Ice

Sprang Broke

. . Should politicians be required to wear the logos of their ‘sponsors’ like NASCAR drivers do?

This petition went up on the White House “We The People” website yesterday. They’re looking to get 100,000 signatures by April 19th. Since most politicians’ campaigns are largely funded by wealthy companies and individuals, it would give voters a better sense of who the candidate they are voting for is actually representing if the company’s logo, or individual’s name, was prominently displayed upon the candidate’s clothing at all public appearances and campaign events. Once elected, the candidate would be required to continue to wear those “sponsor’s” names during all official duties and visits to constituents. The size of a logo or name would vary with the size of a donation. For example, a $1 million dollar contribution would warrant a patch of about 4” by 8” on the chest, while a free meal from a lobbyist would be represented by a quarter-sized button. Individual donations under $1000 are exempt.

Print yourself as a gummi bear at Tokyo’s FabCafe

There’s no shortage of cafes in Tokyo, but FabCafe has a little more on its menu than most. Opened just over a year ago, the establishment offers its own laser cutter that customers can rent by the hour, and also collaborates with the 3D printer showroom upstairs. The showroom is called Cube and features several printers made by South Carolina-based 3D Systems, making FabCafe a hot spot in Tokyo for anyone who needs something fabricated but can’t justify the multi-thousand dollar outlay on a machine of their own.

. . Indian laptops that crash if users try to remove pictures of minister

One and a half million laptops given to poor students by India’s largest state government crash if their users try to remove pre-loaded screen savers featuring pictures of the new chief minister.

. . 34 Lost Cities Forgotten by Time

It’s hard to imagine how an entire city can get lost but that’s exactly what has happened to the lost cities on this list. There are actually many reasons why a city has to be abandoned. War, natural disasters, climate change and the loss of important trading partners to name a few. Whatever the cause, these lost cities were forgotten in time until they were rediscovered centuries later.

. . How to Improve Your Wi-Fi Signal Using a Soda Can in 6 Steps

When your life is nothing but trolling and viral videos, having a bad wi-fi connection can be incredibly irritating. Poor loading times, lost connections, and more can put a strain on your time browsing the internet. However, there are some ways to improve your Wi-Fi connection. However, even in the most bleak situation, there are heroes, and in this case it’s soda cans. If you’ve ever had a TV with an antenna or a radio, you’ve probably heard of the trick of using tin foil to improve the signal. Using a soda or beer can to improve your wi-fi signal works in a very similar way. The metal in the can and the shape of the can when cut open can focus the signal to and from your router. The only things that you’ll need to achieve this are a beer or soda can, a utility knife, a pair of scissors and some form of adhesive that can easily be removed like tape or adhesive putty.

. . LA County Authorities Crack Down on Nitrous Oxide

Authorities say the use of nitrous oxide as a recreational drug has grown from a rave party phenomenon to mainstream use, propelled by the ease of social media to reach young people. They say the drug has spurred fatal car accidents, rapes and teen deaths — all in the name of a temporary high that lasts just a few minutes and costs just a few dollars. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials have zeroed in on the recreational use of the drug since September, cracking down on more than 350 illegal parties, nearly all of which were selling nitrous oxide, or “noz,” spokesman Mike Parker said Thursday.

. . Million dollar bust; Three-year drug investigation nets $1.2M worth of PCP

Authorities found two-2 gallon jugs of PCP concealed in containers of Lipton Sweet Tea in Allen’s Porsche on Nov. 5, 2012 when they raided a storage locker on Lake Road in Vermilion. A loaded handgun was also recovered from the storage locker but was not stolen. Allen was arrested the same day during a traffic stop in Westlake on I-90 after authorities found another gallon of PCP in the back of his Escalade, according to Lorain County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Dennis Cavanaugh, who also heads the Lorain County Drug Task Force. A total of 111,364 milliliters of PCP were recovered in total. The drug sells for $120 to $140 a gram, said Cavanaugh.

. . Evaluating Drug Decriminalization in Portugal 12 Years Later

One gram of heroin, two grams of cocaine, 25 grams of marijuana leaves or five grams of hashish: These are the drug quantities one can legally purchase and possess in Portugal, carrying them through the streets of Lisbon in a pants pocket, say, without fear of repercussion. MDMA — the active ingredient in ecstasy — and amphetamines — including speed and meth — can also be possessed in amounts up to one gram. That’s roughly enough of each of these drugs to last 10 days. These are the amounts listed in a table appended to Portugal’s Law 30/2000. Goulão participated in creating this law, which has put his country at the forefront of experimental approaches to drug control. Portugal paved a new path when it decided to decriminalize drugs of all kinds. “We figured perhaps this way we would be better able get things under control,” Goulão explains. “Criminalization certainly wasn’t working all that well.”

. . Dallas police: Dallas is a petty shoplifter’s paradise.

As far as I can tell, police departments employ two main strategies when they’re under pressure to cut crime fast. In strategy no. 1, they flood crime zones with special police units that muscle criminals and contraband off the streets. In strategy no. 2, they simply downgrade crimes, or make it more difficult for citizens to report them. The Dallas police department chose the latter strategy last year when it announced that police officers would no longer respond in person to shoplifting incidents involving items worth $50 or less. Instead, victimized merchants were instructed to print a form off the DPD website, fill it out, and put it in the mail. According to the Dallas Morning News, the new process has been a huge hassle for merchants. “Retailers overwhelmingly described a time-consuming process with onerous paperwork requirements,” reported Tanya Eiserer and Steve Thompson.

. . Americans with Venereal Diseases Could Surpass Those with Jobs By the End of Obama’s Second Term

Over a third of Americans have a venereal disease, according to the CDC. At the present rate, those who have problems with their personal equipment will surpass those with jobs by the end of Obama’s second term. The CDC finding that 110,197,000 Americans have an STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) was reported by CNS News. In 2008, the last year reported, 19.8 million Americans contracted STIs.

. . Single magic mushroom ‘can change personality’

Forty-five years after Timothy Leary, the apostle of drug-induced mysticism, urged his hippie followers to “turn on, tune in and drop out”, researchers have found that magic mushrooms do change a user’s personality – for the better. The fungi have long been known for their psychedelic effects, but far from damaging the brain, the hallucinogenic drug they contain enhances feelings and aesthetic sensibilities, scientists say. The study, at Johns Hopkins University of Medicine in Baltimore, found that a single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, was enough to cause positive effects for up to a year. “Psilocybin can facilitate experiences that change how people perceive themselves and their environment,” said Roland Griffiths, a study author and professor of psychiatry and behavioural science at Johns Hopkins. “That’s unprecedented.”

. . Freedom in the 50 States 2013

We score all 50 states on over 200 policies encompassing fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal freedom. We weight public policies according to the estimated costs that government restrictions on freedom impose on their victims.

. . Computer Fraud And Abuse Act 2013: New CFAA Draft Aims To Expand, Not Reform, The ‘Worst Law In Technology’

But what’s perhaps most troubling to Internet freedom advocates is how the new CFAA even expands the law to include accessing information for an “impermissible purpose,” which means even if you have the right to access the information in the first place, it’s still considered a crime if someone deems you are misusing your access in some way. According to Kerr, a computer law expert, the language in the new CFAA would make it a felony to “lie about your age on an online dating profile if you intended to contact someone online and ask them personal questions,” or if you violate the terms of service on a government website. “In short, this is a step backward, not a step forward,” Kerr said. “This is a proposal to give DOJ what it wants, not to amend the CFAA in a way that would narrow it.”

. . SMH: Rick Ross Raps About Committing Date Rape In New Song

In the new song, “You Don’t Even Know It,” by Rocko, Future, and Rick Ross, the self-proclaimed boss drops a troubling lyric that shows he knows very little about rape. Just after he opens his verse, Ross raps: “Put molly all in her champagne, she ain’t even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that, she ain’t even know it.”

. . One Mexican town finds more security by throwing out the police

About two years ago, citizens in Cherán, Mexico decided to battle illegal logging and drug violence by kicking out the police and running the town according to indigenous tradition.

. . Bees Buzz Each Other, but Not the Way You Think

The electric fields that build up on honey bees as they fly, flutter their wings, or rub body parts together may allow the insects to talk to each other, a new study suggests. Tests show that the electric fields, which can be quite strong, deflect the bees’ antennae, which, in turn, provide signals to the brain through specialized organs at their bases. Scientists have long known that flying insects gain an electrical charge when they buzz around. That charge, typically positive, accumulates as the wings zip through the air—much as electrical charge accumulates on a person shuffling across a carpet. And because an insect’s exoskeleton has a waxy surface that acts as an electrical insulator, that charge isn’t easily dissipated, even when the insect lands on objects, says Randolf Menzel, a neurobiologist at the Free University of Berlin in Germany.

