Anniversary Weekend

Scarlett and I are headed up to The City for a little anniversary celebrating, even though depending on who you ask is a few weeks or a few months past due. But while we're out, you can celebrate a full year's worth of Velvet Glove - Iron Fist, that interweb abomination I share in the blame (though more falls on Don MF Greeb). It was just a terrible dream come true, and though I have my favorites, take a look and celebrate with your own.

Best of the week: Any trip to a foreign land is incomplete without a chance to sample the foods, see the sights and purchase some pornography.

It's that last bit that got Carlos Alfredo Simon-Timmerman in trouble. He was detained by customs in Puerto Rico on his way back from a Venezuelan vacation. Agents found a copy of "Little Lupe the Innocent: Don't Be Fooled by Her Baby Face," starring Lupe Fuentes, in his luggage. Presumably after watching and re-watching the video several times to be sure, the customs officer - who somehow testified as an expert in child pornography - determined that Fuentes was "13–14 years of age," and Simon-Timmerman was subsequently arrested and held awaiting trial for months, facing a 20-year prison sentence.

The problem? Little Lupe, who was born in 1987, was definitely of legal age at the time of filming...if anyone involved in prosecuting Simon-Timmerman cared to look. Which they didn't.

Despite assorted forms of documentation that proved Fuentes' age, the feelings of the pair of "experts" - the customs agent and one Dr. Pedro R. Jaunarena, a pediatrician - overruled the evidence provided by the defense. His attorney contacted Fuentes, who verified that, yeah, she was a legal adult when she made the movies. Even still, this wasn't enough to challenge the prosecutor's confidence in the child porn experts, who by this time must have watched the video dozens, if not hundreds of times, in order to develop an unshakable faith in their own observations. The prosecution refused to subpoena the records from Fuentes' studio or even allow a copy of Fuentes' ID into evidence.

So it came down to Little Lupe herself flying to Puerto Rico to show her passport to the prosecutor, and testify under oath that she was not really 13 years old. "My fans mean everything to me, " Fuentes said. "It was important to me to make the trip to Puerto Rico to show support to someone who did no wrong." Other than being stupid enough to drag their prons on an international flight. Just download it like the rest of us.

I submit this as evidence for Puerto Rico to never get statehood.

And: Could everyone's favorite anti-Islam pickup truck that was also maybe racist? Well the Virginian driver of the beautiful vehicle is now speaking out and telling the world that he is no racist. (but maybe his Facebook is)

Aside from the graphics on his truck, there was some controversy about his vanity license plate, which seemed to contain some coded references to Nazism and a notorious white supremacist. The fellow, Douglas Story, would like everybody to know that he loves Jews and also NASCAR, but not Nazis:

"There is absolutely no way I'd have anything to do with Hitler or Nazis." Story said. My sister-in-law and my niece are Jewish. I went to my niece's bat mitzvah when she turned 13 three years ago. Does that sound like something an anti-Semite would do?" Story says the numbers 14 and 88 on his plate were not references to a white power slogan or "Heil Hitler," as the Council on American-Islamic Relations theorized, but an homage to his favorite NASCAR drivers: Tony Stewart, who drives car No. 14, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who drives No. 88. Story applied for the vanity plate in March 2009, shortly after Earnhardt changed his car number from 8 to 88 and Stewart changed his from 20 to 14.

Or does that mean Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart are Nazis? Mr. Story still has one important passion in life: he still really hates the Muslim stuff. He says he doesn't know who took the photo of his truck in a handicapped parking spot, leading to it becoming a viral sensation on the web. "Probably someone who obviously has a soft spot for Islam," he said. So is this Facebook profile real or fake? Tune in and find out...

Best picture of the week:

stop teasing and just do it already

Best bonus links:

• Police Barred From Penis Enlargement - Wasn't that the issue that spurred them into a law enforcement career?

• Alexander McQueen High On Cocaine, Tranquilizers When He Hanged Himself - Well played, sir. You couldn't be jacking off and go for the trifecta?

• Admiral Ackbar: The Toilet - Obligatory "It's A Crap" joke here.

• L.A. Police Hunting Man With 'Bourne-Like' Identity - Or is he hunting them? The hunt is on!

• Muslim Says Mistresses Are The French Way Of Life - French Muslims must be the most arrogant, self-righteous people in the world. But they're on to something with this mistress thing.

• Make Your Own Homemade Snickers Bars - Sounds like fun, if you have the cooking abilities. Which I don't...so somebody whip me up a batch

• China Loses Bronze Medal Because Of Young Dong - You use the young Dong, you pay the price. Or they could have said China's women's gymnastics disqualified after Dong found out.

• Girl Survives Sting From World's Most Venomous Creature - This is not a run-in with Perez Hilton, but actually something much worse.

• The Costco Prank - Totally awesome injection of chaos into corporate America. And the heartland.

• The Best Name In Show Business - And it's on television screens each week. And the only good thing about the show.

• Password Card Hides Mentally Encrypted Passwords in Your Wallet - Can you remember where you left your wallet, though?

• Killer Gets Life Sentence For Burning Homeless Man To Death - Though a noble solution to the every growing problem, still not a legal one.

• Perry Farrell Lists Venice House For $1.6 Million - Anybody got a few bucks they can loan me. It is a sweet pad.

