✦ Teen who butchered 9-year-old neighbor wrote that killing was amazing, enjoyable in her journal before she went to church

“I just f—— killed someone. I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they’re dead. I don’t know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the “ohmygawd I can’t do this” feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now…lol.” Thanks Jasmine

✦ GREAT (?) MOMENTS IN COMICS HISTORY: “MAD’S PUNK ROCK GROUP OF THE YEAR” (1978)

But when it had one of its surges of brilliance, MAD was indeed a force to be reckoned with and if you were of the right age at the right time it was both eye opening and fucking hilarious, a good case in point being the hit-or-miss observations and social commentary found in the long-running “(FILL IN THE BLANK) OF THE YEAR” series. Two of those stand out in my memory as being absolutely vital in the forging of my sense of humor were “Mad’s Karate Movie Producer of the Year” (MAD #167, June 1974), a piss-your-pants moment of brilliance illustrated by Jack Davis during the height of the 1970′s martial arts movie boom, and issue #199′s (June 1978) poke at the British punk rock movement when it reared its Mohawked head over here in the States.

✦ Know your Rights!- right!?

Recently as I was doing some research I came across a designers site that had a rug for sale that had the exact style of my friend Keen One, I thought to myself how unlikely that he would do such a commercial project so I passed the link for confirmation. As it turned out it wasn’t an agreed upon collaboration but an artistic infringement by the designer. Since the work was painted on a wall in public they must have assumed the artist had no rights to said work since it may or may not have been legal and decided to use for their own commercial and financial gain.

✦ Play the Rings of a Tree Trunk Like a Record

What would the trunk of a tree sound like if a cross section of it were played like an LP? With his creation Years, Bartholomäus Traubeck attempts to answer that question by using a turntable, PlayStation Eye Camera, a stepper motor to control the arm, and computer running Ableton Live. As you’ll hear in the video above, the rings of the tree trunk, as interpreted by this piece, create an eerie and ominous piano track that sounds like it was taken from psychological horror film. Who knew trees were so emo?

✦ THE FAB 5 FREDDY DEBATE CONTINUES

Revok recently pulled Fab 5 Freddy’s card calling him a biter and a fraud (check Revok’s blog post HERE). This accusation has drew a line in the sand with people opposing and supporting Fred’s work. Today I received this harshly retarded email from Holland’s Shoe aka Niels Shoe Meulman…

✦ Fungi Discovered In The Amazon Will Eat Your Plastic

The Amazon is home to more species than almost anywhere else on earth. One of them, carried home recently by a group from Yale University, appears to be quite happy eating plastic in airless landfills. The group of students, part of Yale’s annual Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory with molecular biochemistry professor Scott Strobel, ventured to the jungles of Ecuador. The mission was to allow “students to experience the scientific inquiry process in a comprehensive and creative way.” The group searched for plants, and then cultured the microorganisms within the plant tissue. As it turns out, they brought back a fungus new to science with a voracious appetite for a global waste problem: polyurethane.

✦ Stealing in virtual world is theft in real life, top Dutch court rules

The amulet and mask were a 13-year-old boy’s virtual possessions in an online fantasy game. In the real world, he was beaten and threaten with a knife to give them up. The Dutch Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the theft conviction of a youth who stole another boy’s possessions in the popular online fantasy game RuneScape. Judges ordered the offender to perform 144 hours of community service. Only a handful of such cases have been heard in the world, and they have reached varying conclusions about the legal status of “virtual goods” — and whether stealing them is real-world theft. The suspect’s lawyer had argued the amulet and mask “were neither tangible nor material and, unlike for example electricity, had no economic value.”

✦ New Theory of Life Claims to Unite Fields of Science

The Earth is alive, asserts a new scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects — for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA — are animate, that is, alive.

✦ First ‘Heartless’ Man: You Don’t Really Need A Heart, Or A Pulse

Two doctors Billy Cohn and Bud Frazier from the Texas Heart Institute successfully replaced a dying man’s heart with a device—proving that it is possible for your body to be kept alive without a heart, or a pulse.

✦ Twitter news: US bars friends over Twitter joke

TWO pals were barred from entering the US after innocent tweets joking about “destroying America” were picked up by the country’s anti-terror cops. US special agents monitoring Twitter spotted Leigh Van Bryan’s messages weeks before he left for a holiday in Los Angeles with pal Emily Bunting. Leigh, who also quipped about “digging up Marilyn Monroe” on Twitter, said they were treated like terrorists on arrival at a Los Angeles International Airport. The pair were held by armed guards and quizzed for five hours before being handcuffed, put in a van with illegal immigrants and locked up overnight.

✦ Key Internet operator VeriSign hit by hackers

VeriSign Inc, the company in charge of delivering people safely to more than half the world’s websites, has been hacked repeatedly by outsiders who stole undisclosed information from the leading Internet infrastructure company. The previously unreported breaches occurred in 2010 at the Reston, Virginia-based company, which is ultimately responsible for the integrity of Web addresses ending in .com, .net and .gov.

✦ A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors [Video]

Experiments performed with a team of nano quadrotors at the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania. Vehicles developed by KMel Robotics. Special thanks to Professor Daniel Lee for his support.

✦ 2,100 pounds of marijuana seized from fake AT&T; work truck

Two men are behind bars after authorities found more than a ton of marijuana inside a fake AT&T; work truck. It all happened off FM 490 just west of the Hidalgo County community of McCook. A Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) state trooper pulled over what appeared to be an AT&T; truck over for speeding 72 mph in a 60 mph zone. Driver Aaron Arrellano-Salgado fled on foot but was caught. Authorities found 189 bundles with 2,168 pounds of marijuana inside the cloned work truck. State troopers pulled over a second car driven by Wilfredo Garza-Salgado for running a stop sign nearby.

✦ Oriental riff

The Oriental riff, also known as the Asian riff or the Chinese riff, is a musical riff or phrase that has often been used as a trope or stereotype of orientalism in Western culture to represent the idea of the Orient, China, Japan or a generic East Asian theme by Western culture. The riff is sometimes accompanied by the sound of a gong.

✦ Police Raid 5-Story Bronx Marijuana Farm, 593 Plants Seized

Police raided a five-story Bronx building that they believe was being used as a marijuana farm with hundreds of plants in an elaborate growing system. A search warrant was executed at about 1 p.m. Tuesday at 610 Morris Park Ave., according to police. Investigators seized 593 plants, some as tall as seven feet, as well as 75 pounds of marijuana that had been cut, dried and packaged in plastic. Sources told NBC New York that each floor of the building was used for a different stage of growth for the plants. It had been outfitted with an intricate ventilation and hydration system. The seized plants and packages totaled about 1,550 pounds, police said. Investigators said about 50 to 60 pounds of marijuana were being produced each month for a value of about $250,000.

✦ Joan Rivers, 78, gets stoned in a carpark and is unable to drive home… and its all filmed for her reality show

Joan Rivers is not known as a shrinking violet. But the 78-year-old has taken things a step further by smoking a marijuana pipe in a carpark with her friend – and had it all filmed for her reality show. The comedian, known for her red carpet interviews at award shows, became so stoned, she was unable to drive home and later ended up fully clothed in a hot tub and drinking the water out of her shoe.

✦ Your cell phone is a government issued tracking device

Mobile phones have become a major part of our modern civilization. These hand-held computers have reached a level of sophistication that allows us to instantly communicate through text, voice and video. This same technology is also being used to amass a situational awareness and sensory system that will track you and the world around you. You and your cell phone are nodes in a grid of sensors that paints a virtual picture of the world.

✦ US ‘no-fly’ list of suspected terrorists doubles in 12 months

The size of the US government’s secret list of suspected terrorists who are banned from flying to or within the country has more than doubled in the past year. The no-fly list jumped from about 10,000 known or suspected terrorists one year ago to about 21,000, according to government figures. About 500 are US nationals. The flood of new names began after the failed Christmas 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound jetliner when the US government lowered the standard for putting people on the list and scoured its files for anyone who qualified. “We learned a lot about the watchlisting process and made strong improvements, which continue to this day,” said Timothy Healy, director of the Terrorist Screening Centre, which produces the no-fly list.

✦Stacey Irvine, 17, collapses after eating only McDonald’s chicken nuggets since age 2

Ever since she was a toddler, Stacey Irvine has eaten little else but chicken nuggets and the occasional portion of chips. Now, at the age of 17, she has been warned by doctors to change her appalling diet or die. The factory worker – who says she has never tasted fresh fruit or vegetables – had to be taken to hospital earlier this week when she collapsed after struggling to breathe.

✦ Addicts’ cravings have different roots in men and women

When it comes to addiction, sex matters. A new brain imaging study by Yale School of Medicine researchers suggests stress robustly activates areas of the brain associated with craving in cocaine-dependent women, while drug cues activate similar brain regions in cocaine-dependent men. The study, expected to be published online Jan. 31 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, suggests men and women with cocaine dependence might benefit more from different treatment options.

✦ Missing Iraq $100 Million: Pentagon Unable to Account for Missing Iraqi Millions

The Pentagon doesn’t know what happened to more than $100 million in cash held at Saddam Hussein’s palace in Baghdad during the Iraq war, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. What’s more, the Pentagon can’t find documents to explain what it spent as much as $1.7 billion on from funds held on behalf of the Iraqi government by the New York Federal Reserve, the report says. The missing records raise new questions about how the US government handled billions of dollars in Iraqi funds during the war. The new report, the latest in a multi-year investigation by the inspector general into missing money in Iraq, paints a picture of Pentagon officials digging through boxes of hard copy records looking for missing paper copies of Excel spreadsheets, monthly reports and other paper documents that should have been kept detailing what the money was spent on and why those expenditures were necessary. Apparently, there are no electronic records

✦ Cocaine accidentally sent to UN headquarters

Bags containing 16 kilogram of cocaine that Mexican drug traffickers recently lost has turned up in an unlikely place – the United Nations in New York. Two fake UN bags containing the drugs – which experts said had a street value of about $US2 million ($1.9 million) – set off a security alert when they were delivered, apparently by accident, to the global body’s headquarters. The bags, which had the UN symbol printed on them, were shipped from Mexico through the DHL delivery company’s centre in Cincinnati, Ohio, deputy commissioner Paul Browne of the New York Police Department said. But the bags had no address on them, nor any return to sender details. “It is my understanding that because there was no addressee, the DHL just thought, well, that’s the UN symbol so we should ship it on to UN headquarters and let them figure out who it was supposed to go to,” deputy commissioner Browne said.

✦ The Mercenary Techie Who Troubleshoots for Drug Dealers and Jealous Lovers

With Martin’s system, each crewmember gets a cell phone that operates using a prepaid SIM card; they also get a two-week plastic pill organizer filled with 14 SIM cards where the pills should be. Each SIM card, loaded with $50 worth of airtime, is attached to a different phone number and stores all contacts, text messages and call histories associated with that number, like a removable hard drive. This makes a new SIM card effectively a new phone. Every morning, each crewmember swaps out his phone’s card for the card in next day’s compartment in the pill organizers. After all 14 cards are used, they start over at the first one.

