Significa 5-15-12

The Freemont Experience is a likable attraction for downtown Las Vegas, but a more ambitious plan was to put a full-sized Starship Enterprise from Star Trek there:

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Konformist Book Club: Urville

From Amazon:

Urville, the capital of a large island province, has a population of nearly 12 million, making it the one of the most significant cities in Europe. It is also entirely imaginary. Gilles Trehin, an autistic man with exceptional creative talents and an obsession with large cities, conceived and developed Urville over the course of 20 years. He shares his vision in this beautifully illustrated guide to the city, which he renders convincingly real in nearly 300 drawings of different districts of Urville. He describes, in remarkable detail, the architectural styles of its individual buildings and provides historical, geographical, economic and cultural information. This includes historical figures and cultural anecdotes grounded in historical reality - Trehin accounts for the effects of the Vichy regime, the Second World War and globalisation on his imagined city. This book offers fascinating evidence of and insight into the creative power of the autistic mind and will be of interest to people with autism and without.

To read more on Urville:

Steampunk began as a radical satirical form of fiction, but today it encompasses much more. What precisely is steampunk? As the editors of Steampunk Magazine explain, steampunk is “a vibrant culture of DIY crafters, writers, artists, and other creative types, each with their own slightly different answer to that question”. By its diverse nature, steampunk resists definition. Furthermore, in the ever evolving nature of steampunk, “as each new iteration of the idea be­comes more ambitious, the mutations are delightfully limitless and unpredictable”...

BrianFoxBand Records
http://www.brianfoxband.com

"BECAUSE YOU'VE HAD ENOUGH!!"

THE "33" CD

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE CD ($11.99)!!!


Activation Products
http://www.activationproducts.com

Activation Products was created from a desire to become healthy by discovering and applying the very best foods and technologies in existence.

We collect and offer those products which work the most synergistically with the systems of the human body. Try a little of everything and discover what works for you.

We enjoy helping people by sharing the information that has helped us.


http://www.preparewise.com

At PrepareWise, we have one goal in mind: Helping you prepare your family for emergencies by providing the best prices for freeze dried food storage anywhere on the web. PrepareWise proudly offers Legacy Premium, the wise food storage choice, because of it's lower cost per day, greater freeze dried meals variety, gourmet tastes, and incredible value. Enjoy Free Shipping on every item on our website, and let us know how we can help you protect your family and build up your emergency food storage.


http://www.musclebounded.com

New Discovery By Scientists Leads To Massive Muscle Gains...

With the recent media coverage exposing steroid use in professional sports, many everyday people are looking for an extra edge to build muscle, get stronger, and look better.

Steroids, although effective, are unhealthy and illegal to use without a prescription. Millions of dollars have been spent in sports medicine research to find a completely safe, natural alternative that produces the same results.

After years of research scientists now agree that nitric oxide supplements are a safe way to maximize your muscle gains.

Many professional athletes, body builders, and even UFC fighters have started using a nitric oxide supplement called NOX360 last year. Terrell Owens "TO", a professional football player, recently told us, "I need to best at what I do. NOX360 keeps me dominant on and off the field. No other product gives me the endurance and strength to stay on top of my game."

NOX360 currently sells for as high as $99.99 in retail supplement stores, and this limited time promotion gives you a free trial of NOX360 for $1.95, just paying for shipping and handling. To learn more on NOX360 & nitric oxide, we provided some internal research and reviews for our readers as well as the NO3 free trial links.

The Science Behind Nitric Oxide & NOX360

Your body naturally produces nitric oxide to move oxygen into your muscles while you exercise. This burst of oxygen keeps your muscles functioning while lifting weights or through your cardio session.

Unfortunately, your body can only generate a limited amount of nitric oxide. When the nitric oxide runs out your muscles can no longer power through the exercise no matter how much mental determination you have.

Taking a nitric oxide supplement 30 minutes before your workout could be the push your body needs to add weight to your bench press or run that extra mile. This increased stamina results in longer, harder workouts and a better body in less time.


The Benefits of Nitric Oxide & NOX360

- Drastic Muscle Gains

- Increased Blood Flow and Oxygen Delivery to Muscles

- Transform Your Body

- Boosted Strength, Endurance and Power

- Supports Your Immune System

- Immediate Results


What’s the Best Nitric Oxide Product?

Now that the science behind nitric oxide has been proven, several companies are rushing to bring a nitric oxide supplement to consumers, but which is the best?

NOX360 is, without question, the most popular nitric oxide supplement available on the market today. Thousands of people have already bought NOX 360 online or from their local supplement stores. As you can see below, NOX360 out performs every nitric oxide supplement on the market.

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FeedBack: Christ's disciples' remains 'discovered'

If you actually want to understand what these symbols mean, you first need to understand ancient symbology. No one involved in this project seems to have a clue and thereby all assertions about symbols and their interpretations are without any factual support.

I will demonstrate that this image purposely portrays the merger of both a fish and a vessel and it is Hebrew, not Christian. To fully understand what this image represents, it must be viewed correctly with the "ball" at the bottom, just as it was drawn. Changing its position breaks the meaning of the symbolic code. Consider that the ball is the sun rising above the horizon at the spring equinox. The fish/vessel is the constellation Pisces, and thereby this shows the spring equinox sun, rising into Pisces, which is how you determine the current age on the zodiac.

This image would then represent a zodiacal/astrological time stamp pointing to the second temple period, which was at the start of the age of Pisces. The fish thereby represents the constellation Pisces, and the vessel shape holds the "waters" of that age. Water symbolizes the flow of deeds through time, and a vessel holds a measured quantity of water (or other liquids like wine and oil). The measured period of time is the 2160 years of the age of Pisces, which ended in 2001. This image is a perfect symbolic code for the age of Pisces and the time and deeds (waters...) it represents.

The second temple period was the 11th 360-year cycle on the Hebrew calendar. That is why the Dead Sea Scrolls were buried in exactly 11 caves, during the 11th cycle, which is also symbolized by the 11 stars in Genesis. The 11th cycle was also the beginning of the age of Pisces, and it is well known that the zodiac was used by those who buried the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as other groups throughout the region.

The symbology of that image is not Christian, but instead a symbolic time code pointing to the age of Pisces and related details. That is also the true source of the fish symbolism used by early Christians and later recast by Church leaders to hide the astrological source and associations with those most call the “Essenes.” Visit my website (SevenStarHand.org) and download a free copy of my ebook to learn the basic rules for this ancient symbology. They prove all previous interpretations are erroneous, though both a fish and a vessel were correct guesses.

You have discovered something that none of you understand and now I bring proof of the correct solution to this mystery. Sadly for religious leaders, it completely exposes pivotal ancient lies…

This image provides key proof that Christian assertions about the fish and related symbology have always been wrong. I’ll publish more details soon.

Here are more insights:

Dead Sea Scrolls' Burial Secret Completely Exposes Ancient Lies
http://www.i-newswire.com/dead-sea-scrolls-burial-secret/81149

Here is Wisdom...

Buddy Page
aka
Seven Star Hand

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Awesome Quotes: Watchmen

"I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up.' Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor... I am Pagliacci.' Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains."

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach

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April 15th (ironically, better known as income tax day) marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  Here are 10 facts you probably didn't know about The Titanic...
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/100th-anniversary-titanic-10-things-didn-t-know-232200873.html

* On the evening of April 14, the first-class passengers on the Titanic enjoyed a ten-course meal that included oysters, poached salmon, sirloin of beef, lamb with mint sauce, chocolate éclairs and waldorf pudding. According to Armchair World, a different wine was served with each course, and coffee and cigars accompanied by port and distilled spirits were available with the last course.

* The Titanic had its own newspaper. According to the Natural Science Center of Greensboro, The Atlantic Daily Bulletin was printed daily and included news articles, the latest stock prices, horse-racing results, society gossip and a daily menu.