. . Cloud 9 or Storm Cloud? Dangers of Cloud Computing – A Reminder – with other notes on other privacy concerns

A selection of articles giving warning about the dangers of cloud computing… What’s going on with your notes, records, e-mail, photos, documents, videos, scans, etc.? Privacy, Encyption, and Government Back Doors in the Web 2.0 era Google connections to NSA/CIA Massachusetts Looking to Tax Cloud Services 51 Security Worries About Cloud Computing What’s In Your ‘Digital Wallet’? – Why They Are Pushing Digital Wallets… FBI Drive for Encryption Backdoors Is Deja Vu for Security Experts Postal Service to Host Public-Private ID Protection Network Encryption Could Drive Government to Break Into Your Cloud IRS Leaves Taxpayer Data Insecure, GAO Finds Is Your TV, Game System or Other Device Watching You? Feds: No Warrant Needed to Track Your Car with a GPS Device Driven by the Elite: Nasdaq on the Virtues of the Public Cloud The More You Encrypt, the More the Government Breaks Into Your Cloud Microsoft Details Law Enforcement Information Requests in New Report

. . Rolling Stone, February 1974 – Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman – Burroughs Interviews Bowie

This was on my mind as much as the mysterious personality of David Bowie when an Irish cabbie drove Burroughs and me to Bowie’s London home on 17 November (“Strange blokes down this part of London, mate”). I had spent the last several weeks arranging this two-way interview. I had brought Bowie all of Burroughs’ novels: Naked Lunch, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded and the rest. He’d only had time to read Nova Express. Burroughs for his part had heard only two Bowie songs, ‘Five Years’ and ‘Starman’, though he had read all of Bowie’s lyrics. Still they had expressed interest in meeting each other.

. . Let’s Talk about Sex: Victorian Anti-Masturbation Devices

Take the example to the left. This terrifying contraption is called a ‘jugum penis.’ It was designed to prevent both masturbation and ‘nocturnal incontinence.’ Should a man become aroused in the middle of the night, this contraption would clamp down, extinguishing both his desire as well as his erection in a very sudden and painful way! But why were the Victorians so obsessed with what they termed ‘self-abuse?’ Many medical practitioners during this period believed that masturbation caused a wide range of mental and physical disorders, and could even prove fatal over time. Doctors and surgeons alike devoted their lives to finding a ‘cure.’

. . Ford Figo Sexist Print Ads Photo Gallery

. . Escort arrested in penis-biting attack, charged with attempted murder

Deputies were called to the Crestwood Suites on University Boulevard after multiple 911 callers “reported screaming and growling sounds from a room on the second floor” of the hotel. They arrived to find the victim “covered in a significant amount of blood, with numerous bite wounds,” the report states. He was rushed to the Orlando Regional Medical Center trauma center. The man had “significant” bites to his penis and testicles, the report states, as well as damage to his leg, abdomen, chest and fingers. His alleged attacker, Priscilla Vaughn, “was nude, and had blood around her mouth, which had spread to her face and head,” the report states, adding Vaughn “growled and snarled” at deputies.

. . Don’t try this at home: Researchers use tDCS to release your brain’s strongest opioid painkillers

A team of international researchers headed up by the University of Michigan has used noninvasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to release endogenous opioids — the human body’s most powerful, euphoria-inducing painkillers that are very similar to opiates such as morphine. This approach is significant because releasing these opioids is as simple as strapping a couple of damp sponges to your scalp and attaching a 9-volt battery.

. . The Details Of What Information The Police Can Suck Out Of Your Phone

Of course, most people have no idea what the police can pull off of your phone when it’s searched, but the ACLU has, thankfully, revealed some documents that ICE filed in a court case. It turns out they can get quite a lot. Using a single “data extraction session” they were able to pull: call activity phone book directory information stored voicemails and text messages photos and videos apps eight different passwords 659 geolocation points, including 227 cell towers and 403 WiFi networks with which the cell phone had previously connected.

. . Montana moves to make roadkill legal to eat: Is ‘freeganism’ a good idea?

Roadkill salvage and consumption remains a fringe activity, mainly practiced by so-called “freegans” and other culinary subcultures. In Alaska, however, those who utilize soup kitchens are likely to have had a taste, since fresh roadkill is regularly given to charities. Interestingly, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which opposes most forms of hunting, has pushed states to adopt “roadkill salvage” legislation so as not to let animals go to waste.

. . NoHomo phobes.com

This website is designed as a social mirror to show the prevalence of casual homophobia in our society. Words and phrases like “faggot,” “dyke,” “no homo,” and “so gay” are used casually in everyday language, despite promoting the continued alienation, isolation and — in some tragic cases — suicide of sexual and gender minority (LGBTQ) youth.

. . Video: Dozens of drug users rush to dealer’s car ‘like children to an icecream van’

CCTV footage released by West Midlands Police shows dozens of people running to be first in line as a drug dealer arrives in a Birmingham street.

. . Breast Lift Massage Therapy Benefits & Techniques

How is breast massage therapy performed? Breast massage therapy is performed with the patient lying flat on her back on a massage table. If the patient so desires, the massage may be performed with the breasts covered with a cloth. However, this greatly hinders the massage therapist and reduces the effectiveness of the massage. The massage therapist will usually start by massaging the area under the breast and over the breast with the palms of the hand. At any point in time if you are feeling uncomfortable or feel that too much of less pressure is being exerted, do not hesitate to tell your therapist. No therapist can read your mind. The therapist will then move to massage the sides of the breast. The next step of the massage is the breast lift. The therapist places his or her hands under your breasts and gently lifts them towards the ceiling. This helps to relieve stress from the breasts and promotes gentle stretching. Finally the therapist will gently massage the pectoral muscles.

. . Dog Brings Home Dead Baby In Oklahoma City

A dog in Oklahoma City came home on Saturday carrying a dead newborn in its mouth. A house sitter, whose name has not been released, was at the home at the time, KOCO reported. The house sitter told KFOR that the dog, a 6-month-old mixed-breed named Luke, showed up at the door with the body of a three to five-pound infant in his mouth. “He was carrying it just like a momma pup,” she told the station, “and laid it at my feet.”

. . T.J. Lane sentenced to life in prison in Chardon High School shootings (video, gallery)

T.J. Lane will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing three students and wounding three others in the Chardon High School cafeteria Feb. 27, 2012. Before his sentence, Lane, wearing a white T-shirt with the word “killer” written across the front, said: “This hand that pulled the trigger that killed your sons now masturbates to the memory. F— all of you.”

. . Cooking in Your Hotel Room

If any Foodie Flick could blow your mind, it’s this one. British comedian George Egg recently posted a YouTube video in which he cooks dinner in his hotel room. We’re not talking about a quick salad and sandwich here. Without bringing any special tools from home, Egg sweeps aside the overpriced room-service menu and makes pasta and biscuits in his room — from scratch. No hot plate. No microwave. If it wasn’t captured in a video, we probably wouldn’t believe it. The entrée? A tortellini pasta with spinach, rocket and crème fraîche that he cooks in the room’s tea kettle. This might not leave a desirable taste for the next poor sap who makes tea, but it’s a rather ingenious way to boil noodles. (He adds a raw egg yolk in a nod to carbonara; emulate that at your own risk.) Oh, but there’s more: Egg ups the ante by making biscuits (kneaded, risen, the whole 9 yards), using a clothes iron. Color us a new shade of impressed.

. . How to brew beer in a coffee maker, using only materials commonly found on a modestly sized oceanographic research vessel

The tools you need are simple: an electric drip coffee maker with hot plate, a coffee filter, 2 1-liter glass sample jars with air-tight lids, 2 handkerchiefs, 2 rubber bands, and a source of clean (preferably R/O) water. You’ll have to be more creative with your ingredients. Your need grains, malt, hops, and something for flavor. Simple grains such as those found in common cereals – Raisin Bran, Cracked Wheat, Kashi, whatever you can find – are decent sources of starches and usually contain enough enzymes to break the most complex proteins down. Fruit and nuts will add flavor, but are not important. The grains should be ground as fine as possible, rolled under a rolling pin or crushed in a mortar and pestle. The smaller the grains the greater the reactive surface area.

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Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on March 31, 2013

