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I hope she gets diverticulitis and all her poop kills her.

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Topics - Iason Ouabache

#1
Apple Talk / Hey!
July 28, 2018, 02:08:53 PM
Shut up!


Also: Your search function sucks.  :argh!:
#2
Or Kill Me / Doc, They are Trying to Kill Me
December 03, 2011, 06:50:23 AM
Doc, I know it's been an extremely long time. I've been through a very rough patch lately though. This job I have is trying to kill me. They are trying to make me into a respectable member of society. To make me a responsible adult. To make me a team player. A company man. Someone who pulls their weight. Someone who begs for overtime. The average guy with a house, wife, two kids, and a cat.

Instead, they are slowly killing me. They've got me working odd hours that constantly shift. I'm doing the job of two since everyone worth a damn was smart enough to leave. My socks are constantly soaked. I've lost 15 pounds, but not the old fashioned way. Most days I barely have time for three squares and end up with only two oddly shaped meals instead. I'm constantly fighting a distant bureaucracy and can't keep myself out of my bosses' doghouse.

But worst of all, they took away my slack! Gone are the carefree days of Not Giving a Fuck and leaving my worries at the door right after punching the hell out of the time clock. They got me stressing while I'm at home now. Did I remember to close that valve? Did I put enough bags in? Should I have cleaned one more thing before I left? Is the day shift guy going to complain to my supervisor for forgetting to put that skid away?

There's no reprieve, Doc. They've gotten into my head and I don't know how to get them out. They've got me to the point where death is no longer my number one fear, getting fired is. They've bought my soul for the US median household income. I know they are going to kill me at some point. Lord have mercy on the man who is left in my place.
#3
Gordon Ramsay's Dwarf Porn Double Found Dead In A Badger Den

http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2011/09/gordon-ramsay-dwarf-porn-double-found-dead-badger-set

QuoteIn a bizarre case that would have even CSI's top investigators stumped, a dwarf porn star who was Gordon Ramsay's doppelganger was found dead in a badger set in the U.K. RadarOnline.com has learned.

Percy Foster, star of X-rated movie Hi-Ho Hi-Ho, It's Up Your A**e We Go, was about to be rocketed into the ranks of celebrity porn lookalikes due to his resemblance to the Hell's Kitchen host when his partially eaten body was discovered in a badger's den.

According to a report in U.K. tabloid The Sunday Sport, the 3'6" actor was found "deep in an underground chamber by Ministry of Agriculture experts ahead of a planned badger-gassing program near Tregaron, west Wales."

Expert CSI teams had to use fingertip technology to remove his body from the six-foot-deep burrow, and investigators have not yet ruled out the possibility of suicide.
#4
http://www.newschannel9.com/news/megan-1004561-mickey-murray.html

QuoteThe Murray County Sheriff's Office is investigating a shocking allegation in the sudden death of a young, expectant mother. Megan Long, 19, died in the hospital Sunday and family members and friends claim she was poisoned after she agreed to hide methamphetamine inside her body.

Megan's father Mickey Long says Megan was with her boyfriend Duke and her mother, April Flood when they were pulled over by a Murray County Sheriff's Deputy last week. He claims April gave her pregnant daugther Megan meth during the stop and told her to hide it inside her vagina. "They had got pulled over and she stuffed a quarter ounce insider her and when they got here they were going to take it back out, but there wasn't anything left but a bag."

Later that night Mickey said Megan started having seizure-like symptoms. Even though Mickey wasn't in the car for that traffic stop, he claims his ex-wife admitted she asked Megan to place meth inside her body.

Murray County Sheriff Howard Ensley says both his department and GSP are investigating Megan's death and have sent her body to a crime lab for an autopsy. Ensley expects the toxicology to report in a couple of weeks.

:x
#5
You have 24 hours to join my fantasy football league. If I do not get at least 4 more people to join I will haunt you forever with my insipid comments about my boring family.

http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/erisianleagueofdoom

password: football1

If we get all the way up to 10 teams I promise to personally smacktalk every single person all 17 weeks of the season. 

PS. Dibs on David Gerrard!
#6
Apple Talk / RWHN: Explain Your Fucked Up State!
April 07, 2011, 07:06:29 AM
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/06/us-maine-switchblades-idUSTRE7356EP20110406

QuoteMaine lawmakers on Wednesday approved legalizing switchblades for people with one arm, moving close to becoming the first state to make such an exception to laws that ban use of the spring-action knives.

Backers of the measure say legalizing switchblades would eliminate a need for one-armed people to be forced to open folding knives with their teeth in emergencies.

The bill to allow amputees and other one-armed people to carry the quick-opening knives cleared Maine's Senate on Wednesday after passing the House on Tuesday, Senate officials said.

Until now, Maine banned the use of switchblades by anyone.

In most states, carrying switchblades is illegal in most circumstances, though owning the knives may be allowed in some states.

Federal law allows their use by a person with one arm only on federal property if the blade is shorter than three inches.

The Maine bill requires that the knives have a blade that is three inches or shorter.

Governor Paul LePage is expected to sign the measure into law in the next couple of days, said spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett.

Is there an epidemic of one-armed people who need knives in Maine? Have people been cutting their own arms off to use as lobstah bait? Are these people in emergency situations so often that the government of Maine had to drop everything at once and change the law? WTF, RWHN? WTF?
#7
I lied about the cheap part...

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/lets-say-it-again-floridas-legislators-are-for-sale/1160221

QuoteThere is no state, no nation, no planet, and no universe where it should be legal to pay off a Legislature directly.

There is no government in which a sworn lawmaker should be able to take unlimited payoffs from those seeking favorable treatment.

And yet this is now precisely the law of Florida.

In Sunday's column I called the Florida Legislature "the Whore of Babylon" for passing a law last week that legalizes its own bribery.

But the topic cries out not to be forgotten. This is a turning point in Florida's history.

It is now legal in Florida for the leaders of our House and Senate, of both the Republican and Democratic parties, to operate what are laughably called "leadership funds."

If you are an interest group in Florida, a corporation, a lobbyist seeking favor, you go to these "leadership" funds run by lawmakers ...

And you pay them.

They will launder the money into local elections around the state, to keep electing more obedient followers.

This is so astonishing a corruption that it defies belief.

The bill in question is House Bill 1207, passed in the 2010 legislative session.

Then-Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed it. Last Thursday the Legislature overrode the veto.

The House vote was 81-39. The Senate vote was 30-9.
#8
Or Kill Me / Tone It Down!
January 27, 2011, 11:55:15 PM
http://chaoskeptic.blogspot.com/2011/01/tone-it-down.html

If you didn't notice, a lot of time on the internet last year was dedicated to the topic of "tone". Not the musical pitch changes kind but the literary  "how-an-author-treated-his-audience" kind. Whether is was skeptics telling each other to not be dicks or accommodationists telling New Atheists to not scare people away or subreddits calling each other circlejerks or Discordians fighting with each other about how best to get our message out or even every single forum complaining that content used to be so much better, everyone spent a lot of time in 2010 picking the lint out of their own belly buttons. No matter where I turned it appeared that everyone was trying to have deep meta-conversations about how best to communicate with one another.

