It is way past time . . . say no to pig censorship
A handful of pigs' faces have been censored in the Malaysian edition of the International New York Times, it seems.
The black marks were the work of Malaysian printing firm KHL, which blotted out the faces in a story about farming in the United States, according to the Malay Mail. A representative said it was their policy to obscure pigs because Malaysia was "a Muslim country".
There is no law banning pictures of pigs in Malaysia - a secular country with many faiths - but local media are careful not to offend Muslims who make up two-thirds of the country's 28 million people, the Malay Mail says reports BBC News.
A government spokesperson said the images were not outlawed, but that publishers should bear in mind "the sensitivities of various cultures". There appears to be increasing concern about offending Muslims in the country - last year a TV provider ran a warning ahead of a documentary about Pope Francis, and allegedly cut the words "Ya Allah!" from an Indian film this month.
In 2005 the children's film Babe was banned from cinemas because of its subject matter, and the similarity of the title to the Malay word for pig - "babi". Complaints from viewers saw the ban overturned, however, and it appeared on television the following year.
Muslim housewife finds Allah's name while peeling spuds
In a completely unrelated story, the Associated Press reports that mental illness is much more wide spread than previously thought.
A Scots Muslim woman (try to get your mind around that thought) has found the word "Allah" inside a potato she was peeling.
Mariam Nadeem told the Record: "It's like a special blessing has been sent to us."
Mum-of-two Mariam, 30, of Glenrothes, Fife, discovered the Arabic writing inside the spud as she peeled a batch of potatoes to make samosas reports the Daily Record.
She said: "This particular potato seemed a little bit mouldy so I cut a chunk off to see if the rest was OK.
Holy Spud
. "Then I noticed the brown writing in Arabic against the yellow of the potato.
"I couldn't believe it when I spelled out 'Allah'."
Mariam, who has sons aged five and two, showed the potato to her shopkeeper husband Nadeem Aslam.
"He agreed that the writing looked like 'Allah'," she said. "I showed it to our neighbors and they too were surprised."
Nadeem then took the potato to her local mosque.
She said: "Our imam suggested we could try to dry it and put it on show."
"But I don't want to dry it in case it turns brown so I think we will freeze it or bury it in the garden instead.
"I was very proud when I found it. I think I am very lucky.
"I have heard about messages from Allah on a leaf or an animal, but it is very rare."
Hundreds of Muslims flocked to a small terraced house in West Yorkshire in 1999 to see a tomato with a "message from Allah" inside.
Housewife Shabana Hussain, 27, was making a meal for her family when she cut the tomato in half and found "Bismillah" - or Allah - written in Arabic.
Writing on the other half of the vegetable said "la illaha illala" - or "there is no God but Allah". Shabana said: "I was shocked."
I don't know if I should laugh or if I should cry.
On one hand we have the US Government funding the creation of Terminator Hunter-Killers for the military (what could possibly go wrong with that?). Then we have businesses creating robots of every type to put people out of work. Now even prostitutes would join the unemployment line as your very own personal Sex Droid would spew forth from automated factories.
Yes, we are about to be royally fucked in more ways than one.
I am going to hold out for the Scarlett Johansson droid.
One American invented what may be the world's most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she's all yours.
Douglas Hines' pleasure droid is powered by a computer under her soft silicone "skin," she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct "personalities," from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers' preferences reports CNN.
"There's a tremendous need for this kind of product," said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.
Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.
When someone speaks to the droid, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud -- her prerecorded "voice" is supplied by an unnamed radio host -- through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.
"Everything you say to her is processed. It's very near real time, almost without delay," Hines said of the dynamics of human-Robot conversation. "To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores." (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)
Jon Davis Gets a Sex Robot
A raunchy take on the future of sex. World Wrestling Entertainment's
Chris Jericho is a hilarious improvisational actor in this clip.
Are Sex Robots The Future?
Female Android Sex Toy In Japan
Slutty Cyborgs in America
(Santa Barbara Independent) - There’s a scene in the new movie Her in which Samantha, the sultry-voiced computer operating system of the film’s title, talks up the benefits of being nonhuman.
“I’m not limited,” purrs Scarlett Johansson as the artificially intelligent heroine. “I can be anywhere and everywhere simultaneously. I’m not tethered to time and space in the way that I would be if I was stuck inside a body that’s inevitably going to die.”