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Teenage Lobotomy

. . Top 10 Fascinating And Notable Lobotomies: He then inserted an ice pick above her eyeball, banged it through her eye socket into her brain and then swirled it around in a sort of eggbeater motion to scramble the neural connections.; .; .
Lion finds Kariba couple having sex in bush, kills girlfriend, boyfriend escapes wearing condom only?
. . Inside the KKK summer camp: That’s Kool Koast Kamp where white supremacists went to relax in the 1920s: In the summer of 1924 there was said to be no place ‘kooler’ than the Ku Klux Klan’s ‘Kool Koast Kamp’ – strictly depending on who you asked. Seen in a shocking brochure advertising a four-month resort to KKK members outside the coastal community of Rockport, Texas, is the Klansmens’ self-described ‘Healthiest road to the Koolest Summer.’ Set between a monstrous cross and rippling waves along the shore, guests are illustrated bathing and lying along the beach before tents and boardwalks strictly for white, conservative Christians.
. . Mysterious light blamed for circle of fire: Tasmanian police and firefighters are unable to explain the source of a beam of light which reportedly fell from the sky and formed a circle of fire in a Hobart suburb. Early Saturday morning police and fire crews received calls from concerned residents in Carnegie Street at Claremont, who reported seeing a bright light igniting a fire in a nearby paddock. Tasmania Fire Service officer Scott Vinen says the blaze was quickly put out, leaving an obvious burnt patch. He says the bizarre incident has everyone baffled. “Once we put the fire out, we kind of walked through the fire and tried to find something,” he said. “We thought a flare or something may have landed there, but we couldn’t find any cause.” The Fire Service says it will not investigate further.
. . Ex-DEA Chief Lobbying Holder to Nullify Marijuana Legalization Owns a Drug Testing Company: Peter B. Bensinger, the apparent spokesman for the group, told the AP, “the supremacy of federal law over state law when it comes to drug laws isn’t in doubt.” He added, ”It is outrageous that a lawsuit hasn’t been filed in federal court yet.” It turns out Peter B. Bensinger, who in the letter is representing the lobbying organization Save Our Society from Drugs, has a huge financial stake in preventing the legalization of cannabis. He is the founder and CEO of a drug testing company.
. . New York’s Homelessness Worst Since The Great Depression: State and local governments nationwide have struggled to accommodate a homeless population that has changed in recent years – now including large numbers of families with young children. As the WSJ reports, more than 21,000 children – an unprecedented 1% of the city’s youth – slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year; as homeless families now spend more than a year in a shelter, on average, for the first time since 1987. New York City has seen one of the steepest increases in homeless families in the past decade, advocates said, growing 73% since 2002, and “is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression.”
. . Unlike – Why I’m Leaving Facebook: Facebook has never been merely a social platform. Rather, it exploits our social interactions the way a Tupperware party does. Facebook does not exist to help us make friends, but to turn our network of connections, brand preferences, and activities over time — our “social graphs” — into a commodity for others to exploit. We Facebook users have been building a treasure lode of big data that government and corporate researchers have been mining to predict and influence what we buy and whom we vote for. We have been handing over to them vast quantities of information about ourselves and our friends, loved ones and acquaintances. With this information, Facebook and the “big data” research firms purchasing their data predict still more things about us – from our future product purchases or sexual orientation to our likelihood for civil disobedience or even terrorism.
. . Alleged Lexington Scam Artist Caught In The Act: Lexington Police warned residents Monday of a scam in which a man in a wheelchair pretends to have a mental disability in order to get people to give him money, and soon after an LEX 18 reporter caught the alleged scammer in the act. Police say the man, Gary Thompson, 30, does have the need for the use of a wheelchair, but is also able to get out of it. They say that he has been spotted at several Lexington shopping centers, including the Lansdowne Shoppes, Hamburg and several places along Nicholasville Road. On Monday, police held a news conference to put out the information about Thompson. After the news conference was over, Thompsonn was spotted by an LEX 18 reporter who had just attended the news conference. The reporter, Kristen Pflum, said that she called to Thompson, who she says immediately went into his mental disability scam. When Pflum informed Thompson she had just attended a press conference about him, she says he immediately dropped the act and said, “Alright, you got me.”
. . The top 10 unsolved ciphertexts: For over 12 centuries an intense battle has been fought between the code-makers and the code-breakers. We previously talked about some ciphers that have been defeated and the impact it had. However, despite decades (or centuries!) of cryptanalysis there are many ciphertexts which still successfully conceal their contents. Here’s a roundup of my top ten, with links to groups actively tackling them provided where possible.
. . Shocking Rikers Security Breach! Convicted Sex Offender Posing as Correction Staffer Roams Jails, No One Stops Him: Matthew Matagrano (pictured at right), was not an inmate during the period. The 36-year-old former resident of Yonkers and South Ozone Park is listed as a high-risk sex offender in the state’s registry. Matagrano has a record of convictions for sodomy, first-degree sex abuse, burglary, and, not surprisingly, criminal impersonation. He has been arrested more than a dozen times, and has served several stints on Rikers. At his size, 5-foot-8 and 340 pounds, Matagrano shouldn’t have been so hard to miss. But he somehow was able to make or obtain a shield and a department identification card, and not only roam at least five facilities but obtain a sensitive Gate One all-access pass that allowed him to bring his car onto the island. He also is believed to have stolen at least two special correction department radios. Correction sources say the sheer number of security breakdowns alone that allowed this to happen is dizzying.
. . Brooklyn man fakes his own kidnapping, duct-taping himself, to explain two-week absence to girlfriend: A Brooklyn man faked his own kidnapping because he was terrified of his lover’s wrath. Rahmell Pettway, 36, told cops he spent two weeks away from his Bedford-Stuyvesant home — and then staged the crime to explain his absence to his girlfriend. But his poorly executed plan unraveled when the cops who found him hog-tied in the street noticed the roll of duct tape still dangling from his wrists. He eventually came clean, and was arrested for filing a false report.
. . ‘Rockstar’ drug hospitalises seven in Lanarkshire: The red or yellow coloured tablets are being sold as ecstasy and have a star impression on them. “The exact contents of the pills are unknown, but they could, from past experience, contain a cocktail of different substances,” say police. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Users need to be aware of the dangers and understand the potentially devastating effect these pills can have” Chief Insp Fraser Lamb Strathclyde Police An investigation has been launched by the police along with health officials and medical staff. Chief Insp Fraser Lamb said: “These substances are unreliable, unpredictable and potentially very dangerous. “Users may believe that they have taken ecstasy and it is very likely that they will suffer from a significant negative reaction.
. . Alcohol Is World’s Third Leading Cause of Illness: New research shows that alcohol is now the third leading cause of the global burden of disease and injury — this even though most adults worldwide abstain from drinking. Researchers discovered the relationship while preparing the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, a report published in the journal Addiction. “Alcohol consumption has been found to cause more than 200 different diseases and injuries,” said Kevin Shield, doctoral student and lead author of the study. “These include not only well-known outcomes of drinking such as liver cirrhosis or traffic accidents, but also several types of cancer, such as female breast cancer.”
. . Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A ‘Myth,’ New Study Says: A new study by Canadian academics says Mother Teresa was a product of hype who housed the poor and sick in shoddy conditions, despite her access to a fortune. The Times of India, reporting on the controversial essay, wrote that the authors asserted Mother Teresa saw beauty in the downtrodden’s suffering and was far more willing to pray for them than provide practical medical care. Meanwhile, researchers say, the Vatican engaged in a PR ploy as it threw aside concerns about her suspicious financial dealings and contacts to forgo the five-year waiting period to beatify her. One of the researchers, Serge Larivee of the University of Montreal’s department of psychoeducation, told the school’s website, “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Teresa’s works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?”
. . The Militarization of Policing in America: American neighborhoods are increasingly being policed by cops armed with the weapons and tactics of war. Federal funding in the billions of dollars has allowed state and local police departments to gain access to weapons and tactics created for overseas combat theaters – and yet very little is known about exactly how many police departments have military weapons and training, how militarized the police have become, and how extensively federal money is incentivizing this trend. It’s time to understand the true scope of the militarization of policing in America and the impact it is having in our neighborhoods. On March 6th, ACLU affiliates in 23 states filed over 255 public records requests with law enforcement agencies and National Guard offices to determine the extent to which federal funding and support has fueled the militarization of state and local police departments. Stay tuned as this project develops.
. . How Food Companies Exploit Americans: Using banned ingredients that other countries have determined unsafe for human consumption has become a pandemic in this country. To prove this point, I found the best and easiest place to look for evidence was just across “the pond” in the United Kingdom, where they enjoy some of the same types of products we do – but with totally different ingredient lists. It is appalling to witness the examples I am about to share with you. The U.S. food corporations are unnecessarily feeding us chemicals – while leaving out almost all questionable ingredients in our friends’ products overseas. The point is the food industry has already formulated safer, better products, but they are voluntarily only selling inferior versions of these products here in America. The evidence of this runs the gamut from fast food places to boxed cake mix to cereal to candy and even oatmeal – you can’t escape it.
. . Banned Ingredients that Are Still Legal in the U.S.: You think the FDA has your back? Sure, they recently proposed two new regulations to up food safety measures, specifically how food processors and farmers can work better to keep their fresh products free of dangerous bacteria (remember that killer cantaloupe outbreak from 2011?). But while it may seem like the government is out to protect us from bad-even fatal-food-borne illnesses, which cause some 3,000 deaths a year, they don’t completely have our best interest-or health-in mind. “For numerous suspicious and disturbing reasons, the U.S. has allowed foods that are banned in many other developed countries into our food supply,” says nutritionist Mira Calton who, together with her husband Jayson Calton, Ph.D., wrote the new book Rich Food, Poor Food due out this February. During a six-year expedition that took them to 100 countries on seven continents, the Caltons studied more than 150 ingredients and put together a comprehensive list of the top 13 problematic products that are…
