Coming to Kindle and Smashwords

Coming to Kindle and Smashwords
November 2013

Feb 29, 2012

If this smuck wasn't a millionaire they only piece of a## he get within spitting distance of is one that was willed to him(and then maybe)

Rush Limbaugh: Sandra Fluke, Woman Denied Right To Speak At Contraception Hearing, A 'Slut'


Rush Limbaugh called the woman who was denied the right to speak at a controversial contraception hearing a "slut" on Wednesday.
Sandra Fluke, a student at Georgetown Law School, was supposed to be the Democratic witness at a Congressional hearing about the Obama administration's contraception policy. However, Darrell Issa, the committee chair at the hearing, prevented her from speaking, while only allowing a series of men to testify about the policy. Fluke eventually spoke to a Democratic hearing, and talked about the need for birth control for both reproductive and broader medical reasons. She mentioned in particular a friend of hers who needed contraception to prevent the growth of cysts.
To Limbaugh, though, Fluke was just promoting casual sex.
"Can you imagine if you were her parents how proud...you would be?" he said. "Your daughter ... testifies she's having so much sex she can't afford her own birth control pills and she wants President Obama to provide them, or the Pope."
He continued:
"What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex."
Limbaugh then said, "ok, so she's not a slut. She's round-heeled." "Round-heeled" is an old-fashioned term for promiscuity.
Limbaugh's comments came on the same day that Fluke was mentioned during a debate in the Senate about the so-called "Blunt Amendment," which would override Obama's contraception rule. Sen. Barbara Boxer brought up Fluke's testimony, recounting what she would have said at the Congressional panel if she had been given the opportunity.

simpler times.....

Old toy for teaching children to accurately drop atom bombs


Before the "Nintendo wars" of the early 21st century, there were these toys, which invited young children to practice accurately releasing atom bombs. I'm not sure that the skills you learned with this gadget would translate into real A-bombing practice, though, which probably disappointed some youngsters.

The Avengers trailer #2


The hot new trailer for Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is a virtual scruff-of-the-neck grabber, showing not only precious seconds of city-crushing war but also the strife within the superhero supergroup as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and S.H.I.E.L.D. bring together its reluctant members

promethus teaser..


Actor Guy Pearce plays cybernetics pioneer Peter Weyland in this imagined TED Talk from the year 2023. The video is a viral promotion for the upcoming Alien prequel Prometheus, directed by Ridley Scott

Cooking with Poo!

 Getahead 2012 Feb 24Book
This book is called Cooking With Poo. Yes, "Poo" is Thai for "crab" and it's also author Saiyuud Diwong's nickname. But this book is called Cooking With Poo. Heh heh. Heh. It's on the shortlist for The Bookseller's Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. Here are the others

Cool Geometric Illustrations of Pop Culture Icons by Liam Brazier

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via

boom....blam...zap.....

Feb 28, 2012

the death of this republic can be laid directly at the feet of these right wing coporate oligarc pricks

Corporate Immunity Looks Likely: Supreme Court Seems Ready To Side With Shell In Human Rights Suit

Supreme Court
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday morning appeared divided along party lines, with a conservative majority ready to hold that corporations cannot be held accountable in federal courts for international human rights violations.
The Court was hearing oral argument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, which was brought under a founding-era law, commonly called the Alien Tort Statute, that allows foreign nationals to bring civil lawsuits in U.S. federal courts "for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States." The 12 Nigerian plaintiffs contend that Shell Oil's parent company aided and abetted the Nigerian government in its torture and extrajudicial killing of environmental and human rights protesters resisting Shell's operations in Nigeria in the 1990s.
At the very start of the argument, Justice Anthony Kennedy quoted from a brief submitted by Chevron in support of its fellow multinational oil company that "international law does not recognize corporate liability."
"I was trying to find the best authority you have to refute that proposition," Kennedy told the Nigerians' lawyer, Paul Hoffman.
Hoffman responded that the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have somewhat similar laws on their books. Problem is, those two countries submitted briefs opposing Hoffman's position in this case.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia also expressed hostility to the notion of corporate liability under the Alien Tort Statute. This lawsuit, Alito noted, was brought by foreign plaintiffs against a foreign defendant for acts that took place in a foreign country. "What business does a a case like that have in the courts of the United States?" he asked Hoffman.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tried to push back against Alito's line of questioning, noting that the Supreme Court has already allowed such cases to be brought under the Alien Tort Statute. The question in Kiobel, she reminded her colleagues, is whether only individuals, as opposed to corporate entities, can be sued.
In questioning Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler, who was arguing in support of the Nigerians, Justice Stephen Breyer at first expressed skepticism about creating a "U.S. Supreme Court of the World," but then pivoted toward a position in favor of finding corporate liability. Noting that the Alien Tort Statute was originally passed to allow suits arising from acts of piracy, he conjured up a hypothetical corporation, "Pirates Inc.," and saw no reason why, had such an organization existed in 1789, it could not have been dragged into federal court.
Attorney Kathleen Sullivan, representing Royal Dutch Petroleum, faced intense questioning from Justice Elena Kagan that highlighted the irreconcilable divide between the two sides' arguments. Sullivan contended that there was no norm of corporate liability in international law courts and conventions, while Kagan said that silence in the international sources did not create corporate immunity. Their back-and-forth ended as a stalemate between two career contemporaries: Both women are former deans of the country's best law schools -- Sullivan at Stanford, Kagan at Harvard.
In the end, however, Sullivan appeared to have the Court's five-justice majority of Republican appointees on her side, if the typically silent Justice Clarence Thomas sticks to his previously expressed narrow views on the Alien Tort Statute and general pro-business bent.
A decision in the case is expected by the end of Ju

