Dog Wash Vending
Your pathetic doggie at a ‘washing-machine’, yes, a dog washing-machine… That’s the Dog-O-Matic, a mini car-wash that transforms pets from filthy to fluffy in half an hour. By Frenchman Romain Jarry, who insists this device is no cruel, and success with the Dog-O-Matic in his home town of St Max(near Nancy). He plans to introduce it to U.K. next year.
Mr Jarry said: ‘It doesn’t take long to wash the dog – usually a few minutes. The longest part is the drying. The dogs don’t seem to get bored. They just sit there and they come out clean.’
In the vending machine, the owner can select the required wash cycle and dog sizemachine. It costs the equivalent of £13 to wash a small dog, £22 for medium size, rising to £31 for the largest customers.
quoted from http://www.likecool.com/Dog-O-Mat–Gadget–Gear.html
Obama presses Netanyahu over two-state plan
US President Barack Obama has urged visiting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a Palestinian state.
After their first talks since both took office, Mr Obama restated his support for a two-state plan and said the US would be “engaged in the process”. He also said Israel had an obligation under the 2003 “roadmap” to stop Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu said he was ready to start peace talks “immediately” but refrained from endorsing a Palestinian state.
After their meeting in Washington, Mr Obama said he had suggested the Israeli prime minister had a “historic opportunity to get a serious movement” on Palestinian statehood.
read more here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8055105.stm
should it be legal?
In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.
Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.
“Now instead of being put into prison, addicts are going to treatment centers and they’re learning how to control their drug usage or getting off drugs entirely,” report author Glenn Greenwald, a former New York State constitutional litigator, said during a press briefing at Cato last week.
Under the Portuguese plan, penalties for people caught dealing and trafficking drugs are unchanged; dealers are still jailed and subjected to fines depending on the crime. But people caught using or possessing small amounts—defined as the amount needed for 10 days of personal use—are brought before what’s known as a “Dissuasion Commission,” an administrative body created by the 2001 law.
Each three-person commission includes at least one lawyer or judge and one health care or social services worker. The panel has the option of recommending treatment, a small fine, or no sanction.
Peter Reuter, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, says he’s skeptical decriminalization was the sole reason drug use slid in Portugal, noting that another factor, especially among teens, was a global decline in marijuana use. By the same token, he notes that critics were wrong in their warnings that decriminalizing drugs would make Lisbon a drug mecca.
“Drug decriminalization did reach its primary goal in Portugal,” of reducing the health consequences of drug use, he says, “and did not lead to Lisbon becoming a drug tourist destination.”
Walter Kemp, a spokesperson for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, says decriminalization in Portugal “appears to be working.” He adds that his office is putting more emphasis on improving health outcomes, such as reducing needle-borne infections, but that it does not explicitly support decriminalization, “because it smacks of legalization.”
Drug legalization removes all criminal penalties for producing, selling and using drugs; no country has tried it. In contrast, decriminalization, as practiced in Portugal, eliminates jail time for drug users but maintains criminal penalties for dealers. Spain and Italy have also decriminalized personal use of drugs and Mexico’s president has proposed doing the same. .
A spokesperson for the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy declined to comment, citing the pending Senate confirmation of the office’s new director, former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs also declined to comment on the report.
How The Brits See Fox And The Rest Of American TV News
What you won’t hear on the news… Somalia
The other side of the Somalia Story
You are being lied to about pirates
Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth.
In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.
Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.
Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. This is the context in which the “pirates” have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence”.
American Captain Phillips freed!
Captain Richard Phillips, (R), alongside Cmdr. Frank Castellano, CO of USS Bainbridge after his rescue
Hero Capt. Richard Phillips was freed today in a dramatic ending to a four-day high seas standoff that riveted the world.
Three of the four ragtag pirates who held the world’s most powerful Navy at bay on the Indian Ocean were killed, and the fourth was taken into custody.
Phillips was said to be in good condition.
On Saturday negotiations had broken down when the Somali pirates reportedly insisted they would only free Phillips in exchange for their own freedom – a deal nixed by US officials.
Phillips, 53, captain of the 17,000-ton relief cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, offered himself as a hostage to save his 19-man crew Wednesday when armed pirates took his ship.
He and the pirates had been drifting in an out-of-gas lifeboat, surrounded by massive US warships who could do little but keep pirate reinforcements from reaching the lifeboat.
The audacious pirates even opened fire Saturday on a small Navy vessel sent from the destroyer USS Bainbridge.
Apple Places Order for 100 Million 8Gb Flash Chips
i know, this is a poor excuse to post the pic of the apple girl.
Let’s not jump to any conclusions. Maybe they just want to redecorate the Cupertino campus, and they thought covering the walls in 8Gb (gigabit, not byte) flash chips would be original and visually appealing.
