Oregon Man Survives 12 Nails to the Head - Yahoo! News

"PORTLAND, Ore. - An Oregon man who went to a hospital complaining of a headache was found to have 12 nails embedded in his skull from a suicide attempt with a nail gun, doctors say"

In this locket, I have the key to her chastity belt at Pandagon

Officially...the wingnuts have made the Catholics look like amateurs. You didn't think it was possible, but alas that was just your lack of imagination. So fracking gross.

Tax Evasion

"Okay, some Republican politicians argue, but the tax cuts increased the value of all stock, including stock held in IRAs and 401(k)s. Not according to a Federal Reserve study, which found that the tax cuts did not raise the value of stocks. So who gained from the cuts? The top 10 percent of households, who own 70 percent of all taxable stocks, and especially the top 1 percent, who own 29 percent. It gets worse: 54 percent of all income from capital gains and dividends goes to the top 0.2 percent, a group only slightly larger than the 30,000 who leave taxable estates. These folks�the ruling class�derive a third of their income from capital gains. They are taxed on that income at a lower rate then most of us pay on our wages. And we must also pay payroll taxes. They pay no payroll tax on their capital gains. "

Boycott Exxon Mobile

"Gheit noted, however, that there was some truth in Ahmadinejad's comment on developed countries benefiting most from increased oil prices, though the statement would likely be seen as an attempt at 'fanning the flames' of a red-hot oil market.
'What he's saying makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, the source of the comment is going to send jitters in the market,' Gheit said.
'The street value (of oil) is triple what OPEC is making,' Gheit added, referring to the value of a barrel of gasoline versus the value of a barrel of oil.
Gheit estimated that in London, where the retail price of gasoline is about $6 a gallon, about $150 worth of gasoline can be made and sold from every $50 barrel of oil.
'That is why Exxon Mobil and all the rest make so much money,' he said. "

Can we stop arguing about the benefits of feminsim now?

"The survey published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looked at how they viewed their sex lives, their health, and their happiness.
It found that a greater proportion of people in Europe, North America, and Australia, where men and women have more or less equal relations, enjoyed sex physically and emotionally, Laumann said.
A smaller percentage of people reported satisfying sex lives in male-dominated cultures in poorer countries, the research showed."

No!

Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters: "Hardware: Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday April 18, @07:28PM
from the pure-evil dept.
An anonymous reader writes 'According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished.' From the article: 'Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts.' "

Katie Holmes gives birth to girl, Suri

"LOS ANGELES - The Tomkitten has arrived.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, the high-profile pair dubbed TomKat by the media, had a baby girl Tuesday, said Cruise spokesman Arnold Robinson."

There once was a very small city

"DUBLIN (Reuters) - An exodus of rugby fans from Limerick in Ireland threatens its status as a city, and the European funding that goes with it, when a population census is taken Sunday. "

Bring it home Carl

"In terms of imminent, meaningful action by the Congress, however, the question of whether the president should be impeached (or, less severely, censured) remains premature. More important, it is essential that the Senate vote�hopefully before the November elections, and with overwhelming support from both parties�to undertake a full investigation of the conduct of the presidency of George W. Bush, along the lines of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation during the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.
How much evidence is there to justify such action?
Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era."

The male gaze

Power in Print

Tools

CLick the link and watch the commercial. It is very cool.

Reasons to go out more, not less!

"Starting in mid-life, the brain's ability to remember names, multi-task or learn something new starts to go downhill.
There's no smart pill to ward off that age-related decline, but experts increasingly say that lifestyle factors such as physical activity, challenging hobbies and lots of friends or social engagements might help keep the brain more nimble and fit as it ages."

little things save your life

"'It's shot. It's going to cave in,' Hardy said, lamenting the loss of his new plasma screen TV.
The roommates said they feel lucky that they happened to be watching TV on Thursday night.
'If we would have been watching a DVD or playing Xbox, we'd be toast,' Hardy said"

ahh good government

"'No one wants to inflict pain in fetuses unnecessarily, nor do physicians want to put the mother at risk by the unnecessary administration of analgesics to treat her fetus, not her,' said Dr. Henry J. Ralston, a professor of anatomy and neuroscience at the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco. 'I agree with Dr. Derbyshire's primary conclusion, that 'Legal or clinical mandates to prevent pain in fetuses are based on limited evidence and may put women seeking abortion at unnecessary risk."

toothy tile?

You cuddle up to Heath Ledger in one critically hailed gay cowboy romance and suddenly you're the hottest topic on the rumor mill. Jake Gyllenhaal's rep is laughing off Internet chatter that the dreamy-eyed star is about to declare his fondness for actor and longtime pal Austin Nichols, asserting to the New York Daily News that they are merely friends.

