Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Dumb Christians: Jesus ain't no long haired hippie queer



He was a brushed cutted white guy, sheeh get with the program.

Confirmed: Mariah Carey and Eminem same person

Mariah

Mariah/Eminem in new video...

Canadian gov't continues invading privacy online

Since the advent of the Internet, Western governments have wanted to control it, to legislate it, to stick their nose in it.

But they bided their time....

Not anymore, now they've discovered a way in.

Peter Van Loan, the new Public Safety minister says: Canadians have no legitimate expectation of privacy when they use the Internet, not when it comes to your name, address, cell phone number, etc

Why? Because of Terrorists, pornographers and child molesters (oh my!).

Repeat (and don't listen to critics), repeat (and don't listen to critics), repeat (and don't listen to critics).

Read more here.

Darwin delighted by Swine flu parties

Good to hear the not so bright among us are weeding themselves out...

Throwing "swine flu parties" in an attempt to get immunity against the virus while it is a fairly mild form is not a good idea, doctors say.

Reports have emerged of people intentionally mixing with friends who have flu.

Their reasoning is that it is best to be infected before the winter when the virus could become more deadly.


Reasoning! HAHAHAHA.

Read more here.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Brüno

I've been trying to avoid any mention of this film, and the travesty of a man behind it, but others too see him for what he is.

Yeah, yeah I know, he's a genius and we just don't get it...

Too bad Towleroad promotes it with frightening regularity.

Sacha Baron Cohen was on The Tonight Show last week, promoting his new film Brüno, in which he plays a "flamboyant" gay reporter with the ostensible objective of exposing homophobia. But just like every other promotional appearance for the film, SBC arrived in character and made Brüno's sexuality and gender expression the continuous punchline throughout the interview. The only homophobia being exposed that I could see was SBC's.

Read more here.

UK Doctors want right to talk faith

If my doctor did that, I'd look nervously around for the beads and rattles.

Doctors are demanding that NHS staff be given a right to discuss spiritual issues with patients as well as being allowed to offer to pray for them.

Read more here.

Rome catacomb reveals "oldest" image of St Paul

Vatican archaeologists using laser technology have discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of St Paul the Apostle, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome.

Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, revealing the find on Sunday, published a picture of a frescoed image of the face of a man with a pointed black beard on a red background, inside a bright yellow halo. The high forehead is furrowed.


Read more here.

Dumb Christians: Rep. Sally Kern

OOOOOklahoma, Where the Loons Come Sweepin' Down the Plain...

Why fix anything if you've got scapegoats to blame?

Rep. Sally Kern [Oklahoma]'s Proclamation for Morality in which she blames the nation's current economic and other problems on gays, abortion, divorce, and all around lack of Christian faith

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Monkey Pees On President of Zambia

Why I'm A Conservative Republican



Fuck no, not me but the maker of this video.

You should see this, as this is rarer than Bigfoot, though Bigfoot may have thought out his worldview more.

Btw, isn't a Republican a conservative by definition? Gotta love those Americans, fucked up and completely unaware of it.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Toronto Pride

ummm

Something for everybody.


Mark Sanford: Hypocrite of the Week



Now this loser is like King David...yes he went there.

Gee, sometimes I wish I was religious, so I could use the Bible to cheery pick an excuse here, a reason to hate a group there.

Life must be so much easier when thought is eliminated.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Cato Development Inc. tries to silence their critics

All they are doing is shining more light on themselves...

Lawyers for the developer of a proposed 325-unit residential project on the former Marianopolis College site on Mount Royal [in Montreal] have threatened to sue a local CEGEP teacher for slander and libel over her outspoken criticism of the project.

In a legal letter dated June 15, lawyers for Cato Development Inc. accuse Anushree Varma of inferring or implying that "our client is somehow, and/or in some way, involved in scandalous, illegal and inappropriate business practices."

Varma, an English teacher at CEGEP du Vieux Montréal, said she plans to continue to criticize the project because she believes it is not in the public's interest and will lead to the sale and development of other institutional properties on Mount Royal.

