Weird News Stories

[Malcador]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/9511871/Mini-burgers-to-your-table-at-140kmh

 

Fast food indeed.

[Rostere]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *cough*

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0iTiCHjiNs

 

This must be perhaps the worst -and funniest - political speech I've ever seen. And look at their faces

 

Apparently this was aired on Egyptian national television.

 

Here's Jon Stewart's take on it:

 

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-11-2013/two-guys--a-girl-and-a-pita-place

 

They must have no idea of the potential repercussions of this. What if Stalin had went to the US in 1934, making a speech strongly supportive of Roosevelt, saying Communists were 100% behind him. I am simply amazed, no, stunned that this somehow came through whatever process the current propaganda machine in Egypt uses to choose material to send on TV. WHO THE **** MADE THIS HAPPEN AND WHY? It's incomprehensible. Well, now Al-Sisi is going to have a long, hard time washing away the notion that he is bought and paid for by the US. Michele Bachmann has just suffered further public humiliation, although it's doubtful if you can actually sink any lower. If the Egyptians are well-informed enough to understand that these are the political adversaries of Obama, he's going to seem like a shining beacon of intelligence, respect and common sense in comparison.

 

The worst possible thing the US could do to promote democracy in Africa and the ME is to send their most stupid representatives to support a dictatorship. Saying that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind 9/11. Oh wait, are you saying Bachmann also criticized Obama for "just letting the Arabs overthrow Mubarak"?

 

Furthermore, things get even more out of hand: she also sent a crazy article to one of Egypt's newspapers. After a long debate on whether or not they should publish an article by an "extremist, racist woman", they eventually decided to do so, publishing it followed by a piece stressing the importance of dialogue in an open state. Interestingly, this seems to have had a positive and informative effect. In a sort of a happy ending, ordinary Egyptians are quick to note that she does not represent the views of Obama, but she belongs to a faction which could be described as the "American Taliban" .

[Raithe]

Okay, now this counts as just a little weird, possibly on the edge, but also I found amusing..

 

Business Insider: Amazon Crackdown on Monster Porn

 

 

 

MONSTER PORN: Amazon Cracks Down On America’s Latest Sex Fantasy

 

 

Author Virginia Wade's fiction debut follows a group of women who embark on a week-long camping trip to Mt. Hood National Forest. There, in the shadow of Oregon’s highest mountain, they are kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a mysterious woodland creature. "What the hell is that thing?" asks one protagonist.

 

“‘It's f---ing Bigfoot,’ hissed Shelly. ‘He's real, for f---'s sake.’ Horror filled her eyes. ‘With a huge c---.’”

 

The book, with the decidedly un-PG title "**** For Bigfoot," is just the first of 16 fiction ebooks that Wade (a pen name) has written about the legendary beast sometimes known as Sasquatch, each detailing a series of graphic and often violent sexual encounters between the apelike creature and his female human lovers. Wade has made an exceptional living writing these stories.

 

It began in December of 2011. A stay-at-home mother from Parker, Colo., Wade had no ambition to be a published author and no real writing experience other than a few attempts at historical romance in the mid-90s. But then, she says, "I got this crazy idea for a story." So she sat down and wrote the entire book — more of a novella, at just 12,000 words — in a matter of weeks. She never even considered trying to sell it to a mainstream publisher. Instead, she went directly to Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing, an online platform for self-publishing with a 70% royalty rate for authors. (The average royalty percentage for authors with mainstream publishers is between 8 and 15%.)

 

"**** For Bigfoot" wasn't an overnight best-seller. "The first month, I think I made $5," Wade admits. But over the course of 2012, the book was downloaded well over 100,000 times. "And that was just Amazon," she says. "That's not counting iTunes or Barnes & Noble or any of the other places that sell self-published books." With no marketing muscle, no bookstore tours or print reviews or any of the publicity that most top authors use to sell books, she started bringing in staggering profits. During her best months, she says, she netted $30,000 or more. At worst, she'd bank around six grand — "nothing to complain about," she says.

 

 

She branched into other genres, penning ebooks like "Taken By Pirates" and "Seduced By The Dark Lord," but her "**** For Bigfoot" series was the biggest money-maker. "I started cranking them out," she says. "If there was a market there for monster sex, I was gonna give it to them." She even brought in her family to help with the workload. "My dad, who's an English instructor, was my editor," Wade says. "My mom did the German translations" — including the equally popular "Komm für Bigfoot." "I even had my own 401k. It became a cottage industry."

 

The prose wouldn't win any fiction awards (a sample line: "From within the tufts of matted hair, the creature released a huge pale c--- that defied logic"), but her readers loved it, and their numbers seemed to be growing every day. "I was putting my daughter through college with the profits," Wade says. "I used to joke with her, 'Bigfoot smut is paying for your school.'"

