Sunday 31 August 2014

Some Funny Images (NSFW)


Wow. Is that a Volkswagen convertible?




Do I need a new attachment?




This isn't how I remember the library. Time to renew my card.




I never could understand math. And women. Yes, I never could understand math and women.




I'm guessing this is a joke about boning. See? I do have a sense of humerus.
*facepalm* I can't believe I just said that.




Sometimes, a guy has to know when to keep his mouth shut.




I failed.




A new interpretation of "The Creation of Adam" by Michelangelo



Have yourself a nice day. Keep smiling.

2014-08-31

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Saturday 30 August 2014

The Hoopla: For all the women who....




MyProfe: Christine Lagarde Transcript

Logan: Lagarde's ambition and drive were evident from the start. When she applied for her first job with a Paris law firm, she was told her credentials were impeccable, but there was one thing she should know.

Lagarde: 'Don't expect partnership in this firm.' So I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'No, you'll never make partnership because you're a woman.' And I looked at him and I said, 'Oh yeah? Well, I'm gone. Thank you very much.' And I just fled.

Logan: You ended the interview?

Lagarde: Oh yes, of course. I packed up and went.

Logan: Her self-confidence wasn't misplaced. Lagarde quickly landed a job in the Paris office of Baker McKenzie, one of the largest law firms in the world. Just fourteen years later she moved to Chicago to become its first female chairman - a French woman, at 43, running a major American law firm. Then, while at the very top of her profession, her country came calling.


Mail ONline - Sep 14/2011
What smutty Silvio Berlusconi was caught on wiretap letting slip about Frau Merkel By Nick Pisa
The Italian prime minister, 74, is accused of insulting his fellow European leader during a conversation with a newspaper editor. It has been suggested that, in a phone call in early July, Mr Berlusconi referred to 57-year-old Mrs Merkel as ‘an un****able fat ****’. The alleged remarks were picked up by investigators probing a £660,000 blackmail plot against the Italian premier.


Huffington Post - Mar 28/2008
Sexist Hecklers Interrupt Hillary: "Iron My Shirt!" by Philip Elliot
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign stop was interrupted Monday when two men stood in the crowd and began screaming, "Iron my shirt!" during one of her final appearances before the New Hampshire primary. Clinton, a former first lady running to become the nation's first female president, laughed at the seemingly sexist protest that suggested a woman's place is doing the laundry and not running the country.

"Ah, the remnants of sexism _ alive and well," Clinton said to applause in a school auditorium.


Final Word
I suppose I could have gone through all the issues mentioned in the above video and found original references. They would explain the details of the incidents, but make no mistake, the incidents are true. And they are many many more of a similar nature. Our society is sexist. It is racist. It has prejudices against religions, sexual orientation, different cultures, and anything which is not of itself. Our society is xenophobic and traditionalist.

For the moment, though, let's focus on women. Traditionally, they were considered chattel, second class citizens, and these ideas are in some cases enshrined in law. All men may be created equal but not women. (see below: Angela Merkel is an accomplished woman. Take a hike, Silvio.) We're all in this together. We need to recognise this and work together.


References

Published on Apr 16, 2014 by janewaterhouse

The Hoopla: Smart & Sassy News
This Australia online magazine is by subscription.
Day Pass = $0.99
Monthly = $9.99
Quarterly = $29.99
Annual = $75

We Magazines, publisher of The Hoopla and Birdee, believes in creating magazines that talk back. We strive to have lively, honest, and smart online conversations that inform, infuriate, illuminate and entertain our readers on a daily basis.

We are 100% independent and we pay our contributors for their journalistic, writing and artistic talents. We are very proud of our lively salon of evocative, witty and often naughty news and opinion writers.

Wikipedia: Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel (b 1954) is a German politician and a former research scientist, who has been the Chancellor of Germany since 2005 and the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) since 2000. She is the first woman to hold either office, the first German Chancellor to be born after World War II, and the first post-reunification Chancellor to be raised in the former East Germany (though she was actually born in the former West Germany). She holds a PhD in physical chemistry.

