Aszilvasy

BERLIN (AP) -- These thieves might really have sticky fingers.

Police said Monday an unknown number of culprits made off with 5 metric tons (5.5 tons) of Nutella chocolate-hazelnut spread from a parked trailer in the central German town of Bad Hersfeld over the weekend.

The gooey loot is worth an estimated 16,000 euros ($20,710).

Germans news agency dpa reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

By CRACKED Readers  Published: April 08th, 2013  Even if an actor manages to get out that 9 to 5 bleaching celebrities' assholes, that's not a guarantee that their first role in a movie would be any less humiliating. We asked our readers to dig up the first-time movie parts that, no doubt, all the

It originated in China, on social network site Weibo, where a user posted the above photo earlier this month, which generated a lot of discussions and naturally triggered a series of other funny photos of dogs posing for the camera while wearing stockings.




More - after the jump








KYM

Bring back that youthful glow without going under the knife when you cover up your lovely mug with one of these creepy baby masks. These cinema quality latex masks instantly turn back the years and are guaranteed to scare the living daylights out of onlookers. Buy It $350.00 via HyperFlesh.com

Jerry Falwell‘s Liberty University just revised (PDF) an important policy at the school:

Students of Liberty University… who hold a valid concealed weapons permit recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and who are approved by LUPD to carry a concealed weapon, may possess and carry such concealed weapon on University property and all University facilities except residence halls, and may store the approved weapon in a secured container or compartment in their vehicle while on University property.

So students (and staff) who have the easy-to-obtain weapons permit can bring a concealed weapon on campus.

“Students ought to have the ability to protect themselves,” Josh Hetzler, a law student who helped draft the new policy, told WDBJ. “We’ve seen a number of instances here in the nation recently were schools are particularly vulnerable. They’re gun free zones, except that the bad guys still get the guns.”

Just to put this in context:

Liberty doesn’t allow students to watch rated-R movies.

Liberty doesn’t allow students to listen to music that doesn’t honor God.

Liberty doesn’t allow students to attend a dance.

Liberty doesn’t allow students to kiss their significant others.

… but they will allow students who jump through giant hoops to bring a gun to class. As if you needed another reason never to go there.

by Brendan James

Commenting on a new adaptation, Alyssa Rosenberg complains that the play “hasn’t aged well”:

[T]he vision of Romeo and Juliet’s deaths uniting their families is an adolescent fantasy of death solving all problems, a “won’t they miss me when I’m gone” pout. There’s a reason that, in the best modern riff on Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, Maria lives after Tony’s death to shame the Sharks and the Jets, her survival a seal on the truce between them. Dying is easy. Living to survive the consequences of your actions and to do the actual work of reconciliation is the hard part.

Anna Williams suggests the exploration of “deeply childish love” is the point of the play:

The play’s criticism of the lovers becomes explicit in the speeches of Friar Laurence, who considers their relationship shallow, hasty, and immoderate. Amazed at the news that Romeo has suddenly stopped loving Rosaline and fallen in love with Juliet, the friar concludes that “young men’s love then lies / Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.” (Just as Rosenberg says, “Romeo’s age isn’t specified in the play, but the quickness with which he throws over a former flame for Juliet doesn’t suggest a particularly mature man.”) A love that lies more in the eyes than in the heart, in the friar’s analogy, is deficient.

The rapid progress of the lovers’ relationship worries the friar, too: “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast,” he cautions the eager Romeo. Although Juliet calls their love “too rash, too unadvised, too sudden” the night that she meets Romeo, she does not actually slow their courtship, as they marry the very next day. We are, in Rosenberg’s phrase, watching them “behave like early teenagers.”

I agree with Alyssa that most modern-dress productions don’t come off well—I haven’t been the same since sweating through a bleak, grey staging at Edinburgh Festival a few years back. But is the play itself really “outdated?” Probably not until self-destructive love is out of our system. In the meantime it seems odd to fault Shakespeare for the relatively recent butcherings of a drama that has been staged for roughly 400 years.

Too soon?

via

Writing down notes just became obsolete now that the document scanner pen has entered into the equation. This highly portable gadget employs a precision lens to capture whatever is visually placed within its laser parameters to provide the highest quality scan possible. Buy It $124.95 via Hammacher.com

President Obama caused a stir Thursday when he commented on the appearance of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

"She's brilliant and she's dedicated, she's tough," Obama said at a DNC fundraiser in Atherton, Calif., according to a White House pool report. "She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general....It's true! C'mon."