just a taste


fuck@n nuts!!!!


Feb 25, 2012

Feb 23, 2012

interesting....

Volkswagen Imperial AT-AT Walker

who lets this yahoo out without supervision?

Hollywood is Indoctrinating Children via 'The Lorax' and 'Arrietty,' Says Lou Dobbs


Lou Dobbs and his conservative ilk have had it with your liberal agenda, Hollywood! The talk show host took to the airwaves on Fox News yesterday to inform the world that the release of two new kid's movies, "The Lorax" and "The Secret World of Arrietty," represents nothing less than the movie industry "once again trying to indoctrinate our children."

Strange man plays a flute made from a cabbage


In this video, a man has figured out how to make a flute out of a cabbage. Watch him play the butterfly song.

yikes!!!

Crocodile Bites Off Part Of Elderly Man's Testicles In Zimbabwe; Jonah Maturure Survives Attack

Croc

A 70-year-old man from Zimbabwe narrowly escaped a crocodile attack as he crossed the Chivake River with his pants off -- but he lost part of his testicles and suffered a few broken bones in the melee.
Jonah Maturure told the Sunday News that he'd taken off his trousers and put them in a tomato box above his head before he crossed the river. He'd crossed the same spot in the same river several times before, but this time, a giant croc was waiting for him.
"I was not suspecting anything ... But when I was almost in the middle of the river I was attacked," he told the news website. "It mauled a chunk of my buttocks before attacking my manhood, tearing my testicles into shreds. The skin covering my manhood was partly torn but I quickly put my thumb in its mouth ... It then grabbed my hand and I could hear my bones cracking."
Realizing that he wasn't going to save his personal possessions, he threw his tomato box in the river, The Sun reported.
That move may have saved his life.
The beast loosened its death grip and swam straight for the tomato box. Maturure escaped, bleeding profusely from his nethers, and ran to a nearby house for help.
The battle was just one of a string of crocodile attacks recently in Gutu, an area with a spread-out

really?

