• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

World News Center

Everything you want to know about anything that's meaningful

  • News
  • Reviews
  • About
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Search for "poop"

Search Results for: poop

Tradition (Part II)

December 24, 2013 by

You have your holiday traditions, I have mine.
This originally posted on Christmas Eve 2012. Several people wrote to ask me if it’s true that some people celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus by putting up statues of poop. Since the answer is yes, and this article contains the full answer, and since I’m lazy by nature, I’ll just re-post this.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Merry Christmas everyone. It’s time, once again, for us to take a look at the glorious traditions that surround this odd holiday. We have already discussed the Krampus, that lovely little fellow who either casts your children into hell or eats them, depending on what part of Austria you hang out in. But, we neglected his female cousin Perchta The Belly Slitter. Because nothing says HAPPY HOLIDAYS like eviscerated children. Have I mentioned that Austria was the home for the beginning of two world wars? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did. When people tell you that they think the Japanese are insane for making Colonel Sanders the symbol of Christmas, feel free to point out Austria. At least in Japan they use the holiday to get laid. That’s an acceptable use of any holiday as far as I’m concerned. In fact I think it should be the point of almost every holiday, but that may just be me.

Another holiday tradition I seem to have missed happens in Spain, the home of great Christian traditions such as the footprint of Jesus, the tour of Mary Magdalene and her servant Veronica and, of course, the Caganer. The caganer represents a lovely tradition of displaying the Nativity scene, the usual array of farm animals, the Star of Bethlehem and a random peasant taking a dump. Yes, you read that right. And it’s not just implied. All statues come with a steaming pile so you can make no mistake as to what the caganer is doing. Granted, seen from a strictly logical viewpoint it makes sense. Someone had to be taking a dump when Christ was born. We all have bowels and those bowels need to move from time to time.

Still, it seems a touch odd, even by Spanish standards.

But all of the above pales when compared to the article my friend Suzy Solar sent to me. According to Live Science, we may owe a big debt of holiday gratitude to magic mushrooms.

This Christmas, like many before it and many yet to come, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer will be told, including how the “jolly old elf” flies on his sleigh throughout the entire world in one night, giving gifts to all the good children.

But according to one theory, the story of Santa and his flying reindeer can be traced to an unlikely source: hallucinogenic or “magic” mushrooms.

“Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world,” said John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif.

According to the theory, the legend of Santa derives from shamans in the Siberian and Arctic regions who dropped into locals’ teepeelike homes with a bag full of hallucinatory mushrooms as presents in late December, Rush said.

“As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice,” Rush told LiveScience. “Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story.”

But that’s just the beginning of the symbolic connections between the Amanita muscaria mushroom and the iconography of Christmas, according to several historians and ethnomycologists, or people who study the influence fungi has had on human societies. Of course, not all scientists agree that the Santa story is tied to a hallucinogen.

Presents under the tree

In his book “Mushrooms and Mankind” (The Book Tree, 2003) the late author James Arthur points out that Amanita muscaria, also known as fly agaric, lives throughout the Northern Hemisphere under conifers and birch trees, with which the fungi —which is deep red with white flecks — has a symbiotic relationship. This partially explains the practice of the Christmas tree, and the placement of bright red-and-white presents underneath, which look like Amanita mushrooms, he wrote.

“Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other … ?” he wrote. “It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this ‘Most Sacred’ substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.”

Reindeer are common in Siberia, and seek out these hallucinogenic fungi, as the area’s human inhabitants have been known to do. Donald Pfister, a biologist who studies fungi at Harvard University, suggests that Siberian tribesmen who ingested fly agaric may have hallucinated into thinking that reindeer were flying.

“Flying” reindeer

“At first glance, one thinks it’s ridiculous, but it’s not,” said Carl Ruck, a professor of classics at Boston University. “Whoever heard of reindeer flying? I think it’s becoming general knowledge that Santa is taking a ‘trip’ with his reindeer,” Ruck said.

“Amongst the Siberian shamans, you have an animal spirit you can journey with in your vision quest,” Ruck continued. ” And reindeer are common and familiar to people in eastern Siberia. They also have a tradition of dressing up like the [mushroom] … they dress up in red suits with white spots.”

Ornaments shaped like Amanita mushrooms and other depictions of the fungi are also prevalent in Christmas decorations throughout the world, particularly in Scandinavia and northern Europe, Pfister points out. That said, Pfister made it clear that the connection between modern-day Christmas and the ancestral practice of eating mushrooms is a coincidence, and he doesn’t know about any direct link.

Many of these traditions were merged or projected upon Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century saint who was known for his generosity, as the story goes.

