Sacred Cows Make The Best Burgers

✰ 6 uncannily fake baby videos

Not all special effects are digital – fake babies are still constructed for film and television work, and for collectors who want highly realistic replicas.

✰ Baby eats cocaine found in motel room

It was in room 223, Jahmai’s mother says he found a spoon under the bed, and put it in his mouth. His grandmother was the first to notice. “She looked at it and she’s like, look at this,” said April Portis, Jahmai’s mother. “I took it from her and on the back of the spoon it was all burnt up and on the top of the spoon was the residue from the cocaine on it.” Portis called police. She says an officer performed a test on the spot, and confirmed cocaine was on the spoon.

✰ A subversive spotlight

Sacred cows make the best hamburgers, says the activist who defaced an Australian icon. It’s been eight years since David Burgess scaled up to the top of Sydney’s gleaming white Opera House and lashed it with bright red paint. It took three coats before the act was complete. NO WAR screamed the sign. The highly-visible protest against the looming Iraq war split the Australian community between those who were shocked at the wanton vandalism of the national icon, and those who applauded the message. Ultimately, it landed Mr Burgess and his activist peer Will Saunders in jail for nine months’ weekend detention for malicious damage. “I won’t say there were days I didn’t wake up feeling utterly miserable, but you couldn’t really regret what we’d done,” Burgess says. “A lot of people said it gave them a little bit of happiness or hope on what was otherwise a very awful day.

✰ Face Slimmer – Weird Anti-Aging Mouthpiece from Japan

The so-called face Slimmer was launched in Japan, late last year, by a well-known cosmetic company called Glim. It’s a weird-looking rubbery thing that looks a lot like the mouth of a blow-up doll, and it supposedly solves your sagging face problem while giving you that coveted duck-face look. You know, the one every “cool” teenager poses with in their Facebook photos. Now, unlike most other Japanese inventions, the Face Slimmer isn’t high-tech. In fact it’s as low tech as they come, all you have to do is put it in your mouth and start exercising your face muscles. Think of it as a squeeze punch for your mouth…

✰ No Explanation for Pennsylvania’s Purple Squirrel

A Pennsylvania couple trapped, of all things, a purple squirrel on Sunday. Percy and Connie Emert, of Jersey Shore, Pa. caught the unusual animal when trying to keep birds safe from the rodents. “We have bird feeders out in our yard, and the squirrels are constantly into them,” said Jersey Shore resident Connie Emert. “My husband traps them and then sets them free elsewhere so they don’t get into your bird feeders.” Emert said she had spotted a purple squirrel on her property but no one believed her. “I kept telling my husband I saw a purple one out in the yard. ‘Oh sure you did’ he kept telling me,” said Emert. “Well, he checked the trap around noon on Sunday and sure enough, there it was.”

✰ Man dismembered and cooked after sex games

The BZ daily reported on Wednesday that the deceased, Carsten Srock, was found with his limbs expertly carved off with either an axe or large knife. The body pieces were then wrapped fastidiously in plastic bags and cling-wrap, and left to sit in the two-room flat for around three weeks. His head was found, partially cooked, by the police. Prosecutors on the case told the BZ they believe the victim was “murdered for sexual pleasure.”

✰ Mexico Meth Bust: Army Finds 15 Tons Of Pure Methamphetamine

The historic seizure of 15 tons of pure methamphetamine in western Mexico, equal to half of all meth seizures worldwide in 2009, feeds growing speculation that the country could become a world platform for meth production, not just a supplier to the United States. The sheer size of the bust announced late Wednesday in Jalisco state suggests involvement of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, a major international trafficker of cocaine and marijuana that has moved into meth production and manufacturing on an industrial scale. Army officials didn’t say what drug gangs could have been behind the dozens of blue barrels filled with powdered meth. Army Gen. Gilberto Hernandez Andreu said the meth was ready for packaging. There was no information on where the drugs were headed. Jalisco has long been considered the hub of the Sinaloa cartel’s meth production and trafficking. Meanwhile, meth use is growing in the United States, already the world’s biggest market for illicit drugs.

✰ Interview with a hoaxster: How I fooled the Daily Mail with fake pic

Looks pretty authentic, yes? Well the image of a snow-covered road and cars never aired on the BBC, wasn’t taken in Lutterworth, and it certainly wasn’t submitted by anyone with the name Shanda Lear. (Chandelier, anyone?) Kirton, a truck driver and photographer, created the image in Photoshop and then made it look like it had been on TV. After the Mail somehow discovered the image, it published a story headlined, “Not a name to make light of! BBC News shows picture taken by viewer called Shanda Lear.”

✰ No Satisfaction: Lip-Shaped Urinals in Stones Museum Called Sexist

Women in the northern German town of Lüchow have expressed their dissatisfaction with the design of two urinals in the men’s toilet of a museum dedicated to the Rolling Stones. They are shaped like red lips, similar to the legendary logo of the band, but they look more feminine, and they lack tongues. Local activist Roda Armbruster wants the urinals removed. “That’s discrimination against women,” she told regional broadcaster NDR. “Why does it have to be a woman’s mouth? If it had been based on the emblem of the Stones with the tongue, it would have been OK. But the tongue’s been left out and they really looks like women’s mouths.”

