A Wild Experience, An Eye-And-Ear Blowing Trip Into Weirdsville USA

This documentary on rock ‘n’ roll groupies, including the infamous Plaster Casters, features performances (musical) by such bands as Ten Years After, Terry Reid, Spooky Tooth, and Cat Mother.

Sorry, part 4 is missin’ from YouTube.

✖ 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

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☛ Emo Style Makeover Game

Stupendous beauty game in which you’ll be able to put makeup on a normal, common girl with the latest emo style cosmetics. You’ll be able to combine them with the most daring hairstyles and with the most stylish accessories, such as earrings, piercings, etc.

☛ Steve Jobs Action Figure: Apple Threatens Chinese Toy Maker With Lawsuit

Apple has allegedly threatened to sue Chinese company In Icons over its eerily realistic 12-inch action figure of Steve Jobs, the company’s late founder. The 1:6 scale model, which was said to be distributed by DiD Corp. in late February, comes with the clothes and accessories popularized by Jobs, such as the black faux turtleneck, blue jeans and sneakers. The figurine, which is packaged in a box that looks like Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” biography cover, also comes with a chair, a “One More Thing…” backdrop, as well as two red apples, including one with a bite in it. To make it extra creepy, the doll’s realistic head sculpt features Jobs’ famous unblinking stare.

☛ 34 Shocking Facts About U.S. Debt That Should Set America On Fire With Anger

We have all been lied to. For decades, the leaders of both major political parties have promised us that they can fix our current system and that they can get our national debt under control. As the 2012 election approaches, they are making all kinds of wild promises once again. Well you know what? It is all a giant sham. The United States has gotten into so much debt that there will be no coming back from this. The current system is irretrievably broken. 30 years ago the U.S. debt was a horrific crisis that was completely and totally out of control. If we would have dealt with it back then maybe we could have done something about it. But now it is 15 times larger, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to the debt every single year.

☛ Vertu making ‘year of the dragon’ Signature phone…Only $20,733!

☛ Paul Supporter Likely Violated Military Conduct Code

Following a third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul held a boisterous rally, featuring a speech from Army Corporal Jesse Thorsen. Thorsen, who was in uniform, voiced impassioned support for Paul’s non-interventionist views. “We don’t need to be picking fights overseas,” he said, and pledged to help “make sure this man is the next president of the United States.” It was an understandable sentiment from a soldier who said he had served in the military for 10 years, which included tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the appearance likely violated the protocols for service members included in Defense Department Directive 1344.10, which states explicitly that they are not to participate in political rallies as anything more than spectators. And if they do attend a political function, they’re not supposed to do so in uniform.

☛ Arthur Lee Thompson steals police vehicle while high on crack [Video]

☛ Islam Critical Black Metal music nominated for Norwegian Grammy

Metal band Taake is nominated for the Norwegian Grammys in the category for best metal album for the album “Norway’s weapons,” which came out this fall. Besides the line of text devoted to “Moslems”, include “those who burn our flag,” called the swine in the song “Hurricane.” The text also says that hard to be against hard: “Now wake up soon Norway.”

☛ Swank sushi: Tuna fetches record $736K

A bluefin tuna caught off northeastern Japan fetched a record $736,000, Thursday in the first auction of the year at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market. The price translates to $1,238 per pound — also a record, said Yutaka Hasegawa, a Tsukiji market official. Though the fish is undoubtedly high quality, the price has more to do with the celebratory atmosphere that surrounds the first auction of the year.

☛ How fracking might have led to an Ohio earthquake

The link between “fracking”-related activities and earthquakes was thrown into stark relief over the weekend when a magnitude 4.0 quake struck Youngstown, Ohio – typically not a hot bed of noticeable seismic activity. The quake triggered shaking reportedly felt as as far away as Buffalo, N.Y., and Toronto. The temblor struck Dec. 31 and was the latest and strongest of 11 minor-to-light quakes that have hit the region since March. The epicenters are clustered around a wastewater injection well for a hydraulic fracturing operation.

☛ Denver woman accused of attacking $30 million painting

A 36-year-old Denver woman, apparently drunk, leaned against an iconic Clyfford Still painting worth more than $30 million last week, punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself, according to a criminal case filed against Carmen Lucette Tisch. “It doesn’t appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she’s not being charged with that,” Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office, said Wednesday. “You have to wonder where her friends were.” Tisch is being charged with criminal mischief in the incident that happened at the Clyf ford Still Museum at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 29. Damage to the painting — “1957-J-No. 2.” — is estimated at $10,000. The painting, which is nearly 9 1/2 feet tall and 13 feet wide, is estimated to be worth between $30 million and $40 million by the museum. Tisch allegedly committed the offense with her pants pulled down, according to the police report, and struck the painting repeatedly with her fist.

☛ STEVE ESPO POWERS

ESPO is legit.

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▲ Ferret Legging – A Truly Unusual Sport

Also known as ferret-down-trousers and put ‘em down, the rules of the sport are pretty tight. Competitors have two ferrets placed inside their trousers, which are tied firmly at the ankles and belted up at the waist, thereby eliminating any point of escape for the furry creatures. The competitor then stands before judges, enduring the misery of the razor-sharp claws and teeth of the ferrets. Other rules state that competitors cannot be drunk and the ferrets must not be sedated. Also, the ferrets must have a full set of teeth that have not been blunted or filed. The man who stands the longest, wins. Sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? Well, get this – they aren’t even allowed to put on underwear, so as to allow free access to the ferrets from one leg to the other.

▲ Shoplifting Around the World [Infographic]

▲ Mountain Dew Will Dissolve Rats On Contact

According to McGill, if a mouse is submerged in Mountain Dew between four and seven days, the rodent “will have no calcium in its bones and bony structures.” During those days of soft drink immersion, “the mouse’s abdominal structure will rupture.” Additionally, “its cranial cavity (head) is also likely to rupture within that time period,” McGill noted. After 30 days exposure to Mountain Dew, “all of the mouse’s structures” would have disintegrated to the point that it would not be recognizable. In fact, “the mouse will have been transformed into a ‘jelly-like’ substance.” The only part of the rodent that could possibly survive, added McGill, was “a portion of the tail.”

▲ Lab-grown glands, eyes and brain parts

Growing a complete, functioning brain is unfeasible, but there is real potential in growing functional neural tissue containing specific types of cells, for transplantation into the human brain. This is one avenue of research that the team are investigating. Last year, they showed that ES cells can be coaxed to differentiate into functional cerebellar Purkinje cells, which integrate themselves into the brain when transplanted into mouse foetuses. “We are now attempting to generate Purkinje cells from human ES and induced pluripotent stem cells,” says Sasai. This would be useful in establishing animal models for the spino-cerebellar ataxias, to investigate their pathogenesis and to explore the possibility of gene therapy for these diseases.” The 3D culture technique could also be used to grow midbrain tissue containing neurons that synthesize the neurotransmitter dopamine, which could eventually prove to be very useful in the development of therapies for Parkinson’s Disease.

▲ No Fear: Memory Adjustment Pills Get Pentagon Push

The Pentagon hasn’t come close to solving the PTSD crisis plaguing the current generation of troops. But a cutting-edge realm of treatment might change that — by wiping away the fear that military personnel associate with traumatic memories. The Pentagon this week announced an $11 million grant for three research institutions, all of them long-time hubs for the military’s ongoing PTSD investigations. Experts at Emory University, the University of Southern California and New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center will study the effectiveness of D-Cycloserine (DCS). DCS is a pharmaceutical thought to help extinguish fearful memories. It’s usually taken right before exposure therapy, a process that involves recalling traumatic experiences in an effort to nullify the menacing associations that accompany them.

▲ Saudi son sale: $20 million price tag for a child

A failed Saudi businessman has put up his own son up for sale on Facebook. He claims that with all doors closed to him, he couldn’t see any other way to provide for his wife and daughter. ­Saud bin Nasser Al Shahry wants more than 73 million UAE Dirhams for the boy, a sum equivalent to almost $20 million, reports Qatar’s Al Sharq newspaper. A deal on the boy would offer “a decent life to his mother and sister rather than living in poverty.” The resourceful businessman said his debt-collecting firm had been ruled illegal by a local court and had to be shut down. When Al Shahry approached the Labor Office for financial assistance, the authorities allegedly refused him aid as the ministry does not provide help to individuals over 35 years old.

▲ 7 year old Poppy Burge gets liposuction voucher from ‘Human Barbie’ mum Sarah for Christmas

A seven-year-old who received a voucher for a boob job on her last birthday has received yet another inappropriate gift from her surgery-obsessed mother: A £7,000 voucher for liposuction. Little Poppy Burge received the gift in her Christmas stocking after her mother, a 51-year-old plastic surgery addict known as The Human Barbie, decided it would ‘come in handy’. ‘I put the voucher in her stocking – there’s nothing wrong with that,’ she said. ‘She asks for surgery all the time. She wants to look good and lipo is one of those procedures that will always come in handy.

▲ Police Shoot and Kill Armed 8th Grader in Texas

Police shot and killed an eighth grader brandishing a handgun in a Texas middle school hallway Wednesday. Police received a call around 8 a.m. saying there was someone with a weapon at Cummings High School in Brownsville, Texas, the Associated Press reported. Officers found the student with a handgun in a hallway and shot him after he “engaged” police, a district spokeswoman said in a statement. He was taken to a nearby medical center where he later died, the Brownsville Herald reported. His name has not been released. Local ABC affiliate KXXV-TV reported that police told the student to put his weapon down and fired three times after he refused to comply.

▲ Stephen Hawking admits he finds women ‘a complete mystery’

His career has shed light on the secrets of the universe, from the nature of space-time to the workings of black holes, but there is one conundrum that still baffles the world’s most famous scientist. In an interview to mark his 70th birthday this weekend, Stephen Hawking, the former Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, admitted he spent most of the day thinking about women. “They are,” he said “a complete mystery.”

▲ Avoiding Facial Recognition of the Future

The main focus of the camouflage is to use makeup and hair to create a look that is a mix between organic and machine. This makes it very hard to program software that can detect facial features if the traditional lines of a person’s visage are broken up in non-organic fashion. For those wanting to take a stab at protecting their identity, there are a few basic tips offered: 1. Avoid enhancers: They amplify key facial features. 2. Partially obscure the nose-bridge: The region where the nose, eyes, and forehead intersect is a key facial feature. 3. Partially obscure the ocular region: The position and darkness of eyes is a key facial feature. 4. Remain inconspicuous: For camouflage to function, it must not be perceived as a mask or disguise.

