Puppies and Flowers

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As a much-loved institution, it's been imitated around the world, from San Francisco to Sydney, and plenty of places in between. The Irish pub is alive and well.
In Ireland itself, once you have left the cities and headed into the green landscapes and small communities where agriculture is key, it is a different picture. Link

Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining.

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.

Watch real time, a sampling of images being uploaded to Flickr and their respective geographic locations. flickrvision

Sailing past traffic jams is every commuter’s dream but David Grimes does that almost every day - literally.

The 37-year-old IT manager puts on a wetsuit each morning and kitesurfs to his office in Brighton.

He lives in a beach house along the coast west of the city in Shoreham, West Sussex, and the trip to the shore nearest his office takes about 30 minutes.

Link to article with more pictures

Wolfowitz resigns as World Bank president

Paul Wolfowitz resigned as president of the World Bank effective June 30, the bank's directors announced Thursday. The bank will launch an immediate search for a new president. Directors had been negotiating with Wolfowitz to step down after an internal review found that he violated the bank's code of conduct by engineering a pay raise for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. "We are grateful to Mr. Wolfowitz for his service at the bank," the directors said in a statement. "Much has been achieved in the last two years."

Link to MarketWatch article

Guerilla Art?

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The Little Mermaid statue in Denmark's capital was found draped in a Muslim dress and head scarf Sunday morning. Police removed the clothing after a telephone caller reported it, spokesman Jorgen Thomsen said.

Careful with those brownies...

SAN JOSE, Calif. - It was a big enough bummer for Kenneth Affolter when he was sentenced to more than five years in prison for making pot-laced treats and soft drinks. Now he faces the wrath of a candy giant. The Hershey Co. has sued Affolter, 40, for giving his marijuana goodies names like Stoney Rancher, Rasta Reese's and Keef Kat. Each came in packaging similar to Hershey's Jolly Rancher, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kat candies, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

DINERS are flocking to what could perhaps be termed the most exclusive restaurant in Italy - one located inside a top security prison, where the chefs and waiters are Mafiosi, robbers and murderers. Serenaded by Bruno, a pianist doing life for murder, the clientele eat inside a deconsecrated chapel set behind the 60ft high walls, watch towers, searchlights and security cameras of the daunting 500-year-old Fortezza Medicea, at Volterra near Pisa. Under the watchful eye of armed prison warders, a 20-strong team of chefs, kitchen hands and waiters prepares 120 covers for diners who have all undergone strict security checks. Tables are booked up weeks in advance. Link to article

Amazing photographer, Fisherman dude, Deadliest Catch star, Corey Arnold gives you this first hand account.

Link to article with awesome photographs

John Waters, Devine? Well not quite...

LONDON (AFP) - A pair of gay flamingos have adopted an abandoned chick, becoming parents after being together for six years, a British conservation organisation said Monday. Carlos and Fernando had been desperate to start a family, even chasing other flamingos from their nests to take over their eggs at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge near Bristol.
But their egg-sitting prowess made them the top choice for taking an unhatched egg under their wings when one of the Greater Flamingo nests was abandoned.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates May 23, 2007, 11:58 a.m. ET · The U.S. Navy staged its latest show of military force off the Iranian coastline on Wednesday, sending two aircraft carriers and landing ships packed with 17,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to carry out unannounced exercises in the Persian Gulf.

Napa vintners finally get name recognition, European Union agrees this week on special designation for region

In China, Spain, Chile, Tahiti and other parts of the world there are at least a dozen winemakers using the words Napa or Napa Valley in their brand names in what California vintners say is a deliberate attempt to deceive customers.

Link to article

Interesting comments from current employees of the bridge including:

"People in Corvettes are very snotty," she said. "I hate to say that, but it's true. They don't give you the time of day."

Forest "Woody" Becker said working on the bridge is "about the greatest job an ironworker can have. It's a great icon, and it's real security." He is proud to have designed camera mounts for the bridge and recently created a mold to make zinc castings used on suspender ropes. Becker first saw the Golden Gate in August 1964. "I was in the Navy, heading to Vietnam aboard the USS Ranger. Then I saw it 10 months later. It welcomed me home. I'll never forget it. "

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chen Yan waves at a crowd of onlookers bemused at seeing China's late helmsman, Mao Zedong, brought back to life by a middle-aged woman.

Chen, 51, from Mianyang, in China's southwestern province of Sichuan, has been dressing up as Mao since she was discovered on a local TV show in 2005 impersonating another actor who had played Mao in movies.

Link to Reuters with more photos

SINGAPORE: A waterspout has been spotted from the eastern parts of Singapore. Most callers to the MediaCorp News Hotline reported seeing what looked like a tornado or a twister over the sea. Most said they saw the phenomenon at about 2.30pm and that the phenomenon lasted about 15 minutes. Witnesses said it was moving in a circular motion.

Irish eagle chick is first in century

Link to article

I've avoided linking to Google's new street-level zoom map feature because basically it was everywhere but this is an interesting blog however on the company behind the pictures.
Link to blog

"Now I see people on the streets with cell phones and there are so many goods in the shops it makes my head spin."

Link to article

Pileus is an umbrella connected to the Internet to make walking in rainy days fun. Pileus has a large screen on the top surface, a built-in camera, a motion sensor, GPS, and a digital compass, and it provides two main functions; A Social Photo-sharing and A 3D Map Navigation.

Link to list

Shown here: Continental Airlines / USA Uniform 1970 - 1973

Link to uniformfreak.com

Digital paper that can speak to you has been created by scientists.

Researchers from Mid Sweden University have constructed an interactive paper billboard that emits recorded sound in response to a user's touch.

The prototype display uses conductive inks, which are sensitive to pressure, and printed speakers.

Link to BBC article

A Drink a Day Delays Dementia, Study Finds Italian researchers find the descent into dementia among the elderly is significantly slower in light to moderate wine drinkers

Link to Wine Spectator

Coffee: The New Health Food?

Want a drug that could lower your risk of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, and colon cancer? That could lift your mood and treat headaches? That could lower your risk of cavities? If it sounds too good to be true, think again.

Link to WebMD

Beer is good for you

It turns out that beer hops contain a unique micronutrient that inhibits cancer-causing enzymes. Hops are plants used in beer to give it aroma, flavor and bitterness. 

Link to article

and

Kaplan says beer in moderation can deliver protection against heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, diabetes and dementia. Red wine gets all the glory because people who drink wine also tend to have healthier lifestyles in general. All forms of alcohol have benefits in moderation, but beer data has been submerged because beer drinkers tend to have unhealthy habits like binge drinking and smoking as well.

Link to article

Hot chocolate

In one new study, consumption of cocoa in healthy volunteers, aged 18 to 77, resulted in significantly improved vascular responsiveness. (The measure the researchers used looked at the "stiffness" of blood vessels. In patients whose blood vessels are "stiff," hypertension is common.) The beneficial effect was most pronounced in patients over 50 years of age.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt -- more than a century ago.

Link to CNN article

Not only was Rome not built in a day, but a digital model took 10 years to construct. A team of archaeologists, architects and computer specialists from Italy, the United States, Britain and Germany has just unveiled a sprawling 3D digital simulation of the ancient city as it appeared at the height of its development as the capital of the Roman Empire.

Link to c|net article

LUXEMBOURG glugs more than 15.5 litres of alcohol per person in a year, more than any other country. One explanation is that the duty on alcohol is relatively cheap in the tiny nation, encouraging booze tourism from its more heavily taxed neighbours. No such explanation for the Irish, however, who quaff 13.7 litres a year, according to the World Health Organisation. European countries, with their cultural acceptance of alcohol, tend to dominate the top places. In America, where stricter minumum-age requirements apply, the average person drinks 8.6 litres a year.

Source The Economist

A professional puzzle inventor has solved what he considers the oldest riddle of them all - Stonehenge.

Bruce Bedlam, 56, has built a scale model of the ancient stone circle as he believes it was originally constructed - as a round building.

He believes that the Wiltshire monument was created with a large, domed roof made from wood and covered in wooden tiles.

Bruce believes the siting was significant and the sun would enter the interior at every solstace through one of the ten doors.

Link to article

Anonymous postings of people's secrets, strangely absorbing. Link to postsecret.blogspot.com

Find out on the cool Design Observer blog

An interesting article by Adam Savage (MythBusters) on the sci-fi classic.

I'm still such a big Blade Runner fan that I watch it at least once every 18 months. I also own pretty convincing replicas of the "blade runner blaster" wielded by Harrison Ford's world-weary former cop Rick Deckard. The source material was a Steyr Mannlicher .222 target rifle magazine cover, with a Bulldog .44 carriage underneath. I can't get enough of this prop. Now, I want a working one.

Thousands of Internet radio stations and channels across North America are preparing to go silent tomorrow (6/26) as part of an industry-wide "Day of Silence". The landmark event is designed to draw attention to impending royalty rates that threaten to virtually shut down Internet radio as a medium.

Link to kurthanson.com

Xeni at boingboing.net has more links on the subject

This photograph, taken June 18 from a Japan Coast Guard aircraft off the northeastern coast of Hokkaido, shows a bird’s-eye view of cloud streets over the Sea of Okhotsk. According to the Sapporo Meteorological Observatory, these low-altitude stratocumulus clouds were rolled into long, distinctive ribbons after becoming trapped in air currents. While it is not uncommon for wind to form such patterns in stratocumulus clouds, photos that clearly show the clouds rolled into strips are rare, says the observatory.

Link to Mainichi via Pink Tentacle

This is sad…

This letter originally belonged to my grandmother. After she passed away we discovered it and were surprised at how well it was preserved for being nearly 70 years old. She eventually became an animator during WWII for the war effort.

Link to Flickr entry

From the 'Chronic' article:

Salvia divinorum is a bright, leafy green plant from Mexico that when chewed or smoked causes intense hallucinations comparable to LSD or "magic mushrooms."

And it's legal in California.

The drug is available all over the Bay Area, mostly in smoke shops and herbal stores. It's also sold over the Internet. For $15 to $50 a hit, users get a high that sends them into a dream-like state for anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or two.

The Sorted Books project began in 1993 years ago and is ongoing. The project has taken place in many different places over the years, ranging form private homes to specialized public book collections. The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom.

Link to photo collections

The male participants who reported moderate drinking were 1.27 times more likely to report above-average health, compared with those who were lifetime abstainers and former light drinkers. The moderate drinking women were more than twice as likely as abstainers to report above-average health.