✰ Janet Howell, Virginia State Senator, Attaches Rectal Exam Amendment To Anti-Abortion Bill

To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication. “We need some gender equity here,” she told HuffPost. “The Virginia senate is about to pass a bill that will require a woman to have totally unnecessary medical procedure at their cost and inconvenience. If we’re going to do that to women, why not do that to men?”

✰ Scouting An Abandoned Cold War Missile Base Hidden In The Adirondacks

Quick note: Though you may have read about this property before, most articles have simply reprinted the same stock real estate photos over and over. As always, all pictures are my own work, and I don’t think you’ll find a tour like this anywhere else.

✰ Congress Trying to Fast-Track Domestic Drone Use, Sideline Privacy

One result of that pressure is this legislation (H.R. 658 — see conference report for more details), which authorizes appropriations for the FAA through fiscal 2014. Unfortunately, nothing in the bill would address the very serious privacy issues raised by drone aircraft. This bill would push the nation willy-nilly toward an era of aerial surveillance without any steps to protect the traditional privacy that Americans have always enjoyed and expected. Congress — and to the extent possible, the FAA — need to impose some rules (such as those we proposed in our report) to protect Americans’ privacy from the inevitable invasions that this technology will otherwise lead to. We don’t want to wonder, every time we step out our front door, whether some eye in the sky is watching our every move.

✰ Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders. The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980. The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

✰ Experimenting With Nootropics to Increase Mental Capacity, Clarity

Nootropic (new-tro-pik) is the term for supplements, also known as smart drugs, that improve brain function. They can be food substances like phenethylamine and L-Theanine, found in chocolate and green tea, respectively. Nootropics also include extracted and purified components of medicinal plants, as well as substances synthesized from chemical precursors, such as piracetam, the world’s first official nootropic (piracetam was created in 1964 in Belgium by a team of scientists whose leader, Dr. Corneliu E. Giurgea, coined the term). Since then piracetam has been widely used as a cognitive enhancer and to treat neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

✰ Reason for Zimbabwe reservoir delays… mermaids have been hounding workers away!

Essential work on planned reservoirs in Zimbabwe has stopped because mermaids have been hounding workers away, according to the country’s Water Resources Minister. Samuel Sipepa Nkomo told a Zimbabwean parliamentary committee that terrified workers are refusing to return to the sites, near the towns of Gokwe and Mutare. Minister Nkomo said the only way to solve the problem was to brew traditional beer and carry out any rites to appease the spirits.

✰ Scientists use brain activity analysis to reconstruct words heard by test subjects

Last September, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley announced that they had developed a method of visually reconstructing images from peoples’ minds, by analyzing their brain activity. Much to the dismay of tinfoil hat-wearers everywhere, researchers from that same institution have now developed a somewhat similar system, that is able to reconstruct words that people have heard spoken to them. Instead of being used to violate our civil rights, however, the technology could instead allow the vocally-disabled to “speak.”

✰ Nazi Concentration Camp Surgical Tools Up For Auction

Nazi surgical tools formerly owned by an SS Major and possibly used in a concentration camp during the Holocaust are being put up for auction. A wooden box of instruments belonging to Anton Burger, commandant of the Theresienstadt camp in what was then Czechoslovakia, is being sold off by the widow of a Jewish man whose parents were Holocaust survivors.

✰ F.B.I. Admits Hacker Group’s Eavesdropping

The international hackers group known as Anonymous turned the tables on the F.B.I. by listening in on a conference call last month between the bureau, Scotland Yard and other foreign police agencies about their joint investigation of the group and its allies. Anonymous posted a 16-minute recording of the call on the Web on Friday and crowed about the episode in via Twitter: “The FBI might be curious how we’re able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now.”

✰ This Looks Like A Fortified Sniper’s Nest At The Super Bowl

Some photos with no backstory are making the rounds, showing what appears to be an Indianapolis police sniper checking out his post in the rafters of Lucas Oil Stadium in the hours or days before the Super Bowl, a post that would be manned when the game began. Yes, we know there’s nothing surprising about trained marksmen working the biggest sporting event of the year. We also know it’s pretty damn cool to see what the Super Bowl snipers are working with. It’s standard operating procedure to have an invisible law enforcement presence at any high-profile event, let alone one with the attendance and attention the Super Bowl receives. And remember, there are all kinds of politicians and other assorted rich people around. You never know what could happen, though the imagination conjures up increasingly insane and horrifying scenarios, and also the criminally underrated Black Sunday. It’s just never a bad idea to have a sniper rifle around.

✰ Independent Report Shows that Syrian Government Violence Has Been Exaggerated

While the Western media act like the Syrian government is wantonly and indiscriminately killing its own people without provocation, an independent investigation has found a different reality on the ground. Specifically, over 160 monitors from the Arab League – comprised of both allies and mortal enemies of Syria – toured Syria and published a report on January 27th showing that the situation has been mischaracterized.

