The latest trailer is up and it, finally, shows lots of action. Though, I did laugh at the Black Window's cute little gun. The poor girl looks so misplaced in the group. Of course, she's not completely without, er, talent:
She relies on her smoking hot body to distract the enemy so she can do that thighs around the head take down thing she does.
Mm hmm.
This is too good via Prof. Reynolds:
Q: I attend a small university studying engineering. I hold traditional values and I would like to get married to a woman willing to stay home and raise our children. I am lucky enough to not have any student loans and will be able to support a wife and children on my salary. Preferably, I would like to marry a woman who has a college degree and is smart because we would match intellectually and she would provide the best environment for my children. Women I meet on campus frequently call me sexist. I never thought of myself as sexist because I have no problem whatsoever with women who work in general and I respect my fellow female students and professors. Just because I don't want my wife to work does not mean I think women in general shouldn't work. Am I sexist? Is there any way I can meet a woman who shares my values, or was I born 40 years too late?
A: You sound like the male equivalent of the bride in the letter above who much preferred planning her wedding without the bother of a real person to marry. Of course we all have ideas of what our ideal life would be, then life happens and we have to--even want to--adjust to reality. Yes, there are women, even well-educated ones, who would prefer to stay home with their children. But dictating these terms before you've even gotten far enough to go steady makes you sound rigid, dictatorial, and yes, sexist. Instead of announcing your life plan for the so-far nonexistent woman you plan to marry, you should just date interesting, intelligent women and find out what they want out of life. But if you're determined to only spend time with women who meet your qualifications, go to a rally for Rick Santorum. He shares your views of women's roles, and during his Q&A ask if he can fix you up.
Does feminism actually make women dumber? This guy wants certain qualities in his future wife and he articulates them clearly. For his candor, women call him a sexist. What exactly is sexist about a guy who wants to see if he's compatible with his dates?
Imagine a similar scenario from the other side: A woman is not interested in working when she gets married. She wants to stay at home and homeschool her kids. So, her future husband will be the only one bringing home the bacon. She tells her dates early on about her views. Is that sexist?
Homeschooling families will soon be forbidden from teaching that homosexual sex is sinful as part of their schooling program, according to the government of Alberta, Canada.
So gay.
More:
In 2009, the Alberta Human Rights Act was amended to classify marriage as an institution between two “persons,” rather than a man and a woman.
“When I read Genesis and it talks about marriage being one man in union with one woman, I am very, very clearly opposing the human rights act that says it’s one person marrying another person,” Marler said.
Where does this end? Soon, the provincial governments in Canada will tell parents that they can't teach their kids that Islam is evil. Or blacks commit crimes at higher rates. Or Asians are horrible drivers. Or women are inferior at many activities. The propaganda must be hammered in. So, homeschooling must be brought down to the level of state schooling.
"Astronomer's Paradise“ is the first episode of a three parts Atacama Desert Starry Nights time-lapse series, starting with footage on the ESO* (European South Observatory’s “Cerro Paranal” site). The series will be included as a bonus on the ESO's 50 years anniversary DVD/Blue Ray disc expected to be released this summer. This time-lapse movie was made from DLSR still images from the November 2011 TWAN imaging expedition to Paranal assigned by the European Southern Observatory.
Cool. One doesn't see such amazing scenes living in a city.
One can buy all the Serious Sam games ever made. Never played any of them but the promotion is, as usual, entertaining.
Dan Mitchell wins the post title of the month award.
That's the biggest sin of the current Pakistan cricket captain: the dude is seriously boring. He doesn't have the good looks of Imran Khan or the bursting talent of Wasim Akram or the flair of Shahid Afridi. He's slow, methodical and oh so dull!
His virtue? He wins most of the games. That ought to be good enough.
Anyway, this statistic about the new T20 format is just incredible:
Afridi, Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal are the top three wicket-takers in the history of T20Is and Misbah felt it was Gul's bowling that made the difference on Thursday.
Wow! The three "best" bowlers in T20 are all in one team! Imagine what they could do if they only had more consistent batsmen. Pakistan is the only team to make it to at least the semi-finals of all the T20 World Cups. The fourth edition starts in September. It should be fun.
Vox gives advice to a woman regarding her marriage:
And fifth, in the comments you referred to having let yourself get out of shape. The chances are reasonable that your husband finds this embarrassing and that he is embarrassed by your appearance, even though he would probably rather get his teeth pulled without anesthetics than admit it to you or even to himself. (In other words, resist the temptation to ask, if he has any sense at all he will lie to you if he feels that way.) Men not only judge themselves by their wives, they are judged by others that way too. Rise to the level of the potential competition, don't sit in front of the television and tell yourself that because you managed to get someone to put a ring on your finger a while ago, you no longer have to put much effort into your appearance.