I’ll bet she never feels bloated, either. Or insists on switching over to Downton Abbey when the game’s gone into overtime. Or complains about the lingering lunchy onion stench on the breath of Theo, the lonely divorcé who buys Samantha and falls in love with her.
Both onscreen and off, modern society is flirting with the notion that technology can satisfy us in ways that flesh-and-blood lovers can’t.
Don’t believe me? Check out InvisibleGirlfriend.com, set to launch this Valentine’s Day. For a monthly fee, the company will conjure up “believable virtual and real-world proof” that you have a girlfriend. Yup. You can order up voice mails, text messages, social-media interaction, cards, and even flowers from a nonexistent female in order to, say, convince a roommate you’re not gay, put an end to a coworker’s come-ons, or get your nagging parents off your back.
Forbidden Man - Droid Love
Once upon a time, it was embarrassing even to admit that you met your girlfriend through an Internet dating site. But now that we’ve all been to weddings of couples who met online, it seems we no longer want technology to help us find our partners; we want technology to be our partners — to fulfill the needs for which we’ve always sought human lovers. To understand us and keep us company. To prove to all the world that we’re lovable. And of course (gulp), for sexual satisfaction.
“I think it’s inevitable that sex robots become, like, a thing,” says my friend Matt Allen. “For better or worse.”
The world’s a better place when everyone’s needs are met, and who really gives a slutty cyborg how they do it?
“There’s nothing morally wrong with it per se,” agrees Matt, who’s given the issue more thought than a married father of two young girls probably should (his wife says he can’t have a sex robot, for what it’s worth). “But I do think it’s going to make male-female relationships in the far future extremely different — and not in the best way.”
There’s, um, a best way?
“It’s going to increase the percentage of men who give up on the pressure of a real relationship,” he says, pointing to Japan’s current concern over the new generation of so-called “herbivore” men who are rejecting the pressures of careers and relationships — even forgoing sex. “That’s possible now, being gatherers rather than hunters. Think about it: If men could have all the sex they want without having a relationship, they would take it. Just like kids would take all the candy they could get.”
Sci-fi fans have long predicted a robot uprising that would undo humankind. Could society’s new love affair with computerized companions be the start?
“They warned us the robo-apocalypse was coming,” Matt says. “They didn’t tell us it would come in the form of sex robots. Surprise!”
It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it. It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
EDITOR'S NOTE - Judging by the stories in the news, I am firmly convinced we have reached the End of Days. Human beings are fucking idiots. We are doomed.
Vagina Gun Pulled After
Dispute Over Space Aliens
A domestic dispute over space aliens escalated Saturday morning when a lingerie-clad New Mexico woman allegedly pointed a silver handgun at her boyfriend, a weapon she retrieved from her vagina, where it had been placed while the accused was performing a sex act, police allege.
To make matters more strange, the arrested woman is the most recent ex-wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy, author of “The Road” and “No Country for Old Men.”
As detailed in a probable cause statement, Jennifer McCarthy, a 48-year-old artist, argued about space aliens with her 53-year-old beau, whose name was redacted from the document released by the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office.
When questioned by deputies, McCarthy reportedly acknowledged that she “did have a gun at the time” the couple was yelling at each other reports The Smoking Gun.
McCarthy’s boyfriend told investigators that following the argument McCarthy departed her Aventura Road residence. Upon returning to the home, he told deputies, McCarthy went into her bedroom and later emerged “wearing lingerie and a silver handgun in her vagina.” She then proceeded to “have inner course with the gun,” according to the court filing.
While using the gat as a sex toy, McCarthy reportedly asked her boyfriend, “Who is crazy, you or me?” The probable cause statement, drafted by Deputy Chris Zook, does not indicate whether McCarthy’s boyfriend dared to answer that query.
After removing the gun from her vagina, McCarthy pointed it at her boyfriend’s head, investigators charge. Fearing that he could get shot, the man grabbed the weapon from McCarthy and put it in the toilet.
McCarthy’s boyfriend subsequently “took it out of the toilet and put it in the trash can outside.” Deputy Zook reported that he recovered “a silver Smith and Wesson in the outside trash can.”
Pictured in the above mug shot, McCarthy was arrested on a felony charge of aggravated assault on a household member. She was booked into the county jail, from which she was released Sunday after posting $5000 bond.
