Thursday, January 31, 2013

Nietzsche Family Circus

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Judith Reisman spoke in the Croatian parliament

At the invitation of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and some other opposition MPs, US activist Judith Reisman and British journalist Timothy Tate spoke in the Croatian parliament on Thursday about challenges to introducing sex education in Croatian schools, which was assessed as a major ideological issue about which a dialogue should be launched, focussing on the rights and interests of children. The talk attracted huge media interest and opposition MPs spent over two hours in discussion with Reisman. The discussion was also attended by representatives of the Church, nongovernmental organisations, the head of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights.Reisman reiterated her stance that sex education is founded on sexual ideology and if introduced in schools, Croatia could soon be faced with an increase in underaged pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases amongst minors and so on. Tate explained the introduction of sexual education in schools in the context of the global trend of sexualisation of children which he said was backed by business and money. Reisman’s visit to Croatia has not passed without incident. A live debate was cancelled for “security reasons” when over 500 packed out a university hall on Wednesday night. Reisman was also verbally attacked after speaking to a group of students.

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Apple Announces Plans For New iPad With Extra Storage Drawer

In what tech giant Apple is calling a “major leap forward” for one of its most beloved products, the company announced Tuesday it would begin selling a new version of its popular iPad tablet with an extra attached storage drawer. “Featuring a stunning 9.7-inch Retina display, super-fast wireless performance, and a 5-inch-deep pull-out drawer, the iPad 4D is our most high-performance model to date,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a press release, adding that the sleek new drawer has a stainless-steel handle and comes in either white or black. “With slick ball-bearing slides and an ultra-light frame, the 4D can easily carry photographs, pens, calculators, legal pads, iPhones, and other personal belongings. Life just got a whole lot better, iPad users.” At press time, retail prices of the iPad 4D had dropped considerably on rumors that the company planned to release a mid-priced 4-inch-deep model as early as September. 
the Onion
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Here's a baby owl with a cracker on its head

Nothing To Do With Arbroath

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Just Stop

via Amy Oops

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This Baby Tapir is the Most Painfully Adorable Thing You'll See All Week

Cheezburger

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Moveable Magnetic Shelving Is an Amazing Storage Solution

"This magnetic storage concept by Benoit Bayol is half art, half practical furniture: neatly arranged on the wall it's reminiscent of a Mondrian painting, but it also offers an incredibly versatile storage solution.

The system—called Magnetic Spirit—uses a patented arrangement of (hopefully very strong) magnets embedded in the walls and storage cubes to defy gravity. What's neat is the way it allows you to swap and change the lay-out of the boxes depending on your mood or requirements. "
via Gizmodo/more

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Stylish dogs pose up in shirt and tie for adorable photographs

via Mail Online / more

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Newton's third law of emotion

via eatliver.com

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'China hackers' attack NY Times

 "Hackers from China have "persistently" infiltrated the New York Times for the last four months, the US paper says.

It said the attacks coincided with its report into claims that the family of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had amassed a multi-billion dollar fortune.

The hackers used methods which have been "associated with the Chinese military" to target the emails of the report's writer, the paper said.

China's foreign ministry dismissed the accusations as "groundless".
BBC News / continue reading

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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Watch a Hilarious Tribute to Spielberg Movies



Sugarboy is a web series created by Late Night With Jimmy Fallon writer Dan Opsal. It presents stories told by a 7-year-old who has been “sent to his room for being too hopped up on sugar.”
That 7-year-old, played by Anthony Lumia, is also a big fan, it turns out, of Steven Spielberg.
 Keep in mind: Spielberg was a producer on Back to the Future. And enjoy.
 via Slate 

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Reading Plato on Death Row

Every Wednesday, I go to Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville to facilitate a discussion group with prisoners on death row and philosophy graduate students. It’s a nice prison, as far as prisons go: clean, suburban-feeling, with a soapy smell that lingers on my hands and clothes after I leave. The reception area is filled with motivational posters of determined mountain climbers and goal-oriented rowing teams. Beyond the checkpoint, an ordinary sidewalk leads to death row. The path is lined with beige wooden fences and topiary shaped like giant bathtub stoppers. We pass through a series of grey doors and empty hallways until we reach the smiling faces of ten men who have been condemned to death by the state of Tennessee.
WUI Collective and REACH Coalition, Postcards from Death Row (2012)
 Last semester, we read Plato’s dialogues on the death of Socrates. The Apology was a great success. “I want my lawyer to read this!” said one prisoner. “Socrates is a badass,” another said approvingly. The Crito was another story. Socrates went from bring a principled badass to a spineless bastard, not just for refusing Crito’s offer of escape and exile, but mainly for his defense of fidelity to the law and the state, even when it has clearly committed a grave injustice.
 continue reading