✦ Student receives free cocaine with Amazon textbook order

A US university student discovered a package of cocaine in a pre-owned textbook she bought from online retailer Amazon.com. Sophia Stockton, a junior at Mid-America Nazarene University in Olathe, Kansas, ordered a textbook called Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives and Issues through Amazon.com for a spring course on terrorism. After flipping through the pages of the just received textbook a bag of ‘white powder’ fell to the ground. Stockton initially thought that it was Anthrax and took the book and bag to the Gardner police station after classes and was surprised she had been shipped $400 worth of cocaine. She told WPTV: I told them white powder was in my terrorism textbook and so I put it on the table and they’re like, ‘oh, okay,’ And so he went back and tested it, He comes back and says, ‘you didn’t happen to order some cocaine with your textbook, did you?’ And I was like, no!

✦ New designer drug ‘Roflcoptr’ hits UK dance floors

The new ‘rave drug’ is called Roflcoptr, which is a street-speak acronym for “Roll On the Floor Laughing Crapping Our Pants Totally Ruined”. An alternative name is “mket” (which is a truncation of the full chemical name, as described below). Like other drugs linked to electronica and other forms of club / dance music, the physiological affect is to produce a state of euphoria and sometimes have hallucinogenic properties. The basis of the new substance is the chemical methoxetamine (and which has a very long chemical name: 2-(3-methoxyphenyl)-2-(ethylamino)cyclohexanone). The chemical takes the form of a white powder. The user snorts the powder.

✦ Drug war hypocrisy: drug trafficking’s big money benefits Big Brother and corrupt banksters

The hypocrisy of the war on drugs is outrageous when compared to the amount of drug trafficking that benefits the CIA and international banking system. The son of a convicted notorious mobster, John Gotti Jr, when asked in court if the family still dealt drugs cracked, “No, we can’t compete with the government.” Today in Afghanistan, American troops have been seen guarding poppy fields used to make heroin. Those fields were all but wiped out by 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them and forbade that agricultural pursuit. Now they’re flourishing again after the American occupation. This doesn’t make sense despite all the mainstream reports that American troops are protecting the poppy farmers from the bad guys. Internet sites such as Prison Planet, Info Wars, The Political Coffeehouse and others report otherwise. They connect the CIA and US military to restarting the poppy fields in Afghanistan in 2002, increasing poppy growth by over 650 percent. Who’s telling it like it is?

✦ Discipline recommended in Air Force whistle-blower case

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel said Tuesday it has recommended disciplinary action against three Air Force officials after concluding they retaliated against four civilian mortuary workers at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for disclosing that remains of fallen troops had been mishandled.

✦ Peacemaker: Lauderdale police put trouble spots under surveillance with Big Brother truck

Tania Ouaknine is convinced the police are watching her. She’s not paranoid — it says as much on the red sign painted along the side on the hulking armored truck that’s been parked in front of her eight-room Parisian Motel for several days. “Warning: You are under video surveillance,” reads the bold message on the side of the truck. From the front bumper of the menacing vehicle, another sign taunts: “Whatcha gonna do when we come for you?” The truck is a new weapon for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department in the fight against drugs and neighborhood nuisances, and it looks like a Winnebago on steroids. They call it “The Peacemaker,” and it may be a first in South Florida.

✦ Facebook IPO: What happens if Mark Zuckerberg were to die?

“In the event that Mr. Zuckerberg controls our company at the time of his death, control may be transferred to a person or entity that he designates as his successor. As a board member and officer, Mr. Zuckerberg owes a fiduciary duty to our stockholders and must act in good faith in a manner he reasonably believes to be in the best interests of our stockholders.”

✦ Teacher abused students during class, detective says

Investigators recovered photos from the film processing store and Mark Berndt’s home that allegedly showed the students bound and blindfolded and some with large Madagascar cockroaches crawling on them inside the school setting, Scott said. Scott said girls were allegedly photographed with a blue spoon holding a white substance near their mouths. Investigators said they believe that substance was Berndt’s semen and that he had the girls consume it. Thanks Jasmine

✦ 9-Eyes

Collection of strange Google Street View screenshots

✦ Early 70′s LA Gang Graffiti

Howard Gribble: When these photographs of Chicano “placas” (wall writing) were made in the early 1970s gangs and their graffiti were a mysterious presence that few understood — if they were aware of them at all. In the thirty plus years since the popular media and entertainment industry have repeatedly spotlighted the subject to the point that the gangsta culture has become a pervasive part of our society. The original gangster graffiti of this period was of a purer form than that seen today, with much emphasis on artistic flourishes. These pieces could last for years in the days before municipilaties instituted aggresive graffiti removal programs that quickly remove them from view — often overnight. This is, of course, still vandalism but from an earlier and more innocent time.

✦ ALIEN or HUMAN born with PIGS BODY….you decide. [Video]

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

❑ New powerful painkiller has abuse experts worried

Drug companies are working to develop a pure, more powerful version of the nation’s second most-abused medicine, which has addiction experts worried that it could spur a new wave of abuse. The new pills contain the highly addictive painkiller hydrocodone, packing up to 10 times the amount of the drug as existing medications such as Vicodin. Four companies have begun patient testing, and one of them — Zogenix of San Diego — plans to apply early next year to begin marketing its product, Zohydro. If approved, it would mark the first time patients could legally buy pure hydrocodone. Existing products combine the drug with nonaddictive painkillers such as acetaminophen. Critics say they are especially worried about Zohydro, a timed-release drug meant for managing moderate to severe pain, because abusers could crush it to release an intense, immediate high. “I have a big concern that this could be the next OxyContin,”

❑ Federal funding went to coffee enema study

A decade ago, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine helped fund a study with the National Cancer Institute of an arduous regimen for pancreatic cancer that is best known for frequent “detoxifying” coffee enemas. The research design pitted standard chemotherapy against a regimen developed by Nicholas Gonzalez, a New York City physician. In the study, volunteers on the Gonzalez protocol got coffee enemas twice a day. They also took dozens of supplements each day, including 69 to 81 capsules of pancreatic enzymes; maintained a strict diet; and engage in other “detoxifying” activities, such as “skin brushing.”

❑ Still more evidence that Morgellons disease is most likely delusional parasitosis, 2012 edition

Imagine having the feeling that tiny bugs are crawling on your body, that you have oozing sores and mysterious fibers sprouting from your skin. Sound like a horror movie? Well, at one point several years ago, government doctors were getting up to 20 calls a day from people saying they had such symptoms. Many of these people were in California and one of that state’s U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein, asked for a scientific study. In 2008, federal health officials began to study people saying they were affected by this freakish condition called Morgellons. The study cost nearly $600,000. Its long-awaited results, released Wednesday, conclude that Morgellons exists only in the patients’ minds. “We found no infectious cause,” said Mark Eberhard, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who was part of the 15-member study team.

❑ Bonnie and Clyde guns bring $210,000 in Missouri auction

Two guns believed seized from gangsters Bonnie and Clyde in 1933 after a deadly Missouri shootout with police sold for a combined $210,000 at an auction on Saturday in Kansas City to an unnamed online bidder. The bidder paid $130,000 for a .45-caliber Thompson submachine gun, known as a “Tommy gun” in gangster slang. The same bidder paid $80,000 for an 1897 12-gauge Winchester shotgun.

❑ 5 Creepy Forms of Mind Control You’re Exposed to Daily

One of our favorite subjects is the way marketers can use psychology to manipulate you into doing what they want (we don’t think “brainwashing” is too strong a word). We know what you’re thinking: You’re far too cynical to fall for the ads you fast forward through on your DVR or the little tricks employed by marketers and politicians to push your subconscious buttons. But are you sure? Because science has found …

❑ Man gets 40 years for killing mom over Avril Lavigne concert tickets

Prosecutors say he got into an argument with his mother after she refused to call a friend to obtain skybox tickets for him to an upcoming Avril Lavigne concert. Lyons then hit Bolek with a cognac bottle, stabbed her repeatedly and poured chemicals like Tile-X, Drain-O and Rapid insecticide over her body. He was found several hours later at a Hooters restaurant.

❑ Calif. man arrested after driving SUV into subway tunnel

Police arrested the driver of an SUV after he headed straight down a tunnel into the San Francisco subway system, causing massive delays during Thursday morning’s commute. Muni Metro spokesman Paul Rose told NBCBayArea. com in San Francisco the vehicle drove into a tunnel on Church Street shortly before 6 a.m. Thursday and headed east toward the Van Ness Station. The SUV stopped when it got stuck on the tracks, police said. Police say 40-year-old Scott Mitchell of Sebastopol, Calif., was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, failure to obey a stop sign and driving on train tracks.

❑ Scotland is the fake cocaine capital of the world

The reason why is obvious: a 25kg plastic drum of benzocaine wholesales at £2750 from specialist suppliers, but one kilo of high purity cocaine powder – say 89% pure cocaine hydrochloride just off the boat from Colombia – sells at £50,000 in Scotland. So anyone cutting 1kg of coke worth £50,000 with 1kg of benzocaine worth £200 would get 2kg of half-strength product that gives a profit of about 60% on a single cut. Detective Sergeant Michael Miller, a drugs expert at Strathclyde Police, reckons cocaine is cut up to 15 times with benzocaine before it is finally sold in small plastic bags in pubs and clubs as £40 per gramme. Miller and colleagues at the Scottish Crime & Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA) reckon the average purity of Scottish street level cocaine is now only 5%.

❑ 10 abandoned places: No-man’s-land

Man-made environmental catastrophes come in varying degrees of tragic, but none is as awful as when human action renders once-pristine land uninhabitable. It’s important to remember that while clean air, water and soil seemingly come for free, those resources require stewardship. Keeping that principle in mind, here’s our list of 10 places that have had to be abandoned because of environmental neglect.

❑ “Huffing” Isn’t Just Kid’s Stuff: More Adults Are Now Abusing Inhalants

Illicit drugs offer a high to adults and youth that comes with a dangerous price. Drugs like marijuana and cocaine cost people physically, mentally, and monetarily. When teens can’t monetarily afford drugs to give them a high, or are worried about using illicit drugs, sometimes they turn to getting their high from inhalants. These kids found that sniffing chemicals that are found in common products like household cleaners was an easy way to get their high. But one new study shows that it’s no longer just kids who are getting their high by “huffing.” A study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) revealed that more than half of the people who were admitted for treatment of inhalant abuse were 18 years and older. In the past year, 1.1 million adults used inhalants. In SAMHSA’s study, 52 percent of those admitted for inhalant abuse was aged 18 to 29, 32 percent were aged 30 to 44, and 16 percent were 45 and older.

❑ Man ate cat, used tail as necklace

A transient was arrested after police said he skinned and ate a cat while camping inside a Phoenix warehouse and music venue. Authorities say the building’s owners reported a burglary after they opened the warehouse Wednesday and heard blaring music. Police found 24-year-old Russell Christopher Hofstad inside with his face painted and the cat’s tail and intestines around his neck. Hunger claimed Hofstad told police he killed the cat because he was hungry. He also said he was going to use its skeleton as party decorations.

❑ Man sentenced for injecting 3-year-old girl with heroin

Authorities said Jeffrey P. LeBlanc, 31, of 18 Treadwell Drive, Spencer, told them he injected the child with the drug while babysitting for her on the afternoon of Oct. 21, 2010, because she had been ill the night before and he wanted to help her “feel better and relax.” He reportedly said he shot himself up with heroin first, then gave the girl a small amount of the drug.