_________________________________
Porta Potty Peeper Gets 3 Years
BOULDER, Colo. — A Colorado man who hid in the tank of a portable toilet at a yoga festival to spy on women has been sentenced to three years in prison and 10 years of probation.
Luke Chrisco's sentence was handed down Friday in Boulder. The 31-year-old pleaded guilty in July to attempted unlawful sexual contact and two burglary counts reports the Huffington Post.
Police arrested Chrisco in 2011 after a woman at a yoga festival in Boulder noticed something moving in the tank of the portable toilet, then saw a feces-stained man emerge and run away. Police say he also was suspected of hiding in other bathrooms around Boulder to watch women use the toilet.
KUSA-TV reports ( ) that prosecutors dropped other burglary charges and a misdemeanor count of criminal invasion as part of a plea agreement.
___________________________________
Suspect caught with a LOT
of jewelry up his rectum
John Abernethy, the records officer at York County Prison in Pennsylvania, says it's common for prisoners to hide contraband in their anuses. But the case of a new detainee surprised even him.
X-rays taken after Christopher Scheller, 18, crashed a car into a tree in December revealed a cache of stolen jewelry and synthetic marijuana shoved into his rectum, police say reports the Huffington Post.
Scheller managed to stow away in his butt:
four bracelets
four necklaces
11 women's rings
a socket for a smoking wrench
a bag of weed
An officer approached him following the accident, according to a Southwestern Regional Police bulletin published Jan. 7.
"I've never personally heard of an inmate going to those extremes," Abernethy told The Huffington Post.
The officer at the scene, suspecting Scheller was driving drunk, followed up at the hospital. Officials there said they had spotted "an abnormality" in his body cavity.
Scheller at first was reluctant to extract the goods but later agreed, police noted. The jewelry was found to have been stolen from a home, authorities said.
The teen is behind bars and facing a slew of charges, including theft, receiving stolen property and driving under the influence.
The Norwegian military said Tuesday it plans to put its troops on a vegetarian diet once a week in a bid to fight a new kind of enemy — climate change.
The army said its new meatless Mondays are meant to cut its consumption of ecologically unfriendly foods whose production contributes heavily to global warming.
“It’s a step to protect our climate. The idea is to serve food that’s respectful of the environment,” spokesman Eystein Kvarving told France24 News.
Hmmm . . . which one should I eat?
The diet has already been introduced at one of Norway’s main bases and will soon be rolled out to all units, including those serving overseas, said the army, estimating it would cut its meat consumption by 150 tonnes per year.
“It’s not about saving money,” said Kvarving. “It’s about being more concerned for our climate, more ecologically friendly and also healthier.”
A Norwegian environmental group that campaigns for meatless Mondays nationwide, The Future in Our Hands, welcomed the army announcement.
"The defence ministry deserves a lot of praise because it's taking climate and environmental issues seriously," said the group's director, Arild Hermstad.
According to the organisation, the average Norwegian eats more than 1,200 animals over the course of their life, including 1,147 chickens, 22 sheep, six cattle and 2.6 deer.
Because when you shave you deliberately want to look like a 12 year old boy.
Hundreds of competitors from 20 countries gathered in Germany for the World Beard and Moustache Championships.
Entrants from around the globe travelled to the southern town of Leinfelden-Echterdingen, outside Stuttgart, to compete for the best facial hair in a range of four categories and 18 sub-categories, including moustaches, chin beards, whiskers, full beards and trendy bears.
The championships were officially watched by the German Association of Beard Clubs and all entrants were subject to a pre-screening to determine their beard category by a separate jury.
American contestants proved to be the biggest beard fans as Beard Team USA scooped nine trophies.
Organiser Juergen Burkhardt said the turnout was much better than expected.
America’s team 2013 Bassist Burke Kenny flaunts his intimidating facial display. Kenny's victory in the "Full Beard Styled Moustache" category brought his tally to three world titles.
America’s team 2013 Dennis Dickerson
America’s team 2013 Jeffrey Moustache
America’s team 2013 Andy Longtine
Dieter Besuch's combination of small and large curls wowed the judges, allowing him to clinch victory in the "Freestyle Sideburns" category.
Three hundred men and 13 women from 20 countries took part in this year's competition, which was organized by the Beard and Culture Club "Belle Moustache," a group of beard enthusiasts. Shown here, German Karl-Heinz Hille, who won this year's "Imperial Partial Beard" category.