Wired News: AT&T Seeks to Hide Spy Docs

"In papers filed late Monday, AT&T argued that confidential technical documents provided by an ex-AT&T technician to the Electronic Frontier Foundation shouldn't be used as evidence in the case and should be returned.
The documents, which the EFF filed under a temporary seal last Wednesday, purportedly detail how AT&T diverts internet traffic to the National Security Agency via a secret room in San Francisco and allege that such rooms exist in other AT&T switching centers."

a song for today

(1970) stan vincent
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Someday we’ll get it toghether and we’ll get it undone
Someday when the world is much brighter
Someday we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Someday when the world is much lighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
O-o-h child things are gonna get easier
O-o-h child things ’ll get brighter
Right now right now

Stop having straight sex now while you still can

"The complaint includes one incident at the Swedish Medical Center outpatient pharmacy in Seattle. According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was 'morally unable' to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for abortion-related antibiotics. Cedar River's complaint quotes its Renton clinic manager's May 17, 2005, e-mail account: 'Today, one of our clients asked us to call in her prescription... to Swedish outpatient pharmacy. [We] called the prescription in... and spoke with an efficient staff person who took down the prescription. A few minutes later, this pharmacy person called us back and told us she had found out who we were and she morally was unable to fill the prescription.' (Cedar River thinks their client eventually got her prescription filled.)"

Something to do

So the crazy people currently in the White House are apparently still thinking that nuking Iran should be an option. This is the definition of batshit crazy. If you want to understand how batshit crazy this is read this article. So go, sign the petition.

Mass. coolest state ever?

"The bill, intended to extend coverage to Massachusetts' estimated 550,000 uninsured, is being touted as a national model, thrusting the state to the forefront of the national debate about how to provide near-universal health care coverage without creating a single government-controlled system."

bastards

"Christian activist Gregory S. Baylor responds to such criticism angrily. He says he supports policies that protect people from discrimination based on race and gender. But he draws a distinction that infuriates gay rights activists when he argues that sexual orientation is different � a lifestyle choice, not an inborn trait.

By equating homosexuality with race, Baylor said, tolerance policies put conservative evangelicals in the same category as racists. He predicts the government will one day revoke the tax-exempt status of churches that preach homosexuality is sinful or that refuse to hire gays and lesbians.

'Think how marginalized racists are,' said Baylor, who directs the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom. 'If we don't address this now, it will only get worse.'

Christians are fighting back in a case involving Every Nation Campus Ministries at California State University. Student members of the ministry on the Long Beach and San Diego campuses say their mission is to model a virtuous lifestyle for their peers. They will not accept as members gays, lesbians or anyone who considers homosexuality 'a natural part of God's created order.'"

Unclear on the concept

"Condom lockdown
Here's a story to file in the 'it would be laughable if only it weren't true' column: The Washington Post today reports on pharmacies that keep their condoms locked up under the guise of theft prevention. CVS, the biggest chain in Washington, has 50 stores in the city; of those, 22 now keep their condoms locked in a glass box that requires customers to push a button for assistance to purchase them. Asking store clerks for condoms kept behind the counter can be embarrassing at any age, but having to push an actual condom call button draws the kind of unwanted attention that might deter even the most sexually confident.
And indeed, a drop in condom usage is exactly what has resulted. Christine Spencer-Grier, the leader of a Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington program that works with teen mothers to help them avoid future pregnancies, tells the Post that 'teens are very sensitive to a disparaging look, a lecture -- all of those things are very intimidating ... [So] many girls [leave] the stores ashamed and empty-handed -- but still likely to have sex.' "

I totally always thought this!

"Getting up in the morning and going to bed at night is not just a pure reaction to sunset and sunrise,' explains Professor Till Roenneberg, who headed up the team of researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. 'It's also down to your genes, which can determine how much of a night owl or early bird you are.'
The distribution of owls and larks across the population is huge, he says, with a spread of more than 12 hours between people's natural rhythms. This means that if left to their own devices, the first lark would bounce out of bed well before the last owl nods off. This, of course, doesn't fit comfortably with most work routines, with the inevitable result that a lot of people wind up feeling fatigued."

Ah I like them:)

"NEW YORK - Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard are engaged and expecting a baby, her publicist said Tuesday. "

Watch the Pharisees burn!

"The once-mighty Christian Coalition, founded 17 years ago by the Rev. Pat Robertson as the political fundraising and lobbying engine of the Christian right, is more than $2 million in debt, beset by creditors lawsuits and struggling to hold on to some of its state chapters.
In March, one of its most effective chapters, the Christian Coalition of Iowa, cut ties with the national organization and reincorporated itself as the Iowa Christian Alliance, saying it found it impossible to continue to carry a name that in any way associated us with this national organization."

Monday

It's monday and I am sad to see another weekend gone by. I am happy that I enjoy my weekends again. Grey's Anatomy rocks. Love that show and it is such a enjoyable way to end the weekend.

