I present to you Mr. Testicle!

[thanks thatwanderlust]

honkshu:

hydnellum peckii. yes, a type of fungus. 

everyday on the internet

Beverly Hills 90210

Have you ever visited Clients From Hell? If even the slightly bit artistic or creative, you’ll find it is without a doubt one of the funniest sites on the internet. The premise is simple, graphic designers and creatives submit genuine comments and feedback from clients anonymously.

Sounds ok so far doesn’t it?

But the requests and responses utterly defy belief at times! From the ludicrous & absurd to countless moments where you feel compelled to just bury your face in your hands, such is the idiotic nature of the questions. They serve as an amusing insight into the maddening world in which creatives have to work and the daily battles they face to make their clients happy.

Two Irish designers and Paddy Treacy & Mark Shanley knew exactly how that felt, so they decided to take the premise / concept further and turn those comments from clients into actual posters. They collaborated with numerous designers, illustrations and creative directors to collate all the feedback, highlighting the most dumb-founding requests and creating inventive & unique posters for each.

They’ve titled the series ‘Sharp Suits’ and below is a selection from their hilarious endeavour, you can find out more about the project via sharpsuits.net

Via sharpsuits.net

ENJOYED IT? SHARE IT!

In 1967 Dmitri Borgmann made his way from UGLY to BEAUTIFUL by means of dictionary definitions:

UGLY — OFFENSIVE
OFFENSIVE — INSULTING
INSULTING — INSOLENT
INSOLENT — PROUD
PROUD — LORDLY
LORDLY — STATELY
STATELY — GRAND
GRAND — GORGEOUS
GORGEOUS — BEAUTIFUL

Kipling called words “the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

pipud:

ut4ps:

Race matters.

Must reblog.

godisgaf:

our president is a sarcastic motherfucker.

fuckyeahdementia:

parents protect your children

Veja meu comentário sobre a Síria na Jornal das Dez da Globo News

Leia também o contexto dos bombardeios de Israel à Síria

A oposição síria, e não o regime de Bashar al Assad, teria usado armas químicas, de acordo com acordo com uma das mais importantes autoridades da ONU disse em entrevista. Este anúncio, que infelizmente tem repercutido pouco na imprensa americana, afundaria pelo menos um dos argumentos dos defensores de uma intervenção dos EUA na guerra civil na Síria.

Apenas para lembrar, Barack Obama afirmou que uso de armas químicas, por parte do regime, seria um divisor de águas e mudaria seus cálculos sobre a guerra civil na Síria. Semanas atrás, emergiu a informação de que estes armamentos teriam sido usados. Sem prova alguma, certas nações passaram a acusar o regime.

Nesta sexta, porém, a comissária da Comissão Internacional de Inquérito da ONU para a Síria, Carla del Ponte, afirmou ter “fortes evidências de que os rebeldes usaram armas químicas”, e não o regime. Portanto, mais uma vez para ficar claro, a oposição teria sido responsável, não Assad, pelo uso do arsenal químico – informações posteriores indicam que a ONU tampouco tem provas conclusivas sobre o uso pelos opositores, mas neste caso a própria Del Ponte precisaria se explicar.

Esta informação deve ser esquecida, infelizmente. Defensores da intervenção ignoram o relatório da ONU e cravam, sem provas, que Assad usou armas químicas. Ainda bem que Obama, no caso da Síria, mantém enorme cautela e foi claro em discurso na semana passada ao dizer que estes armamentos químicos foram usados, “mas não sabemos quando, onde e por quem”. A resposta das Nações Unidas – pela oposição, não por Assad. 

ATUALIZAÇÃO – Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, presidente da Comissão de Inquérito da ONU, publicou nota afirmando que não há provas contra o regime de Assad e TAMPOUCO contra a oposição. Carla del Ponte não voltou atrás na sua informação

Guga Chacra, comentarista de política internacional do Estadão e do programa Globo News Em Pauta em Nova York, é mestre em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade Columbia. Já foi correspondente do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo no Oriente Médio e em NY. No passado, trabalhou como correspondente da Folha em Buenos Aires

You can see the resemblance, can't you? This is a Megalopyge opercularis, or flannel moth caterpillar. It was spotted by photographer Jeff Cremer and biologist Phil Torres in the Peruvian rainforest. They look furry, and will become a fluffy moth as well, but don't touch it! Its "fur" is made up of venomous spines that can cause painful swelling that lasts for days. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Phil Torres)

Israel has asked Google to reconsider its decision to list Palestine among its selection of localized search pages, accusing the company of implicitly recognizing a Palestinian state. In a letter to Google CEO Larry Page, deputy foreign minister Ze’ev Elkin said the search giant's move could undermine efforts for peace in the region.