❑ Chololi – The Nose Hair Notification Service

Have you been dying to tell someone that their nose hairs gross you out? Do you find yourself facing them every day, unable to voice out your disgust? If your answer to these two questions is “yes” , Chololi is just the service for you. It allows anyone to email people anonymously, telling them that their pesky nostril hairs need to be trimmed soon. Originally launched in Japanese, the web service is now available for the English-speaking as well. To use it, all you need to do is go to their website and fill out a form. Provide the person’s name, e-mail address, the nostril through which the hair is visible, the number of hairs and you’re done! The message will be conveyed in secrecy. Just for kicks, you can even choose the tone with which the message is delivered. There’s mild, strong, commanding, and the nastiest of them all, scornful.

❑ Ohio wrestler gets 32 years in HIV assault case

A former professional wrestler was sentenced Monday to 32 years in prison for having sex with women without telling them he had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS. Andre Davis, 29, was sentenced in a Hamilton County court on 14 counts of felonious assault. Davis, who wrestled using stage names including Gangsta of Love and Sweet Sexy Sensation, was convicted in November. Prosecutors had said Davis violated state law by not telling a dozen sex partners about his HIV status or lying to them. Davis told the judge Monday that he was a “sex addict’’ and that his addiction grew worse when he lost his dream of becoming a professional wrestler after getting the HIV test results. He said sex addiction is probably the worst addiction anyone could have. “Drugs and alcohol are terrible, but sex is something everybody wants,’’ he said.

❑ N.Y. man arrested after passing heroin at Dulles Airport

U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents say Michael Babatune Ayodele, 19, from Queens, N.Y. passed 55 thumb-sized pellets while being questioned during a secondary inspection. Ayodele arrived Jan. 16 aboard a flight from Nigeria via Kenya and Zurich, Switzerland. Customs officers detected inconsistencies with Ayodele’s story about allegedly visiting family in Nigeria. While being questioned, Ayodele asked to use the bathroom, which is where he passed the heroin-filled pellets. Officers took Ayodele to a local hospital where he passed an additional 31 pellets, also filled with heroin. The 86 pellets had a combined weight of 1,089 grams, or more than 2 pounds, 6 ounces, and an approximate street value of about $78,000.

❑ Fleshlipad Holder Concept (Fleshlight iPad Holder and App)

This conceptual design titled the FleshliPad Holder, melds the Fleshlight device to a rubber housing for the Apple iPad (or alternative tablet) allowing the cumsumer to interactively reach self-gratification with various pre-recorded multimedia (photograph, video or animation) designed specifically for the tablet-penis interface. Thanks Baller

❑ Adam Blumenkranz Arrested For Smoking Weed On A JetBlue Flight

This man brings a whole new meaning to the mile “high” club. Adam Blumenkranz, a 42-year-old LA man, was arrested Monday for allegedly smoking pot mid-flight in a JetBlue airplane bathroom, KTLA reports. Flight attendants became suspicious when Blumenkranz dropped a clear plastic bag in the cabin, reports the Associated Press. When he emerged from the lavatory, a “strong smell of marijuana” emerged with him. The plane was flying from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. to Newark, N.J. Police met Blumenkranz at the terminal gate in New Jersey and took him into custody, under charges of possession of a controlled dangerous substance and drug paraphernalia. According to KTLA, Blumenkranz told police he believed he had done nothing illegal because he has a medical marijuana card.

❑ Lana Del Rey, an Artificial Creation?

In a very short period of time, an enigmatic singer named Lana Del Rey went from complete anonymity to the front page of magazines, not to mention intense internet buzz and an SNL appearance. But along with this (almost literal) overnight success came revelations regarding the rising star: She is a total creation of her record company – Interscope, the same as Lady Gaga. When her previous artist persona named Lizzie Grant became a monumental flop, she underwent intense retooling including: A new name (which was assigned to her by her label), plastic surgery, a new musical style, a new image and a new marketing strategy. The same way Stefani Germanotta was “revamped” to become Lady Gaga – a fake persona that fits the requirements of today’s music industry – Lizzie Grant was revamped as Lana Del Rey. Will this alter-persona be used to push the Illuminati agenda in the future?

❑ Boy With Cat-Like Eyes Discovered in China [Video]

Marine to serve no time in Iraqi killings case

A Marine sergeant who led a squad that killed 24 unarmed Iraqis avoided serving any time Tuesday for his role in one of the darkest chapters of the Iraq war, winning leniency through a plea deal that carried no real punishment beyond a reduction in rank. Military judge Lt. Col. David Jones said he did not realize until after he recommended that Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich serve three months in the brig that his hands were tied by a deal that prevented any jail time.

❑ Picture of Cancerous Deer or Warts? – Shocking!

This picture was shared on Facebook through some of my friends. I am not going to go on and on about this topic. The picture is worth 1,000,000 words. Originally thought to have been shot in a fracking area, of PA, but the story has changed and other sources posted. ***EDIT: Now the story has gotten interesting, and has been changed and sources questioned. I removed the persons name and posted original sources. Apparently the deer was shot in Tenn too, now. This source seem much more credible and has a quote from the hunter.

❑ Caynton Caves: Black magic rituals force closure of mysterious site after owners lose patience with trespassing cult

A labyrinth of mysterious caves has been closed down after its owners finally got sick of them being invaded by a satanic cult. The Caynton Caves, hidden in dense woodland near Wolverhampton, have a rich history stemming back to the 17th century when they were apparently carved out of sandstone by followers of the Knights Templar. In the past, the landowners have tried to be accommodating when sects, good or evil, have asked permission to use the site.

❑ Suspect killed, ate homeless man

A man who allegedly killed and ate a homeless person traveled to Lynn Haven where he was arrested, Lynn Haven police said Wednesday. Tyree Smith, 34, of Bridgeport, Conn., told a family member that he killed the victim with a hatchet, police wrote in a news release. Smith, who was covered in blood at the time, added that “after he bludgeoned the victim he took pieces of brain matter and his eye, which he consumed,” police said.

❑ Millions were in germ war tests

The Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the country into a giant laboratory to conduct a series of secret germ warfare tests on the public. A government report just released provides for the first time a comprehensive official history of Britain’s biological weapons trials between 1940 and 1979. Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told. While details of some secret trials have emerged in recent years, the 60-page report reveals new information about more than 100 covert experiments. The report reveals that military personnel were briefed to tell any ‘inquisitive inquirer’ the trials were part of research projects into weather and air pollution.

❑ Red Spotlights to Mark ‘Precrime’ Suspects on Streets of New Jersey

In a glowing review of the rising prevalence of high-tech big brother surveillance gadgets in police force use, the Associated Press reports that East Orange, New Jersey plans to cut crime by highlighting suspects with a red-beamed spotlight– before any crime is committed– a “pre-crime” deterrent to be mounted on nearby street lights or other fixtures.

❑ Radioactive material stolen in Egypt

The theft this week of radioactive material from a nuclear power plant under construction in Egypt has highlighted once again the dangers of nuclear looting in countries undergoing social upheaval. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that the material was taken from a laboratory at the El Dabaa nuclear power plant on the country’s Mediterranean coast. “According to the information we have, the items that have gone missing are low-level radioactive sources,” says an IAEA spokesperson.

❑ Is The NYPD Experimenting With Drones Over The City? Evidence Points To Yes

They’re used in war zones for surveillance and military strikes. But are there plans to deploy drones in the Big Apple to keep an eye on New Yorkers? More and more people believe it’s inevitable, reports CBS 2’s Don Dahler. Drones are unmanned aircraft that can fly at low altitudes and shoot live video — or shoot live missiles. Surveillance cameras already dot the city’s streets, but is the NYPD exploring the use of even more eyes in the skies, in the form of drones? Some evidence points to yes. A website named Gay City News posted an e-mail it says it acquired through the Freedom of Information Act. It’s purportedly from a detective in the NYPD counterterrorism division, asking the Federal Aviation Administration about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles as a law enforcement tool.

❑ This is a wireless router for your brain, and it shoots lasers

Optogenetics is a method of using light to control cells in the brain. It can be used to alter behavior, model diseases, and maybe even one day, deliver drugs right where you need them. And now, it’s wireless! With lasers! With genetic engineering, we can design cells that respond to light (from lasers or LEDs) by activating or deactivating themselves or otherwise changing their functionality. The appeal of using light to alter cells is that we can turn light on and off at the speed of, you know, light, which allows us to keep up with the speeds at which things happen inside our cells. For example, neurons in the brain send signals to other neurons using electric spikes that occur in just a few milliseconds, but with lasers, it’s possible to very precisely control (or disrupt) these messages, and this is what optogenetics is all about.

❑ A new federal report found 20 percent of Americans had mental illness

One in five Americans experienced some sort of mental illness in 2010, according to a new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. About 5 percent of Americans have suffered from such severe mental illness that it interfered with day-to-day school, work or family. Women were more likely to be diagnosed with mental illness than men (23 percent of women versus 16.9 percent of men), and the rate of mental illness was more than twice as likely in young adults (18 to 25) than people older than 50. About 11.4 million adult Americans suffered from severe mental illness in the past year and 8.7 million adults contemplated serious thoughts of suicide. Among them, more than 2 million made suicide plans and about 1 million attempted suicide.

❑ Insight: Top Justice officials connected to mortgage banks

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows. The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

✪ Ron Jeremy exclusive: Will the condom law be a wrap for porn industry in L.A.?

An HIV-positive adult film actor is hailing the Los Angeles City Council’s final approval of a city law requiring condoms on porn sets – but veteran star Ron Jeremy thinks its dirty politics. Jeremy, originally from New York, told the Daily News he believes this week’s vote is part of a larger effort to stamp out porn production in the industry’s sunny San Fernando Valley home. “Performers don’t mind wearing rubbers, but viewers don’t want to see it. It ruins the fantasy,” Jeremy said Wednesday. “This will force production to leave Los Angeles, and that’s really what the supporters want,” he claimed. The legendary lothario said local porn purveyors are already feeling the squeeze from a flood of overseas imports and low-budget, amateur productions – and new condom requirements will make competitive success even harder. He said mandatory, monthly STD testing – now the industry standard – is more than adequate to keep performers safe.

✪ Feds Say 7 Behind Celeb-endorsed Megaupload.com Ran Massive, Worldwide Piracy Ring

Federal prosecutors have shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, on charges of violating piracy laws — a day after a 24-hour blackout of popular websites such as Wikipedia drew national attention to the issue. “This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States,” the Justice department said in a statement about the indictment. The indictment accuses seven individuals and two corporations — Megaupload Limited and Vestor Limited — of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. It was unsealed on Thursday, and claims that at one point Megaupload was the 13th most popular website in the world.

✪ Google Is Already Using SOPA-Like Censorship

However, Google’s main issue with SOPA is seemingly not related to their concerns about Chinese-style web censorship becoming commonplace, but rather which entity gets to wield those powers – large transnational corporations or governments. While Google criticizes SOPA publicly, it is already privately using SOPA-like powers to unfairly marginalize legitimate web content. Google News is a content aggregator that allows users to search thousands of news sources for relevant stories. Although the aggregator includes a plethora of obscure, occasionally offensive, and barely-read websites, in November 2010 Google took the decision to de-list PrisonPlanet.com and Infowars.com from its indexed news sources. Infowars.com alone is an internationally recognized news website that gets more traffic than MSNBC.com and innumerable other big mainstream news websites.