2014-08-30

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Friday 29 August 2014

Roy Zimmerman: Creation Science 101



Creation Science 101
words and music © 2006 by Roy Zimmerman

God made the world in seven days
Well, that’s one week to be specific
Now, that’s what I call scientific
Say Hallelujah, sing His praise

Four thousand forty-two B.C.
On Monday, August twenty-seven
He made the earth and sky and Heaven
Then he punched out at five-oh-three

Then he made Adam, and then Eve
A garden for them to inhabit
The apple right where Eve could grab it
And I've got proof, 'cause I believe

Creation Science 101
In the beginning it begun
And you are just beginning to educate yourself when you shun
Evolution

Then Cain and Abel he begat
And they begat all of the rest to us
Which means they must have been incestuous
I'm going to have to pray about that

There might be sinners in this class
Who might believe in Charles Darwin
I guess that's just their loss and our win
Because I'm gonna flunk their ass

If you make Genesis your text
You’ll laugh at Darwin and what he sees
To be the origin of species
Because he's just plain oversexed

Creation Science 101
You ain't no monkey's great grandson
You’ve got a research paper due
'bout the fifty reason to shun
Evolution

Don't let em' hand you that old jive
About survival of the fittest
That notion don't pass the bull**** test
'Cause look at me, I'm still alive

God made the world just like it is
He made the fossils just to tease us
Old bones to test our faith in Jesus
Yeah, this'll all be on the quiz

Creation Science 101
Now Armagedd-your homework-done
Because when this semester's through,
It's straight A's for students who shun Evolution

The kids get such an education
When they shun
The heretical theory of the development of life on earth over millions of years by means of spontaneous genetic mutation


References

Uploaded on Feb 26, 2007 by RoyZimmerman

"Creation Science 101" is from the 2006 album "Faulty Intelligence"

Wikipedia: Roy Zimmerman (satirist)
Roy Zimmerman (born October 7, 1957) is an American satirical singer-songwriter and guitarist whose self-proclaimed leftist-slanted commentary is primarily focused on social issues and politics.

He explained the philosophy behind writing and performing humorous songs on increasingly political subjects, "There's nothing funny about World Peace. Social Justice never killed at the Comedy Store. If we ever attain a worldwide consciousness of peace and justice, I'll be happily out of a job. But as long as there's poverty, war, bigotry, ignorance, greed, lust and paranoia, I've got a career."

official web site: Roy Zimmerman
Bio: Roy Zimmerman sings satirical songs - original songs about class warfare, creationism, same-sex marriage, guns, marijuana, abstinence, Republicans (a lot of songs about Republicans), ignorance, war and greed. There's a decidedly Lefty slant to his lyrics. "We used to have a name for Right Wing satire," he says. "We called it 'cruelty.'"

YouTube channel: Roy Zimmerman

2014-08-29

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Thursday 28 August 2014

Just a Reminder
















Final Word
Okay, this is funny. Some may even say it's a cheap shot. Nevertheless, I can't help thinking that the right has become the far right. It is no longer the traditional Conservative movement of somebody like Eisenhower, but the far right lunacy of a Rush Limbaugh or any one of the Fox News personalities. Fair and balanced? How about crazy and unhinged? They are no longer debating the issues; they are spouting off faith-based platitudes which seem to portray a nostalgic longing for the world of yesterday: a white Christian society, might is right, a chicken in every pot and a gun in every home. Globalization? Pshaw. We're number one.

It used to be that the collective we, the society, the nation, was all of us working together to help one another. Now, anything which involves helping one another whether it be taxes, healthcare, or education, is labelled socialism. The 1% are concentrating more and more of the collective wealth in their hands to the detriment of everybody else. Sooner or later, something's got to give.


