This is a crazy clip of a pissed off man who destroys a town by driving around in an armored bulldozer, which the police cannot stop. CRAZY. Maybe the cops should have a few RPGs in their arsenal. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwFkJMiN1Ak]
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In May 2003, Oakland police thought it necessary to to infiltrate anti-war groups and in May 2003, two undercover officers got themselves elected to leadership positions.
Two Oakland police officers working undercover at an anti-war protest in May 2003 got themselves elected to leadership positions in an effort to influence the demonstration, documents released Thursday show. The department assigned the officers to join activists protesting the U.S. war in Iraq and the tactics that police had used at a demonstration a month earlier, a police official said last year in a sworn deposition.[...]
The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is unclear. But in a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."
For anyone that knows anything about the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 70s, this story ought to remind you of the infamous COINTELPRO program headed by the FBI to suppress and disrupt political dissident groups. Glad to see that not much has changed.
An undated "headshot" of Linda KayAny story that begins with the word "stripper" is bound to be good and by "good" I mean of course, "bizarre" and "strange." And if that stripper is from New Jersey, even better!
[...] Officers responded to a report of a man wanting to kill himself with a hammer, but instead discovered a hand inside a jar filled with formaldehyde on a dresser in a bedroom. Six human skulls were found in an upstairs bedroom, South Plainfield Police Capt. Paul Brembt said.
"The Middlesex County medical examiner responded to the scene and determined that the hand and all the skulls were from humans," Brembt said.
The story gets even more bizarre:
Brembt said Kay, who works for Hott 22, a juice bar with topless waitresses in Union, N.J., refused to tell authorities where she got the body parts.
Two people who knew Kay told The Star-Ledger newspaper of Newark that the hand, which Kay nicknamed "Freddy," was given to her by a medical student who frequented Hott 22.
Don't you love how it's a juice bar? I love the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. Who doesn't want their daily wheat grass smoothie made by a topless chick? And what's up with the "medical student" who tips with body parts? Reading this made me feel so normal.
I'm sure the writers at Law and Order and CSI are scrambling to be the first to rip this stripper tale from the headlines.
To read more (and there's a lot more to read)...Click Here.
Horse jockey Paul O'Neill was caught on tape head-butting ala Zidane his horse and of course, YouTube is there! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpWfr_DfxX4]
Apparently Mr. Ed said something offensive to O'Neill (something about the immorality of his mother), which triggered the jockey's helmeted response.
This cover from The Independent regarding the current crisis in the Middle East is rather revealing and it ought to make one question whether the US foreign policy compass is pointed in the right direction.
It's not an optical illusion and it appears to be a legit story. A Millbury woman owns a healthy cat that just happens to have two faces.
The cat has two mouths, two noses and two working eyes. A third eye in the middle is not functional. Marty named her cat “Frank and Louie” so each face would have a name. Only one mouth, the one on the cat’s right side — or Frank’s side — is connected to an esophagus, so Frank gets all the food.
I think its kinda cute.
Shamu is now totally hemorrhaging blood--its dropped all the way to the seventh spot, and falling, on the NY Times Most E-mailed List. Just thought you'd like to know.
So the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Turtles in a half shell--Turtle POWER!) had quite an impact on my formative years as a youth. I was obsessed with the cartoon, the comics, the movie, the soundtrack to the movie (Go ninja, go ninja, go ninja, GO!), the toys, and the video games. When not doing homework, I would spend a-many times drawing these fierce, but hilarious turtles. Of course, each turtle I drew had a 14-pack and 6 biceps. 'Roids ya'll!
One of my fondest memories from my childhood is playing as Donatello--because we all know that he rocks and is teh best--in the four-person arcade version at Chuck-E-Cheese. Yea, you know the one I'm talking about. I was such a good little kid for the marketing machine behind the TMNT phenomenon. A good chunk of my time was concerned with attempting to scheme my way into getting as many ninja turtle action figure and accessories as I could. Unfortunately, I never did get that sweet blimp the turtles could float around in and as a result, I would always walk through the toy aisle forlornly. Pathetic I know, but give me a break, I was 17.