✪ Protest against discrimination of Ethiopian Jews

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Jerusalem, in protest against what they say is discrimination against Jews of Ethiopian origin. The protest came after a recent report in the Israeli media that landlords in southern Israel had agreed not to rent or sell their real estate to Jews of Ethiopian origin.

✪ Goodbye, Fish: Rising CO2 Direct Threat to Sea Life “Driving Fish Crazy”

New research shows the disastrous consequences the world’s rising carbon dioxide levels are having on ocean life. Photo courtesy of Dr Simon Foale, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies A team of researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University published their findings in the journal Nature Climate Change. They document how elevated CO2 is “driving fish crazy.”

✪ WiFi signal with racist, anti-Semitic slur in Teaneck, NJ sparks police probe; signal came from rec center router

A bigot named their WiFi signal “F— All Jews and N—-” — and now cops are investigating. The hateful signal I.D. popped up on the iPhone of a 28-year-old mom inside a Teaneck, N.J. recreation center, where her 3-year-old daughter was attending dance class. The offending signal was coming from a router connected in the Richard Rodda Community Center in the the township, located 10 miles outside New York City. “When I first saw it, I said, ‘Did that say what I thought it said?,” said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. “I was shocked, hurt. I felt harassed.” The signal showed on her phone as it searched for an Internet connection in the center Tuesday. “I felt like I’m bringing my daughter to this place, and it should be a safe place,” she said.

✪ Scientists Create World’s Tiniest Ear

Have you ever wondered what a virus sounds like? Or what noise a bacterium makes when it moves between hosts? If the answer is yes, you may soon get your chance to find out, thanks to the development of the world’s tiniest ear. The “nano-ear,” a microscopic particle of gold trapped by a laser beam, can detect sound a million times fainter than the threshold for human hearing. Researchers suggest the work could open up a whole new field of “acoustic microscopy,” in which organisms are studied using the sound they emit.

✪ The Rise of the New Groupthink

SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in. But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.

✪ NYPD developing portable body scanner for detecting concealed weapons

You have to feel sorry for the police officers who are required to frisk people for guns or knives – after all, if someone who doesn’t want to be arrested is carrying a lethal weapon, the last thing that most of us would want to do is get close enough to that person to touch them. That’s why the New York Police Department teamed up with the United States Department of Defense three years ago, and began developing a portable scanner that can remotely detect the presence of a gun on a person’s body. The NYPD announced the project yesterday.

✪ Scientists Uncover The Mathematics Of Serial Killers

Andrei Chikatilo, “The Butcher of Rostov,” was one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history. Between 1978 and 1990 in the Ukraine, he committed at least 52 murders before he was caught, tried and executed. The pattern of his murders, though, was irregular. There were long periods of no activity, interrupted by several murders within a short period of time. Hoping to gain insight into serial killings to prevent similar murders, his pattern of behavior was examined by Mikhail Simkin and Vwani Roychowdhury at UCLA. They’ve published a paper on ArXiv with their preliminary results.

✪ Fake iPad 2s made of clay sold at Canadian stores

As many as 10 fake iPad 2s, all made of slabs of modeling clay, were recently sold at electronic stores in Vancouver, British Columbia. Best Buy and Future Shop have launched investigations into how the scam was pulled off. The tablet computers, like most Apple products, are known for their sleek and simple designs. But there’s no mistaking the iPad for one of the world’s oldest “tablet devices.” Still, most electronic products cannot be returned to stores. For the the stores and customers to be fooled by the clay replacements, the thieves must have successfully weighed out the clay portions and resealed the original Apple packaging.

✪ For rent: Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair

Anybody willing to pay the asking rent of £90,000 a year can take over the 13-hectare site in a secluded forest in eastern Poland, which during the war lay in German East Prussia. From 1941 to the end of 1944 the Wolf’s Lair was the nerve centre of the Nazi war machine owing to its proximity to the Eastern Front. The Polish Forestry Service, the owners of the camp, started looking for a tenant after the old 20-year lease expired. Hitler and his henchman built huge bombproof bunkers at the site that also housed 2,000 staff and security personnel. Although retreating German forces dynamited most of the bunkers in November 1944, their shattered shells remain a prime tourist attraction with some 180,000 visitors a year.

✪ The Great Martin Luther King Copyright Conundrum

Believe it or not, to legally watch that famous Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream” speech — arguably one of the most hallowed moments in American history — costs $10 thanks to the twisted state of United States copyright law.

✪ World’s Largest Garment Made From Golden Spider Silk Goes on Display

Before anyone asks, no, it’s not bulletproof. But that doesn’t mean that the glistening yellow cape—the world’s largest garment made entirely from spider silk—isn’t a massive feat of engineering to marvel at (hint: it is and you should). Now on public display for the first time at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the textile gets its unearthly gleam from the undyed filaments of the golden orb spider, a species of arachnid commonly found in Madagascar. Girl power can be taken literally in this instance: Only the females produce the coveted silk.

✪ NSFW: An Alabama Fan Teabagged A Passed-Out LSU Fan At The Bourbon Street Krystal

Those of us un/fortunate enough to have visited the Krystal restaurant at the mouth of Bourbon Street in New Orleans know it’s a place where the occasionally odd, bizarre, or criminal events take place. We don’t know which of these this incident is, if not all three. That’s especially given that some people are claiming the victim in this is now dead, making the “This guy’s life is over” line uttered in the video creepy.

✪ Funk Legend Jimmy Castor Dead At 64

Funk/disco great Jimmy “The Everything Man” Castor passed away on Monday from unknown causes in Las Vegas, according to reports. Castor, a respected saxophonist, was the leader of the seminal funk/disco band the Jimmy Castor Bunch. The group was behind funk classics like the 1972 smash, “Troglodyte (Cave Man).” Though the group’s popularity faded at the end of the disco era, Castor’s music lived on through hip hop as his song “It’s Just Begun” became a staple break of the ’70s and ’80s b-boy break dancing scene. The song served as the back up music for the iconic b-boy collective the Rock Steady Crew in the 1983 film Flashdance. Eric B. and Rakim, the Ultramagnetic MCs, N.W.A., and Kanye West were among the hip hop names to sample Castor’s tunes over the years.

✪ Radioactive tissue holders found at Bed, Bath & Beyond reveal hypocrisy of failed national security

The Dual Ridge Metal Boutique tissue boxes sold at Bed, Bath & Beyond stores have been discovered to be radioactive. Made with the extremely dangerous material used to blast cancer tumors with radiation — cobalt-60 — they emit gamma rays that are known to cause both cancer and infertility. They were manufactured in India, shipped on a commercial container to New Jersey, and then distributed to Bed, Bath & Beyond stores in 20 states. How much radiation do these tissue holders emit, exactly? Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman David McIntyre said, on the record, that standing near one of these tissue holders for 30 minutes a day would expose you to the equivalent of “a couple of chest X-Rays” each year. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency went even further, issuing a release stating that every 10 hours spent near the product would expose you to the equivalent of one chest X-Ray

✪ Big Brother Brazil: Daniel Echaniz ‘raped Monique Amin on live TV’ after alcohol-fueled party

A housemate on Brazil’s version of Big Brother has been raped live on TV, it has been alleged. Police today confirmed they had begun an investigation and carried out a search of the studios in Rio de Janeiro, where the popular reality show is being filmed. Viewers were shocked in the early hours of Sunday to watch contestant Daniel Echaniz 31, apparently force himself on 23-year-old student Monique Amin, who had passed out drunk after a boozy party.

✪ Exchange students report shocking placements

I’ve seen many things I don’t like, including students that had been sexually abused, photographed, and forced to drink alcohol, says Danielle Grijalva, She is the head of CSFES, an organization that helps exchange students who run into problems abroad. Only this past year, 10-12 Norwegian exchange students abroad contacted her for help.

✪ EPIC Request Reveals DHS Monitoring Social Media

A Freedom of Information Act has revealed the Department of Homeland Security awarded a contract in 2010 to General Dynamics’ Advanced Information Systems in order to provide constant surveillance of social media, according to The Washington Post. The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed the request, and according to a training manual that was among the documents they received, DHS engaged in monitoring comments on Facebook, Twitter and blogs to obtain public sentiment on a proposed transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to a town in Michigan. The $11 million contract awarded to General Dynamics is expected to produce “reports on DHS, Components, and other Federal Agencies: positive and negative reports on FEMA, CIA, CBP, ICE, etc. as well as organizations outside the DHS,”

✪ MLK strip club flyer: Graphic designer under fire for ‘I Have a Dream Bash’

When Martin Luther King Jr. said he had a dream, this likely wasn’t what he meant. A flyer promoting a Miami strip club’s “I Have a Dream Bash” featuring MLK holding wads of cash next to scantily-clad women has its creator taking plenty of flack. Miami Beach graphic designer Jeffrey Darnell Paul says he didn’t realize the flyer, made for The Office strip club at 250 Northeast 183rd Street, would generate the controversy it has. “I wasn’t trying to disrespect anybody… it wasn’t on my mind that it would escalate to something like this,” Paul told NBC Miami Monday. “It was just supposed to be a promotional thing, it wasn’t about disgracing Martin Luther King, it wasn’t about that.”

✪ Mom forces son to wear ‘I sell drugs’ sign

An Indiana mother forced her son to wear a sign around his neck listing his law-breaking behavior and stand on a Ft. Wayne street corner for two hours earlier this week. The sign read: “I lie, I steal, I sell drugs, I don’t follow the law.” CBS New York reports that Dynesha Lax thought the punishment police had given her son when he broke the law recently wasn’t strong enough to get him to stop his behavior, so she took matters into her own hands.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XPsyWDEkw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEQROtK3X0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kDj92AE_6M

✦ Count Dante – Comic Book Ads ‘Deadliest Man Alive’

During the mid 60s, John Keehan abrubptly changed his name to Count Juan Raphael Dante and began heavily promoting himself via comic book ads as Deadliest Man Alive. One had only to mail order for his instructional booklet The Worlds Deadliest Fighting Secrets (in which he outlined the Dance of Death) and they would also receive a free Black Dragon Fighting Society membership card. The Black Dragon Fighting Society founded by Count Dante is an American martial arts organization and has no connection with and should not be confused with the Japanese Black Dragon Society, an ultranationalist society during the 1930s and 1940s.

✦ Woman Injects ‘Bath Salts,’ Loses Arm To Flesh-Eating Bacteria

Using illicit drugs can cause lots of bad things to happen. But being attacked by flesh-eating bacteria usually isn’t one of them. Yet that’s what happened to an unfortunate young woman who had injected the increasingly popular stimulant drug called “bath salts.” The 34-year-old woman showed up at a New Orleans hospital with a painful, swollen arm after she attended a party. She had a small red puncture mark on her forearm. The doctors diagnosed a skin infection and put her on intravenous antibiotics. Things got better. But two days later, the swelling suddenly returned. At that point, she told them that she had injected the bath salts (not to be confused with real bathing aids) at the party.

