Priests are peaceful men of god right? Apparently, not always. They can also act like sullen little boys who use cleaning their rooms as good reason to beat each other. Click here to read a very similar story about priests having a bloody brawl at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 2008. Classy guys, really classy the way you are setting such a good example for people all over the world who keep the faith. Happy Birthday Jesus or a memorial gift for Christopher Hitchens?
Peace be with you brother?
Jesus wept.
Soldiers supervise the working priests. Talk about a nanny state.
Clergymen in a Broom Fight at the Birthplace of Jesus
By Amrutha Gayathri | http://www.ibtimes.com | December 29, 2011
An annual cleaning ritual at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, one of the most sacred and oldest continuously operating churches in the world, ended up in a broom fight between the rival clergy belonging to three separate monastic communities.
The church built over a cave, which is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Jesus, is jointly administered by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities. According to convention, the right to own a portion or structure of the Church lies with the monastic community which cleans it up. This accepted practice may have led to the clash between clergymen who accused each other of encroachment by tidying up portions which didn’t belong to the community.
Whooops! This ladies and gentlemen is a near textbook example of a Freudian slip.
Out of respect for the alleged victims, I will show an empty space in a mural where Sandusky once was.
Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer cites gay phone sex line in stating case
http://www.suntimes.com | December 14, 2011
BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Jerry Sandusky’s decision Tuesday to waive his preliminary hearing shifts the focus in the child sex-abuse scandal to two Penn State administrators accused of failing to properly report suspected abuse and lying to the grand jury investigating Sandusky.
Tim Curley and Gary Schultz face their own pretrial hearing on Friday in Harrisburg, and although the charges are much different, with far less severe potential penalties, their cases could hinge on a man also expected to be a prime witness against Sandusky: assistant football coach Mike McQueary.
Talks about perpetuating unrealistic body images. Some have said this is another example of how the fashion industry hates real women. Personally, I think it is terrible in that it takes jobs away from 16 yr old tall skinny girls who otherwise would have to go to school, play basketball and enter beauty pageants instead of globe hop and lead a happy glamorous life like Kate Moss.
H&M recently admitted to using a computer-generated body to model clothing for much of their website. The company adds on different real-life models' faces in post-production for a result like the one seen here. All images from H&M's site.
Clothing Giant H&M Defends ‘Perfect’ Virtual Models
By Katie Kindelan | Dec 6, 2011 | abcnews.go.com
Visiting the H&M website is not the only virtual experience to be had by H&M customers who choose to order the company’s clothes online instead of inside one of their 2,300 global retail stores.
Also “completely virtual” are the models at the center of H&M’s swimsuit and lingerie online campaigns, the Swedish-based retailer confirmed.
“It’s not a real body; it is completely virtual and made by the computer,” H&M press officer Hacan Andersson told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet in an article questioning the company’s picture-perfect online models.
In the Dec. 4 article, translated into English by U.S. celebrity website Jezebel, Andersson explained the company’s approach.
“We take pictures of the clothes on a doll that stands in the shop, and then create the human appearance with a program on [a] computer,” he said.
Images from the company’s website show models wearing the latest swimsuit and lingerie looks appear in generic, stock-form with their left hand resting slightly below their waist, right arm straight and face looking directly ahead.
The science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451 has been published as an e-book despite its author’s dislike of the format.
Ray Bradbury previously claimed electronic books “smell like burned fuel”.
Mr Bradbury’s agent said the rights for the author’s book had been close to expiring and the publisher had insisted the new contract include e-book rights.
Experts said the news reflected the growing importance of e-formats.
Fahrenheit 451, first published in 1953, describes a dystopian future in which the US has outlawed reading and firemen burn books.
It has sold more than 10 million copies since publication.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has found a defining image in the pepper spraying cop meme you’ve probably seen floating on the intertubes lately. The casual, nonchalant use of pepper spray against seated and silent protesters at UC Davis is referenced in dozens of images where unlikely and similarly peaceful targets also get pepper sprayed.
If you haven’t, please take a moment to view the original video of the protest and police response. It is shocking.
To help flesh out the backstory below are definitions of meme and a blurb of what happened on the UC Davis campus.
