SUNfiltered Update

Hello. Is it me you were looking for? I can see it in your eyes.  I can see it in your smile. You're all I've ever wanted, and my arms are open wide...but I've been busy blogging at Sundance Channel's blog SUNfiltered. If you haven't visited (please do), here's what you've been missing. Check them out as well as the other great entries there.

• Really catchy single "Sabali" from Malian duo Amadou & Mariam.
• Brazil's graffiti culture.
• Jero the enka star, an African American singer making it hot in Japan.
• Pet garbage.
• Spotlight on artist Karl Grandin.
• 100 ways to kill a peep.
• Cool tilt-shift video.
• The $1.5 million dollar wedding dress made from peacock feathers.
• Meet Maru, the Japanese LOLCat.
• The blog of "unnecessary" quotation marks.
• Bags for the Pantone color fetishist.
• Hello Kitty's new headquarters.
• Another cool stop motion video.

For the First Time in 18 Years Media Photographs US War Dead's Return

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski

The Pentagon permitted the media, with the family's consent, to photograph the arrival of a coffin bearing a US soldier (Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers who was killed on April 4th by an IED in Afghanistan) for the first time in 18 years after the Obama administration lifted a ban on news coverage of returning war dead, a relic of the First Gulf War.

The ban has been the subject of debate for years. Supporters cite the privacy of family members and say that, in its absence, casualties could become politicized; critics point to the First Amendment and have accused the government of trying to keep the public in the dark about the human toll of war.

I think we should always err on the side of transparency and media access.

Altered Thomas Jefferson Quote at Seattle Newspaper HQ

Following the sad announcement earlier this week that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("The P-I") would shut down its print operations and transition to an online only news organization with a staff of only 20 people (think more of a "local Huffington Post"), someone altered a Thomas Jefferson quote displayed in the P-I's building.

Print journalism may be dying, but snark will live on!

[Via]

Swiss Gigolo Jailed for Blackmailing Rich European Women

Swiss gigolo Helg Sgarbi, a 44-year-old former investment banker, received a 6 year prison term after pleading guilty to fraud, attempted fraud and attempted blackmail. Until his arrest, he had exhorted $12.5 million from four women, including BMW heiress and the richest woman in Germany, Susanne Klatten who eventually went to the authorities after having paid Sgarbi $8.8 million.

In her witness statement to prosecutors, Ms. Klattten said that Mr. Sgarbi, whom she had met in July 2007 at an Austrian spa resort, was “charming, attentive, and at the same time he seemed very sad.”

“That stirred a feeling in me that we had something in common,” she said, according to the B.B.C. account. Mr. Sgarbi told her and the other women he was a “special Swiss representative in crisis zones,” to which he attributed his frequent, sudden absences.

And by crisis zones he meant old, lonely, rich women's jj's. Hi-ho!

Strange Name: Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer

Meet Beloit resident Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer, yes that is her true legal name (Sawyer was her ex-husband's surname), a school teacher with a master's degree in higher education administration.

"Every single class, the teacher is taking attendance out loud, and as they slowly get down through the J's, I'm just like here it comes. 'Marianna? Marijuana?' And all the students turn to see who it is," she said.

Later in life, it wouldn't get any easier when she tried to order tickets over the telephone or fill out paperwork. People thought she was joking, or they wanted to hit her with 20 questions about why she was called that.

Not that it's anywhere on the same scale, but I certainly can relate to having an unexpected name.

Motor City Stuck in a Ditch

A couple nuggets from a Chicago Tribune article on the deplorable state of Detroit or as the article puts it a "a northern New Orleans without the French Quarter."

The median price of a home sold in Detroit in December was $7,500, according to Realcomp, a listing service.

Not $75,000. Remove a zero—it's seven thousand five hundred dollars, substantially less than the lowest-price car on the new-car market.

[...]

On a positive note, Detroit's homicide rate dropped 14 percent last year. That prompted mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas to tell the Detroit News recently, "I don't mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn't anyone left to kill."

Despite all this, 15 people are running to be mayor.

[Via]

Nigerian Scammer Steals $27 Million from Citibank

Posing as Ethiopian bank officials, a Nigerian and his accomplices stole $27 million from Citibank. Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore was arrested when he tried to enter the US last month.

Prosecutors said the scheme began in September, when Citibank received a package with documents purportedly signed by officials of the Ethiopian bank instructing Citibank to accept instructions by fax. There was also a list of officials who could be called to confirm such requests. The signatures of the officials appeared to match those in Citibank’s records and were accepted by Citibank, the complaint says.

In October, Citibank received two dozen faxed requests for money to be wired, and it transferred $27 million to accounts controlled by the conspirators in Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States, the complaint says.