And all of those conversations were shit. I'm not going to include any links in this post because I feel your time is too important to waste on such trivialities. All of them can be summed up as followed:

A: "You should be nicer to people. People like it when you are nice to them."
B: "Whateva! I do what I want!!!"

As a Discordian I am all for internal strife because it helps to get rid of the riff-raff and pantywaists who weren't going to put in any effort anyways. But at some point you have to stop having committee meetings and backstabbing contests and get shit done. If you notice, while everyone was talking amongst themselves about how best to get their message across no one was actually working to get the message across. An outsider who came along wanting pertinent information was met with a bunch of monkeys throwing shit at each other.

The thing is no single tone works to get the message across. No two people communicate the same and no two people receive messages the same. What works in one situation might not work in another. We need as many voices as possible translating the message into their own personal language. We need people saying that Christians can believe in evolution as well as people saying that the Bible is all bullshit. Yes, being nice attracts people to your side but being a dick is more entertaining.

So please, for the sake of everyone can we stop fucking yelling at each other and go back to yelling at the world?
#9
Aneristic Illusions / Videotape the cops, go to jail
January 25, 2011, 07:26:22 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/us/23cnceavesdropping.html?_r=1

QuoteChristopher Drew is a 60-year-old artist and teacher who wears a gray ponytail and lives on the North Side. Tiawanda Moore, 20, a former stripper, lives on the South Side and dreams of going back to school and starting a new life.

About the only thing these strangers have in common is the prospect that by spring, they could each be sent to prison for up to 15 years.

"That's one step below attempted murder," Mr. Drew said of their potential sentences.

The crime they are accused of is eavesdropping.

The authorities say that Mr. Drew and Ms. Moore audio-recorded their separate nonviolent encounters with Chicago police officers without the officers' permission, a Class 1 felony in Illinois, which, along with Massachusetts and Oregon, has one of the country's toughest, if rarely prosecuted, eavesdropping laws.

"Before they arrested me for it," Ms. Moore said, "I didn't even know there was a law about eavesdropping. I wasn't trying to sue anybody. I just wanted somebody to know what had happened to me."

Ms. Moore, whose trial is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Cook County Criminal Court, is accused of using her Blackberry to record two Internal Affairs investigators who spoke to her inside Police Headquarters while she filed a sexual harassment complaint last August against another police officer. Mr. Drew was charged with using a digital recorder to capture his Dec. 2, 2009, arrest for selling art without a permit on North State Street in the Loop. Mr. Drew said his trial date was April 4.

Both cases illustrate the increasingly busy and confusing intersection of technology and the law, public space and private.

"Our society is going through a technological transformation," said Adam Schwartz, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which last August challenged the Illinois Eavesdropping Act in federal court. "We are at a time where tens of millions of Americans carry around a telephone or other device in their pocket that has an audio-video capacity. Ten years ago, Americans weren't walking around with all these devices."

He said that when "something fishy seems to be going on, the perfectly natural and healthy and good thing is for them to pull that device out and make a recording."

The Illinois Eavesdropping Act has been on the books for years. It makes it a criminal offense to audio-record either private or public conversations without the consent of all parties, Mr. Schwartz said. Audio-recording a civilian without consent is a Class 4 felony, punishable by up to three years in prison for a first-time offense. A second offense is a Class 3 felony with a possible prison term of five years.

Although law-enforcement officials can legally record civilians in private or public, audio-recording a law-enforcement officer, state's attorney, assistant state's attorney, attorney general, assistant attorney general or judge in the performance of his or her duties is a Class 1 felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The A.C.L.U. filed its lawsuit after several people throughout Illinois were charged in recent years with eavesdropping for making audio recordings of public conversations with the police. The A.C.L.U. argued that the act violates the First Amendment and hinders citizens from monitoring the public behavior of police officers and other officials.

On Jan. 10, a federal judge in Chicago dismissed the suit for the second time. Mr. Schwartz said the A.C.L.U. would appeal. Andrew Conklin, a spokesman for Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state's attorney, said, "We did feel the A.C.L.U.'s claims were baseless and we're glad the court agreed with us." Beyond that statement, Mr. Conklin said, "we have no comment because we have these two cases pending."

Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his organization "absolutely supports" the eavesdropping act as is and was relieved that the challenge had failed. Mr. Donahue added that allowing the audio recording of police officers while performing their duty "can affect how an officer does his job on the street."
#10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xc_BJxdDgg



You shouldn't be watching Youtube videos at work anyways.
#11
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/freshman-goper-hey-wheres-my-health-care.php

QuoteMaryland physician Andy Harris (R) just soundly defeated Frank Kratovil, one of the most endangered Democrats on Capitol Hill going into the November election. And he did it in large part by railing against 'Obamacare' and pledging to repeal Health Care Reform. But when he showed on Capitol Hill today for an orientation for incoming members of Congress and their staffs, he had a different question: Where's my government health care?

According to Glenn Thrush of Politico, Harris created a stir at the orientation meeting by demanding to know why he had to wait a month after he was sworn in in January for his government-subsidized health care to kick in. After responding in a huff, he even asked if there was some way he could buy into the government care in advance, seemingly thinking there might be a government program similar to the so-called 'public option' championed by progressive Democrats in 2009.

According to an unnamed congressional staffer quoted by Thrush, Harris stood up at the meeting "and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care."

During the campaign, Harris told voters, "the answer to the ever-rising cost of insurance is not the expansion of government-run or government-mandated insurance but, instead, common-sense market based solutions that ensure decisions are made by patients and their doctors."

:teabagger1:
#12
Apple Talk / Why is there a hurricane over Minnesota?
October 28, 2010, 04:52:01 AM
For some weird ass reason there is a "land hurrciane" over Minnesota and Wisconisn right now. Which one of you spags is responsible for this???


Linky: http://www.startribune.com/blogs/105795173.html

QuoteOctober Superstorm. Lowest Pressure On Record For The USA. Welcome to the Land of 10,000 Weather Extremes. Yesterday a rapidly intensifying storm, a "bomb", spun up directly over the MN Arrowhead, around mid afternoon a central pressure of 953 millibars was observed near Orr. That's 28.14" of mercury. Bigfork, MN reported 955 mb, about 28.22" of mercury. The final (official) number may be closer to 28.20-28.22", but at some point the number becomes academic. What is pretty much certain is that Tuesday's incredible storm marks a new record for the lowest atmospheric pressure ever observed over the continental USA. That's a lower air pressure than most hurricanes, which is hard to fathom.



#13
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/woman-picked-up-own-head-after-horse-fall/story-e6frfku0-1225944333785

QuoteA HORRIFIC fall from a horse left a woman with such a severely broken neck she was forced to pick up her own head.