Previous good news reported here

Link to article

Link to YouTube

Letters. Painted on shop shutters in the east end of London. Apparently they're by a graffiti artist called Eine. I found 10 in one night and then wondered whether all 26 were available. Comments on the pictures helped me to locate more. I found another 16 the next day, but 3 of them repeated letters I'd already found... so I was still 3 short of a full alphabet.

Link to FlickrSet

Spanish researchers on Friday said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old, which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe.

Link to article

Shown here:

Cover of "Berkeley Barb", an underground newspaper, featuring a photographic collage of politically charged images, mostly relating to the Civil Rights movement. Central image is of an African American male, smoking and saying in a speech bubble, "I have a nightmare...", inverting the line from Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.

Link to Wisconsin Historical Society

Brooklyn Bridge (Image Credit: dustin3000 [Flickr])

Background: Not long after the Brooklyn Bridge was completed in 1883, a shifty 20-year-old named George C. Parker decided on a whim to see if he could "sell" it to an unsuspecting tourist. He did. In fact, it was so easy that he tried it on someone else a few days later and pulled it off again. He dropped his other cons and went into Brooklyn Bridge sales full-time.

Continue reading at Neatorama

(image source: Flickr)

The building's electricity was cut off in April, but sympathisers from the town have continued to provide food and water under cover of darkness. The nuns have on occasion thrown stones at journalists trying to speak to them.

Link to The Australian

A 10-year-old Nepali girl worshipped as a living goddess, or Kumari, has lost her "divine" status for defying tradition and visiting the United States.

Not to be confused with the Munger article

Few things exemplify the chaos of Liberia more than the sight of doped-up, AK-47-wielding 15-year-olds roaming the streets decked out in fright wigs and tattered wedding gowns. Indeed, some of the more fully accessorized soldiers in Charles Taylor's militia even tote dainty purses and don feather boas. Why did this practice begin and what is the logic behind it?

The cross-dressing combatants blipped onto the Western press's radar screen right around the time the Liberian Civil War started on Christmas Eve in 1989. During Taylor's rebel siege on Monrovia in the '90s, his band of dolled-up marauders—aka the National Patriotic Front of Liberia—put on one of the most disturbing horror shows the planet has ever seen. Between 1989 and 1997, 150,000 Liberians were murdered, countless others were mutilated, and 25,000 women and girls were raped. The NPFL's shock-and-awe antics were apparent from the very start of the conflict. In an essay in Liberian Studies Journal, an administrator at Cuttington University College tells a story of Taylor's forces storming the rural campus during the initial stages of the war in "wedding [dresses], wigs, commencement gowns from high schools and several forms of 'voodoo' regalia. … [They] believed they could not be killed in battle."

Found on Slate

(image credit: Flickr)

NEW YORK: Latest research by Italian scientists has shown that drinking wine can help prevent tooth decay, gum disease and sore throats.

Both red and white wines contain some powerful germ killing ingredients. Drinking a glass of wine regularly can act as an effective agent against disease causing streptococci bacteria and upper respiratory tract infections, said a study published in the American Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Moderate consumption of red wine is already known to reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. Recent studies also show that drinking a glass of red wine every day can have a positive effect on cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

But wine's antibacterial qualities, although well known by the ancient Romans, have been little investigated, said Italian researcher Gabriella Gazzani.

Gazzani's team used bottles of supermarket Valpolicella and Pinot Nero for their research, pouring the wines into bowls containing bacteria, said the online edition of Daily Mail.

"Overall, our findings seem to indicate that wine can act as an effective anti-microbial agent against streptococci bacteria and upper respiratory tract infections," said Gazzani.

Previous good news on P&F [1] [2] Link to article

(image credit: Flickr)

That may seem like an odd question for straight-laced government types to tackle. But it's a serious attempt to shore up the state's medical marijuana law, which has been around for nearly a decade without defining the "60-day supply" patients are allowed to have on hand.

Now, after years of unsuccessful attempts to amend the law, the state Health Department has been ordered to spell out how much marijuana makes up that theoretical two-month cache.

Prosecutors and police seem generally happy with the change, saying it should help rank-and-file officers determine whom to arrest and whom to leave alone.

The American Civil Liberties Union and supportive state lawmakers think it could be the beginning of even broader reforms by the state's Democratic-controlled Legislature.

But some patients wish the state simply wouldn't bother, spooked that the government will make the limits too restrictive and spark far more arrests for people in frail health.

Read more

Collection [1] [2]

Breast enlargement is now the most common graduation gift for girls who pass their secondary school exams in Italy.

Boob jobs have knocked cars and summer holidays back into second and third places respectively.

Angelica Pesce, 18, from Rome, said she and many of her pals would be going under the knife in a few weeks having just finished school, iol.co.za reports.

She said: "It's a much more useful present than something like a car, which will break down after a few years, or a holiday, which is over within a week. My new breasts will last a lifetime."

 
Link to funreports

(images: Guiliano Sargentini/Emilio Bianchi)
 

Tom Perkins had done it all. He'd made a fortune, conquered Silicon Valley, even been Danielle Steel's fifth husband for a time. His venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was an early backer of Genentech, Netscape, and Google. But when he turned 70 a few years ago, Perkins decided to do something even grander and a bit crazier: He would build the biggest, riskiest, fastest, most technologically advanced, single-hulled sailing mega yacht in the world. The 289-foot Maltese Falcon, launched in spring 2006, is that engineering dream come to life.

There's no official definition of a megayacht, but every one agrees they're longer than 250 feet and tend to be triumphs of excess, with opulent staterooms, stainless steel and leather galore, plasma TVs — even their own speedboats and jet skis. To accommodate these toys, all mega yachts used to be powerboats, for the simple reason that sailboats must be reasonably svelte. But Perkins insisted on sail power — and refused to compromise on speed or lavish appointments. The solution was to go long, since (other things being equal) the longer the hull, the faster a sailboat can go. The result is the perfect blend of ego and utility, a $130 million wonder that represents the most daring advance in sailing technology in 150 years.

Continue reading at Wired 

Cylindrical Colonies (Interior view)

Bernal Spheres (Colony construction crew at work)

A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made. These have been converted to jpegs and are available as thumbnails, quarter page, full screen and publication quality images.

Link to NASA

The headline says it all...

Watch the video, thanks Miss Cellania 

1. Blurbing yourself

2. Burying the lede

3. Challenging Alexander Pushkin to a one-handed duel

4. Coaxing Salinger to come out and play

5. Coming up with a gripping plot twist

6. Conjugating the verb

7. Cooking up a big oily batch of Victory Gin

8. Dangling your participles

9. Deconstructing The Fountainhead

10. Dipping your madeleine into Proust's tea

11. Finishing the first draft by hand

12. Freelancing for the glossies

13. Getting just a little too into pictures of Dorian Gray

14. Giving it a first pass

15. Giving the protagonist some internal conflict

16. Giving your narrative a Faustian theme

17. Having a strong opinion in your writing workshop about the power of symbolism

18. A Heartbreaking Wank of Staggering Spunkage

19. Hiding Rushdie from the Muslim assassins

20. Hunting for treasure in Injun Joe's cave

21. Interrogating JT LeRoy and his five accomplices

22. Jack Kerou-whacking

23. Joining the Beat Generation

24. Launching a ship to the holy city of Byzantium

25. Listening to Portnoy complain

26. Looking for clues with Tintin and Snowy



27. Mangling the English translation

28. Mixing your metaphors

29. Much A-Goo About Nothing

30. Oliver's Twist

31. Palahniukin'

32. Paying extra for the hardcover

33. Paying the bills with a hack novelization

34. Paying yourself in contributor copies

35. Picking the pull-quotes

36. Pinning Garp with a Half Nelson

37. Polishing Nick Hornby's head

38. Pottering your Chamber of Secrets

39. Print-on-demand

40. Proofreading the galleys

41. Putting out Polyphemus' one good eye

42. Putting the "wad" back into "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow"

43. Querying the editor

44. Rattling your stick inside a swill bucket

45. Reading poetry aloud

46. Recouping losses incurred by the Publishers Group West bankruptcy

47. Saying yes, yes, oh god yeeeeees to Ulysses

48. Shooting at Joan Burroughs with your flesh musket

49. Shooting your own author's photo

50. Signing the first edition

51. Skimming the Cliff Notes

52. Slapstick (or: “Lonesome No More”)

53. Spanking the Monkey (sometimes known as "Spanking Arthur Waley's translation of Journey to the West ")

54. Splitting infinitives

55. Stocking the remainder table

56. Tap-tap-tapping at your chamber door (only this and nothing more)

57. The other lonely impulse of delight



58. Touring Rosings with Mr. Collins

59. Transforming Gregor Samsa into a monstrous vermin

60. Using the passive voice

61. Varnishing your Booker Prize

Need some puppies and flowers?

Found at 'vonneguts asshole' 

Houston sculptors Dan Havel and Dean Ruck sculpturally altered two buildings in a Montrose neighborhood.

The project Inversion transformed two Art League houses on the corner of Montrose Boulevard and Willard Street. The Art League offered Havel and Ruck the old studio buildings before they were demolished to make way for a new Art League building.

Link to art league houston

Link to Chinese website 

(image: Macrotim) 

HIALEAH A man making a trip from Puerto Rico to South Florida to raise money for his religious education remains hospitalized Monday after he was struck down by a bolt of lightning which flew from clear blue sky on Sunday. He was selling religious materials when he was hit.

Hailu Kidane Marian was working with members of his religious group, selling religious materials door-to-door in a Northwest Miami-Dade neighborhood, when the bolt from the blue struck him down.

"I heard a boom, and I looked and the guy jumped back, and he just laid there, stiff," said witness Maria Martinez.

Paramedics say Marian was not breathing and his heart was not beating when they arrived, but they were able to revive him and rushed him to Jackson Memorial hospital, where he was in critical condition Sunday night.

Link to article 

(credit: small the beetle) 

A woman juror has been arrested after she was allegedly caught listening to an MP3 player hidden beneath her hijab during a murder trial.

The Muslim woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of concealing the device beneath her headscarf so that she could listen to music during the testimony of a man who bludgeoned his disabled wife to death.

Judge Roger Chapple, presiding, said that he thought he could hear “tinny music” in the courtroom at Blackfriars Crown Court in Central London, but dismissed it as a figment of his imagination until another juror sent him a note.

The woman was arrested for contempt of court on the direction of the judge on June 27 and is bailed to appear at the court before Judge Aidan Marron on July 23. The arrest can only be reported now after Alan Wicks, 72, the defendant at the trial, was convicted yesterday.

