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. . Obama’s secrecy fixation causing Sunshine Week implosion: Along with others, I’ve spent the last four years documenting the extreme, often unprecedented, commitment to secrecy that this president has exhibited, including his vindictive war on whistleblowers, his refusal to disclose even the legal principles underpinning his claimed war powers of assassination, and his unrelenting, Bush-copying invocation of secrecy privileges to prevent courts even from deciding the legality of his conduct (as a 2009 headline on the Obama-friendly TPM site put it: “Expert Consensus: Obama Mimics Bush On State Secrets”). Just this week, the Associated Press conducted a study proving that last year, the Obama administration has rejected more FOIA requests on national security grounds than in any year since Obama became president, and quoted Alexander Abdo, an ACLU staff attorney for its national security project, as follows: “We’ve seen a meteoric rise in the number of claims to protect secret law, the government’s interpretations of laws or its understanding; .; .
Jewish artifacts illegally dumped in N.J.: Thousands of black plastic bags filled with Jewish religious artifacts line a dirt road in the woods near where Larry Simons lives. Nearby, 10 tractor-trailers sit filled with the bags, recently unearthed from their burial ground. The bags are part of an Orthodox Jewish custom known as shaimos, where Jewish books and other sacred objects that are no longer of use must be buried. “The whole thing troubles me because, one, I am Jewish,” the 76-year-old Simons said, as he walked passed the piles of bags. “As a Jewish person, I do not like to be denigrated. But when (I see) what I perceive as an abuse … of the law, it bothers me.” What concerns Simons, and the state Department of Environmental Protection, is that these bags were buried illegally in the woods in Jackson and Lakewood. A state Superior Court judge ordered the rabbi overseeing the site, Chaim Abadi, to remove the bags. But nearly a year later, Abadi is still searching for a new location for the artifacts
. . “LOL, She Couldn’t Even Move” Awful Texts Revealed at Steubenville Rape Trial: The prosecution alleges that, at a football party last summer, the West Virginia girl who multiple witnesses have described as incapacitated to the point of incoherence and unconsciousness lay shirtless on a yard, vomiting, while a group of guys offered $3 to piss on her. Next, she was allegedly sexually assaulted multiple times, ranging from digital penetration to attempted oral rape. Photographs taken during the assault, as well as a video in which a witness described the “dead girl” as “so raped,” were distributed throughout the town. As Jane Doe tried to learn what happened to her, the boys shared their alleged sexual assault with each other through texts and e-mails. “Hey buddy…you want to send me that pic because you love me?” one boy texted Mays, while Jane’s Doe friend commented about the same photo, “If that is [semen] on you that is [expletive] crazy.”
. . _LIVESON – Tweet After You’re Dead: Your _LIVESON twitter account is created – it will keep tweeting even after you’ve passed away. _LIVESON A.I. analyses your main twitter feed. Learning about your likes, tastes, syntax. Tweets begin to populate your _LIVESON feed. Help it become a better you by giving feedback. Nominate an executor to your _LIVESON ‘Will’. They can decide to keep your account ‘live’.
. . Reputation scores and hedged friendship: data have different valences; data are always mediated. They must be contextualized by an interpretive community — pieces of data don’t automatically dictate how they must be interpreted by anyone who sees it. They are available to be put to whatever use by those with the authority to contextualize them. And more data doesn’t automatically make for a clearer picture. It just makes for more interpretative work, more exercises of power by the interpreters, more occasions where power might need to be resisted. In other words, data are not inherently a weapon against power, as transparency advocates sometimes seem to suggest; they are also a tool of power. A reputation is constituted by who gets to interpret data and for what reasons; it is determined by power relations. Amassing more data won’t somehow undo the hierarchy; it just gives people in the position to impose social judgments more information to rationalize their prejudices and protect their privileges.
. . NSA Chief Says America Is Ready to Cyberattack: For the first time, NSA chief and head of the U.S. Cyber Command Gen. Keith Alexander admitted America is ready to attack in cyberspace. Never before has a U.S. official acknowledged that the U.S. government is working on or is in possession of malware capable of attacking a foreign nation in a cyber conflict, despite the fact that at least one attack — the famous Stuxnext worm — has been attributed to the U.S. On Wednesday, in his annual testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Alexander took the cyberwar rethoric coming out of Washington up a notch. “I would like to be clear that this team, this defend-the-nation team, is not a defensive team,” he said. “This is an offensive team.” In other words, this cyber army is ready to retaliate in case of a cyber attack against the United States.