Thea Maxfield, who runs a stud farm in Oxfordshire, England, suffered a "hangman's break" a clean break of the upper cervical vertebra when she fell from her dressage horse.

She tried to get out of the animal's way as it galloped around after the fall, but when she tried to pick herself up, the horrified 26-year-old found her head stayed where it was.

Realising she had to move to avoid being stomped on, Ms Maxfield cupped her hands around her own head and lifted it into place to avoid damaging her spinal cord.

"As soon as I came off the horse I knew something was wrong. I went to get up but my head stayed on the floor,'' she told the Daily Express.

"I couldn't move my neck or my head and I had to literally pick my head up and carry it in my hands."

After managing to stagger to safety, Maxfield, watched by her frightened mother Diane, 66, was taken to hospital.

Doctors initially warned she may be permanently paralysed.

But incredibly after using a revolutionary fixed brace connected to a computer by tiny sensors for three months to help fuse the bones back together, she is now back riding seven months after the accident.

:x :x :x
#14
Apple Talk / ATTN Jimmy Chitwood
October 26, 2010, 01:26:04 PM
IU sucks and you should be ashamed of yourself. Purdue can beat IU in every single sport and you know it.


#15
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11490699

QuoteIndia has condemned "racist and bigoted" remarks by a New Zealand TV presenter who made fun of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's surname.

TVNZ breakfast show host Paul Henry broke into laughter a number of times as he mispronounced the surname - which sounds closer to "Dixit" in English.

He told viewers Ms Dikshit's name was "appropriate because she's Indian".

New Zealand's government has apologised for the remarks, describing them as "culturally insensitive and vulgar".

Sheila Dikshit is overseeing arrangements for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which have been beset by problems. She brushed off Mr Henry's remarks but said they were "not appropriate".
#16
Aneristic Illusions / The Flash Crash was created by...
October 04, 2010, 07:33:47 AM
... a single mouse click in Kansas.

Sorry, couldn't find the original thread about the "Flash Crash" back in May so I'm doing the follow up here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/business/02flash.html?_r=1&hp

QuoteIt was a stock market mystery that had everyone guessing for months: just what caused that harrowing flash crash last May?

On Friday, after months of investigation and speculation, federal authorities finally provided the answer: it all began with the click of a computer mouse in Kansas.

In a long-awaited report on one of wildest days in Wall Street's history, regulators said that the automated sale of a large block of futures by a mutual fund — not named in the report, but identified by officials as Waddell & Reed Financial, of Overland Park, Kan. — touched off a chain reaction of events on May 6. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged more than 600 points in a matter of minutes that day and then recovered in a blink.

The finger-pointing and speculation that followed — Were high-speed traders behind it? A rogue computer program? Financial terrorists? — captivated Wall Street. But in the report released on Friday, the authorities said they found no evidence of market manipulation. Instead, the temporary crash resulted from a confluence of forces after a single fund company tried to hedge its stock market investment position legitimately, albeit in an aggressive and abrupt manner.

The mutual fund started a program at about 2:32 p.m. on May 6 to sell $4.1 billion of futures contracts, using a computer sell algorithm that over the next 20 minutes dumped 75,000 contracts onto the market, even automatically accelerating its selling as prices plunged...

The report set out the sequence of events that began with the sale by Waddell & Reed of 75,000 E-Mini Standard & Poor's 500 futures contracts, using computer sell algorithms. Normally, a sale of this size would take place over as many as five hours, but the large sale was executed in 20 minutes, the regulators said.

The algorithm was programmed to execute the trade "without regard to price or time," the report said, which meant that it continued to sell even as prices dropped sharply.

The algorithm is one used widely across markets. It was provided to the firm by Barclays Capital, but it was up to Waddell & Reed to set the parameters dictating the way it sold the futures contracts.

There was no explanation from officials why the firm chose to sell so many contracts all at once, except to speculate that it was already late in the trading day when it made the sale. Neither would officials explicitly say whether or not the firm was under investigation, but they pointed out that the firm had made similar trades in the past.


It's amazing how a small stimuli could create so much chaos in such a short amount of time. It's surprising that something like this doesn't happen more often. There are currently no safeguards to prevent it from happening at any time.
#17
Aneristic Illusions / World War I officially over
September 29, 2010, 06:19:35 AM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/8029948/First-World-War-officially-ends.html

QuoteThe final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.

Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving nearly ten million soldiers dead.

The initial sum agreed upon for war damages in 1919 was 226 billion Reichsmarks, a sum later reduced to 132 billion, £22 billion at the time.

The bill would have been settled much earlier had Adolf Hitler not reneged on reparations during his reign.

Hatred of the settlement agreed at Versailles, which crippled Germany as it tried to shape itself into a democracy following armistice, was of significant importance in propelling the Nazis to power.

"On Sunday the last bill is due and the First World War finally, financially at least, terminates for Germany," said Bild, the country's biggest selling newspaper.

#18
Techmology and Scientism / Borked computer
September 07, 2010, 08:05:55 AM
Ok, here's a quick run down of what is happening to my home computer:

Computer boots up fine. Runs ok for an indeterminate amount of time (it has varied from 10 minutes to 4 hours). At some random point there is a *click* sound coming from the general vacinity of my hard drive. The computer then locks up and I get a BSOD that has a vague message about "MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION". I am assuming that it is caused by a faulty hard drive but I'd like to see some second opinions about it.

(Yes, I have everything important backed up on external hard drives and I know about temporarily booting from a USB drive or CD. It is still booting just long enough for me to maybe download a couple of helpful files or back up anything else that needs to be saved.)
#19
Apple Talk / I'VE MISSED YOU, BITCHES
August 25, 2010, 12:09:52 PM
I've been really fucking busy, but I thought I'd drop by to tell you that I love and miss all of you.

Also, I brought a present:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHuGG_FsC20
#20
Apple Talk / The Myth of Japanese Longevity
August 19, 2010, 06:33:48 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15japan.html?_r=1&src=tptw

QuoteTOKYO — Japan  has long boasted of having many of the world's oldest people — testament, many here say, to a society with a superior diet and a commitment to its elderly that is unrivaled in the West.

That was before the police found the body of a man thought to be one of Japan's oldest, at 111 years, mummified in his bed, dead for more than three decades. His daughter, now 81, hid his death to continue collecting his monthly pension payments, the police said.

Alarmed, local governments began sending teams to check on other elderly residents. What they found so far has been anything but encouraging.

A woman thought to be Tokyo's oldest, who would be 113, was last seen in the 1980s. Another woman, who would be the oldest in the world at 125, is also missing, and probably has been for a long time. When city officials tried to visit her at her registered address, they discovered that the site had been turned into a city park, in 1981.

To date, the authorities have been unable to find more than 281 Japanese who had been listed in records as 100 years old or older. Facing a growing public outcry, the country's health minister, Akira Nagatsuma, said officials would meet with every person listed as 110 or older to verify that they are alive; Tokyo officials made the same promise for the 3,000 or so residents listed as 100 and up.