The juror, who is in her early twenties, was discharged by Judge Chapple and given warning that her behaviour, if proved, would amount to contempt of court. Outside the court she was searched by a police officer and an MP3 player was confiscated.

Link to article 

Images found here

Link to list of giant kite flying festivals in Japan with great picture sets 

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently paid $12 million for his 40-foot long sub.
(It’s yellow. It’s a yellow submarine.)

Link to submarines for the super rich via valleywag

Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen of Forsythe + MacAllen Design, www.forsythe-macallen.com, have been operating a multi-disciplinary design studio since 1996 and are currently based in Vancouver, Canada. 

Felt rocks are sculptural pieces, made from 100% pure wool felt - solid all the way through! felt rocks are sold in sets of 6 hand selected rocks, including one rock that has been split in half to reveal the solid wool interior. The felt rocks are packaged in a natural wool felt bag that can be re-purposed as a fashionable and useful hand bag. The rocks vary in shape in size, but average about 4-6 inches across.

Link to Molo Design via elmanco

(image: sheilaz413) 

Officials in Honduras are trying to solve the mystery of a woman believed to be from Africa who has been living at an airport there for over a month.

The woman, who says her name is Sara Williams and comes from Burkina Faso, told the BBC she was stranded after being robbed of her travel documents.

But Honduran authorities say they are baffled as there is no record of her entering the country on any airline.

Her case echoes that of an Iranian man stuck at Paris airport for years.

The story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri who lived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was turned into a film starring Tom Hanks, and there have been several other documented cases of people "living" at airport terminals.

Ms Williams told the BBC's Spanish American Service that people were treating her well at the airport in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, and giving her money to buy food.

Link to BBC article

A mushroom weighing more than 20 kilograms has been picked in a forest in Mexico's southernmost state of Chiapas, university officials say.

The white mushroom, macrocybe titans, measured a towering 70 cm tall, was found near Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border, according to the Southern Border University Centre.

There is no word as to what the researchers plan to do with the specimen.

Link to Aussie ABC  

photo: KuriousEye 

or is it fearmongering?

From article: 

Fearing complacency among the American people over possible terror threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Chicago Tuesday that the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America's terror threat level.

"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," he said of al-Qaeda. "We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities."

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on "a gut feeling" formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose.

Continue reading article at NewsDay

Meanwhile other articles like this start showing up:

TSA inspectors find the bottled water yet miss the fake planted bomb:

Federal inspectors were able to slip a fake bomb through a checkpoint at Albany International Airport during a test of the facility's Transportation Security Administration screeners, according to individuals familiar with the incident.
     
The unannounced inspection by TSA officials took place early last week. The airport's security measures failed in five of seven tests, most of the problems occurring at the passenger checkpoint, the sources said.

In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport checkpoints.

The screeners at Albany International confiscated the water bottle but missed the bomb. In all, the inspectors slipped four banned items through the main checkpoint during the test, sources said.

or the scare about tennis balls in a lake:

Strouds Run State Park was closed for several days last week over a scare caused by six tennis balls placed in Dow Lake.

The balls sank when they were placed in the lake, which aroused suspicions that they contained an unknown, potentially hazardous substance. However, it turned out that the only substance in the balls was water.

and now senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here:

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat.

Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to assemble in the Situation Room to report on:

--what steps can be taken to minimize or counter the threat,

--and what steps are being taken to harden security for government buildings and personnel.

"It suggests they have information that the cell or cells coming this direction want to attack a government facility," Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and ABC News consultant, said.

Law enforcement officials say the recent failed attacks in London have provided important new clues about possible tactics.

Update: Keith Olberman explaining Michael Chertoff’s counterterrorism stomach

Link to tax stamp site

and check out 10 related links here 

Update:

A U.N. report showing Canadians use more marijuana than people in any other industrialized country is more evidence that the drug should be legalized, activists said on Tuesday.

The 2007 World Drug Report found that 16.8 percent of Canadians between 15 and 64 used marijuana, otherwise known as cannabis or pot, at least once in the past year, four times more than the global average of 3.8 percent.

Continue reading article 

photo: dazed.and.confused

Romanian witches go online

Romanian witches are going online in a bid to win more customers now the country is in the EU.

Witchcraft is a recognised profession in Romania where white witches offer spells, potions and readings of the future.

But witches say the EU has offered a much wider market, and they need to move with the times and embrace modern technology to reach even more people.

One of the country's most famous witches, Witch Rodica, has set up her own web and blog site - http://vrajitoare.blogspot.com - offering everything from a dream interpretation book to tarot card reading.

Rodica calls herself the "incontestable and undisputed leader of the Romanian witches" and claims she can cure impotence, epilepsy and alcoholism.

She said: "I still do spells and potions the traditional way, but the blog keeps me closer to potential clients and can be used to convince the sceptical that witchcraft is real."

The witches are also offering a new range of spells such as love potions for gay men and lucky charms guaranteed to win EU grant money.

Link to Anaova via neatorama

photo: Tom Cruze/Sun-Times

It has its own video game, mock documentary and, later this month, a tournament at Soldier Field.

It's that bean bag game you see being played more and more in backyards, alleys, bars and the parking lot at U.S. Cellular Field.

The bag-throwing craze has spread from Cincinnati -- where folks say it originated more than 50 years ago as a backyard diversion -- to Chicago, Indianapolis and Milwaukee.

On July 28, some 1,000 people are expected to converge on Soldier Field for the first Windy City Cornhole Classic, which promises a year's supply of Chipotle burritos to the winner. The expected turnout has surprised organizers.

Link to article 

From BBC:

A car made famous by the cartoon series The Pink Panther is expected to fetch up to £100,000 at auction.

The sleek pink car appeared in the titles and credits of the television series featuring the legendary pink cat and Inspector Clouseau.

The 23ft (7m) car is a lengthened 1969 Oldsmobile Toronado, complete with pink plush interior.

It will be auctioned at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, on Saturday and is expected to fetch £75,000 to £90,000.

But Christian Penwill, from auctioneers Coys, said the famous vehicle may fetch a lot more.

Fully working

"At the auction of the Batmobile in February, the price rocketed. It sold for £119,000 in the end," he said.

Although the Pink Panther car has been stored in a museum for years, it is in full working order and has recently been used for charity and promotional work.

It was the only Pink Panther car ever produced. It was built in 1969 by Californian car customiser Jay Ohrberg, who also created the open-top Batmobile for the 1992 film Batman Returns.

The car will go under the hammer at the Fine Motor Cars and the Jaguar Legend Auction on 14 July.  Link to BBC 

Link to Coys auction via Arbroath

photo: National Archives)

From NPR:

A bit of national history occurred Wednesday morning when 11 1/2 hours of previously unreleased tapes from Richard Nixon's presidential years were released to the public.

The release was part of a change in oversight for the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Previously run by the Nixon Foundation, which was made up of Nixon family and friends, the library now falls under the domain of the National Archives. Continue reading

From Yahoo:

"This is a great day for history. The hallmark of this new institution will be true acceptance and love for history — the good, the bad and the ugly," said Timothy Naftali, the museum's new federal director.

"The challenge is to present a controversial, traumatic and important story in a fair and historically accurate way," he said.

For nearly 20 years, library visitors were told the Watergate scandal was really a "coup" by Nixon's rivals and the investigative reporting team of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein offered bribes for their nation-shaking scoops. Continue reading

If you need a presidential sized laugh after reading these click here 

photo: Genocide Intervention

From Radar Online:

Cheadle, co-author of Not On Our Watch, about the genocide in Darfur, was recently called in to talk to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the issue. And he wasn't impressed.

"She wanted to tell me what the U.S. was doing," Cheadle said. "First she said, 'We're doing all we can, but it's not us, it's the United Nations. They're bogged down with red tape, and trying to push anything through just takes forever. The bureaucracy is almost insurmountable, and it's the United Nations, not the U.S.' And then she said, 'It's like when we had this crisis in Lebanon, I had to send someone down specifically to push through all of our legislation and make sure that everything moved through efficiently.' I'm thinking, I thought you had no control over the United Nations. But I didn't say that, 'cause I wanted to leave!" more

More information about the Sudan divestment movement.

Pizza and porn delivery:

Winnipeg pizza place serves up side of porn

It's only about a week old, but a new pizza place in Winnipeg has already aroused attention — not for its pizza pie, but for the racy extra that comes with it.

Patrons must be 18 years and older to order from Porno Pizza, which delivers pornographic material inserted under every pizza.

The venture, the brainchild of local entrepreneur Corey Wildeman, is raising eyebrows in the Manitoba capital.

"We cater to certain crowds," Wildeman told CBC News, adding that he realizes not everyone would be sold on the idea.

"I'm pleased to see that it might not be everybody, but it's most people," he said with a laugh.   more

Pizza and lapdance:

Lap Dances Offered In Back Of Pizza Restaurant

NEW YORK CITY - In a city that seems to have everything, it's amazing you might still be surprised to find in New York City. Take, for example, what was recently uncovered by a WCBS-TV investigation in the back of a Big Apple pizzeria.

Let's just say it's hotter than the pizza served up front.

On the outside, Cordatos might look like an ordinary pizzeria, but inside customers are offered something way too hot and spicy to be found on the menu.

Lap dances. Yes, you read that correctly.   more

Pizza as aphrodisiac:

Man's Dream Come True

Yes, pizza, a food that is right up there with cupid’s arrow as a symbolic image to convey love, romance and Valentine’s Day. Remember Dean Martin singing, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore.”

That’s not all. Historically, many of our favourite pizza toppings are known to contain sexual-stimulant properties. Researchers have noted the smell, taste, and even appearance of certain foods, such as pizza, can act as aphrodisiacs.  more

How far can the gobshite go? from Yahoo news:

WASHINGTON - President Bush ordered former counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons, even as a second former aide revealed new details Wednesday about administration dismissals of federal prosecutors.

Contempt citations against both women were a possibility.

House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers' lawyer. Democrats said her immunity ended when she left her White House job.

Across the Capitol, meanwhile, former White House political director Sara Taylor found out what Miers may already have known: It's almost impossible to answer some committee questions but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush's claim of executive privilege.

After first refusing to answer questions about Bush's possible role in the firings, Taylor later told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she knew of no involvement by the president. Further, she said, she knew of no wrongdoing by administration officials in the controversy that has hobbled the Justice Department and imperiled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.   more

photo: Ella's Dad

XBIZ article: 

SAN ANTONIO — A group of atheists at the University of Texas at San Antonio is putting a novel twist on the toys-for-guns programs run by many urban police departments. But instead of toys, they are handing out porn in exchange for bibles.