. . Technologies of Surveillance: It’s a new day for the New York Police Department, with technology increasingly informing the way cops do their jobs. With innovation comes new possibilities but also new concerns. For one, the NYPD is testing a new type of security apparatus that uses terahertz radiation to detect guns under clothing from a distance. As Police Commissioner Ray Kelly explained to the Daily News back in January, If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation — a weapon, for example — the device will highlight that object. Ignore, for a moment, the glaring constitutional concerns, which make the stop-and-frisk debate pale in comparison: virtual strip-searching, evasion of probable cause, potential racial profiling. Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union are all over those, even though their opposition probably won’t make a difference. We’re scared of both terrorism and crime, even as the risks decrease; and when we’re scared, we’re willing to give up all sorts of freedoms…
. . Couple Accused in Chase, 2 Stolen Police Cars: The young couple accused of stealing multiple police cars from two cities and leading authorities on a high-speed chase through two states Tuesday morning, have been identified as Blake Bills and Shayna Sykes. “I never heard of anyone stealing two police cars in one incident,” said Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner Richard Ross.
. . Jailed cybercriminal hacked into his own prison’s computer system after being put in IT class: Media reports have detailed the playboy lifestyle enjoyed by Nicholas Webber, GhostMarket’s founder, who had only just turned 18 at the time of his arrest in October 2009. Webber was sentenced to five years imprisonment in May 2011, and found himself at HM Prison Isis, a Category C male Young Offenders Institution, in South East London. Normally you would expect (and hope) a hacker’s criminal career to end there, but sadly that wasn’t to be. As the Daily Mail reports, Webber somehow managed to sign-up for the prison’s IT class, and from there managed to hack into the prison’s mainframe computer. According to the report, a spokesman for the prison service has confirmed that Webber was involved in the hack, but has downplayed the significance of the hack: “At the time of this incident in 2011 the educational computer system at HMP Isis was a closed network. No access to personal information or wider access to the internet or other prison systems would have been possible.”
. . For Troubled Teenagers in New York City, a New Tack – Forced Outreach: The New York City Police Department has embarked on a novel approach to deter juvenile robbers, essentially staging interventions and force-feeding outreach in an effort to stem a tide of robberies by dissuading those most likely to commit them. Officers not only make repeated drop-ins at homes and schools, but they also drive up to the teenagers in the streets, shouting out friendly hellos, in front of their friends. The force’s Intelligence Division also deciphers each teenager’s street name and gang affiliation. Detectives compile a binder on each teenager that includes photos from Facebook and arrest photos of the teenager’s associates, not unlike the flow charts generated by law enforcement officials to track organized crime.
. . Man arrested for biting girl on buttocks near downtown Dallas Greyhound bus station: A man was jailed over the weekend on an assault charge for allegedly biting a 16-year-old girl on her buttocks in downtown Dallas, according to police documents. Shortly before 6 p.m. on Saturday, a Dallas police officer parked near the downtown Greyhound bus station heard a girl scream and man laughing, according to police records. The cop turned in the direction of the scream and spotted a man later identified as David Paul Olienyk, 38, laughing as he ran through traffic toward the bus station in the 200 block of South Lamar Street. The officer drove toward the victim, who appeared to be crying. A person with her told the officer, “He bit her on the butt!” Thanks Jasmine
. . Are Smart Gadgets Making Us Dumb?: But there is reason to worry about this approaching revolution. As smart technologies become more intrusive, they risk undermining our autonomy by suppressing behaviors that someone somewhere has deemed undesirable. Smart forks inform us that we are eating too fast. Smart toothbrushes urge us to spend more time brushing our teeth. Smart sensors in our cars can tell if we drive too fast or brake too suddenly. These devices can give us useful feedback, but they can also share everything they know about our habits with institutions whose interests are not identical with our own. Insurance companies already offer significant discounts to drivers who agree to install smart sensors in order to monitor their driving habits. How long will it be before customers can’t get auto insurance without surrendering to such surveillance? And how long will it be before the self-tracking of our health (weight, diet, steps taken in a day) graduates from being a recreational novelty to a virtual requirement
. . Anomalies, Prisons, and Geophysics: How Governments Use Data and How to Stop Them: As a collective we must understand that democracy can only exist in a society with an educated populace, and the right for self-governance can only be obtained through knowledge. When a society embraces ignorance and forfeits its right to control its destiny, it has succumbed to apathy and can only deteriorate. In science, the analysis of anomalies contributes to our understanding of the physical world, improving our lives. In contrast, identifying anomalies in our society based on political doctrine has created fear and misunderstanding, restricting our lives. The lack of accountability from our leaders and our indifference to the consequences of their actions is diminishing our civil liberties. But it is not too late, we can prevent this from happening. We still have the ability to reclaim our future if we begin to educate ourselves.
. . Silicon Valley Is High on Innovation. And Pot: Around 40 percent of Palliative Health’s clients are tech workers, says Ernie Arreola, 38, the assistant manager. “We’re seeing people from some semiconductors, lots of engineers, lots of programmers,” he says. That makes sense, because the shop is an easy shot from some of the area’s biggest employers—Cisco Systems (CSCO), Google (GOOG), Adobe Systems (ADBE), Apple (AAPL), EBay (EBAY)—and a short drive from dozens more. Also, people in Silicon Valley do like their pot.
. . Ohio Man Charged With Shooting Robot: In what is sure to be only the beginning of human vs. robot confrontations, a surveillance robot belonging to the police was recently shot after a six-hour standoff with a 62-year-old heavily inebriated man.
. . Student suspended for shaping Pop-Tart into gun: 7-year-old Josh Welch was eating a Pop-Tart at school. A teacher saw the pastry and said she thought it looked like it was being shaped into a gun. The teacher also said she heard Welch say, “Bang Bang” while he was holding it. That was enough to get him suspended. Welch said his teacher got it completely wrong, “It was already a rectangle and I just kept on biting it and tore off the top, and it kind of looked like a gun but it wasn’t.” Welch said he was trying to shape the Pop-Tart into a mountain. The school sent out a letter late in the day to parents explaining what happened and why they thought it was a threat saying, “A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture.”
. . Gilberto Valle Trial: ‘Cannibal Cop’ Said Fetish Was Ruining His Personal Life, FBI Agent Testifies: As Flatly described the images displayed on video monitors in federal court in Manhattan, some jurors put hands to their mouths. One shook her head. Another wiped his brow. One cannibalism website allegedly visited by Valle promised customers they would “only receive the highest quality human beef.” The jury also heard how the officer allegedly looked up “how to tie up a girl,” “human meat recipes,” “how to chloroform a girl,” “I want to sell a girl slave,” “how to cook a girl,” “death fetish” and “huge cooking tray” among other topics the defense says were part of a fetish fantasy that never posed a real threat. The FBI analysis of Valle’s laptop yielded an apparently staged video of a naked, screaming woman hanging over an open flame that lashed close to her skin. Flatly did not say where the video might have originated. There also were several photos of women with bright red apples stuffed in their mouths.
. . Accused ‘cannibal cop’ Gilberto Valle chatted online about barbecuing a female friend, according to documents released in court: The six-year NYPD veteran predicted that Sauer — a friend from his college days — was “going to be delicious” and said he wanted to use her head “as a centerpiece, frozen with her final expression of fear.” “I just enjoy the thought of making her suffer,” Valle wrote. Meanwhile, Moody Blues, identified in court as Christopher Collins, told Valle he wanted to dine on Sauer’s liver, “lightly cooked to keep it sweet and tender.” Acting like a mentor to a novice cannibal, Moody Blues said he had already eaten two women, while Valle wrote, “I’m dying to taste some girl meat.” Valle, 28, expressed a fascination for feet, and Moody Blues suggested cutting off one woman’s feet “and barbecuing them in front of her” while she was still alive. Moody Blues said face meat is “great for sandwiches,” and noted, “As for feet they are favorite of mine along with the c–t fillet.” He also offered Valle culinary tips, such as brushing human skin with olive oil while cooking it over an open fire
. . Want a longer, happier life? Embrace pessimism, study says: A growing body of research has credited the power of positive thinking for contributing to good health and a longer, happier life. But a new study out of Germany suggests people who are pessimistic about their futures — specifically older people — may find greater life satisfaction down the road than their more optimistic peers. “The optimists are those who basically close their eyes, shut their eyes and don’t really want to know about the truth” about the inevitable costs of aging and death, he said. “That’s how we interpreted this finding — that basically these things [pessimistic expectations] really help people to be aware that they need to be cautious.”
. . Art School Seized 68 Vials of Semen From Student: School of Visual Arts MFA student Marc Bradley Johnson was all set to debut his final piece, titled Take This Sperm and Be Free of Me, before health concerns thwarted everything he’d worked so hard for. First, Johnson accessed his materials. Then he set up a refrigerator at SVA’s Visual Arts Gallery in Chelsea, loaded it with 68 vials of his own semen, and put up a Craigslist ad alerting the public that anyone could walk in and take a part of him home. It was about “creation, parenting, desire, masculinity, fantasy, and reality,” he said. But his liberal Manhattan art school just saw dangerous waste.
. . Now Al-Qaida Wants to Torch Your Car and Snarl Your Commute: That’s the advice from the DIY jihad section in the latest issue of al-Qaida’s English-language web magazine, Inspire. The new “Open Source Jihad” (.pdf) is all about vehicular vandalism. One suggestion, penned by “Ibnul Irhab” in the new issue of Inspire, is to run up on parked cars with gas cans and a matchstick. “How safe will the West feel when parking their cars, knowing they’re up for a TORCHING,” Irhab writes. His helpful tips: avoid CCTV cameras; hide the gas in an apple juice bottle; and, importantly, “don’t get petrol on yourself.” This is what Open Source Jihad bills as “America’s worst nightmare.” Nor is it safe to drive to the store or the office. Inspire encourages the inspired to smear “lubricative oil” on roadways right before sharp blind turns to cause a traffic accident. (“Demolition Derby Style,” it promises.) If that doesn’t sound terrorist-y enough, another tip is to hammer nails into a pegboard painted black so oncoming cars blow out their tires. There’s even…