 

 

Wade is hardly the only author who has made a mint writing about monsters and the women who love them (or at least submit to their sexual appetites). She's part of a burgeoning literary genre that's found a wide audience online: monster porn, otherwise known as “cryptozoological erotica,” or as some of the authors prefer to call it, "erotic horror." Their self-published books feature mythical creatures of every possible variety, from minotaurs to mermen, cthulhus to leprechauns, extraterrestrials to cyclops, who become involved in sexual trysts, often non-consensual, with human lovers. They have titles that are often more silly than sexy — from "Demons Love Ass," part of Trisha Danes' "Beasts & Booty" collection, to "Frankenstein's Bitch" and "Sex With My Husband's Anatomically Correct Robot" — and the plots are never less than imaginative. A feline shapeshifter might be saved from a tree by a firefighter with a cat fetish (as in the ebook "Out on a Limb"), or a buxom cattle rancher might be abducted and kept enslaved "in a strange, perverted alien zoo" ("Milked by the Aliens").

 

 

It's easy to snicker, but somebody is buying these things. Authors of monster porn may not be notching sales to rival E.L. James or Amanda Hocking, the trailblazers of self-published erotica, but they're making more than enough to survive. That’s especially remarkable given the low price tag on many of their books. "Amazon pays a royalty of 35 percent for books listed below $2.99," says K.J. Burkhardt (a pen name), the 45-year-old author of "Taken by the Tentacle Monsters" and "Bred to the Creature." "For those listed at $2.99 and over, I can claim 70 percent in royalty payments. But I didn't feel comfortable nor right in asking someone to pay $2.99 for a five-to seven-thousand-word short story." So instead, the majority of her titles are listed at 99 cents, the minimum allowed by Amazon. "Even with the small prices that I was asking," she says, "it doesn't take much imagination to guess that I was selling a lot of books to earn $4,000 each month."

 

Then everything changed.

 

 

Attack of the Pitchfork Brigade

 

 

In October, the online news site The Kernel published an incendiary story called "An Epidemic of Filth," claiming that online bookstores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, WHSmith, and others were selling self-published ebooks that featured "rape fantasies, incest porn and graphic descriptions of bestiality and child abuse." The story ignited a media firestorm in the U.K, with major news outlets like the Daily Mail, The Guardian, and the BBC reporting on the “sales of sick ebooks.” Some U.K.-based ebook retailers responded with public apologies, and WHSmith went so far as to shut down its website altogether, releasing a statement saying that it would reopen "once all self-published eBooks have been removed and we are totally sure that there are no offending titles available." The response in the U.S. was somewhat more muted, but most of the retailers mentioned in the piece, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble, began quietly pulling hundreds of titles from their online shelves — an event Kobo coo Michael Tamblyn referred to last month as "erotica-gate."

 

 

The crackdown was meant to target the obvious offenders — ebooks like "Daddy’s Birthday Gang Bang" and others that fetishized incest and rape — but in their fervor to course-correct, the online bookstores started deleting, according to The Digital Reader blog, "not just the questionable erotica but [also].... any e-books that might even hint at violating cultural norms." That included crypto-porn. Wade’s sexy Sasquatch, not unlike the elusive hominid beast of legend, vanished without a trace.

 

 

But it wasn’t just Bigfoot who was herded into extinction. Wade says that 60% of her titles disappeared from Amazon and other online bookstores. "They started sending my books randomly back to draft mode" — where new ebooks are uploaded and edited before going on sale — "and I'd get an email from them saying, 'We found the following books in violation of our content guidelines,'” she recalls. “But they wouldn't tell me why. There were no specifics. It was a huge guessing game trying to figure out what the issue was."

 

 

She altered the titles of several volumes in her blockbuster series, from "**** For Bigfoot" to "Moan For Bigfoot," and they were returned to Amazon's shelves, but now they're only seen by readers searching for them specifically. "They can still be found in the store," Wade says, "but it requires extra digging." Even more confusing, only some of her titles were flagged by Amazon, so while some books are listed as "Moan For Bigfoot," others remain "**** For Bigfoot."

 

Burkhardt had a similar experience. "Amazon has been systematically banning just about every book I have listed with them," she says. As with Wade, she was told her books had violated content guidelines. "The guidelines are very vague," she says. "Reading them implies any and all erotic pornography is prohibited, so I'm left to wonder exactly what erotica is allowed." "Taken By the Monsters 4," which Burkhardt first published with Amazon in July of 2012, disappeared from the site just a few weeks ago. "After 16 months, they have determined that it either no longer meets their guidelines or they didn't really look it over to begin with and just now caught it," she says.

