Puppies and Flowers

Found image
Disclaimer: image represents a Raelian craft and not one of the Xists. see below

CLEVELAND, Ohio, January 4, 2008: The Church of the SubGenius has announced that the end of the world will take place on Saturday, July 5, 2008. In preparation for the fulfillment of this doomsday prophecy, the Church is requesting that all of its members participate in a bizarre religious ceremony taking place in upstate New York, during the final weekend before the arrival of the apocalypse.

Since its inception in 1953, Church founder J.R. "Bob" Dobbs has predicted that a fleet of flying saucers will arrive at the beginning of July to destroy the worldwide Conspiracy against the Church of the SubGenius, while all ordained SubGenius ministers will be rescued by escape vessels piloted by the Alien Sex Goddesses, also known as the Xists.

The Church is inviting all of its members worldwide to gather together for the final hours in Sherman, New York from Wednesday, July 2 to Sunday, July 6, at a clothing-optional outdoor campground called Brushwood Folklore Center. The first gathering at this compound took place in 1996, and the event has increased in size and participants each following year. 1998 was designated the first true "X-Day," and each successive year has added one to the total. This year's celebration in 2008 is X-Day 11, or X-Day XI. 

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Photo: autan

Well France and Germany believe the cause is a Bayer CropScience pesticide. 

A German prosecutor is investigating Werner Wenning, Bayer's chairman, and Friedrich Berschauer, the head of Bayer CropScience, after critics alleged that they knowingly polluted the environment.

The investigation was triggered by an Aug. 13 complaint filed by German beekeepers and consumer protection advocates, a Coalition against Bayer Dangers spokesman, Philipp Mimkes, said Monday.

The complaint is part of efforts by groups on both sides of the Atlantic to determine how much Bayer CropScience knows about the part that clothianidin may have played in the death of millions of honeybees.

…

"We're suspecting that Bayer submitted flawed studies to play down the risks of pesticide residues in treated plants," said Harro Schultze, the coalition's attorney.

"Bayer's ... management has to be called to account, since the risks ... have now been known for more than 10 years."

And the EPA you ask? 

The ban in Germany, and Cummins’ call for a U.S. ban, should be no surprise to the EPA. The agency’s own fact sheet on clothianidin shows that it has known of the dangers to bees since it conditionally approved the chemical in 2003.

…

On the other side of the Atlantic, the Natural Resources Defense Council is pressing for research information on clothianidin.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved the pesticide in 2003 under the condition that Bayer submit additional data. A lawsuit, which the environmental group filed Aug. 19 in federal court in Washington, accuses the EPA of hiding the honeybee data.

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Video after the link. From Gizmodo:

This video shows how FEMA no only deals with credible threats as hurricanes and terrorist attacks, but also with credible threats like alien attacks and UFO crashes: They have an entire chapter dedicated to this topic in their firefighters manual. Great. As if it wasn't enough with the UK government revealing airplane encounters with UFOs and Hubble discovering unidentified objects in Space to fuel my absolutely cuckoo, sculpt-giant-mountains-out-of-mash-potatoes, I-hope aliens-are-two-meter-tall-buxom-blue-amazons, I-want-to-ride-a-warp-capable-spaceship fantasies.

Xeni Jardin over at BoingBoing has an interesting piece on the Tibetan New Year's protest over Chinese human rights abuse:

Today, February 25, 2009, is the date on which Tibetan New Year -- Losar -- begins. Many Tibetan exiles around the world are observing Losar in a different manner this year. Some are forgoing traditional observances to instead protest human rights abuses by the Chinese government inside Tibet. There are reports that Chinese authorites are effectively making Losar celebrations inside Tibet compulsory, and reactions have led to violent clashes.

From MSNBC:

DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal.

In its decision, the court upheld a 2007 district court judge's ruling that the law violates the state constitution. It strikes the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman.

"The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa constitution must be declared void even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion," said a summary of the ruling issued by the court.

www.re-winder.com

Conficker (aka Downadup, Kido) is known to block access to over 100 anti-virus and security websites.