Mormon Baptism Targets Anne Frank -- Again

Anne Frank 
Anne Frank, the Jewish girl whose diary and death in a Nazi concentration camp made her a symbol of the Holocaust, was allegedly baptized posthumously Saturday by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, according to whistleblower Helen Radkey, a former member of the church.
The ritual was conducted in a Mormon temple in the Dominican Republic, according to Radkey, a Salt Lake City researcher who investigates such incidents, which violate a 2010 pact between the Mormon Church and Jewish leaders.
Radkey said she discovered that Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank, who died at Bergen Belsen death camp in 1945 at age 15, was baptized by proxy on Saturday. Mormons have submitted versions of her name at least a dozen times for proxy rites and carried out the ritual at least nine times from 1989 to 1999, according to Radkey. But Radkey says this is the first time in more than a decade that Frank's name has been discovered in a database that can be used both for genealogy and also to submit a deceased person's name to be considered for proxy baptism -- a separate process, according to a spokesman for the church. The database is only open to Mormons.
A screen shot of the database sent by Radkey shows a page for Frank stating "completed" next to categories labeled "Baptism" and "Confirmation," with the date Feb. 18, 2012, and the name of the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple.
As The Huffington Post has reported, Mormon posthumous proxy baptism has continued, despite church vows to stop.
Negotiations between Mormon and Jewish leaders led to a 1995 agreement for the church to stop the posthumous baptism of all Jews, except in the case of direct ancestors of Mormons, but Radkey says she found that some Mormons had failed to adhere to the agreement.
The name of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel was recently submitted to the restricted genealogy website as "ready" for posthumous proxy baptism, though the church says the rite is reserved for the deceased, and Wiesel is alive. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, was among a group of Jewish leaders who campaigned against the practice and prompted the 2010 pact by which the Mormon Church promises to at least prevent proxy baptism requests for Holocaust victims.
Wiesel last week called on Republican presidential candidate and Mormon Mitt Romney, a former Mormon bishop who has donated millions to the church, to speak out about the practice.
The Romney campaign has previously refused to comment and referred The Huffington Post to the LDS church. HuffPost emailed a church spokesman for comment Tuesday, but did not immediately receive a reply.
Radkey's discovery of another possible proxy baptism for Frank follows an apology from the Mormon Church last week for recent posthumous baptisms of Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's parents.
Radkey noted that the latest baptism of Frank by proxy is especially egregious, because she was an unmarried teenager who left no descendants. Mormon officials have stressed that church members are only supposed to submit the names of their ancestors, in accordance with the agreements.
"The security of the names submissions process for posthumous rites must be questioned, in view of the rash of prominent Jewish Holocaust names that have recently appeared on Mormon temple rolls," Radkey said about her latest find. "This one sailed straight through, with Anne's correct name in their 'secure' database."
Radkey said she expects once word gets out that church officials will scrub the records as they did with Wiesel and Weisenthal's parents.
The Mormon Church responded later Tuesday in a statement by spokesman Michael Purdy, sent to The Huffington Post: "The Church keeps its word and is absolutely firm in its commitment to not accept the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism."
"While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions we are committed to taking action against individual abusers," the statement says, "It is distressing when an individual willfully violates the Church’s policy and something that should be understood to be an offering based on love and respect becomes a source of contention."

fun w/t perspective

Pedestrian Pedestal 3D Illusion Street Art

3D pedestal street art by E1000
3D pedestal street art by E1000
This 3D illusion street art by E1000 puts unwitting pedestrians in Madrid up on a pedestal

Earnest Biblical gentleman refutes rotating Earth, heliocentrism, relativity


In this earnest, protracted video, an emphatic gentleman argues that the Earth does not rotate, and stresses that if science's claims to the contrary are accepted, that this will call all of the Bible into question. 35 minutes later, I have watched many inspirational minicopter launches from the hood of a moving pickup truck to the accompaniment of wailing rock-n-roll guitars, while tiny, repetitive type rolls across the screen. It's quite a convincer. Also: Motocross! Parasailing! Babies with glasses! Mumbo jumbo excuses! RUBBISH I SAY!!!

Zombie Princess Leia and Stormtrooper cosplayers


Vill4no snapped this great shot of zombie Star Wars cosplayers at Megacon 2012, where there was much awesomeness on display, judging from the rest of the set.

can't get this tune out of my head....

Ballad of the Virginia mandatory transvaginal ultrasound


Jonathan Mann has devoted today's song-a-day entry to the notorious Virginia transvaginal ultrasound. He notes, "As I was writing this song, the Virginia house passed a bill which still mandates ultrasounds within 24 hours of an abortion, but thankfully, they left out the transvaginal part. I still think the songs stands, though."

Feb 21, 2012

Feb 17, 2012

priceless.....

John Cleese Responds To Monty Python YouTube Channel Comments

John Cleese provides some hilarious responses to questions and comments left on the Monty Python YouTube channel.
via

Hair Hats, Incredible Animal-Shaped Hair Sculptures by Nagi Noda

 

 

cool...

Open Elevator Shaft Illusion in London Shopping Center


False elevator floor illusion
The floor in this London shopping center elevator appears to be missing, thanks to a 3D illusion image created by artist Andrew Walker. The stunt, which genuinely alarmed shoppers, was a promotion for a new ride at British amusement park

old sov prop posters

Propaganda posters of Soviet space program 1958-1963

Fatherland! You lighted the star of progress and peace. Glory to the science, glory to the labor! Glory to the Soviet regime!
Soviet space program propaganda poster 2
I am happy - this is my work joining the work of my republic

Soviet space program propaganda poster 3
In the name of peace

Soviet space program propaganda poster 4
We were born to make the fairy tale come true!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 5
Conquer the space!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 6
The way for man is open!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 7
Sons of October - Pioneers of the Universe!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 8
Navigation in space is open!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 9
The road in the space is Soviet!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 10
Glory to the Soviet people – the pioneer of space!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 11
Glory to the KPSS!