* The massive ship had some unheard of amenities. A Discovery Channel article details perks such as an onboard Turkish bath, libraries, a squash court and a heated swimming pool. The luxury liner even had an infirmary with an operating room.

* While the Titanic boasted some of the wealthiest people in the world on board, two famous men of that era didn't make the trip. According to Discovery.com, financier J. P. Morgan and famed chocolatier Milton S. Hershey had planned to sail aboard the ship's maiden voyage but canceled at the last minute.

* Less than a month after the tragedy, silent film actress and Titanic survivor Dorothy Gibson starred in the film "Saved From the Titanic." According to Stageclick, the actress reenacted her personal story of the tragedy, complete with the actual white silk evening dress she wore on that fateful night. The film was a hit in America and England, but the only known prints were destroyed two years later in a fire.

* Many artifacts from the Titanic were salvaged. The Titanic Museum in Massachusetts houses The Titanic Historical Society's collection, which includes a lifejacket, lifeboat flag, luncheon and dinner menus, a square of first-class stateroom carpet, letters and postcards written on board, first class china and a bridge bell.

* According to UK's Mirror, a violin alleged to have belonged to Titanic bandleader Wallace Harley was recently discovered. While tests are being done to prove its authenticity, if sold it would break the record for a Titanic artifact, post office keys that were sold in England for £101,000 in 2007.

* The former home of one of the most famous Titanic survivors is now a museum in Denver. The 1910 home of socialite Margaret Brown - known after the tragedy as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," is open for tours and workshops.

* The last remaining survivor of the Titanic died in 2009. Millvana Dean was only nine weeks old and the youngest passenger on the ship when she was put on a lifeboat and saved. According to The Guardian, her death at age 97 came just a month after "Titanic" stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet helped pay her nursing home expenses.

* Many sources have pegged the band's final song as "Nearer My God To Me." But in a 1912 interview with The New York Times, surviving crew member Harold Bride said the band played the hymn "Autumn" as the ship went down.

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YouTube Movie of the Week
Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfFpvaP87UU

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'Nobody has seen Tupac's body': Suge Knight reveals he is not sure rapper is really dead...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2133123/Tupac-alive-Suge-Knight-stuns-fans-suggesting-rapper-dead.html

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Stoner Cooking

Magic Bullet Egg Nog
http://www.buybullet.com/recipes.php?recipe=eggnog&category=drinks&name=Egg%20Nog

Nothing says, "Holiday Season" like creamy, delicious egg nog. Dazzle your guests with this quick and easy home brew.

Ingredients

 3 eggs
 2 Tbs sugar
 pinch of salt
 1 - 1/2 cups milk
 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preparation

Start by... adding all the ingredients to the Tall Cup and blend with the Cross Blade until smooth (about 8 seconds).

Then... Pour into a sauce pan and over low heat, warm the mixture making sure to stir it constantly.

When... the mixture has thickened remove it from heat. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled.

Serving Suggestion

This recipe serves 2, double or triple the ingredients (and use the Blender Attachment) for more servings.

Tip!

Add a shot of rum and a sprinkle of nutmeg to each serving for a classic holiday cocktail.


The Original Potato Salad
http://www.bestfoods.com/recipe/detail/6609/1/the-original-potato-salad

It's made with Real Mayonnaise, just like mom always made!

 • 2 lbs. potatoes (5 to 6 medium), peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
 • 1 cup Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise
 • 2 Tbsp. vinegar
 • 1-1/2 tsp. salt
 • 1 tsp. sugar
 • 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
 • 1 cup thinly sliced celery
 • 1/2 cup chopped onion
 • 2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped (optional)

1.Cover potatoes with water in 4-quart saucepot; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender. Drain and cool slightly.

2.Combine Hellmann's® or Best Foods® Real Mayonnaise, vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper in large bowl. Add potatoes, celery, onion and eggs and toss gently. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Also terrific with Hellmann's ® or Best Foods ® Light or Canola Cholesterol Free Mayonnaise.

Cost per recipe*: $3.09

Cost per serving*: $0.39

*Based on average retail prices at national supermarkets.

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Japan comes up with some great ideas, and here's one of them: neko cafes, where patrons can hang out and pet cats while sipping coffee.  This is an idea that should be an easier sell than sushi.  Sadly, they may be shutting down due to laws combatting exploitation of animals, even though the cafes were never meant to be the target of the laws:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/17/uncertain-future-for-japans-cat-cafes/

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Food Porn of the Month:

From the UK, Pizza Hut is offering a "Hot Dog Stuffed Crust" pizza with a mustard drizzle.  Meanwhile, back in the USA, Burger King is test marketing a bacon sundae in Nashville:

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'The Voice': New Bible translation focuses on dialogue
Bob Smietana, USA TODAY
4-15-12
Full Article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2012-04-15/the-voice-bible-translation/54301502/1

The name Jesus Christ doesn't appear in The Voice, a new translation of the Bible.

Nor do words such as angel or apostle. Instead, angel is rendered as messenger and apostle as emissary. Jesus Christ is Jesus the Anointed One or the liberating king.

That's a more accurate translation for modern American readers, says David Capes, lead scholar for The Voice, a complete edition released this month by publishing company Thomas Nelson. Capes says that many people, even those who've gone to church for years, don't realize that the word "Christ" is a title.

"They think that Jesus is his first name and Christ is his last name," says Capes, who teaches the New Testament at Houston Baptist University in Texas.

Seven years in the making, The Voice is the latest entry into the crowded field of English Bible translations.

Unlike the updated New International Version and the Common English Bible — both released last year — much of The Voice is formatted like a screenplay or novel. Translators cut out the "he said" and "they said" and focused on dialogue.

So in Matthew 15, when Jesus walks on the water, scaring his followers, their reaction is immediate:

Disciple: "It's a ghost!"

Another Disciple: "A ghost? What will we do?"

Jesus: "Be still. It is I; you have nothing to fear."

"I hope we get people to see the Bible — not as an ancient text that's worn out — but as a story that they participate in and find their lives in," Capes says.

The title for The Voice came from the New Testament book of John and from the Greek word logos. It's usually translated as "word" in verses such as John 1:1, which reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," in the New International Version, one of the most popular English translations.

In The Voice, that passage reads: "Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God." Frank Couch, the executive editor and publisher of The Voice, says that translation better captures what logos means...

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Milestones

THE Paul Krassner, Konformist Kontributor, friend and idol, has turned 80:

Matt Groening reveals that Springfield in The Simpsons is based on the city near his hometown in Oregon


Pat Summitt retires as Tennessee women’s basketball coach, won 1,098 games & 8 NCAA titles

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/pat-summitt-to-step-down-legendary-tennessee-womens-basketball-coach-won-1098-games-8-ncaa-titles/2012/04/18/gIQA2CK2QT_story.html


The DARPA Robotics Challenge is looking for machines to help the military, but insists it's not to develop killer robots (as if the military would want machines to kill humans!) but rather to do things like drive vehicles, replace broken machinery, and snuggle:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402846,00.asp

Jack Nicholson turned 75.  In honor of his birthday, Life Magazine released on its website unpublished photos taken in 1969 of the soon-to-be megastar:

http://life.time.com/culture/jack-nicholson-unpublished-photos-1969/


Jamie Moyer, 49, becomes oldest pitcher to win a MLB game:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/18/150876220/take-that-kids-jamie-moyer-is-oldest-pitcher-to-win-an-mlb-game


Layne Staley, lead singer of Alice in Chains, has been dead for a decade:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/how-alice-in-chains-found-the-most-memorable-voice-in-grunge/255469


The New York Mets turn 50:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/sports/baseball/mets-at-50-the-good-the-bad-but-mostly-the-ugly.html


Which of the following honors should a man pursue more:

1. Going to Cleveland for induction in the prestigious Rock Hall of Fame

2. Getting a blowjob from Lana Del Rey

Say what you will about Axl Rose, but the crazy SOB sure has his priorities straight...