The Santa connection

There is little debate about the consumption of mushrooms by Arctic and Siberian tribes’ people and shamans, but the connection to Christmas traditions is more tenuous, or “mysterious,” as Ruck put it.

Many of the modern details of the modern-day American Santa Claus come from “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (which later became famous as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”), an 1823 poem credited to Clement Clarke Moore, an aristocratic academic who lived in New York City.

The origins of Moore’s vision are unclear, although Arthur, Rush and Ruck all think he probably drew from northern Europe motifs that derive from Siberian or Arctic shamanic traditions. At the very least, Arthur wrote, Santa’s sleigh and reindeer are references back to various related Northern European mythology. For example, the Norse god Thor (known in German as “Donner”) flew in a chariot drawn by two goats, which have been replaced in the modern retelling by Santa’s reindeer, Arthur wrote.

Ruck points to Rudolf as another example of the mushroom imagery resurfacing: his nose looks exactly like a red mushroom, he said. “It’s amazing that a reindeer with a red-mushroom nose is at the head, leading the others.”

Some doubt

Other historians were unaware of a connection between Santa and shamans or magic mushrooms, including Stephen Nissenbaum, who wrote a book about the origins of Christmas traditions, and Penne Restad, at the University of Texas.

One historian, Ronald Hutton, told NPR that the theory of a mushroom-Santa connection is off-base. “If you look at the evidence of Siberian shamanism, which I’ve done,” Hutton said, “you find that shamans didn’t travel by sleigh, didn’t usually deal with reindeer spirits, very rarely took the mushrooms to get trances, didn’t have red-and-white clothes.” But Rush and Ruck say these statements are incorrect; shamans did deal with reindeer spirits, and the depiction of their clothes’ coloring has more to do with the colors of the mushroom than the shamans’ actual garb. As for sleighs, the point isn’t the exact mode of travel, but that the “trip” involves transportation to a different, celestial realm, Rush said.

“People who know about shamanism accept this story,” Ruck said. “Is there any other reason that Santa lives in the North Pole? It is a tradition that can be traced back to Siberia.”

I have already noted how Clement Clark Moore didn’t want his poem published. He was a serious author and thought that children’s literature was beneath him. His friends and family disagreed and we have a little epic that gets read every year.

As to Santa, trying to pin one origin story on him has proved impossible. And that is because the story has evolved so much over the centuries. From the skinny and dour Sinterklaas to the jolly elf we all know today, Santa’s taken many forms.

But they all have one thing in common, they love you and want you to be your best.

That’s not such a bad thing.

From all of us here at the World News Center to all of you where ever you are, have a very merry and safe Christmas.

Suzy Solar – Ocean of Love from Bill McCormick on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

He Had A Dream And You Can’t Share It

August 28, 2013 by

Much has changed and much has not.
Much has changed and much has not.
Fifty years ago today I was pooping in a diaper and eating yummy mommy milk. In other words I was not contributing much to society. Such could not be said about Dr. Martin Luther King. I have written about him before. Not many people know that without Dr. King Star Trek may not have been worth watching. Simply put, no Uhura = no famous kiss which would probably mean no syndication and reruns. Also I’ve written how, froa strictly critical point of view, he actually write some better speeches than I Have a Dream. But we live in a world where lives are distilled to a sentence or two and then we move on. So, with Dr. King we get Selma, I Have a Dream and the assassination. Since that is so why aren’t people glued to WTTW watching the speech in its entirety? Because you can’t.

Josh Schiller, from the Washington Post, has the whole story.

Fifty years ago this week, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech. But in coverage of events celebrating its anniversary, the entirety of King’s address will rarely be reprinted, if at all, nor will viewers see footage of his speech delivered in full.

A few months after King delivered the speech, he sent a copy of the address to the U.S. Copyright office and listed the remarks as a “work not reproduced for sale.” In legal terms, this is also known as an unpublished work. He subsequently sued to enjoin two publishers from distributing phonographic reproductions of the address. One of the defendants, 20th Century Fox, had filmed and broadcast all of the speeches at the March on Washington at the request of the march’s organizers. From that material, it had reproduced the phonographs that were the subject of the injunction. But a court ruled that, although King had addressed a large public audience in an unrestricted public forum, reproduction without authorization was an infringement of King’s copyright. Performance of the speech, like the performance of a song or play in a public space, did not create a general waiver of King’s right to limit reproduction under the 1909 Copyright Act.

Since 1963, King and, posthumously, his estate have strictly enforced control over use of that speech and King’s likeness. A few years ago, the estate received more than $700,000from the nonprofit foundation that created and built the monument to King on the Mall in order to use his words and image. The only legal way to reproduce King’s work — at least until it enters the public domain in 2038 — is to pay for a licensing fee, rates for which vary. (Individuals visiting the King Center can buy a recording of the “I have a dream” speech for $20. Licenses for media outlets run into the thousands.)