“We consider the bible to be a very negative force in the history of the world,” student Ryan Walker said. Walker is part of a student group that calls itself the Atheist Agenda.

Club members this week posted fliers promoting what they call the “Smut for Smut” campaign then set up a table in the student union to collect religious materials and pass out adult magazines such as Black Label and Playboy.

The group is not officially sanctioned by the university and has raised the ire of several religious organizations on campus.

“In my opinion, there are no atheists. There are fools,” Pastor Rick Hawkins of UTSA’s Family Praise Center said. “So, that would be foolish propaganda. I don't know one believer that would take his Bible and turn it in for pornography.”

Hawkins obviously didn’t stop by the Atheist Agenda table, where several students had dropped off copies of the good book and walked away with skin mags.

Athiest Agenda isn’t the first student group to explore the idea of introducing porn to former bible toters. Members say they got the idea from students in Austin who ran a similar pro-porn drive.

Walker added that members thought it sounded like a creative way to exercise their freedom of speech.

photo: Xosé Castro

A THIRD OF Japanese cars could run on biofuel made from cultivating seaweed on a number of 10,000 square metre plots of ocean, according to boffins quoted on nikkei.net.

The idea, according to the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Tech, is to grow sargassum fulvellum in the Yamatotai shoal which is 30,000 kilometres wide.

That, reckon the boffins there, is capable of generating 20 kilolitres of bio-ethanol for each 10,000 square metres of cultivated seaweed on nets.

Even if the seaweed idea doesn't work, other boffins reckon they could use high yield rice, unsuitable for human consumption, as a source for bio-fuel.

photo: Florentijn Hofma

From artist's website:

The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn't discriminate people and doesn't have a political connotation.  Link

From article: 

The smile-provoking concoction that's responsible for this little shot of joy in a global-warming-heated summer, against a backdrop of war chaos and political cant, is a giant rubber duckie created by the Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. After wrestling with some air-inflating problems, his 105-foot-tall, 85-foot-wide "Rubber Duck" finally took to the sea (that is, to the estuary) last weekend - and that's no canard.  read more

Link to Florentijn Hofma's website with more pictures 

This one is from an ad 

Sex sells. Parted lips, rapid breathing, and throaty moans—audiovisuals like these move more moisture-rich shampoo than any clever catchphrase ever could. No wonder it’s so tough to tell the difference between an actor conveying the transcendental goodness of Cool Ranch Doritos and a porn hamming it up for the climax in Flesh Hunter 3. Take a look at these close-ups and see if you can figure out who’s pushing cream rinse and who’s shooting for a big finish.

Link to page, click on slideshow 

photo: jlacpo 

From article:

“I do not use the word life-changing lightly,” Geldof said, adding that jatrophas curcas was the first solution that he had seen in his 23 years of involvement with African causes that offered Africans jobs, cash crops and economic power.  more

via Biofuel Worldwide 

previous biofuel post on P&F

photo: mjross 

from article:

In 2001, male Hypolimnas bolina butterflies on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu were extremely rare. Just 1 percent of these butterflies -- known commonly as Blue Moon or Great Eggfly -- were male. They were under attack by the Wolbachia bacteria, a parasite passed down through the female that kills off male butterflies before they can hatch.

Last year, the numbers of males had either reached or were approaching those of females. They were helped by the development of a genetic mutation that suppresses the bacteria, sparing the males and allowing them to quickly repopulate.

"This is one of the most clear and fastest cases of evolution under natural selection," said Sylvain Charlat of University College London, whose study appears in the journal Science.  more

via Fark

previously on P&F disputing the creationist argument

photo/art: Buddy Stone

Snow attacked proposals to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, claiming:

To walk out of Iraq right now would plant a seed that ultimately would lead to destabilization there, hundreds of thousands of deaths, loss of our influence in the region, would create instability throughout the Middle East throughout East Asia, throughout Europe. And sooner or later it would come to our shores, to a shopping mall near you.  more

source: Think Progress

previously about fearmongering on P&F 

photo: ClydeHouse 

Last week I posted about Yen and Euros falling from the sky, this week its the ATM machines. 

From article:

CUSTOMERS flocked to a bank’s ATM when it started dishing out FREE cash.

Twenty pound notes were dispensed instead of tenners when a bank worker loaded the wrong cartridge.

A queue of City workers built up at the HSBC cashpoint — and over two hours it is thought to have doled out wads worth THOUSANDS.

Drama student Alex Vevers, 19, lives near the branch in Clerkenwell, central London. He said: “It was amazing how quickly a crowd gathered. People were phoning their friends to come down.

“They were asking for £200 — and their on-screen statement showed they had taken out that amount — but they were getting double. They were doing it again and again.” Local Amit Panesar, 17, added: “It went on from 12.30pm to 2.30pm. Bank staff seemed oblivious.”

HSBC said: “Due to human error, our Clerkenwell branch cash machine dispensed a small amount extra. The mistake was realised and the ATM reprogrammed.”

The bank has not decided if it will try to reclaim the overpayments. A spokesman added: “If the amounts are small individually and taken by non-HSBC customers, the likelihood is that we will not.

“But if there are large amounts and they are our own customers, we may try to reclaim the money.”

A similar bungle last week at a Lloyds TSB branch in Grays, Essex, lost thousands for the bank, which is NOT asking for the money back.

Found at The Sun Online 

From article:

Someone spread butter all over two cars in Gastonia early Tuesday morning.

The cars, a 2005 Saturn Vue and a 2003 Jeep Wrangler, were outside a home on the 500 block of Hillcrest Avenue.

Gastonia police do not have any suspects. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000.

Sweet suffering mother of Jaysus if you must

photo: in2jazz 

From article:

Why the San Francisco Chronicle is a candidate to exit print

Play with me on this one: Which major American newspaper should be the first to throw up its hands and stop publishing a print product?

It's a question worth asking. This could be the worst year for newspapers since the Great Depression. The double-digit revenue declines long forecast by doomsters have arrived. While nearly all the major papers still post profits, albeit smaller than before, a few prominent ones are losing boatloads. At Hearst Newspapers' San Francisco Chronicle, according to a deposition given by James M. Asher, the company's chief legal and business development officer, losses of $330 million piled up between mid-2000 and September, 2006, better—or should I say worse?—than $1 million a week. During negotiations with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's unions, the owning Block family disclosed that the paper lost $20 million in 2006. Late last year, The Boston Globe was headed for unprofitability as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Read more at BusinessWeek 

photo: AliThinks 

From article:

With only a few days left until the July 15 deadline, the battle for Internet radio is running out of time. According to multiple reports, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has denied a "motion to stay" by webcasters for the impending royalty rate hike. An appeal was filed in May, along with the motion to place a hold on the Copyright Royalty Board's decision. However, the court made a brief announcement yesterday, stating the parties did not meet the standards required for a stay to be granted.

“We are pleased by this decision, which vividly demonstrates that the Copyright Royalty Judges got it right when they set royalty rates and terms for the use of music on Internet radio,” said John Simson, Executive Director of SoundExchange, in a statement. “This is a major victory for recording artists and record labels whose hard work and creativity provides the music around which the Internet radio business is built. Notwithstanding this victory, we continue to reach out to the webcasting community to reach business solutions.”  more

Related links:

From article:

Police in Derry, Pennsylvania are baffled by a June ATM robbery in which an unidentified man wearing flip flops and shorts strolled into Mastrorocco's Market and reprogrammed the cash machine to think it was dispensing dollar bills instead of twenties.

Along with a female accomplice, the crook netted over $1,540 in two visits on June 19 and 20, according to store owner Vince Mastrorocco. "They came in, they hit me the first day -- a man and a woman -- and they cleaned me out," Mastrorocco told THREAT LEVEL. "Then they came back the next day and cleaned me out again."

A sergeant with the Derry Borough Police Department they're still investigating the crime, and no arrests have been made.

Of course, THREAT LEVEL readers know exactly what happened. The machine was a Triton 9100, and like competitor Tranax, Triton printed its default administrative passcodes in its ATM service manuals, which have been widely available online.  We reported on this last September after a Virginia Beach gas station ATM (a Tranax) got hit with the same hack.

The ATM in the Derry heist was owned by the store, but operated by a company called Cardtronics. COO Mike Clinard says in a statement that it was Mastrorocco's responsibility to change the passcode from its default, which is (I kid you not) 123456.  more

 

An awning on the top of the billboard creates the illusion of of the ocean rising.

Link to time lapse YouTube clip

Found at NOTCOT 

The exhibition brings together 34 of Scotland's most exciting designers in an exhibition at The Lighthouse, with associated projects including a 6 citywide billboard project, publication and specially commissioned souvenirs. Building on the success of The Scottish Show in 2004, the exhibition will celebrate the vibrancy and vitality of Scotland's design industry.

Work and installations by the designers will take over most of The Lighthouse by inhabiting the galleries, corridors, stairwells and shop.
The Scottish Show 07 is the national exhibition of the inaugural six cities design Festival.

OSTREET Billboard 

Link to the Scottish Show 07 via DesignBoom

Photo: Courtesy of the Operation Alesia Joint Information Center

From news article: 

California -- The nation's top anti-drug official said people need to overcome their "reefer blindness" and see that illicit marijuana gardens are a terrorist threat to the public's health and safety, as well as to the environment.

John P. Walters, President Bush's drug czar, said the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn't hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties. Walters made the comments at a Thursday press conference that provided an update on the "Operation Alesia" marijuana-eradication effort.

"Don't buy drugs. They fund violence and terror," he said.

After touring gardens raided this week in Shasta County, Walters said the officers who are destroying the gardens are performing hard, dangerous work in rough terrain. He said growers have been known to have weapons, including assault rifles.

"These people are armed; they're dangerous," he said. He called them "violent criminal terrorists."

read more at Redding.com 

Photo: r_rahul

This seems like a no-brainer but Ananova is reporting that Danish drivers can get insurance against speeding and parking tickets, costing 10% of what the limit of tickets would cost in fines. Wonder if the premiums go up when you max out…

From Ananova: 

Drivers in Denmark can insure themselves against speeding fines and parking tickets under a new scheme launched by the Danish automobile association.

Motorists can take out various cover from insurance against speeding for £90 per year that covers drivers for either four speeding tickets or a total of £900 in speeding fines.

Insurance against parking fines costs £36 and covers either four tickets or a maximum of £182 in fines.

But the Danish Council for Traffic Security has attacked the scheme saying that it will make people less afraid of collecting fines and encourage them to risk an offence.

