April 29, 2008

Customers Upset Over Pine Hills Beauty Store Selling Beer:

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Some residents in Pine Hills are upset about a beauty supply superstore that started selling beer as its only non-beauty related product. There is a large beer display in the front entrance of the store that sells wigs, hair products, and make-up.

Some customers say they felt insulted by the store adding alcohol since there are already six convenience or grocery stores within a few hundred feet of the Super Beauty Outlet.

"To me they're saying that all black people want to do is drink. That's the first thing that came to my mind and I was offended," said Christine Dunchie, a customer. Apparently a BLACK customer, who believes the universe revolves around the color of her skin.

The store is licensed to sell beer, but a Pine Hills pastor who saw the display believes the state should be more selective about the types of stores that are granted licenses for beer and wine sales. Fuck Mr. Pine Hills Pastor and the horse he rode in on. SRSLY. Fuck you. That is all.

April 28, 2008

Coffin Couches:

SkullznEyez Loves Gothic Coffin Couches
Our niche happens to be 18 gauge steel coffins which we collected from local funeral homes primarily in Southern California. It is a health and safety law that funeral homes cannot resell used coffins to the general public. We approached funeral directors with the attitude of recycling.

These coffins are not used for burial due to slight cosmetic inconsistencies. They are reconfigured and modified resulting in a finished product - a unique one a kind coffin couch.

April 26, 2008

Getting Paid To Drink:

LONDON - Found: drinking companions to join elderly gentleman for a friendly beer at his local pub.

Mike Hammond was bombarded with offers after advertising in his village post office for someone to accompany his 88-year-old father Jack on visits to a southern England pub from a nursing home.

He offered the lucky winner 7 pounds ($14) an hour plus expenses and, after sifting through the applicants, decided on a job-share. Drinking duties are to be divided between a retired doctor and a former military man.

"Dad's now going to be going down to the pub several times a week -- three with his new friends and twice with me," Mike Hammond told The Times on Thursday. "I want to give him some of his old life back."

April 16, 2008

Intelligent Scientists Do Drugs:

ARTICLE LINK

According to Nature, 20% of scientists in an informal survey admitted to using ‘cognitive enhancing’ drugs: Poll results: look who’s doping. Ironically, the original survey was triggered by an April Fool’s prank played on the scientific community. My initial thought was, Do they count caffeine? Of course, they didn’t. If they did, numbers would obviously be different.
Drugs Do The Body Good

We asked specifically about three drugs: methylphenidate (Ritalin), a stimulant normally used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder but well-known on college campuses as a ’study aid’; modafinil (Provigil), prescribed to treat sleep disorders but also used off-label to combat general fatigue or overcome jet lag; and beta blockers, drugs prescribed for cardiac arrhythmia that also have an anti-anxiety effect.

The most popular of the drugs used by respondents to Nature’s poll seem to have fairly mild neuroenhancing effects, says Chatterjee, who calls the massive media interest in these drugs “neurogossip”. Nevertheless, the numbers suggest a significant amount of drug-taking among academics. As Eisen’s April Fool’s prank spread from blog to blog, it was hard to tell who was in on the joke and who was taking the announcement at face value. Although tricking people was a goal, Eisen had been aiming for something so ridiculous that most would chuckle. Instead, he worries that he might have hit a nerve: “I think it did make it less funny because it is actually too real.”

The initial discussion that led to the poll was referenced by Daniel a while back in a great piece, Brain Enhancement: Beyond Either/Or, that explored this topic in greater detail. If you haven’t checked it out, you should. Daniel talks about the ‘unintended consequences’ that almost always accompany drug use. I don’t have too much to add to that except that, with what we know about neuroplasticity, this should not surprise us at all. The brain and nervous system tend to adapt to any changes in the overall environment they inhabit: the tasks they do, the condition of the environment (which is both inside and outside of the body), any other chemicals introduced into the equation.

What I’m struck by in this, however, is the social framework in which the use takes place. Daniel write about the effects on society overall from performance enhancing drugs. I’m looking at a slightly different angle: how the institutional structure I’ve worked within in two places very differently affects whether an individual in it might choose to use. Even though I’m working on a promotion application right now — as we speak, I’m in avoidance; when the post is over, back to it — I do not in any way feel the same intensity of pressure being an academic in Australia than I did in the US under a tenure system. Whereas performance enhancing drugs might have made sense to me at some point in the US, it’s really alien to me right now, sitting looking at the mountains, working at a reasonable pace with reasonable expectations. That is, rather than social forces working for or against use, there is a framework of rewards and expectations that has changed for me in two different settings; given my new framework, the whole emotional-rational calculus has shifted, and I can’t imagine taking them whereas I might have in a different environment.

April 11, 2008

Plea For Witches To Be Pardoned

Story from BBC NEWS:
Campaigners have submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for the last woman convicted under the Witchcraft Act to be pardoned.

Helen Duncan spent nine months in Holloway prison after being found guilty at a trial in 1944.

She had told a séance a warship had sunk before the news had been officially announced.

A second petition calls for all those convicted under witchcraft legislation in Scotland to be pardoned.

Both petitions have been organised by a paranormal group, Full Moon Investigations.

A petition to the Westminster Government last year failed to secure a pardon for Mrs Duncan.

This new document calls on the Scottish Government to urge the Home Secretary to reconsider the case.

Mrs Duncan, born in Callander, Perthshire, held a séance at which the spirit of a dead sailor was said to have revealed the loss of the battleship HMS Barham with most of her crew.

The sinking had been kept secret by the authorities to maintain wartime morale.

Although not convicted for being a witch, Mrs. Duncan was jailed for pretending to use witchcraft.

The crime of being a witch was abolished by the 1735 Witchcraft Act.

Roberta Gordon presented the signatures to Frank McAveety, convener of the public petitions committee, at Holyrood.

Mrs Gordon, who has been a medium for more than 28 years, said: "I feel that at the time the country was paranoid about security with D-Day coming up and the evidence used against her wasn't accurate.

"It would take away the stigma of the family that is still living, the granddaughters, the great-grandsons and she has got a great granddaughter.

"For them to know that Helen Duncan is not classed as a witch would be the icing on the cake."

The campaigners claim about 4,000 people were convicted under the witchcraft legislation in force between 1563 and 1736, 85% of them women.

The petition states that torture was used to extract confessions as late as 1704 and those convicted were almost always strangled before their body was burnt.

The petition states: "Many of today's professions have their roots in tradition and what could be seen as mystical wisdom.

"Professions such as mediumship, herbalists, midwifery, reiki and many alternative therapies, to name just a few."

April 07, 2008

Cthulhu Cake:

Cthulhu T-Shirts Are At SkullznEyez
Here is Cthulhu rising from the oceans, using a convenient little island with a tower on it to climb up. The base was cherry-chip cake, the island and tower a mix of cherry chip and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Also used small chocolate 'pearls' as rocks. Cthulhu himself is all fondant, with two chocolate pearls that I seeped in red dye for eyes. LINK

April 01, 2008

Cthulhu Lives In Antarctica:

SkullznEyez Has Awesome Cthulhu T-Shirts
Last week a team of New Zealand researchers found a slew of interesting species in Antarctic waters. Some of the animals they discovered in the Ross Sea may be entirely new to science. National Geographic has posted a slide show of the beautiful creatures. Seen here, an Antarctic octopus collected 3,280 feet down. LINK