So the common wisdom about Japanese people living long due isn't due to reverence for the elderly and health diets but to the fact that the Japanese like to abandon their elderly and the government doesn't bother to keep track of people.   :horrormirth:
#21
Apple Talk / Journalism Warning Labels
August 14, 2010, 07:44:21 PM
Don't know if this should go in OMF or here but whatever.

Journalism Warning Labels

http://www.tomscott.com/warnings/

QuoteIt seems a bit strange to me that the media carefully warn about and label any content that involves sex, violence or strong language — but there's no similar labeling system for, say, sloppy journalism and other questionable content.

I figured it was time to fix that, so I made some stickers. I've been putting them on copies of the free papers that I find on the London Underground. You might want to as well.









More pics on his site.
#22
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/08/11/prosecutor-to-4chan-founder-please-explain-the-meaning-of-rickroll/

QuoteWhen a Tennessee man hacked Sarah Palin's e-mail account and wrote of his exploits on the forum 4chan, federal investigators asked the site's founder Christopher "Moot" Poole for server logs. Court testimony from April and published yesterday shows that federal prosecutors had other pressing questions for Poole: for example, the meaning of "peeps" and "rickroll."

Assistant to the U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski questions Poole:

QuoteQ. Certain terms, have a meaning unique to 4chan?
A. Yes.

Q. Like "OP," what is "OP"?
A. OP means original poster.

Q. Are you familiar these terms, having been the founder and administrator of the 4chan site?
A. Yes.

Q. What would "lurker" mean?
A. Somebody who browses but does not post, does not contribute.

Q. What do the words "caps" mean?
A. Screenshots.

Q. And is there any significance to "new fags"?
A. That is the term used to describe new users to the site.

Q. What about "b tard"?
A. It's a term that users of the /b/- Random board use for themselves.

Q. What about "troll"?
A. Troublemaker.

Q. "404″?
A. 404 is the status code for not found. It means essentially gone or not found.

Q. Not found on where, the 4chan site?
A. 404 is the http status code for not found, a page not found by the Web server.

Q. In what about "peeps"?
A. People.

Q. "Rickroll"?
A. Rickroll is a mean [sic] or Internet kind of trend that started on 4chan where users — it basically a bait and switch. Users link you to a video of Rick Astley performing Never Gonna Give You Up.

:lulz: I love this century.
#23
Aneristic Illusions / All Hail Aqua Buddha!
August 10, 2010, 02:13:02 AM
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/stoner-kidnapping-101-aka-rand-paul-the-college-years.php

QuoteRemember your college years? The test cramming, the questionable decisions when it came to alcohol, the even more questionable decisions when it came to dating? And who can forget that classic college prank -- the one where you kidnap a girl from the swim team, blindfold her, and try to force her to take bong hits before making her kneel in a creek and pray to "Aqua Buddha"?

What's that you say? You never tried that one? Well you must not have attended college with Rand Paul.

From a new profile of Paul's college years published by GQ:

QuoteThe strangest episode of Paul's time at Baylor occurred one afternoon in 1983 (although memories about all of these events are understandably a bit hazy, so the date might be slightly off), when he and a NoZe brother paid a visit to a female student who was one of Paul's teammates on the Baylor swim team. According to this woman, who requested anonymity because of her current job as a clinical psychologist, "He and Randy came to my house, they knocked on my door, and then they blindfolded me, tied me up, and put me in their car. They took me to their apartment and tried to force me to take bong hits. They'd been smoking pot." After the woman refused to smoke with them, Paul and his friend put her back in their car and drove to the countryside outside of Waco, where they stopped near a creek. "They told me their god was 'Aqua Buddha' and that I needed to bow down and worship him," the woman recalls. "They blindfolded me and made me bow down to 'Aqua Buddha' in the creek. I had to say, 'I worship you Aqua Buddha, I worship you.' At Baylor, there were people actively going around trying to save you and we had to go to chapel, so worshiping idols was a big no-no."
#24
High Weirdness / The Chupacabra is really...
July 22, 2010, 07:41:41 PM
.... inspired by a crappy 90's Sci-fi movie.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/radford-theory/

QuoteLooking for a missing piece of his puzzle to "solve" the Chupacabras mystery, Ben Radford found what he was looking for.

"Just before Tolentino's sighting, a new element was added to the island's social and cultural mix – something that had not existed there before and could have spawned chupacabra sightings. The creature Tolentino described bears no resemblance to any known animal. It does, however, look almost exactly like a fictional creature seen by hundreds of thousands of people in 1995: Sil.

"Sil is the name of the alien creature played by Natasha Henstridge in the science-fiction horror film Species. Species was released in Puerto Rico on July 7, 1995 – less than a month before Tolentino reported her chupacabra sighting. The creatures looked very similar; could the original chupacabra eyewitness have simply described a monster she saw in a movie? It's certainly possible," says Radford, (p. 300).

One of the most damning pieces of evidence for Radford was found in investigator Scott Corrales' 1997 book, Chupacabras and Other Mysteries. In Corrales' text, it is noted that Tolentino made the connection between Sil and the Chupacabras herself. Tolentino told an interviewer that she had seen a "movie called Species....The movie begins here in Puerto Rico, at the Arecibo observatory."

Tolentino's comparison between the Chupacabras creature she had seen and the one in the movie is mentioned in Corrales' book, when she notes the movie monster "was a creature that looked like the chupacabra, with spines on its back and all....The resemblance to the chupacabra was really impressive....I watched the movie and wondered, 'My God! How can they make a movie like that, when these things are happening in Puerto Rico?"

An interviewer asked Tolentino in Puerto Rico, in 1996, Corrales noted: "In other words, does [Species] make you think there might have been an experiment in which a being escaped and is now at large?"

Tolentino answered: "Yes."

Radford then writes (p. 302): "Thus it seem [sic] that Tolentino believed that the creature and the events she saw in Species were actually happening in reality in Puerto Rico at the time."
#25
Apple Talk / LEBRONLEBRONLEBRONLEBRONLEBRONLEBRON
July 09, 2010, 03:18:57 AM
Ok, get it out of your system spags. Tell us how much you currently hate Lebron.
#26
Apple Talk / Name Iason's First Born Son
July 01, 2010, 05:58:19 AM
As I've mentioned before my wife is pregnant and will deliver our son sometime during the month of August. We are completely at a loss for a name for this bouncing baby boy though. We need something epic to go along with his sister's name of Eris Olive. I know, Ares would be the obvious choice but the names sound too similar and would make yelling at/for them too difficult. I need something that stands out and makes people say, "Wow, that is an incredibly awesome name!"

So far at the top of our list is Andrew (yawn) and Archer (not awesome enough). I need suggestions. NOW!
#27
Apple Talk / Tazing Granny
June 28, 2010, 07:28:35 PM
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/06/24/28330.htm

QuotePolice Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, "Don't Taze my granny!" an El Reno police officer told another cop to "Taser her!" and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman "took a more aggressive posture in her bed," according to the complaint.