Although it has been the subject of at least two lawsuits — the King estate sued CBS and USA Today for their use of the speech, reaching undisclosed settlements — a court has never examined whether and under what circumstances the “I have a dream” speech may be used without authorization in what’s considered a “fair use” exception.

Courts look at four factors for fair use: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is for commercial or for nonprofit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. There are no bright-line rules for fair use; each case must be examined on its facts. Courts have frequently recognized that fair use is central to the “progress of science and advancement of the useful arts” that is the principal tenant upon which copyright laws were created.

Recent jurisprudence has focused on the first and fourth factors, looking primarily at whether the secondary work that cites the material is “transformative.” The threshold is whether the copyrighted material is used as an element, or ingredient, of a new work created for a different purpose and a different audience and whether a new aesthetic or further expression can be perceived by a reasonable observer.

In an important case in 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit found that a biographer of the Grateful Dead had made fair use of copyrighted concert posters and tickets whose illustrations are the instantly recognizable sort that observers associate with the band and the 1960s and ’70s. The appropriated images “serve as histroadcast the speech ade orical artifacts graphically representing the fact of significant Grateful Dead concert events selected” by the author, the court said, and this use did not harm the first creator’s economic incentives.

Playing a recording of King’s speech as thousands march on the Mall, as happened this past weekend, is surely the sort of non-commercial, educational and historical use that Congress and the courts have frequently and rightly protected.

One can imagine many transformative uses of the “I have a dream” speech — from posting it in social media platforms for people to share and remark upon, to quoting the text in song lyrics or in a film, documentary or other artistic work to conjure the strivings for social equality that were the essence of King’s speech and to celebrate a sense of shared accomplishment that followed.

As an attorney, I believe in respect for the law and observing copyright restrictions. But when it comes to observing the anniversary of such a public moment, one hopes that fair use will allow current generations to appreciate what happened 50 years ago this week and why it was such a moment in American history.

The public benefit of access to historical artifacts such as King’s speech is undeniable. Any restriction on public access to the content of such a historical artifact should be enforced with caution.

While I agree with him that this is a historically important speech it is also the sole property of Dr. King’s estate. The television stations that broadcast the speech made money. The original recordings made money. And so on. There is no reason Dr. King’s family shouldn’t reap the same benefits of the same source material.

That being said, there seems to be no reason not to have some fun with the whole thing.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
Visit us on Rebel Mouse for even more fun!
contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

SCIENCE!

February 8, 2013 by

In today's experiemnt we will attempt to either alter the space time continuum or chill a beer.
In today’s experiment we will attempt to either alter the space time continuum or chill a beer.
Ah, where to begin today. After the British government attempted to lure women into scientific fields with an ad more demeaning than anything ever released by Victoria’s Secret a group of actual female scientists responded with an ad of their own. Their ad features real scientists having fun with science and dancing to “I’m Sexy and I Know It.” Ladies, there is a career for you in science and it does not require you to do math on a bathroom mirror or wear heels. The fact that I need to point that out simply proves that there is another category where we have a long way to go. Consider it added to my “to do” list. Put it this way, the first video, stripped of its techno soundtrack and embellished with David Lee Roth in his prime would have been great fun on MTV in 1985. Much like Hot for Teacher was in its day. In fact there are a couple of scenes in the first video that appear to have been outtakes from the Van Halen classic. That is not actually a good thing in this case.

This is not to say that science can’t be sexy. Daan Rosengarde has designed the ultimate example of sexy science. He has designed a dress that becomes more and more transparent the more excited a woman gets.

You don’t get to choose whether this dress is revealing or not — your carnal instincts do.

The ‘Intimacy 2.0’ dress, designed by Daan Roosegaarde, is getting a rise out of the fashion world because its opaque fabric becomes transparent when you get aroused. Finally, all the cards will be on the table. You’ll have your date saying, “Is your dress disappearing, or are you just happy to see me?”
r-TRANSPARENT-DRESS-large570
The already barely-there garment features ribbons of leather and opaque “e-foils,” which can detect the model’s heartbeat, the Daily Mail reports.

Another caveat: Though Roosegaarde has said he’s “in talks” to produce a ready-to-wear line of Intimacy clothing, the current dress is only a prototype and a project.

Not to be a noodge or rain on anyone’s parade, but doesn’t a heartbeat increase if you see a car crash, hear some exciting music or in any of a hundred other situations? You might find yourself being the hit of the party for all the wrong, yet oh so right, reasons.