References

U.S. News - Sep 30/2011
The Origins of That Eisenhower 'Every Gun That Is Made...' Quote By Robert Schlesinger
The quote currently making the rounds on Facebook is genuine Eisenhower.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

2014-08-28

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Wednesday 27 August 2014

Government is crazy to classify pot worse than alcohol


Published on Jul 10, 2014 by Vox
The federal government is crazy to classify pot worse than alcohol
Ezra Klein explains how drugs are bad, of course, but the drug war is even worse. It's possible, however, that legal pot could be a huge public-health win. Alcohol is a far, far more dangerous drug than pot — and there's some evidence that pot can curb alcohol use. But the government doesn't need to stop there: pot can be legalized in ways that make it much more attractive than drinking.



Huffington - Apr 8/2013
The Drug War And Mass Incarceration By The Numbers by Matt Sledge
United States = 5% of the world's population
United States = 25% of the world's prison population

Nearly half of all prisoners in state prisons are locked up for nonviolent offenses.

By 2007, states spent more than $44 billion on incarceration and related expenses, a 127% jump from 1987. Over this same period, spending on higher education rose just 21%.

1 in every 106 white males age 18 or older is incarcerated.
1 in every 36 hispanic males age 18 or older is incarcerated.
1 in every 15 black males age 18 or older is incarcerated.

Wikipedia: United States incarceration rate
The United States has very abnormal statistics when observing the racial dimension of mass incarceration. According to Michelle Alexander ("The New Jim Crow"), the United States "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid".


A major contributor to the high incarceration rates is the length of the prison sentences in the United States. One of the criticisms of the United States system is that it has much longer sentences than any other part of the world. The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail. Mandatory sentencing prohibits judges from using their discretion and forces them to place longer sentences on nonviolent offenses than they normally would do.

Another contributing factor to United States' spike in the number of prisoners is the War on Drugs, formally initiated by Richard Nixon with the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and avidly pursued by Ronald Reagan. By 2010, drug offenders in federal prison had increased to 500,000 per year, up from 41,000 in 1985. Drug related charges accounted for more than half the rise in state prisoners. The result, 31 million people have been arrested on drug related charges, approximately 1 in 10 Americans.

After the passage of Reagan's Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986, incarceration for non-violent offenses dramatically increased. The Act imposed the same five-year mandatory sentence on users of crack as on those possessing 100 times as much powder cocaine. This had a disproportionate effect on low-level street dealers and users of crack, who were more commonly poor blacks, Latinos, the young, and women.


References

Wikipedia: Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein (born May 9, 1984) is an American journalist, blogger, and columnist. He is most known for his former work as a blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, as well his ongoing work as a contributor to Bloomberg News and MSNBC. ... In January 2014, he announced he would be leaving the Washington Post in order to start a new media venture with several other veteran journalists. He will be joining Vox Media.

Wikipedia: Vox Media
Vox Media Inc. is an American digital media company... headquartered near Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C and across from Bryant Park, in New York City. Founded in 2003 as SportsBlogs, Inc., by political strategist Jerome Armstrong, freelance writer Tyler Bleszinski, and Markos Moulitsas (creator of Daily Kos), the network now features over 300 sites with over 400 paid writers.

official web site: Vox Media

YouTube channel: Vox



2014-08-27

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Tuesday 26 August 2014

Hazel Scott: Black & White



Holy cow. Who's that? Never heard of her, but man, what stride piano. And heavens, on two pianos! Look out Keith Emerson and every other rock keyboardist who split themselves between two or more instruments.

Hazel Dorothy Scott (1920–1981) was an internationally known, American jazz and classical pianist and singer; she also performed as herself in several films. She was prominent as a jazz singer throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, she became the first woman of color to have her own TV show, The Hazel Scott Show, featuring a variety of entertainment. To evade the political persecution of artists in the McCarthy era, Scott moved to Paris in the late 1950s and performed in France, not returning to the United States until 1967. -Wikipedia

The above clip comes from the 1943 film "The Heat's On", a movie musical starring Mae West. While the film wasn't considered very good, it did have some entertaining numbers such as the one shown above. (The above clip is part of the full number shown below.)