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Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on March 7, 2013

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Surreal Killaz

. . Iranians and Their Clunky Propaganda!: Last night on the CBS Evening News (2/25/13), viewers saw this brief report from anchor Scott Pelley: Iran’s culture minister today called the Oscar-winning film Argo about the Iranian hostage crisis “distorted history.” He said this on the same day that Iran’s Fars news agency gave a lesson in how to distort history. Have a look. This is Michelle Obama presenting Argo with the Best Picture Oscar last night and this is how she looked today in the Iranian press after some Photoshop alterations to cover her chest and shoulders in the conservative Islamic country. You can see the photo, apparently from Iranian media, to the right. This is a useful lesson in propaganda–though not the one CBS intended. I suppose we might ignore that the first lady of a country appeared at an awards show, flanked by members of the military, to present a prize to a film about the heroism of U.S. intelligence against an official enemy state. No, the real problem is Iran’s Photoshopping.; .; .
Here’s what an actual “six strikes” copyright alert looks like: Earlier this week, the Copyright Alert System (CAS)—better known as “six strikes”—finally debuted. Both Verizon and Comcast activated the service on Wednesday. The new system is funded by a group known as the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), which is made up of five major American ISPs, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It’s been in the works for years and may provide a significant change to the copyright infringement policing regime in the United States. At the end of a series of six alerts, accused infringing customers could have their home Internet connection significantly slowed down. Those accused of infringing can file an appeal for $35. (Here’s the CCI’s new video explaining the process, as well as its new promo video.)
. . “Shit, Just Ship It”: Felony Prosecution for Salmonella-Peanut Executives: If you care about food safety, this is an important case to watch. First, because the existence of the case is so unusual; second, because (according to the indictment), the behavior that prompted it was so egregious. As presented by the feds, this was not accidental contamination, or sales of a product in which contamination could not have been controlled. It was, in their 52-page telling, deliberate and repeated, and apparently indifferent to the harm it might cause. If behavior such as they describe can’t be called to account, it would be worth asking why we have food-safety laws at all.
. . Titanium Escape Ring: The Titanium Escape Ring adds another tool to the operator’s E&E options for escaping captivity. It’s a simple but elegant-looking ring made of titanium, cut from solid barstock and polished to a mirror finish. But unlike all other rings, this one contains a saw and handcuff shim pick combination tool which is completely hidden from view when worn.
. . Capita list: North Korea approves 28 model socialist hairstyles: It’s not just nuclear weapons proliferating on the Korean peninsula these days. In a move that for once is not considered a threat to regional and global security, the North Korean government has recommended a relatively generous range of 28 hairstyles for its citizens, claiming that they are “the most comfortable” styles and capable of warding off the corrupting effects of capitalism, according to ifeng.com, a news website run by Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV network.
. . The Banks Show No Mercy: 10 Foreclosure Horror Stories That Will Blow Your Mind: During the last housing crash, the big banks begged the federal government for help and they received it, but when average Americans ask the big banks for help most of the time the banks show no mercy whatsoever. If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, the big banks have shown that they are willing to be absolutely ruthless. They will change locks in the middle of the night, they will toss disabled veterans and families with children out into the street in the middle of winter, and sometimes once the foreclosure process has begun they will not even allow someone to come forward and offer to pay off the loan if they think that they can make more money by selling the home. The big banks will often string homeowners along for months or even years with loan modification promises, only to drop the hammer on them at the most inopportune time. Over the past several years there has been case after case where mortgage documents have “disappeared”, where big banks have “manufactured…
. . Chinese Government Official Misses Flight, Smashes Departure Gate: Recently, the internet exposed a Yunnan province Shizong county Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) member smashing a departure gate after missing his plane. Today, the Shizong county CPPCC office responded, confirming that the person seen in the video is CPPCC Shizong county 8th committee member Yan Linkun, and that Yan’s act of vandalism was the act of an individual. With regards to this, the Shizong county CPPCC supports the airport security’s lawful investigation and handling of Yan’s behavior.
. . New Document Sheds Light on Government’s Ability to Search iPhones: Last fall, officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seized an iPhone from the bedroom of a suspect in a drug investigation. In a single data extraction session, ICE collected a huge array of personal data from the phone. Among other information, ICE obtained: call activity phone book directory information stored voicemails and text messages photos and videos apps eight different passwords 659 geolocation points, including 227 cell towers and 403 WiFi networks with which the cell phone had previously connected. Before the age of smartphones, it was impossible for police to gather this much private information about a person’s communications, historical movements, and private life during an arrest. Our pockets and bags simply aren’t big enough to carry paper records revealing that much data. We would have never carried around several years’ worth of correspondence, for example—but today, five-year-old emails are just a few clicks away us…
. . Pig Rescues Goat, and the Video Is Really Cute, but Totally Faked: Within hours the video had been posted around the Web; it had been shared with the Twitter followers of Time magazine and Ellen DeGeneres; and it had been broadcast on NBC’s “Today” show and its “Nightly News” program, ABC’s “Good Morning America” and Fox News, where the “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said of it, “You couldn’t do this at Warner Brothers as a cartoon and make it seem more realistic.” But the video was thoroughly staged. It was created for a new Comedy Central series, “Nathan for You,” with the help of some 20 crew members, including animal trainers, scuba divers and humane officers, and required the fabrication of a plastic track to guide the pig to the goat (which was never in jeopardy).
. . Pat Robertson: Worth Praying Over Clothes to Rebuke Demons: Today on the 700 Club, televangelist Pat Robertson said that demons can attach themselves to material goods and therefore it’s not a bad idea to rebuke them before bringing them into your home. After a viewer, Carrie, asked whether to follow her mom’s recommendation to pray away demonic spirits over her secondhand sweaters, Robertson recounted a story about “a witch who had prayed over a particular ring and asked for a spirit to come into it, and this Philippine girl was so attached to this ring, she had to buy it and all hell broke loose because she finally recognized what it was.” “Can demonic spirits attach themselves to inanimate objects, the answer is yes,” Robertson said.
. . Rick Ross — Police Guard Rapper at Swanky NYC Hotel: the rapper who has allegedly been targeted by a dangerous gang — is being protected by NYC cops round-the-clock because of recent threats … law enforcement sources tell TMZ. We’ve learned cops have been guarding Ross at The London Hotel for the last few days. Sources tell us, recent threats have been specifically aimed at the rapper … and he’s not taking them lightly. You’ll recall Ross’ Rolls-Royce was shot up in Ft. Lauderdale last month after the rapper’s birthday party while Ross was making his way home. Ross and his passenger were not injured in the attack — clearly, the shots were intended as a warning.
. . Narcotic Superhighways: The Top 5 Routes for Drug Trafficking