Wikipedia – The term Internet meme (meem)[1] is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet.[2] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
dictionary-meme |mēm| noun Biology
an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.
FACTS & FIGURES-from presstv.com
On November 18, UC Davis campus police used pepper spray against students protesting social inequality and tuition hikes at the University of California, Davis. wsws.org
The sticker price of studying and living on campus at the average public university has risen 5.4 percent for in-state students, or about $1,100, to $21,447 this fall, the College Board estimated. Tuition at the average public university has jumped 8.3 percent to $8,244. Chicago Tribune
The Occupy Wall Street movement that started in New York City on September 17 is protesting the income gap between Americans with the highest incomes and those with lower incomes and criticizes the greed of the nation’s wealthiest people. Occupytogether.org
Below are a few of the dozens of images of the pepper spraying cop meme that have been culled from random sources. Click to embiggen.
When one examines the time line carefully it certainly seems probable that Sandusky’s actions HAD to be known to someone. The true extent of the cover-up may never be known.
Artist Michael Pilato paints over the image of Jerry Sandusky in his mural, "Inspiration," in State College.
A mother of one of the young boys alleged preyed upon by Sandusky called the artist and requested he alter the mural.
A long history in Penn State child abuse case
By Kristina Cooke, Edith Honan and Ben Berkowitz | Reuters | Nov 13, 2011
STATE COLLEGE, Penn. (Reuters) – Until a few days ago, Jerry Sandusky’s face smiled down on students from a mural in downtown State College, the home of Penn State University, where football players and coaches are treated like royalty.
On Wednesday, the creator of the mural painted over Sandusky. The former assistant football coach was charged a few days earlier with sexually abusing eight boys over more than a decade.
“I got an email yesterday from one of the victim’s mothers saying simply, ‘Michael, can you please take Sandusky off the mural,’” said Michael Pilato, a local painter who created the “Inspiration” mural in 2001.
It will not be so easy to wipe out the stain on Penn State’s reputation from the alleged abuse and what critics see as a cover-up by university officials who were told that Sandusky was seen raping a young boy in a shower in 2002.
Sandusky, who played football at Penn State and then coached for 32 years at the school, has denied the charges and has been released on bail.
The case has drawn comparisons to the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church, whose top officials are also accused of covering up child abuse over decades.
In this tight-knit town where the university is everything, Sandusky was known as a church-going family man and a philanthropist. “Jerry was just held in very high regard. It’s definitely a shock to hear something like this. This has kind of blindsided everyone in town. He was the definition of Penn State,” said Nick Savereno, who grew up in the university town, attended Penn State and now owns a sandwich shop near campus.
Is species conservation solely a concern of Western nations? Sometimes it sure seems to be.
Bornean orangutan in Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
Crop raiding intensity in different villages across Kalimantan. High = reported conflict frequency every week; Medium = every month; Low = once a year or less frequently. Courtesy of PLoS One.
Crop raiding intensity in different villages across Kalimantan. High = reported conflict frequency every week; Medium = every month; Low = once a year or less frequently. Courtesy of PLoS One.
Bornean orangutan with baby in Central Kalimantan. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
Orangutans in Indonesian Borneo doomed to extinction?
mongabay.com | November 14, 2011
A new study finds orangutans in Indonesian Borneo in unprotected areas are being killed at a rate faster than what population viability analysis considers sustainable. Conflict between orangutans and humans is worst in areas that have been fragmented and converted for timber, wood-pulp, and palm oil production, but hunting is occurring in relatively intact forest zones away from industrial development.
comprehensive new study finds that orangutan populations in Indonesian Borneo are being diminished at unsustainable rates due to conflict with humans. The results suggest orangutans outside protected areas may be headed toward extinction
The study, published Friday in PLoS One, is based on 18 months of interviews with nearly 7,000 people across 687 villages in areas where orangutans persist in East, Central, and West Kalimantan. The research involved 18 NGOs, including local and international organizations.