After the remarks began to surface on Twitter, Politico media reporter Dylan Byers decided to chime in, defending Obama.

How did it become so difficult to call a woman good looking in public?

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) April 4, 2013

That prompted New York magazine's Jonathan Chait to take Byers to task for suggesting that comments about women's looks are harmless.

"For those who don't see the problem here, the degree to which women are judged by their appearance remains an important hurdle to gender equality in the workforce," Chait wrote. "Women have a hard time being judged purely on their merits. Discussing their appearance in the context of evaluating their job performance makes it worse."

Chait continued, taking on the president for setting a bad example. "It's not a compliment. And for a president who has become a cultural model for many of his supporters in so many other ways, the example he's setting here is disgraceful."

This isn't the first time Obama has taken flack for a comment describing a woman. In 2008, he ultimately apologized after calling a female reporter "sweetie."

Political analyst Zerlina Maxwell also responded to Byers:

when we became full humans and not objects RT @dylanbyers: How did it become so difficult to call a woman good looking in public?

— Zerlina Maxwell (@ZerlinaMaxwell) April 4, 2013

In order to understand, you have to view it WITHOUT your male privilege. Walking around as a woman is very difficult. @dylanbyers

— Zerlina Maxwell (@ZerlinaMaxwell) April 4, 2013

Which prompted this:

@zerlinamaxwell @dylanbyers and how would you know what it's like to walk around as a man?

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) April 4, 2013

Update 7:30 p.m.: The conservative Independent Women's Forum didn't take issue with President Obama's remarks. "President Obama prefaced his comments with she is smart and dedicated," IWF Communications Director Victoria Coley told TPM in an email. "If we cant enjoy a compliment once in awhile then we really have a problem!"

Flickr/lkrichter

On a Sunday afternoon, Douglas Zerby, 35, left a Long Beach bar feeling too drunk to drive home, walked to a nearby house, and sat on the stoop. While waiting for his friend to come home, he played with the nozzle from a nearby garden hose. A neighbor, mistaking it for a gun, called police. The officers who arrived on the scene did not announce their presence, identify themselves, or tell the seated man to drop what they believed to be a gun. They did shoot and kill him, later claiming that he pointed the hose nozzle at them. The Long Beach Police Department says they acted reasonably. The district attorney cleared them of criminal wrongdoing. And on Thursday, a federal jury awarded the dead man's family $6.5 million in a civil suit, concluding after brief deliberations that the officers acted negligently and violated Zerby's civil rights.

Would you want those officers patrolling your neighborhood? I wouldn't. I presume their mistake was an honest one. But making the right call in difficult, stressful situations is a crucial part of the job. And there's no mistake more serious than needlessly shooting and killing an innocent. I can't tell you exactly how often it happens -- or even how often police officers kill in general. "The nation's leading law enforcement agency collects vast amounts of information on crime nationwide, but missing from this clearinghouse are statistics on where, how often, and under what circumstances police use deadly force," Alan Maimon reports. "In fact, no one anywhere comprehensively tracks the most significant act police can do in the line of duty: take a life."

But it sure seems like Southern California's police officers are frequently using deadly force in situations where they shouldn't, and that efforts to prevent such mistakes are woefully insufficient. That perception is common now due to what transpired during the manhunt for Christopher Dorner, the ex-LAPD officer who targeted his former colleagues, killed three people, and caused a frantic manhunt across the region while he remained a fugitive from justice. During the ordeal I felt tremendous sympathy for all police officers and their families. But I worried about stressed out police accidentally killing people they mistook for their antagonist.

It seemed no one was safe. Chris Dorner was a 6 foot tall, 270 pound black man. Early one morning, LAPD officers in Torrance, California opened fire on a vehicle believing Dorner was inside. As it turned out, they were firing on two women delivering newspapers: Maggie Carranza, 47, and her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez. They later said that there was no warning at all before police began riddling their vehicle with bullets. Thankfully they weren't killed.

David Perdue, a skinny white man, had a similar experience:

Perdue left his Redondo Beach home and was driving through Torrance to the beach for some early morning surfing on Thursday when he was stopped. Officers guarding the home of a law enforcement official targeted by Dorner questioned him because his Honda Ridgeline pickup truck resembled the vehicle investigators believed Dorner was driving.