"It is a public debate and I fully assert my right to participate in that debate. ... This is just a clumsy attempt to shut me up," she said.


But given the long history of preference to business over the public in Montreal, it just might work...

Mayor Tremblay, the Gift that Keeps on Giving. He seems to want to be the Rameses II of Montreal ('cause he likes to build stuff, not the slave thing. Sheesh, lighten up).

Read more here, and read the original article here

Perez Hilton continues spiral into irrelevancy

One blogger doing unprecedented damage to the social media cause (and in fact undermining the credibility of all bloggers) is Perez Hilton: upon learning of Michael Jackson’s hospital admission, he posted the following, shockingly offensive piece, alleging that Michael was “lying” or “making himself sick”

Read more here.

Scotland has at least one moron

And it's not the guy with the flags...

Personalizing a desk is a common tactic for the office worker who faces eight hours in front of a computer terminal. Novelty mousemats, family photos and cuddly toys are popular.

But now one staff member at the National Library of Scotland has provoked a political row after he was ticked off by employers for decorating his desk with several Scottish flags.

The unnamed worker set up three large flags – two saltires and a lion rampant – at his shared work station. He also covered his chair in a red tartan.

The result was an e-mail to all staff warning that such nationalistic displays could "intimidate non-Scottish colleagues".


Read more here.

Uncle Tom Gays fill DNC coffers

Despite protests over Obama's Department of Justice DOMA brief and lack of movement on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and other LGBT issues, last night's LGBT DNC Fundraiser brought in $1 milllion for the Democratic party, up from $750,000 last year, according to The Advocate.

Read more here.

Gao Ye gets outed, Green Damn it!

Brutal repressive regimes are rarely funny, but sometimes....

In an effort to expose how evil Google is, China's state TV (CCTV..why are odious government organizations always called that?) ran an interview with a university student, Gao Ye...

He said in the interview, 'I have this fellow student and he’s been curious about these kinds of things [porn searches on Google]. He visited porn Web sites and ended up becoming absent-minded for a while.'

Ok sure whatever...um what was I saying?

Oh yes. Well it seems Mr. Gao is an employee of said CCTV. What a coincidence!

Read more here.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson has died?

That's the news on the streets kids.

Update, it seems to be confirmed.

Charlie's Angel

Farrah Fawcett has died.

Flip your hair for St. Peter Farrah, he'll be sure to let you in.

Mark Sanford: The Hypocrisy just keeps on coming

Beware those who want to legislate morality, there's usually more going on than meets the eye...

So. After a whirlwind few days of speculation regarding the whereabouts of Republican South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, we now have the answer. He was not, in fact, hiking on the Appalachian Trail clearing his head after a tough legislative session, as we were repeatedly assured by his staff, but was instead in Buenos Aires, Argentina, having an affair. Or ending an affair. Or something.

Read more here.

Obama, Torture and Hypocrisy

The single most significant event in shaping worldwide revulsion towards the violence of the Iranian government has been the video of the young Iranian woman bleeding to death, the so-called "Neda video." Like so many iconic visual images before it -- from My Lai, fire hoses and dogs unleashed at civil rights protesters, Abu Ghraib -- that single image has done more than the tens of thousands of words to dramatize the violence and underscore the brutality of the state response.

Read more here.

Prehistoric flute in Germany is oldest known

A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.

Read more here.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Another Republican sheds crocodile tears

Boo hoo hoo, I'm so sorry, *sob* *whimper*

After going AWOL for seven days, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Wednesday that he'd secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he'd been having an affair. He apologized to his wife and four sons and said he will resign as head of the Republican Governors Association.

"I've let down a lot of people, that's the bottom line," the 49-year-old governor said at a news conference where he choked up as he ruminated with remarkable frankness on God's law, moral absolutes and following one's heart. His family did not attend.


Such overwhelming bullshit. And of course FOX News labelled him a Democrat today...

Read more here.

Perpetuum Jazzile - Africa

Quebec nationalists outraged...again (sets watch)

Montreal Gazette writer Josh Freed penned a piece about Quebec nationalists and their usual outrage over anything English, this time concerning the upcoming St. Jean festivities...