The company's Google.ps search page had previously been labeled "Palestinian territories," but was changed to "Palestine" on May 1st. Israel's foreign ministry had expressed concerns over the nomenclature, saying it "raises questions" about Google's intent. As the Jerusalem Post reports, Elkin has now adopted a more openly critical stance.

A threat to peace in the Middle East

"Such a decision is in my opinion not only mistaken but could also negatively impinge on the efforts of my government to bring about direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority," the minister wrote, adding that the move would embolden Palestinians to "further their political aims through one-sided actions rather than through negotiating and mutual agreement." Elkin asked Google to reconsider its decision, while urging Page to discuss the matter with Israeli representatives.

In an interview with the BBC last week, Google spokesperson Nathan Tyler said the company decided to change the listing after consulting "a number of sources and authorities."

"In this case, we are following the lead of the UN, ICANN [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers], ISO [International Organisation for Standardisation] and other international organisations," Tyler said. The UN sent shockwaves across Israel late last year, when, by a vote of 138 to 9, it designated Palestine as a non-member observer state. Israel and the US were among those in opposition to the move, with an additional 41 countries abstaining from the vote altogether.

The Palestinian authority last week welcomed Google's name change, describing it as "a step in the right direction," but Elkin says the shift runs counter to the company's ethos of openness and communication.

"Google has brought about so many positive changes in the world by promoting connections between people and between peoples," he wrote. "This decision, however, is in contradiction to such aims, and distances the parties from real dialogue."

• Source The Jerusalem Post
• Related Items google politics israel middle east palestine larry page ze’ev elkin

If you choose an answer to this question at random, what’s the chance that you’ll be correct?

(a) 25% (b) 50% (c) 0% (d) 25%

Former presidential candidate Ralph Nader and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein have released a letter today calling for President Obama to release the 86 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay that have been cleared for transfer.

“No statute or other legal limitation blocks you from this enlightened course of action, which you have commended as who we are as a people. We are supposed to be willing to take risks that other countries shun because we find imprisoning, killing, or otherwise punishing the innocent to be morally reprehensible,” the letter reads.

On Tuesday, Obama promised to reopen discussions with Congress over closing the installation, which he has promised to do since campaigning for president the first time.

The letter arrives in the midst of a hunger strike by Guantanamo detainees, which has led to cases of force-feeding. It comes under the imprimatur of the National Commission on Intelligence Misuse to Justify War, a relatively unknown entity about a year and a half old, registered to the same address as Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform. Tony Shaffer sits on its board.

Earlier this year, Nader and Fein also released letters calling for a pardon of whistleblower John Kiriakou and for the Harvard Law Review to take the president’s constitutional abuses more seriously.

Here’s the rest of it:

Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein’s letter to Obama on Guantanamo

Follow @j_arthur_bloom

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Michael S. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, argues that students get real benefits from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Based on his experience teaching a MOOC on “The Modern and the Postmodern” for Coursera, Roth maintains that these benefits aren’t limited to the acquisition of technical skills: MOOC students can also engage in deep study of classic philosophical authors such as Rousseau and Kant. The op-ed is behind a paywall. But here is Roth’s conclusion:

Teaching this MOOC has shown me that online courses will be increasingly viable and valuable learning options for those who can’t make their way to campuses. Taking a course online is clearly not the same thing as integrating study with residential experience, but it is a powerful mode of learning that is already enriching millions of lives across the globe.

It’s probably an exaggeration to say that MOOCs are enriching “millions of lives”. But Roth provides anecdotal evidence that at least some of the nearly 4000 students who completed his course (of about 30,000 who registered) learned something from it.

The problem is, these were not the kinds of students that we should worry about helping. Roth’s anecdotes of positive engagement with course involve “a graduate student in the Netherlands”, “[a]nother adult student, in Germany”, and “[a]n American woman…taking the class with her husband and two other couples; all had Ph.D.’s”. In other words, Roth offers reasons to believe that MOOCs are a nice diversion for highly educated, highly motivated adults in rich countries. That’s fine, but no justification of all the excitement about MOOCs as an alternative, or even a meaningful supplement, to more traditional forms of higher education.