▲ PayPal Tells Buyer To Destroy Purchased Violin Instead Of Return For Refund

a seller claims that she’s out $2,500 and an antique violin after the company told the buyer to destroy the instrument. According to the seller, who shared her tale with the aforementioned Regretsy, she had sold the old violin to a buyer in Canada, who subsequently disputed the instrument’s bona fides. It is certainly not uncommon for people in the antique musical instrument field to argue over whether or not a particular item is the real deal, and it makes sense to notify PayPal that you are disputing the purchase. But the decision as to whether or not the violin is the real deal or an impersonator is not usually left up to the company that promises the payment. Alas, someone at PayPal apparently is an expert in old violins, because the company determined the instrument was “counterfeit” and told the buyer he needed to destroy it in order to get his refund. The buyer not only smashed the violin to bits; he also snapped some pics that he sent to the seller.

▲ La Redoute Naked Man Kids PHOTO

Stylist UK reports that the image has stirred up its fair share of controversy in France — and with good reason. The photo, found on La Redoute’s e-commerce site, features four annoyingly happy looking children frolicking on the beach wearing fun (if grammatically incorrect) T-shirts. But way off in the distance behind them is a man wearing absolutely nothing. This is creepy on a number of levels — in the photo, this naked man’s presence invalidates all that childlike joy the children are experiencing. But then you have to step back a level. How did this man get here in the first place? Did La Redoute really do a children’s photoshooot on a beach where people are allowed to roam around naked? Odds are, if there was one naked guy on that beach, there were probably more.

▲ Chinese Girls Before and After Makeup

Before and after makeup comparisons, even more shocking than plastic surgery

▲ Deadly parasite turns Bay Area honeybees into zombie slaves

Infected bees go mad, abandoning their hive in a suicidal rush toward bright lights, according to a new study by San Francisco State researchers. “It’s the flight of the living dead,” said lead investigator and biology professor John Hafernik, also president of the California Academy of Sciences. The parasite, a tiny fly, has been found in bees from three-quarters of the 31 surveyed hives in the Bay Area — essentially, everywhere except Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. In a plotline similar to a George Romero horror film, the fly deposits its eggs into the bee’s abdomen, then takes over. The hapless bees walk around in circles, with no apparent sense of direction. Some are unable to even stand on their legs. “They kept stretching them out and then falling over,” Hafernik said. “It really painted a picture of something like a zombie.”

▲ India girl killed in ritual sacrifice to ensure better harvest

Police arrested two men, both poor farmers, last week and they told police they killed the girl to appease their gods and get a better harvest, Das said. Tati was walking home after watching television at a neighbor’s house when she was kidnapped, Das said. The two men confessed to cutting her open and removing her liver as an offering. Das said the police had gathered enough evidence, apart from the confessions, to charge the two with murder. They would face life in prison or even the death sentence if convicted. The men were described as “tribals,” a term referring to the region’s indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.

▲ ‘Lost World’ Of Sea Creatures Discovered Near Antarctica

A “lost world” of sea creatures was discovered near Antarctica, British scientists announced Wednesday. Scientists doing their first exploring of deep-sea vents in the Antarctic said it was unlike anything found around other hydrothermal vents — a world populated by new species of anemones, predatory sea stars, and piles of hairy-chested yeti crabs. It was “almost like a sight from another planet,” said expedition leader Alex Rogers, a professor of zoology at Oxford University. Even in the eye-popping world of deep-sea vents, the Antarctic discoveries stand out, with the unfamiliar species of crabs found crowded in piles around the warm waters emanating from the seafloor. Many of the animals found at the vents have never been found at hydrothermal vents in other oceans, Rogers said. “To see these animals in such huge densities was just amazing,” Rogers told LiveScience.

▲ Naked man interrupts ‘Chipmunks’ at North Riverside Mall theater

Kids and parents who paid admission to see a movie about three shipwrecked chipmunks on Dec. 29 at the North Riverside Park Mall’s Classic Cinemas theater, 7501 Cermak Rd., got a bonus show that afternoon – one that landed a 34-year-old Chicago man in Cook County Jail. About a half hour into the 4 p.m. showing of the kiddie feature Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, police say an entirely naked Edward L. Brown stood up from his seat in the front row, faced the crowd of 86 theater-goers, stretched out his hands and displayed his genitalia for all to see before sitting back down to enjoy the movie. …According to the police report, Brown told officers that he had been let inside the movie theater for free by an unknown female who allegedly told him to have a seat in the front row of the theater, take off his clothes and wait for her, so they could have sex, smoke crack and do heroin.

▲ Charlton Library Sends Police To Collect Overdue Books From 5-Year-Old

A Charlton mom says her local library crossed the line when they sent police to collect her daughter’s overdue library books. Her mom says the 5-year-old girl was so afraid that she burst into tears. Charlton Police Sergeant Dan Dowd stopped by the home of Shannon Benoit to let her know that her daughter had two books several months overdue which needed to be returned or paid for.

▲ Bonobo ape lights campfire, cooks hamburgers

Kanzi, a 31-year-old Bonobos, also known as the pygmy chimpanzee, reportedly became obsessed with the film “Quest for Fire” at an early age. “Kanzi makes fire because he wants to,” Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, his main handler at the Great Ape Trust, told the Telegraph. “The movie was released about a year after Kanzi was born and was about early man struggling to control fire. Kanzi watched this spellbound over and over hundreds of times.”

▲ Children becoming ‘addicted’ to computers

Children’s access to smartphones and computers should be limited to stop them becoming “addicted” to electronic gadgets, according to a schools’ leader.

▲ Password case reframes Fifth Amendment rights in context of digital world

Beyond the log-in screen of Ramona Fricosu’s laptop computer lies what federal prosecutors say could be the key evidence in the bank-fraud case against her. There’s only one problem: Prosecutors don’t know her password. Thus, in an extraordinarily rare move, prosecutors in Denver are seeking a court order forcing Fricosu to unlock the computer so that they can obtain files they would use to try to convict her and her ex-husband. Civil-liberties groups nationwide have taken notice, saying the case tests the strength of rights against self-incrimination in a digital world. Prosecutors, meanwhile, say that allowing criminal defendants to beat search warrants simply by encrypting their computers would make it impossible to obtain evidence in an age when clues are more likely held within a hard drive than a file cabinet.

▲ White powder sent to Fla. gov’t office sickens 4

According to the Palm Beach Post, initial testing of the white powder was “inconclusive.” WPEC mentioned that there can be psychological and physical effects or psychosomatic symptoms even if the substance is not hazardous due to the panic caused by the situation, but Emergency Manager for the City of West Palm Beach Allan Ortman told the Palm Beach Post that when tested the powder didn’t change colors, which is raising some concern. The powder has been sent to a FBI lab for further testing, and results are expected within 24 hours.

▲ Police State 2012: No Need to Wait, It’s Already Here

One of the greatest problems in talking about the police state is that all such discussion of the subject is hampered by the lack of a clear-cut definition. Given the public’s own ignorance of the true nature and function of a police state, story after story after story of intolerable levels of official oppression, secret illegal surveillance, and increasingly sophisticated technology for tracking, apprehending, incapacitating and even killing dissenters can be dismissed because these stories are reported one at a time, in a contextless and therefore meaningless way that invites the interpretation that these stories are only warnings of what is to come instead of sign posts of a reality that is already here.

▲ John Lydon’s top of the pops roots Reggae picks

Don Letts: The Rastas loved John! To them he was “THE punk rock Don from London” they were aware of all the trouble he had stirred up in London, and yeah, they were into what he stood for and his stance, and they dug it… We smoked a chalice together with U Roy for breakfast, and then went out to one of his dances, miles out in the countryside, quite a long journey by car. I remember the dreads stringing up this sound, and kicking off with some earthquake dubs. Now let me tell you this sound system was LOUD, and me and John both of us, literally passed out! I remember hours later some dreads shaking us awake, it was like, “Wake up man, dance done, dance finish now man!” Yeah, it was pretty wild for me and John out in Jamaica. We loved it. John just had a vibe you know, people were drawn to him. It was the same in London; it was the same in Kingston. John is Irish, and there is a definite affinity between Jamaicans and Irish!

▲ Pot Culture: White Punks on Dope

In fact, despite protestations to the contrary, the punks always smoked pot when no one was looking. In John Lydon’s autobiography, Don Letts explains how he became DJ at the seminal punk hang out, The Roxy: “I took the job at first for the money. I thought the punks were just a bunch of crazy white people. I didn’t really tune into it. When I became the deejay and started meeting them, I picked up on what they were doing. I got the job first, and then got all my black mates to work there. Everybody who worked there, besides Andy (Czezowski), was black. We used to make joints before we went to work to sell to the punks over the counter. The people would come up and say, ‘Give me two beers and a spliff. No, make that two spliffs and a beer.’ They couldn’t roll Jamaican cones.”

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✖ ‘Absolutely no progress being made’ at Fukushima nuke plant, undercover reporter says

Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station. “Absolutely no progress is being made” towards the final resolution of the crisis, Suzuki told reporters at a Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan news conference on Dec. 15. Suzuki, 55, worked for a Toshiba Corp. subsidiary as a general laborer there from July 13 to Aug. 22, documenting sloppy repair work, companies including plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) playing fast and loose with their workers’ radiation doses, and a marked concern for appearances over the safety of employees or the public.

✖ 9 Underground Economies – And Greece

The fortunes of the world’s legitimate economies may rise and fall, but the global black market is currently booming. From Somalia’s “pirate stock exchange” to the flourishing illegal organ trade in Egypt, there are some making money hand-over-fist, under the table. We took a look at nine “alternative economies” — and Greece — to find out how people make do on the margins.

✖ TEPCO says it ‘no longer owns’ Fukushima fallout

TEPCO’s lawyers used the arcane legal principle of res nullius to argue the emissions that escaped after the tsunami and earthquake triggered a meltdown were no longer its responsibility. “Radioactive materials (such as cesium) that scattered and fell from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant belong to individual landowners, not TEPCO,” the utility told Tokyo District Court. The chief operating officer of the prestigious golf course, Tsutomo Yamane, told The Australian that he and his staff were stunned: “I couldn’t believe my ears. I told my employees, ‘TEPCO is saying the radiation doesn’t belong to them’, and they said ‘I beg your pardon’.”

✖ The Leading Cause of Breast Cancer?

Profiteers in the medical CT scan business took a big hit last week from a major new government report on the causes of breast cancer. Published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the exhaustive analysis found that medical radiation, particularly the large radiation dose delivered by CT scans, is the foremost identifiable cause of breast cancer

✖ Street Cams Can Now Tag, Track and Follow Individuals (video)

The dystopian nightmare described in George Orwell’s novel 1984 took place in London, UK. This very city is today one of the most heavily monitored places in the world, using a record number of cameras and the most advanced surveillance technology to keep track of its citizens. Reuters now reports that the CCTV system of London has now the ability to tag specific people, track them across the entire system and even run a “search” on them for previous footage. The report basically praises the software and quickly dismisses the privacy concerns it raises, stating that most citizens approve of being monitored (I’d like to see a scientific survey proving this). Of course, this summer’s London Riots were mentioned as an excuse to implement this technology, as anticipated in my article entitled The London Riots and How They Will be Used to the Elite’s Advantage.