The dinosaurs of nationalism like the St. Jean organizers who tried to stop two local bands from singing in a foreign dialect called English – a move reminiscent of the old days of the Apostrophe SS.

Well! How dare he make such a joke (which is no more offensive than Seinfelfd's "Soup Nazi"), but this is Quebec we're talking about, and offense comes as easy a breathing if anyone (read here: anyone English) dares criticize *anything* the French may do..

Cue Gilles Rhéaume, familiar to anyone in Quebec, who's filed a complaint with the Quebec Press Council (what you want to bet it uses the word "humiliated"?)

I fled this crap 10 years ago, and it's still going on.

Michael Bay, Transformers and racism?

Certainly the first Transformers struck me as suspect, as the black characters come across as less than balanced (check the donut scene, or the used car scene, or the video game scene...).

Now, he's moved on to stereotypical robots...

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" introduces some 40 new mechanized characters of all shapes, sizes and even sexes _ but it's a pair of jive-talking 'bots that critics are singling out as more than just harmless comic relief.

Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact Chevys, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.


Read more here.

North Korea continues its tantrum

North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Read more here.

Record Charts

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Christopher Hitchens on the Acropolis Museum

Among the first to visit Greece’s new Acropolis Museum, devoted to the Parthenon and other temples, the author reviews the origins of a gloriously “right” structure (part of a fifth-century-b.c. stimulus plan) and the continuing outrage that half its façade is still in London.

Read more here.

Sonic Youth



Sonic Youth on Jimmy Fallon.

Watch the 110 ways the camera avoids that tshirt...

Ancient Granaries preceded the Agricultural Revolution

It apparently took a long time to get the Agricultural Revolution off the ground. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Middle East cultivated the farming life over more than a millennium, largely thanks to their proficiency at building structures to store wild cereals, a new report suggests.

Excavations at Dhra' near the Dead Sea in Jordan have uncovered remnants of four sophisticated granaries built between 11,300 and 11,175 years ago, about a millennium before domesticated plants were known to have been cultivated there...


Read more here.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Ball Lightning

As I have actually seen ball lightning, I can relate...

A 1960 study found that as many as 5% of the US population claimed to have witnessed ball lightning, while there have been over 10,000 sightings during the past few decades, with the numbers continuing to pile up year on year.

Read more here.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

British Museum scrambles for new excuse to keep Elgin Marbles

The English have a long and proud history of storing other peoples stones, just ask the Scots. They waited 700 years to get theirs back.

I can understand the British reluctance to return them. It will be that last symbolic piece of the plunder of Empire, gone forever. The Sun will Finally Set...

The museum has long argued that Greece has no proper place to put them - an argument the Greek government hopes the Acropolis Museum addresses.

Don't worry, the Brits will come up with a new one, and soon...

"I think they belong to all of us - we are all global citizens these days," [British Museum] spokeswoman Hannah Boulton said.

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Fair enough, then I assume the Greeks have rights to the Crown Jewels now...?

Read more here.

Steve Jobs had liver transplant

Steve Jobs, who has been on medical leave from Apple Inc. since January to treat an undisclosed medical condition, received a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. The chief executive has been recovering well and is expected to return to work on schedule later this month, though he may work part-time initially.

Read more here.

Friday, June 19, 2009

The Colbert Haircut: Behind the Scenes

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Pete Hoekstra: Idiot of the Day

Republican Pete Hoekstra, via his Twitter:

“Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House,”

It leaves one speechless with the breadth of its stupidity...

Well, not everyone:

ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil

chrisbaskind @petehoekstra My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!

luckbfern @petehoekstra I stand in solidarity with the oppressed rich white men of Repub Party in the House. #GOPfail Allah Akbar!


Read more here, and lame backtracking here.

