When it comes to PETA, George Clooney is sweating the small stuff. Which, really, was what started the problem in the first place.
After coming into possession of a gym towel soaked in the Oscar winner's sweat, the animal rights crusaders have penned a letter to the actor asking for permission to have PETA harvest his salty secretions to create—no joke—a Clooney-flavored line of tofu.
"The technology actually exists to take your perspiration and make it into George Clooney-flavored tofu (CloFu)," writes PETA. "Of course, your fans would swoon at the idea of eating CloFu."
The group even quotes a researcher, who says, "If you use a sample of human perspiration, it is 'no different than making artificial chicken flavor for instant gravy.' "
Except for the fact that, bean curd texture aside, it's proving to be a lot harder to swallow.
"As a mammal, I'm offended," says Clooney in response.
Not that PETA is easily deterred. The organization has already offered up serving suggestions for all your would-be CloFu needs.
"Cheese-scented CloFu could be used as pizza topping and in lasagna…CloFu will help people be healthier and more environmentally friendly and will spare animals from being killed for the table."
The letter, signed by PETA president Ingrid E. Newkirk, ends on an optimistic note.
"We hope this idea meets with your approval."
Something tells us they may not want to rush into production just yet.
Good lord. New York Knicks center Eddy Curry was hit with a shady gay sexual harassment lawsuit earlier this month. And yesterday the mother of his child was murdered, in front of the child.
Curry is married; the woman in question, Nova Henry, is not his wife, but the mother of his 3 year-old son. She and her young daughter were found dead in her Chicago apartment. Curry's 3 year-old son was in the apartment alive, and was apparently a witness.
Police are searching for a "known acquaintance" of the woman in connection with the murder. Curry, who now plays for the New York Knicks, was in Philadelphia Saturday for a game. He was back in New York later that evening, distraught and contemplating a trip to Chicago, the source said.
Henry's mother found her daughter and granddaughter in the apartment, officials said.
After joining the NBA, Eddy Curry was found to have a potentially fatal heart problem. In 2007, masked gunmen broke into his home, tied up Curry and his family, and robbed them. This month his ex-driver sued him for millions, with shaky allegations of gay sexual harassment—and coverage of that story, by the way, almost got Newsday's editors fired, according to reports.
Eddy Curry is having much worse luck than karma would seem to call for. [Chicago Tribune]
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geez. there really are people in the world who have a crappier life than you do. when things get bad, just think others have the pits. poor guy!
NEW YORK – It may be a cultural thing, but when you're up against a congregation of nuns and your neighbors in an apartment building in Manhattan, a lawsuit would make an interesting anthropological study in ethnic tension.
The Missionary Sisters of Sacred Heart (MSSH) in Manhattan has filed a complaint against a Filipino-American couple, Michael and Gloria Lim, over a Filipino delicacy called tuyo (dried fish), and its funky cousin, the tinapa(smoked fish).
The case is now with the Manhattan Supreme Court.
Reports say Gloria was smoking fish outside her apartment window when the smell – noxious stench to the nuns, divine aroma to the Lims – of the salted fish wafted throughout the Gramercy apartment building.
The "foul smell" was too strong the nuns suspected it was coming from a decomposing body and called in the Fire Department.
According to reports, the firemen searched every unit of the building and were able to trace the source of the smell to the Lims' unit.
They knocked, and when no one came to the door, the NYFD came barreling in.
Gloria, a nurse, found her door knocked down and was obviously peeved.
It appears the MSSH leases the unit to the Lims and may have authorized the assault.
"I cook dried fish," Gloria defiantly declared to the NY Post..
The average American may find it puzzling how one can derive pleasure of the palate from dried fish. Foodie Andrew Zimmern, who has been to the Philippines and braved balut (fertilized duck egg with an embryo) and Soup No. 5 (bull's rectum and testicles soup, believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac) , might be able to share the gustatory experience.
Gloria was referring to the tuyo, a Philippine staple usually eaten with steaming hot rice and fresh tomatoes. Some eat theirs dipped in vinegar and crushed garlic paired with fried rice and sunny side up egg.