✦ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Survivor of Israeli Attack Reveals Secrets of 1967 High Seas Massacre

“Forty-four years after the fact, I can only come to one conclusion about what happened on June 8, 1967,” said Tourney. “The USS Liberty was set up by the U.S. government to be sunk by the Israeli military so that they could blame it on Egypt. After this attack, two American aircrafts were launched carrying nuclear-tipped missiles in order to bomb Cairo. That city was within three minutes of being obliterated. Without a doubt, it would have started WWIII.”

✦ Thai Man Marries Dead Girlfriend

Deffy and Sarinya had been together for 10 years, before they finally decided to settle down. They had postponed the wedding several times, due to busy schedules and the fact that Deffy wanted to complete his education before he got married. However, after Sarinya’s untimely death, he couldn’t let her go without fulfilling her deepest desire. So, he decided to marry her anyway. On the 4th of January, in Buddhist ceremony, Deffy married the corpse of his girlfriend. The event took place in Surin, a city in northern Thailand. During the ceremony, he expressed his devotion and deep love for Sarinya. Several friends and relatives attended the wedding, and it was even aired on national television in Thailand. The story, along with pictures from the wedding have now become an internet sensation, sparking several debates.

✦ ‘The Senator’ falls, world’s 5th oldest tree destroyed by fire

A fire early Monday has destroyed the 125-foot-tall bald cypress tree known as “The Senator,” the centerpiece of Longwood’s Big Tree Park. “The Senator” was the tallest cypress tree in the United States, and believed to be the oldest of its kind in North America, and the fifth oldest tree in the world. Officials with Seminole Fire Rescue said they do not believe the fire is the result of arson. A passer-by reported the fire around 5:45 a.m. Monday. Crews had to lay over 800 feet of hose just to get to the tree, but Steve Wright, with Seminole County Fire Rescue, said they could not save “The Senator.” The tree was so old and hollow that it burned from the inside out. “We saw some of the helicopter views,” Laura Winfree said. “It looked like a giant torch.” The tree got its name from Sen. Moses Overstreet, who donated the land to Seminole County in 1927. “That tree was older than Jesus,” Winfree said. Within two hours, it burned to the ground.

✦ Woman offered sexual favors in exchange for McNuggets

A Los Angeles woman was arrested after she offered sexual favors in exchange for chicken McNuggets, Burbank police said. Khadijah Baseer of Los Angeles reportedly opened customers’ car doors in the drive-thru of McDonald’s on the 1700 block of Olive Avenue about 11 p.m. Wednesday, asking for free chicken McNuggets in exchange for sexual favors, Officer Joshua Kendrick said.

✦ Beyoncé in white skin row again: Controversial photo shows singer looking several shades lighter than her usual tone

She faced controversy back in 2008 when her skin appeared shades lighter in an advertisement. But it appears Beyoncé – or her producers – have not learned their lesson. A promotional picture has emerged of the pop princess looking much paler than her usual colour.

✦ Bank of America ATMs In San Francisco Turned Into Truth Machines

RAN activists took to the streets of San Francisco last night and turned every Bank of America ATM in the city into an Automated Truth Machine. The activists used special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses.

✦ Human rights equated with national suicide

On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court rejected a legal challenge to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, by a six to five vote. The law, first passed as a ‘temporary’ measure in 2003 and renewed ever since, prevents Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (and those from ‘enemy states’) from living with their spouses in Israel. For thousands of Palestinian families, Israel’s law means a choice between moving abroad, living apart, or living in Israel illegally. No wonder that the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) condemned what it described as a “racist law” for the way it harms “the very texture of the lives of families whose only sin is the Palestinian blood that runs in their veins”.

✦ Hackers in Saudi Arabia disrupt Israel airline, stock market websites

A hacker network that claims to be based in Saudi Arabia paralyzed the websites of Israel’s stock exchange and national airline on Monday, escalating an international cyber war that has jolted this security-obsessed country. Neither website contains sensitive information and trading and flights were not affected. But the ongoing salvos by hackers who use anti-Israel language in their posts has revealed how vulnerable Israel is to cyber warfare, despite its sophisticated computer security units in the military and advanced high-tech sector.

✦ U.S. military spends $363M on weight loss surgery

Free gastric bypass, lap-band, tummy tuck, and other weight-loss related surgeries are fast becoming the “it” thing for military dependents, especially soldiers’ wives.   Using the Freedom of Information Act, KIRO-TV (CBS-Seattle) Investigative Reporter, Chris Halsne, uncovered the never-before known cost to federal tax payers.

✦ Scientists: UN Soldiers Brought Deadly Superbug to Americas

Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera — a super bug — into the Western Hemisphere for the first time. The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged the country on Jan. 12, 2010 — two years ago today. Haiti had never seen a case of cholera until the arrival of the peacekeepers, who allegedly failed to maintain sanitary conditions at their base.

✦ 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

✸ Miami Man Thinks Uploading a Sex Tape of a 14-Year-Old to Facebook is a Good Idea, Promptly Gets Arrested

When trying to get revenge on someone, it’s best that your plan doesn’t end up getting you arrested for child pornography charges. Take Rashad Hannibal Jackson for example. He wanted to get back at an ex for “disrespecting” him, so he decided to upload a tape he had secretly made while the two were getting busy back in the summer of 2009 to Facebook. This is a flawed plan of revenge on pretty much every level, but most specifically because the video was recorded when the girl was only 14.

✸ Penis tattoo gives guy permanent erection

You’d think somebody repeatedly sticking a needle in your penis would be a little off-putting, but the 21-year-old Iranian apparently thought it would be a grand idea to have Persian script reading borow be salaamat (good luck on your journeys), and the first initial of his girlfriend’s last name (“M”) tattooed onto his little gentleman. He was left with a permanent semi-erection as a reminder of just how good the idea was.  His case raises a number of questions, not least whether the wish for good luck is directed to the penis or to the man, and if it’s to the penis, where, exactly, is it going? But, medically speaking, how could getting penis ink give make the organ go haywire?

✸ Bulldozers back at ‘sex den’ mosque

“Mosques are sacred places, but if they are left abandoned they just become like any other deserted building that is a good location for youngsters to have sex, drink alcohol and use drugs.

✸ How NASA kept astronauts from swearing on the Moon

In preparing for his mission, NASA had the astronaut hypnotized. Rather than curse, a psychiatrist put the idea in his head that he would rather hum when his mind wandered. The hypnotized astronaut is rarely named, but only one man can be heard humming as he skipps across the lunar surface. Transmissions from Commander Pete Conrad are punctuated with “dum de dum dum dum” and “dum do do do, do do” making him the likliest candidate.

✸ Microbes may power up space robots

Today’s robotic space missions take careful steps to avoid carrying tiny bacterial life from Earth that could contaminate the surface of Mars or other planets. That may all change if a NASA-funded effort can harness microbes as an almost endless power source for the next generation of robotic explorers. Such microbial fuel cells could power space robots almost indefinitely, as long as their bacteria have the tiny amounts of food needed to stay alive and create electricity through their chemical reactions. That would offer an alternative to space missions that rely upon either nuclear or solar power for their batteries — NASA’s Spirit Mars rover was officially declared dead last May after the Red Planet’s harsh winter deprived it of sunlight for its solar panels.

✸ Killing the Kodak moment … is the iPhone really to blame?

In the days of film cameras, personal photography was principally about holding on to personal memories, with photos usually ending up in a shoebox. Photography was once about saving personal memories. deflam But recent research by anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists suggests personal photography has moved from being mostly a tool for remembering, to one of emphasising communication and our individual identities. As with most change, researchers have noted this switch most prominently in teenagers and young adults. This shift has been supported by the changes in underlying technology and the advent of “frictionless” sharing of photos and video via social network platforms. In the context of photography, “frictionless sharing” means minimising the number of steps between taking a photo and sharing it via a social network platform.

✸ ‘Badges’ Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas

The spread of a seemingly playful alternative to traditional diplomas, inspired by Boy Scout achievement patches and video-game power-ups, suggests that the standard certification system no longer works in today’s fast-changing job market. Educational upstarts across the Web are adopting systems of “badges” to certify skills and abilities. If scouting focuses on outdoorsy skills like tying knots, these badges denote areas employers might look for, like mentorship or digital video editing. Many of the new digital badges are easy to attain—intentionally so—to keep students motivated, while others signal mastery of fine-grained skills that are not formally recognized in a traditional classroom.

✸ US overthrew Iran’s democracy 1953-1979, armed Iraq to invade 1980-1988, now lies for more war

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seymour Hersh, has reported since 2005 that government insiders have disclosed to him that the CIA is presently engaged in covert operations similar to 1953 to overthrow the Iranian government.[17] Hersh, claiming inside White House sources, reported one idea from Vice President Dick Cheney was for the US Navy to build four or five boats that looked like Iranian Naval PT boats, man and arm them with US Navy Seals, then have the Navy Seals attack a US Navy ship off Iran’s coast. The incident would be filmed and used as propaganda to enflame US public opinion for war with Iran.[18] Hersh is the reporter who insiders trusted to report the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up in the Vietnam War, and the Abu Ghraib Torture Scandal in the current Iraq war. Scott Ritter, US former weapons inspector and officer for US Marine Intelligence calls any covert planning and actions by their correct legal name: Acts of War.

✸ This Girl Snuck Into a Russian Military Rocket Factory

Her name is Lana Sator and she snuck into one of NPO Energomash factories outside of Moscow. Her photos are amazing, like sets straight out of Star Wars or Alien. Now the Russian government is harassing her. It was easy to get in. She just went there, jumped over the fence and got right into the heart of the complex through a series of tunnels and pipes, which was very surprising. After all, this is an active industrial installation that belongs to one of the top manufacturers of liquid-fuel rockets in the world. Their engines power the modern Soyuz, the Zenit 3SL, and the Angara and Baikal launch vehicles. Heck, their RD-180 engine powers the first stage of the Atlas V, an American rocket. More importantly, they have specially strong ties to the Russian military. And yet, she found nobody. No guards, no security. Nothing. Just a few CCTV cameras here and there in rooms packed with huge machinery.

✸ US scraps 8-decades-old FBI definition of rape, to count more people as victims, including men

The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI’s more than eight-decade-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers. The new definition will increase the number of people counted as rape victims in FBI statistics, but it will not change federal or state laws or alter charges or prosecutions. It’s an important shift because lawmakers and policymakers use crime statistics to allocate money and other resources for prevention and victim assistance. The White House said the change was not motivated by the recent Penn State child sex-abuse scandal. Indeed, the expanded definition has been long awaited as many states and research groups made similar changes in their definitions of rape over recent decades.

✸ Forty seven Muslim paedophile suspects to appear in court in Liverpool

Inside info that 47 Muslim groomers, alleged paedophiles mainly from Rochdale and Manchester appeared at Liverpool crown court this week under massive police security. All are males aged between 20 and 50. Newspapers have been told not to report on this. Why? Its good that the police are acting on this massive problem, but why the secrecy? They obviously are concerned about “community cohesion”. Even while dealing with it, they STILL want to keep the scale of the problem from the British public. All suspects are bailed to Liverpool Crown court on February 6th for trial.

