I don’t have everything to add, except to note that what you see IS cardboard, but enjoy the pix.
Posted via mobile.
Worst Ride Pimping Ever
Category: Weird
My Hero of the Day
I got nothing to add but, “hurray!”
Iranian Woman Beats the Crap Out of Cleric for Telling Her to Cover Up
A cleric in Iran went crying to the country’s state-run Mehr News Agency after a run-in with a woman who responded to his repeated requests to cover up by kicking the crap out of him.
While walking to a mosque in the northern city of Shahmirzad, Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti says he encountered a “badly covered” woman, and proceeded to “politely” order her to correct her outfit.
“You, cover your eyes,” the woman reportedly responded. He then told her again to cover up, at which point she decided she’d had enough.
“Not only didn’t she cover herself up, but she also insulted me,” the cleric told Mehr. “I asked her not to insult me anymore, but she started shouting and threatening me. She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me.“
On Clint Eastwood’s Speech
I cannot wait to see how Stewart and Colbert address this.
Here are some pictures for your edification, swiped from the Stellar Parthenon BBS:
I really don’t have anything else to add.
OK, This is So F%$# Creepy It’s Not F%$#ing Funny
H/t Vonners Cthulhu at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
In the Ocean, No One Can Hear You Scream
This critter does have an H.R. Giger thing going on.
H/t Vonners at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
It’s World Middle Finger Day
What the F%$#?
So, I’m driving to work, and they are discussing auto insurance rates, and they note that Massachusetts is one of the 3 cheapest states for auto insurance in the USA.
Over lunch, I confirm this.
I went to school in Massachusetts, and I had friends who used friends and relatives addresses in New Hampshire to register their car to save on insurance costs.
We have entered Bizarro world.
The idea that Massachusetts drivers have among the lowest rates in the nation is mind boggling.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??!!??!!??
Wingnut Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, he of the “emergency manager” law intended to make sure that Black votes don’t count, has just vetoed the latest voter suppression bill to come out of the Michigan lege:
Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed election reform bills that sparked angry protests and cries of voter suppression during committee hearings.
Snyder, in one day doubling the number of bills vetoed during his tenure, nixed bills that aimed to prevent voting fraud by requiring a voter to reaffirm U.S. citizenship before receiving a ballot and requiring photo ID when picking up an absentee ballot from a city office.
He also rejected a bill that would have required training for people, companies and organizations participating in voter registration drives.
Snyder in a release said he appreciates the issue of ensuring voters are eligible and U.S. citizens, but believes the bills would have created voter confusion among absentee voters.
Snyder also said he supports the concept of training individuals involved in voter registration, but said the changes with the registration of third party voter registration organizations, and the timing and training of those entities, may cause confusion with ongoing voter registration efforts.
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this.
He’s arguably one of the three biggest Teabagger governors in the country, and he just vetoed a Republican voter suppression effort.
Who Says that Irony is Dead?
I present to you the The Karl Marx MasterCard:
No, this is not a photoshop.
Some context:
Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, some eastern Germans are once again carrying round images of Karl Marx – if only in their pockets.
The disappearance of communist former East Germany has not deterred them from using credit cards emblazoned with the image of the man who foretold the end of capitalism and the triumph of communism.
More than a third of customers at Sparkasse bank in Chemnitz opted for the picture of a bronze bust of the bearded 19th century German-born philosopher, bank spokesman Roger Wirtz said.
Marx’s stern face is depicted gazing towards the logo of Mastercard.
Excuse while my head explodes. <Jimi Hendrix guitar riff>
And I, For One, Welcome Our New Zombie Overlords
Over the past few weeks, there has been an outbreak of zombie apocalypse sort of behaviors, we had the (all allegedly):
- The face eating incident
- The guy who ate his roommate’s heart and brain
- The pr0n star who raped and ate a man, and then mailed body part to authorities.
- Brain eating, (plus toes) mother to infant, using swords. (This one is 3 years old)
- A man cutting off and eating his wife’s lips in response to suspected adultery.
No wonder the CDC has issued a denial of the existence of any disease that causes zombiesim.
I don’t believe in the undead, but something weird is going one here.
H/t CD at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
You Have Got to Be Kidding Me
I did not think that it was possible for a pedophile priest could get any less sympathetic, but the Transportation Security Administration has proved me wrong, because they hired him as a supervisor of the gropers at Philadelphia International Airport:
The CBS 3 I-Team has learned that a Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations now holds a sensitive security post at Philadelphia International Airport.
The security checkpoint between Terminals D and E is a busy place where thousands of people – including lots of kids – pass through every day. But you might not believe who the I-Team observed working as a TSA supervisor at that checkpoint this week: Thomas Harkins.
