TV Presenter Accused of Sorcery, Sentenced to Death in Saudi Arabia

In a story to make your blood boil, a Lebanese man named Ali Hussain Sibat is being sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia.
His crime?
Sorcery.
The father of five is a television personalty who is accused of performing black magic on his show.
He was in Saudi Arabia to make Umra, a traditional muslim pilgrimage, when he was arrested by the countries religious police, the Mutawa'een.
His trail has been dragging on for some time, but now that a verdict has been reached it's receiving global attention.
Here's to hoping he gets set free, or at the very least, they stay his execution until someone can talk so sense into their legal system.

Bank Robbing Leprechauns killed in Tenneessee

Two Leprechauns- or should I say, men in leprechaun costumes- were shot and killed in a gun battle with police on Wednesday, March 18th, in Tennessee.
The men were heavily armed, fled the bank they had just held up, shot at and disabled a police car, and then were killed in the ensuing shootout that followed- details are a little scarce at the moment as this has only just happened, but that's the story right now.
I have to say, one wonders what went the mind of these men as they planned their course of action. Did they think they'd blend better by dressing up for the holidays? Were they planning to walk out the bank disappear into a passing parade?
I like to think the leprechaun bank robbers were already at a party, profusely drunk, and realized they needed more money for beer, and hatched probably the worst plan of all time.

Vampire from Florida to run for president in 2012...as a Republican.

Photo courtesy of Myspace

In what is probably the least serious bid for the presidency ever, a Florida man who identities himself as a vampire and has had numerous, and probably slightly illegal, relationships with teen girls, is running for president.

His name is Jonathan Sharkey, better known as Jonathan 'The Impaler' Sharkey. He's 45, dating a 19 year-old (whose friends have made a facebook group trying to raise support to save her from this man) and is, according to CBS, currently on probation after being found guilty of trying to intimidate a federal judge.

He has run for president before, as well as numerous senate and congressional seats. Obviously, none of those have quite panned out. I wonder why?

He has a website, and is actually making a documentary about his experience running for president. If he hadn't shown political ambition all his life, one would perhaps think it was just a big publicity stunt.

Man Attacks Female Police Officer...With His Penis

Yep, you read that right.
A Lithuanian Man living in England, Marium Varinaukas, was drinking heavily in his home, when cops arrived and burst in.
Apparently, he decided to come out swinging.
The article goes on to say that the female officer literally had to duck and dodge to not get impaled.
Check out this choice quote from the BBC, on what he is being charged with:

"The accused got to his feet and was standing over the police officer exposing his penis and thrusting it in her face, forcing her to take evasive action to avoid getting struck."

His defense is essentially that he was binge drinking and doesn't remember any of it.
That takes some balls. And is also probably pretty hard to live down.

Thailand's Bloody Protest

Tensions have been growing in Thailand lately, after a week-long slew of marches and demonstrations to call for new elections as people grow increasingly fed up with Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva's corrupt and dirty rule.

Today those tensions came to a head, as protesters collected what they claim as nearly 80 gallons of blood from activists, and hurled them at Abhisit's house and other governmental offices.

There is very little talk of any of the protests being met with violence yet, though with the amount of publicity and global coverage that has been following this event since protesters first announced the desire to throw blood everywhere, that is to be expected. 

Crackdowns will probably come later.

I have to say, this sends a pretty intense message, even if the government was prepared and cleaned the blood up within minutes. Certainly nobody can doubt the resolve of Thailand's popular opposition now.

The BBC has pics up on its website.

Swedens Dangerous Cake Theives

The Pastry Chefs and Confectionery Masters of Sweden are trembling over the antics of the 'Black Cobra Gang,' a hard-as-nails band of criminals who, on the 12th of March, stole as many as 120 cakes from a delivery truck.
Hopefully they can find the culprits and bring them to custardy. I mean, theft is no trifling matter. What kind of a monster would steal so many cookies?
Actually, far better then any pun I could think or have heard is the quotes from the actual police, who had this to say:

"We have conducted raids at a number of addresses and have confiscated cakes," police spokesperson Charley Nilsson told local newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad. 

