"The idea of all-out nuclear war is unsettling." - Walter Goodman

***

Businessman uses Aston Martin to decapitate himself in horrific suicide as revenge against his ex-wife - "He even showed her the rope he was going to use, which he kept in the boot of his open-top Aston Martin DB7. The court heard that the day before his death Mrs Mellin had been awarded an extra £100 a week in maintenance from her former husband. Mr Mellin had then sent her a text message which read: 'Congratulations XXX.'... The businessman tied one end of the rope to a tree, then climbed into his Aston Martin and wrapped the other end around his neck. He then drove the £90,000 car into a busy main road, forcing other drivers to watch his horrific death... Recording a verdict of suicide, Coroner Phillip Rogers said: 'I'm satisfied this was a deliberate attempt by Mr Mellin to kill himself.'"

Cloner Dogged by Sex Scandal - "The five baby pitbull terriers McKinney was showing off had been cloned in Korea from the ear of her late and much-missed pet Booger, who'd once saved her from an attack by another dog that had practically ripped McKinney's arm off. But the story got even better when newspaper suspicions proved true and McKinney was forced to admit she was none other than Joyce McKinney, the former Miss Wyoming who 30 years ago fled Britain to escape charges of kidnapping a Mormon missionary and forcibly having sex with him... McKinney told the court that the chains, fur-lined manacles, rope, chloroform and wedding trousseau complete with "pink feathers and see-through nighties" were all props for the bondage sessions she planned for McKinnon."

Wall $treet Folly: Who needs men anyway? Pomegranate Capital to invest in hedge funds run only by women - "Focusing on academic research that women fund managers consistently outperform their male peers, Pomegranate Capital will be the first fund to invest only in hedge funds run by women. Susan Solovay, Pomegranate's CEO, has a list of 250 estrogen infused hedge funds throughout the world, and so far has backing from the Safra family and Fortress."
Also, an article from The Independent. Where are the feminists?

Organic Food Has No More Nutritional Value Than Food Grown With Pesticides, Study Shows - "Dr Alan Baylis, honorary secretary of SCI’s Bioresources Group, adds: ‘Modern crop protection chemicals to control weeds, pests and diseases are extensively tested and stringently regulated, and once in the soil, mineral nutrients from natural or artificial fertilisers are chemically identical. Organic crops are often lower yielding and eating them is a lifestyle choice for those who can afford it.’"

New Lemon Party Commercial from JohnnySwinaha - "The Director's Cut of the new Lemon Party commercial."
I'm sure I've posted this before.

loudtwitter: What is LoudTwitter? - "If you also have a blog, LoudTwitter is the bridge that posts to your blog your daily tweets. That way you can keep up to date a broader audience (broader because not everybody wants to follow you on twitter or because your mom don't grok twitter -- you're thankful enough she knows about your blog). Your blog will take care about the archiving of your tweets along with your other posts (which give more context)."

Women just can't take the pressure - "Women are, after all, the more emotional of the two sexes. They need to "feel". When they dominate the competition, like weightlifter Chen Xiexia did when she won China's first gold in imperious fashion, there are few problems. But when the score is tight, the stakes are high, and the difference between triumph and loss is minute, they think too much."
MFTTW: the irony of posting this article in the "just women" section
dude. so this article was linked from a forum letter. and for like 10 seconds i actually entertained the notion that you had written it

YouTube - Fan Club - "'The aura around him is really nice'. 'What I love most about him is that he has very soft eyes'. Hot chicks dig Obama"

Viewers conned by fake footage of opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympic Games - "The live TV feed provided by the Chinese was spliced with pre-recorded footage and computer-generated images. The admission comes soon after revelations that a seven-year-old girl was barred from singing at the ceremony because of her crooked teeth. Instead, a prettier girl was chosen to lip-synch the lyrics."

Lord of the Memes - "In order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of. When you first come across some obscure cultural artifact — an unknown indie band, organic skate sneakers or wireless headphones from Finland — you will want to erupt with ecstatic enthusiasm. This will highlight the importance of your cultural discovery, the fineness of your discerning taste, and your early adopter insiderness for having found it before anyone else. Then, a few weeks later, after the object is slightly better known, you will dismiss all the hype with a gesture of putrid disgust. This will demonstrate your lofty superiority to the sluggish masses. It will show how far ahead of the crowd you are and how distantly you have already ventured into the future."

Why Westernized Chinese Dislike the West - "In the West there's long been an assumption that this cohort would import Western values along with their iPods. They were envisioned as the bridge to a more open, liberal, Western-friendly China... furious Chinese students in the West showed they could be even more jingoistic than Chinese who had never left home—and good luck to anyone who dared buck the trend. [One Duke girl who tried] was called a "race traitor" and a "whore"; feces were dumped on her parents' doorstep... The data show they're "no less jingoistic than those who have never gone abroad," Zweig says. "As in, 'My country, right or wrong'." What's more, he adds: "A significant proportion of them believe that using force to promote China's national interests is acceptable." Bottom line? "It means the post-1989 policy to imbue youth with nationalism through 'patriotic education' has succeeded," Zweig says. China has a long tradition of chauvinism"

In defense of casual sex - "These books are just the latest result of the mounting abstinence movement, which, despite its religious roots, has recast its attack on "hookup" culture as secular, even feminist... Activists have begun borrowing from the feminist arsenal -- using words like "empowerment" and "respect" -- in their assault on uncommitted sex. These books add to a loudening cautionary chorus: Young women are hooking up and tuning out emotionally. And, increasingly, young women are being told they are either respecting or exploiting themselves... I've found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships... I went through a dressing room phase of trying on different men to see how they fit... Abstinence advocates are fond of the saying: "There is no condom for the heart." But heartbreak isn't always sexually transmitted... as though abstaining from sex would have saved them a broken heart. If only... The idea that a woman has to test a man by withholding sex -- as many abstinence advocates actually argue -- relies on a paradigm of inequality in which women are forced to rely on such desperate power plays. It isn't that feminism has taught women to have sex like men, as the argument commonly goes, but that withholding sex isn't women's sole superpower; coitus isn't women's kryptonite."

Microsoft lies to XP users—and they start to love Vista - "Microsoft... told these users that they were using a new version of Windows, codenamed "Mojave." When asked about their experience with using Mojave, over 90 percent said they were impressed with what they saw. Then Microsoft told them they had been using Vista all along... Bill Veghte, Microsoft's senior vice president of Online Services & Windows Business Group and the man who recently outlined the Windows roadmap, strongly believes that Vista's negative opinion by many users is due to poor perceptions created by the media, from Apple's anti-Vista ads to many journalists spewing Vista hate because it brings in the hits."
Comment: I would be remiss if I didn't say that I have actually had less issues with Vista on my iMac than I have with Leopard. It doesn't crash and my programs do not "quit unexpectedly." Maybe Apple just had the best smear campaign in history; and, for that, you have to give Stevie credit.