 

 

Beauty and the Beast

 

 

Amazon declined to comment for this article. Its content guidelines state that the company doesn't accept “offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts."  But works that contain precisely that, from de Sade's "Justine" and Pauline Réage's "The Story of O" to the recently released French bestseller "The Victoria System" by Éric Reinhardt (which contains the memorable line "My erection beat time in my underwear") are readily available.

 

To explain the policy, the site offers this unhelpful bit of advice: "What we deem offensive is probably about what you would expect." Vague as that may be, Amazon is within its legal rights to stock whatever books it chooses. "Bookstores are private enterprises, and are thus not required to sell every book that people ask them to sell," says Eugene Volokh, a professor of law at UCLA who specializes in First Amendment cases. "There is no law of which I’m aware that would require bookstores to sell a book that they disapprove of, whether or not we might think their judgments of disapproval are sound." Amazon makes the same point elsewhere in the content guidelines, when it notes, "We reserve the right to make judgments about whether content is appropriate and to choose not to offer it."

 

 

Burkhardt, who lives in Northern Virginia and writes as a hobby — she claims her day job is working as a personal protection specialist for a foreign ambassador — continued emailing Amazon with questions, and soon learned that the main objection was to her book's listing descriptions, which anybody pursuing the Amazon website could read. They were too graphic, she was told, and potentially offensive. Burkhardt wanted to compromise, but she worried that a less detailed description would cause more trouble in the long run. "I want readers to know exactly what they are buying when they make a purchase," she says, "and not be surprised and offended later because I couldn't say the book contains explicit sex with monsters.”

 

 

Her concern isn’t unjustified. One can only imagine a "Fifty Shades of Grey" fan happening upon Burkhardt’s ebook "Taken by the Monsters," and their horror upon reading about the vicious gang-rape of a woman by hirsute “humanoid” creatures in an abandoned building, which ends with them “filling her womb deep with [their] monster seed.” A little spanking this isn’t.

 

 

Author Emerald Ice (a pen name) — who lives in southern Illinois with her husband, a Catholic high school teacher — is less concerned about offending Amazon browsers than being overlooked by potential paying customers. The first three books in her Alien Sex Slave Series — "Alien Love Slave," "The Sex Arena," and "Alien Sex Cove"— were runaway hits, she says. At least until Amazon pulled them from distribution and requested changes, once again citing content guidelines. That's how "Alien Sex Slave" became "Sidney's Alien Escapades." "I hate it," she admits of the new title. "I came up with it because I was in a panic about the books disappearing." Her sales have since plummeted, and she isn't surprised. "If I was a reader searching for hot alien sex books, I wouldn't look twice at something called 'Sidney's Alien Escapades.'"

 

 

Alice Xavier (also a pen name) had her first experience with censorship when her ebook "Serpent God’s Virgin," originally published last April, was pulled from Amazon in mid-October. "They flagged it because it had virgin in the title," she guesses, because after she renamed it "Serpent God's Maiden," it again appeared on sale. "Amazon didn't care that the plot involves sex with a giant snake deity," she says. "Ultimately, Amazon is amoral. They don't care either way that they're selling dirty, filthy erotica. Their main goal is to keep their customers happy. They have plenty of customers who get righteously outraged and complain, complain, complain. And Amazon has way more at stake than just books. So they want to keep everybody happy, understandably."

 

 

Even so, she and other monster-sex authors are more than a little unsettled by the recent purge, which lumps their work in with ebooks depicting rape, incest and bestiality — unfairly they insist. The latter label is especially dangerous, says Xavier, who authored books like "Cuckwolfed" and "At the Mercy of the Boar God." Although she considers bestiality "an egregious act of animal cruelty when it occurs in real life," she's not so sure it should be off-limits to writers. "If writers want to write about it, that's great for them, because plenty of people love reading about it." Then again, that doesn’t mean she wants to be in any way associated with the genre. "It's a media ....storm waiting to happen,” she says. “It's massively taboo — more so than incest, I think. It has the potential to be incredibly damaging to the whole image of erotic literature.”

 

 

Wild Kingdom

 

 

Is crypto-smut the same thing as bestiality lit? It may seem like a fine distinction to the uninitiated, but for many authors, it’s crucial. "Is a werewolf an animal? What about a minotaur?” asks Mark Coker, the founder and CEO of Smashwords—one of the few ebook self-publishing platforms that didn't clean house in October. “Where do you draw the line? Sex with beasts is a common theme in paranormal romance. Do dinosaurs need to be a protected class of animal? What about a Sasquatch? When are they real, when are they not, when can you have sex with them and when can you not?"