I wonder how women would feel if they married a doctor who after the marriage were to quit his work and go on unemployment benefits etc. for eternity. I'm sure women would still love the soul of the man since that's what attracted them to the man to begin with. Status, heaven forbid, had no influence on their decision to marry.
I've heard variations of the following conversation multiple times at work.
Woman 1: OMG, my boyfriend / husband recently told me to go on a diet! The SOB has some nerve.
Woman 2: Get out! How can he be so shallow! We all know that it's inner beauty that matters -- not our figures. He should love you regardless of how many dozens of pounds you gain.
Woman 1: Mmm-hmmpf. [Shoving the way too large lunch down her throat.]
A few minutes later woman 1 is talking about this awesome pancake / pizza / ice cream place she visited during the weekend. Mmm, so good. She's thinking of going there again and again and ...
What's funny is that when the boyfriend / husband gets fed up with the whale and leaves, then they start to lose weight to attract, apparently, another sucker. These women are fully aware of what attracts men and yet they blow up the attraction and are then shocked! surprised! when men are no longer interested in them.
So, women of the world: Be sexy! Especially if you're married. Do it for him and the keep the marriage strong and healthy.
6 rules of modern poster design.
The superhero movie poster is often the biggest, er, offender.
Just take a look at this poster for the Avengers. Those who're not familiar with the Marvel universe will likely be left confused by it.
In the past, an immigrant undertook a long and sometimes perilous voyage to the New World. In order to plan and execute this transition, such immigrants usually began to cut their ties to their native customs, even to their families; they wanted to assimilate and become “Canadians” or “Americans” or “Englishmen.” Visits back home were not easy or even possible. Ties were painfully cut — or new lives, far from persecution, were begun.
This is no longer true. What may have taken weeks or months in terms of travel can now be accomplished in a matter of hours. Modern wide-body aircraft means that someone can have their breakfast in central Asia and a late-night dinner in the New World. Satellite television means that an immigrant can continue to watch the news and be entertained in their home country’s language.
Many immigrants are, of course, attracted to the comforts of the Western world. However, they do not support the tenets that made that lifestyle possible. That's profoundly stupid. For their behavior ultimately weakens the system from which they derive their material pleasures. One would think that were they rationally selfish, they would celebrate and copy the West (like Japan, South Korea and Singapore). However, their rotten beliefs override common sense.
European Son via Vlad Tepes:
“Insulting the Prophet [Mohammed] is considered blasphemous in Islam,” notes OnIslam.net, “which is a crime punishable by execution in Saudi Arabia.” Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old Saudi blogger, now faces the prospect of execution for tweeting this message on Islam’s Prophet Mohammed’s birthday.
He likely wasn't in Saudi Arabia when he tweeted that message:
Kashgari was en route to New Zealand when he was detained by Malaysian authorities at the request of Interpol because of the tweet. He was then deported to Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested for blasphemy.
The behemoth has redesigned their Windows logo. It's atrocious.
This logo would have been a better choice.
Rick Lee has a series of posts. The second photo there is so cool. The haughty, indifferent look of the foreground creature makes the shot.
A very nice use of slow shutter.
Remember, this is the attitude with which you may, unbeknownst to you, be dealing. "[A]nother pretty, young Miami college girl, who does not want to be identified, is more direct, asking specifically for 10 to 20-thousand dollars monthly. The 22-year old claims to be looking for someone who will never say ”NO” to her needs."
So much for the idea that all women want is for a man to be nice and confident with a sense of humor.
Is there really some guy out there willing to pay $20,000 a month for the same, boring prostitute? I can understand a few hundred or thousand dollars but 20k is mighty shocking.
Vox asks:
Question du jour: As a college man, would you prefer to enter into a long-term relationship with a typical college slut (N=15+) or with a sugar hooker with N<6?
I'd reject both choices. Such girls have never interested me. I prefer someone with N=0.
Classical Liberal left a comment; he provided this link where one can read a speech by the late, great sci-fi writer, Robert Heinlein:
The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish. . .but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The example Heinlein provides at the end is quite incredible.
I want to see Hollywood make Mohandas Gandhi: The Terminator. I bet Connor won't see that one coming!
Many people in England, it seems, have trouble grasping mathematics:
Universities are dropping maths from degree courses because students – and their lecturers – cannot cope with it, a report warns today. Decades of substandard maths education in schools has led to a ‘crisis’ in England’s number skills, threatening the future of the economy, it says. Universities are being forced to dumb down degree courses requiring the use of maths, including sciences, economics, psychology and social sciences.
Mathematics was part of my major in university. It does get freakishly complicated by fourth year but that's not what most other students take for their degrees. We're talking calculus and statistics up to second year which is not that difficult. Plus, there are many students / tutors who can help you if you're stuck on a topic or problem.