Dried fish is not a Philippine exclusive. It is an essential in the traditional Chinese and Malaysian fried rice along with chopped spring onions, garlic and chili. Sometimes, it is pulled and sprinkled on chocolate porridge or champorado.
Food with a strong salty taste like tuyo or tinapa might be too intense for the morning stomach, but many Filipinos would never leave for work in the morning without having it for breakfast.
In the lawsuit filed by the nuns, Gloria was even more adamant. She was quoted as saying that "she is causing the smell by cooking and/or smoking fish, and she is going to continue to do it."
The complaint appears to divide the apartment tenants, some finding themselves squarely on the side of the sisters who find the smell "potentially dangerous to life and health," and some defending the FilAm family's right to eat their own ethnic food in the privacy of their home.
"This is plain racist," comes a shout-out from a supportive blogger.
The complaint says some tenants closer to the Lims' unit have moved out, and that the Lims have been warned repeatedly about the smell emanating from their 16th floor apartment unit. Gloria, a 30-year resident of the US, denies this.
Which side to take, undecided tenants turn to what's stated in the housing rules: Cooking smelly food is not allowed.
The nuns are seeking $75,000 in damages. They made it clear that they have nothing against Filipinos as a people.
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hahaha. earlier in the article, i had an opinion... and then i got to the part where the smell of tuyo is potentially dangerous to life and health.
tibay ng pilipino ah.
HONG KONG – A British photographer said Sunday that the wife ofZimbabwean President Robert Mugabe punched him repeatedly in the face after he tried to take pictures of her near a luxury hotel in Hong Kong.
Richard Jones told The Associated Press that Grace Mugabe, 43, ordered a bodyguard to hold him down and then attacked him herself on Thursday near the Shangri-La hotel on Hong Kong's Kowloon peninsula.
"She directed several punches into my face," Jones said. "She was wearing diamond-encrusted rings, which caused a lot of lacerations."
Jones, 42, from Machen in South Wales, was on a freelance assignment for London's The Sunday Times.
He said he suffered at least 10 cuts to his face but did not require hospitalization.
"She was screaming, completely crazy," The Sunday Times quoted a witness, Austrian tourist Werner Zapletal, as saying in a report Sunday.
Police spokeswoman Odelia Tam said police are investigating the alleged attack but have not made any arrests. She said she did not know the identity of the alleged attacker.
Calls seeking comment Sunday from the Zimbabwean embassy in Beijing went unanswered.
The Sunday Times condemned the attack.
"We take very seriously the freedom of journalists to operate abiding by the law in Hong Kong and we look to the Hong Kong authorities to uphold those rights at all times," said Michael Sheridan, the paper's Far East correspondent.
Zimbabwe's first lady was vacationing in Hong Kong and visiting her daughter Bona, who is studying in the Chinese-ruled former British colony, The Sunday Times said.
Grace Mugabe has left Hong Kong since the alleged attack, the report said.
Sheridan said he and Jones had been staking out the Shangri-La on Thursday, where Mugabe was believed to be staying.
Sheridan told the AP he approached Mugabe in the lobby of the Shangri-La shortly before the alleged attack, but a female companion denied her identity.
About 10 minutes later, he found Jones nearby "with his face streaming blood."
Sheridan said The Sunday Times wanted to "draw a contrast between her lifestyle and the plight of the people in Zimbabwe."
Zimbabwe is suffering from a cholera crisis that has killed 2,200 people and an economic meltdown that has seen inflation officially put at 231 million percent.
Despite the country's political and economic difficulties, Grace Mugabe went ahead with a vacation in Asia, spending time in the Malaysian island resort Langkawi and Singapore before arriving in Hong Kong, The Sunday Times said. Robert Mugabe joined his wife in Singapore for a few days, the newspaper said.
Meanwhile, the country's main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, returned home Saturday for talks Monday with Robert Mugabe about a power-sharing agreement that was reached in September but never implemented.