. . Occupy Sugar: A Movement Whose Time Has Come: Big Sugar has spent decades paying its way into politicians’ hearts, demanding price controls and tariffs that boost profits and artificially inflate sugar prices, and using its political clout to establish a permanent life-support mechanism for an industry whose major product is causing many Americans to die.
. . Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Mass. Legal System In Turmoil: A scandal in a Massachusetts crime lab continues to reverberate throughout the state’s legal system. Several months ago, Annie Dookhan, a former chemist in a state crime lab, told police that she messed up big time. Dookhan now stands accused of falsifying test results in as many as 34,000 cases. As a result, lawyers, prosecutors and judges used to operating in a world of “beyond a reasonable doubt” now have nothing but doubt. Already, hundreds of convicts and defendants have been released because of the scandal. Now, the state’s highest court may weigh in on how these cases should be handled. “I don’t think anyone ever perceived that one person was capable of causing this much chaos,” says Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrisey, one of many DAs now digging through old drug cases, trying to sort out how many should now be considered tainted.
. . Breast-beating: Femen ‘assaulted’ by anti-gay marriage demonstrators in Paris: Femen activists appeared amidst the demonstrators wearing costumes of sexy nuns. The activists were topless as usual, with slogans written across their chests. They were spraying demonstrators with white liquid calling it “Jesus’ semen.”
. . Paranoid Dictator’s Communist-Era Bunkers Now a National Nuisance: In Albania, 750,000 Communist-era bunkers populate the landscape, relics of the paranoia and skewed priorities of former dictator Enver Hoxha. Now they exist as quirky homes, animal shelters, ad hoc storage and make-out spots. The peculiar program of bunkerization, which lasted Hoxha’s entire 40-year rule, resulted in one bunker for every four citizens.
. . Man faces five years in prison for releasing balloons on beach as a romantic gesture: The 40-year-old Brasfield was with his girlfriend, Shaquina Baxter, in the parking lot of a Motel 6 on Dania Beach Boulevard when he released the 12 shiny, red and silver mylar balloons into the sky and watched them float away in the Sunday morning breeze. But the trooper saw nothing more than probable cause for a crime against the environment. Apparently, lawmakers in the Sunshine State think it’s appropriate to treat what should have been, at most, simple littering (to which courts would have issued a fine, maybe?), into a major crime against Mother Nature. As if Florida jails weren’t full enough. The trooper arrested Brasfield and charged him with polluting to harm humans, animals, plants and everything else living under the Florida Air and Water Pollution Control Act. “Endangered marine turtle species and birds, such as wood storks and brown pelicans, seek refuge in John U. Lloyd State Park, about 1.5 miles east of the motel,” said the paper.
. . Doctor ‘used silicone fingers’ to sign in for colleagues: Thaune Nunes Ferreira, 29, was arrested on Sunday for using prosthetic fingers to fool the biometric employee attendance device used at the hospital where she works near Sao Paulo. She is accused of covering up the absence of six colleagues.
. . Facebook users unwittingly revealing intimate secrets, study finds: Facebook users are unwittingly revealing intimate secrets – including their sexual orientation, drug use and political beliefs – using only public “like” updates, according to a study of online privacy. The research into 58,000 Facebook users in the US found that sensitive personal characteristics about people can be accurately inferred from information in the public domain. Researchers were able to accurately infer a Facebook user’s race, IQ, sexuality, substance use, personality or political views using only a record of the subjects and items they had “liked” on Facebook – even if users had chosen not to reveal that information. The study will reopen the debate about privacy in the digital age and raise fresh concerns about what information people share online.
. . Supermax Prisons: Views from Above: Beyond this, we need to examine the culture of incarceration responsible for keeping a substantial portion of the U.S. population imprisoned under what can only be deemed inhumane conditions. Current U.S. policies regarding solitary confinement are controversial not only considering definitions of torture under international law but also in light of our own Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. As Senator Dick Durbin urged in his June 19, 2012 appeal to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (PDF), the stakes are high: More than 80,000 inmates are currently held in isolation in so-called Security Housing Units (SHUs), according to a 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics census. They are locked up for as long as 23 hours a day in small single cells, without windows or direct access to natural light, and without meaningful activities of any kind. What does our ongoing tolerance of this practice say about us as a society?