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Dog Sledding

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Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining. And Bacteria. Lots of Bacteria.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and if atmospheric chemist Athanasios Nenes is correct, it has tons of bacteria as well. When Nenes collected air samples from about 30,000 feet over land and sea, he found that the air high above us is teeming with microorganisms: It's not exactly a friendly place. It's cold, it's dry, and there's a lot of damaging UV light. But Nenes says the bacteria seemed to be able to handle it.
 "They were alive," Nenes says. "More than 60 percent of them were actually alive, and they were in an active state that that you could say they should be metabolizing and eating things that are up there." Back on the ground, other members of the research team used genetic techniques to identify the bacteria. One of them was Georgia Tech microbiologist Kostas Konstantinidis. "We were able to see at least close to 100 different species, of which about 20 were in most samples," Konstantinidis says. Some of those 100 species were from the ocean. Others came from the soil and from fresh water. There were even some E. coli. But Konstantinidis says he's not sure yet whether it's a type that makes people sick. The sample is still being analyzed. "My feeling is it will also include pathogens," he says, "but we don't have direct evidence about that yet."
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12 Drunk Texts Recovered From Famous Moments in History

more here

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Intimate Moment

Photographer Betsy Seeton took this picture of golden-mantled ground squirrel having an intimate moment with a teddy bear in Colorado.
Picture: Betsy Seeton/Solent News

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25.000 € worthy stamps from island of Brac

Stamp and coin collectors society Diokles in Split is celebrating its 70th birthday with the public release of 25,000 euros worth of rare stamps. The six stamps on a WWII letter found on the island of Brac show Yugoslavian king Peter II Karadjordjevic who emigrated to the US in 1941.

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Classic album covers recreated using kittens

Some of the most iconic album covers ever such as Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac,Iron Maiden and Blondie are given the cat treatment.

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Bodhi, a shiba inu from New York

Bodhi, a shiba inu who lives in New York, is the face of fashion blog Menswear Dog. Bodhi, or possibly his stylists, Dave Fung and Yena Kim, a fashion designer and graphic designer respectively, clearly knows how to work a look. more

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Roxy The Fox Thinks She's A Dog



'She's ever so friendly, and loves playing with all the dogs we have here,' said Geoff. 'She doesn't seem to much care for the other foxes at the sanctuary, and instead prefers to play with other dogs or people.' via

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Poorly drawn lines

via

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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Shy Sea Otter

Picture: TOM AND PAT LEESON / ARDEA / CATERS NEWS

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Garrett McNamara catches 'world's biggest wave' off the coast of Portugal

Surfing legend Garrett McNamara caught the towering wave - believed to have measured around 100ft - off the coast of Nazare, in Portugal, yesterday.

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Detroit by Dave Jordano

Animal House, Heidelberg Project, 2010.

 In the past 40 years, the number of people living in the city of Detroit has halved. This has lead many to write it off — in many ways, wrongly — as a decrepit ghost town. Unbroken Down is a photo project that counters the images of abandoned buildings with personal, vibrant shots of everyday life in Detroit. Photographer Dave Jordano – fresh out of college after being born and raised in the Motor City – was part of the exodus when he headed for Chicago to start a commercial photography studio in the late ’70s. Jordano’s father worked for General Motors and joked that motor oil ran in the family’s veins. Three years ago, Jordano returned to Detroit and began photographing the neighborhoods, people, vistas and communities of his hometown. His resulting body of work is an endearing and sprawling document of a city close to his heart.
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Instagram vs Vine

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Holy Shit, There’s Porn on the Internet?

If you haven't heard of Vine—Twitter's video-sharing app—before today, it might've come across your screen this morning after a brief scandal: a dildo porn clip was featured as an "editor's pick." Porn on Vine—crazy, right? No. Shut up. There's porn on almost everything, and there always will be.
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