Seconds after he drove away, Perdue's truck was broadsided by a Torrance police car at the corner of Flagler Land and Beryl Street, said his attorney Robert Sheahen. "These lunatics broadsided the side of his truck, spun him around and started shooting at him," Sheahen said. "Now they're attempting to say they couldn't tell if the guy they were shooting at was a white guy or a black guy because David's airbag went off."

Perdue suffered a concussion and a shoulder injury in the attack, which took place minutes after LAPD officers opened fire on another pickup truck nearby. In that instance, two women delivering newspapers were targeted. One woman was shot twice in the back and the other was injured by broken glass. Torrance Police Department released a statement explaining that Perdue's truck was "suddenly leaving the area" and seemingly veering into a patrol car when the two vehicles collided at 5:15 a.m. "In the split seconds available to them the action was appropriate to intervene and stop the actions of the driver of that vehicle," a Torrance police statement reads. The department also offered to pay Perdue's medical bills and rental car expenses.

Isn't that statement from the police incredible? "In the split seconds available to them the action was appropriate to intervene and stop the actions of the driver." Actually, no, it wasn't appropriate. Whether unfathomably or understandably, the officers actions were undeniably wrong and evidence for the proposition that they are unable to make the right call in mere seconds.

Here's the rule I'd like to see adopted: if you shoot at someone who turns out to be unarmed and innocent of any crime, you never get to work as an armed officer patrolling the streets again.

It's automatic.

I understand that even good officers can make mistakes. But the best evidence we have of someone's skill in these impossible-to-simulate situations is how they perform in the rare instances when they happen; it's important to disincentivized these sorts of errors more given their frequency; and police can't be trusted to adjudicate them on a case by case basis anyway.

Would my standard occasionally result in the unfair removal of an officer from armed patrol? Sure, but it would also likely reduce the incidence of innocents shot or killed by raising the cost to officers and signalling that there isn't ultimately anything that fully excuses the mistake. Officers tempted to object should think of it this way: The public isn't saying it's certain the officer is guilty, it is erring on the side of its own safety by taking preemptive action in self-defense.

Understandable, isn't it?

Reuters
In the Washington Post, Peter Wehner advises the Republican Party to reassert itself as the anti-drug-legalization party. "One of the main deterrents to drug use is because it is illegal. If drugs become legal, their price will go down and use will go up," he writes. "And marijuana is far more potent than in the past. Studies have shown that adolescents and young adults who are heavy users of marijuana suffer from disrupted brain development and cognitive processing problems." Of course, no one is advocating that adolescent marijuana be made legal. And does Wehner understand that prohibition creates a powerful incentive for upping drug potency?

But rather than focus on mistaken arguments common to drug prohibitionists, I want to address a relatively novel claim: "Many people cite the 'costs' of and 'socioeconomic factors' behind drug use; rarely do people say that drug use is wrong because it is morally problematic, because of what it can do to mind and soul," Wehner writes. "In some liberal and libertarian circles, the 'language of morality' is ridiculed. It is considered unenlightened, benighted and simplistic. The role of the state is to maximize individual liberty and be indifferent to human character."
So take a look at the guy in the photo and make your choice: Is it more moral to let him smoke, or to forcibly cage him with thieves, rapists, and murderers?
What he doesn't seem to understand is that many advocates of individual liberty, myself included, regard liberty itself as a moral imperative. I don't want to ridicule the "language of morality." I want to state, as forcefully as possible, that the War on Drugs is deeply, irredeemably immoral; that it corrodes the minds and souls of those who prosecute it, and creates incentives for bad behavior that those living under its contours have always and will always find too powerful to resist. Drug warriors may disagree, but they should not pretend that they are the only ones making moral claims, and that their opponents are indifferent to morality. Reformers are often morally outraged by prohibitionist policies and worry that nannying degrades the character of citizens.

Perhaps I should be more specific.

See the man in the photo at the top of this article? It isn't immoral for him to light a plant on fire, inhale the smoke, and enjoy a mild high for a short time, presuming he doesn't drive while high. But it would be immoral to react to his plant-smoking by sending men with guns to forcibly arrest him, convict him in a court, and lock him up for months or even years for a victimless crime. That's the choice, dear reader. So take a look at the guy in the photo and make your choice: Is it more moral to let him smoke, or to forcibly cage him with thieves, rapists, and murderers? 