So what can I do to get your heartbeat down? Easy. Let’s discuss the joys of whale poop.

What’s yellowish-gray, stinks to high heaven and is worth tens of thousands of dollars per pound?

Just ask Ken Wilman, whose dog Madge went nuts over a dirty old rock the pair found on a lonely, windswept beach near Morecambe, England. But it wasn’t actually a rock: “When I picked it up and smelled it, I put it back down again, and I thought ‘urgh,'” Wilman told the BBC.

Wilman didn’t think much of the strange blob until he got home and, like any enterprising treasure hunter, immediately did a Google search. The chunky object, Wilman learned, was probably a valuable piece of ambergris, which comes from the digestive tract of the sperm whale and is a very expensive ingredient in luxury fragrances such as Chanel No. 5.

Realizing the foul stench emitted by the lump was actually the scent of money, Wilman sprang into action. “When I saw how much it could be worth, I went back to the beach and grabbed it!” Wilman told the Metro.

One French ambergris dealer has already offered Wilman $68,000 for his beach find, though it’s probably worth much more. “It’s quite a find,” Chris Hill, curator at the Aquarium of the Lakes in Cumbria, England, told the Mirror.

“There are places in Europe that will buy it from you,” Hill said. “They will age it, like a fine wine, and then test it for perfume. “How much it’s worth will depend on how fresh it is, but it’s potentially $180,000.”

Despite the centuries-old passion for ambergris, nobody’s really certain how the sperm whale produces it, or how the whale excretes the lump.

Most experts agree that whales create ambergris inside their intestines as a kind of fatty coating around sharp, hard-to-digest items, like the beaks of giant squid (a favorite food of the whale), the BBC reports. And squid beaks have been found inside pieces of ambergris.

But while some reports call ambergris “whale vomit,” others insist it’s not puke. “It’s poop,” molecular biologist Christopher Kemp told ABC News.

Kemp, the author of “Floating Gold: the Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris” (University Of Chicago Press, 2012), notes that the stuff commands a high price because “only one percent of the 350,000 sperm whales can actually make it,” he told ABC News. “Because it’s so rare, it’s very valuable.”

Fearing a flood of fortune hunters looking for ambergris, local authorities in Morecambe are now warning beachcombers of some potential risks involved in their search.

“The tide comes in so very quickly that it catches people unaware,” Mike Guy, manager of lifeboat operations for Morecambe, told the BBC. “We’re really worried about people just wandering off on the beach searching for ambergris. They’re very, very unlikely to find any because it’s very rare.”

Just when you think that people getting killed hunting pythons was the dumbest way to die ever invented, along comes a group who could die hunting whale poop. A quick update on the python hunt. As of this writing there have been over 1,000 hunters and under 50 pythons killed. Many humans have suffered various injuries but no fatalities yet.

This is like a real life episode of Benny Hill.

So, what to do about all of this? Well, the best solution I can see is robots. Unfortunately, as Jerremy Hsu points out, robots are meant to be feared and some may want to kill us.

Metal Madness
Real robot names such as Roomba and Asimo don’t evoke as much fear as the fictional “Terminator.” But consider that Roomba, the automated vacuum cleaner, is manufactured by iRobot, creator also of armed robot warriors for the U.S. military. And Asimo represents just the first wave of an incoming tsunami of robots that strive to look and act eerily human.

It goes beyond automated vacuums and mildly entertaining dance-bots. Japan and Korea plan to deploy humanoid robots to care for the elderly, while the United States already fields thousands of robot warriors on the modern battlefield. Meanwhile, plenty of people have enhanced their bodies technologically in ways that bring them closer to their robotic brethren.

So it’s OK to become a bit of a paranoid android, because many experts say that the robotic future is rapidly approaching, if not already here. Robots probably won’t completely take over or annihilate the human race anytime soon, but they may supplant us by other means — and LiveScience is here to count the reasons why you need not hide your fear of the metal ones.

Your Grandkids Will Be Robots
Whether humans and robots fight or make love, the most probable scenario involves marching toward a convergence point in the future. On one hand, humans continue to add more technological gizmos and tiny computers to their daily wear. You can already see many such 21st-century cyborgs playing around with their iPhones, or staring off into the distance with earbuds piping music into their heads. Artificial limbs, organs and bionic eyes? Check. Coming from the other direction, robots have steadily improved in almost every possible way: walking, talking and learning. Man and machine increasingly look alike, and at some point the difference may not exist. But on a brighter note, humans won’t worry so much about robots once they’ve merged with them. See you on the other side.