• Man Hid From Police In A Vat Of Poo - He really got himself into deep shit. (you had to see that one coming)

• The Slave Leia Car Wash Company - Sadly, not replacing the brushless wash on my corner. If only they cleaned the car owners, and then nerds everywhere would finally not smell like their basement lairs.

• Navy To Allow Women To Serve On Submarines - Women and seamen in a confined space is a recipe for trouble. And with smoking banned, what are they going to do afterwards?

• Nazi Pedophile, Torturer, Cult Leader In Chile Dies - This guy really went for broke to become everything horrible you could be in a lifetime. Rot in Hell, you bastard.

Worst of the week: I'll take all the Bret Michaels jokes you want to throw out there, but this article spawned a new circle of hell...

"Bret Michaels' Brain Hemorrhage May Affect Pantene Campaign." Are you shitting me? Nope:

After Bret Michaels helped launch a contest for what's been billed as the "world's first reality TV ad" for Pantene, the rock star's recent health problems mean the Procter & Gamble Co. brand may need to seek a plan B for the contest prize.

The rock star is being treated in the intensive care unit of an undisclosed Arizona hospital from a brain hemorrhage suffered last week, and physicians have yet to determine the source of the bleeding, according to press reports.

The long-locked Poison frontman had been part of a lead-in to the restage of Pantene, complete with tweets suggesting that he might become a celebrity spokesman for the brand, though he was really part of the prize in a promotion announced on April Fool's Day.

The winner of a video contest to become a "reality" participant in a May 25 TV commercial alongside Pantene pitchwoman Stacy London is to receive tickets to a Bret Michaels concert this summer as part of a "Be the Rock Star You Are" package, which also includes first-class airfare, a ride in Mr. Michaels' tour bus and backstage passes.

The contest continues, with 12 finalists to do test shoots in New York next month. But the part of the prize having to do with Mr. Michaels may have to be put on hold or changed based on his health, a P&G spokesman said.

"We wish him a speedy recovery, and we're certainly hoping for the very best," the spokesman said, adding that no decisions have been made yet regarding any changes in the promotion.

Prior to his hospitalization last week, Mr. Michaels had an emergency appendectomy April 12 after canceling a concert at Sea World in San Antonio, Texas, due to stomach pain.

Who the fuck other than P&G marketing douches care about, let along know that there's a Bret Michaels / Pantene campaign anyway? Scumtastically low, and a feat even by (the lack of) advertising standards.

And: Hollywood Sucks, Episode 367.

Yes, they announced they're making a movie based on the Magic-8 Ball. I wish I was kidding. After Candyland, Battleship, Risk, Bazooka Joe, Asteroids, View-Master, and Ouija Board movies found their way into production, there's nothing left to joke about without the very real chance it's also in some stage of development.

And aside from making unnecessary bad movies, they'll continue to remake good ones. Vince at Film Drunk said, "Commando is indisputably the high-water mark of 80s action movies. Arnold Schwarzenegger fed deer with his daughter, jumped out of moving jets, used rose bushes for cover against sub machine gun fire, chopped people’s arms off, and said things like, 'You’ll have to excuse my friend; he’s dead tired.' You can’t remake a movie like that. I mean, you can, and there have been at least 30 movies with the same basic plot since then, but what makes Commando Commando is that it’s so 80's. So Arnold." And no sooner said than put into development.

So wonder why then movies you want to see can't get made. No, Anchorman 2 is not happening. Paramount, who owns the project so it can’t be made at another studio, passed on it. Even though Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and Paul Rudd agreed to return for it. And were taking pay cuts. And the film budget was reduced. Burn Hollywood, burn.

Worst picture of the week:

someone added a clit ring to a tree in Williamsburg. fuck you, hipsters

Worst bonus links:

• Indiana Grandmother Is Having a New Baby. With Her Grandson - We're coming out the gate strong with horrible links. This is just pure awful.

• Police Say Texan Decapitated Wife With Chain Saw - But it is Texas, so he probably didn't even turn the thing on.

• Idaho Scientists Find Fabled Worm - Hooray, your life has purpose. Well, not that much...you spend all your time looking for a rare worm. Idaho needs to get some night life.

• U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Made a Lady Gaga Music Video - I thought this was the reason we had "Don't ask, don't tell". This is why the terrorists hate us. And now I hate us too.

• Petside Poll: Pets Listen Better Than Husbands - I don't know what a petside poll is, but it's useless. That's why they're husbands and not pets - and they acually understand what you're telling them. They're just smart enough to ignore you.

• Driver's Thumbs Insured For $13 Million - A ridiculous amount for any part of Alonso to be worth. But clearly a safegard from his teammate Massa, who'll have to break Alonso's hands if he want's to win.

• French Church Recruits Young Priests Via Facebook - And French priest recruit alterboys the same way.

• Shakira Visiting Phoenix Over Immigration Law - Thank God Shakira is on the case! I can't remember a more meaningful involvement by a celebrity since Wilt Chamberlain went to the Watergate Hotel.

• NY Police Tell Parents That Son Is Dead...He's Not - And they were totally planning to remodel his room and set up a gym.

• How To Make A Soccer Ball From A Condom - Yes, show the third worlders how to keep from having safe sex. At least all their offspring will have a game to play!