Pygmy jerboa 体重測定

Dancing to Zelda

Mammoths may have survived in Britain until 14,000 years ago

Research which finally proves that bones found in Shropshire, England provide the most geologically recent evidence of woolly mammoths in North Western Europe publishes today in the Geological Journal. Analysis of both the bones and the surrounding environment suggests that some mammoths remained part of British wildlife long after they are conventionally believed to have become extinct.

Read more here.

Gangsters, sexual predators and terrorists, oh my!

The usual excuses are being wheeled out, this time it's Canadian police that want to tap the net.

Cue the creaky old excuses...Terrorist groups, pornographers and pedophile networks, illegal traffickers in weapons, drugs and human beings, money launderers and cyber criminals, Internet and telemarketing fraudsters

Ooooo, boogabooga!!

Police will be given new powers to eavesdrop on Internet-based communications as part of a contentious government bill, to be announced Thursday, which Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has said is needed to modernize surveillance laws crafted during "the era of the rotary phone."

The proposed legislation would force Internet service providers to allow law enforcement to tap into their systems to obtain information about users and their digital conversations.

Police have lobbied for a new law for almost 10 years, saying that they need to access "Internet safe havens" for gangsters, sexual predators and terrorists.


Rinse, repeat...

Read more here.

City of Bozeman goes too far

Arrogant bastards.

Applying for a job with the City of Bozeman [Montana]? You may be asked to provide more personal information than you expected...

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.


Read more here.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Dumb white people: Conservative Rappers



If this doesn't make your skin crawl, it's on too tight.

Obama uses smokes and mirrors over gay rights

So he extends some benefits to some workers, in a memorandum that is only good as long as he's in office.

Too little too late, as the damage is already done.

Better luck next time, Mr. Fierce Advocate President...

President Obama will sign a memorandum Wednesday granting health care and other benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, two senior administration officials said.

The signing will take place in the Oval Office and follows sharp criticism of the president over a Justice Department motion filed last week in support of the Defense of Marriage Act -- which opposes same-sex marriage -- that used the government's interest in opposing incestuous marriages to support its position against same-sex marriage.

GOP Senator defends marriage by having an affair

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, a leading conservative mentioned as a potential presidential candidate, admitted Tuesday he had an extramarital affair with a woman who was a member of his campaign staff. "Last year I had an affair. I violated the vows of my marriage," Ensign said at a brief news conference. "It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. If there was ever anything in my life that I could take back, this would be it."

Read more here.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Green Damn bursts

Caving to public pressure, China on Tuesday said that use of its controversial "Green Dam Youth Escort" software is not required, though all PCs sold on the mainland will come with it pre-installed.

China's turnaround comes as public outcry over the Green Dam Web filtering software struck a nerve both inside and outside China. Last week, the Chinese government mandated that as of July 1, all PCs sold in the country must have the Green Dam software to block pornographic and violent Web sites. The public fought back, claiming the software could also block users from viewing political content and censor other content. Some opponents also contend that the software can create security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by hackers.


Read more here.

Obama: Once in office, screw over those who help put you there

The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. The administration needs a new direction on gay rights.

Read more here.

Monday, June 15, 2009

North Sea gives up Neanderthal fossil

Part of a Neanderthal man's skull has been dredged up from the North Sea, in the first confirmed find of its kind.

Scientists in Leiden, in the Netherlands, have unveiled the specimen - a fragment from the front of a skull belonging to a young adult male.

Analysis of chemical "isotopes" in the 60,000-year-old fossil suggest a carnivorous diet, matching results from other Neanderthal specimens.


Read more here.

Perez Hilton: Sleeze Bag of the Day

If you know the story, you know what I mean. If you don't, you're better off not knowing.

101 Quebecois idiots

To quote Groucho Marx: How many Frenchmen can't be wrong?

Maybe if their band was called Lac de Ragoût, they could play in a celebration marking the St. Jean Baptiste Day celebrations.

But Lake of Stew, a local country/bluegrass band, and Bloodshot Bill, a country music performer, both say they have been barred from performing June 23 in the festival called l'Autre St. Jean because they are English.

A sponsor of the event was upset the event would include English artists and threatened to pull out funding if they performed.