My own moral judgments don't stop there.

Denying marijuana to sick people whose suffering it would ease is immoral.

When a paramilitary police squad raids a family home, battering down doors without knocking, exploding flash grenades, shooting family pets, and handcuffing children, all to recover a small number of marijuana plants, the officers or the people who ordered them there are acting immorally.  

When the United States reacts to the insatiable demand for drugs by American citizens by pursuing prohibitionist policies abroad that destabilize multiple foreign countries, it acts immorally.

When prosecutors coerce nonviolent drug offenders to risk their lives as police informants under threat of draconian prison sentences, they act immorally.

The dearth of empathy for nonviolent drug offenders serving years or even decades in prison is a moral failure.

Because we have shifted the costs of drug abuse away from the Americans who freely chose or would choose to use drugs and toward society as a whole, imposing more costs on people who never chose to use drugs but suffer from many harms of the black market, we have achieved a morally dubious redistribution. 

What about character? When leaders like Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama support policies that incarcerate young people for behavior that they themselves engaged in without any apparent harm to themselves, their futures, or anyone else, it is they who exhibit character failures.

Of course, there are drug abusers who exhibit character failures too. And when those failures affect other people, when they steal or behave violently or recklessly, they ought to be punished. Law enforcement could focus on catching them, and society could do far more to rehabilitate addicts, if so much wealth wasn't squandered on an obviously hopeless War on Drugs. Like a lot of people who favor ending it, I believe a reformed policy would be a lot more moral.

Atlas Shrugged, p. 20-25 The first of the novel’s protagonists whom we meet is Dagny Taggart, the operating vice-president of Taggart Transcontinental and, as we quickly learn, the power behind the throne that keeps the railroad running. Actually, we first meet Dagny in a flashback, although not by name. She’s a childhood friend of poor, [...]

This time they’ve gone too far.

A much-loved and large part of my childhood is under attack from crazy theocrats. “They” are Austria’s Turkish Cultural Association. (I know, I know, the very name strikes terror into the hearts of decent folk across the land.)

And the fond childhood memories of which I speak? Lego. I love Lego. I always have and always will. Despite being the grand old age of 27, I still own a few sets and always enjoy seeing younger members of my family play with them, as it provides a welcome opportunity to build something new. I have a certificate I once got for entering a Lego building competition — not winning anything mind you; merely entering. Yet it still hangs proudly on my wall. Okay, so we get it — I love Lego and my bias has been declared.

How has the world of this beloved toymaker collided with Turkish cultural sensibilities?

Because it’s racist, that’s why.

Outrage stirred in sleepy Austria when a Muslim father found that his sister had given a Lego set to his son as a present. Specifically, Jabba’s Palace from the Lego Star Wars range.

Avert your eyes! It’s Lego Jabba’s Palace

At first I thought this story had to be a hoax, since I first read it on April Fool’s Day — but, unfortunately, it seems to be true. The exact nature of the complaint seems to that Jabba’s Palace looks like a mosque… and Jabba is a villain and surrounded by villains. Therefore, anyone who is in a mosque is a villain and Lego is racist.

You can’t refute logic as sound as that!

A statement from the group published in the Austrian Times outlined their anger:

The terrorist Jabba the Hutt likes to smoke a hookah and have his victims killed. It is clear that the ugly figure of Jabba and the whole scene smacks of racial prejudice and vulgar insinuations against Asians and Orientals as people with deceitful and criminal personalities. He also smokes an oriental water pipe, and keeps a princess as a belly dancer in chains. That is the sort of thing that does not belong in a child’s bedroom.

The group is also concerned that the toy set resembles Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, a church-turned-mosque-turned-museum, thus further enforcing the obvious (to them at least) fact that Jabba’s palace is meant to be a mosque. I’ve been to the Hagia Sophia — it looks nothing like Jabba’s Palace. If anything, it bears a closer resemblance to something from Naboo. Why this group has seen fit to go after Lego, as opposed to, say, George Lucas, is unclear. They’re probably just unfamiliar with Star Wars. Which in itself is cause for concern.

Lego rightly insisted the product was merely a faithful reproduction: “We see no reason to take it off the market, we have simply followed the film.” But then came news that Lego was indeed going to pull the product, along with a statement apologizing for any offense caused, a move seen far too regularly here in Europe. Victory for Austria’s Turkish community!