✖ Man Jailed In Near-Shooting Over Facebook

A North Strabane Township man has been jailed on attempted homicide and other charges after police said he tried to shoot his wife because he believes she spends too much time on Facebook.

✖ The Pentagon and its Sock Puppets

The inspector general’s investigation grappled with the question of whether the outreach constituted an earnest effort to inform the public or an improper campaign of news media manipulation. The inquiry confirmed that Mr. Rumsfeld’s staff frequently provided military analysts with talking points before their network appearances. In some cases, the report said, military analysts “requested talking points on specific topics or issues.” One military analyst described the talking points as “bullet points given for a political purpose.” Another military analyst, the report said, told investigators that the outreach program’s intent “was to move everyone’s mouth on TV as a sock puppet.”

✖ Child sex: Woman arrested on sex charges involving 7-year-old girl

A woman who told deputies she had sex with a 7-year-old girl to prove her love for her married boyfriend is in the Orange County Jail, where she is being held on sexual-battery and other charges. Margaret Ann O’Neill, 26, of Kissimmee, admitted to sheriff’s investigators that she had sex with the child three times last year at a home in west Orange County, they said. O’Neill, known as Meg, told detectives that her lover, Christopher P. Smith, 32, manipulated her to perform the acts. He promised to leave his wife for her and said “she was led to believe that by giving herself to Smith’s sexual appetites proves her love for him,” a sheriff’s report states. Smith was arrested Dec. 5 and is being held without bail at the same jail. Another woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair turned him in Dec. 4 after he asked her to have sex with the child, now, 8, according to the report.

✖ Rock Hill woman struck in head with bowling ball

Deputies were called Sunday to Strikers Family Sports Center, 124 N. Anderson Road, Rock Hill, and found a 28-year-old woman on the floor next to the snack bar, bleeding from the forehead, according to a York County Sheriff’s Office report. Deputies could see her skull through the cut, and EMS treated her before taking her to Piedmont Medical Center. The woman told police she and a man had been arguing because she wouldn’t let him buy her drinks, the report states. When it was his turn to bowl, the man picked up a 12-pound ball and flung it at her head while she was sitting down. Witnesses told deputies they saw Stevenson pick up the ball and throw it at the woman before he left the bowling alley.

✖ Venezuela’s Chavez: Did U.S. give Latin American leaders cancer?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez speculated on Wednesday that the United States might have developed a way to give Latin American leaders cancer, after Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez joined the list of presidents diagnosed with the disease. It was a typically controversial statement by Venezuela’s socialist leader, who underwent surgery in June to remove a tumor from his pelvis. But he stressed that he was not making any accusations, just thinking aloud. “It would not be strange if they had developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now … I don’t know. I’m just reflecting,” he said in a televised speech to troops at a military base. “But this is very, very, very strange … it’s a bit difficult to explain this, to reason it, including using the law of probabilities.”

✖ Tessa Gay, 35, ‘had sex with her daughter’s underage friends on dozens of occasions’

A mother is facing up to 80 years in jail after being accused of having sex with two of her daughter’s male teenage friends. Tessa Gay, 35, is also alleged to have played sexually charged game of ping pong with another teen where the winner allowed to intimately touch the loser. Gray, a mother of one, is said to have admitted to the underage sex charges when interviewed by police.

✖ Ohio dad charged with drugging kids

An Ohio father has been charged with giving his children a potentially addictive pain medicine so he could submit their urine for his drug tests. Police said Lawrence E. Kirk Jr., 30, Conneaut, Ohio, had to submit to a urine test before his prescription for Oxycodone could be renewed in order to assure he was not using illegal drugs. They said he diluted the Oxycodone in water and then had his 6, 7, 9 and 10 year old children drink the solution. He would then collect their urine and present it to a doctor as his own.

✖ Police Search For “Backpage Killer” After Four Women Found Dead

Police have found the dead bodies of four women this month, and police say three of them had advertised escort services on Backpage.com, a Craigslist-type site that includes ads for escort, massage and stripper services. On December 19, the bodies of 23-year-old Renisha Landers (pictured), and her cousin, 24-year-old Demesha Hunt, were found in the trunk of Lander’s new Chrysler 300 parked in the driveway of a vacant home. Their bodies showed no outward sings of trauma and investigators are awaiting autopsy results to determine the cause of death. Then, on Christmas Day, two black females between the ages of  28 and 29 were found in the trunk of a car that had been set on fire. They were both burned beyond recognition. Police would later identify them and reveal both had advertised escort services on Backpage.com, as did either Landers or Hunt.

✖ Photographer arrested after falling asleep in Mcdonalds with child porn on laptop screen

According to a probable-cause affidavit, Harrison County Police Department Officer Nicholas Smith was walking through a McDonald’s restaurant Nov. 14 in Corydon when he observed Brockman asleep in an upright position behind a table. There was a laptop computer in front of him. When the officer walked behind Brockman, he observed multiple pictures of nude children who appeared to be between the ages of 5 and 10 on the computer screen. Brockman consented to a warantless search of his computer, which was taken into evidence. An investigation by the Indiana State Police revealed “hundreds of images of child erotica,” according to court records. There was at least one image that depicted sexual conduct by a child.

✖ Caught In Act, TSA Bomb Screener Declares Child Porn “Not Right In A Legal And Moral Sense”

After waiving his Miranda rights, Wilson–who has been suspended by the TSA–told investigators that he used his laptop to download illicit images of children, and that he “sometimes masturbates to the images of child pornography.” Wilson added that he “usually deletes the child pornography” after viewing movies and images “because he knows that it is not right in a legal and moral sense. Wilson stated that he knows that he has a problem.” A “forensic preview” of Wilson’s two computers (as well as various storage devices found in a locked safe) revealed a variety of videos and photos “depicting prepubescent females engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults.

✖ Man Who Sexually Assaulted Teen Allegedly Posed As Police Officer

A Brooklyn neighborhood remains on edge as police continue their search for a man who allegedly pretended to be a police officer and sexually assaulted a teenage boy he met in a subway station last week. Investigators say the man, seen above in a police sketch, approached a 15-year-old boy at the 53rd Street and Fourth Avenue station in Sunset Park around 9:30 a.m. Friday, after the teen threw an empty bag of potato chips on the ground.

✖ Richard Prince Lawsuit Focuses on Limits of Appropriation

One recent afternoon in the offices of the Midtown law firm run by David Boies and his powerful litigation partners, a large black clamshell box sat on a conference table. Inside were raucous, sometimes wildly funny collages of photographs and magazine pages handmade by the artist Richard Prince, works of art that have become the ur-texts of one of the most closely watched copyright cases ever to rattle the world of fine art. In March a federal district court judge in Manhattan ruled that Mr. Prince — whose career was built on appropriating imagery created by others — broke the law by taking photographs from a book about Rastafarians and using them without permission to create the collages and a series of paintings based on them, which quickly sold for serious money even by today’s gilded art-world standards: almost $2.5 million for one of the works. (“Wow — yeah,” Mr. Prince said when a lawyer asked him under oath in the district court case if that figure was correct.)

✖ Embolism After Long Flight Killed Rapper Heavy D

A pulmonary embolism brought on by a long flight killed rapper Heavy D, according to a report from the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office released Tuesday. Heavy D (real name: Dwight Arrington Myers) collapsed and died suddenly outside his Beverly Hills home on Nov. 8 at age 44. His cause of death was a blood clot in his lung, but he also suffered from deep vein thrombosis and heart disease. Craig Harvey, chief of the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, said the blood clot was “most likely formed during an extended airplane ride,” according to the L.A. Times. The rapper had recently returned to L.A. from a trip to London. Risk factors for deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, include long distance travel with little mobility, obesity, and immobility from an acute illness or surgery.

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✧ 1972 Kenner Toy Comic Book Catalog

1972 Kenner Toy Comic Book Catalog (Newspaper Insert)

✧ THE COOLEST TOYS EVER: The barely legal pleasure palace

If there’s one thing that kids have in common, it’s a love of toys.  Whether your parents got you ever latest new flashy thing, or you just found an armless GI JOE to pass the time with, toys have played an important role in all of our lives.  Here’s a loving look at the coolest toys of all time, resulting from an intensive 8 year multi-million dollar study performed by our website.

✧ Sandusky’s Lawyer: If You Believe Witness, “I Suggest You Dial 1-800-REALITY.” That’s A Gay Phone Sex Line.

Joe Amendola, the attorney for Jerry Sandusky who thus far has been lawyerin’ like a man who got his J.D. from the bottom of a cereal box, did some more lawyerin’ in front of the cameras this morning. The choicest moment: At one point, Amendola discussed the possibility that Mike McQueary witnessed a rape, told Joe Paterno and two university administrators, and no one did anything except tell Sandusky to stay out of the locker room with kids. To anyone who believes that version of events, Amendola said, “I suggest you dial 1-800-REALITY.” We did. Here’s what we got: Hey guys, welcome to the hottest place for triple-X action. Get ready for bulging, bursting pleasure with horny gay, bi, and bi-curious studs. Just 99 cents per minute.

✧ “Mad Honey” Sex Is A Bad Idea

“Mad honey” is honey made by bees from the nectar of toxic Rhododendron flowers. In places where wild Rhododendrons grow, including Turkey, it’s a health hazard. The dangers of mad honey were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and it’s reported that leaving tainted honeycombs in the path of invading armies was a popular military tactic. 2000 years later, some people still haven’t quite got the message. According to a case report from cardiologists Yarlioglues et al, a married couple deliberately ate some mad honey “for reasons of sexual performance”.

✧ The Internet Blacklist vs. The Constitution

Last week, two leading Constitutional scholars offered detailed analyses of the Internet blacklist bills now pending in Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect-IP, or PIPA. Both scholars concluded that the proposed law could not pass muster under the U.S. Constitution. So you’d think that the new version of SOPA circulated this week would have resolved those concerns.   You’d think wrong. While the revised SOPA briefly mentions the First Amendment, the substantive text makes clear that’s just lip service.  Here’s a selection of fundamental flaws that remain in both SOPA and PIPA:

✧ Rosemount High parent-on-student kissing prank has principal apologizing

A prank on some blindfolded Rosemount High School athletes — they were unknowingly and at times amorously kissed by their parents during a recent pep fest — is collecting YouTube views by the tens of thousands and has the principal apologizing for what happened… …The captains of the school’s winter sports teams — boys and girls — were lined up and blindfolded. They were told they would be kissed and then asked to guess who was on the other side of their lips. Some of the parents during the 59-second YouTube video are seen holding the kisses for several seconds, cupping their child’s faces or embracing and swaying. One mother moved her son’s hand down to her behind during the encounter. Another mom has her son down on the gym floor to the delight of two male students nearby. The hoots, screams and laughter rolled on as the students pulled off their blindfolds to realize it was Mom or Dad they were smooching.