. . Meet the men who spy on women through their webcams: “Man I feel dirty looking at these pics,” wrote one forum poster at Hack Forums, one of the top “aboveground” hacking discussion sites on the Internet (it now has more than 23 million total posts). The poster was referencing a 134+ page thread filled with the images of female “slaves” surreptitiously snapped by hackers using the women’s own webcams. “Poor people think they are alone in their private homes, but have no idea they are the laughing stock on HackForums,” he continued. “It would be funny if one of these slaves venture into learning how to hack and comes across this thread.” Whether this would in fact be “funny” is unlikely. RAT operators have nearly complete control over the computers they infect; they can (and do) browse people’s private pictures in search of erotic images to share with each other online. They even have strategies for watching where women store the photos most likely to be compromising.
. . No. of dead pigs found in Shanghai river almost 6,000: The number of dead pigs found in Shanghai’s main river has doubled in two days to nearly 6,000, the government said, as residents worried over the water supply questioned the handling of the incident. Shanghai had pulled 5,916 dead pigs out of the Huangpu river, which cuts through China’s commercial hub and supplies 22 percent of its water, since Saturday, the local government said in a statement late Tuesday. The number of pigs taken out of the river—believed to have been dumped by farmers upstream after dying of disease—had started to fall on a daily basis, it added, and water quality was within national standards.
. . Voucher school history book: Hippies didn’t bathe, worshipped Satan: The Louisiana voucher schools under GOP Governor Bobby Jindal had already gotten into trouble last year for using a variety of religious right schoolbooks that teach a number of crazy, and racist, theories, including: The Ku Klux Klan was a force for good “[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001 Majority of slaves in the old south were treated well “A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well.”—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991
. . Officer Who Fired Shot In New York High School Suspended: A New York town that began assigning an armed police officer to guard a high school in the wake of the Connecticut massacre has suspended the program after an officer accidentally discharged his pistol in a hallway while classes were in session. Lt. James Janso of the Lloyd police department tells media outlets Officer Sean McCutcheon will be suspended while an investigation continues.
. . School confiscates third-grader’s cupcakes topped with toy soldiers: In the latest incident of anti-gun hysteria to erupt in a school setting, officials at an elementary school in small-town Michigan impounded a third-grader boy’s batch of 30 homemade birthday cupcakes because they were adorned with green plastic figurines representing World War Two soldiers. The school principal branded the military-themed cupcakes “insensitive” in light of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, reports Fox News Radio. “It disgusted me,” Casey Fountain, the boy’s father, told Fox News. “It’s vile they lump true American heroes with psychopathic killers.”
. . Chilling Final Photos of Murder Victims Taken by Their Killers: Many serial killers take photos of their victims–both dead and alive–to keep a record of their work, to refer to later for self-pleasure, and sometimes to taunt police. Here are a few images taken by serial killers of their victims while they were still alive. Most know they’re doomed, others are still unaware of what’s to come.
. . More News Than Is Fit to Print — Designing Count Bruno de Caumont Launders Pedophile Imagery in A Masterstroke of Subliminal Messaging on the Front Page of the New York Times “House & Home Section, February 3, 2005: Allow your eyes to scroll down the page to imbibe this unique New York Times Home section. After a little observation, I concluded that the presentation applies established formulas for inserting subliminal messages into an innocuous scene. In reading the text of the article, I searched in vain for any reference to the subject matter of the picture that appears centrally above the couch-bed, above the fold, on the first page of this presumably wholesome section of the newspaper that proudly proclaims it prints only the news that is “fit to print.” In the case of this article, the Times editors seem to have ignored their motto, exposing their reading public to a media presentation with a concealed agenda and precious little news value. While the centrally located picture begs for our attention, the text of the article directs our eyes to the pattern on the fabric wallpaper, to the furniture barely visible at the extreme left of the photograph, indeed, to anything but the picture….
. . World’s Ugliest Woman Finally Laid to Rest 150 Years After Death: Born in Mexico in 1834, Julia Pastrana was an indigenous woman living with two very rare diseases: generalized hypertrichosis lanuginosa, which covered her body and face in thick hair, and gingival hyperplasia, which thickened her lips and gums. She took part in 19th-century exhibition tours throughout Europe, where she entertained people with her bear-like features. Her life story is both sad and fascinating. In 1859, Pastrana became pregnant after marrying Theodore Lent, an impresario who was traveling at freak shows with her across Europe and the United States. Unfortunately, her infant son also inherited her hypertichosis and passed mere hours after his birth in Moscow. Pastrana also died after a few days from severe complications. Following the death of both his wife and son, Lent embalmed their bodies and began exhibiting them while on tour. Lent also remarried after meeting a bearded woman in Germany, whom was later billed as Pastrana’s sister, Zenora.