Soviet space program propaganda poster 12
Gagarin, Titov, Nikolaev, Popovich – the mighty knights of our days
Soviet space program propaganda poster 13
Socialism is our launching pad

small fu*kin lizard

Feb 16, 2012

Foster Friess, Rick Santorum Super PAC Backer, Talks Contraception



Rick Santorum Campaign Rhetoric


Foster Friess, a top donor to a Rick Santorum-aligned super PAC, dismissed the importance of his
candidate's stances on social issues in an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Thursday, adding a bizarre statement about birth control.
Friess was asked about Santorum's beliefs on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, which have led many to question his viability in a general election.
"I get such a chuckle when these things come out," he said. He added, "We have jihadist camps being set up in Latin America, which Rick has been warning about and people seem to be so preoccupied with sex -- I think it says something about our culture. We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are."
Friess then turned to contraception. "This contraceptive thing, my gosh it's such [sic] inexpensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly," he said.

Witness the fall....

Gideon's Fall: When You Don't Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do
Gideon's Fall: When You Don't Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do [Kindle Edition
4.0 out of 5 stars Action Packed Parable, February 7, 2012
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Gideon's Fall: When You Don't Have a Prayer, Only a Miracle Will Do (Kindle Edition)
Helluva story! Sacred cows run screaming from every page of this action tale. Sci-Fi military gadgetry a-plenty and a black humor view of how our corporate-run world will evolve (with the Church as a major power) provides a schema for jaw-dropping adventure.
World-class manipulators and brutal fighters criss-cross the globe wringing profit from fighting 'contests' using million-dollar man technology gone wild.
A chess game scenario in which heads of state attempt world domination will cause the reader to question the motivations of current events.

World Record for Highest Shallow Dive


Daredevil Darren Taylor (aka Professor Splash) holds the world record for the highest shallow dive. He achieved the record by jumping from a height of 36 feet into less than 12 inches of water.
via

Chicago Restaurant Serves Up An Edible Dessert Balloon


Chef and owner Grant Achatz and his team at Alinea Restaurant in Chicago, Illinois have recently been serving edible helium-filled balloons as dessert for their patrons. This video shows a bit of how they make it and how to eat it. It looks like you need to suck out the helium first and then eat the sugar-y balloon remains (which has a dehydrated apple string). Alternately, like the diner in the video, you can sing the Star Spangled Banner while high on the helium

Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done


[Video Link] Neal Stephenson talks about "our society's inability to execute on big stuff, to get big stuff done. In the first two thirds of the 20th century we went from not believing that heavier-than-air-flight was possible to walking on the moon."

Feb 15, 2012

knock me over w/t a feather....

Rick Santorum's Wife Karen Sued Doctor For $500,000, Despite Senator's Calls For Tort Reform

Rick And Karen Santorum
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has advocated capping medical malpractice awards at $250,000, but in 1999, his wife sued her doctor over a back injury and asked for twice that amount
As ABC News reports, Santorum's wife, Karen, sued a Virginia-based chiropractor for half-a-million dollars for allegedly bungling a spinal adjustment.
The suit charged that in November 1996, Karen saw Dr. David Dolberg for a spinal alignment, according to an article by Roll Call on Dec. 13, 1999. The adjustment, however, was performed improperly and resulted in a herniated disk that caused her physical pain and emotional suffering, and required surgery and multiple doctors' visits, she alleged.
She sued for $500,000, despite the fact that her medical bills totaled approximately $18,800.
While the jury awarded Karen $350,000, a judge later reduced the amount to $175,000.
By the time of the lawsuit, then-Sen. Santorum had taken up the cause of tort reform, twice sponsoring or co-sponsoring bills limiting the non-economic awards for pain and suffering that a plaintiff could seek to $250,000.
A significant part of what the Santorums were concerned about at the time of the lawsuit was that Karen would not be able to help the senator's re-election campaign, as she had done in the past.

Ape speaks...


Hoisted on their own petard.....
The near universal support of conservatives and far right elements of the Citizens united decision has come back to bite them in their collective asses. By huge infusions of anomoyus superpac money (free speech according to the conservative wing of the supreme court) it allows to keep a candidate who is unpopular with the majority of the party and the one a incumbent president most wants’ to run against....

wtf?

