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Tuesday, October 9, 2012

News Tuesday Morning News

Posted by Jen Graves on Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 8:16 AM

"My wife has been my only sex partner and that was after marriage.": Keep talking, Sandusky. Sentenced to 30 to 60.

Taliban Shoot a 14-Year-Old Pakistani Girl in the Head: She was shot in the head and neck, and sustains serious injuries, because she campaigned for girls' education. She was sitting on a school bus. She was an "obscenity," the Pakistani Taliban says.

They're Saying the Leader of the Zetas Mexican Drug Cartel Has Been Killed: Heriberto Lazcano, dead? The Zetas have posted their victims' heads on spikes.

Torture for Political Protesters in Greece?: They're calling it Abu Ghraib-style.

Poor Abigail Fisher: Being white is hard. The Supreme Court is set to hear her case on how being white is hard on Wednesday.

A Conversation with Orlando Cruz: The champion boxer—El Fenomeno—who came out recently. The writing of the story is irritatingly sexist and stereotypical. Watch the video instead, listen to him talk.

Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, Will Block a Plan to Cut Taxes on the Wealthy: Election-season posturing or "planting a new Democratic flag"?

MIT Students Invent a Vest That Hugs You: Every time you're "Liked" on Facebook.

Felix Baumgartner Is His Name: He's hoping the weather makes it so that this morning around 11 am in New Mexico, he can become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier in a 23-mile free fall jump. There will be a camera on his face, and the former world record holder (19.5 miles, 1960, Joe Kittinger) will be the only one allowed to talk to him while he falls.

Catching Nature in the Act of Being Quantum: What today's Nobel prize-winning scientists have done, involving ideas about cats being alive and dead at the same time.

If You Want to Win the Nobel, You Should Be a Man, Be Married and Wear Glasses and a Beard: Amusing graphic about who wins and what they have in common.

HIV-Positive Women in Kenya: Forced-sterilized, now talking about it.

Iraq to Become the World's Largest Oil Exporter?: They're working on it.

The Workplace of the Future: Involves a hologram of your boss.

Fights Over the Name of a Kabul University: Reveal the mess of history and the mess of now.

Only 870 Million People in the World Are Hungry: Not the 1 billion they told us about in 2009. PHEW.

He Competitively Ate a Bunch of Live Roaches (and Worms), Thereby Winning the Competition for a Python, But Then He Died (Now the Python Goes to His Estate): This is how they do in Florida. (Yay for the fact that this classic endeavor from 2009, when we thought there were 1 billion hungry people rather than a mere 870 million, ended better for one Paul Constant. Hands in the air—here's the video.)

Art.sy Being Pitched as A Genome for Art: Robert Storr, curator/historian, quipped after looking at the site, “This place is littered with really terrible art that nobody should be directed to.”

For the first seven seasons, there was no black winner on South Africa's version of American Idol, and South Africans are still talking about what that's about. Then, a week ago, Khaya Mthethwa won. He sang Nicki Minaj's "Super Bass," which he heard for the first time that day. And, um, yeah:

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Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I cant believe you missed this one-

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/arts/d…

Posted by CATSPAW666 on October 9, 2012 at 8:36 AM

“This place is littered with really terrible art that nobody should be directed to.”

But it's Chihuly-free, at least for the moment. Can't complain about that.

Posted by ScrawnyKayaker on October 9, 2012 at 8:38 AM

In Jerry Sandusky's world it's only sex if they've hit puberty.

Posted by Smartypants on October 9, 2012 at 8:48 AM

You missed this gem also:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/08/ar…

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on October 9, 2012 at 8:57 AM

Here's those Emil Fisher spectacles:

http://za.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Fische…

A faux-unibrow look.

He also committed suicide.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on October 9, 2012 at 9:04 AM

@5280,

Cienna covered it two posts earlier.

It IS a gem though... definitely worth repeating twice.

Posted by Urgutha Forka on October 9, 2012 at 9:06 AM

I have shamefully had Super Bass stuck in my head all morning, so thank you for this. He is great.