A perusal of YouTube videos under the name "Hazel Scott" reveal a woman of remarkable talent. That woman can play. However, it is also interesting to read about her life being both a woman and black. Our society has a shameful history. Add the lunacy of the McCarthy era, and you have the ingredients of a tragic film noir.

Until I ran across the above clip of Ms. Scott, I had never heard of the woman. What a delightful surprise and what a surprising talent. The world is full of amazing people.


References

Uploaded on Mar 1, 2010 by EtrofOnaip

YouTube video search: "Hazel Scott"

Wikipedia: The Heat's On
The Heat's On (1943) is a movie musical starring Mae West, William Gaxton, and Victor Moore, and released by Columbia Pictures. ... The movie was not a box office success and West did not return to the screen until 27 years later in Myra Breckenridge (1970).

Wikipedia: Hazel Scott
Legacy
Scott was best-known internationally as a performer of jazz. She was also accomplished in politics, leading the way for African Americans in entertainment and film; and was successful in dramatic acting and classical music. Scott recorded as the leader of various groups for Decca, Columbia and Signature, among them, a trio that consisted of Bill English and the double bass player Martin Rivera, and another featuring Charles Mingus on bass and Rudie Nichols on drums. Her album Relaxed Piano Moods on the Debut Record label, with Mingus and Max Roach, is generally her work most highly regarded by critics today.She was noted for her swinging style, performing at the Milford Plaza Hotel in her last months.


Uploaded on Feb 22, 2010 by EtrofOnaip
Hazel Scott plays Black & White


2014-08-25

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Monday 25 August 2014

Buzzfeed: If Guy Best Friends Acted Like Girl Best Friends


Published on Aug 21, 2014 by BuzzFeedYellow
If Guy Best Friends Acted Like Girl Best Friends
I'm obsessed with you.



WebMD - Sept 18/2006
Many Straight Men Have Gay Sex By Daniel J. DeNoon
Nearly one in 10 men who say they're straight have sex only with other men, a New York City survey finds. And 70% of those straight-identified men having sex with men are married. In fact, 10% of all married men in this survey report same-sex behavior during the past year.

my blog: BuzzFeed: 13 Remarkable Sex Stats (from OkCupid) - Jul 31/2014
We asked 252,900 straight people have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex. [Men reported the following.]



References

Wikipedia: BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed is a website that combines a technology platform for detecting viral content with an editorial selection process to provide a snapshot of "the viral web in realtime". Co-founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti (who is also cofounder of The Huffington Post), BuzzFeed is located in Manhattan, New York in the Flatiron District.

official web site: BuzzFeed

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedBlue

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedYellow

YouTube channel: BuzzFeedVideo

my blog: The Flip Side: What if the guys and gals switched positions? - Dec 16/2012
Altermotion Media Entertainment has produced a series of short videos called "The Flip Side" with the premise of switching the stereotypical roles of men and women. The hilarious results are watching men behaving like women and women behaving like men. Funny? Yes. Do we all do this? At one time or another, guilty as charged.

2014-08-25

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Sunday 24 August 2014

David Letterman Remembers Robin Williams




References

Published on Aug 19, 2014 by Late Show with David Letterman

Wikipedia: Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor, comedian, film producer, and screenwriter. Starting as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the mid 1970s, he is credited with leading San Francisco's comedy renaissance. After rising to fame as Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy (1978–82), Williams went on to establish a career in both stand-up comedy and feature film acting.

Published on Aug 12, 2014 by Team Coco
YouTube: Conan Remembers Robin Williams, The Best Talk Show Guest In The World
Conan recalls Robin's incredible generosity and his many hilarious visits to the show.

2014-08-24

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