Mormons Still Baptizing Dead Jews Despite Agreements to End Practice


LDS leaders have apologized for the baptism of the parents of famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, but the persistent posthumous baptizing of Holocaust victims has outraged Jewish leaders.

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Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi Retold Using Only Icons

Designer and illustrator Wayne Dorrington graphically retells the story of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi using only icons. All five pages are amazingly detailed. In the past, he’s retold Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode IV in his

Soft robots: elastomeric origami


Wired Science's Dave Mosher investigates elastomeric soft robots -- air-powered origami creepers that can go places that challenge their rigid metallic kin.
Getting the soft robots to perform a particular action is a feat of origami: Folded in just the right way and glued in the right spots, for example, the researchers showed how a crinkled clump of silicone-soaked paper lifted a 2-pound weight. The force of the air required to drive it was roughly twice that of a human exhalation.

Feb 14, 2012

weird but cool...

Trailer for Tim Burton's "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter"


Here's a trailer for Tim Burton's forthcoming adaptation of the satirical horror novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Hard to tell how Burton will play it -- it will be tricky to maintain the relevance of the fact that the action hero is also Honest Abe without obliterating suspension of disbelief, since each reminder of this fact is a bit jarring in the context of a fun/funny horror romp.

This bullsh*t over anti abortion and anti contraception (sort of a oxymoron) and how they are being prosecuted..




American religious institutions enjoy as further proof of how far removed they are from other countries that face legitimate persecution. We're talking of course about their collecting up to $100 billion a year without paying any taxes, AND designated parking on New York City streets. We'll let you decide which one is more valuable.

Arthur Goldwag: Big C and Little C Conspiracy Theories

(In 2010, Boing Boing was pleased to feature as a guestblogger Arthur Goldwag, author of Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more. The following is an excerpt from Arthur's latest book, The New Hate: A History of Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right. - dp)
 Static Mt Assets Politics 142686346
Conspiracy theories often resemble a kind of misbegotten, debased form of theology — one that begins with a set of suppositions and then reverse engineers a fantastical version of reality that comports with them. History does not dispute, for example, the fact that Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s mother’s father was Jewish. But in the auto magnate and arch-conspiracist Henry Ford’s telling, this genealogical detail held the key not only to Lenin’s entire character and political philosophy but to the vicissitudes of the former Russian Empire circa 1920 and to the historical development of Bolshevism worldwide. Lenin’s wife is Jewish, and his children all speak Yiddish, Ford insisted, a little hysterically. Russia’s yeshivas are the recipients of lavish subsidies from the Bolshevik state:
The Bolsheviks immediately took over all the Hebrew schools and continued them as they were and laid down a rule that the ancient Hebrew language should be taught in them. The ancient Hebrew language is the vehicle of the deeper secrets of the World Program.
And for the Gentile Russian children? “Why,” said these gentle Jewish educators, “we will teach them sex knowledge. We will brush out of their minds the cobwebs. They must learn the truth about things!” with consequences that are too pitiable to narrate.
Viewed through Ford’s monistic frame, Lenin’s grandfather’s one-eighth contribution of Jewish “genes” was sufficient to neutralize the very Russianness of the Russian Revolution, to reduce it to just another local skirmish in Judaism’s global war against the Gentiles.
Richard Nixon was forced to resign his presidency because of a small-c conspiracy to cover up the illegal activities carried out by his reelection campaign. But to conspiracists on his right, his whole presidency had been the enactment of a long-standing conspiracy to destroy America’s sovereignty; his breakthrough trip to China was just the latest in a long line of betrayals. “If Mr. Nixon has been only kidding about his devotion to forging the links in the chain of the World Superstate that is to be welded around America’s wrists, then he is a consummate hypocrite,” the John Birch Society’s Gary Allen wrote in 1971, a year before Nixon’s epochal meeting with Mao. “But his commitment to world government goes back nearly a quarter of a century and indeed he would not now be in the White House if he were not committed to this ultimate goal of the Insiders.”
Conspiracism, like racial bigotry, is almost always a murky undercurrent in the mainstream of politics, its propositions only glancingly acknowledged by the establishment and summarily dismissed. But as cartoonish as its heroes and villains might be, as disordered and disreputable and deranged as its proponents and its premises so often are, they are rarely without pertinence to an understanding of the social and political environment that spawned them.