Ah, Sweden.

Womans attempts to become worlds fattest; pays for food by eating via webcam

The headline pretty much says it all.
Donna Simpson, from New Jersey, is actively trying to not only gain weight, but become the fattest person in the world.
According to the Daily Mail, she already holds the 'title' of worlds fattest mother, having given birth while weighing over 531 pounds.
I can't help but feel a bit sorry for the kid, if these are the sorts of dreams her mother aspires to.
Simpson told the Daily Mail:

"I'd love to be 1000lb ... it might be hard though, running after my daughter keeps my weight down," 

She plans to reach 1000 pounds in two years. Nothing in the article, nor anything Ms. Simpson was quoted as saying, seems to indicate she's worried she might die in the attempt. Or shortly after.
The best part of the article, however, comes near the end, when you learn how Simpson pays her nearly thousand dollar weekly grocery bill. She runs a website where people watch her eating food.
I'm not making this up- here's the quote:

Ms Simpson makes money by running a website where men pay to watch her consume fast food.  

I guess I forgot the first rule of the internet- there is a fetish for everything.
When I consider some of the other things I have seen, this doesn't even sound that weird.

The Woman with Two Vaginas- Blanche Dumas (NSFW)

In 1885, on the french colonial island of Martinique, documentarians of the odd and bizarre found Blanche Dumas- a 25-year old woman with three legs, two of which of were only partially useful and one that was completely useless, two vaginas, and a monstrous sex appetite. Already known on the island for entertaining multiple lovers simultaneous, she eventually moved to Paris and became a high-class courtesan.
What exactly occurred to her in utero to produce such a condition isn't certain, though if you look around the net you'll find some pretty accurate speculation, but beyond simply having duel vaginas, she also had two fully functioning bladders and according to some websites, two uteruses as well.
Which begs the question of what, exactly, occurred when she was on her period.

Note the nipples painted tackily on what appear to be stumps of ungrown legs on her lower left thigh. I guess that's the circus for yeah.
Probably the most enduring part of Blanche's legacy is her rumored affair with the man with two penises, Juan Baptista Dos Santos. Though there is no hard evidence that such an event took place, Blanche reportedly expressed an desire to have sex with him upon learning of his existence, and both were in Paris at the same time.
I mean, really, if you were either of them, how could you not?
I will say this, however: I do not look at that picture and have even the remotest desire to sleep with her. Perhaps I'm alone among male kind in that regard...but I really hope not.
Still, I can quite easily picture her on her back, two fully-clothed Victorian men pumping away, high-fiveing each other and shouting 'Good show, old boy.'
Shudder.

The Man With Two Penises - Juan Baptista Dos Santos (NSFW)

Born in Portugal in 1843, Juan Baptista Dos Santos was born with two penises, three legs, and three scrotums. Probably most bizare is that everything worked- this wasn't some sort of mutant freak man with useless dangling appendages, but just a guy with a little extra of everything.
Well, that's not totally true. The leg didn't work- but it was so small and boneless that it could easily be concealed by strapping to one of his regular legs.
Everyone was far more interested in his multiplicity of male parts to pay any attention to that anyway.
What exactly Juan Baptista did with his life is not exactly clear. He refused to be a sideshow attraction- reportedly turning down several huge sums of money to appear in circuses around the world- but was very gracious with his time in medical circles and exhibiting himself to royalty and those with sufficient means.
The one photograph of him that remains was taken by a man named C. D. Fredericks, who wrote along with it :

"...the sight of a female is sufficient to excite his amorous propensities. He functionates with both of the penes, finishing with one, then continues with the other."

Here's the picture:

Strangely, Juan Baptista came of age and fame at the same time France was home to one Blanche Dumas, a courtesan with two vaginas. Everyone speculates that they had an affair when Baptista spent some time in Paris...I'd like to believe that happened.
I mean seriously, if you were either of them, how could you pass that up?
Probably the only two-person orgy in the history of the world.