Photo: Ramperto 

An excellent site created by the Italian Trade Comission. Check out the regions, wines and food categories. Site also includes a 92 page cookbook in PDF format. 

Interesting SF Chronicle piece with comments from Warren Hinckle:

Notorious S.F. pioneer of porn films

Jim Mitchell, who helped bring eroticism into the political and social consciousness of San Francisco and later was imprisoned for the sensational killing of his brother, died apparently of a heart attack at his home in western Sonoma County, investigators said Friday.

...

But then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein did not see much humor in the peddling of porn. Her attempts to shut the brothers down came to a head when her unlisted phone number was placed on the theater marquee with the words "For a Good Time, Call ..."

Link

Really funny clip of a sea lion tapping the boards.

Link to YouTube 

From Daily Mail article:

According to the biggest study carried out into sexual motivations, these include that it is a "reasonably effective way of overcoming boredom", help you fall asleep or gets rid of a stress headache.

For others, the desire for revenge was the major factor, while some lovers were motivated by a purely selfless wish to make the other person feel good.

The researchers also confirmed what most already consider obvious - men and women think differently about sex.

They found it was more about the physical experience for men, while women's desires were based on an emotional need.

Women were much more likely to say: "I realised that I was in love." Men were more likely to say: "I wanted to increase the number of partners I had experienced."

Link to article 

Photo: abradyb 

From article:

The connoisseurs may cringe, the snobs may even sob, but the judges have spoken: California's best chardonnay costs less than $3.

"The characteristics that we look for in our gold medal winner & a nice creamy butter, fruity & it was a delight to taste," said 2007 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition judge Michael Williams.

The affordable wine beat out 350 other California chardonnays to win the double gold. Second place went to an $18 bottle, and the most expensive wines at the event, at the price of $55, didn't even medal.

To find this prize winner, you need not go to a fancy wine shop or elite retailer. Charles Shaw Chardonnay is mass produced in California and only sold through the quirky Trader Joe's grocery stores.

Link to article

see previous good news links 

From article:

By all accounts, Tahoe is a typical kitten: cute, sleepy and hungry.

But his eating habits are far from typical, as the stray's been nursing from a 3-year-old dog named Lillie.

Ever since the kitten was found under the hood of Eunice Collins' running Chevrolet Tahoe a few weeks ago, he's been feeding from the unusually cooperative longhaired dachshund. Tahoe feeds in the morning, at night and after naps, pawing at the dog's belly.

"That's not going to happen very often," said veterinarian John Beck, who added that the "kitten got lucky, basically" that he found a dog with those maternal instincts.

Collins said she was confused by the sound of a kitten meowing as she drove her Tahoe.

"I thought I was going crazy," Collins said. "I came to a light and heard it again. So I pulled into a gas station."

Collins took the kitten in and kept him in a bedroom. Four days later, she saw Lillie feeding him.

"I couldn't believe it," she said. "She has just taken Tahoe on as her baby and has been nurturing and taking care of him. They're just very close."

Beck said having Tahoe in the house "induced a false pregnancy, a nursing response."

"It made the hormones needed to produce milk," Beck said. "Now, I'm sure the cat obviously had it in mind the dog was (his) mother."

Link 

Shown here: 8 vintage Art Deco styled microphones circa 1920's-1950's

Link to more collections 

This guy is a hero: 

"This is my country. Look, it's beautiful and I fear somebody will disturb it," he says, waving his arm across a view of rocky land surrounded by Kakadu National Park, where the French energy giant Areva wants to extract 14,000 tonnes of uranium worth more than $5 billion.

Mr Lee, the shy 36-year-old sole member of the Djok clan and the senior custodian of the Koongarra uranium deposit, has decided never to allow the ecologically sensitive land to be mined.

"There are sacred sites, there are burial sites and there are other special places out there which are my responsibility to look after," Mr Lee told the Herald.

"I'm not interested in white people offering me this or that … it doesn't mean a thing.

"I'm not interested in money. I've got a job; I can buy tucker; I can go fishing and hunting. That's all that matters to me."

 Link

Photo: AP Darko Vojinovic

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia:

Man's best friend helped save this tiny cat.

A 15-day-old female panther named Milica has been adopted by a Rhodesian Ridgeback after her mother refused to feed her and tried to kill her in the Belgrade zoo.

"The mother panther has killed all her cubs since 1999," zookeeper Dragan Jovanovic said.

"We believe she has been traumatized by the sound of NATO bombs" during airstrikes in the Serbian capital intended to stop former President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999, he said.

Now Milica fights with several newborn puppies over milk from her adopted mother. She also appears to enjoy every bit of attention she gets from her new family.

Link to article 

Previously posted on P&F: Dachshund nurses rescued kitten 

Photo: ms_cwang 

From article:

For the first time, the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart will sell a line of religious toys, according to a WKMG-TV report.

More than 420 Wal-Mart stores nationwide will begin carrying the faith-based toys that include Jesus and Samson action figures.Only about one-sixth of stores will carry the toys.

Link to Local6

Cool photoraphic sets at Satan's Laundromat:

Red Hook
parallax
chicken, egg
sf fog
sf sun
Macy's Parade
Tokyo street art 2
Tokyo street art 1
Tsukiji fish market
Tokyo bizarreness 2
Tokyo bizarreness 1
Engrish

Photo: L.A.Woman

Some samples:

David Bowie - David Robert Hayward Stenton Jones
Elvis Costello - Declan Patrick McManus
John Denver - John Henry Deutschendorf
Snoop Dogg - Cordazer Calvin Broadus

Reality Desktop

Windows interface moved to real life.
Do you remember what is your Computer Desktop? It's a metaphor
of real desk.

Link to video 

Snappy, fresh interface with stacking, folding and crumpling abiliities.

Anand Agarawala presents BumpTop, a fresh user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3D extreme. In this physics-driven universe, important files finally get the weight they deserve via an oddly satisfying resizing feature, and the drudgery of file organization becomes a freewheeling playground full of crumpled documents and clipping-covered "walls." Worried your laptop's desktop will descend into the same disorder as its coffee-mug-strewn real-life equivalent? Fear not: BumpTop has a snappy solution for that messy problem, too. 

Link to video 

From Spiegel article: 

The stripper was Tom Luszeit, a 34-year-old who -- for his day job -- dresses up in various period military outfits to pose with souvenir-seeking tourists. The widow was Alexandra Hildebrandt, 48, who has run the Wall Museum at Checkpoint Charlie since her husband passed away in 2004. She has taken issue with Luszeit's antics in the past, in particular with his penchant for dressing in the uniform of East Germany's secret police, the Stasi. And the court case is one that has gone a long way toward eroding the dignity of one of the Cold War's central sites -- and has yet to reach its conclusion.

It is unclear who Tom Luszeit will call to the stand to back up his view of what happened in the spring of 2004. But there is at least one man who might be helpful. Three years ago, Gerhard Lindner, owner of a souvenir shop at Checkpoint Charlie, came to Luszeit's defense, saying he found nothing wrong with his posing as an East German policeman.

But then, his testimony might not be worth all that much. It didn't take long for Berlin journalists to discover that Lindner himself had worked as a Stasi spy in the 1980s.

Link to Spiegel online 

Over the last few weeks I've been running into articles on this topic including an excellent documentary by Channel 4.

Link to documentary 'Guys and Dolls'.

This phenomenom is not to restricted to Japan, if you've watched the video above you'll see Americans and an Englishman.

c-r-e-e-p-y 

From Reuters article: 

Real love is hard to find for one Japanese man, who has transferred his affection and desires to dozens of plastic sex dolls.

When the 45-year-old, who uses a pseudonym of Ta-Bo, returns home, it's not a wife or girlfriend who await him, but a row of dolls lined up neatly on his sofa.

Each has a name. Ta-Bo often watches television with his toys before bathing them, powdering them so that their skin feels more human, dressing them in lingerie and then taking them to bed.

"A human girl can cheat on you or betray you sometimes, but these dolls never do those thing. They belong to me 100 percent," says the engineer who has spent more than 2 million yen ($16,000) over the past decade on the dolls.

"Sometimes it takes too much time before I can have sex with the person I meet. But with these dolls, it's just a matter of a click of the mouse. With one click, they are delivered to you."

Link to Reuters article 

Photo: Tito Herrera

From article:

What's in a name? How about a scheme to get out of prison? Four federal inmates were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization.

The indictment alleges inmates Russell Dean Landers, Clayton Heath Albers, Carl Ervin Batts and Barry Dean Bischof sent demand notices to the warden of the El Reno federal prison, filed liens against his property and then hired an individual to seize his vehicles, freeze his bank accounts, and change the locks on his house.

Then, believing the warden's property had been seized, the inmates demanded to be released from prison before they would negotiate with the warden to give his property back, according to the indictment.

U.S. Attorney John C. Richter said the individual hired by the inmates turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Richter said the four men and William Michael Roberson, 50, of Baton Rouge, La., were indicted on accusations of conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials. Richter said Roberson is accused of assisting the four inmates in the scheme that allegedly took place in late 2003 and early 2004.

All five were also indicted on charges of mailing threatening communications with the intent to extort.

The conspiracy count carries maximum penalties of six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The mail charge is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Link to MyWay via FARK

Photo: emilybean

From NY Time:

That's from his extraordinary essay which appeared on the final page of the July 8, 2007 New York Times Book Review.

More: "Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm."

Here's the essay.

Jazz Messenger

I never had any intention of becoming a novelist — at least not until I turned 29. This is absolutely true.

I read a lot from the time I was a little kid, and I got so deeply into the worlds of the novels I was reading that it would be a lie if I said I never felt like writing anything. But I never believed I had the talent to write fiction. In my teens I loved writers like Dostoyevsky, Kafka and Balzac, but I never imagined I could write anything that would measure up to the works they left us. And so, at an early age, I simply gave up any hope of writing fiction. I would continue to read books as a hobby, I decided, and look elsewhere for a way to make a living.

The professional area I settled on was music. I worked hard, saved my money, borrowed a lot from friends and relatives, and shortly after leaving the university I opened a little jazz club in Tokyo. We served coffee in the daytime and drinks at night. We also served a few simple dishes. We had records playing constantly, and young musicians performing live jazz on weekends. I kept this up for seven years. Why? For one simple reason: It enabled me to listen to jazz from morning to night.

I had my first encounter with jazz in 1964 when I was 15. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers performed in Kobe in January that year, and I got a ticket for a birthday present. This was the first time I really listened to jazz, and it bowled me over. I was thunderstruck. The band was just great: Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Curtis Fuller on trombone and Art Blakey in the lead with his solid, imaginative drumming. I think it was one of the strongest units in jazz history. I had never heard such amazing music, and I was hooked.

