but I did see a 60 minutes piece where Phelp's daughter explained "God makes everything and everyone. It's the gays that take that gift of life and choose to live a perverted life." I'm guessing God hates them for their choice.


On a side note- If Fred Phelps isn't in the closet then I'm a freaking ballerina.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

silent_jay

Seems like most religions they change the story to suit their own beliefs. I like weed, can I turn god into a ganja god who smoked a bong rather than wore a cross.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

MSD

They said this morning that there were six prescriptions found and that he had the flu. At this point, I'd put my money on an OTC diphenhydramine sleeping aid boosting the effects of a higher-than-prescribed dose of hydrocodone cough syrup (and possibly a painkiller) to the point that he just stopped breathing in his sleep.

ShaniFaye

MSD thats a scary thought....I suffer from chronic bronchitis so Im always taking that form of cough syrup with tyelnol pm (or goody's pm)

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

MSD

On the positive side, a regular dose of non-APAP hydrocodone syrup with one Benadryl gives a hell of an opiate buzz.

Nikilidstrom

You're doing the work of saint by remaining a leafs fan, so I think god can forgive you a little herbal relaxation.

silent_jay

I know, it's bringing me back to the Ballardian times of the 80's, oh shit I hope things don't get that bad, it was ruthless when I was a kid going to school and the Leafs sucked that much.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Miss Mango

Listen to Shirley Phelps-Roper speak.

I hope they arent able to find out anything about the funeral.

Baraka_Guru

I just did.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Hain

I would find it [insert word here] if the WBC went to funeral and protested, and then were stoned to death by Heath Ledger's fans.

Yes I am evil at times. I would be heart broken that such senseless violence occurred... but that demon that lurks in the dark corner of my reptilian brain would still be laughing with its nearly silent hissing.

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PonyPotato

Don't know if anyone is interested in the results of the toxicology:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20176256,00.html

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highthief

So, "death by stupidity" it is.

You have to be a fool to mix all that stuff and not think it might have a negative effect.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

YaWhateva

He probably hadn't been sleeping for some time which plays with your mind a lot. Also, the cast of his new movie they were filming said that he was really sick at the end of filming and they thought it might have been walking pneumonia. Shit happens. At least it wasn't suicide.

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

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filtherton

Yikes. I guess someone didn't like brokeback mountain.

highthief

Never saw it. I have little opinion on the man's acting abilities or the roles he played. I think I saw him in something with Gene Hackman once.

I just assume that the average house plant knows better than to mix half a dozen different powerful medications.

Don't most people here?

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Hain

The only reason my father is alive and talking is because some doctor tells him the shoe-box container of heart medication he swallows everyday is safe for him to take AND doesn't interact with one another. Not so long ago, so long that it is out of mind, that was not true.

If he died of an accidental death, plus the hours he worked, let the man have his peace without ridicule. I might ridicule him if his role as the Joker isn't a success but even then that is a little to dark even for me. Any one have that quote that was at the end of A Scanner Darkly, the movie adapted from the Phillip K Dick story?

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filtherton

Why would the average person know that? Why would a person not knowing something that the average person knows make them stupid?

Nikilidstrom

you're kidding, right?!?!

The only thing that wouldn't make this death an example of Darwin at his finest is if the police discover that one doctor prescribed all of these meds to him and told him there would be no danger. Even then, not to question the use of all these powerful drugs at once is suspect. But then again, I won't take 2 different over the counter drugs at once, but thats just me.

As it stands now, they haven't even announced if he obtained the meds legally, much less from one doctor.

highthief

I have no medical training, yet I know that swallowing a bunch of powerful medications in random combination is probably a pretty bad idea. I would assume that most people understand that.

People die stupidly every day - via the Heath Ledger method, by not wearing a seatbelt, by drinking and driving, by not wearing a life vest, by driving their snowmobile across the not-quite-frozen lake, by changing lanes without signalling, by walking along the train tracks listening to an I-Pod at full volume, and many other methods.

Their fate was in their own hands - cancer didn't take them, a bomb didn't fall on them, a gang land shootout didn't take them, they didn't get pulled into a war they never asked for. I have genuine sympathy for people who find themselves in those sorts of situations.

All the people in the first examples, including Ledger, died because they failed to follow basic common sense.

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YaWhateva

You are a better person than he was, yay!

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“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

filtherton

So essentially what your saying is that because heath ledger didn't do something that you would have done, or knew stuff that you know he's stupid? I don't know. Maybe. I'm pretty sure i know some shit that you don't and vice versa- that doesn't make either one of us stupid.

Common sense? I don't think that there is any sort of universal human experience surrounding prescription drugs, why would you expect common sense to apply? I suspect that when you use the term common sense you really mean the set of all things that seem obvious to you. This raises two important questions: 1) Why would you expect the things that are obvious to you to be obvious to other people- why would you expect common sense to be common? and, 2) Why does it make sense at all to judge a person's intelligence by comparing the the set of things you think are obvious to the things the other persons thinks is obvious?

I don't really care all that much about heath ledger. I just think it's a little tasteless, shallow perhaps, to use the event of someone's death as an opportunity to tell everyone how much smarter you are than the dead guy. Yep, he's dead, and you probably wouldn't have been dead if you were him, but maybe you still would have been because you would have been him. It's even sillier when the evidence your hold up of your superior intelligence isn't really evidence of anything.

