My friend Ralph Nader became famous with his study of “Unsafe At Any Speed,” showing the dangers of the Chevrolet Corvair. He may want to do a sequel based on this vehicle seized by the Minnesota State Patrol. You start with a Ford Pinto (notorious for blowing up in relatively low-speed collisions) and then add a few of these personal touches to make what may be the world’s most unsafe vehicle.
Category: Society
What is appropriate as a caffeinated drink at a funeral? A Frappuccino seems a bit festive but a Caramel Macchiato seems too loud for the occasion. Perhaps a specialty mortician mocha to give you that jolt you need to make it through the eulogy. That is the difficult choice that will face mourners at the Robinson Funeral Home in Easley, South Carolina where the fourth-generation family will be adding a Starbucks shop. It is not clear why a coffee machine with some Starbucks coffee would not suffice but mourners will soon be able to sign the deceased’s visitor book and move directly over to the baristas at the “Coffee Corner.”
While declaring the demise of the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin is close to enacting sweeping new powers to regulate the Web and block sites of his government’s choosing. He has received support from Natalya Kaspersky, chief executive of InfoWatch, who said that the Web could use some government control and that civil libertarians are exaggerating concerns about Putin’s control of speech on the Internet. For those people signing up with InfoWatch, it may come as a bit of a surprise that the company is aligned with a man who is rolling back on basic civil liberties for millions and working to limit speech on the Internet — a threat to his authoritarian agenda. Kaspersky actually heralds the possible benefits of a Russian blacklist controlled by Putin.
Islamic militants destroyed two of the historic tombs at the famous 14th century Djingareyber mosque in Timbuktu this week. The militants from the Ansar Dine group say the centuries-old shrines of the local Sufi version of Islam are idolatrous. In the meantime, some Egyptian Muslim extremists are following the victory by the Muslim Brotherhood with demands that the pyramids be destroyed for the same reason. Obviously these are extreme groups within the Muslim community. This later story is based on accounts coming from various sites but appear based on the same claimed translation of sites, though some have called it a hoax.
Continue reading “Islamic Militants Destroy Historic Sites In Timbuktu”
It was bad enough that Junior Yazzie, 54, was arrested for his seventh DWI this week. However, his latest victim could not be more worse — Aztec Magistrate Judge Carla Vescovi-Dial. Judge Vescovi-Dial is still recovering from the accident where she was a passenger. She is one of six magistrate judges in San Juan County and handles primarily . . . you guessed it . . . drunk driving cases.
Continue reading “New Mexico Man Arrested For Seventh DWI . . . After Hitting Local Judge”
The Rich couple is back in the news. If you recall, President Bill Clinton pardoned billionaire trader Marc Rich in one of the most unwarranted presidential acts under the pardon power — a pardon rightfully denounced as little more than a payback for a wealthy supporter by Clinton. Now, Rich’s wife, Denise, has given up her U.S. citizenship — reportedly to avoid taxes. Clinton should be doubly ashamed of his association and assistance to this couple.
This dangerous looking Bonnie and Clyde couple has finally been nabbed by the police in New York City. Caroline Stern, a dentist, and George Hess, a movie prop master, were returning from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing when they decided to cut loose at the Columbus Circle station. They danced. That’s right. Right in front of drug dealers, purse snatchers, and assorted felons, they danced. Thankfully, they were promptly arrested and the New York subway system was able to return to its joyless natural state.
This week Richard Posner, the conservative icon and intellectual on the Seventh Circuit, shocked many by saying that he was estranged from the Republican Party and becoming less conservative due to the “goofy” direction that the GOP has taken in recent years. As if on cue, the Sarasota Republican Party has decided that this year’s “statesman of the year” is none other than Donald Trump. That’s right, according to the Sarasota GOP, Donald Trump is the greatest statesman this year. Some would call it “goofy,” some would say “delusional.” I am honestly curious is GOP leadership in Sarasota are just out to sell tickets at any cost to their own credibility or whether they honestly believe this widely ridiculed character is a statesman in some parallel universe.
Continue reading “Trump Selected As “Statesman of the Year””
In Detroit, a woman has died in a bizarre accident where a hug with an off-duty officer led to an accidental discharge of his weapon and the death of Adaisha Miller, 25.
Continue reading “Detroit Woman Shot And Killed After Hugging Off-Duty Officer From Behind”
Police in Texas are dealing with a bizarre tragedy where a suicidal man ran out in front of traffic and was hit by a car. At the time, he was being chased by a man in a gorilla suit. Paul Nimnicht, 32, had announced in the CoCo Bongo nightclub that he was going to commit suicide outside of the club around midnight. When he ran outside, he was chased by a waiter dressed as a gorilla. The chase took them to Highway 281 where Nimnicht was struck by a passing Infiniti.
Continue reading “Suicidal Texas Man Hit By Car . . . After Being Chased By Man In Gorilla Suit”
You would think that the claimed discovery of the Higgs boson — or God’s Particle — would lead to a new round of celebration in Pakistan over its own Nobel laureate, Adbus Salam. After all, Salam helped develop the theoretical framework that led to the apparent discovery of the subatomic particle. However, before laying the ground work for discovering the God Particle, Salam picked the wrong God in the view of many Pakistanis. Salam, who died in 1996, has been stricken from school textbooks and public acknowledgments because he was a member of the Ahmadi sect that is viewed by Muslims as heretical.
We have followed the plight of women in Afghanistan as both the Taliban and the government roll back on advances in women’s rights after the U.S. invasion. Now another disturbing video has surfaced where dozens of men cheer as a man pumps round afer round into a woman accused of adultery. As nine shots are fired into her, the men cheer “God is Great!” in ecstatic celebration, as shown in the video accompanying the article below. Notably, this killing took place not in some far off province but the village of Qimchok to the north of Kabul.
Jordanian MP Mohammed Shawabka has a more direct method of debate that most politicians. During a television debate with an activist, Shawabka first throws a shoe at his opponent and than pulls a gun on him — pointing it at him on live television.
This video shows a terrifying moment as A Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) van on the Dallas North Tollway slams into a line of waiting cars on a ramp. It is astonishing that no deaths have been reported.
Continue reading “Texas Bus Slams Into Waiting Line of Cars On Highway Ramp”
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
“I have been a believer in the magic of language since, at a very early age, I discovered that some words got me into trouble and others got me out” – Katherine Dunn
“Until it is kindled by a spirit as flamingly alive as the one which gave it birth a book is dead to us. Words divested of their magic are but dead hieroglyphs.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
We return to the word; our most basic element of communication. The written word is naturally an extension of the spoken word. At the beginning of civilization, all propaganda was the spoken word. The primary limiting effect on the spread of ideas was the size of audience within hearing range of the speaker. Then came the image, the structure and written word. They had greater value in spreading ideas because of their inherently static nature. With the invention of paper and other portable means of propagating words and images, ideas were no longer tied directly to the speaker. The content was static, but the medium of exchange mobile. The primary limiting effect was the ability to reproduce these works manually by scribes and artisans combined with literacy in the ancient world being a comparative rarity.
Continue reading “Propaganda 103: The Word Changes, The Word Remains The Same”