A year ago in Boston I had dinner with the Panamanian jazz pianist Danilo Pérez, and when I told him this story, he pulled out his cellphone and asked me, “Would you like to talk to Wayne, Haruki?” “Of course,” I said, practically at a loss for words. He called Wayne Shorter in Florida and handed me the phone. Basically what I said to him was that I had never heard such amazing music before or since. Life is so strange, you never know what’s going to happen. Here I was, 42 years later, writing novels, living in Boston and talking to Wayne Shorter on a cellphone. I never could have imagined it.

When I turned 29, all of a sudden out of nowhere I got this feeling that I wanted to write a novel — that I could do it. I couldn’t write anything that measured up to Dostoyevsky or Balzac, of course, but I told myself it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to become a literary giant. Still, I had no idea how to go about writing a novel or what to write about. I had absolutely no experience, after all, and no ready-made style at my disposal. I didn’t know anyone who could teach me how to do it, or even friends I could talk with about literature. My only thought at that point was how wonderful it would be if I could write like playing an instrument.

I had practiced the piano as a kid, and I could read enough music to pick out a simple melody, but I didn’t have the kind of technique it takes to become a professional musician. Inside my head, though, I did often feel as though something like my own music was swirling around in a rich, strong surge. I wondered if it might be possible for me to transfer that music into writing. That was how my style got started.

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that is new and meaningful. And if all goes well, you get to share that sense of elevation with your readers (your audience). That is a marvelous culmination that can be achieved in no other way.

Practically everything I know about writing, then, I learned from music. It may sound paradoxical to say so, but if I had not been so obsessed with music, I might not have become a novelist. Even now, almost 30 years later, I continue to learn a great deal about writing from good music. My style is as deeply influenced by Charlie Parker’s repeated freewheeling riffs, say, as by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegantly flowing prose. And I still take the quality of continual self-renewal in Miles Davis’s music as a literary model.

One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”

I often recall these words when I am writing, and I think to myself, “It’s true. There aren’t any new words. Our job is to give new meanings and special overtones to absolutely ordinary words.” I find the thought reassuring. It means that vast, unknown stretches still lie before us, fertile territories just waiting for us to cultivate them.

This essay was translated by Jay Rubin.

The caption of the photo up top, which accompanied the Times essay, reads, "Haruki Murakami at his jazz bar, Peter Cat, in Sendagaya, Tokyo, 1978."

Haruki Murakami’s most recent book is a novel, "After Dark".

Special thanks to BookOfJoe for posting this

The Hollywood sign… 

Statue of Liberty 

Funny posts. 

Link to YouTube [1] [2] 

Previously on P&F 

Hold on to them here 

"Too sexy for my bus," woman told

A German bus driver threatened to throw a 20-year-old sales clerk off his bus in the southern town of Lindau because he said she was too sexy, a newspaper reported Monday.

"Suddenly he stopped the bus," the woman named Debora C. told Bild newspaper. "He opened the door and shouted at me 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus.'"

Show me Miss Cellania's links

Bacon ice cream anyone? 

Don't forget 'Tuesday is bacon night' at Harris Grill, Pittsburg, PA. 

Bacon is a versatile breakfast ingredient but not limited to morning fare.

Keep abreast of what's happening in the bacon world, for example, did you know that scientists have cloned pigs that are engineered to contain omega-3 fatty acids, which produce healthier pork?

Mary Keller,
Librarian
"Can't they put some of that omega stuff in cigarettes?"

Apologies to my vegetarian friends for this posting, you need to look here now. 

 From Daily Mail article:

For when a budding author sent typed chapters of Jane Austen's novels to 18 of them, changing just the titles and characters' names, only one recognised her words.

Another managed to recognise they were 'a really original read'. But the rest simply rejected them or never responded, according to the man who posted the manuscripts, David Lassman.

"It was unbelievable," he said. "If the major publishers can't recognise great literature, who knows what might be slipping through the net?

Continue reading 

Via the folks at Neatorama 

From The Daily Telegraph: 

A FEUD between two Chinese towns over access to valuable wild fungus has erupted into a gun battle that left eight people dead and 44 wounded, Xinhua news agency has said.

The violence occurred in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of mountainous Sichuan province on Friday.

"A county government official said around 200 residents from Danba and Sumdo townships clashed in a dispute over access to wild fungus and firewood," Xinhua news agency said.

Some of those involved drew rifles and the gun battle lasted around 10 minutes, the official said.

China is grappling with growing social unrest, fuelled by disputes over land rights, corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor.

The official said that in April, residents from Sumdo were expelled by Danba township when they were caught collecting fungi in Danba.

In May, two people from Danba were assaulted near Sumdo.

"County officials had tried dozens of times since then to mediate, but their suggestions were rejected by residents of both townships," the official said.

The fungus is what Tibetans call "summer-grass winter-worm".

It forms when a parasitic fungus hijacks and devours the bodies of ghost moth larvae that have burrowed into the alpine soil for up to five years.

It then steers their bodies to the surface so it can spread its spores.

The mummified moths are a traditional Tibetan cure-all that promoters say helps fight AIDS, cancer and ageing.

As Tibetan medical ingredients have won adherents in China and abroad, the fungus and other alpine fungi and plants have become lucrative commodities, luring almost entire villages on harvests from May to July.

Link to article

Previously on P&F this is a mushroom

Update to previous post:

A 10-year-old girl who is worshipped as a living goddess in Nepal has had her title reinstated after defying tradition and visiting the US.

Temple authorities at her home town say that she will not be stripped of her title because she is willing shortly to undergo a "cleansing" ceremony.

Sajani Shakya was one of the three most-revered Kumaris, who are honoured by Hindus and Buddhists alike.

She was chosen after undergoing tests at the age of two.

Since then she has been expected to bless devotees and attend festivals until she reaches puberty.

But she provoked the ire of temple elders by travelling to the US.

Sajani returned from her visit to America on Wednesday. Correspondents say that she was "seemingly unaware" of the controversy.

Link BBC article with more pictures 

From roundup:

Each year, farmers in the town of Inakadate in Aomori prefecture create works of crop art by growing a little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru-roman variety.

It will be visible until the rice is harvested in September.

Link to Pink Tentacle 

Photo: KimTheWolf

From CNN:

The House on Wednesday evening overwhelmingly rejected President Bush's plan to eliminate the $420 million federal subsidy for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The 357-72 vote demonstrated the enduring political strength of public broadcasting. The outcome was never in doubt, unlike a fight two years ago when Republicans tried but failed to slash public broadcasting subsidies.

The move to kill subsidies for the CPB, which make up about 15 percent of its budget, was launched by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado.

"Taxpayers are being asked to pay more in taxes because Congress is not willing to make hard choices and balance our spending with our income," Lamborn said.

Show me more weird hats! 

Link to YouTube 

Photo: alsuga

In brief:

Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco was designed by architect Pier Luigi Nervi in 1971 and built amid an atmosphere of controversy. The building has been described by many as resembling an overgrown washing machine agitator, and several San Franciscans have taken to calling it "Our Lady of Maytag" for this resemblance. Others find the swooping pyramid shape refreshingly modern for sacred Catholic architecture.

Technical: 

The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, known familiarly as St. Mary's Cathedral, in San Francisco has become a landmark that annually draws thousands of people to this sacred structure, which combines the rich traditions of the Catholic faith with modern technology.

The cathedral's striking design flows from the geometric principle of the hyperbolic paraboloid, in which the structure curves upward in graceful lines from the four comers meeting in a cross. Measuring 255 feet square, the cathedral soars to 190 feet high and is crowned with a 55 foot golden cross.

Four corner pylons, each one designed to withstand ten million pounds of pressure, support the cupola, which rises 19 stories above the floor. The pylons measure just 24 feet in circumference at their narrowest point and extend 90 feet down into bedrock. The inner surface of the cupola is made up of 1680 pre-cast triangular coffers of 128 different sizes, designed to distribute the weight of the cupola. At each comer of the cathedral, vast windows look out upon spectacular views of San Francisco, the City of Saint Francis of Assisi. The cathedral's red brick floor recalls early Mission architecture, and the rich heritage of the local church.

Above the altar is a kinetic sculpture by Richard Lippold. Alive with reflected light, the 14 tiers of triangular aluminum rods symbolize the channel of love and grace from God to His people, and their prayers and praise rising to him. The sculpture, suspended by gold wires, is 15 stories high and weighs one ton.

The 'boob' story:

Urban legend also has it that the Catholic Church sued the architect over the appearance of the breast, claiming that the appearance of a naked breast on the side of a cathedral somehow mocks the Church, which is reputed for being uptight about sexuality.

…

On the issue of the Catholic Church's lawsuit, extensive research shows no evidence that the church ever filed suit against Nervi or even threatened to. The rumor could have started by the "telephone game" effect after individuals associated with the church or the Archdiocese made private commentary on the shape, but even this is idle speculation. 

See more about breasts (from the fabulous Miss Cellania)

Photo: sfegette 

From article:

The San Francisco Taxi Commission is set to decide this evening whether one of the city's cabs is "associated with evil and Satan.''

 A few years ago, Thigpen said, the cab held by medallion holder 666 "burned to a crisp on Good Friday ... and the only thing remaining after the fire were the numbers 666, visible in the rubble.''

Byrne, a 30-year veteran driver, was assigned No. 666 only last August, Thigpen said, after another applicant refused to accept the number. Since then, sources said, Byrne has been involved in at least one accident -- even after taking the precaution of having the cab blessed at Mission Dolores.

A commission clerk, who asked not to be identified, said Byrne "had many deaths around him and his family'' and that getting rid of the cursed number "is an idea that speaks for itself.''

Read article

Update:

The devil gets to keep riding around in a San Francisco cab, the San Francisco taxi commission decreed on Tuesday.

After nearly half an hour of discussion and debate, the commission brought the weight of government to the question of whether to grant a request by a San Francisco cab driver seeking to retire Medallion No. 666 because of the number's association with Satan.

The debate was the best show to play City Hall in some time. It featured commissioners bickering good-naturedly with one another, the head of the cab drivers union arguing before the board with red horns on his head and several other cabbies pleading for common sense, a quality not always found in the stone building at Civic Center.

At issue was the request of veteran driver Michael Byrne, who said he has had bad luck and misfortune since being assigned the supposedly cursed number last year.

Commission President Paul Gillespie said he favored granting the request, "and hopefully we can do this quickly so we never have to deal with this again.''