. . 5 Real Murderers More Terrifying Than Any Horror Movie: There is no goofier Hollywood invention than the Flamboyant Killer. Whether you were raised on the Friday the 13th movies or Saw-type torture porn, they all have a slapstick quality that lets you know that in the real world, people like this just don’t exist. Real killers are, of course, much stranger.
. . The Untouchables: FRONTLINE investigates why Wall Street’s leaders have escaped prosecution for any fraud related to the sale of bad mortgages.
. . How Many Billions Of Drug-Laundered Money Does It Take To Shut Down A Bank?: And I’ll just say here, if you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you’re going to go to jail. If it happens repeatedly you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night. Every single individual associated with this. I just, I think that’s fundamentally wrong.
. . Fallout from ‘Untouchables’ Documentary: Another Wall Street Whistleblower Gets Reamed: “There was a guy there, a well-dressed guy, standing next to a car that had a vanity plate,” he said. “And the plate read, ‘FUND’EM.’” Winston, curious, asked the guy what the plate meant. The man laughed and said, “That’s Angelo Mozilo’s growth strategy for 2006.” Here’s how Winston described the rest of the story to PBS – i.e. what happened when he asked the man to elaborate: “What if the person doesn’t have a job?” “Fund ‘em,” the – the guy said. And I said, “What if he has no income?” “Fund ‘em.” “What if he has no assets?” And he said, “Fund ‘em.” Later on, Winston would hear that the company’s unofficial policy was that if a loan applicant could “fog a mirror,” he would be given a loan. This kind of information is absolutely crucial to understanding what caused the subprime crisis. There are people out there still willing to argue that the government somehow “forced the banks to lend” to unworthy applicants. In reality, it was unscrupulous companies like Countrywide …
. . Do You Think Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalized for Dogs?: Then Christine stumbled upon a controversial homemade herbal remedy that she credits with enormously improving her dog’s quality of life. She’s grateful that, in his final year, Sampson weighed in at a robust 106 pounds and lived free of the wracking pain that had haunted him. Whereas before Sampson had been too weak to walk, almost overnight he became a born-again youngster. “He was a puppy again, happy and playful,” Christine recalls. “He’d trot around the house with his toys in his mouth, wanting to play fetch!” The name of the controversial herbal remedy Sampson took? Cannabis. Inspired by reports of medical marijuana helping human cancer patients, Christine started digging online. The search terms? “How to administer cannabis to a dog.” Christine — who, for the record, is not a recreational cannabis user — was initially concerned about giving it to her dog because of the bad press she’d heard about the plant. But after giving Sampson cannabis flower-bud material mixed with…
. . The Horror of It — Camera Records of War’s Gruesome Glories, arranged by Frederick A. Barber of Historical Foundations: When George Palmer Putnam went to the War Department to secure photographs for “The Horror of It,” a little volume containing stark pictures of the war, which has just been published, Major General Carr of the Signal Corps refused to show him any pictures showing war’s gruesome results. “Only those photographs showing the pleasant aspects of war can be released,” the General said. “The Department has a moral obligation to the Gold Star Mothers.”
. . 3D printed meat could soon be cheap and tasty enough to win you over: Advances in bioengineering have been able to produce meat analogs, but the process has always been stupendously expensive, and the results were only passable. It turns out that it’s actually very difficult to match the taste and texture of animal muscle tissue by growing cells in the lab. The marbling of fats and connective tissue is integral to the experience of eating a burger. Applying 3D printing to artificial meats could be the answer, according to Forgacs. If you take tissue engineering and add in some 3D printing, you get the burgeoning field of bioprinting. Researchers are working with cell aggregates as the medium in bioprinting (as opposed to plastics in regular 3D printing). Layer after layer of cells can be laid down to more closely resemble the genuine article. Researchers can basically build a block of muscle that never lived.
. . School Shut Down Due To “Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air” Ringtone [Video]
. . The Fox (Monsanto) Buys the Chicken Coop (Beeologics): So with Monsanto products themselves amongst the key suspects in Colony Collapse Disorder, one might ask: Why has the multinational bought a company which has been a key player in researching this disorder as well as Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus, another scourge of bees? “We’re absolutely committed to Beeologics’ existing work,” said Monsanto spokesperson Kelly Powers. Yet one has to wonder if owning a firm dedicated to shedding light on the trouble with bees might not serve Monsanto’s interest in allowing it to further cover up their own corporate complicity in the problem. Let us hope that Monsanto is as good as its word and uses this newly acquired company to boldly get to the bottom of the mystery of the disappearing bees. But if history is any guide, there is little cause for optimism. The health watchdog group “Natural Society” rated Monsanto “the worst in 2011 for its ongoing work to threaten human health and the environment.”