✧ Brain scans should not be used in court… for now

Should an offender’s sentence be decided on the basis of a brain scan? A group of neuroscientists have put together a report for the Royal Society to assess this issue and other ways that progress in brain science might impact the law. Neuroscience is already making waves in court: an Italian woman convicted of murder recently had her sentence reduced on the grounds that her behaviour could be explained by abnormalities in her brain and genes.  The authors on the Royal Society panel, led by Nicholas Mackintosh of the University of Cambridge, also flag up research that suggests the brains of psychopaths are fundamentally different. This raises the question: should individuals with the brain anatomy of a psychopath have their sentence reduced on the ground of diminished responsibility, or should brain scan evidence be used to keep dangerous individuals locked away?

✧ Gingrich ‘proposed the death penalty for marijuana’

Over the weekend, struggling Republican presidential candidate Gary Johnson reminded MSNBC viewers that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich had once to called to punish some drug offenders with death. “Newt Gingrich, in 1997, proposed the death penalty for marijuana — for possession of marijuana above a certain quantity of marijuana,” Johnson explained. “And yet, he is among 100 million Americans who’ve smoked marijuana.”

✧ Machine reads your age, gives sample

Big Brother isn’t just watching, he’s also about to size you up via a new product sampling machine that can determine whether you’re the right age — or even the right sex — to receive a sample. Kraft’s new sampling machine, developed by Intel, scans your face and can detect it you’re an adult or a child and blocks dispensing if you are a child. Today, Kraft Foods, the nation’s biggest foodmaker, will roll out in Chicago a device that dispenses its mousse-like Temptations dessert by Jell-O, but only to the product’s target market: grown-ups. The machine, developed by Intel, can detect facial age with a special camera that scans your face and determines if you’re an adult or a kid. If the machine detects a child, it shuts down and asks the child to step away. If it detects an adult — bingo — the sample can be dispensed.

✧ China Keeps Slapping America In The Face And America Just Keeps Taking It

Today, China is absolutely crushing the United States on the global economic stage, but they are hardly playing fair.  They shower their own firms with huge government subsidies, they brazenly steal technology, they publicly violate intellectual property rights, they manipulate currency rates so that foreign firms cannot compete with Chinese prices and they slap ridiculously high tariffs on many classes of foreign goods.  In short, they basically do everything that they can get away with to give themselves a trade advantage.  This predatory behavior has caused an enormous transfer of wealth from the United States to China.  It isn’t as if it is just some sort of an “accident” that we now owe China about a trillion dollars.  The truth is that China just keeps slapping America in the face and America just keeps taking it.  We are like an abused spouse that just keeps coming back for more.  It is disgraceful and it needs to stop.

✧ As Facebook Aims at Millions of Users, Some Are Content to Sit Out

As Facebook prepares for a much-anticipated public offering, the company is eager to show off its momentum by building on its huge membership: more than 800 million active users around the world, Facebook says, and roughly 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population. But the company is running into a roadblock in this country. Some people, even on the younger end of the age spectrum, just refuse to participate, including people who have given it a try. One of Facebook’s main selling points is that it builds closer ties among friends and colleagues. But some who steer clear of the site say it can have the opposite effect of making them feel more, not less, alienated. “I wasn’t calling my friends anymore,” said Ashleigh Elser, 24, who is in graduate school in Charlottesville, Va. “I was just seeing their pictures and updates and felt like that was really connecting to them.”

✧ 10 Ridiculous Things That Make You a Terror Suspect

You thought you weren’t doing anything wrong, so why should you care about who they call a terrorist? Well, you may not believe it, but you’re likely a terror suspect in America’s new paradigm of the Land of the Fear. The government is casting a wide net over its citizens in its search for potential threats. Now, you don’t need to actually commit a crime to be hauled away to a detention center and held without charges while you are tortured; you just need to appear suspicious by sympathizing with anti-government views to be labeled a domestic terrorist.

✧ DNA: The next big hacking frontier

Imagine computer-designed viruses that cure disease, new bacteria capable of synthesizing an unlimited fuel supply, new organisms that wipe out entire populations and bio-toxins that target world leaders. They sound like devices restricted to feature-film script writers, but it is possible to create all of these today, using the latest advances in synthetic biology. Just as the personal computer revolution brought information technology from corporate data centers to the masses, the biology revolution is personalizing science.

✧ DNA Hackers: Synthetic biology weaponized virus, zero-day exploit to infect your brain?

From the let’s get futuristically freaky department, future hacking crimes could take a decidedly sinister twist; not hacking to breach systems but brains, bodies and behaviors. This DNA hacking goes way beyond potentially using police bees to bust biohackers, or even storing unhackable data in box of bio-encrypted bacteria. It’s not science fiction to hack insulin pumps or to use jamming signals to stop hackers from lethal pacemaker attacks, but now bioengineers and security futurists are warning that the day is coming when criminals and bioterrorists hunt for vulnerabilities that will give a new meaning to zero-day exploits. In the future, a weaponized virus will aim to infect you, your brain and body biology, and not just your computer or mobile device.

✧ Woman sues sex toy company after injuring herself using vibrator

A California woman claims a little foreplay nearly put her six feet under. April Bonjour says her pleasure turned quickly to pain while using a “vibrator/dildo” with her boyfriend last November when the sex toy caused a sharp vaginal pain and massive bleeding. “I started to get faint from the loss of blood,” she wrote in a personal injury complaint filed Aug. 30 in California Superior Court. “My boyfriend called 911. By the time they got there, I was in and out of consciousness.” Bonjour, in her suit against Pipedream Products Inc., said both she and her son “thought I was dying … Once we got to the hospital, I had lost so much blood I was given several pints.” Thanks Jasmine

✧ Mother tasered and buried alive in cardboard box by ‘bored’ lover, court told

“Terrified” Michelina Lewandowska, 27, was bound by her hands and feet and left to die in a shallow grave, Leeds Crown Court was told. In a bid to stop her getting free Marcin Kasprzak, her partner and father of their two-year-old son, had a friend help him bury her in a box less than 2ft high and then covered it in soil and leaves and then put a large branch over the top, a jury heard. But she eventually managed to free herself and raise the alarm. A jury was told how Kasprzak, 25, had decided that he no longer wanted to live with his partner and wanted his mother to bring up their young son. In a bid to get her out of the way he used a 300,000 volt electric stun gun on her at their home in Waterloo, Huddersfield, West Yorks, before using parcel tape to gag her and tie her hands and feet.

✧ Woman caught smuggling 1.5kg of cocaine in her dreadlocks on flight to Bangkok

A woman was caught trying to smuggle 1.5 kilograms of cocaine in her dreadlocks on a flight to Bangkok, it was reported today. South African Nobanda Nolubabalo, 23, was arrested and held in Thailand’s capital yesterday after customs officers allegedly noticed a suspicious white substance in her hair. Officials later carried out a search and discovered she had allegedly matted the Class A drug into her dreadlocks before boarding a flight from Brazil.

✧ Man dressed as Santa drugs teen at Berlin Christmas market, 9th victim in a week

A man dressed as Santa drugged a 15-year-old girl at a Berlin Christmas market over the weekend — the latest such attack that has seen holiday revelers left either sickened or unconscious, police said Monday. At about 10 p.m. Saturday the suspect approached the girl and her friend at Berlin’s downtown Alexanderplatz Christmas market, offering both of them what he said was a shot of alcohol in a paper cup, police said. One girl refused, but the other girl drank both of the shots. She soon started vomiting and had to be taken to the hospital, where she underwent a blood test, before being released. Police said it appeared she had been slipped some type of a date rape drug, but released no further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

✧ Man dressed as Santa drugs teen at Berlin Christmas market, 9th victim in a week

A man dressed as Santa drugged a 15-year-old girl at a Berlin Christmas market over the weekend — the latest such attack that has seen holiday revelers left either sickened or unconscious, police said Monday. At about 10 p.m. Saturday the suspect approached the girl and her friend at Berlin’s downtown Alexanderplatz Christmas market, offering both of them what he said was a shot of alcohol in a paper cup, police said. One girl refused, but the other girl drank both of the shots. She soon started vomiting and had to be taken to the hospital, where she underwent a blood test, before being released. Police said it appeared she had been slipped some type of a date rape drug, but released no further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

✧ Indonesia: Punkers’ Mohawks Shaved, Piercings Stripped By Hard-Line Police

Police in Indonesia’s most conservative province raided a punk-rock concert and detained 65 fans, buzzing off their spiky mohawks and stripping away body piercings because of the perceived threat to Islamic values. Dog-collar necklaces and chains also were taken from the youths before they were thrown in pools of water for “spiritual” cleansing, local police chief Iskandar Hasan said Wednesday. After replacing their “disgusting” clothes, he handed each a toothbrush and barked “use it.”

✧ If you want to drink less, then turn down the music: Alcohol tastes sweeter as noise impairs judgement of intake

Alcohol tastes sweeter when loud music is playing and the noise could make it difficult for drinkers to judge how much they are consuming, new research has claimed. Dr Lorenzo Stafford, a psychologist from the University of Portsmouth, conducted the first experimental study to find out how music can alter the taste of alcohol. Dr Stafford said: ‘Since humans have an innate preference for sweetness, these findings offer a plausible explanation as to why people consume more alcohol in noisy environments.’

✧ Man grows new fingertip on stomach

Doctors in China saved a man’s partially-severed finger – by attaching it to his stomach. Furniture worker Wang Yongjun, 20, cut off the end of his middle finger with an electric saw in an accident at work. Wang, of Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, was rushed to hospital where doctors had to think fast. Dr Huang Xuesong said the muscle and skin had been cut away from the end of his finger leaving only the bone showing. “We had to make a quick decision or he could have lost his finger. We decided to cultivate a new fingertip on his stomach,” he said. Doctors operated and attached Wang’s finger to his stomach in the hope that new skin and muscle would grow around it.

✧ Baby, baby, baby, no: Pay up or be forced to listen to Justin Bieber

For someone who isn’t a fan of teen idol Justin Bieber, being forced to listen to one of his songs over and over again could be considered cruel and unusual punishment. At Evanston Township High School this week, they called it a fund-raiser. To motivate their fellow students to donate money for a struggling cafe/arts center popular with ETHS kids, seniors Charlotte Runzel and Jesse Chatz persuaded administrators to let them blast Bieber’s hit “Baby” over the school’s loudspeaker system at the end of each class period — and not stop playing the song until Runzel and Chatz had met their goal.