But with the underworld, the Book of Revelation and the Mark of the Beast at stake, quickness was not to be. Six cabbies had something to say during public comment.

"How dare you take Lucifer's number away,'' said Thomas George-Williams, president of the cab drivers union, who was sporting the red horns. "This is a serious issue.''

A cabbie named Tom warned the commission that it was "opening a can of worms" and would soon be deluged with requests to retire other numbers. A cabbie named Barry pointed out that 666 was the address of SS Peter and Paul's Church on Filbert Street, an outfit not thought to be in Satan's pocket. A cabbie named Grasshopper said it was a "bad idea to get into mysticism and voodoo.''

Photo: hardran3

Article:

The mail-order minister of a Hollywood church that burns marijuana during services and allegedly sells it to members says that's protected under federal law because the drug is a religious sacrament.

But Judge Mary Strobel has ruled that the Reverend Craig X. Rubin can't use federal law as a defense because he faces only state charges.

Rubin, who's representing himself at his drug trial, says members of his Temple 420 believe that marijuana is the tree of life mentioned in the Bible.

Though ordained in 1990 by the Universal Life Church, police and prosecutors describe Rubin as a drug dealer. He faces up to seven years in prison if convicted of possessing marijuana for sale.

The 41-year-old Rubin has no legal experience, and says he spent last weekend praying and smoking marijuana with Indians in a sweat lodge at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Found here 

The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

"Green Pear with Zipper Open," 2006,
blown glass and mixed media, 8 x 8 x 4"

Link via neatorama 

"My Pet Fish" Soap looks like the bag that you carry home from the pet store, but don’t be fooled…these plastic fish are not swimming in water, they are embedded in clear, vegetable based glycerin soap shaped like "water in a bag". A great party favor. Fun for kids from 1 to 100. Comes in assorted colors; let us choose the color. Soap has no scent; measures about 3 1/2"H x 3" at widest; 5 1/2" from top to bottom of bag.

Link via arbroath 

Images found here

From article:

A mysterious blonde paid a visit to a petrol station shop in the small eastern German town of Doemitz on Sunday -- wearing nothing but a pair of golden stilettos and a thin gold bracelet.

The tall, slender woman strolled into the shop in the town of Doemitz on the warm afternoon and bought cigarettes, petrol station employee Ines Swoboda told Reuters on Monday.

"I wasn't surprised because she's come in naked before -- she's a very nice woman," Swoboda said, adding none of the other customers was bothered. The woman could have faced charges of creating a public disturbance if anyone had complained.

A quick-witted customer did, however, snap pictures of the woman believed to be about 30 years old as she walked back to a waiting Ferrari and climbed into the passenger seat. Several of those photos appeared in the German media on Monday.

Wonder if she knows this woman 

Link to Reuters 

Come join the slowest-growing religion in the world - Dudeism. An ancient philosophy that preaches non-preachiness, practices as little as possible, and above all, uh...lost my train of thought there. Anyway, if you'd like to find peace on earth and goodwill, man, we'll help you get started. Right after a little nap.

Link to Dudeism.com via The Presurfer

Previously on P&F:

Link to YouTube

From thedudeiseverywhere.com, you might be a dude if:

1. You wear your dressing gown to the supermarket.
2. You have begun writing cheques for less than £1 (or $1).
3. You are partial to Thai Stick and a good ‘caucasian’.
4. You have a habit of using the royal ‘we’, you know, the editorial…
5. Your car has developed some rust ‘colouration’.
6. You enjoy the occasional acid flashback.
7. You have been known to occupy various administrative buildings.
8. You hate the Eagles, no, you really hate the f-ing Eagles.
9. You have no idea what day this is.
10. You are unemployed.

Lebowski lexicon

So you think you know the McDonald's menu like the back of your hand? Think again. From McDonald's international, here are some menu items you have probably never tried before.

Ingmar Bergman in a 1981 photo. Bergman died on Monday at the age of 89, local news agency TT reported, citing his daughter Eva Bergman. (REUTERS/Jacob Forsell/File)

From article:

When the news broke that Ingmar Bergman had died on the lonely and windswept island of Faro, off the coast of Sweden, it seemed like an appropriately tragic spot. Bergman spent a lifetime creating lonely and windswept movies: a cinema of inner life in which man was tormented by his relationship with women and with God.

He was sort of a poet of anguish (his first screenplay, written in 1944, was called Torment), whose best-known movies were existential meditations on the meaning of life. The most famous scene in a Bergman film was in the 1957 religious allegory The Seventh Seal in which Max von Sydow -- part of a Bergman repertory company, along with Liv Ullman, with whom he had a daughter -- portrays a knight who plays chess with Death. It’s a scene that sums up the tragic symbolism of Bergman’s oeuvre, and it defined his public image for many years: in one of a number of parodies, the heroes of Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey play Twister with Death.

Bergman himself may have enjoyed the satire. Despite the austerity of his movies, he had a puckish side. When a Swedish film magazine published an "anti-Bergman" issue, Bergman himself contributed a critical piece, under a pseudonym. Near the end of his career, he acknowledged that he was depressed by his own movies and couldn’t watch them any more.

Link to article 

Photos: idealterna 

From article:

Shielded by bodyguards and away from the sight of curious beachgoers, Woody Allen started shooting his new film in Barcelona on Monday.

Allen shot some scenes at a restaurant in a fishermen's neighborhood in Barcelona with actress Scarlett Johansson, who plays a tourist in the film.

The American film director and actor said last week at a news conference in Barcelona he hoped to create a portrait of the northeastern Spanish city on par with his 1979 masterpiece "Manhattan."

The veteran director said he aimed to picture Barcelona "the same way I presented Manhattan to the world through my eyes."

Barcelona would be the second European city to feature in a full-length Allen movie.

The film, yet to be named, is due to headline Johansson, Allen's latest muse and star of his recent London-based films "Scoop" and "Matchpoint," and Spanish actors Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

Continue reading 

From Wonkette:

It’s almost too depressing to mention again, but let’s recap the Pat Tillman revelations from Army medical examiners and internal Pentagon reports released last week and find out what happens when famous football stars turned Army Heroes become anti-war critics:

• He was shot three times in the forehead at close range with an American M-16.
  
  
• This was after he was shot in the chest, legs and hand.
  
  
• And this was after he screamed to the “friendlies” that he was Pat Tillman and please stop shooting him.
  
  
• But they didn’t; they executed him.
  
  
• They were Americans.
  
  
• There wasn’t even an “enemy” around; not only was nobody shot by “enemy fire,” no equipment was shot by “enemy fire.”
  
  
• “Members of Tillman’s unit burned his body armor and uniform in an apparent attempt to hide the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.”
  
  
• Army medical examiners tried to get a criminal investigation opened, but they were shut down.
  
  
• The Army brass who conspired to shut down any criminal investigation into the U.S. assassination of Pat Tillman sent “congratulatory e-mails” to each other after shutting down the snoops.
  
  
• The Pentagon heavily promoted Tillman’s enlistment and service as both a recruitment tool and a domestic propaganda tool.
  
  
• The Pentagon maintained for long after his murder that Tillman died in combat, finally admitting to his family that “friendly fire” killed him — which wasn’t exactly true, either.
  
  
• Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, who commanded Tillman’s base in Afghanistan at the time of his assassination, dismissed Tillman’s family’s attempts to find out what happened. Why? Because Pat Tillman was an atheist, like his family, so they were having “a hard time letting it go.”
  
  
• In his writings — Tillman wrote constantly in letters and diaries and e-mails — the NFL star who became an Army Ranger after 9/11 had concluded the Afghanistan War was fake and the Iraq War was a criminal setup.
  
  
• The Pentagon still has his diary that he kept with him in Afghanistan, where he was killed, and they won’t release it to his family.
  
  
• Tillman had even arranged a meeting with anti-war icon Noam Chomsky about how to go public with a veterans-against-the-war movement.
  
  
• Such a movement would’ve had an interesting effect on the Iraq Occupation and the then-upcoming 2004 election; Tillman had already been encouraging his fellow soldiers to vote against Bush.
  
  
• Just today, Donald Rumsfeld refused to testify on the subject of Tillman’s assassination before Congress on Wednesday.
  
  
• White House Counsel Fred Fielding has, of course, already “refused to issue certain documents to the committee because of executive privilege.”
  
  
• What is the White House doing with “certain documents” about Pat Tillman’s murder?
  
  
• Says Pat Tillman Sr.: “The administration clearly was using this case for its own political reasons. This cover-up started within minutes of Pat’s death, and it started at high levels. This is not something that people in the field do.”

 

This is pretty amazing, among the authors whose works are available here:

Link to Flickr Pool

Photo: Alice and Indiana Jones

Dublin, Ireland: 

The theft of National Wax Museum figures will not stop next month's reopening of the tourist attraction, the museum's management insisted today.

Dozens of models, including Bob the Builder, the Teletubbies and Frankenstein , were stolen from a warehouse in central Dublin last month.

Replica uniforms from the Easter Rising and World War Two periods were also taken in the robbery, which occurred in the south inner city at some time between June 3rd and 20th.

Silence of the Lambs character Hannibal Lecter, Gollum from Lord of the Rings and guitars used by The Edge of U2 and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott were stolen.

A new Dublin location for the National Museum is expected to be announced in a fortnight. The museum's former building in Parnell Square was sold in 2005, but its stock of wax figures was purchased by new owners.

"The damage was quite extensive," museum owner Kay Murray said today. "Whoever did it was looking for uniforms, because most of our uniforms were stolen. They're really worth nothing to the person who has them, they're of no material worth. They can't wear them."

The museum's sculptor is working to repair damaged wax figures for the reopening.

"It's not going to stop the museum reopening. It will just delay us. We hope to make an announcement in two weeks," said Ms Murray.

"I didn't go to the press because I wanted the Garda to handle this themselves and do it their way. But as of yet, they have come up with nothing," she told RTÉ Radio.

The museum will feature previous favourites like the Chamber of Horrors, a Hall of Megastars and the Children's World of Fairytale and Fantasy.

Life-sized figures from the historical, cultural and political development of Ireland including WB Yeats, James Joyce and Eamon De Valera will also be on show.

Found at Ireland.com 

I think you'll find this site is interesting whether or not you work in the industry. 

Link via The Presurfer 

Painting Likely Done While Artist Was In Asylum, Experts Say

From article:

Art expert and historians in Boston and Amsterdam announced Friday that they have discovered a valuable lost work by the painter Vincent Van Gogh hidden under an existing canvas at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, discovered the Van Gogh painting underneath the artist's painting entitled "Ravine," which is owned by the MFA.

