The life of Chrysoprase the troll

Article on CNN discussing the fact that there has been no attempt by the major hollywood studios to make a Wonder Woman movie. The author laments the fact that less well know comic book characters like Hal Jordan have earned movie franchises and yet the great Amazonian is yet to make any headway in the film industry.

It’s bad enough that Wonder Woman has consistently received second-class-citizen treatment compared to her alleged equals. The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight have had several major motion pictures across several generations, with more on the way. Wonder Woman’s last big moment outside of comics was when Lynda Carter donned the costume in the ’70s. Not to harp on Green Lantern, who is perfectly OK, but it’s ludicrous that he’s the star of a franchise while there’s still no Wonder Woman film in sight.

Article was written by  Erika D. Peterman, a Florida-based writer and editor, and the co-creator of the comics blog Girls-Gone-Geek.com.

In what stock market analysts are pointing to as a rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy period for Wall Street, manufacturers of downward arrows posted record profits this week.

While makers of cars, computers, farm equipment and practically everything else saw their fortunes plunge this week, producers of downward arrows notched double-digit gains, inspiring investors to snap up their shares like never before.

Companies like National Plunging Arrow Corp and Consolidated Downward Pointy Lines saw their shares rocket as investors rushed to participate in the suddenly red-hot red-arrow sector.

Citing a South African study showing that male circumcision reduces HIV transmission, the deputy prime minister of Zimbabwe is trying to get all the male ministers to get circumcised themselves as a promotion. As it happens, said deputy prime minister is a woman, and some of her colleagues are reluctant. One very unconvincing rebuttal: “I am sure in other countries women get circumcised and DPM Khupe must sacrifice herself first and have her organ mutilated. She must also say women in turn should also be circumcised in this manner before asking the male counterparts to do that.”

Could not help but chuckle, when I read the quote from the male representative, who suggested that the Deputy Minister get her genitals mutilated as well. These are the leaders in charge of governing African countries like Zimbabwe. Leaders who will not even take the time to inform themselves on an issue before responding. Sad, so sad…

mymindcravesnectar:

ikilledcaesar:

One Koala entered someone’s house, looking for water and shade, and here’s what happened when the owner gave him something to drink. 

this is adorable

this is very, very adorable. i love koalas.

Now that KBR has prevailed in Jamie Leigh Jones’ civil case against them, they want her to pay their fees, which total in the millions. And, legally speaking, they are probably just doing it to be assholes.

Jones’ lawyer told The Wall Street Journalthat Jones can’t afford the $2 million in legal fees and $145,000 in court fees, adding, ‘They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us. This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”

KBR told the Journal that since Jones brought her claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which entitles winning parties to collect legal fees, she shouldn’t be surprised. That’s technically true, but even right-leaning Point of Law says that the Title VII claim is “not the argument KBR makes in its brief: they’re simply claiming that the case was frivolous. As such, the motion is unlikely to succeed given the Fifth Circuit standards for permitting a Title VII defendant to recover fees, where ‘frivolous’ is a very small subset of ‘meritless,’ and KBR’s expected recovery is probably less than the publicity hit it’s taking from left-wing blogs.” It’s also been suggested by law blog commenters that KBR could file the fees as a cost-reimbursable expense with the Department of Defense.

KBR’s rep didn’t get into that and just said, “Our fees were substantial, so we’d like to get reimbursed.” Just FYI, KBR reported $786 million in assets and revenue of $10 billion last year.

They are such cads at KBR!

I have no love for Christians who see the world this way, I have enough difficulty liking them as it is, what for believing in imaginary figures. As “bikolives” suggest, how can a woman’s entire existence, be validated solely by what is between her legs?

According to GOP sources, the decision to cede the 2012 election to Obama came after rank-and-file Republicans agreed that grinding the president down to nothing and pushing him to the brink of insanity was far more in line with the Republican Party’s core principles than actually controlling the White House, making laws, or governing the country.

Ha ha ha ha.. this would be funny if it were true. Lol….