Stop Smoking

I've started a new blog, http://youcanneversmokeagain.blogspot.com/, about how to stop smoking.
If you're trying to quit and having trouble, go there and read my story- maybe it'll help you quit, or at least, guide you to some methods that might work for you.
Here's the link.
And.
Here is the link about me.
And here is where I discuss how I quit, in detail.

Yep, that's it.

The Soloist

It's fitting that 'The Soloist' is about a man with schizophrenia, because the film has some schizophrenic leanings of its own.
It doesn't know whether it wants to be a comedy with heart, or an art flick, or a gritty character drama, and instead of choosing settles on being a disjointed mess.
The film follows the chance meeting and gradual friendship of Steve Lopez, a Los Angeles Times columnist upon whose real-life book the film is based, and Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a cello virtuoso whose schizophrenia led him to drop out of Juilliard and roam the streets of LA as a homeless musician.
Robert Downey Jr, in imminent danger of being typecast as the wounded, witty, down-on-his-luck hero (In this case, Lopez,) does a good job of anchoring the film, whether he’s being drenched in coyote urine or looking nervous and out of place on the mean streets of the ghetto. He adds a certain pathos and believability to scenes that, frankly, don’t deserve it.
The film, however truly shines when Downey and Jaime Foxx (portraying Nathaniel) are in the same frame. Foxx deserves an Oscar for his acting- he has one of the hardest performances of all time, and not because he’s playing someone with mental disorder, but because he has to show the full range of this disorder and still have the audience’s sympathy.
It’s no small feat when, towards the end of the film, he lapses into chilling, violent schizophrenic rage, and we’re still rooting for him, and if the filmmakers deserve any credit for anything in this movie, it’s for the simple fact that they didn’t whitewash or roll over the darker moments.
It’s a shame then, that so much of the movie is so poorly done. For the first 30 minutes or so, it feels like the actors lines aren’t even synching up to one another. An extended tracking shot that’s supposed to show the ‘busyness and intensity of a newspaper office’ is so poorly rehearsed and pointless I felt like I was watching a middle school play.
There are, in fact, a veritable mountain of pointless things in this movie. Side-characters who are introduced, named, and then cast aside, contributing nothing. Plot threads that seem to be pointing toward some future event only to be cast aside.
At one point, the mayor of LA decides to allot $50 million dollars to fight homelessness because of one of Lopez’s articles. Towards the end of the film, some cops bust in and haul a bunch of homeless people away as Lopez scours the streets for signs of his friend.
Is there a connection? Is this the mayor’s idea of a cleanup? Was there a riot? Did it just look good on film? We have no idea, and the film never explains itself. You get the sense that almost a full hour was cut from the movie- and nobody had the sense to pay attention to what they were cutting.
Still though, the film contains several bright little transcendent moments that showed it really had potential, and given what else is playing in theaters right now, you could really do a lot worse.

The Stranger's Sexy Survey

The Stranger's 2009 sex survey was put up a few days ago. It can be read in full here.
According to them:

The Stranger received 6,942 completed sex surveys—more than five times the sample size of the presidential polls in the New York Times. Which means our poll is more than five times more accurate than theirs. (Eat it, New York Times!)

It's a bit less interesting then last years was, but still contains some interesting information, such as...

• More people from Belltown have had sex with a homeless person then from have people from other neighborhoods.
• 4 times more people have been peed on then have had sex to Andersoon Cooper on CNN.
• Most people agree that sexted is a completely retarded term.
• More people'd invite Michella Obama then Barack Obama to an orgy barely.
  
• 10% of people would invite Hilary Clinton. Uck.
  

Charleston, Meet Aphex Twin

Jumping shamelessly on the Charleston bandwagon (theres like 30 videos now), I made a new version today that combines the dancing video with a part of the middle of Aphex Twin's 'Windowlicker.'
It doesn't sync all that well in the beginning, but as it goes it along it begins to match up more and more until the ending, which is almost absurdly bizarre in how well the two go together.