With this history, I'm a little stoked to say the least at the news of a new TMNT movie coming out next year. I'm surprised that it got greenlit here in the 21st century, but maybe the studio is banking on nostalgia to drive guys into the theater (I don't see too many chicks being eager for this movie to come out--except for these girls). I don't know, but check out the trailer.
Who was your favorite turtle in a half shell?
In an unprecedented development, the Shamu essay dropped out of the top 3 on the New York Times Most Emailed List. Shamu is clinging on with its fin at the number 4 spot, currently. Is this the beginning of the end?
Stay tuned.
In related news, it's good to see Maureen Dowd be relevant again with a Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense like comeback...although I have no idea what she wrote because I don't freakin' have Times Select.
One of the remaining bastions of affordable housing in Manhattan might be reduced to yet another playground for the rich, trust-fundy, or finance-affiliated. MetLife announced that it might sell Stuyvesant Town and its coterminous counterpart Peter Cooper Village. Of course, MetLife stocks rose following this announcement. I've said it often, but I'll say it again: real estate, particularly in Manhattan, is ridiculous. Why is Peter Cooper so famous? The man invented Jell-O for god's sake. JELL-O. Without him, we would have never had Bill Cosby in those ads shrilling for that gelatin goodness...or jello shots, for that matter.
Winning American Idol really does make you famous--so famous that I'm sitting here, using up my precious brain cells and not-so-precious time to write about someone writing about seeing American Idol winner Taylor Hicks at Yankee Stadium:
As we settled in our seats and got over the fact that we paid $8.00 for a beer (for the mathematically inclined, that’s approximately a 1,039% mark-up over the national average price of a single beer in a six-pack) we noticed that there was a commotion going on to our left. We look over to see what’s going on and it seems there is a crowd gathering around a very old man sitting five seats away. Finally the crowd disperses and it’s none other than Taylor Hicks! And he’s there with Seth Green! (Ed. Note: It was not Seth Green, it was in fact Elliott Yamin, the third place finisher in “American Idol.” He was, however, the first place finisher in the “Eating Dippin’ Dots Out Of A Mini Helmet Bowl” race.)For anyone out there who is wondering what Taylor Hicks looks like close up, here is the best description I can give: old. I’m not kidding when I say that this man is lying about his age.
The man looked like he was 40-years-old after the magic of make-up, stylist, and soft-focus TV cameras. In real life he probably looks like this:
A woman placed two 10 cent bets on a horse race that paid out for her in a big way. She won $21,584. Like Vince Vaughn's character Trent said in Swingers, she's the "big winner tonight." And she's also one hell of a lucky mofo too. She placed those bets on a "superfecta," which meant that she had to not only correctly predict the winning horse, but also the three other runner-ups--in correct order of finish. People have a hard enough of a time picking the winning horse, let alone the 'superfecta.' She then lost it all by walking over to the 5 cent slot machines. Okay, not really, but I somehow doubt she's going to roll over her winnings into her investment portfolio.
Despite a few challenges throughout the week, the Shamu article viciously fought to remain at the top of the "most e-mailed list" at the New York Times. As of today, Saturday, Shamu sits proudly atop that list as people still continue to e-mail that article to others. How long will Shamu remain king? Can tomorrow's Modern Love column finally top Shamu? Stay tuned.
Check out this video of Matthew McConaughey (with Lance Armstrong and the gays number one recruit, Jake Gyllenhaal) asking the hoard of paparazzi for some money so they could buy lunch after a bicycling session. Scroll to the second video link on the page--although there's some other good stuff on there as well. I think if I could go kick it with one celeb, it'd probably be with MCon. He always seem so relaxed and chill. I don't think he was "acting" too hard in Dazed and Confused because I suspect he's sort of like that in real life. The best thing about being MCon I guess is that he gets older, and the girls stay the same age. Git-R-Done!