Criminal sexual assault charges against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn are to be formally dropped tomorrow, according to sources familiar with the case. The action is due to “credibility issues” with Strauss-Kahn’s accuser, a 32 year old hotel maid.

Son of a bitch! It is terrible that this case  will not at least go to trial. The criminal court system will not even grant this woman an opportunity to air her grievances. Noooooo, because she allegedly told a lies in the past.

http://jezebel.com/5833030/charges-against-dominique-strauss+kahn-to-be-dropped

AIDS is on the rise in many Muslim countries, driven by men having sex with other men in secret because of homophobia, religious intolerance and fear of being jailed or executed, according to a new study.

The new report, released last week in the journal PLoS Medicine, was led by researchers from the Qatar branch of Weill Cornell Medical College who drew from dozens of smaller studies in Arabic, French and English.

About 2 to 3 percent of men in the region have sex with other men, consistent with global averages, the study found. But condom use is low, gay and bisexual prostitution is common, and many married men hide their bisexuality and risk infecting their wives. In some countries, even male prostitutes often marry for appearances’ sake.

Truck drivers, prisoners and street children often have high rates of H.I.V. infection; in Pakistan, infection rates are rising rapidly among transgender prostitutes known as hijra.

The lowest rates of condom use were reported in populous countries like Egypt and Pakistan, while they were highest in Sudan (above), Oman and Lebanon.

To fight their nascent epidemics, some countries have adopted compulsory H.I.V. testing for marriage licenses and work visas.

Because of religious taboos, accurate statistics on some aspects of health are hard to get from Middle Eastern governments. For example, international health authorities say that the world’s highest rates of birth defects are in Muslim countries where cousins are encouraged to marry but that governments are reluctant to admit it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/health/09global.html

(EW.com) — Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

50 Cent — the same 50 who owned hip-hop less than a decade ago with both party starters and thugged-out cuts — can’t get his Interscope record label to back his forthcoming album.

The rhymer took to Twitter to express his displeasure and even threatened to pull the plug on the album altogether. “I’m not releasing a album,” he wrote Wednesday. “I can’t believe Interscope is this f—-ed up right now. I apologize to all my fans.”

Obviously mad he’s not getting the same attention as his label mate and mentor Dr. Dre’s, he then threatened to leak Dre’s next single from his oft-delayed set, “Detox.” “I love Dre,” he began. “But I’m putting his next single psycho out tomorrow at 2:00.”

“You’re gonna love it. It’s a big song,” he continued.” I just don’t think it deserves a great setup since they can’t seem to get it right when it comes to me.” Is 50 right to even hint that he’ll be this defiant? No. It’s such a childish, jealous act. Who in their right mind would think that this would be the way to make anyone excited about their music?

What he might be better off doing is leaking a good song off of his own album. If he’s got any hit records left in the chamber, that would provide the momentum needed to get him a release date and promo plan. His tired Twitter rant just makes him look like an artist on the brink of being irrelevant.

What do you guys think of 50’s social network tirade? Good move? Think he’ll actually leak Dre’s record? Let us know.

HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.

It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.

This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.

When security forces swooped in and rescued the couple, the mob’s anger exploded. They overwhelmed the local police, set fire to cars and stormed a police station six miles from the center of Herat, raising questions about the strength of law in a corner of western Afghanistan and in one of the first cities that has made the formal transition to Afghan-led security.

The riot, which lasted for hours, ended with one man dead, a police station charred and the two teenagers, Halima Mohammedi and her boyfriend, Rafi Mohammed, confined to juvenile prison. Officially, their fates lie in the hands of an unsteady legal system. But they face harsher judgments of family and community.

Ms. Mohammedi’s uncle visited her in jail to say she had shamed the family, and promised that they would kill her once she was released. Her father, an illiterate laborer who works in Iran, sorrowfully concurred. He cried during two visits to the jail, saying almost nothing to his daughter. Blood, he said, was perhaps the only way out.

“What we would ask is that the government should kill both of them,” said the father, Kher Mohammed.