Posted by More, I Say! on October 9, 2012 at 9:11 AM

Thanks to a dear friend this gay of a certain age finally learned that beyond the schmaltzy tearjerkers Macklemore can't help loving (and I can't help side-eyeing), he and Mr. Lewis have given us that goddam thrift store song. It rules me. I finally get it.

Here's a delightful AMA the pair did last night as they learned The Heist was hitting #1: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/11…

Posted by gloomy gus on October 9, 2012 at 9:17 AM

Urgutha: Yeah, I slept in late today and wasn't awake when I posted that. Hadn't looked at the other posts yet. My bad.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on October 9, 2012 at 9:20 AM

From the PI's photo essay on Washington Cities:

1. Kent: 52.2 percent of this city’s residents described themselves as Hispanic or a race other than white. Kent appears to be the state’s first and only large majority minority city.

Very cool, right?

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/R…

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe

on October 9, 2012 at 9:23 AM

Another success indicator for the nobel prize is being able to read a chart: glasses and beard are both in the minority.

Posted by beef rallard on October 9, 2012 at 9:45 AM

I've only had sex with my wife and then only after we were married? How can someone say that when people have seen him in the shower with his dick in a 12-year-old boy? Is this cognitive dissonance or is he missing some buttons?

Frankly, I'm glad this is over and we don't have to hear about Sandusky anymore. Next date I'm looking forward to: November 7.

Posted by Bauhaus I on October 9, 2012 at 9:58 AM

So, Abigail Fisher missed out on UT admission via the Top Ten program wherein every student in Texas is guaranteed admission if they make the academic top ten of his or her high school. That sounds fair enough. Her issue is that she just missed out making the top ten from her advantaged, predominantly white school, but her numbers were better than some who made the top ten in his or her disadvantaged (perhaps inner city) high school.

How many times, I wonder, is the SCOTUS going to revisit this issue? The merits of affirmative action were decided in the Bakke decision and refined in Gratz v. Bollinger. Ms. Fisher wasn't denied admission because of her race. She wasn't admitted because she didn't make the top ten, right? If she really had a hard-on for going to UT, she could have been strategic. It's not unheard of. She could have transferred to an inner city school where her grades may have put her in the top ten.

Here's what pisses me off though: She says her future's fucked up because she had to go to LSU instead. She would have gotten better jobs if she'd gone to UT. That's pretty insulting to a lot of people.

Posted by Bauhaus I on October 9, 2012 at 10:38 AM

@13: If you has ever seen the quality of a lot of the people LSU pushes out, you may feel the same way she does.

LSU is mostly LA residents, and LA has some of the worst schools in the nation, which means they lower their own standards to account for it. Local employers know this.

I am not just talking out of my ass, I had a graduate assistantship there for a while. Many of the undergrads had no idea how to spell or write, and were not reading at a high school level.

Posted by Theodore Gorath on October 9, 2012 at 11:00 AM

On the news one is constantly hearing "physicists" claim that "photons are being destroyed," etc., ad nauseum --- they aren't being destroyed, but transformed --- these fantasy physicists probably still don't understand Bell's Theorem, and probably believe the EPR paradox has been proven --- no, but Bell's Theorem has been substantiated.

Truly, America exists in the era of Fantasy Finance and Fantasy Physics.

Also:

If You Want to Win the Nobel,.... twice, you should definitely be a woman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie

As to eating uncooked roaches, I'll bet that dood studied physics in school.....

Posted by sgt_doom on October 9, 2012 at 11:02 AM

Did no one ever tell that Fisher chick she could have applied as a transfer? She didn't want it hard enough, and now she has sour grapes for it.

Posted by internet_jen on October 9, 2012 at 11:41 AM

@16) Word!

Posted by Big Matt G on October 9, 2012 at 11:48 AM

Good on Schumer, though.

Time for the Tax Giveaways to expire, and only come back when 2/3 of the Citizens vote for them.

As in ... never.

Posted by Will in Seattle

on October 9, 2012 at 12:30 PM

"If You Want to Win the Nobel, You Should Be a Man, Be Married and Wear Glasses and a Beard"

You all should change the morning news to the evening news. Fewer reading comprehension failures.

Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn