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I feel cheated.

Race row as actor Robert Downey Jr blacks up for new film | the Daily Mail

Actor Robert Downey Jr has in the past been applauded for his edgy roles.

But his latest may be a step too far - as the actor dons make-up to play a rather convincing looking black man in a new Hollywood film starring comic actor Ben Stiller.

In a still from film Tropic Thunder, Downey Jnr is sandwiched between Ben Stiller, and a blonde Jack Black.

Puh-leez! I guess nobody’s seen “White Chicks” with Shawn and Marlon Wayans.

YouTube - Anna Nicole [Official Movie Trailer]
There are no words how awesome this is.

Slashdot | D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax Has Passed AwayRolling the 12-sided dice for the last time.

Prince to have hip replacement

Prince is set to have a hip replacement.

The 49-years-old singer will reportedly undergo surgery to remove and replace his hip with a titanium joint.

A source told Britain’s News of the World newspaper, “For months Prince, who always puts on the most energetic shows, has been complaining of pain every time he moves.

“He is totally crushed because he knows he will never be the same again.”

A moment of silence please.

The Spectator

Reuters translated the Hebrew word ‘shoah’ as ‘holocaust’. But ‘shoah’ merely means disaster. In Hebrew, the word ‘shoah’ is never used to mean ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide’ because of the acute historical resonance. The word ‘Hashoah’ alone means ‘the Holocaust’ and ‘retzach am’ means ‘genocide’. The well-known Hebrew construction used by Vilnai used merely means ‘bringing disaster on themselves’.

You Po-Ta-To, I say holocaust.

Pajamas Media: Gazas Culture of Self-Destruction

Palestinians in Gaza harm themselves more than they could ever hurt Israel, argues Yael Kaynan. What future is there when children are taught that there is no greater accomplishment than blowing themselves up?

Hate begets hate begets hate.

INTRODUCING THE ECHO PARK TIME TRAVEL MART
I could totally go for some canned mammoth chunks right now.

Internet idiocy: the latest pandemic

To be ignorant has always been easy: Simply sit back in your recliner and watch Fox News.

But to be genuinely misinformed has become exponentially easier with the rise of the Internet, as lies and half-truths gush forth through its twisted web of data-tubes.

In the pre-Web age, publishing something which was patently false required a fair bit of money or, at the very least, access to some dumb schmuck who was willing to publish your ideas for you, and giving legitimacy to ill-conceived or outright moronic views required hours and hours of cherry-picking quotes and struggling to find sources that agreed with you.

Also, Oswald killed Kennedy and the moon landing was real.

CatGenie - The World’s Only Self-Flushing, Self Washing Cat BoxI’d be up for this if it didn’t cost so much. I swear if I don’t clean the litter box every 5 days or so the furry poop machines deliberately miss but to spite me.

Saudi Arabia goes old school

Oh, Saudi Arabia. That magical land where women can’t drive and rape victims are punishable by lashing has decided to go old school in its latest example of misogyny: sentencing a women to execution … for witchcraft.

Yes, you heard that correctly. Thanks to a coerced confession and testimonies from neighbors who claim she “bewitched” them, a woman named Fawza Falih was sentenced to death in 2006. According to the Associated Press, she has tried to appeal this conviction, saying that she was forced to fingerprint a confession that she couldn’t even read (she’s illiterate).

What would Elizabeth Montgomery do?

You Are What You Spend - New York Times
WITH markets swinging widely, the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates and the word “recession” on everybody’s lips, renewed attention is being given to the gap between the haves and have-nots in America. Most of this debate, however, is focused on the wrong measurement of financial well-being.

It’s true that the share of national income going to the richest 20 percent of households rose from 43.6 percent in 1975 to 49.6 percent in 2006, the most recent year for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics has complete data. Meanwhile, families in the lowest fifth saw their piece of the pie fall from 4.3 percent to 3.3 percent.

Michael Bay’s AWESOME commercial!

ikea hackerSwedish for something-something.

For Valentine’s Day, this question: What is the future of love?Postglobal asks. I answer: robots.

Is it too early to declare the one who will get the Democrat nomination?

Foreign Policy: Europe’s Philosophy of Failure

Millions of children are being raised on prejudice and disinformation. Educated in schools that teach a skewed ideology, they are exposed to a dogma that runs counter to core beliefs shared by many other Western countries. They study from textbooks filled with a doctrine of dissent, which they learn to recite as they prepare to attend many of the better universities in the world. Extracting these children from the jaws of bias could mean the difference between world prosperity and menacing global rifts. And doing so will not be easy. But not because these children are found in the madrasas of Pakistan or the state-controlled schools of Saudi Arabia. They are not. Rather, they live in two of the world’s great democracies—France and Germany.

What a country teaches its young people reflects its bedrock national beliefs. Schools hand down a society’s historical narrative to the next generation. There has been a great deal of debate over the ways in which this historical ideology is passed on—over Japanese textbooks that downplay the Nanjing Massacre, Palestinian textbooks that feature maps without Israel, and new Russian guidelines that require teachers to portray Stalinism more favorably. Yet there has been almost no analysis of how countries teach economics, even though the subject is equally crucial in shaping the collective identity that drives foreign and domestic policies.

Great article from Foreign Policy Magazine.

Playpumps Water System
It’s not something sexual , you pervert! Rather it’s a clever idea to create a merry-go-round that pumps water as it spins.
Watch the video.

Math Trek: The Grammy in Mathematics, Science News Online, Feb. 9, 2008

Shortly after September 11, 2001, a small, heavy package wrapped in brown paper arrived in the mail at the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York City. Inside was a mess of wires.

Guthrie’s daughter Nora eventually figured out that the suspicious package wasn’t a bomb, but rather a recording of her father on a device that predated magnetic tape. After a year of searching, she managed to track down someone with the equipment to play it.

Corporate Knights :: Canada’s Most Sustainable Cities Ranking

Calgary came in last in the large city category. Boo! C’mon people!

The full article (PDF) is a good read.