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/report-axl-rose-is-dating-lana-del-rey-20120409


Best Buy has lost it's CEO, and as CNet puts it: "Best Buy would still need a miracle to avoid the fate suffered by the likes of Good Guys, Circuit City, and CompUSA, let alone return to its go-go days. The problem is less anything that Best Buy did or didn't do than the fact that times have changed and there's no going back."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57411933-92/worst-of-all-worlds-for-best-buy


Viking robots found life on Mars in 1976, scientists say:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47031923/ns/technology_and_science-space


Bubba Watson wins the Masters:

http://www.ajc.com/sports/watson-works-wonders-and-1411084.html


Phil Humber tosses MLB's 21st perfect game:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/white-sox-rhp-phil-humber-222948392--mlb.html


Arkansas fires coach Bobby Petrino following scandal:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57411010/60-minutes-icon-mike-wallace-dies-at-93


Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer known as the ‘Merchant of Death’, was sentenced to 25 years in prison...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9189852/Merchant-of-Death-Viktor-Bout-sentenced-to-25-years-in-prison.html


San Francisco restaurant Sam Wo, made famous by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen and the "Tales of the City" novels of Armistead Maupin, closes after 100 years:

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/21/11321018-san-franciscos-world-rudest-waiter-restaurant-sam-wo-shuts-after-100-years


Lollapalooza 2012 lineup headliners: The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jack White, The Black Keys and, batting cleanup, Black Sabbath:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lollapalooza-2012-lineup-black-sabbath-chili-peppers-jack-white-20120411

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RIP

Thomas Kinkade, one of America's most popular painters, 54.  Stop drinking the haterade, all you dissers!  "What people were responding to was the way his paintings made them feel. We used to call it a 20-second vacation on their wall. People wanted to put themselves into the picture in their imagination. He wanted to give people a way to celebrate the good things in the world around them and visually take a little break in what they contend with day-to-day."

http://www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos/ci_20385235/brother-says-painter-thomas-kinkade-battled-alcoholism


Amplifier maker Jim Marshall, 88
As Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue put it: "You were responsible for some of the greatest audio moments in music's history and 50% of all our hearing loss......"

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/04/marshall-amplification-jim-marshall-dies.html


Ferdinand A. Porsche, Designer of the 911, Dies at 76:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/automobiles/ferdinand-a-porsche-76-dies-designed-celebrated-911.html


"60 Minutes" icon Mike Wallace dies at 93:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57411010/60-minutes-icon-mike-wallace-dies-at-93


Dick Clark of American Bandstand:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/arts/television/dick-clark-tv-host-and-icon-of-new-years-eve-is-dead-at-82.html


Levon Helm, co-founder of The Band, dead at 71:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/19/showbiz/obit-levon-helm/index.html


Jonathan Frid, ‘Dark Shadows’ Star, at 87:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/20/arts/television/jonathan-frid-ghoulish-dark-shadows-star-dies-at-87.html

Significa 4-23-12

Awesome Quotes: Stanley Kubrick

"Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous."

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Rock Tour of the Year: Kiss & Motley Crue

As Gene Simmons put it, "Come out, we’ll blow shit up, go home and fuck your girlfriend!"

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kiss-and-motley-crue-announce-the-tour-20120321

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Football Moves & Analysis

* Denver Broncos sign Peyton Manning

End result: Good but not great.  Whether it's Manning or Tebow, John Elway's team isn't a major Super Bowl threat.  They'll probably win the AFC West again, though.

* Tim Tebow to the New York Jets

End result: A terrible move. A better place for Tebow would have been either Jacksonvile or New England, where he could learn under the best behind Tom Brady, like how Steve Young sat for four years behind Montana.

I'm no Tebow hater, but he needs either one of two things to succeed: a team where he is either the clear starter or a competitive option to be one, or a team where he is clearly a backup without soap opera, where he can sit and learn. The Jets are the worst of all worlds, a place already with unproductive soap opera that will only get worst with Tebowmania, and his inclusion in the roster will only rattle an already suspect Mark Sanchez. Instead of having two good QBs this year they will likely have zero.

I'm a big fan of Rex Ryan (hell, the Jets were my Super Bowl pick last year) but I'm kind of worried that he may turn out to be the Billy Martin of football. A smart guy who does know strategy, a great motivator when he comes to a team, but a dude that has an act that runs thin after a couple of years. The Tebow move smacks of desperation, and it doesn't help sway my suspicions at all.

The Jets probably won't make the playoffs in 2012, and don't be surprised if they end up last in the AFC East.

* Jacksonville Jaguars don't land Tebow

End result: The Los Angeles Jaguars become increasingly likely.

* San Francisco 49ers don't sign Manning, sign Alex Smith

End result: If anyone can repair the damage done to Smith's confidence over SF's inclusion in the Manning lottery, it's coach Jim Harbaugh.  Signing great receivers like Randy Moss and Super Bowl hero Mario Manningham helps even more, along with what should be the best defense in the NFL.  Look for the 49ers to win the 2013 Super Bowl.

* New Orleans Saints get busted over player bounty scandal, leading to coach Sean Payton's suspension by the NFL for the entire 2012 season

End result: Major bad.  What would've been in my top three teams to win Super Bowl XLVII (along with SF and the Detroit Lions) probably won't make the playoffs in a highly competitive division, even if Bill Parcells became the temporary coach.  Still, the penalties were necessary and deserved for the crimes.  Look at the Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers winning and the Atlanta Falcons getting a wild card.  Despite the setbacks, Drew Brees will have another superstar year, and they will be back in 2013.

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God Bless America

Bobcat Goldthwait has delivered a movie that may just be the perfect antidote for everything that's wrong in the USA.  Here's Richard Metzger of DangerousMinds.net describing it:

The great French film director Jean-Luc Godard once famously quipped “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” but it’s unlikely that he had anything like Bobcat Goldthwait’s outrageous new satire, God Bless America in mind when he said that.

The most vicious, hilarious and timely takedown of American culture since Network, God Bless America follows the downward trajectory of the dismal life of Frank (Joel Murray), an unemployed sad-sack everyman who is given the sort of medical diagnosis that no one wants to hear. Alone, dejected, depressed and suicidal, Frank opts to put a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger, but is distracted by a monstrously selfish Beverly Hills teenager on a TV reality show. In a flash, Frank decides that if he’s going to go, he’s going to take this pampered brat with him.

Frank’s execution of Chloe is witnessed by one of her classmates, Roxy, played by Tara Lynne Barr in perhaps the single most gleefully nihilistic performances a teenage girl has ever given in all of cinematic history. Roxy’s Tarantino-esque rant about why Alice Cooper is the greatest, most influential rockstar of all time— I mean, she does prove it here beyond all argument— is one of the film’s comic highlights.

Egged on by his curiously homicidal teen accomplice, Frank decides to mow down more rude, selfish people before his disease takes him. Like a Bonnie and Clyde for the YouTube era, Frank and Roxy embark on a wave of carnage and mayhem, eliminating a blowhard TV pundit based on Glenn Beck, religious extremists and in the film’s over-the-top climax, most of the studio audience at an American Idol-type program.

As Frank so earnestly puts it: “I only want to kill people who deserve to die.”

Source:
http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/dangerous_minds_interviews_bobcat_goldthwait_for_his_new_film_god

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Let's hear it for cinematic auteur Michael Bay for being a voice of reason among the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles community. "Fans need to take a breath and chill... Our team is working closely with one of the original creators of 'Ninja Turtles' to help expand and give a more complex back story... We are just building a richer world." His calm coolness is impressive, though I wonder if it's possible to take TMNT to even greater intellectual density than the labyrinth-like tales that rivaled The Sopranos. Also, how do you top hiring Vanilla Ice to sing your theme song?