Robots Take Our Jobs
Anything you can do, they can do better. Well, lots of things, anyway. Modern humans have not gone obsolete just yet, but robots have already found their place as space explorers that can endure harsh environments off and on Earth. They have also brought their tireless efficiency to everything from assembly line work to humdrum gene sequencing in labs, and have appeared in growing numbers on real-life battlefields — although the latter can lead to the different problem if robots stage a rebellion, or even just have a weapons malfunction. For now, robots complement rather than replace elements of the human workforce and armed forces due to limits on their intelligence. But they’re evolving quickly, and a few have even begun tinkering with science themselves.

Robot Insurrection: Kill All Humans
A scenario where machines rise up against their makers presents perhaps the least appealing convergence of science fiction and real life. That doesn’t mean preliminary signs of an incipient insurrection don’t exist, though. Thousands of drones and ground robots have been deployed by many nations, and particularly the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. An automatic antiaircraft gun killed human soldiers on its own when it malfunctioned during a South African training exercise. Military researchers refer to “Terminator” scenarios, and seriously discuss how armed robots are changing the rules and ways of modern war. If that’s not enough to make you a bit leery, consider that Great Britain has established a network of satellites for the purpose of coordinating all those drones and other military assets. It shares the same name as a certain villainous artificial intelligence that dominates the “Terminator” movies — Skynet.

Humans May Prefer Robot Lovers
Experts aren’t wondering if humans will ever make love to robots — they’re already discussing what happens when that day comes. It may sound snicker-worthy, but consider that many people have had online relationships that get pretty intimate through Internet chat rooms and participate in socially intense massively multiplayer online games for years. A flesh-and-steel robot that feels, looks and sounds like a human would have even greater appeal, robotics researchers say. And if history serves as any guide, you don’t need the perfect Stepford Wife to tempt spouses or significant others into a little robotic addiction and strain existing human relationships.

Robots Steal Our Hearts
Robots don’t need to take over by force, if humans have already fallen for their cute, clumsy antics. Blame the human brain for allowing toddlers and soldiers alike to feel warm fuzzy feelings for robots. People are hardwired to perceive faces and get emotional about almost everything, whether it’s a stuffed animal or a car. However, robots still have to navigate one tricky obstacle of the mind — the “Uncanny Valley” phenomenon where a robot looks almost human, save for a bizarre twitch or stutter or glassy-eyed stare which can creep people out. Many researchers currently try to bypass the issue by simply designing robots to look less human, and retain that clunky robotic cuteness

Number 5 is Alive!!!

If you know that phrase you know how cute our eventual overlords can be.

And, yes, you read that article correctly. The nice people who build your vacuum are the same people who build death dealing cyber warriors. Bonus for you? Most of the technology is interchangeable. It would take no effort at all to make your vacuum cleaner kill you in your sleep..

How’s your heart rate now?

Robots of Brixton from Kibwe Tavares on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Visit us on Rebel Mouse for even more fun!

contact Bill McCormick

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Nudity in the News

November 8, 2012 by

Why yes, that is a Golden Delicious apple, thanks for asking.
As fans of nudity know, I am among their number. Within reason. There has never been a nanosecond of my life where I thought the idea of Rush Limbaugh naked was a good idea. It would seem I’m not alone there. Even though he’s worth $400 million or so, no woman has been naked with him long enough to allow him to procreate. What good is all that money if you can’t get a little panky for your hanky? Then again Rush thinks Honey Boo Boo is cute so God know what mutant thing would result if he did spawn.

I’ll give you a moment to bleach out your eyes.

But, in the main, I have supported a clothing optional lifestyle for those who wish to embrace it. And, to be honest, back when I was thinner, I partook in several events that required nudity as a precursor. I will also admit that I had fun. And it was clearly the idea of fun that prompted Zbigniew Lindner to snag a bunch of naked women and men and have them pose with coffins.

A Polish firm that makes coffins has angered the Catholic church by trying to drum up business with a calendar depicting topless models posing next to its caskets.

One image from the 2013 edition of the calendar has a blonde model, wearing only a skimpy thong and with a snake draped around her neck, reclining on a coffin. In another, a woman wearing a crimson corset is depicted pulling out the heart of a man lying on a casket.

“My son had the idea of creating the company’s calendar… so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins,” said Zbigniew Lindner, the firm’s owner.

“We wanted to show that a coffin isn’t a religious symbol. Its a product,” he said. “Why are people afraid of coffins and not of business suits, cosmetics or jewelry?”

As well as attracting publicity for his firm, the calendar is intended as a source of revenue. It is on sale on the company’s website. Anyone who places an order receives a complementary key ring in the shape of a coffin.

The Catholic church has condemned the calendar as inappropriate. A church spokesman has said that human death should be treated with solemnity and not mixed up with sex.