✧ Bye Bye Booie! California’s smoking chimpanzee who learned sign language dies at 44

A chimpanzee that kicked a smoking habit and used sign language to beg for candy has died at a California animal refuge. Martine Colette, founder of the Wildlife WayStation, said Booie was being treated for a heart condition when he died on Saturday, at the age of 44. The chimp had been living at the animal sanctuary near Los Angeles since 1995, after he retired from a research lab. Ms Colette said she successfully turned Booie away from his smoking habit but could not make a dent in his love of sweets. She said he would use his signing skills to panhandle for candy by signing: ‘Booie see sweet in pocket.’

✧ Girl, 13, brought booze-laced milk to school

A Glen Ellyn junior high student brought chocolate milk mixed with Bailey’s Irish Cream to school as a “joke,” Glen Ellyn police said. Glen Ellyn Deputy Police Chief Bill Holmer said this week the 13-year-old girl allegedly brought the liquor mixed with chocolate milk to Hadley Junior High School on Dec. 9. Holmer said it’s unclear if any students actually drank the concoction, but it was “given to some other students who claimed to not know what they were given.” The “kid brought this stuff to school claiming it was meant to be a joke,” Holmer said. A student at the school informed staff about the drink, who interviewed other students about the incident then called police, Holmer said. Police worked with the juvenile and her parents “regarding enforcement action,” according to a police report.

✧ Pig Born Without Back Legs: A Balancing Act Like No Other

Wang taught her to walk on her front hooves and she learned in just a few days. After about a month, she began walking on her own, balancing her weight on her front legs as she moves about. Today, despite a body weight of 50 kg (110 pounds), the piglet walks upside down quite effortlessly.

✧ 14 bomb-sniffing dogs on way to Afghanistan died in truck

The death of 14 bomb-sniffing dogs allegedly housed in an unventilated sealed truck while awaiting air shipment from Houston to military forces in Afghanistan has spawned a lawsuit in which requested damages may top $1 million… In an unsuccessful bid to settle the matter without going to court, a Houston lawyer for the Florida company asked the defendants to pay $1.3 million in damages and $30,000 in legal fees. According to the lawsuit, the animals — Tiny, Rex, Rocky, Crock, Dork, Harrie, Stress, Sigo, Rex, Jaco, Kimbo, Kilo, Albert and Bak — were taken the Houston shipping facility on Dec. 20.

✧ Giant Smiley Feel-o-Meter Reflects the Mood of the City

Fuehlometer (Feel-o-meter) by Richard Wilhelmer, Julius von Bismarck, and Benjamin Maus is a light installation consisting of a giant smiley face that reflects the average mood of the people living in the city. An earlier version of this work originally used a more standard light screen installation instead of kinetically moving the different parts of the smiley face. The average emotional value is calculated through the computational analysis of the faces of people passing a camera located in a specific part of the city,

✧ The teenage politics of the British Churches are summed up by their pathetic Christmas poster

The Baby Jesus will not be visited by Three Wise Men bearing gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh this Christmas. Three different sorts of guys will turn up at the manger, bringing the young Son of God a Fabergé egg, a Swarovski crystal perfume bottle and a Damien Hirst skull. All this is on the seasonal advertising poster issued by the British Churches. There are no shepherds either. These are replaced by a cycle courier and a plasterer. As King Herod himself might have said: “Gee, it’s so relevant and accessible it fair sets your teeth on edge.” Jesus famously commanded us: “Take no thought for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment? Why take ye thought for raiment?”

✧ As Banks Start Nosing Around Facebook and Twitter, the Wrong Friends Might Just Sink Your Credit

A new wave of startups is working on algorithms gathering data for banks from the web of associations on the internet known as “the social graph,” in which people are “nodes” connected to each other by “edges.” Banks are already using social media to befriend their customers, and increasingly, their customers’ friends. The specifics are still shaking out, but the gist is that eventually, social media will account for at least the tippy-top of the mountain of data banks keep on their customers. “There is this concept of ‘birds of a feather flock together,’” said Ken Lin, CEO of the San Francisco-based credit scoring startup Credit Karma. “If you are a profitable customer for a bank, it suggests that a lot of your friends are going to be the same credit profile. So they’ll look through the social network and see if they can identify your friends online and then maybe they send more marketing to them. That definitely exists today.”

✧ How common is Nazi fancy dress?

It is really very easy to avoid a controversial costume, but that does not seem to stop some people. And one of the most offensive outfits is a Nazi uniform, as Conservative MP Aidan Burley has discovered. The MP for Cannock Chase in Staffordshire has been pictured in a national newspaper sitting next to another man dressed as an SS guard. Burley, who was on a stag do in a French ski resort at the time, has apologised for the “clearly inappropriate behaviour” of some of his friends. In some countries, wearing a swastika armband in public would be illegal But he is not the first person, and will surely not be the last, to hit the headlines over a Nazi costume. Prince Harry is perhaps the most famous Nazi fancy dress costume-wearer in the world. In 2005, he was pictured wearing a German desert uniform and a swastika armband at a friend’s birthday party. The fancy dress theme was “colonial and native”.

✧ The school of Jay-Z studies

Judging by the amount of fuss he caused, one would think Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson had floated the idea of abolishing child labor laws. In reality, all he had done was announce that this semester he would be teaching a course entitled “Sociology of Hip-Hop – Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z.” And it was Glastonbury all over again. The outrage flew from all directions. A SPIN headline referred to “Georgetown’s Semi-Ridiculous Jay-Z Class”, while the main article nonchalantly mentions that tuition at the university is $40,920, attaching the price to a particularly inarticulate quote from a college sophomore. Gawker was still more ruthless in its takedown, declaring: “One notable thing about Michael Eric Dyson is that although he is very good at being an academic celebrity, he doesn’t know shit about hip-hop.”

✧ Census data: Half of U.S. poor or low income

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income. The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

✧ China’s deserted fake Disneyland

Situated on an area of around 100 acres, and 45 minutes drive from the center of Beijing, are the ruins of ‘Wonderland’. Construction stopped more than a decade ago, with developers promoting it as ‘the largest amusement park in Asia’. Funds were withdrawn due to disagreements over property prices with the local government and farmers. So what is left are the skeletal remains of a palace, a castle, and the steel beams of what could have been an indoor playground in the middle of a corn field.

✧ Memphis Cop Sexts & Rapes 14 Year Old Relative

A Memphis police officer is behind bars after investigators say he sent a 14-year-old girl nude pictures and had a sexual relationship with the teen. Officer Ericck Cain, 25, has been charged with aggravated statutory rape and exploitation of a minor by electronic means. Investigators say Cain emailed a naked picture of himself to a 14-year-old relative in January. About six months later, police say, the two had sex in a house in the 5600 block of Cottonwood. “He gave us a statement of admission,” said Dave Martello, of the Memphis Police Department. Police say the initial report was made at the Mt. Moriah precinct. One of the teenager’s friends came went to the station Monday night and told police everything she knew about the relationship. Police say they do not suspect there are any other alleged victims, but that one is enough. “It’s such a disappointment,” said Martello.”This person is a criminal just like the people that we deal with on the streets every day.”

✧ Somalia’s Rebels Embrace Twitter

Think of it as the Battle of the Tweets. Somalia’s powerful Islamist insurgents, the Shabab, best known for chopping off hands and starving their own people, just opened a Twitter account, and in the past week they have been writing up a storm, bragging about recent attacks and taunting their enemies. “Your inexperienced boys flee from confrontation & flinch in the face of death,” the Shabab wrote in a post to the Kenyan Army. It is an odd, almost downright hypocritical move from brutal militants in one of world’s most broken-down countries, where millions of people do not have enough food to eat, let alone a laptop. The Shabab have vehemently rejected Western practices – banning Western music, movies, haircuts and bras, and even blocking Western aid for famine victims, all in the name of their brand of puritanical Islam – only to embrace Twitter, one of the icons of a modern, networked society.

✧ ‘White Only’ Pool Sign Owner Explains

A female landlord, Jamie Hein, had a sign that read, “Public Swimming Pool, White Only” hanging on a gate at her house and her private pool. (Photo credit: Ohio Civil Rights Commission) An Ohio landlord accused of discriminating against an African-American girl with a “white only” sign at her swimming pool told ABCNews.com that the sign was an antique and a decoration. “I’m not a bad person,” said Jamie Hein of Cincinnati. “I don’t have any problem with race at all. It’s a historical sign.” The sign in question reads, “Public Swimming Pool, White Only.” It is dated 1931 and from Alabama. Hein, 31, was unapologetic about the racist origins of the sign that she displayed at the entrance to her pool. She said she collects antiques and was given the sign as a gift. She also said that even though the sign seems to indicate that the pool is public, the pool is on her private property and “everybody has to ask before getting in my pool.”

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➪ The Most Bizarre Use for Michael Jackson’s Old Hair Ever

Today the gambling website OnlineGamblingPal.com dropped $10,871 for a sample of entombed pop star Michael Jackson’s old hair. Why so much? Because that’s the going market rate for the amount of Michael Jackson hair you see in the photo. Also, they saw the hairball’s potential—as a roulette ball.

➪ Hey Kids! See the 10 Most Tasteless X-Rated Christmas Ornaments! (NSFW)

Christmas season is a time of warmth and love, especially if it concerns two leathermen engaging in sweaty doggie-style buttsex. At least that’s the thinking among people who enjoy X-rated Christmas-tree ornaments, and we can only assume those people don’t have a lot of little nephews and nieces over for egg nog. Here are ten of the more, ummm, striking ornament possibilities out there. The first one is safe for work; after that you’re on your own.

➪ Google+ rolling out facial recognition feature

Google is rolling out a feature that lets members of its online social network automatically find themselves in photos posted by friends. The “Find My Face” feature being added to Google+ over the next several days is opt-in only, meaning people have to make a point to turn it on. By leaving it to Google+ members to activate the feature, the Internet giant was sidestepping privacy concerns raised when social networking rival Facebook added facial recognition in an opt-out style this year.

➪ Learning high-performance tasks with no conscious effort may soon be possible (w/ video)

In the future, a person may be able to watch a computer screen and have his or her brain patterns modified to improve physical or mental performance. Researchers say an innovative learning method that uses decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging could modify brain activities to help people recuperate from an accident or disease, learn a new language or even fly a plane.

➪ Bedbugs Get Away with Incest

As if bedbugs weren’t gross enough already, entomologists have now found that they get ahead by mating with their own mothers, brothers, sisters and fathers. By inbreeding, a single pregnant female can start the infestation of an entire building on her own. Parent-sibling matings and sibling-sibling matings are rare in the animal kingdom. So this study reveals an exception to the anti-inbreeding rule. But I’m drawn to the report for a pettier reason. As far as I’m concerned, DNA evidence has trumped the words of my landlord and a New York City housing inspector.