The study, which sought to address a dearth of quantitative data on human-orangutan conflict, asked villagers about their knowledge of wildlife laws and orangutan conflict and killing. The researchers tracked responses across age, ethnicity, religion, and livelihoods as well as geography and the villages’ proximity to industrial operations, including oil palm and pulp and paper plantations, mining areas, and logging concessions. Two-thirds of respondents were Dyaks, about a third were Malays and migrants, while less than one percent were punans, who until recently were nomadic forest people.
The assessment, which included responses only from people who were able to reliably differentiate orangutans from other primate species, found that only a small number of people have personally killed an orangutan, but that nearly a sixth of villages reported agricultural conflicts with orangutans and a quarter had killed at least one orangutan. At 18 percent, East Kalimantan had the highest rate of conflict, while West Kalimantan had the lowest at 12 percent.
Crop-raiding by orangutans was commonly cited as a reason for conflict in agricultural areas, while hunting for food was the prime motivation in relatively intact forest zones away from industrial development. Conflict and killing for crop-raiding was most frequent in village areas where palm oil, rice, and industrial pulp and paper was being produced. Those most likely to kill an orangutan were involved with logging, hunting or mining, rather than collection of non-wood forest products.
“Our data suggest that conversion of forests to other land uses can result in orangutans entering villagers’ gardens and raiding crops,” write the authors, led by Erik Meijaard, an ecologist formerly with The Nature Conservancy who now works for People and Nature Consulting International in Jakarta. “This form of direct conflict can result in killing.”
The study found marked differences in the level knowledge between different ethnic groups. 17 percent of respondents were unable to identify an orangutan, but that number was lower for traditional forest people: only 13 percent of Dyaks and less than 0.1 percent of Dyaks failed to distinguish orangutans from other primates. However migrants were considerably more likely than forest people to know that killing an orangutan was against the law. Overall 73 percent of villagers said they knew orangutan-killing was illegal under Indonesian law. 15 percent reported orangutans were protected under customary law known as adat.
The most troubling finding is the scale of orangutan killing, which the study estimated at 750-1790 in past year and 1970-3100 per year on average during respondents’ lifetimes — higher than previously thought.
“These killing rates… are high enough to pose a serious threat to the continued existence of orangutans in Kalimantan.”
Of particular concern is the implied impact of killing female orangutans, which have low reproductive rates due to the extended amount of time they spend rearing their young.
“Population viability studies of orangutans suggest that if annual mortality of females is higher than 1% then populations will go extinct,” write the authors, who go on to estimate the current kill rates of females at 0.9 percent and 3.6 percent, suggesting a dire future for orangutans in Indonesian Borneo.
“These mortality rates caused by hunting alone are higher than the theoretical maximum mortality for population viability, suggesting that unless they can be reduced most Kalimantan populations will go extinct,” they write.
“The data suggest no orangutans outside Kalimantan’s protected areas are safe. They are either threatened by habitat degradation and deforestation, or they are threatened by ongoing hunting within their forest habitats.”
The authors conclude with a call to better target anti-killing measures to specific groups within Kalimantan. They note that because the vast majority of villagers don’t themselves kill orangutans there may be an opportunity to convince those who killing orangutans opportunistically that it is no longer socially acceptable to do so.
Crazy rumors swirl and the next thing you know the pyramids get closed for “routine” reason. Umm hmm.
The pyramids of Giza. Image www.travlang.com
Egypt closes Pyramids over 11-11-11 ‘Ceremony of Love’
By JPOST.COM STAFF | 11/11/2011 | www.jpost.com
Supreme Council of Antiquities succumbs to pressure over rumors that Jewish Masons were on their way to Cairo to claim pyramids as their own.
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) closed the Great Pyramids on Friday after protesters said various groups, among them Jews, planned to attend a numerologist ceremony on the Giza Plateau.
Egyptian media reported that some Egyptians feared that the event would be used by Jewish Masons to reclaim the Pyramids as ancient Hebrew structures, denying Egyptians their claim to the pharaonic monuments.
I think if the brainiac wanted to communicate with the owner of the luggage, he should have just put a winking smiley face on the note and left it at that. Nice work slipping a sex note into a lawyer’s luggage.