The church and its teachings have been at the heart of Polish life for generations, but changes in society are challenging the faith. While 93 percent of Poles say they are Catholic, the proportion who attend church regularly is falling. Many people are starting to confront long-standing taboos about sexuality and religion.

Dear Catholic Church:

Oh, never mind, it’s too easy.

Sex and death have been intertwined since humans figured out that the former would eventually lead to the latter for every living thing. It is why many funerals, far from being somber affairs of weeping and teeth gnashing are actually celebrations of the person’s life. And it’s why, in Taiwan, you can hire strippers for your funeral.

But, for all the joys that nudity can bring, there’s always one pooper who shows up to ruin the party. In San Francisco, that pooper has several hundred friends and they have turned a children’s park into a penis fest and families are, much to no one’s surprise, fighting back.

Sometimes it feels like people throw around the term “only in San Francisco” with a little bit too much carelessness. Just because someone told you there’s a 45-minute wait for brunch or three of your friends are all competing to become the mayor of the new Norwegian-inspired taco truck on Foursquare doesn’t entirely justify the declaration that those things could exclusively happen here in town.

On the other hand, sometimes the phrase is actually warranted. Take what happened during Monday’s hearing of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Neighborhood Services Committee in which officials discussed a ban on public nudity, for example.

If you assume the next sentence is going to run along the lines of, “someone took off all of their clothes,” you would be correct.

During the meeting, nudity activist Gypsy Taub stepped up to the podium and addressed the committee. “Nudity does not harm children,” she said. “Have you ever seen a child cry because they saw a naked person? What do children do when they see naked people? They laugh. It makes them happy, it doesn’t traumatize them. Nudity is natural and harmless. Our bodies are God’s gift and God doesn’t make mistakes. Attacking our right to be nude is an attack on sacredness, beauty, love freedom, art and creative self-expression.”

Taub then removed her dress, revealing a nary an undergarment, and declared, “attacks on body freedom are unconstitutional and un-American.”

She was quickly escorted out of the room by police officers while chanting, “Up with body freedom, down with Scott Wiener.”

Naturally, Taub was greeted with a rousing round of applause–probably for a whole variety of reasons.

In the hallway outside the committee room, Taub was detained by police and eventually put her clothes back on. “Nudity does not harm anyone,” she added. “It’s people’s actions and not people’s bodies that harm people. Clothes have never stopped anyone from sexual harassment; they have not stopped anyone from raping; clothes have never stopped anyone form getting raped. It is nothing to do with clothes, it has to do with people’s actions.”

The San Francisco Chronicle notes that Taub had sent out press release to various media outlets announcing her intention to disrobe during the meeting.

For his part, Wiener didn’t seem particularly shocked by Taub’s display.

While the state of California doesn’t prohibit public nudity per se, it does criminalize lewd behavior–something that’s left up to each individual municipality to define for itself. San Francisco has long permitted public nudity, but the increasing number (not to mention boldness) of a group of naked men who have taken to “hanging out” in the Castro’s Jane Warner Plaza has sparked significant outcry.

“I would just like to be able to walk down the street and buy a carton of milk without seeing someone’s penis,” mother and Castro resident Sheila Tenney told the San Francisco Examiner. “That’s it.”

Wiener’s law would outlaw the exposure of genitals in public places. The law contains exceptions for street fairs and parades, so the city’s famously nude-friendly events such as the Folsom Street Fair and Bay to Breakers would remain unchanged.

“While most people in San Francisco, myself included, have no problem with occasional public nudity, we’ve seen a shift in public attitude because of the over-the-top situation at Jane Warner Plaza and elsewhere in the Castro,” said Wiener in a statement. “Until recently, public nudity in our city was mostly limited to various street festivals and beaches as well as the occasional naked person wandering the streets. What’s happening now is different. Jane Warner Plaza is the only usable public space in the Castro and serves as the neighborhood’s town square. Use of this small but important space as a near-daily nudist colony, while fun for the nudists, is anything but for the neighborhood as a whole.”

“This plaza and this neighborhood are for everyone, and the current situation alienates both residents and visitors,” he added. “We are a tolerant neighborhood and city, but there are limits.”

Fines for violating the ordinance will run up to $500.

The three-member Neighborhood Services Committee unanimously voted to recommend the passage of Wiener’s law by the full Board of Supervisors. The legislation is scheduled to receive a vote on November 20.

Gypsy Taub is 100% correct that nudity does not cause crimes. It is also irrelevant. While Ms. Taub may be comfortable inflicting her beliefs on the masses, the whole idea of our country is to respect others. And many people don’t want to be knee deep in penises when their kids are on the swing set. And they sure as hell don’t want to think what Adam and Steve may have been doing on the swing set while naked.

for those who are worried, the annual parade of Naked Santas will not be impacted by the law. So your family traditions are safe.

Fruehbel – Summerwind (Serbian Re-Edit)

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

DO NOT … Swim in the Gene Pool

August 17, 2012 by

Suits are optional here today
Brian Urlacher broke up with Jenny McCarthy and I think I know why. She’s completely bat poop crazy and shows every sign of being a stalker. Grab this wonderful quote; “Brian and I have decided to turn our romance into an amazing friendship. I will continue to be the biggest cheerleader for him. Go, Bears!” Unspoken; “And then I’ll collect every photo of him I can and build a shrine in my basement and then I’ll use his DNA which I keep in my special freezer to build a clone that I will raise to love and worship me and …. GO BEARS!” This woman still runs the Generation Rescue foundation which continues to ignore scientific fact and history to scam people out of money and pretend that vaccines cause autism. What was the world like before vaccines? Well, golly, we could all get small pox, polio, measles and many other fun diseases that shortened the average life span by over a decade. Ah, yes, the good old days. I can’t imagine why people don’t just rush out and relive them. Actually, if people do want to live like that they should do the human race a favor and move to an island where they can’t infect the rest of us. An un-vaccinated kid blessed my neighborhood with whooping cough last year. None of us want to to go through that again.

Other brain dead idiots still using our oxygen include UFO expert Russell Tetrault who claims that a known weather balloon is really a UFO.

If it was simply a weather balloon that appeared over an Antarctic research station, then why hasn’t anyone confirmed it?

A video has come out of the cold, showing an image of a possible UFO above the Neumayer-Station III research facility in Antarctica on August 10, according to livescience.com.

The circular object appears to hover over the station which conducts scientific research into geophysics, meteorology and atmospheric chemistry.

And, as one might expect, they use weather balloons to study the atmosphere over the South Pole.

One aspect of this image that UFO commenters are pointing to is how the object is seen in just a few frames of the footage.

But Ben Radford, writing in Live Science, suggests that’s not unusual when video is sped up. “That’s what happens in time-lapse photography: objects that are not stationary for long periods of time only appear in a few frames. … There’s nothing mysterious about it.”

Despite the plausibility of that argument, some — like “UFO expert” Russell Tetrault, disagree and have their own theories about the Neumayer UFO, pictured closeup, below.

“I have examined the evidence and have concluded that this is a craft and that it is most likely of extraterrestrial origins,” Tetrault is quoted by ringsidereport.com.

“There are some real dogs out there that have been calling this a balloon, but it is misinformation put forth by the government intended to squash this before the public wakes up to the fact that we are and have been getting visits from another race,” said Tetrault, whom ringsidereport.com refers to as “highly respected in the UFO community.”

Even if an official explanation is forthcoming about this South Pole UFO, it still won’t satisfy everyone, especially those who prefer to believe that all unidentified or mysterious aerial objects probably originate from another planet or, even closer — another dimension.

Since Ben Radford is going to resort to the low tactic of using facts and logic I am going to maintain the high ground and move on.

Do you remember that horrible movie Grease? The tough guys in that movie would get bullied by the chess team in any real school. Anyway, there was a song in there called Beauty School Dropout. I think I understand now why people would drop out of beauty schools. I had no idea coiffing the teacher’s pubes was part of the class.

At a Montana beauty school, for less than $10,000 you’ll learn to trim pubic hair, and then get expelled.

That’s what 17 students and employees at Dahl’s College of Beauty in Great Falls charge in a federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday, according to Courthouse News Service.

The complainants, all women, accuse beauty school owners Douglas and Barbara Daughenbaugh of incompetence and failing to address sexual harassment allegations. The lawsuit claims that the two would charge $9,950 a head for classes, then abruptly expel students and keep the pay.

In one of several instances of alleged sexual harassment at the college, an instructor allegedly forced students to trim her pubic hair, and then use the tainted trimmers on customers.

“Among the offensive and unwelcome conduct included, inter alia, the instructor publicly exposing her genitals, exposing her buttocks and requesting that students examine a boil to see if it could be extracted, requiring students to wax her pubic hair, using a student’s trimmers and wax stick to trim and wax her pubic hair that were, upon information and belief, then used on customer haircuts,” the 10-page complaint charges.

The owners allegedly ran Dahl’s as a “subterfuge” to rake in tuition fees and expel students for complaining or prompting state labor investigations.

Barbara Daughenbaugh hung up on a Huffington Post reporter after denying any knowledge of the complaint.

“I’ve never heard of any federal complaint so I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

The complainants seek punitive damages for sexual harassment, wrongful discharge, and breach of contract among other charges.