. . Two Latest GE-Related Health Threats: ‘Monster Salmon,’ and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria from GE Experiments Found in Chinese Waterways: in recent years, mounting evidence shows that initial suspicions that GE foods might have unforeseen consequences were indeed correct — from alteration of soil composition, to contaminating waterways with antibiotic resistant bacteria linked to GE crops,3 to serious health consequences for animals and humans who consume GE products. The first-ever study to address GE crop-related pollution of waterways discovered that Chinese rivers are contaminated with antibiotic-resistant genes from genetic engineering experiments, which (again) may have unforeseen repercussions for human health.
. . There’s a naturally pink lake in Australia. (Lake Hillier): Strawberry Quik lake
. . The Hollywood Freeway Chickens: The Hollywood Freeway chickens are a colony of feral chickens that live under the Vineland Avenue off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles, California. It is still not definitively known how they came to be there. Chickens underneath the Vineland off-ramp became local celebrities upon their arrival sometime around 1970. By 1976, the flock included about 50 chickens, which became known as “Minnie’s chickens”, named after Minnie Blumfield, an elderly retiree who fed them regularly.
. . Lima billboard is tapped for drinking water: A billboard in Lima, Peru, created by ad agency Mayo DraftCFB in collaboration with the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC), captures the air’s humidity and turns it into potable water for Lima residents. Lima is referred to as a “desert megacity” where many residents cope with inadequate access to clean drinking water. The agency and university formed a team to produce what they refer to as the first billboard that produces drinking-water out of air.
. . North Brother Island: Abandoned Island in the Middle of NYC: Located in between Queens and the Bronx, in 1885 the island was used to build a hospital complex to quarantine and treat people suffering from smallpox and typhoid fever. In the 1950′s it was turned into a rehab center. The entire island has been abandoned since 1963.
. . Loophole for All – Became a pirate, hijack an offshore company!: Paolo Cirio, contemporary artist and pirate, hacked the governmental servers of the Cayman Islands and stole a list of all the companies incorporated in the country. Now on Loophole4All.com, he is selling the identities of those companies at a low cost to democratize the privileges of offshore businesses. Paolo hijacks the identities by moving their addresses to his Caymans mailbox and issuing counterfeited certificates of incorporation from the Caymans company registry. This massive corporate identity theft benefits from the anonymous nature of those companies since the real owners’ secrecy allows anybody to impersonate them. Through Loophole4All.com, anyone can hijack a Caymans company, from 99¢ for a certificate of incorporation for a real company to $49 for a mailbox in the offshore country with mail rerouting.
. . Accused Killers Confessed to Having Sex on the Bodies: Joshua Miner remembered his teenage girlfriend confiding “years back that she wanted to have sex with a dead guy,” states a police report documenting last month’s double murder on Hickory Street. That’s why Miner got the idea to ask girlfriend Alisa Massaro to have sex with him on the corpses of two men he’s accused of helping to kill, police said. Massaro “made a smirk on her face” and said she didn’t want to, according to the reports, but when being questioned by police, she “later acknowledged she and Josh did have sexual intercourse on top of the bodies.”
. . WHITE MODEL ONDRIA HARDIN POSES FOR NUMERO MAGAZINE AS “AFRICAN QUEEN” – WHERE ARE ALL THE BLACK MODELS?: I am really not pleased with Fashion Magazine Numero’s March issue shoot titled ‘African Queen’ with Ondria Hardin bronzed out to darken her skin tone to portray herself as an ethnic lady . What happened to all the beautiful black models currently available? The same modelling agencies that represents Ondria Hardin also has a number beautiful black models such as the one here, is she not good enough? The scarcity with black models in mainstream fashion industry is absurd and simply unacceptable.
. . Guess What? The Debt Everyone Is Freaking Out About Does Not Exist: So the debt that’s got everyone worried is the part we haven’t yet incurred. And that debt, by definition, does not exist. It’s not a certainty, it’s merely a projection by the Congressional Budget Office. And trying to model how the federal budget, not to mention the entire American economy, will behave years or even decades in the future is a devilishly treacherous business. For instance: one of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) favorite talking points in 2011 was that the computer simulations CBO uses to model the economy crash when they attempt to account for the debt load in 2037. Imagine trying to model the 2011 economy in 1985. Things you’d never see coming include (among other things) the Internet, fracking, massive advances in computing power, the renewable energy boom, three wars, a massive recession, and Harry Potter. And predictions can be hard even over shorter time frames. In 1995, CBO predicted the deficit in 2000 would be well over $200 billion. We ran a surplus of $236 billion.
. . The Copyright Propaganda Machine Gets a New Agent: Your ISP: For example, on the process for targeting subscribers, the site explains that: “Before each Alert is sent, a rigorous process ensures the content identified is definitely protected by copyright and that the notice is forwarded to the right Subscriber.” Just because content is copyrighted doesn’t mean sharing it is illegal. It would be better to have a rigorous process that ensures the use identified is actually infringing. It would be even better to have a process that was vetted by a truly independent entity, and public review of the full results. And then there are these nuggets: “While CCI encourages all consumers to secure their home networks, it is especially important for consumers who have received a Copyright Alert.” In other words, if you’ve received a notice, you’ve better lock down your network, and fast. As we’ve explained, this seems designed to undermine the open Wi-Fi movement, even though open wireless is widely recognized to be tremendously beneficial to…
. . Gag Order: Sex Workers Allege Mistreatment at Kink.com: However, even as Kink flourishes — it’s nearly doubled the number of sites it operates since moving into the Armory — doubts about its ethical standards linger. The company attracted unwanted attention last summer when it abruptly switched its cam girls’ pay rate and sparked a debate about its commitment to models’ rights. Now, two former models allege they were denied workers’ compensation when injured on Kink sets, one of whom further states she was coerced into a performance that left her with long-lasting injuries and was offered money in exchange for keeping quiet about those injuries. Other workers claim to have been terminated or chose to resign when they questioned Kink’s business practices, including the use of an erectile dysfunction drug called Trimix. These allegations threaten the company’s conscientious reputation, and conflict with the stories offered by current directors and models who say their experiences inside the Armory have always been ethical and enjoyable.
. . ‘A furtive pick of the nose, and a quick text after…’: The terrifying pictures which show the bacteria lurking on your mobile: These pictures show the hidden life on your phone – the bacteria that lurk on your mobile. Long after we’ve swiped and tapped our smart phones, or sent and received texts, our devices retain a biological history of our actions. Students studying bacteriology at the University of Surrey imprinted their mobile phones on to Petri dishes to see what they might carry.
. . Muslim Zombies Will Eat Any Non-Muslim [VIDEOS - ADVISORY: Graphic Content]: “In the future, the Egyptian Islamists will not only be conducting systematic violence, but cannibalism against Christians and moderates,” concludes Arabic-language researchers Walid and Theodore Shoebat in a report on their website. In a television interview cited in the report, an Egyptian Islamic scholar told the interviewer, “Listen also to what they teach to kids.” The curriculum says, according to the scholar: “We allowed the eating of the flesh of dead humans … under necessary conditions. It (human flesh) must not be cooked or grilled to avoid Haram (evil) … and he can kill a murtadd (apostate) and eat him.” The scholar complained “this stuff is being taught to kids at al-Azhar.” “This is what is being taught to kids right now,” he said. “When they teach them this kind of stuff, their minds cannot accept civilization any more.” The Shoebats say the university finds its support for cannibalism in Islamic authority.