Full Article:
http://news.yahoo.com/michael-bay-tells-ninja-turtles-fans-chill-221943892.html

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John Edwards Named in Prostitution Ring

Full Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/john-edwards-millionaire-madam-anna-gristina-upper-east-side-_n_1372316.html

Robalini's Notes: I know Edwards is considered persona non grata at this point, but it's hard to not be cynical that the only three politicians outed in US prostitution scandals (Edwards, Eliot Spitzer and Dominique Strauss-Kahn) happen to be three guys who were potentially the biggest threats to the banking establishment...

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Obligatory Dick Cheney Joke

Dick Cheney received a heart transplant from a donor.  No word what they did to the donor's body after slicing him open in offering to Satan...

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YouTube Special: The Mason's Secret's in the Bible Exposed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKj4-Ct3rds

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Milestones

Welcome back, Mad Men & Game of Thrones...

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/on-mad-men-an-opening-scene-straight-from-page-1

http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/03/30/game-of-thrones-showrunners-season-2

Adam Sandler Flick Jack and Jill sweeps all ten categories at the Razzies:

http://www.eonline.com/news/razzies_shocker_adam_sandler_sweeps/305597

Ashton Kutcher to play Steve Jobs on film:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/04/01/ashton-kutcher-to-play-steve-jobs-in-biopic

Tiger Woods wins again:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57404200/tiger-woods-wins-1st-pga-tour-event-since-2009

Magic Johnson becomes the new face of the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership for $2 billion:

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-dodgerssale

12-year-old Tom Schaar becomes the first skateboarder to land a 1080:

http://www.grindtv.com/skate/blog/33206/skateboarder+tom+schaar+12+makes+history+with+first-ever+1080

The 2012 Basketball Hall of Fame class, led by Reggie Miller, Don Nelson and Ralph Sampson, was announced:

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/basketball/nba/story/2012-04-02/Reggie-Miller-Don-Nelson-top-Hall-of-Fame-list/53947212/1

The Kentucky Wildcats (coached by John Calipari, who previously took two other schools two the Final Four without a championship) cruised to victory behind the dominating presence of Anthony Davis on defense:

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/colleges/11682383-419/anthony-davis-leads-kentucky-to-title.html

Meanwhile, Baylor, led by Brittney Griner, won the women's title, capping an undefeated season  Griner may be the best female player ever, and they will be decided favorites to repeat undefeated next year, with the possibility of breaking UConn's 90-game win streak in 2013-14:

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-baylor-20120404,0,3520652.story

RIP:

Chaleo Yoovidhya, co-founder of Red Bull, the energy drink company:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/17/world/asia/thailand-red-bull-founder-dead

Earl Scruggs, bluegrass banjo player:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/arts/music/earl-scruggs-bluegrass-banjo-player-dies-at-88.html

Significa 3-21-12

Konformist Book Club Excerpt:
What Revelation Reveals
It is the Bible's strangest book. Even stranger, it was only one of many now-forgotten 'books of revelation'
ELAINE PAGELS
March 2, 2012
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203753704577253611876502848.html

The Book of Revelation is the strangest book in the Bible, and the most controversial. Instead of stories and moral teaching, it offers only visions—dreams and nightmares, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, earthquakes, plagues and war. In the climactic battle scene, Jesus appears as a divine warrior, Satan is thrown into a pit, and all humans who had died faithful to God reign over the earth for 1,000 years.

The author, John of Patmos, was a Jewish prophet and a follower of Jesus who probably began to write around the year 90 after fleeing a war that had ravaged his homeland, Judea. But his Book of Revelation wasn't unique. At the time, countless others—Jews, pagans and Christians—produced a flood of "books of revelation," claiming to reveal divine secrets. Some have been known for centuries; about 20 others were found in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945.

So what do the other revelations tell us, and how did John's come to trump the others? Unlike the Book of Revelation, the great majority of the others weren't about the end of the world, but about finding the divine in it now. Many offered encouragement to seek direct contact with God—a message that some early Christian leaders ultimately chose to suppress.

The Revelation of Zostrianos, found in 1945, tells how the young author, tormented by questions and overwhelmed by depression, walked alone into the desert. Finding no place "to rest my spirit," Zostrianos says he had resolved to kill himself. But he says that suddenly he became aware of a being radiating light, who "said to me, 'Zostrianos…have you gone mad?' "

This divine presence, Zostrianos says, released him from despair and offered illumination. Then, Zostrianos says, "I realized that the power in me was greater than the darkness, because it contained the whole light."

Another 1945 find, the Revelation of Peter, similarly opens in a desperate moment. Peter says he was standing in the temple with other disciples when "I saw the priests and the people running up to us with stones, as if they would kill us." Terrified, he says, he heard Jesus tell him to "put your hands…over your eyes, and say what you see." Peter sees nothing. Jesus tells him to do it again. Peter says: "And fear came over me, [and] joy, for I saw a new light greater than the light of day. Then it came down upon the Savior, and I told him what I saw."

Although such revelations might not change outward circumstances—tradition tells us that, just as Peter feared, he was caught and crucified—the Revelation of Peter suggests that what Jesus revealed enabled him to face his death with courage and hope.

These other revelations, written several generations after Jesus' death, were often written by anonymous followers of Jesus under the names of disciples—not to deceive their readers but to show that they were writing "in the spirit" of those whose names they borrowed. Many were probably not written by Christians at all. Some of the revelations drew upon sacred traditions of Egypt and Greece and, in some cases, on the Hebrew Bible. Others included practices similar to Buddhist meditation techniques.

The Secret Revelation of John opens, again, in crisis. The disciple John, grieving Jesus' death, is walking toward the temple when he meets a Pharisee who mocks him for having been deceived by a false messiah. These taunts echoed John's own fear and doubt. Devastated, John turns away from the temple and heads toward the desert, where, he says, "I grieved greatly in my heart."

Suddenly, he says, he saw brilliant light as the heavens opened, and the earth shook beneath his feet. Terrified, John says he saw a luminous presence that kept changing form, and then heard Jesus' voice: "John, John, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid?…I am the one who is with you always. I am the Father; I am the Mother; I am the Son."

The Jesus who appears in the Secret Revelation doesn't look as he does in the Book of Revelation. Instead of a divine warrior leading heavenly armies to "strike down the nations," he appears as the apostle Paul says he saw him—in blazing light and a heavenly voice, and then in changing forms: first as a child, then as an old man, then—and here scholars disagree—either as a servant or as a woman. Through a series of visions and imagery, the Secret Revelation suggests that what is revealed to John is potentially available to all people—or, at least, to all who are receptive to what the spirit teaches.

In the fourth century, bishops intent on establishing "orthodoxy" labored to suppress writings like the Secret Revelation. Although they didn't deny that Jesus was human, they tended to place Jesus on the divine side of the equation—not only divine but, in the words of the Nicene Creed, "God from God…essentially the same as God." Orthodox theologians insisted that the rest of humankind were only transitory creatures, lost in sin—a view that would support what would become their dominant teaching about salvation, offered only through Christ, and, in particular, through the church they claimed to represent.

From the second century, Christian leaders, who saw their close groups torn apart as Roman magistrates arrested and executed their most outspoken members, felt that John's Book of Revelation spoke directly to these crises because it prophesied God's victory over Rome. Such Christians championed this book above the rest. Some challenged other books of revelation, with their more universal visions, calling them illegitimate and heretical.