✸ Weather Weapons and Earthquake Bombs: World Leaders Condemn Britain and America’s Secret Arsenal

Weather weapons and earthquake bombs are a fraction of America’s commitment to achieving Full Spectrum Dominance by 2020. We need to be responsible and realise that taxes have paid for decades of secret research into these fields which, in our time, are coming to fruition. We need to show the courage of Chavez and Ahmadenijad and speak out against this—particularly those journalists and academics who have access to public platforms and are keeping quiet. We also need to take seriously the likelihood that Mother Earth herself—specifically the ionosphere and troposphere (with daily chemtrail spraying)—has been turned into a weapon. Generally, those responsible are cowardly men hiding away in Command and Control centres, using modern science in order to fulfil their outdated genetic impulses for power and domination: impulses which should have been left in the Stone Age—and if we keep letting them damage the ionosphere, that is an era to which most of us may be returning.

✸ Nazi 3D films from 1936 discovered

James Cameron and his team of minions may have produced the high watermark for 3D technology in the 21st century, but it seems the Nazis got there first. The Australian film-maker Philippe Mora says he has discovered two 30-minute 3D films shot by propagandists for the Third Reich in 1936, a full 16 years before the format first became briefly popular in the US. The first of the films, titled So Real You Can Touch It, features shots of sizzling stereoscopic bratwursts on a barbecue while the second, named Six Girls Roll Into Weekend, features actors Mora believes were probably stars from Germany’s top wartime studio, Universum Film. “The quality of the films is fantastic,” Mora told Variety.com. “The Nazis were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled – it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people.”

✸ Meet the Generationally Biased

These naysayers among us demonstrate a kind of generational bias that can blunt a promising musician’s career. It can be summarized thus: “The only valid music is what I liked when I was in my teens.” They tend to be vocal about their disapproval and aren’t likely to exploit new methods of dissemination, such as downloading or using Spotify, to hear new sounds. When they come across new music, it’s usually pushed toward them by a critic or a friend, or they hear a snippet on television. Had they been around in 1955, or 1963, they might have dismissed Messrs. Berry and Dylan too. Often aggressive and belligerent, the generationally biased—let’s call them Gee-Bees—rarely attribute their affection for the music of their youth to tender memories. They present their argument as perceived wisdom: Popular music was better then. For you to disagree is to reveal a deficiency on your part. Cite examples of excellence among today’s musicians and you too are dismissed.

✸ New materials remove carbon dioxide from smokestacks, tailpipes and even the air

Their tests showed that these inexpensive materials achieved some of the highest carbon dioxide removal rates ever reported for humid air, under conditions that stymie other related materials. After capturing carbon dioxide, the materials give it up easily so that the CO2 can be used in making other substances, or permanently isolated from the environment. The capture material then can be recycled and reused many times over without losing efficiency. The researchers suggest the materials may be useful on submarines, in smokestacks or out in the open atmosphere, where they could clean up carbon dioxide pollution that comes from small point sources like cars or home heaters, representing about half of the total CO2 emissions related to human activity.

✸ Just In: Japanese Expert Says Fukushima II (not I) Nuke Plant’s Containment Vessel Has Been Damaged by the Quake

One Japanese expert, Hiromitsu Ino, said a Containment Vessel at Fukushima II (Daini) is broken, and they are trying to repair it. It was probably caused by the earthquake, not tsunami. The workshop is on-going at this link: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iwj-osaka1#utm_campaign=t.co&utm;_source=8481429&utm;_medium=social Hiromitsu Ino is professor emeritus at Tokyo University. His area of specialty is metallic materials science. He is the head of the Group of Concerned Scientists and Engineers Calling for the Closure of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant. I still remember a tweet last summer (I think) saying an acquaintance fleeing from the area near Fukushima II Nuke Plant right after the earthquake saw a smoke coming out of one of the reactor buildings (there are 4). Fukushima II, unlike Fukushima I, has 4 Mark-II type boiling water reactors built by Toshiba and Hitachi.

✸ Have RIM, Nokia & Apple provided Indian Military with backdoor access to cellular comm?

In exchange for mobile presence in India, RIM, Nokia and Apple have allegedly provided backdoor access for the Indian intelligence to spy on communication. On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said: As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI

✸ ICE’s Own Data Fails To Back Enforcement Claims

Although ICE is still withholding much of the information, the files that have been furnished so far reveal “vast discrepancies” in many areas, according to a case-by-case analysis conducted by TRAC. The initial probe reveals that official ICE statements claimed 34 times more detentions, 24 times more deportations and almost five times more apprehensions than its own data. This certainly indicates that ICE knowingly lied to lawmakers and the press to embellish its enforcement activities.   For instance, during a one-year period that ICE claimed it detained 233,417 individuals it really only detained 6,778, according to agency’s own records. That same year, ICE said it deported 166,075 people when it really only deported 6,906 and it only apprehended 21,339 compared to claims that it had apprehended 102,034.

✸ US elections: Funding unlimited?

Money has been at the centre of US politics for decades. Candidate Barack Obama raised $750mn to help him get elected as president. That went down as the most expensive federal election in history - but this year it is due to get even more expensive. Millions of dollars are being spent as the race for the US presidency gets underway, and this year corporations and unions are spending record amounts to influence the election. As a result of a US Supreme Court judgement, known as the “citizens united” ruling, outside groups such as corporations and unions can now raise and spend unlimited money as long as they do not coordinate with the candidate. The ruling is being challenged in a number of cities. Critics of it say it empowers corporations with their vast treasure chests over individual donors. The Supreme Court says money is a form of free speech, but critics argue that corporations are not people and therefore do not have the same right to free speech.

✸ Robert Wilson jailed for biting off girlfriend’s nose

Robert Wilson, 39, from Burnley, attacked Jane Ireland while she slept in her home in July 2010. He hid in woods overnight then tried to steal a car in Simonstone. Armed with a knife, he was arrested after a struggle with police in which he was Tasered. The judge described Wilson as “a plainly dangerous offender” and said he must serve a minimum of seven years. He pleaded guilty at earlier hearings to wounding with intent, carrying an offensive weapon, aggravated burglary and assault with intent to resist arrest. Burnley Crown Court heard Ms Ireland, who is still in a relationship with Wilson, awoke at her home in Hapton Road, Padiham, with the defendant’s fingers down her throat. She said that she felt an “excruciating pain” as Wilson bit off most of her nose. Thanks Jasmine

✸ Teacher told girl, 17, stripping would aid vocal range

Gausepohl allegedly told a Gig Harbor High School student he was conducting a study on how sexual arousal affects vocal ranges. The girl, 17 at the time, was attending the college as part of the Running Start program. She complied with some of his requests to strip naked or touch herself during private voice lessons at the college, court records show. Other students told investigators Gausepohl approached them about being part of the study, court records show. They declined.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

✖ 200 Million People Use Illicit Drugs, Study Finds

Roughly 200 million people worldwide use illicit drugs such as marijuana, amphetamines, cocaine and opioids each year, according to a new study. The figure represents about one in 20 people between the ages of 15 and 64. Using a review of published studies, Australian researchers estimated that as many as 203 million people use marijuana, 56 million people use amphetamines including meth, 21 million people use cocaine and 21 million people use opioids like heroin. The use of all four drug classes was highest in developed countries. …The 200 million number does not include people who use ecstasy, hallucinogenic drugs, inhalants, benzodiazepines or anabolic steroids — just one reason it’s likely a vast underestimate of illicit drug use, according to lead author Louisa Degenhardt of the Sydney-based National Drug and Alcohol Research Center.

✖ Vancouver running out of free crackpipes

He said PHS, which runs InSite, has distributed monthly highs of 20,000 pipes through its own needle and pipe distribution program. The 3,000 pipes PHS received from VCH in December were exhausted in three days. “At the beginning of the study, we expressed our concerns that (the pipe supply) is a tiny number … but we were told the number’s staying the same,” Townsend said. “To meet the demand we would need around 1,000 per day.”

✖ Newt Gingrich To New Hampshire: Jefferson, Washington Would Have Cracked Down On Pot

During a town hall-style appearance in Concord, the former House Speaker said he had no interest in exploring drug decriminalization, arguing that such efforts haven’t worked in Europe. Contra Gingrich, however, Portugal has had some success with decriminalization initiatives. Pushed a bit later on the incarceration rate related to petty drug crimes, Gingrich responded, “I think the best thing is to get young people not to do drugs and then you won’t be dealing with criminals that you just described.” A third resident of the “live free or die” state argued that the founding fathers had been far more lenient about marijuana than the current political class. “I think Jefferson or George Washington would have rather strongly discouraged you from growing marijuana and their techniques with dealing with it would have been rather more violent than our current government,” Gingrich replied.

✖ Chivas Scotch Heroin Bottles Bust At Newark Airport

We hope he drank the scotch before adding the H! On New Year’s Eve customs officials stopped Miami man Wilfer Bohorquez Rojo, 53, as he allegedly tried to smuggle 25 pounds of heroin from Medillin, Colombia, to Newark Airport. At first authorities just thought he had smuggled the drugs in “packages of plastic flags and between glued photographs” but further inspection found he’d filled four Chivas Royal Salute scotch bottles with “packages of a substance that also tested positive for heroin, according to the agency.” After the discovery of the drugs—estimated by authorities to be worth at least $700,000—Rojo was turned over to authorities and now faces federal narcotics smuggling charges.

✖ Purdue: Block Disclosure Of OxyContin Documents

A long-simmering court battle over a trove of OxyContin documents has finally won the attention of Purdue Pharma. The drugmaker is belatedly seeking to intervene in a 2008 lawsuit in a Massachusetts state court, where an attempt is being made to force the state attorney general to release documents that were used to prosecute Purdue and three current and former execs several years ago. At issue are countless documents that were compiled by the US Department of Justice, which charged Purdue and the execs with misbranding – they facilitated improper use of the drug and misled patients, regulators and doctors about addictive risks. All totaled, $634 million in fines were paid, and the execs were barred from doing business with federal healthcare programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid

✖ Ron Paul: Drug War Could Be Bigger Failure Than Prohibition (VIDEO)

“This war on drugs has been a detriment to personal liberty and it’s been a real abuse of liberty,” Paul said. “Our prisons are full with people who have used drugs who should be treated as patients — and they’re non-violent. Someday we’re gonna awake and find out that the prohibition we are following right now with drugs is no more successful, maybe a lot less successful, than the prohibition of alcohol was in the ’20s.”

✖ Man wants rehab over Diet Cola 42 litres a week addiction

Darren Jones wants to check himself into rehab – to cure a bizarre addiction to Diet Cola. Darren, 38, knocks back 42 litres of the drink every week. Now the 35 stone father of two is vowing to get treatment for his £100 a week habit to get fit again and save his relationship with 33-year old mother of two Paula Mullen. Darren, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, said: “I believe what I have is an actual addiction and I start to worry if I’m getting near the end of the bottle. “If I can’t get in touch with Paula to get me some more I start to panic – it’s like a drug or alcohol addiction. “I called up Diet Coke to ask them if it’s addictive and what I should do and she recommended putting water in it to dilute it, but it would taste horrid and I don’t think it would help. “We joke that I should get one of those hats with bottles either side of my head and straws straight into my mouth so I can drink it all the time. It’s like gold, it’s my fuel.”