According to Dahl’s Facebook, “We are currently embarking on a new and exciting adventure as far as the direction that the school is going.”

Yes, and that exciting new direction is called prison.

I should note that Dahl’s School of Beauty is in no way related to Steve Dahl or his family.

Anyway, back on January 11 I wrote about a wonderful young lady named Sydney Spies. You remember her. She’s the one who wanted her HS yearbook photo to look like the cover of a soft core porn movie.

Yes, her mother (from the land of toddlers and tiaras known as Colorado) approved.

So, it should come as no surprise that these fine examples of American family values were arrested at a mother daughter event for plying underage teens with booze and resisting arrest.

18-year-old Sydney Spies, the Colorado teen who gained national attention earlier in 2012 after submitting a photo of herself that was deemed too racy for the Durango High School yearbook, has been arrested along with her mother.

According to The Durango Herald Sydney and her 45-year-old mother Denise “Miki” Spies have both been arrested after police busted a party at the home of Miki Spies, who was home at the time of the party, where “numerous” underage partygoers were drinking alcohol.

Sydney is accused of attempting to block a police officer from entering the house while her mother is accused of refusing to give her name and identification and when police attempted to question her further she allegedly “broke into a full sprint” for her front door. After a brief struggle, police arrested Miki in her bedroom after she attempted to slam the door on the police.

Sydney faces a single misdemeanor charge of obstructing a police officer while her mother faces one felony charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two misdemeanor charges of obstruction of a police officer and resisting arrest, 9News reports.

Sydney Spies rose to fame after three professional modeling photos she submitted to her high school yearbook were all rejected for being too racy. The Durango teen’s first photo that started it all showed the 18-year-old wearing a black shawl, a yellow skirt and more skin than the yearbook editors decided was appropriate. Durango High School’s dress code calls for tops that “fully cover the chest, back, abdomen, and sides of the student.”

When The Durango Herald broke the yearbook staff’s rejection of the first photo in January, Spies and her mother began making their case to a handful of local media outlets and later on the “TODAY” show that she was just trying to exercise her right to freedom of expression (watch the TODAY show clip below).

“Some people might think it’s a little bit sexy or inappropriate. But I think it’s artistic. I think it’s a good expression of who I am as a person,” Spies told 9News about the yearbook photos she submitted. “I’m a dancer, I’m trying to be a model, I really enjoy photography and I think that this is a good thing to represent me and I think they are taking away my freedom of expression.”

Spies tells The Huffington Post that she submitted a total of three different photos to the yearbook staff, all of which were finally rejected.

From Spies’ Facebook profile.

The yearbook adviser and editors have decided to use my school ID picture as my senior photo. Since I went to NY, then had the flu they said I was too late to submit another Sr. picture. They ALSO decided that I couldn’t use the ‘controversial’ picture in my ad anymore that I had already paid for, so I requested my money back.

I also dropped my yearbook class because its become a hostile environment. What a lovely Sr. year this has turned out to be…

But Spies appeared to be turning lemons into lemonade when she used her newfound celebrity to land a role in a SyFy channel produced movie.

Syfy, which airs movies like Piranhaconda, Bigfoot and Arachnoquake is a division of NBCUniversal, one of the leading media and entertainment companies. According to CBS4 the horror film will either be called “Final Initiation” or “American Horror House” will film over the summer and is set to air on Halloween.

Spies reportedly plays a sorority girl and she told Westword that while she can’t say whether her character makes it out alive, she does feel her yearbook photo controversy has been a growing experience.

“I’m sure I’m not going to get every role, but I think I’ll be prepared — because now, I’ve experienced disappointment,” Spies said about the role in June.

On her Facebook page, Miki Spies didn’t reference the arrest, but posted this statement on Monday:

I just love being targeted. What a bunch of BS.

On Monday, Sydney and her mother were released from La Plata County Jail — Sydney on $500 bail, Miki on $10,000 bail.

Dear Ms. Spies;

The reason you are “being targeted” is becasue you are human scum. You prostitute your child, encourage deadly behavior (drunk teens + cars = dead people) and have the emotional maturity of a 9 year old. Please seek help before you cause serious harm.

Yours,

Reality.

Oh, just in case you run into one of those idiots who “quote” Nostradamus, please feel free to send them THIS LINK. I’m not sure if facts and actual translations of that gibberish will stop them but it’s worth a shot. I recently saw “an original quatrain” with the phrase “West Nile virus” in it. The phrase wasn’t even used until the 1980s and it was NEVER, not even by rumor, used by that pyscho monk.

The Killshot: Approaching the Moment from Remote Viewing Products on Vimeo.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Go to page 6
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • December 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • November 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010

Copyright © 2022 · Metro Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in