Geek vs Dork?

RIch people are different than us in case you were wondering...


Apple and Moses Please make it stop.

Once upon a time he coulda been a contender

Its begining to look a lot like Fitzmas

"A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein. ... Confirmation that Mr. Bush ordered the declassification was published late Saturday by The Associated Press, which quoted 'an attorney knowledgeable about the case.' Once it appeared, the administration official was willing to confirm its details. [...] But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters."

Friday afternoon

It's Friday afternoon of the first week post Daylight Savings. I feel so much further away from the East coast:(

Updates from the world:

• Brangelina are in Namibia lending wieght to the rumors that Angelina plans on giving birth in Africa. Also some fascinating analysis on Brad as a post modern man. heh..
• Katie again seen looking vacant. That poor girl....
• Jess's baby Eli is ridiculously cute.
• Plamegate is heating up. Could Bush really get kicked out?
• Erin's foot surgery seems to be going well as she is posting more frequently! Yay.
• www.pandora.com is awesome and continues to show me new music. I highly recommend!
• I bought a dress for the wedding in scotland. It is kinda like the dress Julia Roberts wore to the polo match in pretty woman. I of course totally look cuter in mine.
• Only 22 days till the big 30! Wisdom, grace, panache, humor and wit shall finally be mine!

Have a good weekend all!

It's not paranoid if they really are watching

"AT&T provided NSA eavesdroppers with full access to its customers' phone calls, and shunted its customers' internet traffic to data-mining equipment installed in a secret room in its San Francisco switching center, according to a former AT&T worker cooperating in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the company."

Long-lost gospel of Judas recasts 'traitor' - Yahoo! News

"The manuscript claims that Jesus revealed 'secret knowledge' to Judas and instructed him to turn Jesus over to Roman authorities, said Coptic studies scholar Stephen Emmel of Germany's University of Munster, one of the restoration team members. In the gospel text, Judas is given private instruction by Jesus and is granted a vision of the divine that is denied to other disciples, who do not know that Jesus has requested his own betrayal. Rather than acting out of greed or malice, Judas is following orders when he leads soldiers to Jesus, the gospel says"

I hate them a lot

"Wood was struck by the overwhelming number of people who attended. 'Scientists from across the country, from all kinds of fields, were there,' she says, 'because they care a great deal about how science is done and how data are analyzed and how the information is used.' Why were they finally voicing their fears? 'I think as people become more aware [of the interference in science], they are willing to step up and say, 'This is not what we want,'' Wood says.
For a group of researchers, the rhetoric was fiery. Baltimore accused the Bush administration of suppressing science. And when Wood said that morale at the FDA had sunk to a new low because of overwhelming pressure from social conservatives, she got a standing ovation."

a way to speak up

"Help Spread the Word
As of this writing, thousands of people have joined you in our 'Stand In' campaign. But we need thousands more to make the largest impact. Please take a minute to forward this link and message to at least 10 friends. Post the link anywhere you can and send it to any listservs you read. We need you to ask your friends and family to join you in standing in for the victims of genocide in Darfur:

We hope you will continue to stay involved in Human Rights First's efforts to stop the genocide in Darfur. Thanks for your help.
Jill Savitt
Campaign Director, Hope for Darfur
Human Rights First"

Scientists are so cute:)

"The question was: Is this pair of supermassive black holes an old married couple, or just strangers passing in the night?' said Craig Sarazin of the University of Virginia. 'We now know that they are coupled, but more like the mating of black widow spiders. One of the black holes invariably will eat the other.'"

emotional armor

"''In every store, there were messages on apparel for adults and children of negativity, sexual innuendo, and violence,' she said. ''I thought, I'll just make T-shirts I feel my kids, myself, and others should embrace, with positive reminders of what's important.'
The result is Emotional Armor, a T-shirt company that Hoffman, 36, has just launched. The colorful shirts for children and women sport one of 51 inspirational messages on the front, including ''small body, big dreams' and ''i believe in me' for girls, and ''pure energy' and ''natural born hero' for boys. A popular message on the girls' and women's shirts is ''princess. not in need of rescue.' Others are ''my mistakes will make me strong,' ''constant reminder of extraordinary,' ''never underestimate me,' and ''the power of one.' "

It's not just about bad labor policies.

"Although we've been fortunate never to have suffered a catastrophic attack on an American seaport, we know for a fact--Wal-Mart and RILA and our national leaders know darn well--that it can happen. ABC News smuggled into this country 15-pound canisters of depleted uranium in 2002 and again in 2003. A March 2006 Government Accountability Office investigation smuggled enough radioactive material across our borders with Mexico and Canada to make two dirty bombs.
But Wal-Mart's massive profits and retail dominance are built on the speed and efficiency of the movement of products through its supply chain. Wal-Mart and RILA fight like hell to keep anything--like reasonable inspections--from slowing that chain down or diverting any portion of the lucre into security measures. And that's rich, considering Wal-Mart wrings more than $4.3 billion each year from federal, state and local governments to provide income and health care subsidies to its low-wage workers and has sucked up more than $1 billion in the past 20 years from state and local governments for the construction of its stores and distribution centers."