The Woman Who Loved Charles Bronson

With his baby-muppet face and weedy voice, one might not expect Charles Bronson to be much of a ladies man outside of film (and he's presumably only a ladies man in film because both parties are getting paid) but he ehow capture the heart of this bat-shit crazy woman, who left him nearly $300,000 WHEN SHE DIED.
From people.com (the one, and only time, I shall ever quote them. Notice I didn't even make a link)

Probate papers recently revealed that a Kentucky woman who died 15 months ago left her entire estate, worth some $240,000, to actor Charles Bronson, 77. A sister of the late Audrey Jean Knauer is now waging a legal battle to acquire the assets, saying Knauer was mentally unfit. Bronson, for his part, intends to donate the windfall to charity.

Who can resist this face?

Is the Charleston timeless?

This is a fucking awesome video somebody created setting footage of some guys doing the Charleston on a TV broadcast to Daft Punk.
They sync up surprisingly well- actually not all that surprising because 'Around the World' has about the most conventional beat you can find (not that its not awesome.)

The Man Whose Arm's Exploded

"After spending twenty minutes stabbing himself with the syringe, and ozzing out buckets of blood and pus..."

This could be one of the grosser things I've seen on the net that doesn't involve Russian prostitutes in a bath tub.
TLC did this report on Gregg Valentino, the man who decided normal steroids weren't enough and decided to inject himself with enough nasty shit to make his arms grow all elephant man and then explode.
Just the thought is enough to make me shudder.
Heres the vid from Youtube, kudos to the poster, andrefgb.

NFL all about Men on Men

I hate football.
So it was with much tedium that I sifted through today's 'Google Trends' and realized that every single fucking name was some footballer this and some defensive tackle that.
And then, because David Bowie is a man god, I saw the name Ziggy Hood and decided to click on it, hoping it was something cool.
The result...wasn't quite what I was looking for. It's more NFL march madness draft shit.

But this picture is priceless:

It's like Ziggy tackled this guy and fell on him, and then as they went to get up they looked into each others eyes and found eternity.

So sweet.

How Dare You!

I was reading Neil Armstrong's Wikipedia page for some crazy reason (I'm actually trying to find this short film I watched years ago where he plays himself as an old man, sinking into dementia and telling everyone "I went to the FUCKING MOON.")

Alas, It was not to be.
Instead, I found this totally bizarre tidbit:

In May 2005 Armstrong became involved in an unusual legal battle with his barber of 20 years, Marx Sizemore. After cutting Armstrong's hair, Sizemore sold some of it to a collector for $3,000 without Armstrong's knowledge or permission. Armstrong threatened legal action unless the barber returned the hair or donated the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choosing. Sizemore, unable to get the hair back, decided to donate the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choice.

Who does that?
What kind of person saves a famous mans hair to sell it later, what kind of person ACTUALLY BUYS IT, and what kind of person makes a huge fuss about it?

"I have, in this sealed bag, the slowly decomposing hair of a man who walked on the moon half a century ago! And I only paid the price of a used car!"

The best thing about this story? This incident happened in 2005. And here is a photo of what he looked like that year-
Would you pay $3,000 for a piece of that?

First Human Leaves Solar System

The gods of the internet led me to stumble upon this interesting article by the "Fortean Times : The World of Strange Paranoma," which claims that as you sit here and read this, the perfectly preserved body of a lost Russian cosmonaut is currently drifting outside our solar system.
According to the article, his name and story were all but hidden from the world by Russia, and if not for the diligence and obsession of two Italian brothers who were secretly spying on NASA and the Russia Space Program, would never have seen the light of day.
Suck on that, Yuri Gagarin.

Cop to Twitter "Lets bash some hippys"

The English Police force is just getting more and more fucking corrupt.
Apparently some idiot cop thought that posting "Can't wait to bash some long haired hippys (sic) up @ the G20" to his twitter was a good idea.
Coming days after the death of Ian Tomlinson at the hands of bobbies, this officer has now been warned.
The Police are supposed to be public defenders.
Read the article, get outraged.