It was short-lived, however. Lego’s original statement was misleading, incorrectly attributing the decision to pull the product to the rantings of a few theocrats. It turns out the product was due to be discontinued at the end of the year, anyway. Lego released a follow-up statement clarifying this position:

All Lego Star Wars products are based on the movies of the Star Wars saga. The ‘Jabba’s Palace’ product does not reflect any non-fictional buildings, people, or the mentioned mosque. The Lego Group regrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interpret it wrongly but the product only refers to the fictional content of the Star Wars saga.  It is not correct that the discontinuation of the product is related in any way to the TCA’s criticism. The Lego Star Wars assortment usually have a life-cycle of one to three years after which they leave the assortment, possibly to be renewed after some years. ‘Jabba’s Palace’ was planned from the beginning to be in the assortment only until the end of 2013 as new exciting models from the Star Wars universe will follow.

For now, the force is with Lego. And may it stay that way for good.

A mugshot from 2010 of Meagan Renea McCullough, an attractive young woman from Florida, quickly turned into an Advice Animal meme after it got posted to Reddit a couple of days ago, captioned "Wanted in 50 states" and got a ton of upvotes.



More - after the jump







KYM / QuickMeme

PYONGYANG—Ri Sol-ju, wife of North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un, opened up to reporters Thursday about her husband’s warmongering, saying that the Dear Leader’s recent bluster was totally uncharacteristic of the man she was forced to marry ...

Senate Democrats are warning Republicans not to filibuster President Obama's nominee to be a judge on the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. If they don't filibuster Sri Srinivasan, currently the No. 2 lawyer in the U.S. Solicitor General's office, it would be the first Obama nominee to receive a confirmation vote to serve on the nation's second highest court.

"Srinivasan is an ideal nominee: extremely qualified, and supported by a broad range of experts and colleagues from across the ideological spectrum," said a Senate Democratic leadership aide. "If Republicans block him from even receiving a vote, it will be crystal clear to everyone that there are no nominees they would find acceptable, and that they are dead set on pursuing obstruction as an end unto itself."

The Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination is next Wednesday. And yet Senate Republicans -- who recently filibustered another Obama nominee to the court -- are mum about their intentions, refraining from criticizing Srinivasan but keeping their options open.

"I look forward to hearing from Mr. Srinivasan when he comes before the Judiciary Committee and plan to have several questions for him," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the committee, said in a statement to TPM. "This would include questions to gauge his judicial temperament, his approach to the Constitution, and his thoughts on the proper role of a judge in our system of checks and balances."

Matt Harakal, a spokesman for Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said "Sen. Hatch looks forward to examining his background and experience on a number of important issues."

For now at least, even the more conservative members of the committee are holding their cards close to their vests. Spokespersons for Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) declined to comment on Srinivasan or his upcoming confirmation hearing.

The broad ideological consensus behind Srinivasan -- which includes conservative legal stars like Paul Clement, Ted Olson and Ken Starr -- makes it harder for Republicans to filibuster Srinivasan, absent some unexpected and unlikely revelation. Another filibuster would deepen the Democratic majority's frustration and potentially risk inciting another filibuster reform battle, which some Democrats are eager to kick off.

Four of 11 active seats on the court are currently vacant, a status quo Obama has called "unacceptable." No nominee has been confirmed since 2006. Democrats filibustered several of President George W. Bush's picks to the D.C. Circuit but allowed four of them to be confirmed. Republicans haven't permitted a single Obama nominee to receive a vote.

"There is simply no legitimate reason to block him from getting an up-or-down vote," the Democratic aide said. "If Republicans want to vote against Srinivasan, they should go right ahead; but they should not block him from getting an up-or-down vote."

"Pale Lagers saw unit sales contract by 5% in 2012 compared to the prior year, and as a result, experienced by far the largest share loss at about 170 basis points in 2012," said Peter Reidhead, VP of Strategy and Insights at GuestMetrics.  "Additionally, in analyzing the quarter of 2013, the picture does not appear to be improving for Pale Lagers, with units contracting 6.2% against prior year, and the share loss accelerating slightly to 180 basis points."  Based on data from GuestMetrics, the Pale Lager brands with the largest share loss last year were Miller Lite, Bud Light, and Budweiser." 