✰ FaceTime for Apes: Orangutans Use iPads to Video Chat With Friends In Other Zoos

Orangutans living in captivity will soon start using iPads for primate play-dates, using Skype or FaceTime to interact with their brethren in other zoos, according to zookeepers. The great apes have been playing with iPads for about six months at the Milwaukee County Zoo, and they’ve been such a hit that other zoos plan to introduce them, too. The “Apps for Apes” program started after a zookeeper commented online about getting some iPads for her gorilla charges. Someone donated a used iPad, and it turned out the gorillas didn’t care for it. But the orangutans loved it, as the LA Times says.

✰ Single-Serve Coffee Brewers Make Convenience Costly

SOMETIMES it’s hard to tell how much coffee costs, even if you know what you spent. At least that’s the case with many of the single-serve brewing machines that are soaring in popularity. For example, the Nespresso Arpeggio costs $5.70 for 10 espresso capsules, while the Folgers Black Silk blend for a K-Cup brewed-coffee machine is $10.69 for 12 pods. But that Nespresso capsule contains 5 grams of coffee, so it costs about $51 a pound. And the Folgers, with 8 grams per capsule, works out to more than $50 a pound. That’s even more expensive than all but the priciest coffees sold by artisanal roasters, the stuff of coffee snobs.

✰ Killed by her hair extensions: Woman dies after allergic reaction ‘to glue in hairdo’ as expert says he has seen four similar deaths in three months

A woman died from a massive allergic reaction that could have been caused by the glue in her hair extensions, a pathologist said yesterday. Atasha Graham, 34, who had used hair extensions for 14 years, collapsed after clubbing until the early hours. Home Office pathologist Michael Heath told the inquest into her death that the latex glue used to apply her extensions – or the solvent for removing old ones – may have been to blame.

✰ Pigs on police cars? Prank by Vermont inmates adorns decals

How did an image of a pig — the infamous ’60s-era epithet by protesters for police officers — wind up on a decal used on as many as 30 Vermont State Police cruisers? State officials Thursday pointed to the failure of the quality assurance office within the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop in St. Albans to detect a prisoner-artist’s addition made four years ago to the traditional state police logo. A spot on the shoulder of the cow in the state emblem was modified into a pig.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8KvGgw-c8M

BBC defends decision to censor the word “Palestine”‎

What rapper Mic Righteous was actually trying to say was ‘Free Palestine’. But Palestine, it seems, is now a dirty word on the BBC.

✰ Neuroscience could mean soldiers controlling weapons with minds

Soldiers could have their minds plugged directly into weapons systems, undergo brain scans during recruitment and take courses of neural stimulation to boost their learning, if the armed forces embrace the latest developments in neuroscience to hone the performance of their troops. These scenarios are described in a report into the military and law enforcement uses of neuroscience, published on Tuesday, which also highlights a raft of legal and ethical concerns that innovations in the field may bring.

✰ Controversial Chicago City Parking Sticker Design Dumped For Alleged Gang Signs

Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza has decided to go with the runner-up in the city’s parking sticker design contest, after a blogger questioned whether gang signs were in the artwork submitted by the winner. The sticker was picked as the winner in a city-wide contest and was designed by Herbie Pulgar, a15-year-old boy who attends a school for troubled youth. “I was trying to convey the love for Chicago, the love for our first responders,” he said. The theme of the contest was to honor city firefighters and police officers. The freshman said his design honored first responders, as he was saved from a fire when he was 4 years old. On Tuesday, the city clerk’s office began getting calls after a blogger said the hands in the artwork may be showing the symbol of a notorious gang. Some said both the heart and the shape of the hands in the image are evocative of gang symbols.

✰ Whales not slaves because they are not people, judge in SeaWorld case rules

A US federal judge has thrown out an animal rights group’s lawsuit accusing SeaWorld of enslaving captive killer whales, ruling that orcas have no standing to seek the same constitutional rights as people. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) had accused the chain of aquatic theme parks of violating the rights of whales under the 13th amendment of the US constitution, which abolished slavery. The lawsuit, filed in the US district court of San Diego, listed as plaintiffs five performing orcas at SeaWorld’s parks in California and Florida: Tilikum, Katina, Corky, Kasatka and Ulises. “The only reasonable interpretation of the 13th amendment’s plain language is that it applies to persons and not to non-persons such as orcas,” US district judge Jeffrey Miller wrote in his ruling.

✰ According To A New DHS Report, If You Love “Individual Liberty” Of If You “Believe In Conspiracy Theories” You Are A Potential Terrorist

Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008“, and it was produced by the “National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism” for the Department of Homeland Security. As you will see detailed later on in this article, the most shocking part of this report is when it discusses the “ideological motivations” of potential terrorists. The report shamelessly attempts to portray red-blooded Americans that love liberty and that love their country as the enemy. Once upon a time, deeply patriotic Americans were considered to be the backbone of America, but today they are considered to be potential terrorists.

Submit Links:
SeMeNSPeRmS@SeMeNSPeRmS.com