This whole dumbing down the curriculum is only going to make the present and future graduates worse off. There will be more of them with less ability in a job market that is not very healthy. Therefore, many won't find jobs and those who do will be working for wages that will be considered most unsatisfactory given the university tuition which they paid by, likely, borrowing thousands of pounds.
The awesome video has over 18 million views.
Link via Hardocp.
The last video in this post is cool. Maybe Nikon can market the D4 in Pakistan with this tagline: It shoots faster than an AK-47!
Alpha Game on short hair vs. long hair.
Long hair wins! I don't think I've ever found a woman with short hair attractive. I know it takes some work and effort to make long hair look good otherwise it gets kind of a wild look but its attractiveness should be a consideration for women who're thinking of cutting it.
The best example for the preservation of long hair follows.
Before:
After:
Why Hermione, why!?
The Afghanis are trying to become a 'full member' of the cricket world. They played Pakistan and, predictably, lost.
Pakistan's all-round might proved too much for Afghanistan's carefree spirit, as Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan and Imran Farhat set up an emphatic win with 77 balls to spare.
More:
To Ajmal's third ball, the portly Shahzad calmly reversed his stance and heaved a flighted offbreak a good 20 yards into the stands behind square leg. It was just one shot, but it came against the bowler who had looped circles around England's celebrated top order through six innings of tortuous Test batting. It was a statement as telling as any - Misbah-ul-Haq smiled wryly into the distance as the ball disappeared.
Figures. The pathans are known to be audacious and fearless.
A good video from a mother: Feminism and the Disposable Male.
She said something very profound at 7:23: "To be important to society a woman merely has to be; a man has to do in order for his life to have any meaning to anyone other than himself."
Bill Whittle on The Grand Jihad.
The nature of such Muslims is quite obvious: the will to dominate all life on Earth and subject it to the laws of their mythical god and his pedophile prophet.
What's baffling is the appeasement of such monsters. Do the Western leaders truly think that they can negotiate with the Muslim Brotherhood? Are they really that obtuse?
Nikon has finally announced it. Two things:
This is the biggest DSLR news from Nikon since 2007 when they introduced the 'full frame' D3. Nikon better have enough production at that price because the D800 is going to have amazing demand.
Ugly stats for England at Cricinfo:
Pakistan became the first team in over 100 years to win a Test after scoring less than 100 in the first innings of the match. The last time this occurred was when England scored 76 but still defeated South Africa in 1907.
More:
For the second time in eight months (the first being India's series in England), the No. 1 Test team has lost all Tests in a series.
At present, neither India nor England are a 'great' Test team. The manner of their defeats shows that they're not even close.
French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar by claiming that not all civilisations are equal, with some more advanced than others.
“Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value,” Gueant on Saturday told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.
Such a simple truth.
“Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred,” he went on his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.
Danko, a commenter, writes:
The west is racist if it wants to cure itself, but it is tolerant if it allows itself to be wiped out. The world has never witnessed such idiocy.
Alastair Cook has warned his England colleagues that they face a thorough examination of their character if they are to avoid the humiliation of a 3-0 series whitewash against Pakistan.
Wouldn't that be a brownwash?
England still have a chance to win if they can quickly take wickets on the third day. The longer it takes them, the more tired their batsmen will be and the more rested the Pakistani bowlers will be. Fourth innings of Tests are almost always hell for batsmen.
Nikons makes their premium cameras in Japan. So, of course, their production was damaged because of one of the most powerful earthquake ever to hit that weird place. Later, in the same year, their low-end camera production went under because of the floods in Thailand.
Yet some people in the comments here are upset because of the product delays and high prices of Nikon DSLRs. Thom Hogan provides perspective:
Everyone needs to think about this in a different fashion: in LESS THAN A YEAR, Nikon will have completely replaced ALL of its DSLR manufacturing with completely rebuilt facilities, all while manufacturing a record number of DSLRs. If that doesn’t impress you, nothing will.
Prices for their cameras are not high when compared in Yen. The stronger Yen has pushed Nikon to increase prices in non-Japanese markets. Again, this is something out of their control.
Anyway, moment of truth coming up next week. The long-rumored Nikon D800 is supposed to be announced. Will it be 36 megapixels of goodness? Or will it be a let down in either quality or less megapixels?
A staggering number of young people in Japan are not interested in sex.
Combine an economic downturn with the increasing excellence of porn and video games, then throw in female economic independence and this is the result. For all that they are decried as soshoku danshi, the position of the "herbivores" is a perfectly reasonable one.
It's likely that the modern Japanese teenage girl is ultra-materialistic. Japan has lost 'two' decades to poor economic growth. Therefore, a majority of guys in her age group are utterly unappealing.
I wouldn't be surprised if Zafar Bangash supports Saudi Arabia in addition to Iran and Afghanistan. He lives a comfortable life in a Western society but supports some of the most vile and repressive regimes in the world. What's worse is that some in the audience at McMaster University applauded this dolt.