Until 2002, Harkins was a Catholic priest working at churches across South Jersey. But the Diocese of Camden removed him from ministry because it found he sexually abused two young girls. Now, in a new lawsuit, a third woman is claiming she also is one of Harkins’ victims.
The I-Team asked Harkins about the suit as he was leaving his shift at the airport.
“I have nothing to say,” was Harkins’ reply.
The new lawsuit, filed in federal court against the Camden Diocese says quite a bit. It accuses Harkins of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl 10 to 15 times in 1980 and 1981. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the alleged victim, claims the abuse occurred while Harkins was a priest at Saint Anthony of Padua parish in Hammonton, NJ, with one assault even occurring in Harkins’ bedroom at the rectory.
Seriously, this just boggles the mind.
BTW, props to the Camden Diocese, which, unlike to many other dioceses, got rid of this guy, but f%$# the TSA.
H/T Americablog.
A Saint’s Bones, Ronald Reagan’s Blood, It’s All the Same
It appears that someone has found an old vial of Reagan’s blood, and is selling it:
Ronald Reagan’s foundation expressed outrage on Monday at a British company’s auction of what it says is a vial of the late U.S. president’s blood taken at the hospital where he was treated after a 1981 assassination attempt.
PFC Auctions, a company based in Guernsey in the United Kingdom, announced on Sunday that it would sell the vial of blood in an online auction set to end on Thursday.
The vial was taken at George Washington University Hospital on March 30, 1981, after Reagan was wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., PFC Auctions said on its website. It is said to have come from a person whose late mother had worked at a medical lab.
“If indeed this story is true, it’s a craven act and we will use every legal means to stop its sale or purchase,” John Heubusch, executive director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, said in a statement.
The website for PFC Auctions said the latest online bid for the vial stood at 6,270 British pounds ($9,910). A PFC Auctions representative could not be reached for comment.
I guess that this is the Republican equivalent of a piece of the true cross, or Jesus’ foreskin. (Yes, Virginia, one of the medieval scams was his foreskin.)
BTW, here is the kicker:
The seller said he or she had contacted the California-based Ronald Reagan Library and Museum, which is run by the late president’s foundation, months ago and had been told that Reagan’s family would like to have the vial given to them.
“I told him that I didn’t think that was something that I was going to consider … and that I was a real fan of Reaganomics and felt that President Reagan himself would rather see me sell it rather than donating it,” the statement said.
H/t Ed Kilgore. BTW, read the comments on the his post, they are hysterical.
Lamest Political Party in the History
Professor Pongoo
Pole to poll: Professor Pongoo won more votes than the Liberal Democrats in a council election in Edinburgh. Photograph: Ali Tibbitt/ STV
While there are significantly less viable parties out there, Canada’s Rhineroceros Party, and the Monster Raving Looney Party in the UK, but because they fancy themselves as being in the big leagues in Britain, the Liberal-Democrats win the prize:
If there was a symbol of the Liberal Democrats’ discomfiture as their vote plummeted across Scotland and the rest of the UK, it came in the shape of a penguin.
In the Pentland Hills ward for Edinburgh city council, the Lib Dem candidate won fewer votes than Professor Pongoo, or independent candidate Mike Ferrigan, who ran his campaign in a full penguin suit.
Professor Pongoo, who stood to raise awareness of social and environmental issues, took 5.6% of first-preference votes to the Lib Dems’ 4.7%.
On the brighter side ……… Ummmm ……… There is no brighter side. You were outpolled by a bloke in a f%$#ing penguin suit!
About the only thing more embarrassing would be to be out-polled by the Fabian Socialists.
Ummm…I’m Speechless
The redneck version of Straight Outta Compton: (NSFW)
I need to do some serious drugs now.
Not Safety and Simplicity, Too Many Parts
So someone has decided that it might be a good thing to add even more moving parts to a rotorcraft:
A strange, 16-propeller vertical take-off and landing craft has been awarded the Lindberg Prize for Innovation at the Aero-Friedrichshafen 2012 airshow in Germany. It is an example of the unusual configurations made possible by distributed electric propulsion.
This is true. It is unusual.
It’s also completely impractical.
There is not a single multi-engine aircraft that takes off with an engine out, and in this case, there are 16 engines that might fail.
If you lose an engine, you either don’t take off, or, if you are in flight, you set down as soon as you can.
While this aircraft may (according to its inventors) be able to land safely with “several props failed”, it won’t make its destination with even one of the props failing.
Best OP/ED of the Year So Far
I really cannot ad much to this:
In memoriam: After years of health problems, Facts has finally died.
A quick review of the long and illustrious career of Facts reveals some of the world’s most cherished absolutes: Gravity makes things fall down; 2 + 2 = 4; the sky is blue.