 

 

Satyrs are such notoriously passionate creatures, there's a whole disorder named for them.

 

And even in the cases when the creature is an animal (a giant squid, for instance) Xavier insists that the power dynamic is critical. “How can you commit animal cruelty when the monster is in control, is consenting, and is an intelligent being?” she points out. In the world of fantasy, a creature can be classified as a person, she says, even if it's not a human person. “A barnyard animal is just an animal without the power of consent.”

 

 

Modern crypto-porn has more in common with the myths of ancient Greece, many of which feature gods taking animal form — Zeus was famous for this move — and having their way with humans. “Just because he turns into a swan doesn't mean he's turned into an ordinary animal,” Xavier points out. “He's still a god with his godly powers and intelligence, just in the form of a swan.”

 

 

Smashwords, which gives authors 85% of net profit, regardless of their work’s length, had its own issues with censorship last February, when PayPal threatened to deactivate the ebookstore's account if it didn't cease selling, according to a PayPal statement, "erotic fiction that contains bestiality, rape and incest."

 

Although Smashwords initially complied, especially with regard to incest and sex involving underage characters, Coker was never comfortable with PayPal's other objections. "Dubious consent is a really big theme in mainstream romance," he says. "Where do you draw the lines? In mainstream romance, the woman may not want to have sex, and the man forces himself on her, and later in the book they're smiling and happy. Look at Gone With the Wind, where Rex is hauling Scarlett up the stairway and she's yelling 'No, no, no!' To what extent can financial institutions regulate what people are allowed to imagine in the safety of their own mind?"

 

 

PayPal and Smashwords reached a truce in mid-March. “PayPal's worst fear was always that their payment systems would be used for illegal underage erotica and illegal underage pornography,” says Coker. “Once they learned of our prohibition against such content … they gained the confidence they needed to lift the proposed restrictions.”

 

 

The initial purge of erotica on Amazon may have passed, but according to several authors, their monster sex ebooks continue to disappear from virtual shelves on a regular basis. Given her initial success, Burkhardt says, "I was seriously considering quitting my job and taking up writing full time. I'm glad I decided to wait and see, because after Amazon started banning some of my titles, my sales dropped dramatically." Her monthly profits from Amazon went from over $2,000 in early 2013 to just $400 last month. "I can't really complain," she concedes. "It's still a great supplemental income. But I can't help but wonder how much I would be making if I was allowed to publish with Amazon some of the stories they have since blocked or banned."

 

 

Some of the genre's authors would like to give up on Amazon entirely, furious at the way they've been treated. But it's difficult to walk away from the world's largest online retailer, even if you're confident that you've got something readers want. "There is a growing audience for this type of literature," says Burkhardt. "And I wish Amazon could see that." Of course, authors could sell exclusively with Smashwords, which offers mostly unlimited creative freedom and a better cut of the profits. But the platform doesn’t have nearly the reach. "Amazon is the big dog," says Emerald Ice. "They're well known, their books are easy to download. It's easy, and consumers want easy. Heck, I want easy. Smashwords is still kind of underground."

 

 

Another option is following the path forged by E.L. James, who started out writing "Twilight" fan-fiction under the pen name Snowqueens Icedragon before landing a major publisher and going on to earn something in the neighborhood of $95 million. But as Emerald Ice learned, even with a track record of sales, books about monster sex are hard to place with an established imprint. "Nobody wants to touch the taboo risqué alien books," she says. "They're just too out-there, I guess. I tried a few publishers, and it was the fastest rejection I ever got in my life. Within two days, it was 'Thank you, no, no, this isn't what we're looking for! Please get this off my computer!'"

 

 

We attempted to contact several publishers, asking if they'd ever been offered monster erotica. None of them responded. Literary agent Steven Axelrod, who represents Amanda Hocking — an author who made close to $2 million with her self-published paranormal romances, including "Hollowland" and "My Blood Approves" — says he has "absolutely no knowledge of 'horror erotica.'" A representative from Valerie Hoskins Associates in London, the literary agency that reps E.L. James, was apparently so opposed to being included in a story about the genre that they responded to requests for comment with "We know nothing about self publishing or erotica." (You read it here first: "Fifty Shades of Grey" has absolutely nothing to do with self-publishing or erotica.)

 

 

Judging a Book by Its Cover

 

 

Xavier, who when not writing smut works as a user-interface designer, has taken a different tack. Rather than argue with Amazon over content guidelines, she's looked for ways to make her books less of a target. "At its core, Amazon is trying to clean up the presentation," she says. "I think that's a good thing, because it keeps all the erotica online and for sale."

 

 

Ebooks featuring incest and rape tend to share a singular defining feature: sexually explicit and poorly produced covers. The way for monster erotica to survive, she thinks, is to "dress it up like fantasy." No more trashy illustrations. "My covers are pretty classy," she says. "It's all a facade, of course. My plots are depraved. They're definitely not for kids or grandmothers. But I put it in a glossy package, so it doesn't offend anybody who's just searching through Amazon.”

 

Her book "Alien Seed" is a perfect example of this strategy. The cover looks like any mainstream romance novel, with the image of a reclining and scantily-clad model bathed in green light. But the image doesn’t even hint at the content (sample: “I was either in some ridiculous ... dream or aboard an alien spaceship full of robotic tools capable of delivering epic orgasms”).

 

"If you want to be a major player in this field,” Xavier adds, “you need to act like one.”

 

 

Many monster porn authors employ pen names.

 

 

Virginia Wade has a different plan. "Writing monster erotica has become a hostile work environment," she says. "I'm tired of the BS. It's just easier to write in a different genre and avoid the scrutiny." She hasn't written a monster sex ebook in months, and has instead focused her creative energies on books that don't involve hirsute creatures or kidnapped campers. Even if censorship weren’t an issue, she's not sure if she has the inspiration for another sequel.

 

 

"I don't know where to go from here," she says with a sigh. "Each book was like another episode of a soap opera. I've already used the love triangle plotline. I've used the amnesia plotline. I've used the heroine-gives-birth-to-the-wrong-baby plotline, where the kid she had with Bigfoot turned out to be white instead of a little baby ape. I don't know where else I can take the Bigfoot fantasy. I'm out of crazy. I think I might be done."

 

 

She pauses, considering. "Well maybe one more," she concedes. "I have to finish up the series somehow. Give it a proper grand finale." She owes it to her longtime fans. Maybe something with genetically engineered Sasquatches, she thinks. Or just drop an A-bomb on Bigfoot and his love slaves and move on.

 

Fans of raunchy Bigfoot sex need not fear. Over the last few months, several self-published ebooks involving a certain hirsute sex machine have appeared in Amazon's Kindle store, with titles like "Boffing Bigfoot," "Savage Love," and the newly released "Bigfoot Did Me From Behind And I Liked It."

 

"There's a lot of human heads being pulled off, eating human flesh and EXPLICIT SEX between Bigfoot and JESSICA," raved one five-star reviewer of the latter title. "Overall a funny read."

 

 

 

I think what amuses me with this article the most is the "official" response from the publisher of Fifty Shades - "We know nothing about self publishing or erotica."

[Walsingham]

I guess it's nice to be able to put your kid through college. But I'm not sure it's worth lowering yourself to exploiting animal rape weirdness. Dignity doesn't cost a dime.

[Raithe]

Heh, and in a follow on to the UK's proposed "Anti-Porn" Legislation...

 

"Go Away Cameron"Chrome Extension bypasses Porn Filter

 

 

Well that didn't take long. The UK's ISPs have recently started blocking porn by default, at the behest of prime minister David Cameron. It's part of his quest to protect the innocence of the children. Except there's an easy workaround that's just launched.

 

Aptly called 'Go Away Cameron', it's an extension for the Google Chrome browser that promises to "bring porn back" the Metro reports. Install it, and you can browse any site you wish.

 

Go Away Cameron "automates a private and smart proxy service to route your access around censorship so you can regain your access to your favourite blocked sites in the UK," according to the FAQ.

 

If you want to install it, there are instructions on the site. But be warned, as with anything you get from the Internet, you do so at your own risk. You could just contact your ISP and ask to opt out of its block, so you can browse without any restrictions.

 

Go Away Cameron was made by Singapore-based computer science graduate @nubela.

 

This week, the BBC's Newsnight found that Cameron's porn filter isn't working as intended. It's actually more effective at blocking sites giving information and counselling on relationships, rape and sexual abuse. Hardcore grumble, meanwhile, remains readily accessible. And as Go Away Cameron shows, if people want to look at porn, they're going to find a way to look at porn.

 

BT rolled out its grot filter just this week, but it was found by Newsnight to block the websites for Sexual Health Scotland and the Doncaster Domestic Abuse Helpline. Sky's filter, meanwhile, blocks six sites that help people overcome porn addiction.

 

Newsnight found it could access every one of the 68 porn sites it tried on at least one ISP.

 

Is trying to censor the Internet doomed to fail? Or is Cameron's porn filter a step in the right direction?

Edited December 23, 2013 by Raithe

[Volourn]

It's real simple. It should be personal choice. Period.

[Hurlshort]

It's real simple. It should be personal choice. Period.

