Good news for all of you who like bad news: North Korea is saying that South Korea's actions are driving the peninsula to the "brink of war."NK is like that boyfriend that says his girlfriend made him hit her. Obama vowed to defend South Korea if North Korea tries anything more. This has potential to be so fucking shitty for everyone.
An Indonesian cleric has been jailed for marrying a 12 year old girl. He said he was gonna wait til she hit puberty before banging his bride ... I'm not sure why he couldn't just wait until puberty to marry her. On top of that, he also stated that he was planning on marrying two other girls, aged 7 and 9 (Muslims are allowed up to 4 wives in Indonesia). In case you were wondering, the childbride was delivered back to her parents by cops immediately following the wedding -- not sure why they weren't arrested as well.
Speaking of child molesting priests, a priest who was accused of molesting a kid managed to prove that he's a super scumbag by hiring a undercover agent as a hitman to kill the kid he molested. Way to be Holy, asshole.
The 29 miners that were trapped in the New Zealand mine are presumed dead following a second explosion. Why are mines suddenly in the news so much? Have they been this disastrous in the past, or is this a new phenom?
San Francisco is filled with geniuses: they're regulating their Happy Meals. Now, in order for a McDonalds in SF to offer happy meals with toys, they have to meet certain dietary standards. There's hopes that this will help fight childhood obesity and that other cities will follow suit.
Fans have been lined up at a Barnes & Nobel in Phoenix since 1am for a Sarah Palin book signing. Mark my words: She is going to run for President in 2012, and she is going to win. Do I want her to? No. But she will. She's doing everything right. She knows that popularity wins and she's working on spinning every aspect of her life to make her popular.
This Sunday "60 Minutes" will be taking an inside look on the new Spiderman musical that Bono wrote. It's the most expensive musical ever and it just so happens to have one of my best friends in it! Mazel Tov, Mat Devine!!!
Cookie Monster wants to be on SNL. This isn't newsworthy, but I figured that it's a light hearted thing that can be used to change the topic when things get heavy or heated during Thanksgiving dinner.
In Israel you are required to do about 2 years in the army, no matter what. I've found that this has toughened up a lot of Israeli's that I know and given them a "no bullshit" attitude that can sometimes be seen as abrasive. Obviously, some Israeli citizens have no interest in being in the army -- especially with things being so tense. But, being the industrious people that they are, the Israeli government is now using Facebook to track down draft dodgers. Way to go, Facebook, way to go.
North Korea struck South Korea overnight. The North claims the South struck first, the South claims otherwise... and basically EVERY SINGLE SUPER POWER NATION IS REALLY FUCKING SCARED (a history of the conflict between North and South is here). People are scared that if the North and South start fighting, it will cause each region's ally to step in and do what ally's do: join in. North Korea's (basically only) ally is China. South Korea's ally is the United States. China and the USA are already comparing dick sizes, and neither country really wants to pull their balls out. Everyone is basically saying that that North is acting like a bunch of assholes. Russia sees this as a "colossal danger" and Obama is "outraged."And the French are like "zoot alors!" and have already surrendered.
From CNBC: Asked about the North's motives, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said: "I don't know. This is an extremely unpredictable government in Pyongyang and they do things that you could not possibly have predicted in a rational world."
The death toll for the Cambodian stampede has raised to 345. The stampede occurred at a Water Festival -- a yearly celebration of a military victory which includes boat races and prayer for rain -- and has been considered one of the biggest tragedies to hit the country. A reporter claims that panic struck when a suspension bridge started to say and police started shooting water cannons at a bridge in an effort to get people to move in a certain direction.
SOME GOOD NEWS!: The UN stated that the world AIDS crisis is starting to slow down! And not only that, but there appears to be a daily pill dosage that helps gay men not catch HIV! It's still undetermined how it will work with heterosexuals, but it's proven to work nicely for the gays! Horay!
More TSA bullshit ... it might extend to trains and subways. Meanwhile, people are raising concern about the TSA spreading diseases because they're not changing their latex gloves before each crotch gram. The terrorists have won.