[Via]

New York Times' Caller ID Phone Number

Interesting non-football related tidbit from Gregg Easterbrook's weekly verbose football column on ESPN.

[T]he Times uses a phone number masking system -- when a Times reporter rings you up for comment, your caller ID device reads: 111-111-1111. This makes it impossible for you to realize the Times is calling, and hence avoid the call, unless you know that 111-111-1111 is the New York Times' secret code. (Well, now you do know.)

I think that number is better than Jenny's.

Conversation

Nnamdi: http://blogofhilarity.com/2009/02/03/pakistani-guy-raped-by-three-women-until-he-bled Me: That URL told me everything I needed to know about this.

Nnamdi: Hahah

Nnamdi: At what point do you say, "Hey I'll play this game, just get some fucking lube."

Me: Hahaha!

Possible Suspect: Hamster!

Hilarious mugshot mistake in this local news story: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnCnRuoYMxE&fmt=18]

And it should go without saying, but cue: DRAMATIC HAMSTER!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1Y73sPHKxw&fmt=18]

[Via]

Prison Break Fail

The attempted prison break of two New Zealand inmates handcuffed to one another ends in a hilarious failure thanks to the efforts of Deputy Pole. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3SwaOAW3BE&fmt=18]

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Do Not Read This

If you DO decide to click on this story, then at least make sure you aren't eating anything. Anyway, I'll say it again: Don't click on this.

Penmenship on the Decline

Some argue that handwriting and specifically cursive script has suffered in today's age of typing and texting.

In 2006 only 15% of students taking the SAT wrote out their essays in cursive script; all the rest -- no doubt to the relief of the examiners -- used block letters.

Read more here.

[Via]

Hero

On my flight today, my fellow passengers and I nervously chuckled when the safety announcement video shown to us got to the part about evacuations in water landings--a "rare occurance" according to the video. Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III, you are a hero.

How to Close the Gaza Tunnels

Slate explores 9 different methods ranging from a prosaic deeper wall to the more exotic air drone-operated electromagnetic gradiometry that Israel could pursue to shut down the estimated 400-600 tunnels, some ranging at least 20 feet deep underground in Gaza.

The 40 Greatest Lost Icons in Pop Culture History

Nerve takes a look back at people relegated to our pop culture's footnotes from Kato to that American teen caned in Singapore (remember that?!) to Spuds Mackenzie. For political news junkies here's the update to the girl that asked the asinine "boxers or briefs" question to Bill Clinton.

...Thompson, the daughter of Dateline NBC correspondent Lea Thompson, set about entering the profession whose standards she had apparently single-handedly destroyed. After graduating from Princeton with a degree in history, Thompson got her master's at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Tisha then became an investigative reporter with Baltimore's ABC affiliate, and asked enough good questions to bring about the largest recall of a children's product in American history.

[Via]

Synchronized News Anchors

Chicago's WGN weekend news anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange run through an elaborate synchronized routine during the first commercial break of their newscast.  Initially only 10 seconds long it now runs over 2 minutes. The dance has evolved over time by incorporating newsworthy events where the shotgun gesture pays tribute to Dick Cheney, and the terrorist fist bump to Michelle and Barack Obama. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJEojGf-G_s&fmt=18]

[Via]

Buzzwords of 2008

Jessica Hische created this great graphic that accompanied the New York Times Buzzwords of 2008 article. You can view the complete typeface at her blog.

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The Explainer's Unanswered Questions From 2008

Here are some of the questions readers submitted that Slate's Explainer "felt ill-equipped or unwilling to answer in 2008."

• I am an 11-year-old boy and girls in my class harass me constantly and I want to file a restraining order against one of them. Is that possible?

• Why don't humans have a mating season?

• How did early man deal with growing toe and fingernails?

• If there is so much oil in the Middle East, could one missile (such as the ones used to penetrate bunkers and caves) explode deep underground and hypothetically blow up a few countries?

• During this weekend's football playoff game in Green Bay, the temperature at kickoff was 0 degrees, and by the end of the game was -4 degrees. When players get injured in such weather, do they bother putting ice on the injury? Wouldn't that warm up the injury to 32 degrees?

Read rest here.

[Via]

The Top 10 Worst Predictions of 2008

Foreign Policy collects their list of the 10 worst forecasts of 2008.

“New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will enter the Presidential race in February, after it becomes clear which nominees will get the nod from the major parties. His multiple billions and organization will impress voters—and stun rivals. He’ll look like the most viable third-party candidate since Teddy Roosevelt. But Bloomberg will come up short, as he comes in for withering attacks from both Democrats and Republicans. He and Clinton will split more than 50% of the votes, but Arizona’s maverick senator, John McCain, will end up the country’s next President.” –BusinessWeek, Jan. 2, 2008

Uhm, no.