• Julia Roberts Named World's Most Beautiful By People / Lady Gaga, Robert Pattinson Dubbed 'Most Influential' By Time Magazine - People and Time magazines named least credible publications.

• Man Stabs 28 Children At Kindergarten In China / 5 Preschoolers Hit With Hammer In New China Attack - Completely insane. If you keep putting chemicals in the foods and medicine, people are going to go apeshit this this.

• Chelsea Clinton Admonishes Bill To Lose 15 Lbs. For Her Summer Wedding - Daddy's not the problem. Why don't you work on your 15 lbs of ugly first, you dream haunting goblin?

• Ricky Martin Criticizes Arizona's Immigration Law - Oh shit! Now the gay one from Menudo is taking on the the Grand Canyon State! Listen you one trick pony, you already tried to have a media moment with your non-revalation, so just leave the outrage to the professionals. If this thing is turning out to be shitty Latin pop artists versus a racist illegal law, I'm siding with Arizona no matter how wrong they are.

• Fake Rap Poetry Slam 4 Jesus, Or, Dear 2012 - Jesus Christ this is awful. It is the Rapture for rapping.

• Cleaners Paint Over Priceless Art - It was a Banksy, and while it is great, is it priceless? Those public servants, just following orders...

• Woman Bites Man After Being Called Fat - Not disproving the point there either, tubby.

Which Action Movie Should You See?

Don't Let A Toxic Holocaust Ruin Your Marriage

Listening To (And Saving) The World’s Languages

Don't let this guy loose in New York - he'd lose his mind. There's close to 800 different languages being spoken, though many of them are quickly fading from the tongues of the different immigrants and inhabitants. From the New York Times:

The chances of overhearing a conversation in Vlashki, a variant of Istro-Romanian, are greater in Queens than in the remote mountain villages in Croatia that immigrants now living in New York left years ago.

At a Roman Catholic Church in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, Mass is said once a month in Garifuna, an Arawakan language that originated with descendants of African slaves shipwrecked near St. Vincent in the Caribbean and later exiled to Central America. Today, Garifuna is virtually as common in the Bronx and in Brooklyn as in Honduras and Belize.

And Rego Park, Queens, is home to Husni Husain, who, as far he knows, is the only person in New York who speaks Mamuju, the Austronesian language he learned growing up in the Indonesian province of West Sulawesi. Mr. Husain, 67, has nobody to talk to, not even his wife or children.

“My wife is from Java, and my children were born in Jakarta — they don’t associate with the Mamuju,” he said. “I don’t read books in Mamuju. They don’t publish any. I only speak Mamuju when I go back or when I talk to my brother on the telephone.”

These are not just some of the languages that make New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world. They are part of a remarkable trove of endangered tongues that have taken root in New York — languages born in every corner of the globe and now more commonly heard in various corners of New York than anywhere else.

While there is no precise count, some experts believe New York is home to as many as 800 languages — far more than the 176 spoken by students in the city’s public schools or the 138 that residents of Queens, New York’s most diverse borough, listed on their 2000 census forms.
“It is the capital of language density in the world,” said Daniel Kaufman, an adjunct professor of linguistics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “We’re sitting in an endangerment hot spot where we are surrounded by languages that are not going to be around even in 20 or 30 years.”

In an effort to keep those voices alive, Professor Kaufman has helped start a project, the Endangered Language Alliance, to identify and record dying languages, many of which have no written alphabet, and encourage native speakers to teach them to compatriots.

“It’s hard to use a word like preserve with a language,” said Robert Holman, who teaches at Columbia and New York Universities and is working with Professor Kaufman on the alliance. “It’s not like putting jelly in a jar. A language is used. Language is consciousness. Everybody wants to speak English, but those lullabies that allow you to go to sleep at night and dream — that’s what we’re talking about.”

With national languages and English encroaching on the linguistic isolation of remote islands and villages, New York has become a Babel in reverse — a magnet for immigrants and their languages.

New York is such a rich laboratory for languages on the decline that the City University Graduate Center is organizing an endangered-languages program. “The quickening pace of language endangerment and extinction is viewed by many linguists as a direct consequence of globalization,” said Juliette Blevins, a distinguished linguist hired by City University to start the program.

In addition to dozens of Native American languages, vulnerable foreign languages that researchers say are spoken in New York include Aramaic, Chaldic and Mandaic from the Semitic family; Bukhari (a Bukharian Jewish language, which has more speakers in Queens than in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan); Chamorro (from the Mariana Islands); Irish Gaelic; Kashubian (from Poland); indigenous Mexican languages; Pennsylvania Dutch; Rhaeto-Romanic (spoken in Switzerland); Romany (from the Balkans); and Yiddish.

Researchers plan to canvass a tiny Afghan neighborhood in Flushing, Queens, for Ormuri, which is believed to be spoken by a small number of people in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Endangered Language Alliance will apply field techniques usually employed in exotic and remote foreign locales as it starts its research in the city’s vibrant ethnic enclaves.

“Nobody had gone from area to area looking for endangered languages in New York City spoken by immigrant populations,” Professor Kaufman said.