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Conjured by o~ SeMeN SPeRmS ~o on February 28, 2013

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Super Zeros


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1970s NY Graffiti Artists Still Have Urge to Tag: Witten and a generation of urban latchkey kids who spray-painted their initials all over Manhattan in the 1970s and ’80s and landed in the city’s street art scene are coming of age — middle age, that is.; .; .
1% Rappers: #20 Rick Ross – Net Worth $25 Million #19 Tie between T-Pain and T.I – Net Worth $30 Million #18 Nelly – Net Worth $55 Million #17 Busta Rhymes – Net Worth $60 Million #16 Ludacris – Net Worth $65 Million #15 Beastie Boys – Net Worth $75 Million Each #14 Timbaland – Net Worth $75 Million #13 Pharrell Williams – Net Worth $77.5 Million #12 Tie between LL Cool J and Akon – Net Worth $80 Million #11 Kanye West – Net Worth $90 Million #10 Lil Wayne – Net Worth $95 Million #9 Ice Cube – Net Worth $100 Million #8 Snoop Dogg – Net Worth $110 Million #7 Birdman – Net Worth $115 Million #6 Eminem – Net Worth $120 Million #5 50 Cent – Net Worth $250 Million #4 Dr. Dre – Net Worth $260 Million #3 Master P – Net Worth $350 Million #2 Jay-Z – Net Worth $475 Million #1 Diddy – Net Worth $500 Million; .; .
It’s raining heroin on Indo-Pak border: On an average, more than a kilogram of heroin was seized every day on the Indo-Pak border adjoining Punjab for the first six months of this year. Records with the Border Security Force (BSF) show that in the first half of 2012, the force has seized a record 197 kilograms of heroin worth nearly Rs 1,000 crore. This is nearly three times more than 68 kgs seized last year. It is also the highest amount of the drug seized in the past five years.; .; .
The Shining finally gets a second movie: Warner Bros have confirmed that they are working on a prequel to the Jack Nicholson thriller – which contained the famous line, “Heeere’s Johnny.”; .; .
Heroin drug targets middle school students: Cheese is the slang name for a mixture of black tar heroin and Tylenol PM. The substances are combined and come out looking much like parmesan cheese. The resulting product is sold for as little as $2 per hit. Kids in the Dallas-area are buying “cheese” with their lunch money, according to media reports. They’re snorting the stuff up their noses – often at school – and dying in alarming numbers, according to the Dallas County medical office. A recent study by the Dallas Independent School district determined that more than 5,000 kids have tried cheese. More than two dozen have died of overdoses. Most, like Mariela, first take the drug in middle school. That’s shocking. Middle school students are being targeted by drug dealers and turned into heroin addicts before they reach high school.; .; .
TSA Checkpoints Exposed: Journalist Tracked, Targeted and Harassed for Filming: Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange breaks down WRC Correspondent Julio Rausseo’s experience at the Chicago Union Station, 1 week after releasing a video exposing TSA checkpoints being setup there.; .; .
The Aleppo Codex Mystery: One day this spring, on the condition that I not reveal any details of its location nor the stringent security measures in place to protect its contents, I entered a hidden vault at the Israel Museum and gazed upon the Aleppo Codex — the oldest, most complete, most accurate text of the Hebrew Bible. The story of how it arrived here, in Jerusalem, is a tale of ancient fears and modern prejudices, one that touches on one of the rawest nerves in Israeli society: the clash of cultures between Jews from Arab countries and the European Jews, or Ashkenazim, who controlled the country during its formative years. And the story of how some 200 pages of the codex went missing — and to this day remain the object of searches carried out around the globe by biblical scholars, private investigators, shadowy businessmen and the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency — is one of the great mysteries in Jewish history.; .; .
Just a face in a crowd? Scans pick up ID, personal data: As you scan the face on that giant billboard, it may just be scanning your face right back. Increasingly sophisticated digital facial-recognition technology is opening new possibilities in business, marketing, advertising and law enforcement while exacerbating fears about the loss of privacy and the violation of civil liberties. Businesses foresee a day when signs and billboards with face-recognition technology can instantly scan your face and track what other ads you’ve seen recently, adjust their message to your tastes and buying history and even track your birthday or recent home purchase. The FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies already are exploring facial-recognition tools to track suspects, quickly single out dangerous people in a crowd or match a grainy security-camera image against a vast database to look for matches.; .; .
Palestinians Rip Romney’s ‘Racist’ Praise for Israel – Candidate again steps in it, says Israel has better ‘culture’ for business: Mitt Romney offended Palestinians again today, saying that Israel was more prosperous than Palestine because of its superior culture and the will of God. “You notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality” between Israel and Palestine, Romney said at a fundraiser in Jerusalem today, citing each nation’s per-capita GDP, the AP reports. He went on to say that in considering Israel’s accomplishments “I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things” including the “hand of providence.”; .; .
30 Global News Events The Batman Massacre Allows The American Media To Ignore: The essence of the information war is the timely interjection, distortion or omission of news events. Reports can minimize, omit or basically bury key news stories that require analysis while magnifying others which are of lesser importance to the keen, analytical mind. While the Batman massacre is tragic, the buzz in the so called alternative media circle is centered around the litany of ongoing stories that will be stifled in the week to come by the mainstream media’s focus on the Aurora, CO shooting. Beyond that, the analysis you read here is not all presented as 100% fact, some conclusions are presented in light of other evidence, and where noted, some are speculative based on educated theory. In this era of total media bombardment, to the point of overload, some events have to be considered beyond just what is confirmed in print or on video and must be evaluated in the full context of possible human behavior.; .; .
Feds Sue Telecom for Fighting Warrantless Search: The Justice Department is suing a telecommunications company for challenging a request from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for customer information — despite the fact that the law authorizing the request explicitly permits such challenges. According to documents provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is representing the telecom, the company (whose name is one of the many redacted details in the documents) received a national security letter (NSL) in 2011. An NSL is essentially a self-issued search warrant whereby the FBI bypasses the Fourth Amendment and demands information about an individual without bothering to obtain a judge’s consent — and forces the recipient of the letter to keep mum about it because disclosure would allegedly harm national security. NSLs were employed somewhat sparingly prior to 2001 but became widely used — and abused, as the Justice Department’s inspector general reported in 2007 — after the misnamed Patriot Act loosened the require; .; .
Feeling bad about your life? Well, at least you’re not this guy!
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American fast food diet unleashes disease epidemic sweeping across Asia: Though increasingly looked down upon here in the U.S. as a sign of slothfulness and low socioeconomic status, routine fast food consumption in some parts of the world is actually considered to be culturally desirable. But as foreigners progressively adopt the American fast-food lifestyle in place of their own native foods, rates of chronic disease are skyrocketing, including in East and Southeast Asia where diabetes and heart disease rates are off the charts. According to a recent study published in the journal Circulation, globalization continues to usher U.S.-style fast food into East Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia, where natives, especially those from the younger generations, are quickly adopting things like hamburgers and fries in place of their traditional fare. And based on the data, this Western fast food craze is responsible for a significant uptick in cases of diabetes and heart disease.; .; .
Scientists Read Monkeys’ Minds, See What They’re Planning to Do Before They Do it: Neurologists working with monkeys at Washington University in St. Louis to decode brain activity have stumbled upon a rather surprising result. While working to demonstrate that multiple parameters can be seen in the firing rate of a single neuron (and that certain parameters are embedded in neurons only if they are needed to solve the immediate task), they also found that they could read their monkeys’ minds. This isn’t exactly ESP, but it is really interesting. The researchers came to find out that by analyzing the activity of large populations of neurons, they could discover what actions the monkeys were planning before they made a single motor movement. By monitoring neural activity, the researchers could essentially see what the monkey was thinking about doing next.; .; .
CIA “Manages” Drug Trade, Mexican Official Says: In a recent interview, Chihuahua state spokesman Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva told Al Jazeera that the CIA and other international “security” outfits “don’t fight drug traffickers.” Instead, Villanueva argued, they try to control and manage the illegal drug market for their own benefit. “It’s like pest control companies, they only control,” Villanueva told the Qatar-based media outlet last month at his office in Juarez. “If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs.” Another Mexican official, apparently a mid-level officer with Mexico’s equivalent of the U.S. Department of “Homeland Security,” echoed those remarks, saying he knew that the allegations against the CIA were correct based on talks with American agents in Mexico. “It’s true, they want to control it,” the official told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.; .; .
Is There Too Much Pressure to Engage in Crazy, Kinky Sex?: What those trying to aggressively market an ever more “exotic sex life” fail to realize is that sexual preferences aren’t shaped by artifice. Buying a leather slapper won’t suddenly give you a penchant for spanking—and let’s face it, if you were really into the idea in the first place, you probably would have gone DIY and just picked up a hairbrush long before now. Making people feel shitty about their vanilla-ness is mainly a capitalist calculation. As any marketing exec knows, the moment people become satisfied is the moment they stop buying stuff.; .; .
Black Hat presentation shows iris-scanning breach: A research team from Universidad Autonoma de Madrid and West Virginia University have troubling findings for those who think iris scanning is one of the safest methods of biometric security. Their reverse-engineered, “replicated eye” image was able to bypass iris scanning, fooled into thinking the synthetic image was real and correct. Javier Galbally and his team printed out synthetic images of irises taken from codes of real irises stored in security databases to test iris-scanning vulnerabilities. An iris code is the data stored by recognition systems when they scan a person’s eye. This is information that the researchers could replicate in their synthetic images. A commercial iris system only looks for the iris code and not an actual eye, Galbally noted. He and his team tested their fake irises against a leading commercial-recognition system. In 80 percent of attempts, the scanner believed that the attempt was a real eye.; .; .
Was the “Batman Shooting” a Ritualistic Murder Carried Out by Mind Controlled Patsy?: Shooter James Holmes even went as far as to take Vicodin, a drug found in Heath Ledger at the time of his death. Vicodin is a powerful pain-killer with morphine-like effects that is used in mind control to “dull out” victims. Is there some kind of ritualistic connection between The Dark Knight, the sacrificial death of Heath Ledger and this new installment of a Batman movie that was “launched” with a mass murder? Is there a reason why this mass-murder, which occurred during the midnight screening of a movie called Dark Knight RISING took place in a city called Aurora, the name Roman goddess of dawn (dawn being the time where the sun begins to rise)? Another interesting fact: Aurora is considered to be the mother of the morning star, also know as the Light Bringer, or Lucifer.; .; .
Social Scientists Might Gain Access to Facebook’s Data on User Behavior: Social scientists hungry for Facebook’s data may be about to get a taste of it. Nature has learned that the social-networking website is considering giving researchers limited access to the petabytes of data that it has amassed on the preferences and behaviour of its almost one billion users. Outsiders will not get a free run of the data, but the move could quell criticism from social scientists who have complained that the company’s own research on its users cannot be verified. Facebook’s in-house scientists have been involved in publishing more than 30 papers since 2009, covering topics from what drives the spread of information and ideas to the relationship between social-networking activity and loneliness. However, because the company fears breaching its users’ privacy, it does not release the underlying raw data.; .; .