Actually, that’s probably the last possible reason Apple recently placed a massive order for 100 million 8Gb chips from their suppliers…
…most of which will come from Samsung, according to DigiTimes, the source of the report. Yes, that is a lot of chips, and apparently the whole industry will feel the strain as the NAND flash supply will be pretty tight up until the end of May, thanks to fairly large orders by Sony and Nokia, in addition to Apple.
In case you didn’t guess, Apple is most likely going to be using the new chips for the new iPhone that’s been all but confirmed as due this June in time for WWDC ‘09. The tiny chips can be combined by Apple into larger configurations of 16GB and 32GB sizes, which is what most are expecting from the new iPhone models. For those still skeptical about the new iPhone’s imminent launch, the same thing happened last year around this time before the release of the iPhone 3G, except that time the order was only half the size. Which doesn’t mean Apple is planning on producing double the launch units, but that those units will almost definitely have double the storage capacity.
RE: The Greatness of Los Angeles
Billie Holiday by M-BW, originally uploaded by os!.
This is somthing i came across on craigslist, read the whole thing, i think you’ll enjoy it. at the very least it might get you out of Saddle Ranch.
Some of the best times I’ve had in LA are exploring off the path sorts of restaurants and little nooks and crannies in the different parts of town.
Stop by K-Town and find a little Korean restaurant with no English on the menu. There are a dozen or so great ones. Then head down to Little Hanoi and try some Vietnamese food. Go over to Fairfax and try all 3 of the Ethiopian restaurants. The one with the crazy lady who practically drags you in off the street is great, and so is the one run by the guy who thinks hes a sultan with his harem of serving girls.
Head over ot China town…
…and walk through the big indoor clothes shopping mall. Push through all the strange shops, and pick out a sweet Bruce Lee outfit for about 15 bucks. Makes great PJs. Eat some odd little munchies.
Hit King Taco. Damn thats some good food.
Head to the Brewery Artist colony. Especially when they do one of their twice yearly art walks. Eat a hot dog, see a shit load of art. Some of it crap (some of those artists can’t be paying the rent with that junk, must be nice to have a trust fund), but also many really great artists in the mix.
Hit the Pico Rivera swap meet. Check out all the stolen merchandise. Haggle for a hot power tool. Or buy a canary.
Go to Hollywood Park, gamble, lose money. Repeat. Check out the Century Blvd hookers on the way back. Wonder as I do how anyone pays them for sex. I wouldn’t have it with one of them if she paid me.
There are Japanese restaurants in Gardena where I felt like the first Gringo to have ever set foot inside. I ate a few things that I couldn’t identify, but it was great fun.
Go to the crazy reptile only pet store in Huntington Beach. Some big ass reptiles.
Head to the Valley. Oh wait, scratch that. Don’t ever ever ever ever go to the valley.
Go swim in the big fountain in Los Feliz, right by Grifith Park. Throw pennies at the little kids.
Go horse back riding in Grifith Park.
Putt Putt golf. Bowl. Go-Cart Race. Ok, all thats out of your system now.
Go to Bergamont station in Santa Monica on a Saturday and look at more art. Pretend you can actually afford it, and have the curator follow you around as you decide what piece you should purchase for that new house you got in Malibu.
Go to Cerritos auto square and test drive every car ever made in the year 2003. I liked the Lexus personally. I liked it so much I almost bought the damn thing. But I think I’ll get a Harley instead. More fun.
Check out Watts Towers in Watts. Now that is some crazy shit. Amazing what one man with a vision and a few screws loose can create. I was totally in awe.
Go to Miss Kitty’s Parlour and have a dominatrix smack your ass on stage while you whistle Dixie. Get there early and pay only a $7 cover. Give Miss Kitty a big ol’ kiss on the cheek from me.
Go to Catalina Island. Ride the funny little submarine boat and see all the fishies. Go to Long Beach Aquarium, and pet a shark. Go to the zoo and have gorillas throw poo at you. Woo hoo fun.
Go back to King Taco. Damn thats good stuff.
Eat at Uzbekistan in Hollywood. Bet you never had Uzbek food before. After that trip you can say you have.
Go up to the top of Signal Hill and just look around. Day or night, its a great view. Better if you’re with a member of the oppisite sex. Unless you are gay. Then better with a member of the same sex. While you are in the area, go to the port of LA/Long Beach and look at all your consumer goods come in to town on those big ass ships. Go see the Queen Mary if thats your thing.
Drive over the bridge, cause there is no toll now. On the other side explore San Pedro. Yes, San Pedro. Its kind of cool. A great and growing arts district with open studio nights, and Papadakis Taverna, the best Greek restaurant ever. EVER! No arguments. The 2 brothers that own it should be national treasures. I got to dance around and break a wine glass on the floor. It was a blast. And how many times have you been to the other side of Palos Verdes? It takes about an hour to drive around that chunk of rock, but its a great view.