. . Judge gives jail sentences to pair tied to helium-related death: Police and prosecutors said Long was at McAloon’s Alameda Street apartment at a party McAloon was throwing for a 13-year-old relative and that teen’s friends. Ashley inhaled helium from a tank with the intent to make her voice higher-pitched, and collapsed after an air bubble entered her blood stream and blocked blood flow.
. . Officials: 80 Percent Of Recent NYC High School Graduates Cannot Read: Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system. The number of kids behind the 8-ball is the highest in years, CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer reported Thursday. When they graduated from city high schools, students in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College couldn’t make the grade. They had to re-learn basic skills — reading, writing and math — first before they could begin college courses.

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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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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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. . Fake Walnuts Filled with Concrete in China: There’s a set of photos making the rounds on the Internet these days, but even though they recently went viral, they were actually released a year ago. They show a bunch of normal-looking walnuts that when cracked open reveal a very hard filling – concrete pebbles. According to Ministry of Tofu, these fake walnuts were bought by a certain Mr. Li, last February, from a street vendor in Zhengzou, Henan province. When he got home and started cracking them, he noticed that instead of a meaty seed, many were actually filled with concrete pebbles wrapped in tissue. But Li’s case is not an isolated one. Apparently, many Chinese walnut vendors try to maximize their profits by carefully cracking open the hard shell, taking out the nutmeat, replacing it with concrete and tissue so it doesn’t make a strange noise, and gluing it shut. This way they can sell the nuts and the seeds separately.; .; .
Here’s How You Buy Your Way Onto The New York Times Bestsellers List – Forbes: So it would’ve cost more than $211,000, and that’s before ResultSource’s fee, which is typically more than $20,000. Kaplan settled for making the Journal’s list, reaching the pre-sale figure of 3,000 by securing commitments from corporate clients, who agreed to buy copies as part of his speaking fees, and by buying copies for himself to resell at public appearances. Kaplan expresses significant reservations about taking part in what is essentially a laundering operation aimed at deceiving the book-buying public into believing a title is more in-demand than it is. “It’s no wonder few people in the industry want to talk about bestseller campaigns,” he writes “Put bluntly, they allow people with enough money, contacts, and know-how to buy their way onto bestseller lists.”
. . Napster: the day the music was set free: I was 17, and the owner of an irregular music collection that numbered about 20 albums, most of them a real shame (OMC’s How Bizarre, the Grease 2 soundtrack). One day I had unsupervised access to the family PC and, for reasons forgotten, an urge to hear the campy orchestral number from the film Austin Powers. I was a model Napster user: internet-equipped, impatient and mostly ignorant of the ethical and legal particulars of peer-to-peer file-sharing. I installed the software, searched Napster’s vast list of MP3 files, and soon had Soul Bossa Nova plinking kilobyte by kilobyte on to my hard drive. “It’s difficult to describe to people… how much material was suddenly available,” the technology guru John Perry Barlow tells Alex Winter, the director of Downloaded, in his new documentary. Speaking to me on the phone from the US, Winter added: “There was no ramp up. There was no transition. It was like that famous shot from 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the prehistoric monkey throws a b…
. . Emoticon-based “Moby Dick” gets its day in the sun: In the US Library of Congress: The US Library of Congress welcomed Moby Dick onto its vaunted shelves this week but it wasn’t the famous Herman Melville-penned whale tale version oh no, it was the version told exclusively in emoticon – you know those little signs like J, . Emoji are the emoticons typically used in Japanese texting though they obviously are used world-wide to annoy or entertain everyone depending on your opinion of them. Called “Emoji Dick,” the emoticon book project was undertaken back in 2009 by data engineer Fred Benenson. According to the Library of Congress’ blog, in 2009 Benenson started a campaign to fund the “Emoji Dick” project and within a month raised enough money to put it together – $3,500.
. . NASCAR Crash Daytona 500 2013 [Video]: Fans sprayed with debris. Someone got mashed by a tire. NASCAR tried to take this down.
. . Kurt Cobain had the worst jeans.
. . Kara Vandereyk – Jailed After Having Sex With Pit Bull In Front Yard: According to Las Vegas Metro Police, an officer was patrolling the 300 block of N. 16th st. Tuesday when he came across a naked woman who appeared to be engaged in sexual relations with a dog. Officers arrived on the scene to find the woman, who was still undressed, laying on the ground. When the woman saw officers approaching, she said “Hi” to them and then began fondling the dog in a sexual manner.