Throughout the ages, Christians have adapted John of Patmos's visions to changing times, reading their own social, political and religious conflicts into the cosmic war he so powerfully evokes. Yet his Book of Revelation appeals not only to fear and desires for vengeance but also to hope. As John tells how the chaotic events of the world are finally set right by divine judgment, those who engage his visions often see them offering moral meaning in times of suffering or apparently random catastrophe. Many poets, artists and preachers have claimed to find in these prophecies the promise, famously repeated by Martin Luther King Jr., that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

The Book of Revelation reads as if John had wrapped up all our worst fears—fears of violence, plague, wild animals, unimaginable horrors from the abyss below the earth, lightning, hail, earthquakes and the atrocities or torture and war—into one gigantic nightmare. Yet this worst of all nightmares ends not in terror but in a glorious new world. Whether one sees in John's visions the destruction of the whole world or the dark tunnel that propels each of us toward our own death, his final vision suggests that even after the worst we can imagine has happened, we may find the astonishing gift of new life. Whether or not one shares that conviction, few readers miss seeing how these visions offer consolation and that most necessary of divine gifts—hope.

— Excerpted from "Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation" published by Viking

Kindle Edition $14.99:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation-ebook/dp/B006LU1O44/thekonformist

Hardcover $16.25:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0670023345/thekonformist

Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged $22.70:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0307988260/thekonformist

Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $21.44 or Free with Audible 30-day free trial:
http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/B007HI3B9U/thekonformist

A version of this article appeared Mar. 3, 2012, on page C3 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: What Revelation Reveals.

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Music Video of the week:
Again, by Alice in Chains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__biilMpnmw&ob=av2e

Why is Alice in Chains the favorite Seattle band of Robalini? This is why...

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The World’s Top 10 Billionaires
Source: Forbes.com

1. Carlos Slim Helú
Net Worth: $69 billion

2. Bill Gates
Net Worth: $61 billion

3. Warren Buffett
Net Worth: $44 billion

4. Bernard Arnault
Net Worth: $41 billion

5. Amancio Ortega
Net Worth: $37.5 billion

6. Larry Ellison
Net Worth: $36 billion

7. Eike Batista
Net Worth: $30 billion

8. Stefan Persson
Net Worth: $26 billion

9. Name: Li Ka-shing
Net Worth: $25.5 billion

10. Karl Albrecht
Net Worth: $25.4 billion

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YouTube Film of the Month: The Primacy of Consciousness - Peter Russell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d4ugppcRUE

Via Disinfo.com:

Peter Russell explores the problems science has explaining consciousness and proposes that consciousness is not created by the brain, but is inherent in all beings. He shows why mind is more fundamental than matter, and the the key to this shift is the revolution in our understanding of the light.

The excerpted version (10 mins) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqSxHzqm1pw

DVD available from:

http://peterrussell.com/store

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Kool Websites

Dutch Farms
http://www.dutchfarms.com

Welcome to Dutch Farms Inc., where we are proud to offer farm-fresh Dairy, Deli, Meat and Bakery products. We are a family-owned, fourth generation, Chicago-based company with Dutch roots.

The Dutch have always been known for their dairy products …especially wonderful cheese. At Dutch Farms, we offer outstanding cheese, butter and eggs. Try our dairy products in all of your favorite recipes. Soon, you’ll be saying, “I want Dutch Farms!”


TaxSlayer.com
http://www.taxslayer.com

Includes All Major Forms & Schedules:

Authorized e-File Provider

Business Forms (Sch C and F)
Rental Property (Sch E and K-1)
1040EZ, 1040A, 1040
Itemized Deductions
Tuition and Fees Deduction

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The Original Wrecking Ball: Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska”
Ian Crouch
March 6, 2012
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/03/bruce-springsteen-nebraska.html

Bruce Springsteen’s seventeenth studio album, “Wrecking Ball,” has landed. It pairs some musical experimentation—tape loops, samples, a bit of rapping (not by the Boss, thankfully, but by the gospel singer Michelle Moore)—with familiar Springsteen lyrical iconography: American flags, steel wheels, shuttered factories, and suitcases packed for a quick escape. Springsteen told Rolling Stone that “the record basically started out as folk music—just me and a guitar singing these songs,” before he began working with producer Ron Aniello on a more eclectic and anthemic sound. In the same interview, Springsteen also said: “This is as direct a record as I ever made. That’s with the possible exception of ‘Nebraska,’ which this record has a lot in common with.”

Let’s see. This January marked the thirtieth anniversary of the recording of “Nebraska,” one of the more mythical events in pop-music history. Over the course of several days at his home in Colts Neck, New Jersey, and armed principally with a guitar, harmonica, and glockenspiel, Springsteen laid down what he thought were demos for a new album that he’d record with the E Street Band. That album never got made; after rehearsals with the full band, Springsteen, his manager, Jon Landau, and others decided that the lyrics—about murder, hard luck, regret, and father-and-son strife—were better served by the low-fi originals. What emerged on “Nebraska” was a hushed, thin, and stark sound, which, because of its provenance, seemed almost divinely inspired. Accordingly, the device that captured the sound, a Tascam Portastudio 144 tape recorder, has become a kind of holy object among fans. The album’s lyrics, meanwhile, seem drawn from a harrowing and unnervingly gorgeous hell right here on earth.

In “Heart of Darkness: Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska,” a new history of the album, published this past December, David Burke connects its themes to the political and economic climate that marked the early Reagan years. Springsteen has said that Reagan’s election startled him into a newfound political consciousness. Burke quotes a Springsteen interview in which the Boss said that “Nebraska” was about the loss of community and “spiritual breakdown,” times and places when people “just get shot off somewhere where nothing seems to matter.” Among the album’s story songs, murder ballads, confessions, and deathbed laments are plenty of sociological markers. Bad prices have killed the family farm. The bank is about to take the house. Vietnam vets have been screwed from all sides. Someone closed the auto plant in Mahwah.

The economy was lousy in 1982, and it’s lousy today, at least for the people who appear in Springsteen songs. “Wrecking Ball” is also filled with criminals, but they aren’t the outcasts and the misfits that populate “Nebraska.” This time, they are members of the one per cent. And, while “Nebraska” tells plaintive, first-person stories, most of the songs on “Wrecking Ball” are thematic rather than narrative—fables about the capital-letter ideas of Politics, the Economy, and the State of the Union. With its proud liberal populism and wide sampling of the national musical melting pot, “Wrecking Ball” is a big-tent vision of America. It may be an imperfect and deeply unfair place, but it’s still a party. And perhaps a hootenany will help sort things out. (It’s fitting that Obama included the album’s first single, “We Take Care of Our Own” on his campaign playlist on Spotify.)

If “Wrecking Ball” is the big top, then “Nebraska” is the freak show. Burke’s book is informative, but it places too much emphasis on the songs as cultural commentary; they are about something deeply sinister. Sissy Spacek’s affectless narration in the Terrence Malick movie “Badlands” inspired the album’s title track, told from the man’s perspective, which opens: “I saw her standin’ on her front lawn, just a-twirlin’ her baton. / Me and her went for a ride, sir, and ten innocent people died.” The prairie edge continues with the screechy yodel that kicks off “Johnny 99.” And the chilling shriek that ends “State Trooper.” Springsteen was reading Flannery O’Connor at the time. The album is shot through with the real possibility of an evil that transcends circumstance, what O’Connor writes about in the story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”: “Then it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can—by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness.”

“Nebraska” may be an anomaly in Springsteen’s career rather than a signpost. (Stephen Metcalf, writing at Slate, once called it “the only record you can push on the nonbelievers.”) It doesn’t offer signs of hope, redemption, or community. There’s no “we” anywhere in it. It’s nihilistic in its philosophy, and agnostic in its politics. Perhaps most importantly, the album, in its tightly controlled sound and theme, resists the power of Springsteen’s outsized personality and his immense power to entertain. There has often been a dissonance between Bruce Springsteen’s music and the content of his lyrics. It’s why “Born in the U.S.A.”—a deeply anti-American song—gets played at Tea Party rallies. The big political numbers on “Wrecking Ball” may have started as folk songs, and they look serious on paper, but they’ll be heard beneath the bright lights of stadiums, and most likely this fall at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Nebraska,” meanwhile, is about a different kind of politics, and should be heard in the dark.