Go to Gardens of Taxco restaurant on Santa Monica in WeHo. You will not leave hungry, it is the best Mexican place in town. (well, except maybe King Taco.)
Go to old El Segundo. I mean the hidden little main street tucked away. You’ll feel like you’re in a little tiny town in the midwest. Rinaldi’s makes the best sandwiches ever. Then marvel how such a cute little white bread town can be right next to a major airport, a power plant, and a major oil refinery. Crazy.
Go downtown to the garment district. Wander around, check out some crazy cheap clothes, but some fabric for no reason.
Take a date and ride the gondola through the canals in Long Beach. Its down by Belmont Shores. Bring a bottle of wine and a blanket. They supply the deli snacks. The gondola driver will actually sing to you. Its so cute. Kiss under every bridge. Tip the oarman well you cheap fucks.
Go to an indoor shooting range (they are all over.) Rent a gun and blast away at a paper target. Its nifty. If you really want to have fun, reject the cliche Saddam or Osama targets, and say to the proprietor “no thanks, I brought my own Charlton Heston, NRA President target.” See if they laugh. Prepare to duck in case they open fire.
Go to Sit and Sleep, test a really comfy mattress and doze off. They left me there for about an hour before they politely woke me up.
Drive around South Gate, Hawthorne, Pico, Vernon, Watts, Huntington Park, K-Town, Boyle Heights. Don’t worry, the people are perfectly nice. Honestly. Now drive around Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Palos Verdes Estates. See which people seem more friendly. Which are more interesting. Take a few photos as you go. See all of LA, not just the rich parts. The poor parts are often just as rich in their own ways. I’ve only lived here a few years, but I’ve explored most communities, and I’ve found neat stuff in all of them.
Its funny, I’ve met people that have lived here all there life and they couldn’t find South Gate or El Segundo on a map if you had a gun to their head. Heck, some of them don’t even know where Torrance or Seal Beach is. I met a girl born and raised in Manhattan Beach who had never been north of the 10 freeway, or east of the 405. Her whole life had been spent in about a 10 square mile area. Get out, have fun, explore. LA is a big friggin smorgasborg with endless things to see and do. Millions of odd people to meet. Most of you probably don’t even know one of the greatest Steak houses in the world is in La Mirada. Go find it, throw some peanut shells on the ground.
Remember that the “industry” is a fraction of the people in this town. Yes, sorry to break it to you, they aren’t even close to the top employer in LA. There are tons of other of us non-industry people out here, each with their own interesting stories. Go explore some of them.
Alright, I have a zillion other suggestion, but its late. I now suggest I go to bed.
And sorry about all the food references, I’m hungry.
So go to King Taco. I’ll see you there.
-Kevin
Wait, did he say love… I think he meant hate
The problem with our country is that we have too many people worrying about what others do, and we pick out certain “sins” to persecute and ignore the others.
Take this for example, churches don’t want gay people because they are “sinners”. Well, gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, so should we kick fat people out of church because they are sinners. Show me someone who is not a “sinner” and i will show you a liar.
I say, live your life the best you can, and focus on making you a better person. and whatever religion you believe in, ask yourself if your saviour would want you to judge, persecute or hate others for any reason. Seriously. Ask yourself that…
“Normally you wouldn’t think an arsonist would be good at s**. Boy was I ever wrong! Thanks Conjugal Harmony”
It was only a matter of time before someone started this site. This is one of the Members of the new dating site, ConjugalHarmony.com
Name: Stabberella
Age: 23
State: California
Convictions: Trespassing, soliciting, prostitution, drug possession and then my three strikes was all armed robbery whateva.
Hobbies and Interests: I like movie night and I always write letters to stars. Sometimes I get autographed pictures or letters back and I collect them.
Why I Deserve Another Chance: A few years ago this pastor started coming in to preach the gospel and ever since then my life has changed. He’s so smart and so hot I think of nothing but having his pious face buried in my mangy minge, even if all he ever does is blab on about God. You marry me and I’ll dream of you instead and we can be together all the time I’m allowed. My streetwalking days make me mushy but so skilled you won’t know it and the difference experience brings will make you insane with lust once you’ve had a taste of me.
Browse our inmates and find a little of your own conjugal happiness today!
A Coffin, a Flag, a Photograph – coming home
People might not realize how huge this is! for 18 years the government has tried to keep us in the dark about the true casualties of war. Out of site, out of mind. Take note, remember the fallen and understand that although the war is not top news anymore, our soldiers are still over there getting their limbs blown off and giving their lives for our political decisions.