. . Drivers stoned on marijuana test their driving skills: CNN may have just posted their best piece of investigative journalism in years. In the following video, three drivers of varying ages got incredibly high on marijuana and test-drove cars around a course. A driving-ed instructor accompanied them to avert any chance of an accident, and police watched from the sidelines to spot any visible ‘signs’ of inebriation in their movements.
. . An ‘alternative universe’ will eventually destroy ours, says Higgs researcher: Remember that Higgs-like particle that scientists finally managed to pin down last year at the Large Hadron Collider? Well, it’s proving to be a harbinger of bad news. According to Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the mass of the Higgs boson indicates that “the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point billions of years from now it’s all going to get wiped out.”
. . Gallon Smashing: The Video Sensation Out To Destroy Harlem Shake: I love this. I know that the comments are going to be filled with people decrying the destructive aspects of ‘Gallon Smashing,’ and they’re not wrong, but there’s so much that’s great about this concept. There’s a level of straight up slapstick comedy that is incredible. This kid (is it the same kid every time? I think it might be) has the moves of a silent comedy star. I like that the prank isn’t necessarily about getting other people wet or anything (although that happens, as is the unpredictable nature of smashing gallons of milk). And I like that this guy seems to be in his teens – exactly the right age to be doing stupid, destructive, anti-social prank behavior. When frat boys start doing this it won’t be funny.
. . College women told to urinate or vomit to deter a rapist: The list of 10 tips by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was billed as “last resort” options to deter a sexual assault. “Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating,” read one tip. “Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone,” read another.; Thanks Jasmine
. . Scorecard: How Many Rights Have Americans REALLY Lost?: For example, the following actions may get an American citizen living on U.S. soil labeled as a “suspected terrorist” today: Being young (if you live near a battle zone, you are fair game; and see this) Using social media Reporting or doing journalism Speaking out against government policies Protesting anything (such as participating in the “Occupy” movement) Questioning war (even though war reduces our national security; and see this) Criticizing the government’s targeting of innocent civilians with drones (although killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism. And see this) Asking questions about pollution (even at a public Congressional hearing?) Paying cash at an Internet cafe Asking questions about Wall Street shenanigans Holding gold Creating alternative currencies Stocking up on more than 7 days of food (even though all Mormons are taught to stockpile food, and most …
. . How a “revenge porn” site got built: Fake identities to trade photos: Earlier this month, “revenge porn” entrepreneur Craig Brittain sat for an on-camera interview with CBS4-Denver, where he explained how his website IsAnybodyDown is nothing more than “entertainment.” Brittain’s site shows nude pictures of people, mostly women, without their consent, along with their personal contact info. The website advertises links to a service called “Takedown Hammer” which promises to get victims off the site if they pay $250. Many assume the “Hammer” is Brittain, since its e-mails come from the same IP address; Brittain denies it. In any case, to many of the victims, Brittain’s site looks like a simple extortion scheme.
. . USA vs China: Who Is Hacking Who? Part 2 – Eastern Europe: Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times. The United States of America. All seemingly hacked by the Chinese. China. Seemingly hacked by the US. Big time. But is there another option? “At least 40 companies including Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. were targeted in malware attacks linked to an Eastern European gang of hackers that is trying steal company secrets, two people familiar with the matter said.” Bloomberg Chinese-hackers According to Tom Kellerman of Trend Micro there could well be – “We’ve all been watching China, but they’re not the most advanced cybercriminals. The most advanced are from the Eastern Bloc and Russia.” Tom Kellerman via CNN
. . Dairy farmers spray milk at the European Parliament in Brussels: A protest staged by dairy farmers in Brussels has entered its second day. Farmers sprayed thousands of litres of fresh milk at the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday in protest at what they say are excessive milk quotas and prices below the cost of production.
. . Airport diamond heist: It is shockingly easy to breach perimeter security at most airports.: The testimony at the hearing made it very clear that airport security is only as strong as its weakest link. This seems self-evident. Yet, despite all the money and manpower wasted on airport security theater in this country and around the world, perimeter security remains so lax that a guy with a costume and some bolt cutters can make a hole large enough to drive a van through. This is great news for heist fans, to be sure. But it’s pretty alarming for everyone else.