✖ Why Ron Paul Is Right And Barack Obama Is Wrong About Iran

Obama also argues that he opposes Iran’s nukes because of proliferation in the region. At which point one must loudly cough “Ahem.” Only one country in the region has illegally, in defiance of internatinal law and the NPT and US policy, has nuclear weapons and it’s Israel, not any Arab state. More absurdly, the US government has a formal policy of never acknowledging this fact. At one point in the not-so-distant past, the US government was committed to the view that Iraq had nukes but Israel didn’t. When will the US evolve a sane policy in the Middle East? One that advances our interests, avoids a catastrophic global religious war, and bases it judgment on history and statecraft rather than religion and a US-Israel alliance that, since the end of the Cold War, has become increasingly unhealthy to both parties? Less Kennedy, more Eisenhower, please.

✖ Judge: Black church rightful owner of KKK store

After a lengthy legal battle between a black South Carolina church and members of the Ku Klux Klan, a judge has ruled that the church owns a building where KKK robes and T-shirts are sold. A circuit judge ruled last month that New Beginnings Baptist Church is the rightful owner of the building that houses the Redneck Shop, which operates a so-called Klan museum and sells Klan robes and T-shirts emblazoned with racial slurs. The judge ordered the shop’s proprietor to pay the church’s legal bills of more than $3,300.

✖ No easy way to dissolve mouse in Mountain Dew

A man in the U.S. is suing Pepsi Co. over a mouse allegedly found in a can of Mountain Dew, a claim the company rejects by saying the acid in the beverage would disintegrate the animal’s body. However, that reasoning doesn’t hold water with Canadian food experts. “There would not be enough acid in the matrix of the can to actually start causing those physical changes to the mouse,” says Massimo Marcone, an associate professor of food science at the University of Guelph. “The mouse would start to spoil; there would not be enough acid to preserve the mouse. It would start to smell bad. But to say that the mouse would actually dissolve in about 300 millilitres of soft drink, it’s pretty hard.”

✖ Free Philip K. Dick: Download 11 Great Science Fiction Stories

Although he died when he was only 53 years old, Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982) published 44 novels and 121 short stories during his lifetime and solidified his position as arguably the most literary of science fiction writers. His novel Ubik appears on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels, and Dick is the only science fiction writer to get honored in the prestigious Library of America series, a kind of pantheon of American literature. If you’re not intimately familiar with his novels, then you assuredly know major films based on Dick’s work – Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report. Today, we bring you another way to get acquainted with his writing. We’re presenting a selection of Dick’s stories available for free on the web. Below we have culled together 11 short stories from our collection of Free eBooks and Free Audio Books.

✖ Time Cheers the Drone War

The new issue of  Time magazine promises on its cover “Essential Info for the Year Ahead.” One apparently essential report: U.S. drones are awesome. The report–written by Mark Thompson, available to subscribers only explains that a “hot military trend” this way: Today’s generals and admirals want weapons that are smaller, remote-controlled and bristling with intelligence. In short, more drones that can tightly target terrorists, deliver larger payloads and are some of the best spies the U.S. has ever produced, even if they occasionally get captured in Iran or crash on landing at secret bases. And also, you know, kill innocent civilians.

✖ Alejandro Jodorowsky Needs Your Support To Create The Autobiographical DANZA DE LA REALIDAD

Alejandro Jodorowsky – the legendary cult filmmaker behind Santa Sangre, El Topo and The Holy Mountain – needs your help. After years trying to raise funding for big new projects King Shot and Son Of El Topo, Jodorowsky is moving on to something more personal: Danza De La Realidad, an autobiographical picture based on his own childhood and teenaged years. Having had no luck with conventional film financing methods in recent years, Jodorowsky is taking this one to the streets and trying the crowd funding method. Put a hundred dollars into the film and you’ll receive a special cut of the finished movie on DVD.

✖ YOUR KID’S ON DRUGS [Video]

✖ Sea Shepherd Intercepts the Japanese Whaling Fleet with Drones

The Sea Shepherd crew has intercepted the Japanese whaling fleet on Christmas Day, a thousand miles north of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The Sea Shepherd ship, Steve Irwin, deployed a drone to successfully locate and photograph the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru on December 24th. Once the pursuit began, three Japanese harpoon/security ships moved in on the Steve Irwin to shield the Nisshin Maru to allow it to escape. This time however the Japanese tactic of tailing the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker will not work because the drones, one on the Steve Irwin and the other on the Bob Barker, can track and follow the Nisshin Maru and can relay the positions back to the Sea Shepherd ships. “We can cover hundreds of miles with these drones and they have proven to be valuable assets for this campaign,” said Captain Paul Watson on board the Steve Irwin.

✖ ‘Supersoldier’ ants with gigantic jaws

Nightmarish ‘supersoldier’ ants with huge heads and jaws have been created by activating ancient genes. Scientists believe the monster ants may be a genetic throwback to an ancestor that lived millions of years ago. Scientists say they can create the supersoldiers at will by dabbing normal ant larvae with a special hormone – the larvae then develop into supersoldiers rather than normal soldier or worker ants.

✖ ACLU sues library for blocking Wiccan websites

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Eastern Missouri sued a local public library on Tuesday for allegedly blocking websites related to Wicca, a modern pagan religion. Anaka Hunter of Salem, Mo., said she tried to access websites about Wicca, Native American religions and astrology for her own research, but the library’s filtering software blocked the sites.  According to the ACLU, the software labeled the sites as “occult” and “criminal.”

✖ Psychedelic Heroin: Grey Lodge Archives

I recently tracked down the pdf’s for nearly all of the issues of the now-deceased counterculture online zine Grey Lodge Occult Review. The site was taken down due to “legal threats and religious hackers”. To see the table of contents for the issues visit the Wayback Machine here. Along with the rabbit hole that is Deoxy, this was one of my formative sanctuaries for all things mindfuckery.

✖ Forget Stocks Or Bonds, Invest In A Lobbyist

In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits.

✖ Excavator on Rooftop of 12-Story Building in Taiyuan

Shanxi province Taiyuan city Wanbailin district Yingze West Street, an excavator operates on the rooftop of the Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel, causing surrounding city residents both surprise and concern.

✖ US ‘space warplane’ may be spying on Chinese spacelab

The US Air Force’s second mysterious mini-space shuttle, the X-37B, could be spying on China’s space laboratory and the first piece of its space station, Tiangong-1. Amateur space trackers told the British Interplanetary Society publication Spaceflight that the black-funded spaceplane seemed to be orbiting the Earth in tandem with Tiangong_1, or the Heavenly Palace, leading the magazine to speculate that its unknown mission is to spy on it. “Space-to-space surveillance is a whole new ball game made possible by a finessed group of sensors and sensor suites, which we think the X-37B may be using to maintain a close watch on China’s nascent space station,” Spaceflight editor Dr David Baker told the BBC.

✖ NOT SATIRE: L.A. Tells Arrested OWS Protesters They Can Pay for “Free Speech” Classes to Avoid Court

Incredibly, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office is offering Occupy L.A. protesters arrested in recent weeks the opportunity to pay $355 for private free speech classes to avoid their court dates. As reported in the Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Atty. William Carter said the city won’t press charges against protesters who complete the educational program offered by American Justice Associates. … Carter said the free-speech class will save the city money and teach protesters the nuances of the law. “The 1st Amendment is not absolute,” he said, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled government can regulate when, where and how free speech can be exercised. As a civil rights attorney working with some of the approximately 350 protesters who have been arrested in recent weeks noted, the offer is nothing short of “patronizing.”

✖ Toddlers and Tiaras mothers DOPING their daughters with drinks spiked with ‘pageant crack’?

No brand names are mentioned on the show, but many have speculated that the drink is Mountain Dew, a caffeinated soft drink. Others believe it even contains alcohol. Mrs Holler is filmed instructing Alana to take ‘two big gulps’ from an unlabelled drinks bottle. Within seconds the change is apparent. ‘A lot of pageant moms and people know what the special juice is – everybody has their different concoctions. Special juice is to help energise her’ The young pageant contestant starts rapidly swinging her arms over her head and spinning around on the floor, exclaiming: ‘My go-go juice is kicking in right now!’ After her drink fix, Alana takes to the stage in a plaid shirt displaying inches of stomach to perform a routine, inspired by sex symbol Daisy Duke. Describing how the drink makes her feel, she says smiling: ‘Go-go juice makes me laughy, and play-ey, and makes me feel like I want to pull my mommy’s hair.’

✖ Polar challenge: How do you cycle to the South Pole?

Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton is hoping to become the first person to use a bike to reach the South Pole. She is attempting to travel 500 miles (805km) across Antarctica and will cycle for large parts of it, as well as snowkiting and walking. She hopes to complete the trek for Sport Relief in 20 days. At this time of year, the average temperature in Antarctica is -25C, but can drop to -50C. Severe coastal winds come from cold air flowing down off the interior ice sheet. Wind speeds can reach up to 125mph (201km/h) and average about 80mph. In addition, she will be dragging 12.9st (82kg) of equipment and supplies behind her on a sledge. It’s no average ride and she is not using your average bike. The specially-built Hanebrink “ice bike” took designers in Los Angeles three months to finish. Dan Hanebrink and Kane Fortune have been building all-terrain hybrid bikes that can be used in all environments for many years.

✖ Rick Santorum is coming for your birth control

Here is an actual Rick Santorum quote: “One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country.” And also, “Many of the Christian faith have said, well, that’s okay, contraception is okay. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

✖ With all eyes on their ears, lobe stretchers snip

Some plastic surgeons are reporting an increase in younger clients, specifically those who are ready to undo a generational fashion statement that has left a lot of self-conscious people with a lot of sagging earlobe. Dr. David Kahn, who performed Tidwell’s surgery, was blunt in his assessment of his client’s condition. “It was unsightly, a distortion that needed to be overcome.”

✖ Miracle ‘chimeric’ monkeys made from cells of six animals spark protests

They may look like any other baby monkeys, but these two are scientific breakthroughs.   Roku and Hex are the world’s first chimeric monkeys – created with genetic material from six ‘parents’. But their birth has caused an ethical storm, with critics accusing scientists of disregarding the welfare of the animals.

✖ SOPA-Supporting News Outlets Aren’t Covering SOPA [STUDY]

MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC have dedicated no time to covering the Stop Online Piracy Act in their evening newscasts since Oct. 1, according to a report by Ben Dimiero of Media Matters For America. CNN, meanwhile, has dedicated a single evening news segment to the issue. All of the companies covered in the report have either publicly supported SOPA or have parent companies that have done so. Dimiero based his report on Lexis-Nexis searches which includes transcripts of nighttime newscasts. Comcast/NBCUniversal (which owns MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), Time Warner (CNN) and Disney (ABC) are all listed as supporters of the bill. ABC and CBS are also listed as separate supporters of the bill.

✖ Japan plans futuristic farm with robot workers in disaster zone

Japan is planning a futuristic farm where robots do the lifting in an experimental project on land swamped by the March tsunami. Under an agriculture ministry plan, unmanned tractors will work fields where pesticides will have been replaced by LEDs keeping rice, wheat, soybeans, fruit and vegetables safe until robots can put them in boxes. Carbon dioxide produced by machinery working on the up to 250-hectare site will be channeled back to crops to boost their growth and reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers, the Nikkei newspaper said this week. The agricultural ministry will begin on-site research later this year with a plan to spend around 4 billion yen over the next six years, a ministry official said. Land in Miyagi Prefecture, some 300 kilometers north of Tokyo, which was flooded by seawater on March 11, has been earmarked for the so-called “Dream Project.”

