I wonder if this is a union job?

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing “sexual services” at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under laws introduced this year.The waitress, an unemployed information technology professional, had said that she was willing to work in a bar at night and had worked in a cafe.

She received a letter from the job centre telling her that an employer was interested in her “profile” and that she should ring them. Only on doing so did the woman, who has not been identified for legal reasons, realise that she was calling a brothel.

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job ” including in the sex industry ” or lose her unemployment benefit. Last month German unemployment rose for the 11th consecutive month to 4.5 million, taking the number out of work to its highest since reunification in 1990.

Now, the question is, do they discriminate on such things as looks or sexual identity? Are they required to take all applicants?

But this is taking it a bit too far.
Yahoo! News - Masturbating Canadian Wins Court Challenge!!

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian who masturbated at a window in his house won his appeal against a conviction for indecency on Thursday after Canada’s top court ruled there was no evidence of intent to commit an indecent act, and a home was not a public place.
The Supreme Court of Canada noted that British Columbian, Daryl Clark, had agreed it was an indecent act to have masturbated “in an illuminated room near an uncovered window visible to neighbors.”
But Justice Morris Fish, writing the 9-0 decision, said such acts have to be done in public places to be a crime — and a home was not a public place. The law also says indecent acts are only crimes in every location if the person intends to give offense.

Oh, now, this isn’t the funny part at all. Nope. You see, the funny part has to do with the neighbors who called the coppers.

The woman said she spotted Clark while she was watching television with her two young daughters in their family room.
She alerted her husband, and the couple observed Clark from their darkened bedroom for 10 or 15 minutes — also using binoculars and a telescope — before summoning the police, who said the upper part of Clark’s body was visible from just below the navel.

OK… now you have it. Canada is soooo boring that you have to watch your neighbor masturbate for at least 10 minutes before doing something about it. With binoculars and a telescope.
Whoa…. I’m sorry, but there is just something wrong with those people. The only question is, what was the running commentary from these folks? That is just a little too tough to think about right now.

Thanks to Right-Thinking for this one!

Jay Reding reminds me of one of my favorite historical enigmas. I’ve always considered myself on top of things like this, but I must not have been paying attention lately.
The Shroud of Turin, although carbon dated to the 13th-14th centuries, well, may be a lot older. It seems that it was patched to repair fire damage in the middle ages, and the piece they dated came from that section.
Wikipedia has a great article on the contraversy. From details on what may cause the coloration (carbohydrates) to various methods on dating the shroud besides the carbon analysis. Even the entire history. The article is remarkably balanced, with both views from the skeptics along with believers.
So it l0oks like we will continue to have to wonder until we can get better testing. Beyond a reasonable doubt isn’t good enough for this case.

Dead man isn’t!

“An old rule in medicine is that nobody is dead until they’re warm and dead,”

Yeah, tell that to the Iceman!
Thanks to Pirate Cove!

Lots of great web based comics. Figure I’d list the ones I read to spread the wealth!
MegaTokyo - Long time favorite.
The Order of the Stick - Stick figure D&D.
PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi - They’re older now…
Loserz - Not updated in a while, but archives are great.
Day by Day - You see it here every day!
Chugworth Academy - More adult themed, but a great read!

Any other greats I should start checking out?

TexasBestGrok does its Sci Fi babe poll. This weeks, Dr. Who!
Five lovely young sidekicks. You do have to go to the main page to cast your vote though…

Went to my first CSAS meeting last night… Pretty nice group of folks. And oh, the toys. This hobby will get expensive.
But at least it is dark out here. No sickly orange glow throughout the skies thanks to GM and Chrysler. I can go outside with binoculars and see stuff better than I ever did back on the east coast.

“Planet Quest” is the current name being used by NASA for this project.

Thier 15 year mission… to see out new worlds (and categorize them).

Using a new technique called “interferometry”, they will be able to extend our vision to far beyond our current capabilities. NASA is seeking to obtain direct, detailed images of planets outside of our solar system.

One day in the future, the possible discovery of other terrestrial planets will hopefully provide convincing evidence that we are not alone.

For those of you out there who want to believe… you can find an animated video summary of the project… here

This will take a little while to load, but if you thought Star Wars kid was embarrassing, take a look at the weatherman.
Oh, it is painful to watch. Not even like a car wreck where you stare, this one I had to look away.
Thanks to Dodgeblogium

San Francisco is at it again!

San Francisco may become the first city in the nation to charge shoppers for grocery bags.

The city’s Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday to consider a 17-cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate.

Isn’t it also discrimination not to charge the people who bring their own bags?

Trailer for the Fantastic Four.
Michael Chicklis as The Thing. Good choice… I’ll reserve judgement on the rest of the cast for now.

From Musings of The GeekWithA.45

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, “I would like to go in and meet with President Kerry.”

The Marine looked at the man and said, “Sir, Mr. Kerry was not elected President .”

The old man said, “Okay” and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, “I would like to go in and meet with President Kerry.”

The Marine again told the man, “Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Kerry was not elected president and does not reside here.”

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U. S. Marine, saying “I would like to go in and meet with President Kerry.”

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, “Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Kerry. I’ve told you already that Mr. Kerry was not elected president and does not reside here. Don’t you understand?”

The old man looked at the Marine and said, “Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it.”

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, “See you tomorrow.”

Even though me and the wife own a Honda Element… this is weird!

Man… I would be getting carjacked all the time in this thing, with everyone thinking you are on your way from the bank vault with it…
Of course, I wonder if you can actually drive like this!

Thanks Flea!

How do you put this on a resume?

SPOKANE, Wash. - David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn’s largest moon.
…
“I (and the rest of my team) waited and waited and waited,” he wrote, as the probe descended. “We watched the probe enter and start transmitting data, but our instrument never turned on.”

Damn, now if that isn’t the most frustrating thing ever. He’s worked for 18 years… thats about as long as I have had jobs!
Someone definitely needs to go to the machine gun range when he gets home and burn off a few thousand rounds!

You’ve heard about it, and now you can see the images Of The Champion Burger Eater.
Thats right, the 100 pound girl who at the 6 pound burger.
Thats like 6% of her body weight! But damn, that thing is huge. And that isn’t counting the 5 more pounds of pickles, lettuce, ketchup, etc. that was on the damn thing!
Call out the pepto patrol!

I love reading Varifrank. He has that knack for writing anything and making it come alive for you.
Here is a great post…

Everyone is always saying “America cannot be he world’s Policeman”. Ok, at some level I can agree with that.
However, no one ever asks ” who is the world’s fire/EMT/Ambulance Department?”.
If Europe wants to step up to the bar and act as “counter balance to American Hegemony”, they might consider taking on that task….

(UPDATE): Friend Harry says: Europe can have landscaping and barkeeping, leave Fire/EMT/Ambulance to Japan…

That is great stuff, but this post is better.

It seems that the studies show that the more guns that private citizens have, the safer everyone is.
Duh. Why do people have such a problem understanding this simple fact?
Would you be stupid enough to break into someone’s house knowing that they are armed?
While there will always be drugged up criminals that will do anything, enough of them don’t have a death wish. And concealed carry laws help the crime rates go even lower. What is the downside?
Thanks to Argghhh!

From Go-Quiz.com

You can even get the new 20gig IPod. Just sign up here and complete one of the special offers. Many of them are useless I’m sure, but there has to be one you’re interested in, like a new credit card, or what I signed up for, a Blockbuster online account. Blockbuster online has 50 pages of anime listed, so that is a good start! And it is their $9.99 a month trial deal. Not too shabby.