. . Power and the Internet: All disruptive technologies upset traditional power balances, and the Internet is no exception. The standard story is that it empowers the powerless, but that’s only half the story. The Internet empowers everyone. Powerful institutions might be slow to make use of that new power, but since they are powerful, they can use it more effectively. Governments and corporations have woken up to the fact that not only can they use the Internet, they can control it for their interests. Unless we start deliberately debating the future we want to live in, and the role of information technology in enabling that world, we will end up with an Internet that benefits existing power structures and not society in general.
. . ‘I’ve been cleared to have sex!’ Porn legend Ron Jeremy gets back to business after near-fatal aneurysm: Porn legend Ron Jeremy, 59, has been released from hospital after a near-death experience and he’s already planning on getting back to business. Doctors have told the prolific star that he’s cleared to have sex after he left Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles around week ago.
. . Large Labia Project Tumblr
. . Earlie Johnson’s vintage porn collection stolen: “I had a sinking felling because my porn collection is valuable, man,” Johnson told WZZM 13. Johnson collects rare performances by black adult film stars that were difficult for him to find and impossible to replace. He says the stolen pornography collection is worth $7,500, much more than the televisions that were taken. “I had a collection that had every African American that’s ever been in porn, from the 70s up until now,” explained Johnson. “My collection was the best in Michigan– a guy in Connecticut told me that,” said Johnson. He believes the thieves realized the value when they stumbled on the porn. “They came upon it and looked at the titles and realized what they had ran across… and realized people will pay cash money for them DVDs.” Johnson says his rare footage can’t be found on the internet. “I trade and I collect and I look at them too. I ain’t got no problem with that,” said Johnson.
. . Chinese Eugenics: The BGI Cognitive Genomics Project is currently doing whole-genome sequencing of 1,000 very-high-IQ people around the world, hunting for sets of sets of IQ-predicting alleles. I know because I recently contributed my DNA to the project, not fully understanding the implications. These IQ gene-sets will be found eventually—but will probably be used mostly in China, for China. Potentially, the results would allow all Chinese couples to maximize the intelligence of their offspring by selecting among their own fertilized eggs for the one or two that include the highest likelihood of the highest intelligence. Given the Mendelian genetic lottery, the kids produced by any one couple typically differ by 5 to 15 IQ points. So this method of “preimplantation embryo selection” might allow IQ within every Chinese family to increase by 5 to 15 IQ points per generation. After a couple of generations, it would be game over for Western global competitiveness.
. . New anti-piracy system will hit U.S. Internet users next week: Starting next week, most U.S. Internet users will be subject to a new copyright enforcement system that could slow the Internet to a crawl and force violators to take educational courses. A source with direct knowledge of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), who asked not to be named, has told the Daily Dot that the five participating Internet service providers (ISPs) will start the controversial program Monday. The ISPs—industry giants AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon—will launch their versions of the CAS on different days throughout the week. Comcast is expected to be the first, on Monday.
. . Boy meets girl. Girl strips on webcam. Tells boy to do the same. Girl blackmails boy: Now, people are being warned about another risk of finding love in the online world – webcam extortion. Webcam extortion. Image from ShutterstockBut it’s not the familiar headline of perverted hackers blackmailing young women into stripping in front of the camera. This time the tables have turned, and it’s *men* who are being victimised by *women*, in a peculiar twist on traditional webcam extortion. Singapore’s Police Force has warned of femme fatales befriending potential victims on sites such as Facebook and Tagged.com. The women enter steamy webcam conversations with their prey, where they strip and encourage their male victim to do the same. What the man doesn’t realise, as he feverishly rips his clothes off and agrees to engage in various sexual acts in front of the camera, is that his female love interest is secretly recording everything that’s going on. The male victim is then blackmailed for money by the woman who threatens to circulate the compromising photographs
. . As Secretive “Stingray” Surveillance Tool Becomes More Pervasive, Questions Over Its Illegality Increase: Of course, we’ve seen this pattern over and over and over. The government uses “terrorism” as a catalyst to gain some powerful new surveillance tool or ability, and then turns around and uses it on ordinary citizens, severely infringing on their civil liberties in the process. Stingrays are particularly odious given they give police dangerous “general warrant” powers, which the founding fathers specifically drafted the Fourth Amendment to prevent. In pre-revolutionary America, British soldiers used “general warrants” as authority to go house-to-house in a particular neighborhood, looking for whatever they please, without specifying an individual or place to be searched. The Stingray is the digital equivalent of the pre-revolutionary British soldier. It allows police to point a cell phone signal into all the houses in a particular neighborhood, searching for one target while sucking up everyone else’s location along with it. With one search the police could potentially invade count…
. . Banksy Work, Taken From London Wall, Turns Up in Miami, for Auction: “Slave Labor (Bunting Boy),” a 2012 work by the mysterious British graffiti artist Banksy, has vanished from a wall outside a discount store in London, and turned up at an auction house in Miami. And the town council in Haringey, the north London borough where the Banksy work appeared last May and disappeared last week, say that they want the piece returned. The stenciled piece, which shows a young boy at an old fashioned sewing machine creating a string of Union Jacks – the flags are in bright red, white and blue; the rest of the picture is in black, white, grey and sepia – appeared last year during the celebrations commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years on the throne. It was taken as an acerbic social comment, as most of Banksy’s works are, and has been regarded as a cultural attraction in the Turnpike Lane neighborhood where it stood.
