News – Algorithm March with Ninjas!

Seriously, this first one beats anything else happening today.

Amusements

Algorithm March with Ninjas – Best ever

County school district starts offering students cash to snitch on their peers. $50 for reporting cigarettes in locker, $500 for snitching on hidden weapons

Scary: Middle schooler makes a “Death List”. Obvious: Kid posts list on Myspace. Dumbass: Since no one read it on Myspace, he printed it out and brought it to school

Dropout turns professional video gamer

Raccoon crawls through open cat door. Hilarity ensues

University of Florida to offer organic farming degree, you damn hippies

Priest who misappropriated millions of dollars from a church says he saw himself as the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company who wasn’t properly compensated

Cruise lines are starting “themed cruises,” such as nudist, Christian, Klingon

It takes a special kind of idiot to be caught red-handed in a police bait car only hours after prison release. Again

Man’s blog detailing his real-life abuse from his “demon-wife” inadvertently makes her very wealthy, and famous as the subject of a book, a television drama, a comic-book serialization, a videogame and, coming soon, a movie

California and Wisconsin fight over who has the “Happiest Cows.” California’s already judged “Most Fabulous”

I-Mockery takes a look at “Dinosaurs Attack” – quite possibly the most brutally violent, yet hilarious trading cards ever sold to impressionable young children

The next time you ask a beautiful woman to grab your joystick and go for the high score, you better be wearing this (Amusing tag narrowly beats out Sad tag)

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this piece of solid manganese oxide

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop these tres amigos

Fark Photoshop Challenge: Photoshop this wing walker

Middle East

Amer al-Hashimi, Major General of the Iraqi Army, was shot and killed in his home. He was brother to Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, head of the largest Sunni Muslim group in the Parliament. Police sources say the attackers arrived in ten police cars. Tariq has also lost another brother and sister to the violence in his country.

89 police in Numaniya fall ill, the sickness attributed to infected water. Due to the suddenness and severity of the sickness, some have opined foul play might be a factor.

The US and Iraqi military clash with Shia militants in Diwaniya. The fighting started when troops went to arrest a militant for previous killings. The violence is attributed to members of Sadr’s Mehdi Army, but are detailed as rogue elements out of his control.

Petty Officer Melson J Bacos, a US medic, has been sentenced to ten years for his part in the murder of an Iraqi civilian in April. However, he may evade all but one year as he’s agreed to give evidence against the seven others also charged in the crime. This particular slaying is described as a patrol out looking for an insurgent named Saleh Gowad. He’d been captured and released several times before and, after they hadn’t found him, they focused their frustrations on his neighbor, one Hashim Awad. They took him to a pit and shot him dead, then called in for permission to fire upon a man digging a hole. They stuck and AK-47 and shovel near him to dress the scene.

This sort of shit doesn’t help out credibility within Iraq.

A new look at whether Pakistan is really an ally in the War on Terror.

Guardian investigates, finding that abduction, rape and murder are the punishments for any woman who dares to hold a professional job in Iraq. It’s a given there will ever be elements in Iraq that hold to the old ways.

Asia/Pacific

North Korea says it did an underground nuke test. “Provocative!”, growls the US. “Brazen!”, gasps Japan and China. Yet this test has yet to be confirmed. Russia says it’s 100% certain it happened, but who can trust them? The US and Japan say they’ve detected seismic waves. I suppose we’ll see. Of course, people want a response to this, but what sort of response will do.. anything? Invasion? Not going to happen. Condemnation? Water off a duck’s back. Sanctions? You think Kim will go hungry? Nope and the people are already in a bad way, not that he cares. So act, sure.. but what act will do anything?

Here’s an article from just before the big event.

Thailand’s military leaders unveil the new cabinet for their government, chosen by new Premier Gen Surayud Chulanont. The seats have been given to academics and bureaucrats mostly, with only two seats going to ex-military members. So far so good.. if they keep to their promise for elections next year, this might be one of the most beneficial coups in history(to my recollection, anyway).

Europe

The Youth Wing of the Danish People’s Party, an anti-immigration group, draws up a new cartoon making fun of Mohammed. Obvious they’re trying to stir up trouble to aid in their agenda.

The degradation of relations between Russia and Georgia continues. Personally, I think Russia is in the wrong to aggressively seek out only Georgian illegal immigrants(they’re gathering the names of children in school with Georgian names in this insane push) and pulling their citizens from Georgia, saying it isn’t safe for them. The four Russian military officials arrested in Georgia have been returned. This issue can be smoothed over, yet Russia seems intent on branding Georgia as a terrorist state. I think Putin is losing it.

Americas

More on Foley, another indication that evidence of Foley’s conduct had been brought up as early as in 2000.

Trials on a new form of male contraception have been expanded due to overwhelming interest. Shows that men are interested in a form of birth control besides the permanence of a vasectomy.

Bush lays out more verbal BS. It describes my feelings about the term ‘cut and run’ perfectly: It is also a very dumb phrase. It diminishes the debate by suggesting all options are crystal clear. It poisons the dialogue by angering those reasonable Democrats in Congress who are searching for a middle ground and by freezing those Republicans who want to offer constructive criticism but can’t for fear they’ll be accused of wanting to cut and run. As one Republican congressman put it recently: “Reality has been suspended for a moment. Republicans cannot speak out publicly on this issue right now.”

But that’s Bush’s game, dumbing down the debate to make up for his lack of good answers.

General

By giving patients radiotherapy before having surgery to remove their tumor, scientists have found they can reduce the chance of recurrence of bowl cancer to as little as 1%.

Hydrogen sulphide, a toxic gas that smells of rotten eggs and is naturally occurring in volcanoes and swamps, can indice a state of suspended animation(on tests of mice) and may help to preserve organ function in critically ill patients.

The new game from Rockstar(makers of the GTA series), Bully, is not what you might expect. Sounds like fun, I hope there’s a version for the PSP eventually.

The Blogs look at software that will allow the government to monitor anti-American rhetoric(Gawd..), why evangelicals fear that the kids aren’t all right and David Lynch’s late digital period.

Today’s Papers has a story on the prevalence of childhood spanking among CEOs, an E. coli-related recall of a popular lettuce brand in several Western states, the raging debate over making English the official language of the U.S. and more in the one page news.