In an email from festival organizers, the performers were told a sponsor, whom they would not name, fears the daily use of the French language is threatened, and having an English band at a St. Jean Baptiste-related event would be a further threat.


Read more here.

Pointless Reboots: Roy Rogers

Roy Rogers' iconic presence may be riding back onto the bigscreen in a planned film trilogy to be launched by financier/producer 821 Entertainment.

The Nashville-based company has partnered with the Roy Rogers Family Entertainment Corp. to launch a "King of the Cowboys" film trilogy as well as animated TV, interactive game and merchandising efforts.


Read more here.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Your logo makes me barf

Read more here.

tip from Carmen

Friday, June 12, 2009

CRTC does the right thing

“Broadcasting is broadcasting, and the CRTC has a duty to regulate it, whether it’s on a TV, a laptop or a BlackBerry. Failing to do so will mean less Canadian content and reduced Canadian presence in an era when we are already being submerged in U.S. content on our TVs, and now online,” said Ferne Downey, ACTRA’s national president.

Drop dead. The Internet must be defended against people like this.

Broadcasting content such as music and video distributed over the internet and mobile devices will continue to be exempt from regulation, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced Thursday.

The decision is a blow to artist groups who were hoping the CRTC would regulate internet content the same way it does television and radio to ensure Canadian content is represented.


Read more here.

Time Team goes bad

Archaeologists unearth 800-year-old shoe

Archaeologists have unearthed a well-preserved leather shoe from 13th century at a dig in Magdeburg that could provide insights into mediaeval life.

Read more here.

Photoshopped Diversity

Fun Guide

The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto's latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more "inclusive," which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity.

A spokesman for the department that publishes the guide listing recreation activities confirmed the publication was doctored to insert the face of a different father.

"He superimposed the African-Canadian person onto the family cluster in the original photo. It was two photographs and one head was superimposed over the original family photo," said John Gosgnach, communications director for the social development division.

"The goal was to depict the diversity of Toronto and its residents."


So they used stock photos, of people who don't live in Toronto...

Read more here, and see the public response here.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

If they weren't white guys...

If radical Muslims had carried out terrorist attacks in Kansas and Washington DC over the past five days, we might be trying to pass legislation giving the president the legal authority to place people in preventive detention, and Daniel Pipes would be implying that we need to round up Arab-Americans (correction: Muslims) and put them in relocation camps.

But it was only a couple of old white guys, so our civil liberties remain unthreatened.


Read more here.

6,000-year-old tombs found next to Stonehenge

A prehistoric complex, including two 6,000-year-old tombs, has been discovered by archaeologists in Hampshire.

The Neolithic tombs, which until now had gone unnoticed under farmland despite being just 15 miles from Stonehenge, are some of the oldest monuments to have been found in Britain.


Read more here.

The Worst Advertising Image of the 21st Century (so far)

ouch my eyes

Go Beckham!

A remake of Rapunzel perhaps...?

How to start a dance party



Sasquatch music festival 2009

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Lotus Effect

Obama orders Colbert's hair cut

iPhone 3GS - "Break In" ad



Directed by David Fincher.

Those f - - - ing Tories

Sometimes, political scandals are meaningless and meaningful at the same time. So it is with the latest eruptions from Ottawa. At one level, the furor over gaffes by Transport Minister John Baird and Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt is silly. At another, it is indicative.

Baird first. In suggesting that Toronto should (as we so quaintly put it in the Star) "f--- off," Baird was probably articulating the general view of many Canadians...


Read more here.

Ed Whelan apologizes

Read more here.

London's Metropolitan Police accused of waterboarding suspects

Metropolitan Police officers subjected suspects to waterboarding, according to allegations at the centre of a major anti-corruption inquiry, The Times has learnt.

The torture claims are part of a wide-ranging investigation which also includes accusations that officers fabricated evidence and stole suspects’ property. It has already led to the abandonment of a drug trial and the suspension of several police officers.

However, senior policing officials are most alarmed by the claim that officers in Enfield, North London, used the controversial CIA interrogation technique to simulate drowning.


