moonbuggy

`The names and licenseplate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado said Thursday.

The Denver-based ACLU obtained federal documents on a 2002 Colorado Springs protest and a 2003 anti-war rally under the Freedom of Information Act.

ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said the documents show the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force wastes resources generating files on “nonviolent protest.”

“These documents confirm that the names and license plate numbers of several dozen peaceful protesters who committed no crime are now in a JTTF file marked ‘counterterrorism,’” he said.’

`The story starts over a year ago with a Marine blogger in Iraq. On June 2nd 2004 “The Green Side” – we’ll get back to the signficance of this source later – describes suicidal attacks by insurgents in Fallujah: “We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.” The reason, it turned out, was drugs: “…these ‘holy warriors’ are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.”’

`Night after night in April, May and June of 1974, Pastor Richard Greene had a vision in which he saw a large ark located on a hillside and people coming from all over the world to see it.

Through this repeated vision, God told Pastor Greene to build his congregation’s new church as a replica of Noah’s Ark. The church was to be built as a sign to the world of God’s love and the soon return of Jesus!’

`Taking advantage of a pretty good education in the sciences I built a device to make that practice much more enjoyable and offered encouragement while I worked to perfect my oral abilities. I built the BJmatic. It basically works like this. I slide the dildo all the way down my throat until my nose presses a switch on the wooden board. This turns a vibrator on for 8 seconds. After 8 seconds it turns off. There has to be a delay because I need time to pull out a little and breath. Since the vibrator is being held against my clit, that offers a powerful incentive to keep in a steady rhythm and to keep depressing the switch with by nose. Once I can keep the vibrator from turning off during the 5 to 10 minutes it takes for me to come I then move the dildo out so it has to slide father down my throat in order for my nose to hit the switch. I’ve been practicing a lot so I think when the time comes the lucky guy is going to be pretty happy:-)’

`In the 1980s the CIA produced a small illustrated booklet in both spanish and english designed to destabilise the nicaraguan government and economic system.’

`I haven’t been this excited about any product in quite some time. Combining your RSS addiction with your daily trip to the can has never been easier, with the RSStroom Reader, from Yi Tien Electronics. It’s this crazy machine that hooks up to your computer wirelessly, and prints random RSS posts right to your toilet paper, for you to read before you, eh, use it.’

`Police officers stepping into hostage standoffs and other dicey situations now have something new to throw into the mix — a baseball-sized camera that can be hurled from afar, survive the landing and wirelessly relay video and audio back to base for two hours.

The EyeBall camera weighs less than a pound and is protected by a rugged rubber and polyurethane housing. That allows it to be thrown through windows or bounced off walls. When it comes to a rest, the ball stabilizes itself, then begins transmitting footage and sound up to 200 yards away.’

`A Kansas professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was taken to the hospital Monday following what he said was a beating.

University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World that two men who beat him were making references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this coming spring. Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” the course was canceled last week at Mirecki’s request. [..]

“I didn’t know them,” Mirecki said of his alleged assailants, “but I’m sure they knew me.”‘

Surprisingly tough little car..

`Many sleepers experience that after they turn off the alarm clock they go on sleeping. One thing that sometimes wakes you up at night and prevents you from sleeping is the mosquito or blowfly when flying around your room. The Blowfly alarm clock works like a Blowfly. At the desired time it flies off from it’s cage and starts flying and making sound around you. The only way to stop it is to wake up catch it and put it back in the cage.’

I might actually make it to work before 11am one day if someone buys me one of these. :)

`A police officer has been charged with using a Taser on his partner during an argument over whether they should stop for a soft drink. [..]

Dupuis and partner Prema Graham began arguing after Dupuis demanded she stop their car at a store so he could buy a soft drink, according to a police report.

The two then struggled over the steering wheel, and Dupuis hit her leg with his department-issued Taser, the report said. She was not seriously hurt.’

`The very layout of his new house is testament to Travolta’s love of flying. It’s located immediately off the main airstrip, and is designed so his jets can taxi right up to two outbuildings connected to the main structure, which is shaped like a squat air-control tower. Travolta literally can walk out his door, under a canopied walkway and into the cockpit, open the long mechanised gate and be airborne in a matter of minutes.’

There’s a picture of Travolta’s crazy looking house with the aeroplanes parked right next to it.

`Welcome to the world of Deflexion, the game that combines lasers with classic strategy for an experience enjoyed by players of all ages. Players alternate turns moving Egyptian themed mirrored pieces around the playing field after which they fire their low powered laser diode with the goal of illuminating their opponent’s pieces to eliminate them from the game.’

`Pennsylvania police said a man who died after being struck by a vehicle may have been left on a roadside for days because his body was apparently mistaken for a dead deer.

Police said the man was found on Monday by a motorist, who at first thought the man was a deer because of tan clothing and snow that covered part of his body.

The motorist realized the man wasn’t a deer after noticing his shoes.’

`The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia is going to make an appeal for royal clemency for a jailed expatriate worker following a court order that his one eye be gouged out for partially blinding a Saudi national in a fight.