    Lonnie Tinsley claims that he called 911 after he went to check on his grandmother, whom he found in her bed, "connected to a portable oxygen concentrator with a long hose." She is "in marginal health, [and] takes several prescribed medications daily," and "was unable to tell him exactly when she had taken her meds," so, Tinsley says, he called 911 "to ask for an emergency medical technician to come to her apartment to evaluate her."

    In response, "as many as ten El Reno police" officers "pushed their way through the door," according to the complaint.

    The grandma, Lona Varner, "told them to get out of her apartment."

    The remarkable complaint continues: "Instead, the apparent leader of the police [defendant Thomas Duran] instructed another policeman to 'Taser her!' He stated in his report that the 86 year-old plaintiff 'took a more aggressive posture in her bed,' and that he was fearful for his safety and the safety of others.

    "Lonnie Tinsley told them, 'Don't taze my Granny!' to which they responded that they would Taser him; instead, they pulled him out of her apartment, took him down to the floor, handcuffed him and placed him in the back of a police car.

    "The police then proceeded to approach Ms. Varner in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation.

    "The police then fired a Taser at her and only one wire struck her, in the left arm; the police then fired a second Taser, striking her to the right and left of the midline of her upper chest and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain and to pass out.

    "The police then grabbed Ms. Varner by her forearms and jerked hands together, causing her soft flesh to tear and bleed on her bed; they then handcuffed her.

    "The police freed Lonnie Tinsley from his incarceration in the back of the police car and permitted him to accompany the ambulance with his grandmother."

    Tinsley says the cops capped it all off by having his grandmother "placed in the psychiatric ward at the direction of the El Reno police; she was held there for six days and released."
#28
Apple Talk / Blog from Heaven
June 17, 2010, 06:25:16 AM
Carla Zilber-Smith died May 21st, 2010 of ALS, but at her funeral, she had one final surprise: a video that she had kept secret for over a year, even from her own family, that brought the audience (because of course her funeral had an audience) to laughter, tears, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paX9H-KJ5k4

Funniest/most touching video I've ever seen. I really really want to do a video like this before I die.
#29
Apple Talk / Who Needs Acid?
June 13, 2010, 08:22:03 AM
I present to you the weirdest piece of animation I have seen in a very very long time. I mean, the top of my head was feeling numb by the time I was done watching it. GO! WATCH IT NOW OR ELSE!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEUxlwb2uFI
#30
Aneristic Illusions / Whoomp! There's Obama!
June 10, 2010, 05:24:20 AM
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/08/blog-posting/obama-rumored-be-video-whoomp-there-it/

QuoteNo need to go to Hawaii (or Kenya) to verify this Internet rumor. The evidence is on VH-1 (and now YouTube).

Bumping and bouncing through the blogosphere Tuesday was the claim that President Barack Obama appeared in the 1993 music video for Whoomp! (There It Is), the catchy ode to raucous dancing and sexual promiscuity that became a fixture at sporting events. It includes the refrain "Can you dig it?... We can dig it."

The speculation centers on an Obama doppelganger who appears in the video by the Atlanta rap duo Tag Team. He appears for just a few seconds during a scene where a wad of cash is shown resting next to a game of dominoes. (Not a campaign contribution, we hope, because the FEC frowns on cash.) With a Compton cap on his head, a stud in his earlobe, an array of gold rings on his hand and an antiquated, huge cell phone attached to his ear, the young black man flashes a wide grin that evokes Obama's toothy smile. But much of his face is obscured by a pair of wayfarer sunglasses.

The image stirred impassioned debate on hip-hop and political sites such as Tha Corner, Gawker, The Huffington Post and Something Awful, with commentators overwhelmingly declaring that the unidentified baller must be a young Obama, or, at the very least, a passable look-alike.

"Pay close attention to his ears poking out, the shape of his nose, and skin color," said a posting on Tennessee Sons of Liberty, a Tea Party blog.

The discourse follows years of intense scrutiny and disagreement over Obama's background. Critics have claimed he continues to misrepresent his religion, country of birth and political beliefs despite evidence to the contrary, such as his birth certificate from Hawaii.

The Tag Team postings were mostly good-natured musings. Many noted that Obama is a self-professed hip hop fan who drew wide support from rap artists during his presidential campaign, but some critics accused the bloggers of perpetuating racial stereotypes.

"Are you sure that's not him? Because all black people look the same," deadpanned one Huffington Post commentator.

We wondered: Could it be him? To paraphrase the Tag Team, we decided to go upside-down and inside-out and show you folks what it's all about.

We tracked down half the Tag Team, the rapper DC the Brain Supreme who also goes by the name Cecil Glenn. He first heard of the Obama video rumor on Saturday, and has since received calls from New York magazine and Inside Edition.

"This is like an episode of South Park," Glenn said. "You can't pay for that kind of publicity."

Glenn recounted the taping of the video in Atlanta, saying he gathered extras through word of mouth. A friend also put out an open invitation on a local radio station. The video was filmed at an Atlanta fairground.

Glenn said he doesn't think the man in the video is Obama. "It doesn't add up. It's hard to say he was in Atlanta and said, 'Ooh, I want to be in the Whoomp! (There It Is) video.' "

But, Glenn said, "I can't be for sure because that was a real big video shoot and thousands of people showed up."

Tag Team's label, DM Records in Miami Beach, said no one on staff could recall the name of the extra who showed up for the video shoot nearly two decades ago.

President Mark Watson said he had seen the debated image on YouTube and could confirm its authenticity.

"It doesn't look like it has been tampered with," he said.

We tried to pin down Obama's whereabouts during the June 1993 video shoot. We didn't have a detailed calendar, but the timing didn't mesh with Obama's biography.

In June 1993, Obama, a recent law school graduate, was working at Miner, Barnhill and Galland in Chicago, said Judd Miner, a firm partner. Miner didn't recall Obama, then 31, taking time off to travel to Atlanta that month.

"I've never heard of this before," Miner said.

Miner also couldn't link the earring-clad man in the video to the young lawyer that served for years at his firm. "Barack never had an earring."

Finally, the White House put the issue to rest. Spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield declared the rumors untrue.

"It is not him," she said.

So alas, that's not the leader of the free world with the wayfarers and the three-pound cell phone. But we've got the meter shakin'! So for all you conspiracy theorists -- and you party people! -- Pants on Fire!

Can you dig it?

NOT OBAMA:

#31
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/07/terrorists-figure-ou.html

QuoteAccording to the FBI, terrorists have noticed that Americans will go crazy and attack themselves (shutting down public spaces and transit, evacuating busy areas, subjecting innocents to search, detention and questioning) if you leave a "suspicious" bag in a public place. This is thanks to programs like New York City's "See Something, Say Something," which generates thousands of calls about "suspicious activity" every year, not one of which has ever led to an actual terrorism arrest. Of course, leaving bags of water or socks is an errand that's a lot less risky than planting bombs.
#32
http://www.latimes.com/news/health/la-he-botox-20100531,0,4090611.story

QuoteBotox may be famous for erasing frown lines, but it also may disrupt an important chain of communication between the face and the brain.