As we approach Thanksgiving and all the travel that comes with it, the TSA continues to impose their version of the Milgram Experiment on the public. I'm sorry, but some of them are total fucking assholes. Especially, the ones who refuse to listen to and adjust their procedures when dealing with passengers who have medical issues, like the poor bladder cancer survivor whose pat down lead to him being soaked in urine from his urostomy bag. If I ever see a TSA agent mishandle either of my parents, there will be words. And it wont be words-with-friends. Sorry to go personal, but I am just disgusted. I'm quite happy I wont have to go to O'Hare where the airport security line is about a mile long. The TSA better rethink their procedures like they suggest they might. By the way, all this because of Al Qaeda's affordable and effective scare tactics. We've lost the war on terrorism.
Hallelujah! The Pope has finally stated that the Vatican's stance on condom banning is not absolute and should be used in cases like encountering a male prostitute (a euphemism for choir boy?).
A report lead by the Pentagon regarding what the effects might be on lifting the ban on gays in the military is set to be released on November 30. I'm looking forward to their research on banning psychopaths.
The Chinese have built that world's top supercomputer. The computer is called the Tianhe-1A, and it knocked the American supercomputer, Jaguar, to second place. In third place is another Chinese supercomputer. To give some prospective on how fast these technologies move, three years ago, a US supercomputer was ranked at #1 and today it's #12. This is important because on top of China becoming an economic superpower in the coming years, becoming a technological superpower will help up their abilities to develop things like war strategies and other methods of control. People are saying not to worry about this... yet. However, we're talking about the same government that just sentenced a woman to a year in a labor camp for Tweeting: "Charge, angry youth." And now, it looks like China has found a way to re-route a significant amount of U.S. internet traffic. According to a report:
The rerouting happened on April 8 and lasted for about 18 minutes. The traffic hijacking affected U.S. government and military networks, including those belonging to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, as well as the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Commerce, NASA and the U.S. Senate. Commercial sites, including those belonging to Microsoft, Dell and Yahoo, were also affected.
So yeah... American computer nerds, get on it.
Yesterday it was in the news that Germany was upping their security due to terrorist threats, and it looks like a bomb was intercepted on it's way to Munich. The terrorists have it all wrong -- your enemy's enemy is your friend. You guys both hate Jews. Or at least, Germany once did... remember? You're going after the wrong country. The French hate Jews as well. So do the Brits. So... like, stop with this bullshit, guys.
Scientists think they found proof of the existence of extra dimensions. NO BIG DEAL OR ANYTHING. My theory is that not only has the planet been visited by aliens, but we've also been encountering "aliens" from other dimensions on the regular. Ever have dejavu or ESP? I think that's actually us encountering the time dimension slicing through our lives. This makes more sense when you watch Carl Sagen talk about it.
Scientists say that global weather is going to get even more devastating thanks to climate change.
Cal-Maine, one of the country's largest egg distributors, are being accused of animal cruelty. There's some pretty horrendous things going on there, and while I haven't yet given up on eating eggs, I am considering it. I gave up eating chicken because nobody gives a shit about chickens, it seems, so they let them live in gross conditions and I am not into that.
Shit is getting more bonkers in Haiti. People are attacking peace keepers and accusing them of starting the cholera outbreak. I hate to say it, but it's possible. I mean, there's already speculation that the US used HAARP to cause the earthquake.
Are MySpace and Facebook joining forces? They're gonna make some sort of announcement at 12 PST today.
Last night I finally got to see a band I've been loving loving loving for months: The Joy Formidable.
A few months ago, after I had seen Jenny Eliscu and Gurj Bassi tweet about them a bunch, my friend Peter Gaston sent me their album, A Balloon Called Moaning, and I instantly fell in love. Like, within 30 seconds of listening to the first song I heard, which was "The Greatest Light is The Greatest Shade," I was dumbfounded by how a band this good could exist:
I would listen to that song non-stop for hours and days. It was dreamy like My Bloody Valentine, but poppy like the Smashing Pumpkins and the perfect song to get me relaxed whenever I was stressing.
I found myself riding my bike around the city with that song pumping through my headphones -- never loud enough -- making me feel like I was flying through the streets in a movie of my own.
Seeing the Joy Formidable last night was amazing. Watching the three piece take over the stage and enchanting the audience with adorableness as they cited their sadness over yesterday being the last day of their tour was too much cuteness to handle... but don't get me wrong, they're not a cute band. Performance-wise, Ritzy played her guitar with as much primal ease as Kurt Cobain, flailing around at times and never missing a note. I looked around to see if there was another guitarist on stage because I couldn't believe how great she was -- not because she was a girl, but because she was just amazing. She didn't seem tethered to an instrument twice her size... rather, it seemed like it was an extra appendage (that she knew how to control way better than any appendages I was actually born with).