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classy. now compare her to michelle obama.
A transit cop shooting a New Year's Eve rowdy, face down, in Oakland, Calif. turned into a national story thanks to YouTube, long before local newspapers and TV stations caught up to it.
On New Year's Day, after a fight on a BART train, police pulled Oscar Grant and others off the train at the Fruitvale station near Oakland's airport. Witnesses with cell phones and videocameras capturedJohannes Mehserle, a police officer for the BART rail system, in the act of shooting Grant. A local TV station ran one of these clips Sunday. But Grant's death wasn't widely reported until cameraphone footage was posted until Tuesday, sparking protests in downtown Oakland Wednesday night which turned into a riot.
The reason why is clear: Another death by cop in America's inner cities, rendered in bloodless black-and-white text, would go unremarked by readers. But the video, which shows Mehserle, seemingly unprompted, reaching for his gun and shooting Grant, is chilling. Mehserle resigned Wednesday.
BART officials first claimed there was no surveillance tape — then said they'd discovered one that didn't show the shooting incident. Even that evidence was impounded as part of the investigation, leaving the witnesses' YouTube clips as the only record.
Was Mehserle reaching for his Taser, as some suggest? We still don't know that and other key facts.. A vibrant local news industry might have done more on the story before the Internet made it big news. But Oakland, which has one local paper, the Oakland Tribune, run by a chain known for cost-cutting, is emblematic of the increasingly wide swathes of America which go uncovered by proper journalism.
It's easy to celebrate mediarogue, the YouTube poster who some might call a "citizen journalist." But isn't it disturbing to think that, as easily as it became a national scandal, Grant's shooting might well have disappeared into the morass of mind-numbing clips offered on Google's online-video schlock factory — a death unnoted by our fickle, impatient minds?
On so many levels, there are so many things wrong with this situation. the article has a point, that there is so much that doesn't get printed by conventional media, and that makes me happy that technology has gotten (ironically) more invasive. sure, cameraphones and liveblogging seem intrusive, but at the same time, it covers a lot that doesn't get shown. it means that the possibility of getting hacked or having your privacy invaded is a lot more likely, but i'd much rather have my privacy invaded than to have someone shot in the head and have his death go unreported.
and police brutality. i recently watched the ending of this french movie, la haine, and it stunned me so much, i just sat there. this video (search for it in youtube with the same title) gave me the same reaction. there are moments in people's lives when you get so offended by someone, so upset or so angered, but to be human, i think is to learn how to check your emotions before you go too far. Mehserle passed the point where he should be called human. i hope he can figure out how to justify that to himself. if i were in his position, i wouldn't know how to.
When the news broke that Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich was arrested Tuesday morning by FBI agents on federal corruption charges - aka trying to sell President-elect Obama's Senate seat (among other things) - our first thought was, "How exactly do you sell a Senate seat?"
The second was, "Who would buy it?"
The answer to the first question, according to a Department of Justice press release Tuesday morning, is that Blagojevich allegedly discussed obtaining the following things in exchange for Obama's old job:
"- a substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;
- placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;
- promises of campaign funds - including cash up front; and
- a cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself."
So, who could, or more importantly would, be able to deliver on such things? The short answer is: We don't know.
The long answer is: There are 76 pages of an FBI affidavit to read through if you want to guess at it.
According to a press release from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office and FBI documents, Blagojevich was looking at a few people fill Obama's seat, each identified as Senate Candidate 1, 2, 3, or so forth. The U.S. Attorney office's press release immediately points to "Senate Candidate 5," saying "Blagojevich allegedly told an advisor that he might "get some (money) up front, maybe" from number 5.
So, if you're into speculation, the FBI affidavit -- complete with excerpts from the wiretaps -- can give you clues for guessing who "Candidate 5" might be.