➪ Obama GAVE Iran the Drone!

The immediate and obvious questions were these: 1) Why didn’t we try to recover the drone? 2) In lieu of a rescue effort why didn’t we bomb it into oblivion? Apparently there was third option and Onama struk that down also. THE ANSWERS WILL SHOCK YOU – or maybe not. Fox News National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that apparently the Pentagon pleaded with Barrack Hussein Obama to give the order to do just that. The Pentagon initially wanted to send a special forces team to recover the drone. Obama shot down that suggestion. Then the Pentagon offered up plan B , blow it to kingdom come. Obama refused that too and now Iran and China have a brand spanking new fully functional top secret US RQ 170 Sentinel Drone. The Drone was not recovered or destroyed specifically per Obama’s orders

➪ World Domination From Denver Airport?

Almost no one likes being in airports these days, but some people believe that one airport in particular — the Denver International Airport — is not only a hassle but also tied to conspiracies about the collapse of Western civilization. Some say there’s a top-secret underground bunker for the world’s elite to survive a nuclear war (or the impending Mayan 2012 apocalypse). Others say the airport must have a connection to Nazis since the runways form a perfect swastika (actually they don’t). Even ex-Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura got into the act, interviewing a man claiming that massive tunnels under the airport were built not for luggage handling or mass transit (that’s what they want you to think!), but instead for much more sinister purposes.

➪ 7 Creepiest Abandoned Zoos on Earth

The wind swings the old cage door open as if to free a reluctant occupant. But there’s nothing there… Or are those paw prints in the sand? Besides, isn’t that the stale breath of some meat-eating beast hanging in the air? And what’s that rustling sound in the bushes? As we explore the following places, you’ll see that abandoned zoos can be more than a little creepy.

➪ Lightning Sprites, Elves Caught on Camera

Flying above the U.S. Midwest, scientists using high-speed video cameras have caught the first 3-D images of sprites, elves, blue jets, and crawlers—in the form of lightning, that is. First seen by scientists in 1989, sprites and their menagerie of exotically named kin are bursts of electrical energy that form about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth, sometimes leaping all the way from the tops of thunderheads to outer space.

➪ Students ordered to school on a Saturday as Russia resorts to ‘devious tricks’ to limit numbers at anti-Putin rally

Russian authorities today resorted to ‘devious tricks’ to limit the numbers attending an anti-Vladimir Putin rally which is expected to be the largest ever against the prime minister. Pupils between 14 and 17 have been ordered to attend school tomorrow for hastily arranged tests during the hours of the protest. They were warned they risk flunking their courses if they fail to sit at their desks for unprecedented Saturday exams.

➪ This 28-Year-Old’s Startup Is Moving $350 Million And Wants To Completely Kill Credit Cards

There’s a tiny 12-person startup churning out of Des Moines, Iowa. Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it’s an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely. Milne has no finance background, yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it’s on track to move more than $350 million in the next year. Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn’t take a percentage of the transaction. It only asks for $0.25 whether it’s moving $1 or $1,000.

➪ Hundreds of NASA’s moon rocks reported missing

The space agency has lost or misplaced more than 500 pieces of the lunar rocks and other space samples, NASA’s inspector general reported Thursday, making the case for better inventory controls. Astronauts on the Apollo moon landings from 1969 to 1972 returned 842 pounds of lunar rock and soil to Earth. The space agency now loans samples, along with meteorite and comet dust, to about 377 researchers worldwide. The space agency now lists 517 moon rock samples as missing or stolen. However, the inspector general audit suggests much more is missing, based on inquiries to a sample of 59 scholars loaned moon rocks, comet dust or meteorites. The audit found 19% could not locate all of their samples.

➪ Smuggler tried to hide $140,000 drug stash in nacho cheese

Customs and Border officials nabbed a 21-year-old Mexican citizen this week on suspicion of smuggling $140,000 worth of methamphetamine in these three cans of liquid nacho cheese and jalapenos, the LA Times reports. Incredibly, this is not the first time nacho cheese has been used as a smuggling tool. In October, a customs officials found 7 pounds of meth hidden in nacho cheese cans, NPR reports.

➪ White House–Laughingly–Declines to Comment on Senate Vote to Repeal Military’s Ban on Sodomy and Bestiality

At the White House press briefing on Monday, reporter Lester Kinsolving of WorldnetDaily noted the 93 to 7 Senate vote for a defense authorization bill that repeals the military’s ban on sodomy and bestiality and asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney whether President Obama, as commander-in-chief, approves or disapproves of bestiality in the armed forces. Carney declined to comment.

➪ Rats Feel Each Other’s Pain

Empathy lets us feel another person’s pain and drives us to help ease it. But is empathy a uniquely human trait? For decades researchers have debated whether nonhuman animals possess this attribute. Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress. The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people.

➪ Make no bones about it, this is Britain’s scariest cave! Photographer captures eerie skull in rock face of remote diving spot

Only the bravest would tackle a cave whose icy waters have already claimed the lives of several divers. But if there was any doubt about the peril that awaits at Hodge Close Quarry, one need only look at this picture The lake at the abandoned slate quarry is an eerie enough site – but as this image shows if you turn your head you are greeted with the terrifying sight of a giant skull.

➪ SWAT Raids, Stun Guns, And Pepper Spray: Why The Government Is Ramping Up The Use Of Force

But America’s police departments have been moving toward more aggressive, force-first, militaristic tactics and their accompanying mindset for 30 years. It’s just that, with the exception of protests at the occasional free trade or World Bank summit, the tactics haven’t generally been used on mostly white, mostly college-educated kids armed with cellphone cameras and a media platform. Police militarization is now an ingrained part of American culture. SWAT teams are featured in countless cop reality shows, and wrong-door raids are the subject of “The Simpsons” bits and search engine commercials. Tough-on-crime sheriffs now sport tanks and hardware more equipped for battle in a war zone than policing city streets. Seemingly benign agencies such as state alcohol control boards and the federal Department of Education can now enforce laws and regulations not with fines and clipboards, but with volatile raids by paramilitary police teams.

➪ Suit filed after NM teen cuffed for burp in class

A 13-year-old was handcuffed and hauled off to a juvenile detention for burping in class, according to a lawsuit filed against an Albuquerque school principal, a teacher and school police officer. The boy was transported without his parents being notified in May after he “burped audibly” in PE class and his teacher called a school resource officer to complain he was disrupting her class. The lawsuit also details a separate Nov. 8 incident when the same student was forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched as he was accused of selling pot to another student; the boy was never charged.

➪ Dead scuba diver had been missing 26 years

It had been 26 years since anyone last laid eyes on well-known wheelchair scuba diver Peter Devoe, who failed to resurface after a 1985 family dive at Cates Park in North Vancouver. Devoe, who was 29 when he disappeared, was finally recovered in the Burrard Inlet by a pair of commercial fishers in October. Coroners said Wednesday they identified his remains by the jewelry he wore and telltale marks on his bones from a car accident. His body was surprisingly well-preserved within his full-body scuba suit, despite floating in the inlet for almost three decades. His remains were found just west of where he vanished during a dive with his brother on March 13, 1985. His body never floated out of the bay, and was anchored down in the calm waters by his weighty equipment, Coroner Stephen Fonseca said.

➪ Supercharged mobility scooter seized by Doncaster council

A supercharged mobility scooter has been seized by Doncaster council officers after being driven at speeds of up to 60mph, scaring wild deer and annoying residents in the area. Converted to be driven by a supercharged 140cc petrol engine, the mobility scooter was described as a ‘feat of engineering’ by Cynthia Ransome, Doncaster council’s communities officer. As well as the engine, it had been ‘pimped’ with go-kart wheels and a large exhaust.

➪ The Worst Sounds In The World

15. Death by electrocution, government sanctioned or otherwise. 14. Human or animal run over, hit, or maimed by a car. 13. Civil War surgeon amputating limbs. 12. Guillotine in use; subsequent lopping and dropping. 11. Monkey having its skull bashed open, brains eaten in the name of impotence-curing cuisine. 10. Cannibal chewing on his own penis. 9. Involuntary dual nipple piercing via meat hooks. 8. Bones breaking and/or cracking. 7. Disembowelment (not even Mel Gibson, Freedom!). 6. Human body ejected through the windshield of an automobile. 5. Drawing and quartering. 4. Reanimated corpse biting into your (or a loved one’s or a stranger’s) neck muscles, jugular vein or assorted sinewy tissues. 3. Hair torn from a scalp, human or otherwise. 2. Frenzied knife-stabbing-a-sandbag sound most often heard in cinematic prison shank scenes, except here. 1. Curb stomp.

➪ Pro Grade (3D Printer-Made?) ATM Skimmer

In July 2011, a customer at a Chase Bank branch in West Hills, Calif. noticed something odd about the ATM he was using and reported it to police. Authorities who responded to the incident discovered a sophisticated, professional-grade ATM skimmer that they believe was made with the help of a 3D printer. Below is a front view image of the device. It is an all-in-one skimmer designed to fit over the card acceptance slot and to record the data from the magnetic stripe of any card dipped into the reader. The fraud device is shown sideways in this picture; attached to an actual ATM, it would appear rotated 90 degrees to the right, so that the word “CHASE” is pointing down.

➪ Anti-graffiti campaign under way in Brooklyn

An anti-graffiti campaign is under way in Brooklyn to help business owners keep their buildings clean and keep customers spending money. Some consider the colorful spray-paint graffiti to be street art, but in the bustling business district of Bay Ridge along 3rd, 4th and 5th avenues, it is frowned upon. Dennis Monier has owned Tops Restaurant Supply for 43 years, and he also lives in Bay Ridge, so his neighborhood pride runs deep. He was dismayed on Sunday morning to see graffiti on his building. “It’s not good for the neighborhood, because it makes the neighborhood look dirty,” he said. “We’re trying to keep the neighborhood clean, the sidewalks, the walls, everything. And to have a graffiti-ed neighborhood, people won’t shop here. So you do want this removed.”

➪ Why Is Pesticide Used As An Ingredient In Infant Formula?

Why is cupric sulfate — a known herbicide, fungicide and pesticide — being used in infant formula? And why is it displayed proudly on product labels as a presumably nutritious ingredient? Used to kill fungus, aquatic plants and roots of plants, parasitic infections in aquarium fish and snails, as well as algae and bacteria such as Escherichia coli, cupric sulfate hardly sounds fit for human consumption, much less for infants.