It's been so long since I've had a chance to just get so completely lost while watching a band. Thank you, Joy Formidable.
Even Rupert Murdoch is worried about China's growing economic power. Shit is gonna get really messed up over here in the States. What dialect of Chinese should I be learning? Seriously.
A new superbug has emerged in Europe called NDM-1. In fact, one of the dudes from the European Center for Disease Prevention called it a "Super superbug." 77 cases have appeared in multiple countries in the EU, and 3 in the states. The bug is immune to almost all vaccines and can cause UTIs and pneumonia. They also said that it may have been spread from India. Good times.
Super long profile about Sarah Palin in New York Times. She's totally gonna run for President in 2012 and she's totally going to win. She knows that popularity rules uber alles. Shoot, she's also probably been prepping and learning things and stuff.
An elementary school in Provincetown, MA will make condoms readily available to students. While their official stance is that they don't want the kids to be having sex, they'd rather that the students be protected than not. I fully support this concept. I'd rather a bunch of sexually active 10 year olds than pregnant ones. I grew up in Tenafly, NJ and we had a really amazing sex-ed curriculum and education. We learned so much that all the students were too scared to have sex. I think about 75% of us graduated virgins. Virgins convinced that we'd get AIDS without a condom and STDs no matter what. Nobody got pregnant when I was in school and a fuckton of my classmates went on to the top colleges. Sex Ed is kind of a great thing.
Speaking of babies... Over 300 dead baby fetuses were found in a Buddhist temple in Thailand. Uh... what?
Japan has successfully brought back the first asteroid dust to Earth! I can't wait til they find out that there's some sort of super fuel components and BP decides to make Space their next money maker.
People in Europe (and eventually the States) can look forward to colder winters thanks to Climate Change. Over the weekend I was watching the 'Underwater Worlds' episode of "Ancient Aliens" on The History Channel (watch it here) and they fascinatingly discovered the remains of cities underwater that would have been built about 10,000 years before humanoids were thought to be able to do such a thing. What if, in 10,000 years, our ancestors find our ruins under water and wonder how primitive man ever did such a thing. Hmm...
Prince William is now engaged to Kate Middleton. Finally. If she was in my family (and Prince William was Jewish) they would've been dated for like 2 months before everyone put pressure on us to get engaged and married.
The big announcement from NASA was the discovery of an infant blackhole they are calling SuperNova1979C.
It might not be a black hole, but it probably is. And it looks like SuperNova1979C is about 31 years old, give or take 50 million light years.
The exciting thing for scientists is that this is the youngest ever observed "black hole" and will give scientists to research how they behave and how they happen.
"NASA will hold a news conference at 12:30 p.m. EST on Monday, Nov. 15, to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood."
What could that mean?! It's not about the Gamma bubbles, since that was discovered by Fermilab. Could it actually be the discovery of Nibiru? Was Zecharia Sitchin actually right?! As my friends like to tell me, "The Aliens are finally coming to take you home!" Either way, I've got my HAARP averting tin-foil hat on, and I'm ready to listen.
The British couple that has been held hostage by Somali pirates for over a year have finally been freed. I really can't believe we live in a day where pirates are such a threat.
Caterpillar just bought Bucyrus - a mining equipment manufacturer - for $8.6 Billion. Just gonna put my Nancy Drew hat on and say that Caterpillar know of something that big needs to be mined, and knows that they're gonna make their money back. Gold is up to $1600/ounce. Could there be a mystery reserve that they've discovered? Maybe on the Moon?
The Post Office lost $8.5 BILLION last year. Not like, they lost it in the mail... but more like, they're going broke. Here's an idea for them: Stop hiring such lazy assholes.
Cholera in Haiti has claimed 796 victims and over 200,000 are in danger of catching the highly contagious flu. Where's Wycleff now?!
That pesky Indonesian Volcano, Merapi, is really messing things up over there. The death toll reached 206 and over 380,000 people have been displaced. Scientists warn that it could get worse, which might not be TOTALLY bad news. With Mt. Merapi situated so close to the equator, if it emits a large enough quantity of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, it could cool our global climate a few degrees and that could be a huge help to living things as the ozone starts depleting. However, if the sulfur dioxide doesn't make it high up enough, we could have a lot of acid rain on our hands. Wait and see?