For the first time in 18 years, the Pentagon granted the news media access on Sunday night to cover the arrival of a coffin to Dover Air Force Base from overseas.
The coffin, draped in a flag and bearing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers of Hopewell, Va, was unloaded from a government aircraft by the military honor guard. Sergeant Myers, 30, was killed by an improvised explosive device near Helmand Province in Afghanistan on April 4, according to the Defense Department.
A ban on news coverage of returning war dead, which had been in place since the Persian Gulf War in 1991, was lifted by the Obama administration following a review of the policy by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
In the hours leading up to the transfer of Sergeant Myers’s corpse, Air Force officials received the consent of his family members — per the new policy — to grant members of the news media permission to be on hand.
Military Docs Are Not To Diagnose PTSD In Returning Vets
Sgt. X had no idea that the little machine in his pocket was about to capture recorded evidence of something wounded soldiers and their advocates have long suspected — that the military does not want Iraq veterans to be diagnosed with PTSD, a condition that obligates the military to provide expensive, intensive long-term care, including the possibility of lifetime disability payments.
And, as Salon will explore in a second article Thursday, after the Army became aware of the tape, the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to investigate its implications, despite prodding from a senator who is not on the committee. The Army then conducted its own internal investigation — and cleared itself of any wrongdoing.
When Sgt. X went to see McNinch with a tape recorder, he was concerned that something was amiss with his diagnosis. He wanted to find out why the psychologist had told the medical evaluation board that handles disability payments that Sgt. X did not, in fact, have PTSD, but instead an “anxiety disorder,” which could substantially lower the amount of benefits he would receive if the Army discharged him for a disability. The recorder in Sgt. X’s pocket captured McNinch in a moment of candor. (Listen to a segment of the recording here.)
“OK,” McNinch told Sgt. X. “I will tell you something confidentially that I would have to deny if it were ever public. Not only myself, but all the clinicians up here are being pressured to not diagnose PTSD and diagnose anxiety disorder NOS [instead].” McNinch told him that Army medical boards were “kick[ing] back” his diagnoses of PTSD, saying soldiers had not seen enough trauma to have “serious PTSD issues.”
iPhone 4G?
Many… gadget blogs have reported this unsourced the next iPhone pics from Dotdosh. Click 2 enlarge!
“Could this be the next iPhone? A photo that was recently posted shows these images, but are to be taken with a grain of salt. If this is the next generation iPhone its pretty sexy and it looks to have a bigger screen and the silent toggle switch moved.As said before, take this with a grain of slat until Apple finally announces the next iPhone. ”
it is just more slim, not innovative designs that caught my eyes… For those likecooler who want to know it.
STUDENT ARRESTED…FOR BEING HONEST – UK News
Paul Leicester, 18, played the Good Samaritan when he discovered the handset lying in the street.
He rang the last number dialled and told a friend of the owner he would leave the phone at a nearby police station. But officers arrested him for “theft by finding”, held him for four hours and took a DNA sample.
Yesterday Paul said: “I thought I was doing the right thing and had it thrown back in my face. I wouldn’t go to the police in future. All I was doing was the honest thing. It was a shocking experience.”
The A-level student at Southport College, Merseyside, had been out celebrating his 18th birthday last month when he found the phone.
Paul added: “Being arrested isn’t a good way to celebrate your birthday. What are you supposed to do when you find a phone?”
Pets for medical devices?
this won’t work because there is no million dollar machine that they can bill us for. unfortunately we are in a society that is motivated by greed.
For a glimpse into the minds of the future’s great designers, Design Indaba this year invited the top graduates from design institutions across the world to not only come and experience Design Indaba, but also share their work in Pecha Kucha format. Speaking at the conference were Jon Stam from Design Academy Eindhoven, Sandhya Lalloo from the University of Johannesburg, Revital Cohen from the Royal College of Art in London, Arno Mathies from ECAL Lausanne in Switzerland, Barbara Cilliers from the University of Pretoria and Lauren Mackler from Rhode Island School of Design in the US.
This presentation by Revital Cohen, in which she talks about her Life Support Project, was also presented at the Design Indaba Expo.
About the Life Support project:
“Assistance animals – from guide dogs to psychiatric service cats – unlike computerised machines, can establish a natural symbiosis with the patients who rely on them. Could animals be transformed into medical devices? This project proposes using animals bred commercially for consumption or entertainment as companions and providers of external organ replacement. The use of transgenic farm animals, or retired working dogs, as life support ‘devices’ for renal and respiratory patients offers an alternative to inhumane medical therapies. Could a transgenic animal function as a whole mechanism and not simply supply the parts? Could humans become parasites and live off another organism’s bodily functions?”
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