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Awesome Technology: The Robo-Cheetah
Fatest robot on four legs at 18 MPH:

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/robocheetah-sets-new-record-as-fastest-robot-on-four-legs-20120306-1uh7m.html

Not-So-Awesome Technology: Pink Slime

AKA Soylent Pink, it's ammonia-treated cow tissues that were added to beef at fast food joints (and even more sinisterly, school lunches) until recently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/pink-slime-for-school-lun_n_1322325.html

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Netflix Said to Be Aiming for a Cable Partnership
AMY CHOZICK
March 7, 2012
Full Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/business/media/netflix-is-said-to-be-meeting-with-cable-providers.html

Netflix’s chief executive, Reed Hastings, has often compared his company’s Web streaming service to HBO. That comparison is inching closer to reality.

Over the last several weeks, Mr. Hastings and his top lieutenants have met with major cable operators to discuss a way for Netflix to appear on monthly cable bills, according to people who are familiar with the meetings but are not authorized to discuss negotiations publicly.

A partnership with cable providers, along with an ambitious slate of original series, would put Netflix one step closer to competing with premium cable channels, like HBO, Showtime and Starz, that offer original series and movies for a monthly fee.

“To be able to add Netflix to the bill, that might be very powerful, especially as we do more and more original content,” Mr. Hastings said at a Morgan Stanley media and technology conference in San Francisco last week.

“We are more and more a classic cable network,” Mr. Hastings said, adding that partnering with cable providers would eventually be the “logical path.”

A Netflix spokesman declined to comment on discussions with cable operators, but said Mr. Hastings’s comments in San Francisco were “futuristic.”

The nascent negotiations with cable operators, first reported by Reuters, underscore how Netflix has evolved. Once, on the strength of its popular DVD-by-mail service and emerging streaming offerings, the company was viewed as a rival to cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the kind that could lead to widespread cord-cutting.

Netflix has stumbled, however, in obtaining rights to stream television shows and movies, and as the company has added streaming subscribers, it has lost subscribers to its DVD service.

At the same time, competitors have emerged. Last month, Comcast began an online streaming service called Streampix. The service is now available to Comcast’s 22.3 million Xfinity subscribers, but the company has the reach to one day expand the service beyond its customer base.

Also last month, Verizon said it would partner with Coinstar’s Redbox on a Web streaming service at a monthly rate of $4.99, compared with $7.99 for unlimited streaming on Netflix. The $79-a-year Amazon Prime service, which also offers shipping and Kindle benefits, has licensing deals with major television networks and movie studios. And Time Warner’s HBO Go, a streaming service available only to HBO subscribers, has been cited by Mr. Hastings as Netflix’s biggest competitor.

Partnering with a major cable operator would instantly increase the number of subscribers to Netflix, which currently has about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States, according to the company...

Significa 3-20-12

Kool Inventions
which is the cooler invention by modern science?

A zero gravity roller coaster - AKA "The Vomit Comet" - based on NASA's KC-135A that is used to train astronauts:

http://news.yahoo.com/zero-gravity-roller-coaster-could-bring-weightless-thrills-120008782.html

Chaotic Moon Labs' Board of Imagination, which is controlled by brainwaves:

http://news.yahoo.com/zero-gravity-roller-coaster-could-bring-weightless-thrills-120008782.html

Actually, in the long run, the winner may Swiss designer Yves Behar for his solar-powered $100 tablet, which will open up the Internet and educational opportunities to the poorest in both industrialized countries and the Third World:

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/24/technology/yves_behar_next_list

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Awesome Quotes

"I am as ashamed as I possibly could be of our colonial past... I think they should be Argentinian."
Roger Waters of Pink Floyd on the Falkland Islands

"A big promise has been broken. You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses. You can't have a civilization where something is factionalized like this.”
Bruce Springsteen

"Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."
Vince Lombardi

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Real Estate Porn

Dick Clark's Malibu estate, modeled after The Flintones' home, on the market for $3.5 million...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2109325/TV-legend-Dick-Clark-puts-Flintstones-style-Malibu-retreat-market-3-5million.html

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FeedBack: Turning America Into Pottersville

Excellent article. I try to remind people all the time of how the events of history got us where we are today - and should be examined for clues on the best direction to take for the future. Why would we want to go back to an era similar to that of prohibition with folk heroes like John Dillinger, Babyface Nelson, Al Capone, Bonnie & Clyde? The "guv-mint" and the rich elitists really need to understand - if we got nothing to lose, what's the point of following the law?

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Ben & Jerry's Flavor of the Week

Taste the Lin-Sanity: A mix of Vanilla Fro Yo with swirls of Lychee Honey, served a waffle cookie. (Originally it included "fortune cookie pieces" but they were removed due to political incorrectness. Oh well.) Served only at B&J's Harvard Square shop...

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Milestones

"I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and - famously — I enjoy making enemies."
Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012) from his book Righteous Indignation. He may have been a vicious SOB, but he was a very entertaining vicious SOB...

Davey Jones of The Monkees also passed away, a band that has never gotten the respect or credit it deserves. via YouTube, here's "She" - a gem that is rarely heard anymore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HOQxAVNOkk

RIP as well to highly influential fantasy artists: Star Wars conceptual designer Ralph McQuarrie, whose work helped greenlight what was then viewed as a highly dubious project, and Jean "Moebius" Giraud, who magazine Heavy Metal helped inspire movies such as Alien and Blade Runner. As film director Luc Besson put it, "Moebius is to comic books what Miles Davis is to jazz: the master." More RIPs: guitarist Ronnie Montrose, "Broken Windows" social scientist James Q. Wilson and founding Firesign Theatre member Peter Bergman...

Farewell to Peyton Manning as QB of the Indianapolis Colts and Dennis Kucinish in Congress, and tip-o-the-hat to the late great Wilt Chamberlain for his 100-point game turning 50, The Simpsons for broadcasting its 500th episode, Randy Moss returning to the NFL with Robalini's favorite San Francisco 49ers and Japan's own Takeru Kobayashi for eating 13 grilled cheese sandwiches in one minute in Austin, Texas...

Significa 2-29-12

Super Bowl Ad of the Year: Matthew's Day Off
(With all due respect to Clint Eastwood...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhkDdayA4iA

To celebrate the launch of the all-new 2012 CR-V, Honda brought Ferris Bueller's Day Off back in a big game commercial. We cast Matthew Broderick as himself, skipping out on a day of acting work and living it up in his all-new CR-V. Relive movie history with Honda's fresh twist and wonderful homage to this '80s classic.

Think you're a true fan of Ferris Bueller's Day Off? We hid over two dozen references to the movie throughout the commercial. Some are obvious, some are VERY subtle. See how many you can find. #dayoff

http://automobiles.honda.com
http://cr-v.honda.com
http://leaplist.honda.com
http://facebook.com/hondacrv

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Who is the most desirable woman on the planet? According to www.AskMen.com, it's Sofia Vergara. Pretty hard to argue against:

Why is Sofia Vergara no. 1?

When it comes to Colombian imports, none are more in demand than Sofia Vergara these days. The jaw-dropping Modern Family star is one of our favorite things about one of our favorite comedies. Vergara shows off the best cleavage on network TV, and we've never been more jealous of Ed O'Neill. But despite her obvious assets, Vergara's also one very funny woman, lampooning stereotypes with her perfect timing. You don't have to pretend to laugh at her jokes, even if you do have to make a concerted effort to pay attention to them. And though you'd never think it to look at her, Vergara is mother to a 20-year-old.