Abdul Lateef Naushad, 34, from Kerala got into a fight with a Saudi man and injured him in 2003. The Saudi man reportedly lost sight in one eye several weeks later.’

`In a column I wrote in the 1990s, I proposed the creation of an .xxx top-level domain to make it easier to prevent what I then described as a porn storm. These were onerous self-spawning pornography page attacks that took place on the desktops of unsuspecting users. This phenomenon evolved into the “pop-ups” that we still see today and is essentially driven by a flaw in the design of browsers. Since most of these storms were created by porn sites, it seemed as if the easiest way to control them would be to create an .xxx domain for porn and filter the storms out unless you actually wanted to see them.

I harped on this topic on and off for a decade, and it was finally going to happen when, in a surprise move last week, Vint Cerf removed the initiative from the agenda of an ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) board meeting. It appears that a mere 6,000 canned letters sent to the Commerce Dept. did the trick. These apparently stemmed from a cell of evangelical organizations. That’s all it took.’

`Steven Zorn had put the pen gun to his head and clicked before, thinking it was jammed and would not work.

But on the third try, the tiny, silver pistol went off as the 22-year-old budding rap singer was drinking to celebrate an impending record deal. He died later at the hospital. [..]

“He walked up to his computer and pulled the pen gun out of his pocket and started playing with it,” Hanes recalled. “I looked at him and said, ‘Steve, you shouldn’t be playing with that, that’s a loaded gun.'”‘

`Brainiacs and scholars everywhere may gnash their teeth, but according to a recent study of bats, nature forces the males of a species to make a painful trade-off between mental capacity and sperm production.

Because of the high-energy demands of both brains and sperm, scientists believe males cannot generate large amounts of both.

Bats were ideal subjects for the study. Some female bat species are unusually promiscuous, so natural selection led to males evolving enormous testicles in order to compete with more virile suitors – however at the expense of their brain capacity.’

`Taking a cue from an election speech, this animation outlines the regions where mass detentions were carried out after 9/11. This map is built off a database that viewers can update.’

`[..] So, now my network is nice and speedy again. And some guy is in his room trying to dry out his underwear. :) I should have recorded the call since my cellphone has the capability to record conversations. The above conversation can’t even begin to show the fear in his voice. I’m sure he’s scared as hell wondering how they found out his name and that he was staying at a hotel and exactly what room he was in.’

`In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.

A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outerspace. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.’

`FemTone Vaginal Weights are weights that are used during Kegel exercises. FemTone Vaginal Weights are a set of five reusable, tampon-like, sterile cones of identical size and shape but of increasing weight.

FemTone weights when used during Kegel exercises (contracting the pelvic floor muscles) have been found to strengthen the pelvic floor and may improve urinary continence. Many women who utilize Vaginal Weights see marked results in trying to overcome incontinence. The FemTone Vaginal Weights are market leaders in this category. [..]

Please note that due to the nature of this product it is not returnable.’

`Australian blogs will never be as hard-hitting as their overseas counterparts because of our ridiculous laws.

Many local bloggers are unaware that they may be liable for everything they write on their sites, not to mention all of the colourful comments made by contributors.

Our new sedition laws will make this worse.’

The current Australian government is a disgrace. Anyone who voted for John Howard in the last election ought to be ashamed. Although, unfortunately, the sycophants [or “the opposition” as they prefer to be called] are not much better.

`The Federal Government has released its proposed new electoral laws, including plans to close rolls on the day an election is called and ban prisoners from voting. [..]

Paid online electoral advertising will have to be authorised in the same way as print advertisements.

The threshold for disclosure of political donations will rise to $10,000 with contributions to political parties of up to $1,500 to be tax deductible.

The Government says the changes will help reduce electoral fraud.’

I call shenanigans on the government. I think this is seriously fucked up.

First they introduce new sedition laws that are broad enough to make many acts of political opposition and protest criminal [see Australian Sedition Laws Target Peaceful Civil Disobedience], then they attempt to introduce laws preventing criminals from voting.

Anyone else see anything wrong with this scenario?

[The sedition laws are broad enough that my calling of shenanigans is probably illegal. Bah!]

Fimoculous has collected links to many of the various “Best of 2005” lists from various sources on a single page.

`The ongoing trial of Saddam Hussein could prove increasingly uncomfortable for the Bush administration. The first crime of which the deposed dictator is accused, the secret execution of 143 Shiites arrested in 1982, seems an odd choice for the prosecution, and politics may be behind it. Hussein is accused of using poison gas against Iranian troops, of genocide against the Kurds and of massacring tens of thousands to end the 1991 uprising after his defeat in the Gulf War. The problem for the Bush administration with these other, far graver charges, is that the Americans are implicated in them either through acts of commission or omission.’

`From the “Here be Monsters” line, an incredible 12-inch plush that metamorphosizes from a lumberjack into a werewolf. Just open the back and invert the plush to make the change. Amaze friends with your intimate knowledge of the lycanthropic change!’

Because `Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed’.

`Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday.

According to the officials, the head of BellSouth’s Louisiana operations, Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert, who oversees the roughly 1,650-member police force.’