Read more here.

France: Why don't they just die off already, save us all some francs

Nearly 40 years after the first of its 210 nuclear tests, France is preparing to compensate people affected by the fallout....

...Only now, with many of the veterans dead or dying, is the French government drawing up a bill that starts to satisfy their demands...

..."For decades they told us that unlike others, the French nuclear tests were clean, and that there were no health consequences for the veterans or the local populations," says Jean-Paul Teissoniere, a lawyer who has represented the veterans.


Read more here.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Dov Hikind: Idiot of the Day

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose mother survived the death camp at Auschwitz, said yesterday that only Jews persecuted during the Nazi reign should be honored at a Holocaust memorial in Brooklyn.

Hikind said even though 5 million people from other groups -- including gays, the disabled and Jehovah's Witnesses -- were killed along with 6 million Jewish people during the Holocaust, the memorial in Sheepshead Bay should be for Jews only.

"To include these other groups diminishes their memory"...He said he is not against a memorial to honor the other groups -- as long as it is somewhere else.

"These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust. It is so vastly different. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims."


They were all murdered, moron.

Read more here.

Green Dam Youth Escort

Leaving the fact it's an odious concept aside for a moment, doesn't the name itself denote a cluelessness on an epic scale?

Western governments are probably eying the software hungrily, saying "We must protect the children!" (by treating adults as children). It's bullshit of course (what they mean is "we must protect ourselves from our citizens"), but that tired old line works =(

China has defended the use of new screening software that has to be installed on all computers.

Foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said the software would filter out pornographic or violent material...

...The aim is to build a healthy and harmonious online environment that does not poison young people's minds, according to the directive.


Let the government poison it for you...

Read more here, except in China where it reads "China to ___ its youth with a ____.

Monday, June 08, 2009

The Apocalypse cometh 2012

Palin draws 20,000 to New York appearance.

Read more here, and tremble...

Ed Whelan: Today's Scum of the Earth

Another right wing American, proving ethics are a optional thing for them...

Poor Mr. Whelan (of NRO fame), thin skinned as many conservatives are, exposed the identity of a blogger in revenge for a post critiquing him...

Why not just have a tantrum on the lawn like normal children do?

Read more here, and do have a look at It's irresponsible to criticize Ed Whelan by the lovely Majikthise, who's real name I will not reveal, as I can't tell if she's a poor satirist or just as crazy as Mr. Whelan.

Chuck Grassley's drunken Twitters

No one should use Twitter, while drunk, at 4 AM...

Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said 'time to delivr on healthcare' When you are a "hammer" u think evrything is NAIL I'm no NAIL

Read more here.

Mysterious sheep circle

bahh

There were strange goings on at the farm today when a flock of sheep made their own version of a crop circle.

About 100 of the woolly creatures formed an orderly ring - baffling the farmer and passers-by.

But after hearing the roar of the boss's tractor the animals scattered like a group of naughty schoolboys.


What an unfortunate metaphor...

Read more here.

I'm shocked, shocked! Rogers opposes WIFI

Rogers Communications Inc. has vocally opposed municipal WiFi plans across Canada, arguing that cities shouldn't be using taxpayer money to build for-profit telecom infrastructure that competes with the private sector, said David Robinson, vice-president of new business planning for Rogers Wireless.

Competition, in Canada? Perish the thought!

Read more here.

China covers the internet with umbrellas

China plans to require that all personal computers sold in the country as of July 1 be shipped with software that blocks access to certain Web sites, a move that could give government censors unprecedented control over how Chinese users access the Internet.

The government, which has told global PC makers of the requirement but has yet to announce it to the public, says the effort is aimed at protecting young people from "harmful" content. The primary target is pornography, says the main developer of the software, a company that has ties to China's security ministry and military.

The Vancouver Sun and scummy behavior

In a cost-cutting move, the Vancouver Sun has laid off Roy Peterson, probably Canada’s best editorial cartoonist and one of the world’s best.