Not only do our facial expressions reflect our emotional ups and downs, they appear to send crucial feedback to our brain, suggests a growing body of research. Without that full feedback loop, our ability to understand — and be understood — might be constrained.

In a recent study of women undergoing cosmetic treatment with Botox, researchers found that the treatment, which blocks facial nerve impulses, seemed to slow the ability to comprehend emotional language.

"We know that language moves us emotionally," said the lead author, David Havas, a psychology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "What this study shows is that that's partly because it moves us physically."

...
In the new study, [Havas] and colleagues investigated whether temporarily paralyzing the corrugator muscle blocked people's ability to process negative emotional language.

The researchers asked 40 women waiting to receive first-time Botox injections to read a series of 60 sentences on a computer, pressing a key when they understood each sentence. To make sure participants were actually reading the sentences, the researchers periodically checked their reading comprehension. Participants repeated the test, using a fresh set of questions, two weeks later when the Botox treatment's paralyzing effect was at its height.

After treatment, participants were slower to understand sentences conveying sadness or anger than they had been before treatment. There was no such change for happy sentences. Mood analyses ruled out the possibility that the women were simply happier after receiving Botox, making them quicker to comprehend happier material.

The results indicate that our own facial expressions help the brain make sense of the social world, Havas says.
#33
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form

QuoteScientists have created the world's first synthetic life form in a landmark experiment that paves the way for designer organisms that are built rather than evolved.

The controversial feat, which has occupied 20 scientists for more than 10 years at an estimated cost of $40m, was described by one researcher as "a defining moment in biology".

Craig Venter, the pioneering US geneticist behind the experiment, said the achievement heralds the dawn of a new era in which new life is made to benefit humanity, starting with bacteria that churn out biofuels, soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and even manufacture vaccines.

However critics, including some religious groups, condemned the work, with one organisation warning that artificial organisms could escape into the wild and cause environmental havoc or be turned into biological weapons. Others said Venter was playing God.

The new organism is based on an existing bacterium that causes mastitis in goats, but at its core is an entirely synthetic genome that was constructed from chemicals in the laboratory.

The single-celled organism has four "watermarks" written into its DNA to identify it as synthetic and help trace its descendants back to their creator, should they go astray.

"We were ecstatic when the cells booted up with all the watermarks in place," Dr Venter told the Guardian. "It's a living species now, part of our planet's inventory of life."

Dr Venter's team developed a new code based on the four letters of the genetic code, G, T, C and A, that allowed them to draw on the whole alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks to write the watermarks. Anyone who cracks the code is invited to email an address written into the DNA.

The research is reported online today in the journal Science.

"This is an important step both scientifically and philosophically," Dr Venter told the journal. "It has certainly changed my views of definitions of life and how life works."

The team now plans to use the synthetic organism to work out the minimum number of genes needed for life to exist. From this, new microorganisms could be made by bolting on additional genes to produce useful chemicals, break down pollutants, or produce proteins for use in vaccines.

Julian Savulescu, professor of practical ethics at Oxford University, said: "Venter is creaking open the most profound door in humanity's history, potentially peeking into its destiny. He is not merely copying life artificially ... or modifying it radically by genetic engineering. He is going towards the role of a god: creating artificial life that could never have existed naturally."

This is "a defining moment in the history of biology and biotechnology", Mark Bedau, a philosopher at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, told Science.

Dr Venter became a controversial figure in the 1990s when he pitted his former company, Celera Genomics, against the publicly funded effort to sequence the human genome, the Human Genome Project. Venter had already applied for patents on more than 300 genes, raising concerns that the company might claim intellectual rights to the building blocks of life.

IMHO, biggest scientific accomplishment of our lifetimes. Can we give him the Nobel Prize now or do we have to wait a few years to make it look fair?
#34
Apple Talk / Fuck you! It's My Birthday!
May 07, 2010, 07:44:03 AM
I'm officially an old man at 30, so fuck you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv-OYkGWOhE

(NSFW, asshole!)


SPANK ME!
#35
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/28/music-industry-spoke.html

QuoteA music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you've got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything:

Quote"Child pornography is great," the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. "It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites".
The venue was a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm on May 27, 2007, under the title "Sweden -- A Safe Haven for Pirates?". The speaker was Johan Schlüter from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group, a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations, like IFPI and others...

"One day we will have a giant filter that we develop in close cooperation with IFPI and MPA. We continuously monitor the child porn on the net, to show the politicians that filtering works. Child porn is an issue they understand," Johan Schlüter said with a grin, his whole being radiating pride and enthusiasm from the podium.
#36
Apple Talk / Christ, What an Asshole
April 17, 2010, 07:24:38 AM
Thanks to modern technology it has been discovered that every single comic strip ever is instantly funnier if you change the punchline to "Christ, What an asshole".  NO EXCEPTIONS!!!

http://www.modernarthur.com/blog/christwhatanasshole.html









http://www.robertsinclair.net/comic/asshole.html







#37
Aneristic Illusions / Crash the Tea Party
April 14, 2010, 12:07:38 AM
http://www.crashtheteaparty.org/




Obviously question is who is really behind this? They are real subversives that want to discredit the Tea Baggers by pushing the envelope OR is this being pushed by the organizers of the Tea Party in order to distance themselves from the nasty elements that have been showing up to their events? Any guesses?
#38
Aneristic Illusions / Immigration reform
April 12, 2010, 07:55:36 AM
I do believe that I called this one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/us/politics/11immig.html

QuoteThe Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, told an exuberant crowd at an immigration rally Saturday in Las Vegas that Congress would start work on an immigration overhaul as soon as lawmakers return this week from a recess.

"We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now," he said in a speech to more than 6,000 people, mostly immigrants, gathered downtown.

"We need to do this this year," Mr. Reid said, drawing cheers from the crowd, which included many Latinos. "We cannot wait."

Teabaggers are already pissed at the world. Add some more racism and xenophobia to the already festering paranoia and we've got a nice powder keg on our hands. LET'S LIGHT THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!!1!!

:nuke:
#39
Apple Talk / Fucking magnets, how do they work?
April 08, 2010, 06:04:56 PM
 :news:

JUGGALOS ARE FUCKIN' MORONS!! AND MAGNETS ARE MAGIC!!!

http://skepchick.org/blog/2010/04/fuckin-magnets-how-do-they-work/
#40
I know the century is still early, but this guy is a major league asshole of the first order:

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/massey-energy-don-blankenship-million-dolla

QuoteMeet Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy Company. Blankenship is also on the Board of Directors of the US Chamber of Commerce. In this speech above, he denies climate change, derisively refers to Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and others as "greeniacs", and calls them all crazy. Watch the speech, you'll see. In his mind, "the greeniacs are taking over the world."