The United Nations keeps an atlas of languages facing extinction, and U.N. experts as well as linguists generally agree that a language will probably disappear in a generation or two when the population of native speakers is both too small and in decline. Language attrition has also been hastened by war, ethnic cleansing and compulsory schooling in a national tongue.

Over the decades in the secluded northeastern Istrian Peninsula along the Adriatic Sea, Croatian began to replace Vlashki, spoken by the Istrians, what is described as Europe’s smallest surviving ethnic group. But after Istrians began immigrating to Queens, many to escape grinding poverty, they largely abandoned Croatian and returned to speaking Vlashki.

“Whole villages were emptied,” said Valnea Smilovic, 59, who came to the United States in the 1960s with her parents and her brother and sister. “Most of us are here now in this country.”
Mrs. Smilovic still speaks in Vlashki with her mother, 92, who knows little English, as well as her siblings. “Not too much, though,” Mrs. Smilovic said, because her husband speaks only Croatian and her son, who was born in the United States, speaks English and a smattering of Croatian.

“Do I worry that our culture is getting lost?” Mrs. Smilovic asked. “As I get older, I’m thinking more about stuff like that. Most of the older people die away and the language dies with them.”
Several years ago, one of her cousins, Zvjezdana Vrzic, an Istrian-born adjunct professor of linguistics at New York University, organized a meeting in Queens about preserving Vlashki. She was stunned by the turnout of about 100 people.

“A language reflects a singular nature of a people speaking it,” said Professor Vrzic, who recently published an audio Vlashki phrasebook and is working on an online Vlashki-Croatian-English dictionary.

Istro-Romanian is classified by Unesco as severely endangered, and Professor Vrzic said she believed that the several hundred native speakers who live in Queens outnumbered those in Istria. “Nobody tried to teach it to me,” she said. “It was not thought of as something valuable, something you wanted to carry on to another generation.”

A few fading foreign languages have also found niches in New York and the country. In northern New Jersey, Neo-Aramaic, rooted in the language of Jesus and the Talmud, is still spoken by Syrian immigrants and is taught at Syriac Orthodox churches in Paramus and Teaneck.

The Rev. Eli Shabo speaks Neo-Aramaic at home, and his children do, too, but only “because I’m their teacher,” he said.

Will their children carry on the language? “If they marry another person of Syriac background, they may,” Father Shabo said. “If they marry an American, I’d say no.”

And on Long Island, researchers have found several people fluent in Mandaic, a Persian variation of Aramaic spoken by a few hundred people around the world. One of them, Dakhil Shooshtary, 76, a retired jeweler who settled on Long Island from Iran 45 years ago, is compiling a Mandaic dictionary.

For Professor Kaufman, the quest for speakers of disappearing languages has sometimes involved serendipity. After making a fruitless trip in 2006 to Indonesia to find speakers of Mamuju, he attended a family wedding two years ago in Queens. Mr. Husain happened to be sitting next to him. Wasting no time, he has videotaped Mr. Husain speaking in his native tongue.

“This is maybe the first time that anyone has recorded a video of the language being spoken,” said Professor Kaufman, who founded a Manhattan research center, the Urban Field Station for Linguistic Research, two years ago.

He has also recruited Daowd I. Salih, 45, a refugee from Darfur who lives in New Jersey and is a personal care assistant at a home for the elderly, to teach Massalit, a tribal language, to a linguistic class at New York University. They are meticulously creating a Massalit lexicography to codify grammar, definitions and pronunciations.

“Language is identity,” said Mr. Salih, who has been in the United States for a decade. “So many African tribes in Darfur lost their languages. This is the land of opportunity, so these students can help us write this language instead of losing it.”

Speakers of Garifuna, which is being displaced in Central America by Spanish and English, are striving to keep it alive in their New York neighborhoods. Regular classes have sprouted at the Yurumein House Cultural Center in the Bronx, and also in Brooklyn, where James Lovell, a public school music teacher, leads a small Garifuna class at the Biko Transformation Center in East Bushwick.

Mr. Lovell, who came to New York from Belize in 1990, said his oldest children, 21-year-old twin boys, do not speak Garifuna. “They can get along speaking Spanish or English, so there’s no need to as far as they’re concerned,” he said, adding that many compatriots feel “they will get nowhere with their Garifuna culture, so they decide to assimilate.”

But as he witnessed his language fading among his friends and his family, Mr. Lovell decided to expose his younger children to their native culture. Mostly through simple bilingual songs that he accompanies with gusto on his guitar, he is teaching his two younger daughters, Jamie, 11, and Jazelle, 7, and their friends.

“Whenever they leave the house or go to school, they’re speaking English,” Mr. Lovell said. “Here, I teach them their history, Garifuna history. I teach them the songs, and through the songs, I explain to them what it’s saying. It’s going to give them a sense of self, to know themselves. The fact that they’re speaking the language is empowerment in itself.”

Ankle Holsters Don't Chafe

Governor Rick Perry is just a regular guy. He likes to exercise and go jogging. With a .380 Ruger.

The governor claims to carry it with him because he is afraid of snakes. But at least once, it was a bad time to be a coyote. Perry told the AP the other day that he needed just one shot from the laser-sighted pistol he "sometimes" carries while jogging to take down a coyote that menaced his puppy during a February run near Austin. His Ruger — which was loaded with hollow-point bullets (because, well, why not?) — came in handy when a coyote came out of the brush toward his daughter's Labrador retriever.