With A Chemical Injection, Blind Mice Can See: Two of the most common causes of blindness are retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disease, and macular degeneration, an age-related disorder. Both are characterized by damage to the rod and cone cells in the retina, which robs the eye of its photoreceptors. Treatments for these forms of blindness focuses on restoring the retina’s abilities, and we’ve seen a few examples — stem cell injections, implantations of light-sensitive compounds using viruses, and a whole host of electronic devices and artificial retinas. A chemical called AAQ can also make these damaged cells sensitive to light again, and it wouldn’t require any foreign substances or stem cells.; .; .
How Much Is Your Gmail Account Worth?: The cloud backup guys over at Backupify put together a calculator to help folks estimate the value of their cloud-based Google Gmail web mail accounts. So what’s the average account’s worth? $3,588.85, Backupify’s Jay Garmon writes in a blog post. That’s the value of the time invested in the average Gmail account, given how many emails the average Gmail user has written (5,768), how long it takes to write the average email (one minute, 43 seconds), and the most recent U.S. Depart of Labor statistics on average annual salary ($45,230). In other words, if the average Gmail user were paid to recreate all the Gmail messages he or she’s ever written, it would cost $3,588.85.; .; .
Honey buns sweeten life for Florida prisoners: They are a lowly, sturdy food designed for desperate cravings and vending machine convenience. They can endure weeks of neglect and even a mild mashing in a coat pocket or backpack. They are, it should come as no surprise, especially beloved by a similarly hardy but disrespected population: Florida’s prison inmates. Inmates in the Florida prison system buy 270,000 honey buns a month. Across the state, they sell more than tobacco, envelopes and cans of Coke. And they’re just as popular among Tampa Bay’s county jails. In Pasco’s Land O’Lakes Detention Center, they’re outsold only by freeze-dried coffee and ramen noodles. Not only that, these honey buns — so puffy! — have taken on lives of their own among the criminal class: as currency for trades, as bribes for favors, as relievers for stress and substitutes for addiction. They’ve become birthday cakes, hooch wines, last meals — even ingredients in a massive tax fraud. Thanks Jasmine; .; .
Texas woman jailed for stabbing husband: Was it Facebook or PCP use?: Rhonda Roshell Washington, 33, told police her husband was high on PCP when they got into an argument about his drug use at their home in Bryan early Thursday, the Bryan-College Station paper reports. The fight turned physical, she said, and she jabbed him in the hand with her keys. Her husband, however, claimed she became upset about something on his Facebook page and chased him with a knife, stabbing him in the hand.; .; .
UK’s largest skateboard unveiled ahead of Olympics: This isn’t a story about a skateboarding giant, the UK’s largest skateboard has been created to mark the fact two thirds of children think the Olympics will only be worth watching when more extreme sports like skateboarding are included, obviously. Measuring a staggering seven metres in length, two and half metres in width and at a metre high, the oversized board weighs as much as a baby African elephant – so any ‘ollies’ or ‘kick flips’ are probably out of the question.; .; .
The Joke’s on You: Our lazy embrace of Stewart and Colbert is a testament to our own impoverished comic standards. We have come to accept coy mockery as genuine subversion and snarky mimesis as originality. It would be more accurate to describe our golden age of political comedy as the peak output of a lucrative corporate plantation whose chief export is a cheap and powerful opiate for progressive angst and rage.; .; .
Google: we failed to delete all Streetview data: Despite repeated assurances in public and to the Information Commissioner, Google has admitted that it did not in fact delete all the data, which could include passwords and emails, collected over open WiFi networks by its Streetview mapping cars in 2010 in a number of countries around the world. The news means that Britain’s recently reopened investigation into the so-called WiFi snooping could be bolstered by an opportunity to re-examine evidence that the ICO had asked to be destroyed. The ICO has demanded to examine the data “immediately” to look for evidence that it is in fact more extensive than Google had originally claimed, as authorities in America had discovered for data collected there.; .; .
Tim Geithner Admits Banks Bailed Out With Rigged Libor, Costing Taxpayers Huge Amount: But he also said that, months later, when it came time to set bailout terms for the Too Big To Fail Set, the government just had no other choice but to use Libor. Sure, that’s one way to look at it. Another, less charitable way to look at it is that the Fed was fully aware that Libor was being manipulated lower, and was fine charging an artificially low rate to lend money to banks and to AIG, in what amounted to yet another kind of bailout. Why make life harder for them, right? They had enough problems dealing with the crisis they had created. Raising red flags about Libor might have only made the crisis worse, making it harder for banks to borrow money. But in the process, the government left untold mountains of cash on the table for U.S. taxpayers. Even if Libor was only manipulated a tiny bit lower, these small breaks add up.; .; .
Woman Claims Watching 3D Film Made Her Pregnant
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What Terrorizes Americans Most: Guns or Sexual Freedom?: America treats sex, not violence, as the biggest threat to families and the nation, starting with Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings bestowing action flicks that brutalize half-naked nymphets a PG-13, but anything suggesting female pleasure the deathly NC-17, as happened with the marital cunnilingus scene between Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine. A common argument against gay marriage or condom commercials is, “What would I say to my kids,” as if sex talk destroys childhood innocence.; .; .
19 Examples Of How Control Freaks Are Killing America With Their Completely Ridiculous Regulations: The control freaks are winning, and they are absolutely killing America. Our founding fathers intended to establish a nation where Americans would be free to pursue “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in an environment where freedom was maximized and government interference was minimized. Unfortunately, our nation has turned away from those principles and is now running 180 degrees in the other direction. For some reason, our political system tends to attract psychotic control freaks that want to micromanage our lives and make most of our decisions for us. These control freaks are actually convinced that freedom and liberty are “dangerous” and that there should be a rule or a regulation for just about everything. This is not just happening on the federal level either. The truth is that the control freaks are often the worst on the local level. When you add up the red tape on all levels of government, we literally have millions of laws, rules and regulations in America; .; .
Iran nuclear energy facility hit with malware that plays AC/DC at full volume: An email to F-Secure — allegedly sent from an AEOI scientist — detailed the attack, noting that the malware has shut down some of the facility’s automated processes. The rather vague wording of the email leaves a few unanswered questions as to just what parts of the AEOI are in danger, but one piece of information was very clear: The insidious software prompted several of the group’s computers to begin playing the song “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC in the middle of the night, and at full volume.; .; .
600-year-old linen bras found in Austrian castle: A revolutionary discovery is rewriting the history of underwear: Some 600 years ago, women wore bras. The University of Innsbruck said Wednesday that archeologists found four linen bras dating from the Middle Ages in an Austrian castle. Fashion experts describe the find as surprising because the bra had commonly been thought to be only little more than 100 years old as women abandoned the tight corset.; .; .
Skydiver Fearless Felix jumps from 18 miles up: On Wednesday, Baumgartner took another stratospheric leap, this time from an altitude of more than 18 miles — an estimated 96,640 feet, nearly three times higher than cruising jetliners. He landed safely near Roswell, N.M. His top speed was an estimated 536 mph, said Brian Utley, an official observer on site. It’s the second test jump for Baumgartner from such extreme heights and a personal best. He’s aiming for a record-breaking jump from 125,000 feet, or 23 miles, in another month. He hopes to go supersonic then, breaking the speed of sound with just his body.; .; .
62,000 pennies used to pay off mortgage: What started out as a joke 35 years ago ended with a Massachusetts man paying off his mortgage using 62,000 pennies. “I’ve never saved anything other than pennies. And it started out as a whim. You know, a penny for the mortgage,” Thomas Daigle told NBC affiliate WHDH-TV of Boston. Daigle, from Milford, Mass., recalled how, after signing the mortgage papers 35 years ago, he found a penny on the ground. He and his wife then joked about collecting pennies to pay off the loan — and the rest is history. Over the next 35 years, Daigle would roll pennies, 50 cents at a time. His bank found out the hard way just how much work that was — it reportedly took tellers two days to unroll the penny cases.; .; .
More odd-colored lobsters turning up in the catch – but why?: Reports of odd-colored lobsters used to be rare in the lobster fishing grounds of New England and Atlantic Canada. Normal lobsters are a mottled greenish-brown. But in recent years, accounts of bright blue, orange, yellow, calico, white and even split lobsters – one color on one side, another on the other – have jumped. It’s now common to hear several stories a month of a lobsterman bringing one of the quirky crustaceans to shore.; .; .
Did the NYPD Break International Law in Suppressing Protest?: A report by a group of civil and human rights attorneys released Wednesday morning paints the clearest picture yet of the New York City police department’s aggressive tactics and over-policing, all of which resulted in the systemic suppression of the basic rights of Occupy protesters. The report, which chronicles events from late September 2011 up to July of 2012, extensively documents numerous ways in which the NYPD acted with excessive force, attempted to intimidate and harass members of the press, expelled activists from public space due to the content of their speech, and ultimately concludes that authorities broke international law in their handling of Occupy Wall Street.; .; .
Mayor Bloomberg Says Cops Should Go On Strike Until Americans Give Up Their Guns: In 2008, ten times more civilians regular people were killed by cops than cops were killed by perps. In 2011, 72 cops were shot and killed in the entire U.S.; in L.A. County alone, cops shot and killed 54 suspects the same year–22 percent of those people were unarmed. As Scott Reeder reported at Reason this morning, “Farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen, loggers, garbage collectors, truck drivers, construction workers, pilots, steel workers, roofers, and others are far more likely to face death on the jobs than police or firefighters, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.” And as Choire Sicha wrote earlier this year, “2008 was the ten-year low for police officers being killed, and 2012 is, so far, year-to-date, down 49% from last year.”; .; .
Batman Shooter James Holmes on Hardcore Pharmaceutical Drugs: Like virtually all massacre shooters before him, the notorious Batman shooter James Holmes is now reported to have been taking hardcore pharmaceutical drugs. In Holmes’ case, they happen to be the very same drugs that ultimately led to the early death of actor Heath Ledger. With a fix for ‘altering his state of mind’, the ‘Batman shooter’ was heavily hooked on the prescription painkiller Vicodin. Holmes even reportedly dosed up on a pharmaceutical cocktail just before the shooting. Side effects of Vicodin use, even at ‘recommended’ levels which Holmes likely far exceeded, include ‘altered mental states’ and ‘unusual thoughts or behavior’.; .; .
The New Domain Awareness System Will Be Used To Track Potential Criminals And Terrorists: The New York Police Department will soon launch an all-seeing “Domain Awareness System” that combines several streams of information to track both criminals and potential terrorists. New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says the city developed the software with Microsoft. Kelly says the program combines city-wide video surveillance with law enforcement databases. He says it will be officially unveiled by New York’s mayor as soon as next week.; .; .
Two Texas Pre-Teens Create a Fake Facebook Account, Texas Cops Charge Them With Felonies and Lock Them Up: According to the Student Press Law Center, which investigated the girls’ arrest, officials in Hood County, Texas, are refusing to say whether the girls (who were arrested July 16) are still being detained. The center’s reporting suggests that the girls have been behind bars for more than a week for the crime of pranking a fellow student on Facebook; .; .