 

I would assume it's more to protect people from stumbling onto porn through Google.  For example, if I do a search for Bust of David when looking for Renaissance sculptures, and end up with a different kind of bust.

 

That being said, I am not a fan of censorship and would rather parents be the responsible party here.

[Volourn]

Only idiots need to be protected from porn. if a link lead you to the wrong thing, you move on. Not a big deal. This idea that people have a habit of stumbling onto porn 'accidentally' en masse is just bull.

[Walsingham]

I don't have high hopes for the porn filter, but it's perfectly possible to stumble on it. My last place had a filter which successfully blocked most pictures of weapons (for reasons that were never clear) but it was a running joke that an image search would infallibly return at least one nipple in the first page.

[Hurlshort]

Only idiots need to be protected from porn. if a link lead you to the wrong thing, you move on. Not a big deal. This idea that people have a habit of stumbling onto porn 'accidentally' en masse is just bull.

 

Why are you calling young children idiots?  Seems a little extreme, even for you.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I don't really understand what's the big deal with children looking at porn 

Edited December 24, 2013 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Walsingham]

I don't really understand what's the big deal with children looking at porn 

 

I would argue there's a big difference between a kid stumbling on some pics from Playboy of a pleasingly well proportioned woman smiling at the camera in the nudd, and the kind of hyper-aggressive rape fantasy stuff that seems increasingly prevalent.

 

EDIT:

 

Actually, running with this point, I'd argue that softer porn should be exempted to provide a normalising signal.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Walsingham

[Meshugger]

 

It's real simple. It should be personal choice. Period.

 

I would assume it's more to protect people from stumbling onto porn through Google.  For example, if I do a search for Bust of David when looking for Renaissance sculptures, and end up with a different kind of bust.

 

That being said, I am not a fan of censorship and would rather parents be the responsible party here.

 

 

How did you do that? From my experience, you cannot find porn on the internet unless you deliberately search for it.

 

 

Cameron is one big joke btw, censoring the internet will only backfire in the long run.

[Malcador]

 

Only idiots need to be protected from porn. if a link lead you to the wrong thing, you move on. Not a big deal. This idea that people have a habit of stumbling onto porn 'accidentally' en masse is just bull.

 

Why are you calling young children idiots?  Seems a little extreme, even for you.

 

 

Aren't you a teacher ? Kids are pretty stupid.

[Walsingham]

 

 

Only idiots need to be protected from porn. if a link lead you to the wrong thing, you move on. Not a big deal. This idea that people have a habit of stumbling onto porn 'accidentally' en masse is just bull.

 

Why are you calling young children idiots?  Seems a little extreme, even for you.

 

 

Aren't you a teacher ? Kids are pretty stupid.

 

 

I propose a Hunger Games style contest, pitting Malc against eight of Hurlie's kids.

[Malcador]

Their mouths are conveniently near elbow height, will be easy.  Hm, looking back is amazing the crap you get away with being a senior year student, some grade 7 kid tried to fight me when I was in OAC and I just choked him out with his tie and didn't get into trouble.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

Do I have a few months to help my students develop psionic powers?  I'm pretty sure they can win that way.

 

Anyways I don't agree with censorship, I was just illustrating what the logic might be.  I would say it is the responsibility of the parents and the community to keep young folk away from the hardcore stuff.  

 

For example, if you want a pen, do not visit Pen Island.com. 

[Volourn]

Why are you calling young children idiots?  Seems a little extreme, even for you.

 

 

`Why are little children surfing the internet by themselves Where`s the adult supervision

 

logic I guess no longer exists even for teachers lmao

[Humanoid]

Do I have a few months to help my students develop psionic powers?  I'm pretty sure they can win that way.

 

Anyways I don't agree with censorship, I was just illustrating what the logic might be.  I would say it is the responsibility of the parents and the community to keep young folk away from the hardcore stuff.  

 

For example, if you want a pen, do not visit Pen Island.com. 

Good god, those aren't children, they're sectoids disguised as children!

[Raithe]

Maybe not so weird, but a little bit interesting...

 

What Teachers Really Want to Tell Parents

 

 

 

Editor's note: Ron Clark, author of "The End of Molasses Classes: Getting Our Kids Unstuck -- 101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers," has been named "American Teacher of the Year" by Disney and was Oprah Winfrey's pick as her "Phenomenal Man." He founded The Ron Clark Academy, which educators from around the world have visited to learn. This article's massive social media response inspired CNN to follow up with Facebook users. Some of the best comments were featured in a gallery.

 

(CNN) -- This summer, I met a principal who was recently named as the administrator of the year in her state. She was loved and adored by all, but she told me she was leaving the profession.