Check out our giant space bubbles. They're in the center of the Milky Way and they're 25,000 light years wide. Scientists have no idea what the eff they are.
Now there's a streak in the NYC skyline -- WHICH I MISSED!!!!! I'm calling shenanigans. It's a contrail for sure.
Oil prices are now nearly $90/barrel. There's 40 billion barrels of untapped oil that was just discovered in Brazil. The biggest reason Brazil elected Dilma Rousseff was because she was the former Chief of Energy. She ran all that energy stuff, and now that there's $3,600,000,000,000 (did i do that math right?) in Brazil's land, shit is gonna be huge. I suggest you pick up Portuguese for Dummies asap.
A new friend of mine just texted me to say "Do you know Jessie J, musical artiste? Vulgar gal rap." Naturally, I want to know about all things musically new that I haven't heard before, especially when it involves a woman breaking down the barriers of femininity that society places on them.
Last night I had a conversation with someone about the concept of "post-feminism" and how I grew up as one of the guys and never thought of myself as a woman/girl held back by the constraints of society. Both my mom and dad worked, and that was never weird at home. My mom also cooked, and that was just what it was. I was always expected to do as well as the guys, if not better (because my parents would tell me that I was THE BEST). Even as the smallest one in my social group (of more guys than girls), it was never assumed that I couldn't do something because I was a girl... it wasn't even assumed that I couldn't reach things that were high up since I was always climbing on stuff like a monkey. Basically, me and my female friends grew up as dudes with slits and that was the ONLY difference (particularly since I didn’t grow boobs until I was about 18).
So the verb "banging" comes into play. It means "to bang" as in "to have intercourse." I was asked "Can a girl bang a guy?" I say yes. I say that if the girl is telling a story about having "intercourse" with a guy, then she can say "i banged that dude." Similarly, a guy can say "i banged that girl," or a person might be able to say "we banged." It puts the power into the hands of the story teller, which, in my mind, neutralizes gender roles. It's not necessarily a bad thing if a person says they banged another person, but it’s slightly less vulgar than to say “fucked” and a lot less awkward than saying “had intercourse with,” or “made love to,” or “railed.”
Anyway, I am a fan of this Jessie J character’s song “Do It Like a Dude,” for this precise reason. She wants to bang and is unapologetic about that. She also c0-wrote Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." with Dr. Luke, so I love her for that alone. God Bless!
My boy, Matt Raz, edited a video for Team Facelift's "Heart Attack," which was directed by Tommy Mas and is of a song off their new mixtape called "6 Grams". Catch a cameo by one of my favorite dudes on Twitter and in music, Prince Terrence.
I need to go to the party in this video. Matt, where is it and why am I not there?
Oh... and if you've never heard of Team Facelift, their ish doesn't typically sound like this. They usually sound more like License to Ill-era Beastie Boys... which was the Boys' best era, if you ask me.
My friend Caiti Beth is in Alabama and she video'd her friend going out to the woods and luring a raccoon (whom she appears to have a prior relationship with) back to her house to play with. I suggest you don't try this at home, but certainly enjoy the adroableness below:
So I'm going to try and make this a daily thing where I post about news things that happened while you were sleeping. Typically, this will go up earlier in the day, but I was super busy this morning.
I love all these stories of the End of Days that call out specific dates of when things are supposed to happen. According to the video above, that date is TODAY. But Colleen seems to think that Obama is just heading over to India today. Whoops. I think her dates are a bit off.
I'm all about the crazy stuff happening in our world that proves that we totally messed shit up. The price of gold skyrocketing. The climate being out of whack. The price of cotton going up because fields all over the world are being destroyed by the messed up climate. Nuclear reactors going out of whack. Nuclear missiles going offline. Planes dropping out of the sky. Volcanoes exploding. Oil pouring out of the earth from a sprout we planted. I could probably go on and on and on with all those actual examples of the End of Days. However, effing cooks like Colleen has to ruin it for the not-so-crazy-crazies like myself.
This weekend I kept it super lazy. I watched four episodes of my new favorite show "Outsourced" on TWC's On-Demand service. I'm not sure if i love the show because it's funny, which it is, or if because the main character is a dude played by the new object of my affection: Ben Rappaport.
It's been a while since I've worn a one-piece swimsuit, and I've never really written about anything fashion oriented on here because I'm more of a person who just wears clothing. I could take it or leave it as long as it basically looks cool.