Daily Kos: I still remember 13

I wrestle with the problem of problems too enormous to comprehend and the feeling of powerlessness when faced with a situation over which we have no control. But then I read stuff like this and I think being human enough to grasp what is happening is doing something. Silence is complicity.

Marx? Really?

"Meanwhile, a fascinating piece of analysis from the U.K. Guardian summons up the ghost of Karl Marx, and boy does he look ready to rock. '[Marx] argued that labor-saving capital investment would limit demand for labor, while also bankrupting small-scale producers, in agriculture for example. They would swell the labor supply, creating a permanent 'reserve army of labor' that would prevent real wages growing as fast as labor productivity. Workers would thus spend an increasing proportion of working time producing profits for capitalists -- a falling share for labor or a rising rate of exploitation, in Marx's terminology.'
As the Times' Daniel Gross noted, also on Sunday, something pretty close to what Marx predicted appears to be happening right now. Workers' wages in the U.S. and Europe are growing nowhere near as fast as corporate profits or productivity, especially as compared with what happened during previous periods of economic growth. The obvious reason: the exploitation of the billions of new workers who have joined the global economy, mostly from China and India and the former Soviet bloc, in the last 20 years. Capital is in the driver's seat, labor is under the whip, Marx predicted it all. "

Women looking for hotties

"LONDON (Reuters) - The old adage that women look for wealth in a man appears to be under threat after research on Wednesday showed women are starting to put physical attractiveness above solvency.
The shift is occurring because women have been freed from the constraints that previously dictated how they chose a mate as they increasingly control their own finances, the study said."

Gotta Love Irish Thuggery

"Former senior Sinn Fein member Denis Donaldson has been found shot dead in the Irish Republic. Mr Donaldson was expelled from the party last December after admitting he was a paid British spy for 20 years. "

Media Matters - Limbaugh called alleged Duke rape victim a "ho[ ]"

"LIMBAUGH: They're -- they're busy. They're busy. The Reverend Jackson is in New Orleans. He's leading a big march there tomorrow. The march is -- what is it called? The -- the march for the right to return a protected vote and reconstruction. He's trying to -- they got problems down in New Orleans. They don't have voter base, and Sharpton's working on a New Orleans deal, too. He's trying to figure out how he can get involved in the deal down there at Duke where the lacrosse team --
CALLER 1: Yeah.
LIMBAUGH: -- uh, supposedly, you know, raped, some, uh, hos."

cool

On Wednesday of next week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.That won't ever happen again.

Seriously, what is wrong with this state?

"A group affiliated with the Church of Scientology has forged close ties with several influential members of the Arizona Legislature as part of a nationwide battle against the mental-health industry.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has courted key lawmakers with trips to glitzy Scientologist events in Hollywood. And, observers say, it has been the force behind more than two dozen bills in Arizona in recent years, including measures to restrict prescriptions of Ritalin and mood-altering drugs."

And they want to bring it here.

Strict laws, churches behind rising clandestine abortion in Africa: experts - Yahoo! News: "And according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 44 percent of women who die of complications arising from unsafe abortion are in Africa. Of the 4.2 million African women who decide to terminate a pregnancy, 30,000 of them end up losing their lives."

A Depression Switch?

"What she hoped to lose, of course, was her depression. But depression, which 5 to 10 percent of Americans suffer in any given year and about 15 percent will suffer in their lifetimes, can be hard to lose. Drugs, as shown in a comprehensive study released last month by the National Institute of Mental Health, are effective in only half of patients with major depression. Psychotherapy does no better. For those people who are not helped by therapy or drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, can bring relief. But few of those cures are complete. These therapies usually ease rather than cure depression while sometimes bringing side effects like insomnia or memory loss, and their potency often proves fleeting; as many as half to two-thirds of those successfully treated relapse within two years. Neither neuroscientists nor psychiatrists can say exactly what depression is. Neurologically and psychologically, what Hippocrates called the 'black bile' and Susan Sontag 'melancholy minus its charms' presents an almost impossibly complicated puzzle."

Technology, terror and Viagra could warp sex and relationships: researchers

"The concern was raised as researchers discussed 'The Future of Sex' at an unprecedented summit near Santa Fe, New Mexico, late last week.
'The de-interaction of sex is something I worry about,' said Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction."

Study: 1 in 4 young Irish gays tried suicide - Yahoo! News

"One-quarter of young gay or bisexual men in Northern Ireland have attempted suicide, 30 percent have self-harmed and over two-thirds of the respondents have considered suicide, according to a new three-year research project."