Petsami | via

Miller Center/Flickr

Since John Yoo played a prominent role helping to institutionalize torture during the Bush Administration, it's no surprise that he objects when other people who were complicit in that immoral and illegal behavior are stigmatized. His latest post at National Review laments the fact that the person chosen to head the CIA's clandestine service -- the first woman ever tapped for the job -- may not get it after all. As the Washington Post described the controversy, "She is a veteran officer with broad support inside the agency. But she also helped run the CIA's detention and interrogation program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and signed off on the 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of prisoners being subjected to treatment critics have called torture." Remember that?

You can see the contours of disagreement: Yoo thinks this woman is "the most qualified person for the job," and should be appointed; her critics think her past behavior was immoral, illegal, and disqualifying.

That's why I find the line of argument Yoo pursues so hilarious. "This is a lot more serious than the hypocrisy of the diversity-crazed Obama administration's blocking the first woman for this most sensitive and important of intelligence positions," he writes. "This is the very politicization of the CIA that conservatives feared when Brennan was nominated ... because of the heat from the Left during his confirmation, Brennan is blocking the most qualified operative to head the CIA's key division because of her involvement in interrogations. Clearly, diversity only goes so far for the Left."

That last line is priceless.

Let's marvel at the reasoning. The left *preaches* gender diversity, sure, but the minute advancing it would require them to promote a torturer who obstructed the 9/11 Commission's investigation to destroy evidence of horrific acts ... well, suddenly diversity isn't the priority anymore.

It's an argument only Yoo would make. Of course he of all people thinks this proves hypocrisy. Why, it was "only" "enhanced interrogations." There wasn't even child-testicle crushing ... not that there would've been anything wrong with that! The man is so oblivious to the severity of what his colleagues in the Bush Administration perpetrated, so blind even to the beliefs of their liberal critics, that he thinks if liberals were being consistent they'd care more about promoting a woman than stigmatizing torture -- and that if they did, it would reflect more favorably on their intellectual honesty.

Interpretive reasoning is not his strong suit.

NEETZAN ZIMMERMAN | Gawker

It may have been April 1st yesterday, but televangelist Pat Robertson wasn't kidding when he told a viewer that Americans aren't experiencing God's miracles because they are too "sophisticated."

Why do miracles "happen with great frequency in Africa, and not here in the USA?" asked a 700 Club patron Ken. "People overseas didn't go to Ivy League schools," Robertson replied with a chuckle.

"We are so sophisticated, we think we've got everything figured out," the Christian Broadcasting Network chairman continued. "We know about evolution, we know about Darwin, we know about all these things that says God isn't real, we know about all this stuff."

According to Robertson, it's the "skepticism and secularism" that is being taught at "the most advanced schools" around the country that is keeping God's miracles at bay.

Meanwhile, Africans are "simple" and "humble." "You tell 'em God loves 'em and they say, 'Okay, he loves me'," said Robertson. "You say God will do miracles and they say, 'Okay, we believe him'."

If Americans wish to experience more miracle, Robertson concluded, they must reject their miracle-negating sophistication in favor of the more credulous African way of life.

[video via RightWingWatch]

Gawker dishes the nation's most current and cutting gossip across media, entertainment, technology, and business. Founded in 2002 and namechecked frequently in mainstream publications, the site is essential reading for those who want big media hypocrisy debunked and faux-sincerity exposed, all with a healthy dose of snark.

According to the Youtube description, the guy was saved, he's alive and well.

via

Just to show you youngins just how hot the console wars got, look no further than this vintage news report from Good Morning America from 1990 to tell you.

Nintendo versus Sega. NES versus the Genesis.

And not to mention some very interesting market insights of the time... such as Nintendo console sales slowing because EVERYONE ALREADY HAS ONE.

Just watch.

ATLANTA (AP) -- The first of more than 30 defendants expected to surrender Tuesday in Atlanta's school cheating scandal have turned themselves in to authorities.

Fulton County Jail records show that Tameka Goodson was in custody early Tuesday after being booked into jail on charges of racketeering and making false statements and writings. Goodson was an instructional coach at Kennedy Middle School.

Her attorney, Raymond Lail, told WAGA-TV that Goodson is "absolutely not guilty of these charges."

News media outlets reported that a second suspect, Usher/Collier Heights Elementary School test coordinator Donald Bullock, turned himself in around 6 a.m.