Peterson, 73, had been with the Sun for 47 years. During that time he won seven National Newspaper Awards for his work, the most in the history of the awards in any category, and in 2004 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Besides being axed, the Sun also killed his final cartoon… makes me wonder if they also did the escort-out-the-door (with a guard) business that U.S. newspapers seem to employ.


Read more here.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

EU leaders face election embarrassment

You mean you are actually saying there is something that can embarrass a politician?

European governments braced themselves for electoral embarrassment on Sunday as recession-hit voters turned to protest parties or failed to cast ballots at all in elections to the European parliament.

In what was the largest multi-national ballot in history, voters in 19 EU countries went to the polls on the fourth and final day of an election in which the bloc’s eight other states had voted between Thursday and Saturday.

Governments in many countries, especially the UK, where Gordon Brown, prime minister, is struggling for his political life, were expected to be punished by voters angry and frightened at Europe’s worst recession since the 1930s.


Read more here.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Fuck off

Ignorant Homophobe of the Day: The Mayor of Moscow

Yury Luzhkov, Mayor of Moscow, and one of the finest minds of the 11th century...

First, this is society's moral. Our society has a healthy moral and rejects all these queers," Luzhkov said.

The second reason is security of the demonstrators themselves, he said.

"If you even imagine that they get permission to hold their parade and gather, they will simply get killed. We have radical Christians who have hard feelings against these demonic manifestations, as they see it. By the way, when there were attempts to hold a gay parade during the recent Eurovision Song Contest, we had to isolate 19 radicals who were going to beat up these queers," Luzhkov said.

"I ban such parades, and this decision is well-thought. Moreover, this is not only a mayor's decision. Our society itself is against such demonstrations," he said.


So, gays=bad, radical violent Christians=good?

Tiny minds never cease to amaze me.

Update: he's being sued over these comments. They haven't got a chance against him (when was the last time recently you've seen anyone in power pay for, well, anything?)

Friday, June 05, 2009

Wikipedia doesn't believe in the UnDeer

I tried to submit an article concerning the 7Up UnDeer to Wikipedia. It was rejected as "an obvious hoax".

Fools.

It's not polite to stare

stare

December 1941. Enlisting in the Marines. Recruiting office, San Francisco, via Shorpy.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Hal Turner arrested

As I suggested in this blog over a year ago. 'Bout bloody time.

At that time he was threatening people over a gay issue (so nothing happened), but this time he went after a religious issue..

OH MY GOD, ARREST HIM!

Things don't appear to be going to well for New Jersey internet radio host and white supremacy-enthusiast Hal Turner. The onetime candidate for Congress and inveterate threatener of public officials has run afoul of the law, and will face charges in Connecticut.

Read more here.

How to, uh, make, uh, Obama feel, uh, uncomfortable



Ask him, uh, this...

Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon

Duh, you could tell that the first time he said it ;)

Researchers have claimed that Neil Armstrong did fluff his lines as he left the lunar module to become the first man on the moon.

Analysis of his famous speech has revealed he left out the "a" in his famous "one small step" speech.


Read more here.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

The Conference Board of Canada's lies (copy, repeat)

The Conference Board of Canada's sellout on copyright just keeps on getting worse. To recap: the Conference Board is a supposedly neutral research outfit that was asked by the Canadian copyright industries to write a report on file-sharing and piracy in Canada. They hit up the Ontario government for $15,000 to fund an event where the findings of the report would be presented.

Then they hired an independent researcher who concluded that there wasn't anything particularly wrong with Canadian file-sharing. They threw away his research.

Then they plagiarized dodgy press-materials produced by the leading US copyright lobby group, quoting lengthy passages that were factually wrong.

Then they denied any wrongdoing.

Then they admitted they'd plagiarized, but insisted that the public money hadn't been spent "on the report" -- it had been spent on the conference about the report, which is a Different Thing Altogether.


Read more here.

Khannnnn!



Martinco's 15-minute meticulously re-spliced creation in a never-ending loop...

Read more here.

Star Trek Designer to Receive NASA Public Service Medal

high geek

A long-time Star Trek designer is being recognized by NASA for his longtime contributions to the look of the U.S. space program.