But for many, Facts’ most memorable moments came in simple day-to-day realities, from a child’s certainty of its mother’s love to the comforting knowledge that a favorite television show would start promptly at 8 p.m.
Over the centuries, Facts became such a prevalent part of most people’s lives that Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said: “Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.”
To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.
…………
Go read all the rest.
It’s Stalker in a box!
There is an iPhone App called Girls Around Me, and it is way beyond evil.
Basically, it integrates Facebook and Foursquare to allow you to find easy girls:
………
It’s an app that can be interpreted many ways. It is as innocent as it is insidious; it is just as likely to be reacted to with laughter as it is with tears; it is as much of a novelty as it has the potential to be used a tool for rapists and stalkers.
Girls Around Me is a standard geolocation based maps app, similar to any other app that attempts to alert you to things of interest in your immediate vicinity: whether it be parties, clubs, deals, or what have you. When you load it up, the first thing Girls Around Me does is figure out where you are and load up a Google Map centered around your location. …
…Immediately, Girls Around Me went into radar mode, and after just a few seconds, the map around us was filled with pictures of girls who were in the neighborhood. Since I was showing off the app on a Saturday night, there were dozens of girls out on the town in our local area.
………
“How does it know where these girls are? Do you know all these girls? Is it plucking data from your address book or something?” another friend asked.
“Not at all. These are all girls with publicly visible Facebook profiles who have checked into these locations recently using Foursquare. Girls Around Me then shows you a map where all the girls in your area trackable by Foursquare area. If there’s more than one girl at a location, you see the number of girls there in a red bubble. Click on that, and you can see pictures of all the girls who are at that location at any given time. The pictures you are seeing are their social network profile pictures.”
………
I tapped on Zoe. Girls Around Me quickly loaded up a fullscreen render of her Facebook profile picture. The app then told me where Zoe had last been seen (The Independent) and when (15 minutes ago). A big green button at the bottom reading “Photos & Messaging” just begged to be tapped, and when I did, I was whisked away to Zoe’s Facebook profile.
“Okay, so here’s Zoe. Most of her information is visible, so I now know her full name. I can see at a glance that she’s single, that she is 24, that she went to Stoneham High School and Bunker Hill Community College, that she likes to travel, that her favorite book is Gone With The Wind and her favorite musician is Tori Amos, and that she’s a liberal. I can see the names of her family and friends. I can see her birthday.”
“All of that is visible on Facebook?” one of the other girls in our group asked.
“More, depending on how your privacy settings are configured! For example, I can also look at Zoe’s pictures.”
I tapped on the photo album, and a collection of hundreds of publicly visible photos loaded up. I quickly browsed them.
“Okay, so it looks like Zoe is my kind of girl. From her photo albums, I can see that she likes to party, and given the number of guys she takes photos with at bars and clubs at night, I can deduce that she’s frisky when she’s drunk, and her favorite drink is a frosty margarita. She appears to have recently been in Rome. Also, since her photo album contains pictures she took at the beach, I now know what Zoe looks like in a bikini… which, as it happens, is pretty damn good.”
My girlfriend scowled at me. I assured her Zoe in a bikini was no comparison, and moved on.
“So now I know everything to know about Zoe. I know where she is. I know what she looks like, both clothed and mostly disrobed. I know her full name, her parents’ full names, her brother’s full name. I know what she likes to drink. I know where she went to school. I know what she likes and dislikes. All I need to do now is go down to the Independent, ask her if she remembers me from Stoneham High, ask her how her brother Mike is doing, buy her a frosty margarita, and start waxing eloquently about that beautiful summer I spent in Roma.”
And if it doesn’t work with Zoe, you have a dozen other women at the club for whom you also have a dossier.
Let’s be clear: If you were stalking A girl, it probably wouldn’t help you much, you would already have her data from Facebook and Foursquare. This allows you to go after every girl in the immediate vicinity.
This is not quite digital roofies, its victims, assuming that they are adults, have a lot more independent agency than someone who has been drugged, but seriously, this is some evil sh%$.
It’s beyond creepy.
I’m Not Doing April Fools
I figure that if you are willing to read my drivel, the joke is already on you.
The same world view does does not apply to my son though:
Headline of the Day
Knit Your Congressman a Vagina
Just go read it.
5 lined skink
I know that I don’t normally blog about work, but I had a bit of an adventure today.
I was sitting at my desk, when out of my drawers (let me rephrase that, my cabinet) jumped a 5 lined skink.
People have gotten glimpses of it for the past few days, and it jumped out (down actually) onto my desk.
I yelped (OK, maybe it was a shriek) but manged to corner it, and we got it into a cup, and one of my co-workers has taken it home for his kid to keep as a pet.
Certainly got the blood moving.