If you are blocked from loading the remote images in the first row of the top table above (AV/security sites) but not blocked from loading the remote images in the second row (websites of alternative operating systems) then your Windows PC may be infected by Conficker (or some other malicious software).

If you can see all six images in both rows of the top table, you are either not infected by Conficker, or you may be using a proxy server, in which case you will not be able to use this test to make an accurate determination, since Conficker will be unable to block you from viewing the AV/security sites. Check my computer.

I want to get the set already—just because.

From CNN:

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Homer Simpson and his cartoon family soon will help you get letters, bills and packages to their destinations.

On Thursday, the U.S. Postal Service revealed five first-class stamps featuring characters from the Fox animated series "The Simpsons" -- Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie -- that will hit a post office near you May 7.

"This is the biggest and most adhesive honor 'The Simpsons' has ever received," creator Matt Groening said.

The TV show, the longest running prime-time sitcom, was chosen from about 50,000 stamp subject suggestions submitted last year, the Postal Service said.

"We are emotionally moved by the Postal Service selecting us rather than making the lazy choice of someone who has benefited society," said "Simpsons" producer James L. Brooks. Read on

Tagline: Thinking Saves Lives Wear A Helmet
Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson Polska, Warsaw, Poland
Creative Director: Teresa Biernacka

This seems like a feature Google should have had all along. When browsing images you get the option to select similar images based on results.

I still prefer Flickr, here are some Flickr and non-FlickrTools.

1. Multicolr Search Lab

Select up to 10 colors and get image results that use that palette. Pretty cool.

We extracted the colours from 3 million “interesting” Flickr images. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour.

Link to Multicolr Search Lab

2. CompFight

Unsure how this site does it, but it generates search results twice as fast a search on Flickr itself, even displays the pixel dimensions of the largest version of the image available. I use this site ALL the time.

These illustrations come from the book “The Frenchmen and the 7 Deadly Sins”, by Cyril Satorsky.

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www.doihavepigflu.com

The SWINE FLU Vaccination for the new pandemic circa 1976:

Mia Farrow has been chronicling her hunger strike on YouTube for eight days, and she says that's just the beginning.

The actress and activist has committed to three weeks of an all-water diet in support of refugees in Darfur, where Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir expelled or shut down 16 aid agencies -- a move that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said put the lives of more than 1 million people at risk.

Farrow has been keeping an irregular video blog of her fast on her own YouTube channel, as well as on the channel of Darfur Fast for Life, an organization that fellow activists put together to draw attention to Farrow's efforts.

As of tonight, 75 other people had signed up on the site to join Farrow in the fast. Some said they would only drink water; others said they would eat the same rations as those in Darfur. 

Participants in the growing online hunger strike have been posting updates to Twitter and posting to YouTube.

Farrow, a slight 64-year-old, said in a recent video that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to last the full 21 days -- she has never fasted before, and her doctor was skeptical.

Still, she was resolved to make a statement. "Of course I don't expect that me on hunger strike is going to do that much," Farrow said in the video. "But if it provides a news hook for newspapers so they can talk about what's really important, then that will be worth it."

Gabriel Stauring, who helped organize the site, expressed concern for Farrow, with whom he said he'd traveled to Darfur last summer. "You’ve seen Mia’s size," he said. "There’s no way she can go that long without doing permanent damage. We want to convince her that if we have somebody else that is famous and that would draw attention, that she should stop." Stauring suggested that more recognizable names might be joining the effort soon.

Also striking is Pam Omidyar, a founder of the philanthropic group Humanity United, and the wife of EBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar has been eating the refugee meals for 18 days, according to her blog on fastdarfur.org. 

Farrow appeared on CNN's Larry King Live on the day she began the strike, and will reappear on the show Tuesday night, according to Stauring.

Source

These ads for the "Society of Cardiology of the Russian Federation" were shot by Dylan Collard.