This story could only be from Texas, right?

Gingerviolent

Game Merit

It's for real - though Scouting.org says it's not technically a merit badge. Still, that you can actully earn something for video games in the scouting world just made the whole thing obsolete, rather than up to date.

Requirements
Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts may complete requirements in a family, den, pack, school, or community environment. Tiger Cubs must work with their parents or adult partners. Parents and partners do not earn loops or pins.

Belt Loop
Complete these three requirements:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.
2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.
3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

Academics Pin
Earn the Video Games belt loop and complete five of the following requirements:

1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is right for your age group.
2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer's warranty.
9. With an adult's supervision, install a gaming system.

Super X

Hells yes, it's Super Mario Crossover time!

Super Mario Bros. needs less Mario brothers and more Nintendo characters. At least, that's what Exploding Rabbit thought before he spent a year developing the game. It's the exact same as the original, but with playable with Mega Man, Simon Belmont (Castlevania), Samus (Metroid), Link (Legend of Zelda), and that guy from Contra. Head here, and kiss your day goodbye.

Maybe It's The Racist Businessman In Me

Those Southern boys don't mince words.

Jihad On Arizona

Jimmy at Celeb Jihad had the breaking news:

Pop sensation Selena Gomez was arrested in Arizona and has been deported, the associated press is reporting. The move comes just days after the state’s tough new immigration law came into effect.

According to a local official who wished to remain anonymous, Selena raised the suspicion of an Arizona State Trooper when she was spotted riding a donkey through a Home Depot parking lot with a cardboard sign reading “will work for churro.” When police questioned Selena, she was unable to provide proper documentation proving her citizenship. She was then arrested, booked and deported.

Several switchblades and three live chickens were found among Selena’s possessions. Police speculate that the birds were to be used in an illegal cock fight later that evening.

As an illegal immigrant to this country, I must protest this unjust, inhumane treatment. Citizens of Arizona should be ashamed of themselves. It’s been years since my student visa expired, but in that time I’ve become an active member of my community. Every month, the 1/3 of my disability check that I don’t send to Hamas is spent at local businesses, most of which are owned by my cousin Anwar. I have also become involved with local government, and recently started a petition that seeks to outlaw Christmas and require women over the age of eight to remain in their homes for the duration of their monthly mensuration.

As you can see, I am as American as apple pie. That’s why I say free Selena!

1.44 Mega Bye-Bye

If you can remember a time before iPods and iPads, and when PCs didn't even play CDs, then you not only recall, but certainly owned a 3.5″ floppy. Those days are nostalgia, as Sony announced the death of the floppy disk drive.

Created in the early 1980s as a smaller, higher-capacity successor to larger formats, the 3.5″ initially had a capacity of around 280 kilobytes. With models available in both single and double-sided versions, along with three different densities, the format could eventually hold 1.44MB.

That's about enough to store a minute or so of audio. Aside from size and capacity, the major difference between the 3.5″ and its 5.25″ predecessor was that despite the name (which referred to the disk itself), the 3.5″ disk came in a solid plastic casing. This made it both less susceptible to accidental damage.

The format pretty much overtook its 5.25″ predecessor in 1988 and was the main recordable media format through much of the 1990s. Eventually, it was supplanted by CDs, and later DVDs. Sony, which was the last major 3.5″ disk manufacturer and had wound up with a dominant market share, has now announced it limited supply to only cover a few markets in March and will cease production in Japan early next year. PCWorld noted that while 12 million 3.5″ disks were sold in Japan by Sony last year, the total data which could be stored on them wouldn’t fill one side of a Blu-ray disc.

Rocket's Red Glare

HD footage of the first 30 seconds of the Apollo 11 launch slowed down and analyzed as an 8-minute video.

Soft, Delicious Surgery

Much Higher On The Jiggle Scale

After an Iranian cleric said earthquakes were God's punishment for scantily-clad women, the pro-scantily-clad lobby of womanity declared today Boobquake, a day to flout and disprove the cleric by baring your boobs. Except then a 6.9-magnitude earthquake occurred in Taiwan!

The New York Post reported Boobquake's founder remained nonchalant after Taiwan's 11AM earthquake, defiant against an angry, titty-hating Islamic deity:

Although Boobquake founder Jennifer McCreight, of Indiana., has claimed that the quake does not count because it happened outside her Boobquake time zone, she admitted on her blog that the wobble was significant, but not unusual.

"On avg, 134 magnitude 6-6.9 earthquakes occur annually," she wrote on her Twitter feed, before following it up on her blog with: "If we get many of a similar magnitude in the next 24 hours, we might start worshipping the power of immodesty."

In earlier interviews, McCreight said the presence or absence of an earthquake would prove the cleric's prophecy true or false. Maybe she shouldn't have stepped up to the plate and pointed towards the outfield.

"With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I'm sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble."

Gawker's final conclusion on the above: Everyone, convert to hard-right misogyno-Islam now, and add Taiwan to the "Fuck you, American boobs" list, while you're at it.