Here are a few key excerpts if your holiday shopping plans, work, kids or whatever preclude you from reading the whole 70-something pages:
Blagojevich thought Senate Candidate 5 could deliver something immediately:
"Later on December 4, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke to Fundraiser A. ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated he was "elevating" Senate Candidate 5 on the list of candidates for the open Senate seat. ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated he might be able to cut a deal with Senate Candidate 5 that provided ROD BLAGOJEVICH with something "tangible up front."
Blagojevich said he had a history with Senate Candidate 5 not following through on promises:
"ROD BLAGOJEVICH told Fundraiser A to tell Individual D that ROD BLAGOJEVICH had a problem with Senate Candidate 5 just promising to help ROD BLAGOJEVICH because ROD BLAGOJEVICH had a prior bad experience with Senate Candidate 5 not keeping his word."
Blagojevich believed Senate Candidate 5 could raise money or deliver money:
"On December 4, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH spoke to Advisor B and informed Advisor B that he was giving Senate Candidate 5 greater consideration for the Senate seat because, among other reasons, if ROD BLAGOJEVICH ran for re-election Senate Candidate 5 would "raise[] money" for ROD BLAGOJEVICH, although ROD BLAGOJEVICH said he might "get some (money) up front, maybe" from Senate Candidate 5 to insure Senate Candidate 5 kept his promise about raising money for ROD BLAGOJEVICH. (In a recorded conversation on October 31, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH described an earlier approach by an associate of Senate Candidate Five as follows: "We were approached 'pay to play.' That, you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator.")"
Blagojevich said he was getting a lot of pressure not to appoint Senate Candidate 5:
"ROD BLAGOJEVICH told Fundraiser A to tell Individual D that Senate Candidate 5 was very much a realistic candidate for the open Senate seat, but that ROD BLAGOJEVICH was getting "a lot of pressure" not to appoint Senate Candidate 5."
On Dec. 31 this year, your day will be just a second longer.
Like the more well-known time adjustment, the leap year, a "leap second" is tacked on to clocks every so often to keep them correct.
A"leap second" is added on to our clocks every so often to keep them in synch with the somewhat unpredictable nature of our planet's rotation, the roughly 24-hour whirl that brings the sun into the sky each morning.Historically, time was based on the mean rotation of the Earth relative to celestial bodies and the second was defined from this frame of reference. But the invention of atomic clocks brought about a definition of a second that is independent of the Earth's rotation and based on a regular signal emitted by electrons changing energy state within an atom.
In 1970, an international agreement established two timescales: one based on the rotation of the Earth and one based on atomic time.
The problem is that the Earth is very gradually slowing down, continually throwing the two timescales out of synch, so every so often, a "leap second" has to be tacked on to the atomic clock.
The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service is the organization that monitors the difference in the two timescales and calls for leap seconds to be inserted or removed when necessary. Since 1972, leap seconds have been added at intervals varying from six months to seven years - the most recent was inserted on Dec. 31, 2005.
The new extra second will be added on the last day of this year at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time - 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time.
Mechanisms such as the Internet-based Network Time Protocol and the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) depend on the accurate time kept by atomic clocks.
I don't know if this happened because no one has money so sales are very important, or if no one realizes that no one has money so buying things, no matter the cost, is still very important. But, it happened. A Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death early this morning during a Black Friday shopping stampede on Long Island. The man was a 34-year-old stockroom employee of the super store, who was trying to keep a bargain-crazed horde at bay. In the end they proved too strong for him.
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."
A 28-year-old pregnant lady was also knocked down in the frenzy. The good news is that most people got that cheap XBox that Ricky wanted, and the "My First Sex Scandal" karaoke microphone/dildo that Amber was desperate for. So the young man didn't die in vain. What were we just saying?
Before police shut down the store, eager shoppers streamed past emergency crews as they worked furiously to save the store clerk's life.
"They were working on him, but you could see he was dead, said Halcyon Alexander, 29. "People were still coming through."
Only a few stopped.
"They're savages," said shopper Kimberly Cribbs, 27. "It's sad. It's terrible."