Massey Energy Company, Blankenship's highly successful strip-mining and mountaintop removal operation is the parent company of Performance Coal Co, where a tragic explosion occurred on April 5th. As of this writing, 25 miners have died and 4 more are still missing. Twenty-five families are without a loved one. Four more may discover they have lost someone they love too. 29 families in all, forever changed by one single, violent event in a coal mine. One single violent event in a coal mine run by a company so obsessed with profit it runs roughshod over employees' and neighbors' health and safety.

Here's something else about Don Blankenship and Massey Energy Company: Blankenship spent over $1 million dollars along with other US Chamber buddies like Verizon to sponsor last year's Labor Day Tea Party, also known as the "Friends of America Rally." Here's Massey's pitch. Note how he makes it sound like he isn't one of the corporate enemies of America.

The Friends of America Rally featured such notables as Sean Hannity, Ted Nugent, and Hank Williams, Jr., and was graced by Blankenship himself going off on a diatribe that seemed strange at the time, but has come to be commonplace these days. It concerned President Obama, Democrats, and any one who doesn't salute God, coal, and apple pie. Oh, and we're also going to 'steal their jobs,' if Hannity is to be believed.

QuoteDon Blankenship inhabits a strange and bizarre world. In his world:

*It's fine for elementary school-age children to inhale coal dust while playing at school because Massey Coal "already pays millions of dollars in taxes each year".
*Blankenship truly believes that government regulation means "we all better learn to speak Chinese."
*He has absolutely no problem paying $3 million to elect state Supreme Court justice Brent Benjamin just ahead of a scheduled hearing of his appeal to overturn a large damage award for driving competitor Harman Mining Corporation into bankruptcy.
*Blankenship will spend millions to keep the Massey Energy's workforce non-union, is perfectly happy to discriminate against union workers even if it means being sued and losing, and might hate unions as much as he hates 'greeniacs'.

This is the same mine where the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) recently ruled that Spartan Mining illegally discriminated against 82 UMWA members by refusing to hire them because of their union membership status.

"This settlement highlights yet again the treacherous and backhanded manner Massey treated the miners who had worked at the Cannelton mine for decades," UMWA International President Cecil E. Roberts said. "While it was discriminating against these experienced miners because of their age or union status, the company was at the same time publicly crying about the lack of experienced miners in the coalfields.

"But it wasn't that Massey couldn't find experienced miners," Roberts said. "They were there all along and wanted to work. It was that the company would rather break the law than allow its employees to have a strong voice at work and the tremendous benefits of a union contract.

Penny-wise, pound-foolish. An investment in experienced workers trained in state-of-the art safety measures combined with OSHA compliance and mine safety measures might have saved at least 25, and possibly 29 lives.

Instead Don Blankenship spent that money and more on a US Chamber of Commerce corporate-sponsored tea party to convince good, hard-working honest people to work against their best interests.
#41
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/voyeur-west-hollywood-mic_n_516903.html

QuoteThe Daily Caller's Jonathan Strong has basically won the morning with a story about RNC Chairman Michael Steele's lavish lifestyle on the road. Strong reports that Steele "once raised the possibility of using party money to buy a private jet for his travel," and has run up some substantial tabs at some of our nation's nicest hotels. But if you ask me, he sort of buried the lede... probably strategically! Because look what awaits you in paragraph six:

QuoteOnce on the ground, FEC filings suggest, Steele travels in style. A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, and $1,620.71 spent [update: the amount is actually $1,946.25] at Voyeur West Hollywood, a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers imitating lesbian sex.

:lulz:
#42
Why? Because we need more UNLIMITED threads and most state legislatures are retarded. Case in point:

http://www.oudaily.com/news/2010/mar/23/lawmaker-says-hate-crimes-bill-contains-error/

QuoteA bill intended to remove hate crime protections from gays and lesbians actually takes away rights from everyone else because of a "legislative error," according to one lawmaker.

Oklahoma State Senate Minority Leader Andrew Rice, D-Oklahoma City, said when the Senate passed Senate Bill 1965 on March 10, it eliminated hate crime protections for race and religion.

The bill states local law enforcement agencies should not enforce any sections of federal law under hate crimes statutes listed under Title 18 U.S. Code Section 245 unless they are in correlation with Oklahoma's hate crimes laws.

But the protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes, which passed Congress last year, are not listed under Section 245, but Section 249

"The bill in its current form doesn't take away rights from gays and lesbians," Rice said. "It takes away rights for religion and race."

:lulz:
#43
http://tfninsider.org/2010/03/11/blogging-the-social-studies-debate-iv/

Quote9:20 – The State Board of Education will resume debate and amending proposed new social studies curriculum standards for Texas public schools this morning. Board members are getting a short lesson on parliamentary procedure right now.

9:27 – The board is taking up remaining amendments on the high school world history course.

9:30 – Board member Cynthia Dunbar wants to change a standard having students study the impact of Enlightenment ideas on political revolutions from 1750 to the present. She wants to drop the reference to Enlightenment ideas (replacing with "the writings of") and to Thomas Jefferson. She adds Thomas Aquinas and others. Jefferson's ideas, she argues, were based on other political philosophers listed in the standards. We don't buy her argument at all. Board member Bob Craig of Lubbock points out that the curriculum writers clearly wanted to students to study Enlightenment ideas and Jefferson. Could Dunbar's problem be that Jefferson was a Deist? The board approves the amendment, taking Thomas Jefferson OUT of the world history standards.

9:40 – We're just picking ourselves up off the floor. The board's far-right faction has spent months now proclaiming the importance of emphasizing America's exceptionalism in social studies classrooms. But today they voted to remove one of the greatest of America's Founders, Thomas Jefferson, from a standard about the influence of great political philosophers on political revolutions from 1750 to today.

9:45 – Here's the amendment Dunbar changed: "explain the impact of Enlightenment ideas from John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson on political revolutions from 1750 to the present." Here's Dunbar's replacement standard, which passed: "explain the impact of the writings of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and Sir William Blackstone." Not only does Dunbar's amendment completely change the thrust of the standard. It also appalling drops one of the most influential political philosophers in American history — Thomas Jefferson.

9:51 – Dunbar's amendment striking Jefferson passed with the votes of the board's far-right members and board member Geraldine "Tincy" Miller of Dallas.
#44
Ok, Suu, Richter, I need your assistance putting together a band of able-bodied men (and women). We are going to climb to the top of Denali and kill this Aput bastard once and for all. I'm tired of all gray haze that has been hanging over this half of the globe. I haven't seen the sun in months. Everything has been blanketed with filthy snow for what feels like an eternity. The malaise is starting to sink in fast and I'm afraid if we don't do something soon it may last forever.

Yeah, I know. Aput is a god and, well, gods seem to have this nasty habit of coming back to live no matter how many times you kill them. I don't care at this point. I need color in my life again. No more grays. I want greens and blues and reds again. I need them or I will surely perish. That's why I'm willing to lead this mission; whether I come back or not doesn't matter anymore. It's going to be a long, treacherous ascent but we must get to the top of that mountain and stab at the icy heart of Winter with a fiery blade. I'm not taking anymore of his shit.