➪ Prescription drug addiction skyrocketed 430% over past decade; Drug rehab for painkiller abuse soars

Federal statistics released Thursday revealed that treatment for prescription painkiller abuse has skyrocketed 430% over the last decade. The increase is even more pronounced given that over the same time period the overall rate of substance-abuse-related admissions to rehab facilities has flatlined, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration. The rise occurred in every region of the country, but was highest in Maine, Vermont, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Arkansas, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Tylenol with codeine, Darvocet, Vicodin and Percocet ranked high on the SAMHSA’s list of most-abused prescription meds. Thanks King Solomon

➪ Man jailed for blasting co-worker’s rectum with air compressor

A CARPENTER’S assistant blasted pressurised air up his friend’s rectum, rupturing his large intestine, because he was seeking a pleasant change that would break the monotony of hard work, a Nicosia court has said. The foreign EU national who is a father of two, was jailed for 45 days last week after admitting that in October last year he had seriously injured his friend who required surgery and a lengthy stay in hospital to recover. “The defendant’s idea to administer pressurised air into his friend’s anus is indeed original and in reality the thought of it provokes laughter; but putting the idea into practice ended up in tragedy for the victim and the perpetrator,” the court said.

➪ Will the Kinect 2 read your lips? Open the pod bay door, HAL

The next generation of the Kinect (bundled with future Xbox consoles) may be “so accurate it can lip read,” the Technology Review Hello World headline breathlessly reads — evoking HAL 9000 in 2001. What’s more, says Eurogamer, citing a nameless source, “Kinect 2 will be so powerful it will enable games to detect when players are angry, and determine in which direction they are facing, and track the pitch and volume of player voices and facial characteristics to measure different emotional states.” Thanks Ava

➪ Anna Nicole Smith: Never-seen-before photoshoot… months before her death

Before her tragic passing in 2007, Anna Nicole Smith was well known her outrageous behaviour. But in a bizarre never-seen-before photo shoot, it appears that she took things to a whole other level. New snaps show the late actress and model completely naked and painted in gold. Taken while she was pregnant with her now five-year-old daughter Danielynn, Smith’s modesty is merely covered by her arm and a thick veil of the metallic paint.

➪ Facebook, Google, And YouTube In 1997 Format

Three important contemporary web sites, recreated with technology and spirit of late 1997, according to our memories. Best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.03 and a screen resolution of 1024×768 pixels, running under Windows 95. We recommend using a Virtual Machine or appropriate hardware, connected to a CRT monitor. If such an environment unachievable, it should be possible to experience the piece with any browser that still supports HTML Frames. The transfer speed of our server is limited to 8 kB/s («dial-up» speed).

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➪ 30 Signs That The United States Of America Is Being Turned Into A Giant Prison

If you live in the United States of America, you live in a giant prison where liberty and freedom are slowly being strangled to death. In this country, the control freaks that run things are obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do. Nothing is private anymore. Everything that you do on the Internet is being monitored. All of your phone calls are being monitored. In fact, if law enforcement authorities suspect that you have done something wrong, they will use your cell phone microphone to listen to you even when you think your cell phone is turned off. In many areas of the country, when you get into your car automated license plate readers track you wherever you go, and in many major cities when you are walking on the streets a vast network of security cameras and “smart street lights” are constantly watching you and listening to whatever you say.

➪ Carrier George H.W. Bush suffers widespread toilet outages

The Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has a messy problem. Since deploying in May, the Norfolk, Va.-based carrier George H.W. Bush has grappled with widespread toilet outages, at times rendering the entire ship without a single working head. But it’s no laughing matter. Sailors tell of combing the ship for up to an hour to find a place to do their business, if they can find one at all. Others have resorted to urinating in showers or into the industrial sinks in their work stations. Some men are using bottles and emptying the contents over the giant ship’s side, while some women are holding it in for so long that they are developing health problems, according to sources on the ship.

➪ Cheeky monkey makes a boob-boon out of model

Charmian Chen – who is also a model – has become a global internet star after playfully feeding long-tailed macaques. But she was left red-faced when one decided to retrieve a piece of corn that had fallen down the 22-year-old’s top. As she struggled with the monkey, her dress was forced a little too far down – leaving Charmian struggling to maintain her modesty. Thanks Cat

➪ Bartender, a Dirty Martini With a Tampon!

Yet reportedly vodka-in-a-tampon is the new rage among under-age drinkers. Just Google it — everybody agrees the trend is huge. Here’s our own HuffPost suggesting the practice is a full-blown trend amongst teenagers. Boys can apparently achieve the same effect by something called “butt chugging.” Soaking a tampon in vodka and then… re-inserting it somehow… is supposed to produce the “ultimate body shot” — a fast, intense buzz (the alcohol is allegedly absorbed more quickly than by mouth), with no tell-tale alcohol breath for mom or the police to detect.

➪ ‘Bubble Man’ Chandra Wisnu emerges in bid to save children from same fate

Chandra Wisnu, 57, suffers from a rare disease that has left him covered in tumours resembling pink bubble wrap. The father of four – known as “The Bubble Man” in his home village in Indonesia – rarely leaves his house. When he does, he wears three jackets, a balaclava and sunglasses so he doesn’t frighten children. “People are afraid, they are frightened of my horrible face and worried they might catch the disease,” he said. “So instead I avoid people, I rarely go out except to pick up my daughter from school. “And when I do I cover my head and my face because I don’t want my daughter’s friends to bully her for having ‘the dad with the horrible face’.”

➪ Schaumburg Christian School Teacher Accused of Masturbating During Class

A northwest suburban math teacher charged with masturbating in his classroom allegedly told police he’d pleasured himself at the school for last 10 years while fantasizing about female students. Paul A. LaDuke, 75, of Schererville made the handwritten admission after he was arrested for a Veteran’s Day incident witnessed by two students at the Schaumburg Christian School, according to Tandra Simonton, spokeswoman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. While his students were working on an assignment during a 10 a.m. algebra class Friday, LaDuke placed an apron around his waist, unbuckled his pants below his hips and began masturbating behind a podium, prosecutors allege

➪ Man Finds A Dead Bird in His Supermarket Salad!

A man in Somerset, England was horrified to find a dead bird in his pre-packaged supermarket salad bag after laying the contents out on the dinner table for his family to eat. A shriek from his girlfriend alerted him to the sight of a skeletal, decomposing, dead bird hidden among the green, leafy vegetables, almost obscured from sight. But the picture below tells the tale.

➪ World has five years to avoid severe warming: IEA

The world has just five years to avoid being trapped in a scenario of perilous climate change and extreme weather events, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned on Wednesday. On current trends, “rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change,” the IEA concluded in its annual World Energy Outlook report. “The door to 2.0 C is closing,” it said, referring to the 2.0 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) cap on global warming widely accepted by scientists and governments as the ceiling for averting unmanageable climate damage. Without further action, by 2017 the total CO2 emissions compatible with the 2.0 C goal will be “locked in” by power plants, factories and other carbon-emitting sources either built or planned, the IEA said.

➪ Bands banned for term

Queen’s Bands was suspended yesterday after controversial material was brought to university administrators. After the announcement, the Journal received three years of pamphlets entitled ‘The Banner’ which were distributed to band members. The pamphlets contained phrases like “I will rape you with a lamp” and photos of band members as “people with dicks in their mouths.” Front page titles over the past three years included: “Mouth raping your little sister since 1905,” “Sucking the nipple and biting the tit since 1905” and “Perpetuating racial stereotypes since 1905.”

➪ Video: Surfer rides ‘biggest wave of all time’

Hawaii’s Garrett McNamara sets a world record by surfing a 90-foot wave off the coast of Praia do Norte in Portugal.

➪ Toy doll may swear – you decide – ‘You Crazy Bitch’

We’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about a talking baby doll sold at Toys “R” Us. Some buyers say that instead of babbling, the baby is clearly cursing. So we went to the store, bought one for ourselves and checked it out. FOX23 News played the toy for two walkers at The Crossings in Colonie. “I heard that! Loud and clear. No mistaking it,” they said. “I think it did say b****,” said Vince Prendergast of Troy. “I did hear that. I wouldn’t want that for my child, definitely not,” said parent Denise Altschule.

➪ Mouse-Stomping High-Heeled German Women Convicted For Perverse Video

Two German women paid to record a fetish film of themselves stomping on mice while dressed in high-heels have been charged with animal cruelty. The women, ages 29 and 25, were promised a “considerable amount of money” by a man to perform the despicable act, according to Fox News. A video played for the court as evidence also showed the women using a car to crush 12 mice, burning rodents with lit cigarettes, and stomping on two lizards and three geckos, according to The Global Post. A court prosecutor explained the disturbing fetish, known as “animal crushing.” “Customers who watch films with such content satisfy themselves, according to our information, by watching beautiful women slowly and painfully trample on the animals while wearing socks, high heels or while barefoot,” the prosecutor explained, according to The Local.

➪ Female orgasm captured in series of brain scans

Scientists have used brain scan images to create the world’s first movie of the female brain as it approaches, experiences and recovers from an orgasm. The animation reveals the steady buildup of activity in the brain as disparate regions flicker into life and then come together in a crescendo of activity before gently settling back down again.

➪ Entertainer forces poisonous snakes through his nose and out of his mouth

Fei, from east China’s Jiangxi Province, has been performing the death-defying act for the past 30 years – what a charmer. Sometimes, when he feels like it, the 53-year-old will even use two 3ft snakes instead of one. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for the snake swallower though – Fei has had several close calls with his wriggly friends, the most serious being when he swallowed one accidentally. Luckily for him, the serpent died in his stomach before it could cause any damage. He does live a charmed life it seems.

➪ NASA – Astronaut Selection

If you have dreamed of joining the Astronaut Corps, now is the time to apply. NASA is continuing space exploration programs that will include missions beyond low Earth orbit

➪ Why Does Evolution Allow Some People to Taste Words?

A neural condition that tangles the senses so that people hear colors and taste words could yield important clues to understanding how the brain is organized, according to a new review study. This sensory merger, called synesthesia, was first scientifically documented in 1812 but was widely misunderstood for much of its history, with many experts thinking the condition was a form of mild insanity. “It’s not just that the number two is blue, but two is also a male number that wears a hat and is in love with the number seven,” said study co-author David Brang, of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

➪ The Sour Toe Cocktail – A Shot With A Mummified Big Toe In It [Video]

➪ Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns

The EU treaties that created the euro and set its membership rules contain no provision for members to leave, meaning any break-up would be disorderly and potentially chaotic. If eurozone governments defaulted on their debts, the European banks that hold many of their bonds would risk collapse. Some analysts say the shock waves of such an event would risk the collapse of the entire financial system, leaving banks unable to return money to retail depositors and destroying companies dependent on bank credit. The Financial Services Authority this week issued a public warning to British banks to bolster their contingency plans for the break-up of the single currency. Some economists believe that at worst, the outright collapse of the euro could reduce GDP in its member-states by up to half and trigger mass unemployment.