"I am so honored to be AskMen’s most desired woman this year. A big thank you to all the men who desire me."
Sofia Vergara

Full list of AskMen's 99 babes:

http://www.askmen.com/specials/2012_top_99

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Robalini's Deep Philosophical Piece of the Week

Q: Are there cats & dogs in heaven?
A: If cats & dogs aren't there, how can it be called heaven?

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Found: A mysterious object in the Baltic Sea, by deep-sea salvage company Ocean Explorer. According to the NY Daily News, "Through the use of side-scan sonar, the team discovered a disc-like object that measures nearly 200 feet in diameter and has generated out-of-this-world speculation." The coolest theory is that it's a UFO, one that suspiciously resembles Han Solo's spaceship The Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. Other theories, according to Benjamin Radford of the Skeptical Inquirer, are: Russian warships, Atlantis, a marine version of Stonehenge, or a plug to another world inside Earth. Radford, the pure skeptic to the end, doesn't buy any of these scenarios. Quit harshing our mellow, dude...

For more info:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/team-investigate-underwater-ufo-sunken-ships-millennium-falcon-article-1.1013642

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46226992/ns/technology_and_science-science/

http://www.BenjaminRadford.com

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Album of the Month: Born to Die

Never mind the haters. Lana Del Rey, aka "The Gangsta Nancy Sinatra" delivers the goods...

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YouTube Video of the Week: Give Me All Your Luvin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cItHOl5LRWg

Madonna is back, with Nicki Minaj & M.I.A. (sans middle finger) dressed as cheerleaders. Winning!

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The BlackBerry, Trying to Avoid the Hall of Fallen Giants
SAM GROBART and IAN AUSTEN
January 28, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/business/blackberry-aiming-to-avoid-the-hall-of-fallen-giants.html

Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets, sent its co-chief executives packing last week and replaced them with Thorsten Heins, who had been RIM’s chief operating officer. How would he characterize his employer?

“We make the best communications devices in the world,” said Mr. Heins, who met with editors and reporters from The New York Times on Friday.

Not everyone feels the same way. Over the last year, RIM’s share price has plunged 75 percent. The company once commanded more than half of the American smartphone market. Today it has 10 percent.

RIM has two, maybe three ways forward.

The first — the one that Mr. Heins is clearly aiming for — is a triumphant comeback after a near-death experience. Think Apple and its iMac. RIM is on the verge of upgrading its PlayBook operating system — now with, among other things, e-mail, a feature that the original PlayBook bafflingly lacked — and will release the BlackBerry 10 OS this year.

Behind Door No. 2 is a gradual decline and diminution as rivals like Apple, Google and Microsoft devour most of the market; to some degree, they already have. BlackBerry would keep the scraps — a small but dedicated following of corporate and government customers who want its proprietary messaging and security features.

Then there is the third option: oblivion. The road of progress is littered with the corpses of fallen titans. Objects that once seemed as indispensable as the companies that made them have been mercilessly superseded — as seen below. And RIM ought to know: with mobile devices like the BlackBerry 957, it helped to extinguish the pager era.

SONY WALKMAN (1979-2010) Before the Walkman, “personal audio” meant holding a transistor radio to your ear. Sony’s invention created an entire category of devices and helped make the company the technology leader of the 1980s. New models (Thinner! Auto-reverse!) were eagerly anticipated, the LP was relegated to the attic and tender moments spent listening to mix tapes from that certain someone proliferated across teenage bedrooms. Sony seemed incapable of putting a foot wrong. It successfully moved the brand into compact discs with the Discman, then bought record labels and movie studios to bring about that illusory marriage of technology and content. When the digital revolution hit, Sony was too beholden to its proprietary formats, as well as to the inertia inside its media companies. Enter Apple and the iPod.

PAGERS (BORN 1951) At first, pagers were attached to people who worked in fields where lives were on the line. That usually meant doctors, though the group expanded in the late 1980s to include drug dealers. Early beepers displayed only numbers, giving rise to a numerical lexicon that included codes like 911 (call me back immediately) and 07734, which resembles “hello” when read upside down. Pagers briefly gained fame in early 1990s hip-hop, showing up in songs like “Skypager,” by a Tribe Called Quest. The pager’s fall was attributable to the disruptive and destructive powers of another technology: the mobile phone. Why beep when you can talk? And a pager message is so tiny that it makes a tweet look like “The Iliad.” The beeper does live on, in limited circles: its network remains more reliable than cell networks, making it useful to E.M.S. and other rescue workers.

PALM PILOT (1997-2007) Filofax brought personal organizers to their analog apogee in the early ’90s, but Palm brought them into the digital age. Palm Pilots were dazzling when they first appeared: all of your contacts, calendars and notes in one slim, pocket-size device. A touch screen, which required a stylus, made navigation easy. And you could add software, bought through an online store. Want a Zagat guide to go along with your personal data? No problem. In later years, Palm even added telephone features, creating a compelling, all-in-one gadget. Despite boardroom dramas that affected the company’s name and its ownership, Palm’s reputation as a source of innovative hardware and software endured until Jan. 9, 2007. Why that date? That’s when Apple introduced the iPhone.

POLAROID INSTANT CAMERAS (1948-2008) Edwin Land’s invention of instant-developing film in 1948 put a darkroom inside a handheld camera. That achievement gave his Polaroid Corporation a distinct advantage over traditional film cameras. By 1980, Polaroid was selling 7.8 million cameras a year in the United States — more than half of all the 15 million cameras, instant and traditional, sold that year. In 1985, it won a major patent-infringement suit, forcing Kodak to abandon its own instant-camera efforts. The victory was short-lived. The late ’80s brought the rise of the digital camera. By 2000, digital cameras began appearing on cellphones, placing cameras in millions of pockets. Polaroid declared bankruptcy for the first time in 2001 and stopped making instant film in 2008. Kodak declared bankruptcy on Jan. 19.

ATARI 2600 (1977-c.1984) It wasn’t the first game console, but the Atari 2600 brought video games into the home and popular culture. Over its life span, more than 30 million were sold. Pong, Combat, Pitfall and Frogger soaked up children’s afternoons. Then came the PC, which could play games and do much more. Atari rushed out games, assuming that its customers would play whatever it released. They didn’t. Millions of unsold games and consoles were buried in a New Mexico landfill in 1983. Warner Communications, which bought Atari in 1976 for $28 million, sold it in 1984 for no cash.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 29, 2012, on page BU5 of the New York edition with the headline: The BlackBerry, Trying to Avoid the Hall of Fallen Giants..

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Quiet Quiz: Are You an Introvert or an Extrovert?
Excerpted from: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/145930229/quiet-please-unleashing-the-power-of-introverts

To Find out where you fall on the introvert-extrovert spectrum, answer each question True or False, choosing the one that applies to you more often than not.

1. ______ I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities.

2. ______ I often prefer to express myself in writing.

3. ______ I enjoy solitude.

4. ______ I seem to care about wealth, fame, and status less than my peers.

5. ______ I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.

6. ______ People tell me that I'm a good listener.

7. ______ I'm not a big risk-taker.

8. ______ I enjoy work that allows me to "dive in" with few interruptions.

9. ______ I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members.

10. ______ People describe me as "soft-spoken" or "mellow."

11. ______ I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it's ?nished.

12. ______ I dislike conflict.

13. ______ I do my best work on my own.

14. ______I tend to think before I speak.

15.______ I feel drained after being out and about, even if I've enjoyed myself.

16. ______I often let calls go through to voice mail.

17. ______If you had to choose, I'd prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled.

18. ______ I don't enjoy multitasking.

19. ______ I can concentrate easily

20. ______ In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars.

The more often you answered True, the more introverted you are. This is an informal quiz, not a scientifically validated personality test. The questions were formulated based on characteristics of introversion often accepted by contemporary researchers.

