Gang Holds Top RPG Gamer at Gunpoint

Folha Online reports that using Orkut, Google’s online social network, an armed gang of four 19-27 year old- kidnapped the world-leading Role-Playing Gamer of the game GunBound (boy plays violent video game; others become violent; psychologists, have at it). One of the gang members’ girlfriends lured the gamer onto a fake date at a [...]

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Terrorism and the Effectiveness Thereof

The last terrorist attack in the United States occurred on 11 September 2001. Thus, we are approaching six years without an attack. The dearth of attacks on civilians in the United States may be the result of al-Qaida embracing the results of a recent study by Max Abrahms, wherein [...]

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Keeping “rape” out of the courtroom.

In yesterday’s Slate, Dahlia Lithwick reports on a Nebraska judge’s decision to ban the words “rape,” “sexual assault,” “victim,” and “assailant” among others from, well, a sexual assault case. The decision was made because, supposedly, the use of the terms was biased against the defendant. A retaliatory prosecutorial motion to ban the words “sex” and [...]

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Ordnance Review: Fabulous

This past Friday, June 8th, 2007, the Pentagon finally fessed up: indeed, reports were true that it had considered developing a “Gay-Bomb.” Records obtained by the group Berkeley’s Sunshine Project, confirmed that the Air Force had considered developing, but ultimately rejected pursuing, a non-lethal weapon that contained a strong aphrodisiac, which would cause [...]

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Roleplaying (Video?) Games Lead America’s Children Directly to Satan

Or so people used to say back in the day… dating myself here, but that means the ’70s and ’80s. Well, Cyber Moon Studios has a hilarious animated recreation of exactly what it was like for young roleplayers in the day. I was the GM in almost all of these sessions, and let [...]

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The Music Man

Last week Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post, one of my favorite columnists, wrote about a little experiment he conducted in D.C. He managed to convince Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated American violinists, to play for quarters in the D.C. Metro. For 45 minutes, dressed in jeans and a ballcap, Bell played some [...]

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IslamTube: Snipers and Destruction

Now this is interesting. Everybody knows YouTube, but who knows IslamTube?
Allow me to take a step back to our own majority religion. Yes, there’s also GodTube (catchphrase: “Broadcast Him.”). Looks like the top videos include titles such as “Lyrical,” “Heart for the Lost,” “Baby Got Bible,” and “Creation Short Film.” I [...]

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Americans don’t eat the right foods: Well, duh! Look at all the fat people! Get back to Plato’s advice.

Center for Disease Control reports that Americans still don’t eat right:
March 15, 2007 — Fewer than a third of U.S. adults eat enough fruits and vegetables, according to the CDC.From coast to coast, no state (or Washington, D.C.) meets the CDC’s goals for adult fruit and vegetable consumption.People should eat at least five daily servings [...]

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Male Victims of Sexual Harassment on the Rise!

Yahoo! HotJobs is reporting an increase in male-on-male sexual harassment:
[A] record percentage of men reported being harassed by male colleagues last year, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.Cases filed by men made up 15.4 percent of the 12,025 sexual harassment charges in fiscal year 2006, compared to 14.3 percent in 2005 and 11.6 percent [...]

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Borat, Cheese, and the Extraordinarily Patient Supermarket Worker

Borat Investigates Cheese

This has got to reveal a fundamental defect in my sense of humor, but although I enjoyed the Borat movie, I found myself rolling on the floor with this clip. In one of the deleted scenes, Borat enters a supermarket and asks to be shown the store’s cheese. The [...]

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Celtic/American Indian US Soldier Walks Through Walls!

YouTube – Project Camelot interviews Duncan O’Finioan
Yup, check this out.

This quality interview of Duncan O’Finion from “Project Camelot” is really a step above your usual local access programming, in that this dude has what appears to be an entire foundation backing him.  I’d wager that Snopes and the Skeptics Society probably [...]

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US Schools’ unhealthy cuisine better than Mom and Dad’s menu?

The nation’s schools — under fire for unhealthy school lunches, well-stocked vending machines and phys-ed cuts — may actually do a better job than parents in keeping children fit and trim. A study found that 5- and 6-year-olds gained more weight over the summer than during the school year, casting doubt on the assumption [...]

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Women and the Workplace: Jugde Posner says that women who just want to stay home, probably shouldn’t be taking up the high-demand spots

Elite Universities and Women’s Careers–PosnerAn article in the New York Times of September 20 by Louise Story, entitled “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood,” reports the results of surveys and interviews concerning career plans of women at the nation’s most prestigious colleges, law schools, and business schools. Although not rigorously empirical, [...]

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Sex Offender License Plates?

I tend to agree with the following posting.  As much as I care deeply about knowing just who on my block is a threat to kids, I care much more immediately whether the bloke (or dame) ahead of me or tailgating me is an inveterate drunk with a right foot that has absolutely no sense [...]

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Diminished Sense of Moral Outrage???

Here’s why I don’t have time for psychobabble. Case in point, a new study appearing in “Psychological Science”:
People who see the world as essentially fair can just maintain this perception through a diminished sense of moral outrage, according to a study by researchers in New York University’s Department of Psychology. The findings appear in [...]

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