I screamed, "You can't leave us," and she quite bluntly replied, "Look, if I get an offer to lead a school system of orphans, I will be all over it, but I just can't deal with parents anymore; they are killing us."

 

Unfortunately, this sentiment seems to be becoming more and more prevalent. Today, new teachers remain in our profession an average of just 4.5 years, and many of them list "issues with parents" as one of their reasons for throwing in the towel. Word is spreading, and the more negativity teachers receive from parents, the harder it becomes to recruit the best and the brightest out of colleges.

So, what can we do to stem the tide? What do teachers really need parents to understand?

 

10 things parents and teachers want each other to know

 

For starters, we are educators, not nannies. We are educated professionals who work with kids every day and often see your child in a different light than you do. If we give you advice, don't fight it. Take it, and digest it in the same way you would consider advice from a doctor or lawyer. I have become used to some parents who just don't want to hear anything negative about their child, but sometimes if you're willing to take early warning advice to heart, it can help you head off an issue that could become much greater in the future.

 

Trust us. At times when I tell parents that their child has been a behavior problem, I can almost see the hairs rise on their backs. They are ready to fight and defend their child, and it is exhausting. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I tell a mom something her son did and she turns, looks at him and asks, "Is that true?" Well, of course it's true. I just told you. And please don't ask whether a classmate can confirm what happened or whether another teacher might have been present. It only demeans teachers and weakens the partnership between teacher and parent.

 

Please quit with all the excuses

 

And if you really want to help your children be successful, stop making excuses for them. I was talking with a parent and her son about his summer reading assignments. He told me he hadn't started, and I let him know I was extremely disappointed because school starts in two weeks.

His mother chimed in and told me that it had been a horrible summer for them because of family issues they'd been through in July. I said I was so sorry, but I couldn't help but point out that the assignments were given in May. She quickly added that she was allowing her child some "fun time" during the summer before getting back to work in July and that it wasn't his fault the work wasn't complete.

 

Can you feel my pain?

 

Some parents will make excuses regardless of the situation, and they are raising children who will grow into adults who turn toward excuses and do not create a strong work ethic. If you don't want your child to end up 25 and jobless, sitting on your couch eating potato chips, then stop making excuses for why they aren't succeeding. Instead, focus on finding solutions.

 

 

Parents, be a partner instead of a prosecutor

 

And parents, you know, it's OK for your child to get in trouble sometimes. It builds character and teaches life lessons. As teachers, we are vexed by those parents who stand in the way of those lessons; we call them helicopter parents because they want to swoop in and save their child every time something goes wrong. If we give a child a 79 on a project, then that is what the child deserves. Don't set up a time to meet with me to negotiate extra credit for an 80. It's a 79, regardless of whether you think it should be a B+.

 

This one may be hard to accept, but you shouldn't assume that because your child makes straight A's that he/she is getting a good education. The truth is, a lot of times it's the bad teachers who give the easiest grades, because they know by giving good grades everyone will leave them alone. Parents will say, "My child has a great teacher! He made all A's this year!"

 

Wow. Come on now. In all honesty, it's usually the best teachers who are giving the lowest grades, because they are raising expectations. Yet, when your children receive low scores you want to complain and head to the principal's office.

 

Please, take a step back and get a good look at the landscape. Before you challenge those low grades you feel the teacher has "given" your child, you might need to realize your child "earned" those grades and that the teacher you are complaining about is actually the one that is providing the best education.

And please, be a partner instead of a prosecutor. I had a child cheat on a test, and his parents threatened to call a lawyer because I was labeling him a criminal. I know that sounds crazy, but principals all across the country are telling me that more and more lawyers are accompanying parents for school meetings dealing with their children.

 

Teachers walking on eggshells

 

I feel so sorry for administrators and teachers these days whose hands are completely tied. In many ways, we live in fear of what will happen next. We walk on eggshells in a watered-down education system where teachers lack the courage to be honest and speak their minds. If they make a slight mistake, it can become a major disaster.

 

My mom just told me a child at a local school wrote on his face with a permanent marker. The teacher tried to get it off with a wash cloth, and it left a red mark on the side of his face. The parent called the media, and the teacher lost her job. My mom, my very own mother, said, "Can you believe that woman did that?"

I felt hit in the gut. I honestly would have probably tried to get the mark off as well. To think that we might lose our jobs over something so minor is scary. Why would anyone want to enter our profession? If our teachers continue to feel threatened and scared, you will rob our schools of our best and handcuff our efforts to recruit tomorrow's outstanding educators.

 

Finally, deal with negative situations in a professional manner.