➪ Spiderman, Batman & Ironman Get Loose At A Kids Party! [Video]

➪ Armed robbery suspect shot with his own gun

About 8:15 p.m., a 33-year-old pizza-delivery driver was delivering an order when he realized the house he was supposed to make the delivery to was abandoned. A man held the driver up at gunpoint and demanded his money and his wallet, Small said. The driver handed over his wallet, which contained $100, and began fighting with the suspect. During the struggle, the delivery driver wrestled the gun out of the suspect’s grasp. The driver shot the man once in his neck and once in his buttocks. Police found two boxes of pizza, a bag of food and the suspect’s blood on the scene. The suspect, who police identified Monday night only as a 26-year-old man, was taken to Albert Einstein Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition as of 10 p.m.

➪ Drugged drinks send many to ER

In 2009, nearly 15,000 American women and men ended up in an emergency room after being unwittingly, but intentionally, drugged by someone else, a new federal report reveals. In 2009, nearly 15,000 American women and men ended up in an emergency room after being unwittingly, but intentionally, drugged by someone else, a new federal report reveals. According to the data, about 60 percent of these cases occurred after someone surreptitiously slipped a drug into the victim’s drink. Details outlined in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) report — touted as the first of its kind — suggest that the problem extends to a broad section of society. For example, nearly three-quarters of intentional poisonings involved individuals over the age of 21. And though the majority of cases involved females, nearly four out of every 10 victims was male.

➪ Florida woman: Fix-A-Flat butt injection ‘doc’ ruined my face

More victims are coming forward in the Miami Fix-A-Flat plastic surgery case – and the evidence isn’t pretty. Rajee Narinesingh told CBS Miami that accused transgender cosmetic quack Oneal Ron Morris pumped her face full of a toxic brew investigators say was a mix of tire mender, mineral oil and cement, leaving her disfigured for life.

➪ File reveals police view of drug squad raid on Keith Richards

When the Chelsea drug squad raided his home in Cheyne Walk, London – just a few doors down from Mick Jagger’s house – one bright Tuesday morning in June 1973 they found not only the expected collection of grass, cannabis resin, “Chinese” heroin, mandrax tablets, burnt spoons, syringes and pipes but also a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver, a shotgun and 110 rounds of ammunition. It would have seemed an open and shut case that should have attracted a hefty sentence, given Richards’s famous record.

➪ Robotic prison wardens to patrol South Korean prison

The three 5ft-high (1.5m) robots involved in the prison trial have been developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean group of researchers who specialise in criminality and prison policies. It said the robots move on four wheels and are equipped with cameras and other sensors that allow them to detect risky behaviour such as violence and suicide.

➪ About Pepper Spray

But we’ve taken to calling it pepper spray, I think, because that makes it sound so much more benign than it really is, like something just a grade or so above what we might mix up in a home kitchen. The description hints maybe at that eye-stinging effect that the cook occasionally experiences when making something like a jalapeno-based salsa, a little burn, nothing too serious. Until you look it up on the Scoville scale and remember, as toxicologists love to point out, that the dose makes the poison. That we’re not talking about cookery but a potent blast of chemistry. So that if OC spray is the U.S. police response of choice – and certainly, it’s been used with dismaying enthusiasm during the Occupy protests nationwide, as documented in this excellent Atlantic roundup – it may be time to demand a more serious look at the risks involved.

➪ Toddler Shot in Head During Rap Video Shoot

A 1-year-old boy is in critical condition after being shot in the head last night, possibly during the taping of a rap music video in Oakland. Six others also were shot, including a 24-year-old woman also in critical condition, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Police say Oakland rapper Kafani was at the scene, but Kafani denies it and says reports that he was shooting a music video at the time are untrue, according to AllHipHop.

➪ Miami Beach artist charged with wildlife smuggling

Miami Beach sculptor Enrique Gomez De Molina fashions bird beaks, antelope hooves and other wildlife parts into fanciful animals and calls it art. Federal prosecutors call it a felony. De Molina has been charged with wildlife smuggling for allegedly importing a vast range of protected animal parts from China, Indonesia, Bali, Thailand and the Philippines into the United States for a highly profitable art business. Among his purchases: An orangutan skull, king cobra, a slow loris, a woolly stork, skulls of heavy-beaked birds called hornbills, a rare bird called the Himalayan Monal and many other protected species, according to court papers filed by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

➪ Passenger sentenced to 21 months for dealing drugs on gay cruise

A judge in the U.S. Virgin Islands yesterday sentenced a California man to 21 months in prison for dealing drugs to fellow passengers on the 5,400-passenger Allure of the Seas. Steven Barry Krumholz pleaded guilty to the charges in July. The West Hollywood man had been arrested in February when the ship docked in St. Thomas. The Allure of the Seas was at the time chartered by Atlantis Events, the sailing on the world’s largest ship billed as the world’s largest gay cruise. U.S. District Court Judge Curtis Gomez said Krumholz used his cabin on the cruise ship “as if it was an apothecary for controlled substances,” the Associated Press reports. Police at the time of his arrest said they found more than 142 ecstasy pills, methamphetamine, a small amount of ketamine, and about $51,000 in cash in Krumholz’s cabin.

➪ Dealers give teens free heroin samples

St. Louis County Police Chief, Tim Fitch, says dealers are giving teens free samples of heroin. Sometimes teens are not told that its heroin. Once they get addicted to it, the teens start buying it from drug dealers. This year, 69 people have died from heroin in St. Louis County. That’s up from last year. And statistics show the people dying from heroin overdoses are younger than in the past. The police chief says the heroin is coming mainly from Mexico via drug dealers in Chicago. He says Fenton is Ground Zero for heroin. “I always ask them, how did you use this the first time?” says Fitch. “And they will almost always tell you it was in some party situation. They were already impaired by alcohol, or impaired by marijuana, or impaired by painkillers and they just took the next step.”

➪ ‘Weed Wars’: Reality TV puts Oakland dispensary in spotlight

Cable television in recent years has introduced millions to offbeat professions, from crab fishermen and ice road truckers, to pawnshop operators and bounty hunters. But are Americans ready to invite licensed pot peddlers into their living rooms? Programmers at Discovery Channel hope so. They’re taking a risk with “Weed Wars,” a show that could have a polarizing effect on viewers. When an Entertainment Weekly online reporter broke news of the series in July, it was met with a deluge of comments, many of them negative. Cable news is also jumping into the fray, as DeAngelo and his brother, Andrew, general manager of Harborside, were grilled by Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show Monday and were part of a Current TV news special about the California medical marijuana industry.

➪ Researchers block morphine’s itchy side effect

Itching is one of the most prevalent side effects of powerful, pain-killing drugs like morphine, oxycodone and other opioids. The opiate-associated itch is so common that even women who get epidurals for labor pain often complain of itching. For many years, scientists have scratched their own heads about why drugs that so effectively suppress pain also induce itch. Now in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown they can control opioid-induced itching without interfering with a drug’s ability to relieve pain. The discovery raises tantalizing possibilities for new treatments to eliminate itch in cancer and surgery patients as well as others who rely on opioids to relieve chronic and severe pain.

➪ Software to Rate How Drastically Photos Are Retouched

In June, the American Medical Association adopted a policy on body image and advertising that urged advertisers and others to “discourage the altering of photographs in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image.” Dr. Farid said he became intrigued by the problem after reading about the photo-labeling proposals in Europe. Categorizing photos as either altered or not altered seemed too blunt an approach, he said. Dr. Farid and Eric Kee, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Dartmouth, are proposing a software tool for measuring how much fashion and beauty photos have been altered, a 1-to-5 scale that distinguishes the infinitesimal from the fantastic. Their research is being published this week in a scholarly journal, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

➪ Legalizing medical marijuana does not increase use among youth, study suggests

Based on their analysis of 32,570 students, they found that while marijuana use was common throughout the study period, there were no statistically significant differences in marijuana use between states in any year. Choo says, “Our study did not find increases in adolescent marijuana use related to Rhode Island’s 2006 legalization of medical marijuana; however, additional research may follow future trends as medical marijuana in Rhode Island and other states becomes more widely used.”

➪ Broadway Drama Turned Samuel L. Jackson Onto Crack Cocaine

The Pulp Fiction star admits it was soul destroying to work so hard to play Boy Willie in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and then never get to to appear onstage. He explains, “I originated the role at Yale (Repertory Theater) and then I had to understudy him (Dutton) because the role was written for him when he was doing Crocodile Dundee 2, so when Crocodile Dundee 2 was over he came back and he started to do the play. It was pretty much the play that put me in rehab. “You have to show up every day and sign in and if that person’s not there by half hour (before the show) you start getting ready to go on. But he was always there… I had to sit backstage until at least the first act was over and listen to the play onstage, which was kinda running me crazy, so I used to sit on the back steps and smoke crack.” His casual drug habit became a full-blown addiction as Jackson continued to “chase the wind” to get high – and he admits he could have died a little-known actor.

➪ Internet addiction in Kenya worse than substance abuse

According to the chairperson of the Kenya Counselling Association, Catherine Gachutha, Internet addiction is rapidly increasing in Kenya. The problem, she says, is most prominent in young people aged between 18 and 28. “Incidentally, the number of youths addicted to various internet sites surpasses that of those addicted to drugs and alcohol,” Gachutha said. “This is because most of them are idle and the cost of accessing the internet is much lower than drugs and beer.”

➪ Goldie Hawn’s ex-husband Bill Hudson paints depraved portrait

During their second date at a Rolling Stones concert, Hudson recalls, “a large plate of cocaine came by and she took a huge snort.” Afterward, he had sex with the still-married Hawn from 1 a.m. to 1 p.m. and they exchanged “I love yous,” Hudson writes. But there were early signs of discord, he remembers, especially when he brought up her affairs with European men. “She was also starting to develop the none-too-pleasant habit of referring to herself in the third person. ‘Goldie will do whatever she wants, when she wants,’ she yelled,” Hudson writes.

➪ Dolphins ‘fed drugs by ravers’ died after 2-day techno party at Connyland marine park

A pair of dolphins may have died after being fed drugs by ravers after a second animal died. Police looking into the deaths in Connyland, Lipperswil, Switzerland, initially thought the deafening music from the rave may have killed dolphins Shadow and Chelmers. But zoo vets are awaiting toxicology test results to see if they were poisoned by narcotics thrown into their enclosure during the rave.

➪ Drunk man attacked by monkeys at zoo [Video]

A drunk man at a Brazil zoo swims over to play with monkeys and is attacked.

➪ Teens Using Vodka Soaked Tampons To Get Drunk [Video]

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Marlon Brando Larry King Interview 1994