File this story under "Because Celebrities' Lives Are That Much More Interesting Than Ours."
Since no one was killed, it's okay to gawk at this surveillance video recording (Amazingly, not a YouTube clip) of the gas explosion that completely demolished the townhouse on 62nd Street. In New York City, real estate is practically pornographic. People obsess over it and fanatically write and blog about it. When a studio apartment that is the size of a closet costs more than houses in most markets, the obsession--sometimes voyeuristic--with real estate in NYC is understandable. So, for some real estate buffs, watching the building explosion must have been like watching a snuff film.
I started worrying because in the past 24 hours, the Shamu article at the Times was bumped to the third spot on the Most Emailed List. But she's a fighta' I tell ya, a fighta'! The Shamu article is back to the one spot! If the Da Vinci Code, Bible and Harry Potter series were all rolled into one, it'd look something like the Shamu article. I don't know what's going to top it.
The always outraged Angry Asian Man linked to a NY Magazine article that briefly profiles four of the contestants in the 30th annual Miss Korea New York competition. The pageant thing seems so bizarre to me and I don't understand the appeal of it. MTV had a series on pageant girls this year and from the show, it seemed to me that pageants attracted primarily girls from upper-middle class and affluent families. I was hoping the show would be scandalous and fabulous, but it was instead banal and pathetic (e.g. pageants held in dingy gymnasiums). They were also not the most attractive either. However, women who compete in big national and international pageant competitions are generally banging and fly, albeit in a plastic-y and homogenously Barbie way.
Non-white pageants are slightly different from those featured on MTV or "big league" contests like Miss Teen USA, in that they emphasize, and in the process reaffirm, a particular ethnic or racial culture. Nevertheless, in the end, you still have the swimsuit component that results in a schizophrenic dissonance between the slut and the doyenne.
As for the NY Magazine article, even though they state nineteen Korean-Americans are competing, it is curious to me as why they felt the need to state how long the contestant has been living in the U.S. For example, the magazine writes:
Mijin Park, 19, Philadelphia; schoolteacher and college student; in U.S. twelve years.
Essentially, Ms. Park grew up and acculturated in the U.S. She is American, so I'm quite not sure what the relevance of the last detail is. I may be over-reacting, but is this yet another subtle code inserted by the magazine to inform their readers (most who are white I presume) that these girls are not quite fully "American" (as defined by whites)?
Unpacking and examining racial symbolism, issues of assimilation, and media critique aside, the rest of Mijin Park's profile made me laugh.
Sang: “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. Why do you want to win? Audrey Hepburn said you should use one hand to help yourself and the other hand to help others. Which others? I’ve heard in Africa they really need education there. I can help if I have the title. [My favorite response if for the sheer simultaneous incognizance and hubris] Why the Little Mermaid song? She’s trying to get out of the sea to be a person. That’s me. I want to grow from a little girl to a young lady. What’s your favorite Hepburn movie? [Long pause] I’m not really sure.
I'm totally rooting for Mijin, but Naomi "Nina" Kim rocks too. When asked why she was doing this, she responded, "To represent the Korean race. I want to be the first Korean supermodel." I hope I see her on America's Next Top Model soon.
Someone clearly has too much time on their hands...but thank goodness they do, because this is a masterfully amusing game that lets you step into Zidane's magical shoes and head-butt your way into glory. To play...Click Here.
It appears I didn't jinx Shamu after all. It's back to the top of the list for the most e-mailed article at the New York Times. This story's got some serious legs. Go Shamu!
Jason Kottke's got more information on the Zidane situation (and commentary). Two main UK newspapers hired lip readers to decode what Materazzi said that triggered Zidane's glabrous rage. The papers claim that the Italian player said:
Hold on, wait, that one's not for a nigger like you.We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore.
So just fuck off.
Wow. So it appears that Materazzi might have talked about Zidane's mama as I previously guessed. Of course, this is still not a concrete fact, so everything is still pure speculation.