 

If your child said something happened in the classroom that concerns you, ask to meet with the teacher and approach the situation by saying, "I wanted to let you know something my child said took place in your class, because I know that children can exaggerate and that there are always two sides to every story. I was hoping you could shed some light for me." If you aren't happy with the result, then take your concerns to the principal, but above all else, never talk negatively about a teacher in front of your child. If he knows you don't respect her, he won't either, and that will lead to a whole host of new problems.

 

We know you love your children. We love them, too. We just ask -- and beg of you -- to trust us, support us and work with the system, not against it. We need you to have our backs, and we need you to give us the respect we deserve. Lift us up and make us feel appreciated, and we will work even harder to give your child the best education possible.

 

That's a teacher's promise, from me to you.

 

 

 

 

 

[ManifestedISO]

Michael Schumacher in critical condition after hitting his head skiing. He was wearing a helmet but the impact was severe. Please don't die, Schumi.  

[ShadySands]

One-third of Americans reject evolution, poll shows

 

 

I'm actually surprised it's not higher

Edited December 31, 2013 by ShadySands

[ShadySands]

Missouri Bar Responds To Cease And Desist From Starbucks With Epic Letter And $6 Check

 

[Raithe]

 

 

This time, it's for real. #501st member Chris Bartlett (who some of you may know as one of the nicest guys in #StarWars fandom and a close friend of C-3PO) had his static R2-D2 replica stolen from his garage in Round Rock, Texas, and we are asking help from the fan community to keep an eye out for anyone claiming ownership of a new Artoo or selling Artoo parts that match this image. Note that the droid body will be two-legged and his dome is fiberglass---not aluminum. The main body is a single cast, hollow piece and the wood legs will be missing the feet (left behind at the crime scene). Please do not make accusations, but instead report any information to chris@tk409.com. You're our only hope!

[Raithe]

On a note that could be satire..

 

io9 - Why is Google building a Robot Army?

 

 

For the past couple of weeks, we've all been wondering why Google bought Boston Dynamics, the company that makes those creepy Big Dog and PETMAN robots for the military. This comes after the company announced a project to eliminate death, and after building a secret installation out of cargo crates on a barge in San Francisco Bay. It's as if Google is in the early stages of building a city state.

 

Historically, city states like Athens in ancient Greece were contained within physical walls, anchored to one location. But their tentacles of influence might reach far and wide, just as the Greek culture that bloomed in Athens is said to have Hellenized many parts of the Middle East. And what are the main ingredients of a city state? It must have a ruling elite of course, much as a corporation does in its various executives and VPs. It must have a shared ideology, hopefully one that's boastfully vague — sort of like Google's motto "Don't be evil." Perhaps most importantly, it must have an army and an economy.

 

If you think of Google's Mountain View campus as a city state, and all its satellite campuses as colonies, then it was kind of inevitable that the company would raise an army. Already, it has a culture within its walls that is as strong as any city-state's. Googlers across the globe share common values, types of work and meals. They exist within a social hierarchy as clear-cut as any caste system in ancient Greece (though Google doesn't have slaves, which is nice). And they've even taken on a state-like role in defending U.S. assets against Chinese hackers.

 

But recently, Google's cultural goals have gotten a little more pronounced. They're not just out to make great web services like search, maps, and gmail. They're making driverless cars and funding Ray Kurzweil's efforts to eliminate human death. It's almost like the company is trying to build its own religion, based on vaguely environmentalist and Singulatarian ideas. They're acting less like a company, whose goals are entirely economic, and more like a city-state, whose goals include ineffable things like quality of life.

 

Google's robot army reminds me of novels like Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age or Marge Piercy's He, She and It, where companies form city-states that occasionally go to war with each other. In He, She, and It, the company/city makes its living from selling software, but has to build cyborg soldiers to defend its walls against hostile takeovers. And in Diamond Age, corporations create islands devoted to pursuits like recreating the Victorian age. The companies in these novels no longer just economic entities. They are cultures, conducting social experiments and propagating belief systems that won't lead directly to profit.

 

These days, Google reaches into almost every corner of our lives in the West — it shapes the way we see the digital world. Those of us whose culture comes from the internet are already living in a Googlized world, just as people beyond Greece lived in a Hellenized world back in the 300s BCE. It makes sense that this city-state corporation known as Google now has the ability to wage war in the real world as well as cyberspace.

 

Though Google's leadership may believe its acquisition of Boston Dynamics will help usher in a future of AI robots, it may actually be ushering in a future that looks more like history than The Matrix. We may be witnessing the return of the city-state, led by corporations rather than governments. Inside Google's walls, this transformation might be Utopia. Outside — well, we don't have to worry about outside. We'll have the robots to protect us against that.