Don't Quit Your Day Job

In 1988, actor Bill Paxton and vocalist/guitarist Andrew Todd Rosenthal formed a short-lived rock duo, Martini Ranch. They recorded and released just one album, entitled Holy Cow, which included inputs from Devo members Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob Casale and Alan Myers (all of whom contributed to the track “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time For Self-Culture?”), along with Cindy Wilson of the B-52’s as a back-up vocalist, and Judge Reinhold - credited as a whistler. This video was directed by James Cameron. Yes, that one. It is remarkably, the only music video he ever shot.

The video includes cameos from ex-wife / director Kathryn Bigelow, as well as Aliens and Terminator alumni Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Mark Rolston and Jenette Goldstein. Brian Thompson (the bad guy in Cobra) and Adrian Pasdar also appear.

Losers Weekend

I'm digging solo runs for Saturday morning movies...they're cheaper, less crowded, and doesn't rely on trading with Scarlett and having to see some paint-by-numbers rom-com. This week it's The Losers, based on the comic book series of the same name. It's your typical heroes-get-betrayed-and-seek-revenge/redemption tale, but with the outrageousness of the recent style of "widescreen" comics. And it's that kind of innovative writing and art layout that ultimately makes for a more compelling transfer to the cinema than, say, an "original" concept for this summer's popcorn tentpole The Expendibles (which looks awful).

We've also got games 5 and 6 of the Battle Of Vancouver...hopefully the loser moniker rests with the Canucks, and what could be the final game of the series rests here Sunday (and let's hope it's their last, not ours). I'm slightly a loser too this weekend as a last minute project has forced some weekend overtime at the office.

Best of the week: Gizmodo has the tech scoop of the year, all because one idiot tester got too tipsy on a night out.

Grey Powell was out on March 18, enjoying the booze at Gourmet Haus Staudt, a German beer garden, for his 27th birthday. "I underestimated how good German beer is," he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone, and the last time he'd ever see the device before abandoning it on a bar stool on his way home.

Apple's legendary security has always worked well, and the company has reacted swiftly when dealing with product leaks. Aside from a blurry factory photo here or information strategically whispered to friendly media there, when it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. Really. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes, and prototypes are bolted to desks. The leak of a strategic product could cost them millions of dollars in free marketing promotion and make them lose control of the product news cycle. But that doesn't protect against simple human error.

The person who eventually ended up with the lost iPhone was sitting next to Powell. He asked around the beer hall, but nobody claimed it. While waiting around to see if the stranger would return for the phone, he played with it. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS...it just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.

Thinking about returning the phone the next day, he left, but upon waking in the morning, the phone was dead. He turned to MobileMe, the service Apple provides to track and wipe out lost iPhones, and then realized that there was something strange that iPhone. The exterior didn't feel right and there was a camera on the front. After tinkering with it, he managed to open the fake 3GS and found a shiny thing completely different from everything that came before. He called a lot of Apple numbers and tried to find someone who was at least willing to transfer his call to the right person, but no luck. No one took him seriously and all he got for his troubles was a ticket number. Shortly thereafter, he sold the device to Gizmodo for $5000, who tested the product, cracked it open to check the guts, and spread a whole tin of embarrassment pie on Apple's face.

You can follow the whole saga in detail below...

• How Apple lost the next iPhone

• Why Apple couldn't get the lost iPhone back

• All the details about the device

• The next iPhone, dissected

• Apple didn't leak the iPhone, and why that matters

• And finally, how Apple asked for their phone back

Plus: A new autism disease identified in a flawed paper linking a common children's vaccine to autism, may not exist, according to new, unfabricated research.

A dozen years ago, Andrew Wakefield and colleagues published a study on a new bowel disease and proposed a connection between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. The research set off a health scare, and vaccination rates in Britain dropped so low measles outbreaks returned. Eventually the study was widely discredited, 10 of Wakefield's co-authors renounced its conclusions, leading to the journal to retract the paper in February.

This week a paper examined if the illness described by Wakefield and colleagues — autistic enterocolitis, a bowel disease found in autistic people — actually exists. You see, back in 1996, Wakefield was hired by a lawyer to find a new syndrome of bowel and brain disease to help launch a lawsuit against drug companies that made the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

Eight of the 11 children included in Wakefield's original study had normal bowels. But in the published study, 11 of the 12 were said to have a swollen bowel, which was said to be proof of a new gastrointestinal disease affecting autistic children. In 2005, Wakefield started a clinic in Texas to research and treat the syndrome, but with the original biopsy slides from the children in the primary study no longer available, it started to add up to, well, a load of shit. Independent experts we called to examine hospital reports on the biopsies, and failed to find any distinctive inflammation that would qualify as a new disease. Several studies have shown a link between inflamed bowels and autism, but too little evidence exists to prove there is a new illness.

Britain's General Medical Council ruled Wakefield had acted unethically. He and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.

And: The Donner Party, the 19th century pioneers who became snowbound in the Sierra Nevada and supposedly resorted to cannibalism, may not have eaten each other after all, suggests a new study on bones found at the Donner's Alder Creek campsite hearth. Sorry for the decades of scorn and slander!

Detailed analysis of the bones instead found that the 84 Donner Party members consumed a family dog, along with cattle, deer and horses. Cattle, likely eaten after the animals themselves died of starvation, appear to have been their mainstay. The study is the first to show that the Donner members successfully hunted deer, despite the approximately 30 feet of snow on the ground during the winter of 1846-1847. The horses are thought to have come from relief parties that arrived in February and could have left a few of their animals behind.