So what about students in this country who haven’t already earned a college degree? Peter Sacks offers a more realistic vision of the MOOCified future:

Well-off students will attend the few colleges and universities that are wealthy enough to eschew standardization and automation. They alone will have real relationships with great faculty. A second, less wealthy group of students will use online courses for their general education and attend “authentic” institutions for a short while. For poorer students, online learning could well become the main course. They will attend institutions that, strictly speaking, grant post-high school credentials to the coach class.

I don’t know if this scenario can be avoided. But I’m certain that it’s nothing to be celebrated. As the president of a rich college that serves mostly rich students, Roth can afford to offer free edu-entertainment to an international audience. But one wishes that he’d considered the consequences for the less fortunate institutions and students who dominate higher education here at home.

Follow @swgoldman

Guantánamo é a maior vergonha de Barack Obama. O presidente fez campanha em 2008 prometendo que fecharia esta prisão americana em Cuba. Mas, já em seu segundo o mandato, o ocupante da Casa Branca enfrenta uma greve de fome de mais de cem prisioneiros que jamais receberam o direito de viver livremente ou de serem transferidos para prisões normais.

Eles não são condenados a nada. A maior parte deles já foi considerada inocente pela própria Justiça militar. Dos 166 detidos em Guantánamo, apenas seis foram condenados. Algumas dezenas são suspeitas, mas não há como promotores apresentarem casos contra eles. Os demais poderiam estar livres. E estariam, se Obama tivesse cumprido a sua promessa.

Mas Obama, lamentavelmente, não cumpriu. A pressão internacional e doméstica para fechar Guantánamo, existente contra George W. Bush, se reduziu depois da eleição do atual presidente. Muitos se esqueceram que existia esta vergonha prisão americana, na qual a Constituição dos EUA parece ter sido jogada no lixo, com os detidos sendo submetidos a tortura.

Em entrevista coletiva que marca o seu centésimo dia de mandato, Obama afirmou nesta quinta mais uma vez “que fechará Guantánamo” e voltou a culpar o Congresso pelo fracasso. Chega a ser patético. Por que não fechou antes? Por que cedeu a senadores e deputados em vez de cumprir o que prometeu na campanha e respeitar os direitos humanos? Por que acabou com o escritório responsável por elaborar um plano para fechar a pressão?

Como bem lembra Joe Nocera, colunista do New York Times, 56 prisioneiros de Guantánamo de origem iemenita estava prontos para ser libertados anos atrás. “Mas o Congresso, liderado pelos senadores John McCain e Lindsay Graham, aprovou leis que tornou impossível a libertação deles. Vergonhosamente, Obama assinou estas leis”, escreveu.

O presidente parece ter imaginado que o tema Guantánamo ficaria esquecido eternamente e, assim, poderia se concentrar em suas prioridades domésticas e mesmo externas, como os seus ataques seletivos com Drones, como são chamados os aviões não tripulados utilizados para bombardear o Paquistão e o Yemen.

A greve de fome, porém, trouxe de volta à tona o problema destes homens que vivem em um limbo, segundo as palavras do próprio presidente. É urgente que eles tenham direito à liberdade ou, pelo menos, um julgamento justo nos EUA.

Guga Chacra, comentarista de política internacional do Estadão e do programa Globo News Em Pauta em Nova York, é mestre em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade Columbia. Já foi correspondente do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo no Oriente Médio e em NY. No passado, trabalhou como correspondente da Folha em Buenos Aires

I was wrong.

One year ago I left the internet. I thought it was making me unproductive. I thought it lacked meaning. I thought it was "corrupting my soul."

It's a been a year now since I "surfed the web" or "checked my email" or "liked" anything with a figurative rather than literal thumbs up. I've managed to stay disconnected, just like I planned. I'm internet free.

And now I'm supposed to tell you how it solved all my problems. I'm supposed to be enlightened. I'm supposed to be more "real," now. More perfect.

But instead it's 8PM and I just woke up. I slept all day, woke with eight voicemails on my phone from friends and coworkers. I went to my coffee shop to consume dinner, the Knicks game, my two newspapers, and a copy of...

Continue reading…