✖ Newt Gingrich: ‘African-American Community Should Demand Paychecks And Not Be Satisfied With Food Stamps’

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Thursday he is willing to go before the NAACP and urge blacks to demand paychecks, not food stamps. Gingrich told a town hall meeting at a senior center in Plymouth, N.H., that if the NAACP invites him to its annual convention this year, he’d go there and talk about “why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” He also said he’d pitch a new Social Security program aimed at helping young people, particularly African-American males, who he said get the smallest return on Social Security.

✖ Pentagon-backed ‘time cloak’ stops the clock

The researchers created what they call a time lens, which can manipulate and focus signals in time, analogous to the way a glass lens focuses light in space. They use a technique called four-wave mixing, in which two beams of light, a “signal” and a “pump,” are sent together through an optical fiber. The two beams interact and change the wavelength of the signal. To begin creating a time gap, the researchers first bump the wavelength of the signal up, then by flipping the wavelength of the pump beam, bump it down.

✖ Pro skater with a love of God and psychedelic drugs goes on rampage inside Midtown hotel

A pro skateboarder with a passion for God and psychedelic drugs was arrested Thursday after he went on a drug-fueled rampage inside a Midtown hotel wearing only his birthday suit, cops said. Jereme Rogers, 26, was high on angel dust when he ran naked out of his room at the Afinia Shelburne hotel and started tearing down framed pictures lining an 11th floor hallway, sources said. “It was a rampage,” said a witness who declined to give her name. “He was screaming. We didn’t even know what he was doing. He was incoherent and belligerent.” Rogers, a heavily-tattooed Californian who has appeared in several X Games and says his skills come from God, was taken to Bellevue Hospital. He was charged with criminal mischief and unlawful possession of marijuana, cops said.

✖ DHS Training excercise startles locals

With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building. “I thought someone was upset about not getting there check,” said Laura Kelly, who took a friend to the office on Tuesday. According to one Homeland official in the Washington, D.C. office, Operation Shield. is an effort that uses routine, unannounced visits by FPS inspectors to test the effectiveness of contract guards, or protective security officers — “detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”

✖ Panda caught eating meat on camera [Video]

A wild panda is caught on surveillance camera eating a dead gnu in south-west China. An analyst says the bamboo-loving animals were predators millions of years ago. Although classified as carnivores, giant pandas mainly live on bamboo, but eat other foods including honey, eggs, fish, oranges and bananas when they are available

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com

► Scientists grow sperm in laboratory dish

The development opens up the possibility of infertile men being able to father their own children rather than using donor sperm. Researchers in Germany and Israel were able to grow mouse sperm from a few cells in a laboratory dish. In a world first a team headed by Professor Stefan Schlatt, at Muenster University in Germany, were able to grow sperm by using germ cells. These are the cells in testicles that are responsible for sperm production. Scientists grew the sperm by surrounding the germ cells in a special compound called agar jelly to create an environment similar to that found in testicles.

► How to fake the pledge of allegiance

“I pledge a lesson to queen’s frag and her United States of Hysteria, and to the wee puppet for witch’s hands. One Asian, under dog, invisible, with little tea and just rice for all.”

► Worlds earliest toy car and title deed on show at Mardin Museum

Archaeologist Mesut Alp said that the toy car, which is made out of stone, dates back to the late Stone Age and is thought to be 7,500 years old. The Culture and Tourism Director of Mardin, Davut Beliktay, said that the car is like a copy of cars today, adding that in its shape, the ancient toy also resembles a tractor. Beliktay also revealed that toy dolls and whistles, also made of stone, were found at sites in the area, “we believe that the whistles and dolls are 5,000 to 6,000 years old. The whistles are still in working condition,” he said.

► Death of man struck by train leads to bizarre civil case

Ruling in what it called a “tragically bizarre” case, an appeals court found that the estate of a man killed by a train while crossing the Edgebrook Metra station tracks can be held liable after a part of his body sent airborne by the collision struck and injured a bystander. In 2008, Hiroyuki Joho, 18, was hurrying in pouring rain with an umbrella over his head, trying to catch an inbound Metra train due to arrive in about five minutes when he was struck by a southbound Amtrak train traveling more than 70 mph. A large portion of his body was thrown about 100 feet on to the southbound platform, where it struck Gayane Zokhrabov, then 58, who was waiting to catch the 8:17 a.m. train to work. She was knocked to the ground, her leg and wrist broken and her shoulder injured.

► Gary Webb’s Drug War Reporting Vindicated

Douglas Farah was in El Salvador when the San Jose Mercury News broke a major story in the summer of 1996: The Nicaraguan Contras, a confederation of paramilitary rebels sponsored by the CIA, had been funding some of their operations by exporting cocaine to the United States. One of their best customers was a man nicknamed “Freeway Rick” — Ricky Donnell Ross, then a Southern California dealer who was running an operation the Los Angeles Times dubbed “the Wal-Mart of crack dealing.”

► New Year’s Resolution: Full Disk Encryption on Every Computer You Own

The New Year is upon us, and you might be partaking in the tradition of making a resolution for the coming year. This year, why not make a resolution to protect your data privacy with one of the most powerful tools available? Commit to full disk encryption on each of your computers. Many of us now have private information on our computers: personal records, business data, e-mails, web history, or information we have about our friends, family, or colleagues.  Encryption is a great way to ensure that your data will remain safe when you travel or if your laptop is lost or stolen. Best of all, it’s free. So don’t put off taking security steps that can help protect your private data. Join EFF in resolving to encrypt your disks 2012. Here’s some basic info about full disk encryption. You can read this and much more (including information on password security) in our recent whitepaper on protecting privacy at the border.

► The Perfect Score: Cheating on the SAT

For Sam Eshaghoff, getting a high score on the SAT college admissions exam was more than a point of pride. It was a lucrative business. As Alison Stewart reports, other students paid Eshaghoff up to $2,500 each to take their tests using easily manufactured fake IDs. His scam came crashing down in fall 2011, when he was arrested for criminal impersonation and fraud. Eshaghoff has since accepted a plea deal, but the case still raises major questions about the integrity of the test itself.

► Bad Teachers: Weird Education Crimes of 2011

Gang Bang Teacher: Cops Say She Had Sex With Five Students & Filmed It. Science Teacher Accused of Sex With 17-Year-Old Student. Caught in the Act: Cops Say Teacher Seen Having Sex With Student. Biology Teacher Accused of Sexy Lesson. Bad Teacher: Police Say Substitute Urinated in Front of Class. Cops: Teacher Caught Doing It With ‘Love Doll’ on School Property.

► Russian officials rattled by breach at rocket plant

Russia’s deputy prime minister vowed Thursday to punish “sleepy” security officials after bloggers posted dozens of photos of an apparently unguarded strategic military rocket motor factory near Moscow. Blogger Lana Sator said she and friends met not a soul, much less any security guards, as they roamed around state rocket-maker Energomash’s plant, snapping pictures, on five separate night-time excursions in recent months. She posted almost 100 pictures of decrepit-looking hardware from inside a rusted engine-fuel testing tower, the plant’s control room and even its roof at lana-sator.livejournal.com

► Facebook Responsible for A Third of Divorces in UK?

A recent survey conducted by a UK based divorce website disclosed that 33 per cent behaviour divorce petitions filed cite Facebook as a cause for filling for divorce in 2011. In 2009 this figure was 20 per cent. 5000 people were surveyed by Divorce-Online, the UK divorce website, during 2009 and 2011 covering Facebook as a means to check behaviour of spouse with the opposite sex and spouses using the social networking platform to comment about their exes post the separation.

► Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War

As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again. To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious.

► U.S. double standard surfaces in Strait of Hormuz

What was truly comical was the manner in which numerous U.S. military pundits magnified the actual threat the primitive Iranian navy poses. Contrary to those gross exaggerations, the fact is that the most serious threat in Iran’s maritime arsenal is its three small, aging, Soviet-era Kilo-class submarines. It is believed that at best, only two of the vessels are even still seaworthy, and the shallow, narrow Strait of Hormuz would preclude the effective use of any submarines. As for its surface fleet, Iran does possess a few fast missile patrol boats and an additional ad hoc flotilla of designated suicide attack boats. The majority of these craft are little more than rigid-hulled inflatables mounted with a variety of light machine-guns, packed with explosives and crewed by militia zealots. Opposing this cockleshell Flintstones navy is the mighty U.S. Fifth Fleet. Consisting of more than 20 warships, including aircraft carriers and missile cruisers

► Lego Concentration Camp

“Each box contains a set of bricks, that can be used to build the element of a concentration camp as shown on the box. All elements in the sets as well as those depicted on the boxes have either been taken from the mass-produced sets of LEGO bricks, or have been slightly altered by the artist. The prisoners are played by smiling skeletons from the “Pirate” set, while slightly modified figurines from the “Police Station” set appear as tormenters. In the upper-left corner of each box we find the following statement: “This work by Zbigniew Libera has been sponsored by Lego” – as the project was made possible thanks to the bricks presented by the polish department of the Danish company. Upon its presentation in Denmark, LEGO headquarters has launched legal complaints against the artist, however as a result of a fierce press campaign it has decided to drop the lawsuit. The controversies concerning Libera’s LEGO also appeared in Poland, yet those where of a somewhat different character.

► This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids

This December, in a surprisingly simple yet ridiculously amazing installation for the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, artist Yayoi Kusama constructed a large domestic environment, painting every wall, chair, table, piano, and household decoration a brilliant white, effectively serving as a giant white canvas. Over the course of two weeks, the museum’s smallest visitors were given thousands upon thousands of colored dot stickers and were invited to collaborate in the transformation of the space, turning the house into a vibrantly mottled explosion of color. How great is this? Given the opportunity my son could probably cover the entire piano alone in about fifteen minutes. The installation, entitled The Obliteration Room, is part of Kusama’s Look Now, See Forever exhibition that runs through March 12.

► DARPA’s New Spy Satellite Could Provide Real-Time Video From Anywhere on Earth

“It sees you when you’re sleeping and knows when you’re awake” could be the theme song for a new spy satellite being developed by DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s latest proof-of-concept project is called the Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE), and would provide real-time images and video of any place on Earth at any time — a capability that, so far, only exists in the realm of movies and science fiction. The details of this huge eye-in-the-sky look like something right out of science fiction, as well, and it would be interesting to determine if it could have applications for astronomy as well.

► Skateboard Songs Of The 70′s

“Skateboard” (as it is known in Brazil) is a sport that has emerged in the late 50 invented by surfers as a hobby in times of low tide. With the passage of time was the sportive will gain new fans and winning characteristics. In the mean time (years 50 and 60) there were a few musical recordings exploring the theme of skateboarding, such as “Skatebordin ‘Pt 1 & Pt 2″ dual “Jan & Dean.” But the boom of skateboarding was only to give even in the late ’70s, when the sport received a veritable flood of newcomers, and soon to greatly increase the number of songs exploring this new market of skaters. The recordings ranging from power pop, bubble gum, glam, disco, funk or any musical style that could match the atmosphere that the young skate ever breathed, with a strong influence of surf music, especially the Beach Boys.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com