Michael Okuda will receive the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal for his work on multiple exploration missions. According to the space program, the medal recognizes “exceptional contributions to the mission of NASA.”


Read more here.

Is this the ugliest building in Toronto?

42

Without a doubt, it's Toronto Life Square. Its exterior is only matched in awfulness by its interior...

Read more here.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

U.S. Releases Secret List of Nuclear Sites Accidentally

I'll just be under this rock.

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

The publication of the document was revealed Monday in an on-line newsletter devoted to issues of federal secrecy. That publicity set off a debate among nuclear experts about what dangers, if any, the disclosures posed. It also prompted a flurry of investigations in Washington into why the document was made public.

On Tuesday evening, after inquiries from The New York Times, the document was withdrawn from a Government Printing Office Web site.


I'm sure nobody noticed...

Read more here.

China, fingers placed firmly in ears, sings LALALALA

China is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown with another crackdown -- a massive block on Twitter and all those social media sites that pose a threat to China's government this week. The Chinese media site Danwei reported early Tuesday morning that Twitter, the popular microblogging site, has been disabled in mainland China. Thursday, June 4th marks the 20th anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the brutal response by the Chinese government that left hundreds dead.

As the morning moved on, China-based bloggers realized that YouTube, Flickr and Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, had also been blocked.

Why is the Earth moving away from the sun?

Skywatchers have been trying to gauge the sun-Earth distance for thousands of years. In the third century BC, Aristarchus of Samos, notable as the first to argue for a heliocentric solar system, estimated the sun to be 20 times farther away than the moon. It wasn't his best work, as the real factor is more like 400.

By the late 20th century, astronomers had a much better grip on this fundamental cosmic metric – what came to be called the astronomical unit. In fact, thanks to radar beams pinging off various solar-system bodies and to tracking of interplanetary spacecraft, the sun-Earth distance has been pegged with remarkable accuracy. The current value stands at 149,597,870.696 kilometres.

Having such a precise yardstick allowed Russian dynamicists Gregoriy A. Krasinsky and Victor A. Brumberg to calculate, in 2004, that the sun and Earth are gradually moving apart. It's not much – just 15 cm per year – but since that's 100 times greater than the measurement error, something must really be pushing Earth outward. But what?


Read more here.

The Beatles Rock Band trailer



They discover drugs at the 1:30 mark...

For the Globe and Mail, Canada is Toronto and some other places

The Globe and Mail still sees Toronto as the Center of the Universe. Their site under "National" has these sections:

British Columbia, Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic...and Toronto.

Read more here, cause Toronto is just so damn special.

And...

Torontoist and the Globe and Mail have liked each other so much, for so long, that we've decided to finally make it official. As of Friday night, the Globe now has a brand new Toronto section on their website, and as of Friday night, that hub will regularly and prominently feature selected Torontoist content, part of a content-sharing partnership between the two media organizations.

Read more of this print circle jerk here.

Cheney comes out as Leather Queen

Well, he supports gay marriage and torture...

Read more here.

'Oldest pottery' found in China

Examples of pottery found in a cave at Yuchanyan in China's Hunan province may be the oldest known to science.

By determining the fraction of a type, or isotope, of carbon in bone fragments and charcoal, the specimens were found to be 17,500 to 18,300 years old.


Read more here.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Roman era reveals expenses claims

Ancient Roman writing tablets suggest public officials were involved in expenses scandals 2,000 years ago.

Writing tablets uncovered near Hadrian's Wall detail hundreds of expenses claimed by Roman officials, Hadrian's Wall Heritage Ltd said.

Five of the translated tablets contain 111 lines detailing entertainment claims at the Roman camp of Vindolanda.

The items include ears of grain, hobnails for boots, bread, cereals, hides and pigs.


Read more here.

'Lost' music instrument recreated

New software has enabled researchers to recreate a long forgotten musical instrument called the Lituus.

The 2.4m (8ft) long trumpet-like instrument was played in Ancient Rome but fell out of use some 300 years ago.


Read more here.