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin officially pardoned a turkey for Thanksgiving at a farm in Wasilla, Alaska on Thursday, then conducted a television interview as another bird was clearly seen being slaughtered in the background.
As the former Republican vice presidential nominee spoke with a KTUU-TV reporter about returning to work in Alaska, just a few feet behind her a Triple D Farms worker is seen feeding a turkey into a grinder, periodically turning around to watch the on-going interview.
Click to watch the Palin interview (Warning: Content may be disturbing to some)
Palin, who called the pardoning experience "neat" was reportedly told by the station videographer what was going on behind her, but allowed the interview to continue.
Pardoning a turkey is tradition for governors in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, following a White House custom that began in 1947.
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate -- we get it, stop showing off."
The president-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.
2 Sometimes it's best to be completely blunt with people, as you used to be with relatives who wanted you to do something embarrassing or tedious for a cheap prize.
3 Asking questions is how you figure things out. Lots and lots of questions.
4 An older, wiser Gordie Lachance says in Stand By Me, "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12." Lachance is right. The trick is to try to be the friend you were when you were 12: fun-loving and loyal, with no strings attached.
5 Playing is work. Approach your downtime with all the seriousness of a 5-year-old with a secret treasure map.
6 Real guys don't dip their toes in the water. They jump right in.
7 Girls have cooties. Well, the ones you meet in certain bars do, anyway.
8 You hated it when a grown-up told you, "We'll see." It's still unacceptable. Don't say it yourself.
9 The only way to know how something works is to completely disassemble it. (This is still good advice when tackling a complex problem. Your plasma TV? Not so much.)
10 There's a reason they don't give credit cards to 8-year-olds. You're supposed to save up money before you buy a new toy.
11 Your body was designed for running around, shooting hoops, and jumping off diving boards and stuff. In the secret language of children, the word "fitness" doesn't exist. It's called "having fun."
12 Your world can be half-real and half-imaginary.
13 Homework blows. Bring work home with you and it'll ruin your night. And your marriage. And your family. And your life.
14 Too much of anything will give you a tummy ache. Like, say, scotch.
15 If there's even the slightest doubt, hit the toilet before you leave.
16 The coolest adults were the ones who took the time to listen to you. You still want to grow up to be a cool adult, right?
17 Treasure Island, Dracula: The best books are consumed after dark with a flashlight.
18 Use adrenaline as your drug of choice. You don't need beer, pot, or cigarettes to have a good time.
19 Kissing a boy on the cheek is a big deal. Kissing his lips is an even bigger deal. Seeing him naked for the first time is a major, life-altering event.
20 Going after a target in the urinal makes the time whiz by.
21 Seeing a thunderstorm roll in is better than watching HDTV. And rain isn't something to curse, but to enjoy. Hurry up, before it clears.
LONDON – At least someone is excited about "meh."
The expression of indifference or boredom has gained a place in the Collins English Dictionary after generating a surprising amount of enthusiasm among lexicographers.
Publisher HarperCollins announced Monday the word had been chosen from terms suggested by the public for inclusion in the dictionary's 30th anniversary edition, to be published next year.
The origins of "meh" are murky, but the term grew in popularity after being used in a 2001 episode of "The Simpsons" in which Homer suggests a day trip to his children Bart and Lisa.
"They both just reply 'meh' and keep watching TV," said Cormac McKeown, head of content at Collins Dictionaries.
The dictionary defines "meh" as an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring. Examples given by the dictionary include "the Canadian election was so meh."
The dictionary's compilers said the word originated in North America, spread through the Internet and was now entering British spoken English.
"This is a new interjection from the U.S. that seems to have inveigled its way into common speech over here," McKeown said. "Internet forums and e-mail are playing a big part in formalizing the spellings of vocal interjections like these. A couple of other examples would be 'hmm' and 'heh.'
"Meh" was selected by Collins after it asked people to submit words they use in conversation that are not in the dictionary. Other suggestions included jargonaut, a fan of jargon; frenemy, an enemy disguised as a friend; and huggles, a hybrid of hugs and snuggles.