Thirty-five Atlanta educators, including former Superintendent Beverly Hall, are named in a 65-count indictment that alleges a broad conspiracy involving cheating on standardized tests.

The defendants face a Tuesday deadline to surrender.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart a nuclear reactor that can make one bomb's worth of plutonium a year, escalating tensions already raised by near daily warlike threats against the United States and South Korea.

The North's plutonium reactor was shut down in 2007 as part of international nuclear disarmament talks that have since stalled. The declaration of a resumption of plutonium production -- the most common fuel in nuclear weapons -- and other facilities at the main Nyongbyon nuclear complex will boost fears in Washington and among its allies about North Korea's timetable for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, technology it is not currently believed to have.

A spokesman for the North's General Department of Atomic Energy said that scientists will begin work at a uranium enrichment plant and a graphite-moderated 5 megawatt reactor, which generates spent fuel rods laced with plutonium and is the core of the Nyongbyon nuclear complex.

The unidentified spokesman said the measure is part of efforts to resolve the country's acute electricity shortage but also for "bolstering up the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity," according to a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test in February, prompting a new round of U.N. sanctions that have infuriated its leaders and led to a torrent of threatening rhetoric. The United States has sent nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets to participate in annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine but that Pyongyang claims are invasion preparations.

North Korea has declared that the armistice ending the Korean War in 1953 is void, threatened to launch nuclear and rocket strikes on the United States and, most recently, declared at a high-level government assembly that making nuclear arms and a stronger economy are the nation's top priorities.

The threats are seen as efforts to force policy changes in Seoul and Washington and increase domestic loyalty to young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by portraying him as a powerful military force.

"North Korea is keeping tension and crisis alive to raise stakes ahead of possible future talks with the United States," said Hwang Jihwan, a North Korea expert at the University of Seoul. "North Korea is asking the world, 'What are you going to do about this?'"

North Korea added the 5-megawatt, graphite-moderated reactor to its nuclear complex at Nyongbyon in 1986 after seven years of construction. The country began building a 50-megawatt and a 200 megawatt reactor in 1984, but construction was suspended under a 1994 nuclear deal with Washington.

North Korea says the facility is aimed at generating electricity. It takes about 8,000 fuel rods to run the reactor. Reprocessing the spent fuel rods after a year of reactor operation could yield about 7 kilograms of plutonium -- enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts say.

Nuclear bombs can be produced with highly enriched uranium or with plutonium. North Korea is believed to have exploded plutonium devices in its first two nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009.

In 2010, the North unveiled a long-suspected uranium enrichment program, which would give it another potential route to make bomb fuel. Uranium worries outsiders because the technology needed to make highly enriched uranium bombs is much easier to hide than huge plutonium facilities.

But experts say plutonium is considered better for building small warheads, which North Korea needs if it is going to put them on missiles. Analysts say they don't believe North Korea currently has mastered such miniaturization technology.

Scientist and nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker has estimated that Pyongyang has 24 to 42 kilograms of plutonium -- enough for perhaps four to eight rudimentary bombs similar to the plutonium weapon used on Nagasaki in World War II.

It's not known whether the North's latest atomic test, in February, used highly enriched uranium or plutonium stockpiles. South Korea and other countries have so far failed to detect radioactive elements that may have leaked from the test and which could determine what kind of device was used.

"North Korea is dispelling any remaining uncertainties about its intention for developing nuclear arms. It is making it clear that its nuclear arms program is the essence of its national security and that it's not negotiable," said Sohn Yong-woo, a professor at the Graduate School of National Defense Strategy of Hannam University in South Korea.

"North Korea is more confident about itself than ever after the third nuclear test," Sohn said. "That confidence is driving the leadership toward more aggressive nuclear development."

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Associated Press writer Sam Kim contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

I spoke at an American Enterprise Institute panel on anti-competitive regulations last week, and wanted to try to persuade the conservatives in the audience that a robust social safety is a natural complement to a flexible dynamic economy. Ashwin Parameswaran turns out to have put the point quite well recently:

A common feature of most crony capitalist economies is the pervasive presence of subsidies targeted at the middle class. Progressives often view middle-class subsidies as the unavoidable price required to secure widespread support for the welfare state. But in reality middle-class subsidies act as the carrot that aligns the interests of the middle class with parasitic crony capitalism. However, along with the carrot comes a very hefty stick – the absence of a safety net. The absence of a safety net that protects individuals against catastrophic outcomes breeds middle-class insecurity. The fear of falling through the cracks causes the middle class to support the very rent-infested programs and corporate bailouts that sustain the plutocracy. In the absence of a safety net, the middle class seeks safety in the safety of the incumbent firm that employs them.