Newspapers were primarily responsible for promoting the allegations of cannibalism, which were fiercely denied by the Donner Party survivors. And with the new evidence, there are still naysayers. "They're not saying cannibalism didn't happen there, they're saying they haven't found any PHYSICAL evidence of cannibalism, they haven't found evidence so far that confirms cannibalism," said Gabrielle Burton. Sure, you can't prove something because you haven't yet found the thing you need as proof - that's a reasonable argument.

At the end of February, 1847, trapped nearly four months, Patrick Breen wrote in his diary: Mrs. Murphy said here yesterday that thought she would commence on Milt & eat him. I don't think she has done so yet, it is distressing. The Donnos {Donners} told the California folks (the 1st rescue, a group too small to take everyone out) that they commence to eat the dead people 4 days ago, if they did not succeed that day or next in finding their cattle then under ten or twelve feet of snow & did not know spot or near it, I suppose they have done so ere this time.

Hmmm, I don't know that I want to completely trust the hungry ramblings of 160 year old pioneers over the archaeological info.

Best picture of the week:

golden wiener

Best bonus links:

• New Implants Mold To Brain Like Shrink-Wrap - They need to get this for breasts, and then we're talking!

• 15 Movie Posters Re-Imagined With The Stars Originally Cast - A little twist on some more well known flicks you may have seen.

• Cocaine Smuggler's Bestiality Farm - This week's automatic link.

• Christina Aguilera: I'm 'More Sexual' After Motherhood - Says the gal who wore red panties and chaps in her videos. And that was before her gigantic implants. Wow, twice with implants.

• VH1 Ousts Trashy Reality Shows - They're serious about it too. The truth will eventually come out as to their methods.

• ‘Curb’ Renewed For 8th Season - I don't watch it, but this will make some people happy.

• Boxer Edwin Valero Found Dead In Jail - First round TKO after allegedly killing his wife.

• Salt & Fat - An amateur cooking site that strips away the elitist aura from the kitchen and makes it accessible.

• These People Really Need To Get Stoned - It's 4/20, and it's okay to loosen up.

• Firefly Fan Webcomic Takes Serenity Carnage To New Levels - You need to be familiar with the movie, but if you are, this is funny.

• Washington Woman Drops Rape Lawsuit Against Copperfield - He made those charges...disappear. (you knew that was coming)

• Alan Cumming Drops Out Of Spider-Man Musical - Smartest career move he made relating to that whole mess.

• 'Bachelor' Bob Guiney's Wife Files For Divorce - Wonderful news for a guy who's only claim to minor fame was being single.

• Everest Death Zone Set For A Spring Clean Up - Spring cleaning isn't just for closets and garages. And who doesn't want to have a cleaner mountain death zone?

• The Poor Man's... - Pajiba out the stars head to head and shows you the best. And second best.

• The Trustworthiness Of Beards - You can't trust a Fu-Manchu. Not ever.

• Toy Tests Your Ability To Endure Electrical Shock - Christmas time is going to be exciting around the emergency room.

Worst of the week: Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves after an antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus. See, computer troubles are not just for Apple.

McAfee Inc. confirmed that a software update it posted caused its antivirus program for corporate customers to misidentify a harmless file. It has posted a replacement update for download. They could not say how many computers were affected, but judging by online postings, the number was at least in the thousands and possibly in the hundreds of thousands. It did not appear that consumer versions of its software caused similar problems. It is investigating how the error happened "and will take measures" to prevent it from recurring.

The computer problem forced about a third of the hospitals in Rhode Island to postpone elective surgeries and stop treating patients without traumas in emergency rooms. In Kentucky, state police were told to shut down the computers in their patrol cars as technicians tried to fix the problem. The National Science Foundation headquarters in Virginia also lost computer access. Intel Corp. also appeared to be among the victims.

In many locations, personal attention to each PC from a technician appeared to be the only way to fix the problem because the computers weren't receptive to remote software updates when stuck in the reboot cycle. It's not uncommon for antivirus programs to misidentify legitimate files as viruses - last month, antivirus software from Bitdefender locked up PCs running several different versions of Windows. However, the scale of this outage was abnormal.

Plus: A third of U.S. teenagers with cell phones send more than 100 texts a day. Go outside or read a book, whydoncha!

The study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, offered an obvious glimpse into teen culture and communication. Their ability to notice the obvious showed that texting has risen dramatically even since 2008, eclipsing cell phone calls, instant messaging, social networks, and talking face-to-face. Three-fourths of young people between 12 and 17 own cell phones and of those that do, girls typically send or receive 80 text messages per day and boys, 30 per day.

"Texting is now the central hub of communication in the lives of teens today, and it has really skyrocketed in the last 18 months," said a Pew researcher, recognizing the rise in payment plans that allow unlimited texting. The study's authors also point out for people that have never texted that, unlike phone calls, text messaging can be quietly carried out under the noses of parents, teachers or other authority figures and, unlike computers, it can be done almost anywhere. No shit?