The screener’s flippant note – “Get Your Freak On, Girl” – was a weird shoutout at lawyer and editor Jill Filipovic, who was toting around a vibrator in her bag as she boarded a flight at Newark Airport Sunday.
The actual note left in a female passenger's luggage.
TSA screener fired after leaving a note telling passenger to ‘get your freak on, girl’ Jill Filipovic says she never wanted the screener to lose their job
BY Nina Mandell | NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | Friday, October 28 2011
The Transportation Security Administration has gotten bad vibrations from one of its screeners, who slipped a creepy note into a passenger’s bag after finding a sex toy inside.
The screener’s flippant note – “Get Your Freak On, Girl” – was a weird shoutout at lawyer and editor Jill Filipovic, who was toting around a vibrator in her bag as she boarded a flight at Newark Airport Sunday.
But the note proved to be quite a buzzkill – TSA officials said Thursday that the screener would be canned.
Filipovic, an editor at Feministe.com, was passing through the airport on her way to a conference in Ireland. After she made it through security, she noticed the note, written on a paper with TSA identification on it, in her bag.
She Tweeted about the note Monday, sending the TSA scrambling to identify the writer of the risque missive.
Halloween is pagan in origin, in fact it is a pretty damn Holy Day to Witches. This is why Jehovah’s Witnesses eschew the holiday. Other good Christians are finally getting on the band wagon and they thought up Jesus-ween. Of course there is an official Jesus-ween site.
This article takes a thoughtful tone while it buries the lead. People are turning away from “western” medicine and turning to traditional Islamic healing which involves stuff like leeches and olive oil. LEECHES in 2011!
“Islamic medicine carries a cachet that, by taking it, you are reinforcing your faith — and the profits go to Muslims,” says Sidney Jones
Islamic healing in action. Image www.thestate.com
Islamic healing is on the rise in Southeast Asia
By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press | September 26, 2011
(09-26) 04:03 PDT JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) –A 47-year-old housewife who recently started using Islamic alternative cures emerged tearfully from an exorcism, speaking of newfound tranquility after a turbulent time in her life. Also, her abdominal pains are finally easing.
Suratmi, who suffers from an ovarian cyst, has been taking a mix of herbal treatments harking back to the dawn of Islam, as well as undergoing exorcisms at a clinic in Jakarta.
She is among a growing number of Muslims in Southeast Asia turning away from Western medical care in favor of al-Tibb al-Nawabi, or Medicine of the Prophet, a loosely defined discipline based on the Quran and other Islamic texts and traditional remedies.
“I heard that so many people have been healed, so I hope Allah can help me. I followed His path here,” said Suratmi, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
The trend in Islamic treatments, cosmetics and toiletries is often associated with fundamentalists who charge that Western, chemically laced prescriptions aim to poison Muslims or defile them with insulin and other medicines made from pigs. Members of terrorist groups have been involved in Islamic remedies as healers and sellers, while some clinics are used as recruiting grounds for Islamist causes.
But the bulk of those seeking out Islamic clinics, hospitals and pharmacies appear to be moderate Muslims, reflecting a rise in Islamic consciousness worldwide.
I love reading the owner defend his product without using the word “novelty.”
Felicia Williams, Community Liaison for Buffalo City Council member Darius Pridgen, holding a "Pot Pop" lollipop in Buffalo, N.Y. Image www.usatoday.com
Marijuana-shaped candy alarms parents, officials
By CAROLYN THOMPSON | www.usatoday.com | October 10, 2011
BUFFALO, N.Y. – Candy shaped like marijuana that’s showing up on store shelves around the country won’t get kids high, but aghast city leaders and anti-drug activists say the product and grocers carrying it represent a new low.
“We’re already dealing with a high amount of drug abuse and drug activity and trying to raise children so they don’t think using illegal substances is acceptable,” said City Councilmember Darius Pridgen. “So to have a licensed store sell candy to kids that depicts an illegal substance is just ignorant and irresponsible.”
The “Pothead Ring Pots,” “Pothead Lollipops” and bagged candy are distributed to retail stores by the novelty supply company Kalan LP of the Philadelphia suburb of Lansdowne. It also wholesales online for $1 for a lollipop and $1.50 for a package of three rings.