Health care is particularly relevant here. If a spell of unemployment can critically compromise a family's ability to access needed medical care, then naturally that family is going to fight like a hungry dog for the interests of its employer in the political arena. And to the extent that the conventional wisdom holds that this is how the health care system ought to work, then it's naturally going to follow that this kind cronyist behavior is natural and proper. After all, what else are people supposed to do?

By Adam Wears,Charles Glass,Rich Solomon  Published: April 01st, 2013  The Internet is great at reading too much into things -- even Freud admitted that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, people. Other times, however, you could make a pretty strong case to argue that it is, in fact, a penis. See, every once in a while,

After a paper map that turned out to be a famous Scottish pirate's treasure map was discovered in the Indian Ocean in September 2012, the Google team went on to create a digitized version to make it possible to decipher all its encrypted symbols.


Try it - here

Google Maps

Also: Google Nose, Gmail Blue

In the latest video they posted on their channel, the Youtube staff announce that this entire time, the site was just a contest to find the best video in the world, and now, after reviewing billions of videos, they are ready to pick a winner, which will be announced 10 years from now, on April 1st, 2013, when Youtube will return.


Youtube

With six minutes and thirty-three seconds remaining in the first half of Sunday’s Elite Eight game between Louisville and Duke, Kevin Ware, a sophomore guard for Louisville, jumped up to contest a three-point shot. When he came down, and after he had crumpled to the ground, it was clear that his lower right leg had bent in a way that a leg is not supposed to bend. Bend was entirely the wrong word. Part of Ware’s broken bone could be seen protruding through the skin. The Louisville training staff quickly rushed over to care for Ware, and to cover his leg with towels. CBS showed the replay twice, and then not again. The game was halted for ten minutes as Ware was moved from the floor on a stretcher. The crowd had gone silent. Louisville coach Rick Pitino appeared, briefly, to have tears in his eyes. Several of Ware’s teammates lay on the court themselves, overcome by emotion. Louisville forward Chane Behanan was doubled over, seemingly about to be sick. And then the game began again—and ten strong and fit and athletic and graceful young men ran up and down the court in a good approximation of their usual full-tilt frenzy.

It was a one-point game when Ware broke his leg, and was still close at the half. In the end, Louisville won by twenty-two and is going to the Final Four, with Wichita State standing between it and the championship game. (The other two teams left are Syracuse and Michigan.) These particulars may seem beside the point in the face of such a hideous injury—but they aren’t for Ware, who gave his teammates a quick but rousing bit of encouragement before he was wheeled of the court: “The bone’s six inches out of his leg and all he’s yelling is, ‘Win the game, win the game,’” Pitino told reporters afterward. And so all the “Win One for the Gipper” sports myths are diminished in the face of the real words of Kevin Ware. Pitino also confirmed that Ware, who came off the bench this season for the Cardinals and averaged a little under five points a game, had broken his leg in two places and would need roughly a year to recover.

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Helen Rittlemeyer explores the similarities between David Foster Wallace and Samuel Coleridge, which range from youthful fame to struggles with addiction. One revealing parallel? Their fascination with footnotes:

Contemporaries were skeptical of Coleridge’s protestations, just as many people today are skeptical Wallace’s, but anyone who criticizes them should first think why it makes sense that a man who overuses footnotes would also become dependent on drugs and alcohol. Coleridge and Wallace were both acknowledged as having immense native brainpower—a friend of DFW’s described him as receiving more frames-per-second than most people—and both of them were great readers with great memories. Coleridge was nearly a child prodigy, reputed to be able to recite long passages from books he’d read only once.

These men could not have a thought without twelve sidebars, citations, and quibbles popping up from their mental recesses. The result: footnotes and digressions. The other result: an overwhelming desire, when the stimulation became too strong, to power down the machine for a while. “He once said to me that he wanted to write to shut up the voices in his head,” Wallace’s best friend told a reporter. “He said when you’re writing well, you establish a voice in your head, and it shuts up the other voices.” And alcohol shuts up all the voices.