Text messaging has become so much a part of teenagers' lives that 87% of those who text said that they sleep with, or next to, their phone. What are the obvious chances of that? The percentage of teens with cell phones who sent at least one text message a day increased from 38% in 2008 to 54% in September 2009, according to the study. Meanwhile 38% of teens said they daily make at least one cell phone call, 30% said they talk on a landline phone and 24% said they used instant messaging.

And: Republicans are stepping up their criticism of the Securities and Exchange Commission following reports that senior agency staffers spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were supposed to be policing the nation's financial system.

Top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa said it was "disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation's economy on the brink of collapse," when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.

The SEC's inspector general conducted 33 probes of employees looking at explicit images in the past five years. According to them 31 of those probes occurred in the 2 1/2 years since the financial system teetered and nearly crashed. So basically, SEC personel looked at more porn after the crisis occured than during it - though you can expect that to be an indictment of the Democrats by the GOP.

The memo summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings:

• A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said.

• An accountant was blocked more than 16,000 times in a month from visiting websites classified as "Sex" or "Pornography." Yet he still managed to amass a collection of "very graphic" material on his hard drive by using Google images to bypass the SEC's internal filter, according to an earlier report from the inspector general. The accountant refused to testify in his defense, and received a 14-day suspension.

• Seventeen of the employees were "at a senior level," earning salaries of up to $222,418.

The number of cases jumped from two in 2007 to 16 in 2008. The cracks in the financial system emerged in mid-2007 and spread into full-blown panic by the fall of 2008. Oops, Republicans - that was under your watch. About 16% of men with Internet access at work admit to looking at online porn while at the office, according to a 2006 survey. Also, 84% of men surveyed lied.

Worst picture of the week:

you're serious about working out because you have a professional exercise outfit

Worst bonus links:

• Eliminated Idol Andrew Garcia: I Was Just Confused By the Judges - You didn't understand when they meant when they said you sucked and wanted you off the program? Well, at least you'll have time to think about it.

• Divorce Dilemma: Texas Says Gays Can't Get Divorce - They can't get married there, so you won't let them get a divorce? Way to get involved.

• Crazy Tits Is Not A Stupid Whore; She Is THE Stupid Whore - Maybe Tila did bring lesbianism into the mainstream...oh, wait, that was Ellen she was mixing herself with.

• Would You Wear Fergie's Snakeskin Suit? - No. Especially after her ballsweat stains set in. Though only a snakeskin suit could distract from her tranny face.

• Biggest Loser's Jillian Michaels Can't Handle Getting Fat While Pregnant - Weight issues for the obsessive compulsive trainer? What a (not) shock.

• Jay Leno On Conan O'Brien's TBS Show: 'I Knew He'd Land On His Feet' - No thanks to you, dickbag. Way to join the cheering section.

• Church Pedophilia Scandal Grows In Latin America - The Catholics have made an art of ruining children's innocence throught the western hemisphere.

• Heidi Montag Compares Post-Surgery Body To Barbie - Horribly out of proportion, made of plastic, and not a good role model for little girls.

• Courtney Love Changes Her Name - Though I think I liked her better before she went with Skankbones Whoredrug.

• Robot Mouth Simulates The Human Voice - Which human's voice. It sounds like a deaf person having a seizure at the bottom of a well.

• Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon To Wed A Third Time - That's three gifts I haven't sent, and a third time I don't care at all.

• Sharon Osbourne To Give Breast Implants To Ozzy - Guys want fake boobs in your chest, not taken out and then given to them. What's he going to do with them now anyway?

• WellPoint Routinely Targets Breast Cancer Patients - Fucking scumbag company.

• Nicole Scherzinger Opens Up About Aunt With Down Syndrome - We're only pretending to care because you're hot. You've seen one aunt with down syndrome, you've seen them all.

• Want Porn? Buy An Android Phone, Steve Jobs Says - Thanks for helping me make my new phone purchase decision.

• Scott Baio Defends Wife's Lesbian Shitass Rant - It's the most work that he's done in years. And the material is edgy!

• Video: Pennsylvania Woman Gets House Arrest For Piercing Kittens - The tattoos were okay, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Welcome To 2010, Riverdale

Archie Comics announced that in an issue out in September, the comic will introduce its first "openly gay" character, Kevin Keller. Wait, they still print Archie Comics? And why is openly gay in quotes? You're not gay if you're "gay".

Jon Goldwater, co-CEO of Archie Comics, says the introduction of Kevin is "about keeping the world of Archie Comics current and inclusive." Yeah, says a guy about the main character who acts and dresses like grew up with your grandparents.

In an interview at C2E2 with gay podcast Feast of Fun, longtime Archie Comics cartoonist (23 years!) Dan Parent discussed the event, which promises to be the blandest, least-controversial thing to happen to the series since minority characters joined. "The plotline is that Veronica's got the hots for this guy and can't understand why he's not interested in her," Parent said, "and ... he's gay." Wasn't this an episode of Three's Company?

He added that while readers shouldn't expect any of the regular characters to come out of the closet, we shouldn't look for residents of Riverdale to make a big deal about Kevin's sexuality, either. "The reaction is going to be, there isn't going to be a reaction -- it's just going to be acceptance," he said. Which makes me wonder why there was any point to announce the storyline, let alone include it.

There are hundreds of better constructed, more realistic gay characters in comics that were not just added for the P.R. value, and they were done years before this stunt.