PS. Dok, if you've got something rocket-powered to get us to the top faster we'd be much obliged.
#45
Apple Talk / I <3 BUTT DRUGS!!!
March 06, 2010, 05:07:04 PM
http://www.buttdrugs.com/

:lulz:

Bu-bu-bu-butt Drugs!!!
#46
Not really, but here's an interesting story on how rumors can spread very quickly.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/03/the_backstory_of_the_john_roberts_retirement_rumor.php

QuoteEveryone is wondering: Where did that erroneous rumor of an imminent retirement by Chief Justice John Roberts come from? The gossip spread like wildfire, triggering thousands of texts, blog posts, and emails — a few hundred of them to the ATL tips line — before Radar, which first published the rumor, retracted its report...

Like many a promising legal career, the Roberts resignation rumor traces its origins to a 1L class at Georgetown University Law Center....

Here's an account of what went down in Professor Peter Tague's criminal law class this morning, from a 1L at Georgetown Law:

QuoteToday's class was partially on the validity of informants not explaining their sources. [Professor Tague] started off class at around 9 am EST by telling us not to tell anyone, but that we might find it interesting that tomorrow, Roberts would be announcing his retirement for health concerns. He refused to tell anyone how he knew. Then, at around 9:30, he let everyone in on the joke.

Note the timestamps on the Radar posts. The first one came out at 6:10 a.m., i.e., the Pacific Time equivalent of 9:10 a.m. Eastern time. The retraction came out at 6:36 a.m., i.e., the Pacific Time equivalent of 9:36 a.m. Eastern — shortly after Professor Tague let his class in on the joke.

A second Georgetown Law student confirms that Professor Tague's class was probably where the Roberts resignation rumor got started:

QuoteOur criminal justice professor started our 9 am lecture with the news that roberts will be resigning tomorrow for health reasons — that he could not handle the administrative burdens of the job. He would not say how he knows — but halfway through our lecture on the credibility and reliability of informants he revealed that the Roberts rumor was made up to show how someone you ordinarily think is credible and reliable (ie a law professor) can disseminate inaccurate information.

By then the horse was out of the barn — and running at a gallop:

QuoteBetween the hour when the class began and when he revealed that he made it up, plenty of students texted and IM'ed their friends and family.... [So] there's a very good chance that the Roberts rumor that spread like wildfire on the internet was sparked by an eccentric law professor trying to make a point.

#47
Apple Talk / Dawkins Forum Implodes
February 25, 2010, 06:15:30 PM
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/richard-dawkins-unleashes-tirade-against-fans.html

QuoteRichard Dawkins has something of a reputation for provoking the religious community, but it seems he may have underestimated the atheistic fervour of his own fanbase. Amidst a tsunami of vulgar and vitriolic comments, the 85,000-strong forum on his official website RichardDawkins.net had to be shut down this week.

The implosion appears to have been provoked by an announcement on the website that discussion threads and responses would in future be tightly moderated to help curb irrelevant discussions, frivolous gossip and abuse.

However, the announcement itself created such an explosion of ire that the planned 30-day switch-over period had to be scrapped and the discussion forum locked down immediately. Some members are complaining that their profiles have been wiped out and others have lost access to files and messages that they uploaded onto the website. Not willing to be silenced, many of the former Dawkins fans are continuing to vent their feelings on atheist forums elsewhere on the net.

Chris Wilkins, who has blogged about the row, told me yesterday that one of his acquaintances described the closing of the forum as "feeling like a friend had died".

Dawkins himself is less than sympathetic. In a personal message posted today entitled Outrage, he lets rip at the members of his website:

QuoteImagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose [...] that somebody on website expressed a "sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails" down your throat. Also to "trip you up and kick you in the guts." And imagine seeing your face described, again by an anonymous poster, as "a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one.

(You will also have to imagine the uncensored version of this extract)

He goes on to ponder what could possible be wrong with people who "over-react so spectacularly to something so trivial" and concludes that "there is something rotten in internet culture" and that he is determined to purge his website of this vicious element. And so the battle commences...
#48
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/19/bush-official-criticizes_n_469326.html

QuoteJust how unpopular are President Barack Obama's anti-terrorism policies with his Republican critics? Even when he's killing terrorists they find flaws.

At a panel on national security policy at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, a prominent lawyer from the Bush administration's Department of Justice said he was concerned that the higher number of terrorist executions taking place under Obama was compromising U.S. intelligence operations.

"Why have executions increased?" asked Viet Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act. Citing a recent Washington Post article on the increased targeted killing of terrorists, Dinh complained that "the president and vice president expound this fact as a fact that they are actually successful in war."

"That doesn't mean I think they are not illegitimate," he added. "No, we have every right to kill the other side's warriors. But at what cost? When we do not have an effective detention policy the only option we have is to kill them before we can detain them. And if we don't detain them, we don't know what they know and what they are up to."

The crowd applauded. Though, it should be noted, Dinh got a scattering of hisses and boos when he defended the Patriot Act.
#49
Apple Talk / John Mayer's Racist Penis
February 16, 2010, 07:25:56 AM
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2686353/john_mayer_on_black_women_in_playboy.html?cat=9

QuoteFor a guy with such skills with a guitar, John Mayer seems to be quite the virtuoso at saying things that more than annoy people. His recent remarks about black women in Playboy magazine are just the latest example of his lack of couth. Not only does he compare having sex with Jessica Simpson to a drug addiction (probably not the most flattering of comparisons, especially when uttered with such gutter-ridden eloquence) but the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter told Playboy had a discriminatory penis when it came to black women. America isn't that "post-racial" yet...

When asked if black women threw themselves at him, the 32-year-old guitarist told Playboy: "I don't think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I've got a Benetton heart and a fuckin' David Duke cock. I'm going to start dating separate from my dick..."

:facepalm:
#50
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-02/aerogels-hit-consumer-insulation-market

QuoteOver 70 years ago, scientists invented aerogel, the least dense solid known to man, and an insulator four times more efficient than fiberglass or foam. Famously, according to Dr. Peter Tsou of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "you could take a two- or three-bedroom house, insulate it with aerogel, and you could heat the house with a candle. But eventually the house would become too hot."

Unfortunately, aerogels remained so expensive and unwieldy that only NASA used them with any regularity. However, thanks to recent production advances, aerogel insulation is now available and affordable for consumer purchase.

Even after the price drop, aerogels remain more expensive than common insulating materials. But since aerogels are more plastic than fiberglass or foam, permeable to water vapor, and flameproof, the extra cost may well be worth the investment when insulating masonry, shingles, or curved surfaces. Plus, since they're so light and efficient, aerogels reduce other building costs as well.

Aerogels are made by constructing a conventional gel, and then removing the liquid though supercritical drying. The resultant material is 90 percent air, but retains the structure and rigidity of the non-liquid gel components.