Halx

Ok.. seriously, given the cocktail of meds, I don't think this was an accident. This looks like suicide. I'm no doctor, but those are POWERFUL meds and they will literally slow your body to a halt. Being an actor, I'm sure he was well aware of what every one of those meds did for and to him. I won't even think of downing a sleeping aid when I've had alcohol (hell, I don't even think of taking any meds) why would anyone combine ALL of those meds?

He did it on purpose.

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Glory's Sun

umm.. ok here's my take. The doctor who prescribed the pills should have told the man about the interactions and possible side effects etc. Most people don't really think about drug interactions.. they just know that a doctor gave them pills and they fill the script and take them. You can say it was a lack of common sense but the fact still remains that people trust doctors and what they say. So in my mind.. this falls back into the doctors or pharmacists lap who failed to inform the man.

ring

He was a fellow human being.
His agony is our agony.
let it be.

ShaniFaye

They put me on a 1 mg ativan (which I think is one of the ones he was taking, its in the valium, xanax families) the month before my wedding because my "brain wouldnt stop" and I couldnt sleep to save my life...OTC sleeping pills wouldnt do anything for me. 1 mg of that stuff knocked my ass out....I simply cannot imagine taking it combined with anything else (even if my doctor hadnt told me not to mix it with any other "downers" including any of the "PM' pills you can take to sleep now)

I know what its like to be desperate to sleep because your brain wont shut off...but damn.....

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Glory's Sun

I take ambien and pain killers together all the time.. I just don't go overboard.

I wonder if he took the ambien and was in a half-comatose state when he took more and that's what did him in? I know I've had episodes on Ambien where I am half awake half asleep and I don't really know what I'm doing. Either way.. the doctor(s) should have made it extrememly clear what to mix and what not to mix. It was also pretty dumb to have him prescribed on all of those at the same time.

highthief

Still alive, at any rate, while he's worm food.

Me am win!

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allaboutmusic

A lack of sleep can do serious damage to your reasoning skills.

YaWhateva

ugh.

Also, you all have no clue what happened. I think its more likely that he did not commit suicide. If he was only able to sleep for like 2 hours for the entire week as interviews have stated, he would be bat shit out of his mind at that point and want nothing else in the world other than to sleep. I have stayed awake for over 96 hours straight once (not out of desire to) and I can tell you that I was flipping the fuck out and it probably nearly killed me. I could totally understand someone just taking anything they can get ahold of to try and get some rest. Also, the reports that he was seriously sick at the end of his filming soon before this happened can only enhance the craziness that was going through his head at the time. And people's bodies respond to this amount of stress completely different, you can have no clue what was going through his head. So you can all sit here and pretend like you knew what was going on in his head and rationalize your hypothetical situations but until you know what it's like to be out of your mind over complete lack of sleep, illness, and whatever it was that was making him just a little off, then please quit this nonsense.

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

mixedmedia

I am so with you. Thank you for taking the time to make your case so thoughtfully.

I will never understand the phenomena that keeps humans in endless, pointless competition with each other. Every misstep on the part of another is an opportunity for self-affirmation, especially when those 'others' are 'celebrities.' Yay for those of us who have managed, as of yet, not to die accidentally.

Thank you, too, ring.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

highthief

Ugh.

Look, you don't know any better than anyone else, so perhaps you should stop speculating as well?

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

YaWhateva

While what I said was speculation, it has more reasoning in it than what you have said. There are stated reports about his inability to sleep and his severe illness and that he was pushing himself extremely hard. I see no reports backing up anything that you have said. It seems what mixedmedia said is true, that you are trying to make yourself feel superior because you have never done anything similar to what he did. Have you ever been in a situation like he was in? If not, then please quit putting down another human being who died. If so, still please quit putting down another human being who died so that you can feel better about yourself.

Because someone died taking a bad mix of prescription pills that can only mean that he was really stupid, right? He could have taken his life on purpose but the doses were low enough not to be lethal, but that's still a possibility. He could also have been in a really messed up state of mind at the time and it could have been an accident. There may also be other possibilities, but no, it had to have been just because he was stupid, right?

__________________
“If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again.” - Bill O'Reilly

"This is my United States of Whateva!"

Tully Mars

I agree with you and Mixed. Seem like people are engaging is a little Schadenfreude here.

On the sleep issue. An injury several years back left me with a nerve disorder in a my leg and foot. One of the medications originally prescribed left me wired, umm no make that WIRED. I had a constant feeling like I'd just drank a couple pots of coffee. Repeatedly telling my Dr. that I'd been getting 2-3 hours sleep total in a 3-4 day period was met with a shrug and "yeah, that can happen. Other than that how are you doing?" How am I doing? I'm not fucking sleeping and it's driving me bat shit crazy, that's how I'm doing!" I finally switched Dr. after a long battle with my insurance. My new Dr. immediately took me off that medication and started me on another. Within a week I was sleeping 4-5 hrs a night. Which has always been about normal for me.

On the issue of the number of different meds. I can easily see where a guy who travels the amount that Mr. Ledger did would end up seeing several different Dr's in several locations. With each Dr. spending a brief amount of time with him and prescribing something to help with pain and or sleep. I can just as easily see Mr. ledger while having difficulties in sleeping taking some meds and after not getting to sleep in a hour or two, taking another. And then another and so on and so on.

So I see no reason to jump to the conclusion that he either committed suicide or was a drug addict.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club