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What message am I suppose to take a way from this?
But for all those super geeks who love Catan (boardgame) (online version) I stumbled across this spoof of Star Trek 'macros' that included a reference to the beloved game....
Anyone else get it...
I'm geeking out over here!
Enjoy
While I agree in principal that the public has the right to know about the misuse of funds by executives of publicly traded companies - it seems to me as if the coverage of this story focused more on Lord Browne's sexuality than actual proof (instead of hearsay) of misconduct. Given the stakes and the focus of media coverage - it seems quite reasonable that he would have lied under oath about the circumstances of how he met his accuser ---- NOTE: they say nothing about him denying the relationship....
Quote from the FT:
Devising privacy laws that do not interfere with the freedom to pursue and publish journalistic investigations into potential wrongdoing is notoriously difficult. But since the British remain unwilling to give up their fascination with the personal lives of the rich and famous it is time to take another look.
Rare Macau protest turns violent
Hundreds of people had been taking part in a May Day protest over alleged corruption and illegal labour.
Police fired shots into the air and used dogs to try to disperse the marchers, as they veered off the route.
Protesters were complaining about the lack of local jobs due to an influx of cheap foreign labour caused by a recent boom in Macau's lucrative casino trade.
They accuse the government of turning a blind eye to the situation.
Arrests
Some protesters carried signs saying, "Severely punish employers of black market workers", while others called for Macau's political leaders to stand down.
"We are displeased with the labour crisis and the government's lack of action in dealing with it," said Ho Hen Kuok, president of the Macau Labour Union.
"We don't want to see illegal labour being given jobs."
"The government is rich, the casinos are rich, but nobody is looking out for the Macau people," one marcher told the AFP news agency.
The protest turned violent as demonstrators tried to break through the police cordons lining their route.
Protesters surrounded one police vehicle and threw water bottles and placards at officers, who had boosted their lines with water cannons, the AFP reports.
Police also fired shots into the air, but it was not immediately clear if they had used blank or live rounds to disperse the crowds.
There were no reports of injuries, but several protesters were seen being led away by police.
Unlike nearby Hong Kong - another former European colony which was returned to China in the 1990s - such protests in Macau are uncommon.
Macau's population of 500,000 has a history of co-operation with the Beijing government.
The tiny territory has seen a surge in investment in recent years, with foreign gambling firms - mainly from the US - moving in to build new casino resorts.
Macau workers say that a resulting labour shortage in the territory has led many employers to hire cheap illegal labourers from mainland China.
As May dawns and the mothers among us excitedly anticipate the clever e-cards that we soon will be linking to and the overpriced brunches that we will somehow end up paying for, the following job description may ring a familiar note:
Must be exceptionally stable yet ridiculously responsive to the needs of those around you; must be willing to trail after your loved ones, cleaning up their messes and compensating for their deficiencies and selfishness; must work twice as hard as everybody else; must accept blame for a long list of the world’s illnesses; must have a knack for shaping young minds while in no way neglecting the less glamorous tissues below; must have a high tolerance for babble and repetition; and must agree, when asked, to shut up, fade into the background and pretend you don’t exist.
As it happens, the above precis refers not only to the noble profession of motherhood to which we all owe our lives and guilt complexes. It is also a decent character sketch of the chromosome that allows a human or any other mammal to become a mother in the first place: the X chromosome.
Choice quotes:
"He [the defense lawyer] has hinted that Mr. Braunstein’s attack on the woman was part of an elaborate fantasy over which he had little conscious control."
Cheap shot to blame it on video games: ".."You know killing is wrong, but it turns out you think you’re in the middle of a video game. Because of a paranoid delusional state, you thought it was all a fantasy.”"
-----
Brings up the whole debate about what one can be held accountable.
Any thoughts...?
"...An Associated Press review of historical documents and records -- some never before translated into English -- shows American authorities permitted the official brothel system to operate despite internal reports that women were being coerced into prostitution..."
"...As expected, after it opened it was elbow to elbow," the history says. "The comfort women ... had some resistance to selling themselves to men who just yesterday were the enemy, and because of differences in language and race, there were a great deal of apprehensions at first. But they were paid highly, and they gradually came to accept their work peacefully..."
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2847954
Choice quotes:
1. Gonzalez: "I don't recall... I have no recollection... I don't recall remembering"
2. Stewart: "...I don't doubt the the President has in fact passed many cognitive milestones..."
3. Stewart: "Does the President want us to feel that the people that he hires are competent?"
Oliver: "No, no! Absolutely not - he wants you and the American people to leave him the
f*ck alone!"
4. Stewart: "You are suggesting that the President would rather us believe that he is surrounded
by bumbling idiots than reveal anything even constitutionally mandated about the
inner workings of his administration"
Oliver: "That is correct"
Man cuts off his penis in crowded London restaurant
(Apparently the name of the restaurant Zizzi is close to the French slang for penis)
Nikki add in: "Well, I wouldn't have anything to get upset about if you would just stop blowing up the house!"
- "One year out of college, men and women should arguably be the least likely to show a gender pay gap, the study said, ...Even so, one year after graduation, a pay gap turned up between women and men who studied the same fields. In education, women earn 95 percent as much as their male colleagues earn, while in math, women earn 76 percent as much as men earn, the study showed.
- While in college, the study showed, women outperformed men academically, and their grade point averages were higher in every college major.
Very funny
This Metafilter title really pisses me off. Is it entirely necessary? The subject matter looks really interesting (electronic sitars) --- but what the f*** does the title have to do with that?
"We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that's all."
By Blazecock Pileon
Introduced to Western culture by the Beatles in their single Norwegian Wood, the sitar has featured prominently in North Indian classical music for centuries. Princeton-based computer scientist Ajay Kapur updates the instrument with his ESitar, an audio and video controller that uses gesture input (PDF) and machine learning algorithms to facilitate joining the computer with Ajay in his sitar performance. Undergraduate engineering students at the University of Pennsylvania work from the other direction, building RAVI-bot, an award-winning, self-playing robotic sitar (YouTube) programmed to generate music from classical Raga scales and melodies all on its own. For those in the
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