The teenagers, embarrassed to talk about love, said plainly that they were ready for death. But they were baffled by why they should have to be killed.

Mr. Mohammed, who is 17, said: “I feel so bad. I just pray that God gives this girl back to me. I’m ready to lose my life. I just want her safe release.”

Ms. Mohammedi, who believes she is 17, said: “We are all human. God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?”

The case has resonated in Herat, in part because it stirred memories of a brutal stoning ordered by the Taliban last summer in northern Afghanistan.

A young couple in Kunduz was stoned to death by scores of people — including family members — after they eloped. The stoning marked a brutal application of Shariah law, captured on a video recording released online months later. Afghan officials promised to investigate after an international outcry, but no one has faced criminal charges.

The immediate response to the violence in Herat was heartening by comparison. Top clerics declined to condemn the couple. Police officers risked their lives to pull the two teenagers to safety and deposit them into the legal system, rather than the hands of angry relatives. And the police reported that five or six girls had fled the city with their boyfriends and fiancés in the weeks after the riot.

After discussing the case, the provincial council decided that Mr. Mohammed and Ms. Mohammedi deserved the government’s protection because neither was engaged, and because each said they wanted to get married.

“They are not criminals, even if they have committed sexual activities,” said Abdul Zahir, the council’s leader.

But so far, their words have not freed either of the teenagers or lent them any long-term security.

Ms. Mohammedi was initially taken to the only women’s shelter in this province of more than 1.5 million people, but the police transferred her quickly to the city’s juvenile detention center, a sun-washed building where about 40 girls and 40 boys sleep in separate dormitories. The police said they had referred the teenagers’ cases to prosecutors.

“From their point of view, she committed a crime,” said Suraya Pakzad, director of Voices of Women Organization, a rights group that provided Ms. Mohammedi with a bed for one night.

Ms. Pakzad said most of the women and girls in the shelters of western Afghanistan had fled forced or abusive marriages, or had been ostracized from their communities for dating young men without their families’ approval. Male relatives often punish such transgressions with beatings or death.

But in separate interviews at the juvenile jail, Ms. Mohammedi and Mr. Mohammed said they had not worried about such things.

He did not think about the rage that would erupt if a young Tajik man picked up a Hazara girl in a neighborhood dominated by conservative Hazaras, members of one of Afghanistan’s many ethnic minorities. “It’s the heart,” Mr. Mohammed said. “When you love somebody, you don’t ask who she is or what she is. You just go for it.”

They had much in common. His father was dead, as was her mother. They described each other as quiet and polite, both a little shy. They liked the same sappy songs that float over from Iran.

After six years of primary school, Ms. Mohammedi had wanted to study English and take computer classes, but she said her family told her it was a waste of time, and sent her to work at the ice cream factory, for $95 a month.

There, at least, they found each other. Mr. Mohammed spent a month stealing hellos before Ms. Mohammedi tossed her phone number at his feet.

The couple talked on the phone most nights, even though her stepmother disapproved. After a year, they decided they were fed up with hiding their relationship. They would meet, go to the courthouse and get married. Mr. Mohammed persuaded an older cousin to take him to the village of Jabrail, where she was waiting in the town square.

They had not driven 30 feet when a yellow Toyota Corolla blocked their path and angry men jumped out. Ms. Mohammedi was not hurt in the melee that followed, but the crowd beat up the cousin and pummeled Mr. Mohammed until he collapsed.

“We knew they would kill us,” she said.

They now spend the days at opposite ends of the same juvenile jail, out of each other’s sight. Mr. Mohammed nurses the wounds still visible in his swollen face and blood-laced eyes, and Ms. Mohammedi has been going to classes and learning to tailor clothes.

Both say they want to be together, but there are complications. Family members of the man killed in the riot sent word to Ms. Mohammedi that she bears the blame for his death. But they offered her an out: Marry one of their other sons, and her debt would be paid.

Terrible, just terrible! The family of the man who was killed are even more despicable. Ahhh we can only hope that the slow march of time will erodes this sort of ignorance.