. . More on Chinese Cyberattacks: Wow, is this a crazy media frenzy. We should know better. These attacks happen all the time, and just because the media is reporting about them with greater frequency doesn’t mean that they’re happening with greater frequency. Hype aside, the Mandiant report on the hackers is very good, especially the part where the Chinese hackers outted themselves through poor opsec: they logged into Facebook from their work computers. But this is not cyberwar. This is not war of any kind. This is espionage, and the difference is important. Calling it war just feeds our fears and fuels the cyberwar arms race.
. . JStylo-Anonymouth – Writing Style Anonymization: JSAN is a writing style anonymization framework. It consists of two parts: JStylo and Anonymouth. JStylo is a standalone platform for authorship attribution. It is used as an underlying feature extraction and authorship attribution engine. Anonymouth is the writing style anonymization platform. It uses the extracted stylometric features and classification results obtained through JStylo and suggests users changes to anonymize their writing style.
. . Science of Stylometry a Weapon Against Hackers, Trolls, Malware: It’s been used to question or confirm the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey and St Paul’s letters for hundreds of years. Now the science of stylometry could be used in the fight against hackers, trolls and malware writers that wreak havoc on the web. At the same time, stylometry – the analysis of a person’s unique writing style – could also be used by employers to identify whistleblowers or whingers among their staff. What you say online could be traced back to you using stylometry. “Your writing style can give you away and on the internet anonymity is difficult to achieve,” say the US researchers who have developed online tools to analyse writing. Advertisement The researchers, from Drexel University in Philadelphia, studied the leaked conversations and contributions of hundreds of anonymous users in underground online forums. They were able to identify 80 per cent of users using stylometric analysis to match writing styles to authors.
. . Barnacle sex, superlong penises and spermcasting: Barnacles are known for having very long penises. National Geographic reported in 2008: To cope with changing tides and a sedentary lifestyle, the gnarly crustaceans have evolved penises that are eight times the length of their bodies—the longest relative to body size of any animal. My sedentary lifestyle has had no such effect. I feel cheated. That article also noted that barnacles have the ability to change the size and shape of their penises to suit their living conditions. Barnacles living in gentle waters have long, thin penises best equipped for maximum reach, the study found. But those animals living in rough waters have shorter, stouter penises that are better able to withstand strong waves. [...] The researchers also transplanted barnacles living in gentle waters to rough waters and vice versa, to make sure the penis variations they observed were a result of the environment and not due to genetic differences. The results showed that barnacles coul…
. . Facebook Hacked! Facebook OAuth flaw allows gaining full control over any Facebook account – Hacking News: Facebook OAuth is used to communicate between Applications & Facebook users, to grant additional permissions to your favorite apps. To make this possible, users have to ‘allow or accept’ the application request so that app can access your account information with required permissions. As a normal Facebook user we always think that it is better than entering your Facebook credentials, we can just allow specific permissions to an app in order to make it work with your account.
. . Circumcision: The History of Metzitzah BʼPeh Disease Transmission: More than 200 years of disease and death transmitted through metzitzah b’peh, the direct mouth-to-genital suction done by mohels to the bleeding just-circumcised-penises of baby boys.
. . Revealed: al-Qaeda’s 22 tips for dodging drones: The document includes advice such as “hide under thick trees” (believed to be bin Laden’s contribution), and instructions for setting up a “fake gathering” using dolls to “mislead the enemy”. Found by the Associated Press in a building in Timbuktu, the ancient city occupied by Islamists last year, the document is believed to have been abandoned as extremists fled a French military intervention last month. It is a Xeroxed copy of a tipsheet authored by a Yemeni extremist that has been published on some jihadi forums, but that has made little appearance in English. The list reflects how al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghbreb anticipated a military intervention that would make use of drones, as the war on terror shifts from the ground to the air.