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Underground Movie of the Week: Kill List
Director: Ben Wheatley

From Salon.com:

Love it or hate it, “Kill List” is a definite widescreen cinematic experience loaded with delicious details, from the hotel clerk who holds a conversation without really listening to the sound of someone getting his brains beaten out against a concrete wall. He’s like a faux-Cockney Quentin Tarantino, passionate about the things he loves and also dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon tradition of “taking the piss” — and believe it or not, I mean that as a compliment.

Full Review:
A clever British horror-thriller nods to Tarantino
Andrew O'Hehir
Thursday, Feb 2, 2012
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/03/a_clever_british_horror_thriller_nods_to_tarantino

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TV Show of the Week: Comic Book Men

AMC's new series takes place in Kevin Smith's Secret Stash comic store in Red Bank, New Jersey. It's like Pawn Stars for comic book fans:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-comic-book-men-20120211,0,4358774.story

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Awesome Quotes

“From our beginning, in hindsight at least, our social direction is clear. We have moved to become one people out of many. At intervals, men or groups, through fear of people or the desire to use them, have tried to change our direction, to arrest our growth, or to stampede the Americans. This will happen again and again. The impulses which for a time enforced the Alien and Sedition Laws, which have used fear and illicit emotion to interfere with and put a stop to our continuing revolution, will rise again, and they will serve us in the future as they have in the past to clarify and to strengthen our process. We have failed sometimes, taken wrong paths, paused for renewal, filled our bellies and licked our wounds; but we have never slipped back - never."
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.

"Life is hard; it's harder if you're stupid."
John Wayne

"The more I know about people, the better I like my dog."
Mark Twain

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Kool Websites: Free Stuff & Great Deals Edition

The following list of sites is courtesy of Yahoo Shine:
http://shine.yahoo.com/financially-fit/7-ways-score-free-stuff-145400495.html

ShopSmart
http://www.shopsmartmag.org
Consumer Reports quick & easy shopping guide...

Academic Earth
http://www.academicearth.org
Online courses from the world's top scholars...

Howcast
http://www.howcast.com
The best how to videos on the web...

ThunderFap
http://www.thunderfap.com
100% REAL free samples, freebies: NO STRINGS ATTACHED...

Totally Free Stuff
http://www.totallyfreestuff.com
One of the most popular free stuff and savings sites on the internet...

AbsurdlyCool
http://absurdlycool.com
An automated free stuff aggregator designed to collect free stuff offers from top freebie sites...

Hey It's Free!
http://www.heyitsfree.net
Daily freebies, free stuff and free samples...

Eat Free On Your Birthday
http://eatfreeonyourbirthday.com
Where kids AND adults eat free of their birthday...

Freecycle
http://www.freecycle.org
The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 5,019 groups with 8,910,022 members around the world. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by local volunteers (them's good people). Membership is free...

House Party
http://www.houseparty.com
House Party makes it easy to have a party in your own home and get exclusive access to awesome products for you and your friends. We provide the fun, you provide food, your friends and feedback and promise to have an amazing time. Our parties are sponsored by the brands you love. By hosting, you and your guests get to try their products and receive an incredible Party Pack chock full of goodies! You don’t pay anything or sell anything. It’s a no-pressure party. Just tell us what you and your guests think...

BookMooch
http://bookmooch.com
Trade your books with other people...

Swapstyle
http://www.swapstyle.com
The worlds original & number 1 fashion swap site...

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RIP

Don Cornelius, Soul Train creator & host

Angelo Dundee, veteran boxing trainer, most famously for Muhammad Ali

Actor Ben Gazzara

Film writer-director-producer Zalman King

Baseball Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter

L.A. artist Mike Kelley

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Last but definitely not least, RIP Whitney Houston, the greatest vocalist of the MTV era. Here's Dave Zirin on the passing of Ms. Houston:

Whitney Houston: My Love Is Your Love
Dave Zirin
February 13, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/blog/166208/whitney-houston-my-love-your-love

I’m a sports writer and don’t pretend to know anything about music. I listen almost exclusively to hip hop that stopped being recorded fifteen years ago (Organized Konfusion, Tim Dog) or whatever my seven-year-old daughter is into this week (please don’t ask.) I also don’t pretend to know anything about the addictions and demons that plagued Whitney Houston. But I know how it feels to hear that Whitney Houston is dead and I’m trying to come to grips with why I can’t stop thinking about her voice.

Maybe it’s because Whitney lent that singular vocal instrument to two of the most iconic collisions of music and sports. There was Whitney’s National Anthem performance, all confident volume, at the 1991 Super Bowl, which was the forward-marching soundtrack of the Persian Gulf War. I’ve found that people’s opinions of her anthem tend to reflect their opinions on the war itself. Those who favored Operation Desert Storm see it as a patriotic tour de force. Those who stood against the war remember it as a bombastic sonic eardrum buster with the subtlety of a blowtorch. Whitney also recorded the 1988 Olympic anthem One Moment in Time, essentially an adult contemporary version of Eminem’s Lose Yourself. In other words, you’d need to be comatose to not feel an involuntary goosebump.

But the real reason I’m writing this isn’t because of some sports tie-in or because I think I have anything to say about Whitney’s musical contribution. It’s that her remarkable voice was always there during some of the most intense moments of my younger life. Every junior high dance was punctuated by Whitney. She accompanied those moments of sublime adolescent intensity where a dance, the touch of a hand, a smile or a scrawled phone number, made being a teenager fleetingly bearable. 1980s school dances in New York City meant Run DMC, Bon Jovi, Roger Troutman, Michael Jackson, Bananarama, Springsteen, Lisa Lisa, Joan Jett, Prince, the Beastie Boys, Talking Heads and at least three Whitney songs, with I Wanna Dance with Somebody or How Will I Know always in rotation. You could rely on Whitney for that flirty fast song, and for the slow dance to end the night, with Where Do Broken Hearts Go the favorite.

Whitney was part of a mosaic of 1980s music that was more musically inclusive and less segmented by the crude race-based marketing that dominated the 1990s. A portion of this inclusivity, certainly with Whitney and Michael, was because record execs were trying to "whiten" their look and sound in the 80s for max appeal. But both (as well as Quincy Jones) were talented and transgressive enough to not let industry pressures swamp their sound. The result was a crossover that led, before the industry figured out how to package, market and segregate it, to a burst of rare creativity when commerce comfortably danced with art. Now the fame industry has claimed another life. It was hard to watch the Grammys last night and not wonder where all these painted, praying, preying, people were when Whitney was spiraling down. Bruce Springsteen started last night's Grammy show singing his new single, We Take Care of our Own. He was singing to the wrong collection of people.

This is an industry that tends to people’s talent and not to the people themselves. It’s an industry that claimed Billie Holiday and Whitney Houston before they reached fifty. Its body count transcends musical categories and includes Tupac, Biggie, Kurt, Marvin, Amy, Jimi, Janis and too many others to name. For those who lay all these deaths at the altar of their “personal responsibility” need to explain how so many, from young starlets to Ol’ Dirty Bastards, have been left for dead. I’ve wondered before what it says about our country that the people who in theory should be healthiest among us, professional athletes, tend to die crippled and young. I wonder today how we can look at the music industry as anything other than what it is: a parasite feeding on the very people it should nurture. Of course, many survive its clutches, but Whitney didn’t. Now every memory I have of those dances in darkened church basements, wearing my shell-toe Adidas with fat laces and Coca Cola t-shirts, swaying to Whitney’s voice, is interrupted by the reality that my joy fed the same machine that eventually claimed her life. I don’t know anything about music. But I know that Whitney, like Lady Day, didn’t live to see fifty. That’s a shame and a sin, and in a sane world it wouldn’t be theirs to bear alone.

Dave Zirin is the author of “The John Carlos Story” (Haymarket) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.