MFA conservator Meta Chavannes was conducting a technical examination of "Ravine" and discovered the existence of the second painting below the paint surface of the work.

Upon meeting with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and Louis van Tilborgh, the Van Gogh research curator at the Van Gogh Museum, it was established that the underlying composition was most likely painted in June 1889, the museum said, during the early period of Van Gogh's stay at the asylum of Saint-Paul de Mausole near the Provençal town of Saint-Rémy, and was reused as a support for Ravine a few months later, in October 1889.

Van Tilborgh related the X-radiograph of Ravine to a drawing Van Gogh sent his brother in mid-1889 entitled "Wild Vegetation."

Scholars have suggested that this drawing, in the Van Gogh Museum, forms part of group of around a dozen drawn copies of paintings that the artist sent to his brother Theo in July 1889, but no painting was known upon which this particular drawing could have been based. As a result of this current research, the lost painting has been rediscovered, officials said.

Tables turned: Madigan flees a throng of reporters

This was an incredibly stupid move, especially as she refused credentials four times from the organisers. Hope for her sakes, she has up-to-date security on her laptop.

Link to YouTube clip 

From the Register:

A rare moment of drama came to Defcon when a woman fled the conference after being identified in front of hundreds of other attendees as an undercover television reporter on a crusade to expose collusion between cyber criminals and federal agents.

The woman, identified by conference organizers as a producer for Dateline NBC, bolted a few minutes after a panel called Spot the Fed began. After being tipped off about the covert operation - and knowing the producer was in the audience - organizers announced to the standing-room only crowd that the contest was being changed to "spot the undercover reporter."

Defcon founder Jeff Moss told the crowd that there was a real, covert reporter in their very midst and then asked if attendees thought she should be ejected for violating Defcon rules concerning the taking of photos and videos of conference attendees. Before the audience could respond, the woman bolted from the room and was quickly given chase by a throng of reporters.

For years, Defcon has imposed strict conditions on those attending. Video and photos are not permitted unless the subjects have given their permission. Those covering the event for news organizations must apply for a press credential and are subjected to greater enforcement of the privacy rules.

Defcon "is like Switzerland, its neutral territory," said a senior conference staff member who goes by the name Priest. "The feds come in and they don't arrest us. We don't turn their phones into 976 numbers," he added, referring to the telephone prefix used by phone sex operators and other to automatically charge the caller a set fee.

Priest said organizers were tipped off about the producer's plans by someone who was thoroughly familiar with the story. According to Priest, the producer told the informant that "the people in Kansas would be very interested in knowing what was happening at Defcon."

Organizers were able to confirm that the woman had a camera in a small black bag that allowed her to surreptitiously video tape people attending the show. She hoped to tape people admitting to breaking the law and then attempt to tie them to federal agents who also attended the show. At one point, she was observed panning a room with her hidden camera.
Picture of reporter in car as she drives away

The woman was identified as Michelle Madigan, an associate producer for Dateline. As she exited the conference room, a Defcon staff member suggested she accept a press credential and continue covering the conference.

"Like a thief in the night, she decided to flee," said Priest.

The woman declined to comment at least four times as several dozen people, many of them reporters, followed her through the parking lot of the Riviera Hotel, where the conference is being held. She eventually got into a silver Infinity and drove off.

After being tipped off, conference organizers asked Madigan on four occasions if she might want a press credential. Each time, she declined. Once she arrived at the conference, organizers kept her under surveillance.

Despite the unusual scrutiny Madigan received - and the fact that her picture and alleged plan had been posted on Wired and other publications for hours prior to her outing - the producer never suspected her cover was blown, said Priest.

"Not very bright," he said.

Video and performance artist Amber Hawk Swanson ordered a life-sized, realistic sex doll made to look just like her, and named it Amber. The couple scampered off to Vegas and got married. "Their wedding video and other footage documenting their relationship will screen for the public this week," reports the Chicago Reader. Link.

Previous doll posts on P&F: 

Real Dolls and the men who love them…

Over the last few weeks I've been running into articles on this topic including an excellent documentary by Channel 4.

Link to documentary 'Guys and Dolls'.

Link

I find it hysterical that because "Simple warnings no longer work" they have to mete out such a harsh deterrant!

From SFGate:

Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.

Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won't wear the armband in public.

The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.

"Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor," said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.

"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps," Pongpat said.

He said police caught breaking the law will be subject the same fines and penalties as any other members of the public.

"We want to make sure that we do not condone small offenses," Pongpat said, adding that the CSD believed that getting tough on petty misdemeanors would lead to fewer cases of more serious offenses including abuse of power and mistreatment of the public by police officers.

Hello Kitty, invented by Sanrio Co. in 1974, has been popular for years with children and young women. The celebrity cat adorns everything from diamond-studded jewelry, Fender guitars and digital cameras to lunch boxes, T-shirts and stationery.

Kevin Mitnick

From marvequin: 

1. Kevin Mitnick.

Mitnick is perhaps synonymous with Hacker. The Department of Justice still refers to him as "the most wanted computer criminal in United States history." His accomplishments were memorialized into two Hollywood movies: Takedown and Freedom Downtime.

Mitnick got his start by exploiting the Los Angeles bus punch card system and getting free rides. Then similar to Steve Wozniak, of Apple, Mitnick tried Phone Phreaking. Mitnick was first convicted for hacking into the Digital Equipment Corporation's computer network and stealing software.

Mitnick then embarked on a two and a half year coast to coast hacking spree. He has stated that he hacked into computers, scrambled phone networks, stole corporate secrets and hacked into the national defense warning system. His fall came when he hacked into fellow computer expert and hacker Tsutomu Shimomura's home computer.

Farmers in Isle of Ruegen, Northern Germany have used Global Positioning System (GPS) to plough a huge pig image (37,000 square metres) on a cornfield. Not the best quality of crop art, but looks cute…

Link via spulch 

Link to YouTube via BBC 

If you didn't know the name Rhain Davis before, you almost certainly do now.

The nine-year-old, a recent recruit for Manchester United's academy, is now the talk of football - thanks to a DVD of him in action for Brisbane club Redlands United.

He even made the front page of The Sun newspaper - who have immediately, and somewhat inevitably, dubbed him the new Wayne Rooney.

An unnamed 'source' told the paper: "He has created a huge buzz and people are raving about him all over the world."

The video, which is said to have already had more than three million viewers on YouTube, is undeniably impressive. The youngster dances round defenders, performs some step-overs a la Cristiano Ronaldo and delivers defence-splitting passes. 

F Cup Cookies make breast implants obsolete. Making your breasts bigger is now as simple as eating 2 cookies a day. They come in packs of 4 for ¥290, each cookie containing 50mg of that miracle breast enlarging herb Pueraria Mirifica. How many cookies you'll have to eat to get size F Cup is unknown.

Link via neatorama 

Found here 

Wait a minute, homeless  world cup?

From Spiegel:

The Homeless World Cup brought 500 homeless people from around the world to Denmark to play soccer. But Copenhagen appears to have been too welcoming -- 15 players have overstayed their visas and gone underground.

The Afghanistan team parades in Copenhagen's City Hall Square during the opening ceremonies of the Homeless World Cup. One of their players has gone missing, along with 14 Africans.

Photo: Woody Norvell

From The Guardian:

Federal police said Monday that the beer tap failed aboard a special train carrying Bayer Leverkusen fans to Hamburg on Saturday. The fault was discovered half an hour into the journey.

"In order not to endanger the good mood" of the passengers, railway officials halted the train in Wuppertal for 25 minutes and had a replacement part delivered by taxi, a police statement said. It added that there was no trouble among the fans.

Their team was less obliging. Top-division Leverkusen's 1-0 elimination from the cup by second-division St. Pauli in a first-round upset left its fans with plenty of sorrows to drown on the way home.

 Link

Link to Flash movie 

This illusion can be pretty harsh on the eyes but worth it for some excellent results.

Link to Crooked Brains and more images 

From  ABC:

A giant, smiling Lego man has been fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort.

Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre tall model, which had a yellow head and blue torso.

"We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy."

A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England."

The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall. 

Designer and Illustrator Bill McMullen silk-screens these wads as part of his "One Million." Shown here, 1 of 100 blocks, second edition.

From englishrussia: 

Lately some Russian newspapers post photos of these strange Chinese dolls. You can see the scanned piece of article from one Russian regional newspaper. The reason for the panic is that in Russian children toy stores have appeared strange Chinese dolls looking like a girl-doll but if fully undressed there can be something found that better would suit for a boy-doll.
People demand to band those dolls from being sold on the territory of Russia and claim that it maybe done on purpose by some evil forces from outside of Russia in order to form a bad perception of female/male orientation from the early age.

Found at Moillusions

If you look at the spinning girl's silhouette below, you will think it is spinning clockwise, probably. When you check her shadow below, momentarily the spinning direction changes in your mind, and now the girl is spinning counter-clockwise. It can be quite hard at the beginning to notice switch of the spinning direction, but eventually you'll manage.

 via yeinjee

80% are within a mile of my place, woo hoo! 

Link 

Very little coverage of this story in the US Media.

Link to YouTube clip of a story CTV ran on the banner unfurling

From CBC article: 

Three Canadians arrested by Chinese police following a protest at the Great Wall against China's presence in Tibet have been released.

The British Columbian activists — Lhadon Tethong, Sam Price and Melanie Raoul — left China after their release on Wednesday and flew into Hong Kong.

Lhadon Tethong, the driving force behind this protest, has generated a lot of online buzz through the smart use of internet technologies, blogging, live video etc. 

See also:

Technology for Tibet Trumps Tyranny!

Tech-savvy pro-Tibet protesters get message across

From London to Lhasa Students for a Free Tibet UK blog their stories, thoughts, and actions.

From article:

A controversy is brewing in this Cascade foothill town involving a famous bird on four wheels.

Hanna Dahlquist's pet rooster is one bird that's got game.

"He skateboards," says Hanna. "He thinks he can go faster when he's aerodynamic."

In fact, the rooster rides so well, Hanna named him Tony Chickenhawk.

Video

Rooster causes controversy

Raw: Scateboarding rooster

"I named him after Tony Hawk because he is like a really famous skateboarder and my chicken skateboards," says Hanna.

Link 

Drunk driving defendant says he needs the source code to the Intoxilyzer 5000EN to fight the charges in court. Without seeing the code he claims it may just be a random number generator.

He won the argument. This is unfortunate because typically, CMI, the maker of the Intoxilyzer 5000EN refuses to release the source and the case is subsequently thrown out. like what happened