Sirota: Legalizing marijuana is now a ‘mainstream’ position | The Raw Story: “The slow drumbeat to legalizing marijuana in America continued Friday evening when Salon.com columnist David Sirota appeared on Current TV’s The Young Turks.

Sirota mentioned a recent Gallup poll in which half of Americans support legalizing marijuana, with 77 percent also backing medical marijuana. With those figures, Sirota and host Cenk Uygur slammed White House and Washington figures still viewing marijuana legalization as a radical idea.

“I think if you look at those numbers like that, what you see is the mainstream, centrist position, is to support legalizing marijuana,” he said. “And the extremists are those who continue to fight the drug war.””

Marijuana: Fight Back With The Facts – Toke of the Town: “The prohibitionists try to tell us that marijuana is not medicine. The scientific research tells us that cannabis can be a useful medical treatment for a wide range of diseases, and there are literally hundreds of scientific studies to back this up. For a 420-page listing of studies showing the effectiveness of medical marijuana, check out Granny Storm Crow’s list.
Marijuana is medically good for you. Fight back with the facts.

The prohibitionists tell us that smoking marijuana makes us stupid and lazy and unmotivated. But the scientific research tells us that cannabis smokers work harder and smarter than their non-toking brethren. The Rubin Study in Jamaica, published in the 1970s by Dr. Vera Rubin (look it up if you don’t believe me), shows that the hardest workers are the highest workers.
Marijuana is good for your motivation. Fight back with the facts.

The prohibitionists tell us that marijuana is a gateway drug. The scientific research tells us that not only is cannabis not a gateway drug, but is in fact an exit drug from hard drug use, which has shown to be invaluable in helping addicts of meth, cocaine and heroin, along with alcoholics, maintain abstinence from harmful substances.
Marijuana is good for stopping drug abuse. Fight back with the facts.

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Photo: American Pregnancy
?The prohibitionists tell us that the smoking of marijuana by pregnant women results in lower birth weights and less intelligent babies. The scientific research tells us that toking mothers have babies that are just as healthy, with birth weights just as normal, as babies born of non-toking mothers. And you know what else the research showed? That the babies of pot smoking mothers scored better on laboratory tests of cognition than babies of non-smoking mothers. Another independent scientific study showed that babies of marijuana-using mothers have a lower mortality rate than babies of mothers who didn’t use any drugs at all! The baby mortality rate among non-using mothers was 13.7 per 1,000 live births, while babies of toking mothers had a rate of only 8.9 deaths per 1000 births.”

(Via .)

News from the Edge | Mayans Ended up in Georgia | unknowncountry: “How did corn, beans and tobacco come to the Indians of the US? We used to think they came from Native Americans who brought them back from their trips across the border into Mexico, but they may have come from Mayans who moved north and eventually settled in the state of Georgia.

For a long time, US archaeologists said there were no Mayan ruins here, but that was probably because they weren’t familiar with the buildings of the descendants of the Southeastern mound-builder tribes: The Creeks, Alabamas, Natchez, Chitimachas and Choctaws. Despite their insistence that all Indians arrived in North America by walking across the land bridge that once stretched from Siberia, these tribes have always claimed that their ancestors came up from the south, and recent DNA evidence shows proof that they were right. “

(Via .)

Jim Sherwood obituary | Music | The Guardian: “Jim Sherwood on tour in Germany with the Mothers of Invention in 1967. His principal contributions came on baritone and/or tenor saxophone, though he could also be heard on percussion and vocals. Photograph: Petra Niemeier/K&K/Redferns
Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood, who has died aged 69, was a member of Frank Zappa’s original Mothers of Invention. He appeared on all the group’s early albums, up to and including Weasels Ripped My Flesh (1970), as well as on Zappa’s solo disc Lumpy Gravy. He later performed with the Grandmothers, a group of musicians who had accompanied Zappa during different phases of his career.

Born in Arkansas City, Kansas, Sherwood first met Zappa in 1956 when both of them were attending Antelope Valley high school in California. Sherwood was in the same class as Frank’s brother: “Bobby found out that I collected blues records and he introduced me to Frank, and Frank and I sort of got together and swapped records.”

At the time, Zappa was already in a band called the Blackouts, but this soon disintegrated. Then the brothers moved to Ontario, California, and started a new band, the Omens, which also included Sherwood. He would regularly jam with Zappa in a string of different groups, and eventually, in 1964, the Mothers. The following year, the band signed a recording contract with MGM records, and set about the lengthy process of recording their first album, Freak Out!, with producer Tom Wilson. At the time, Sherwood was not a fully fledged member of the band, which changed its name to the Mothers of Invention. He described his role on Freak Out! as “just making sound effects on some of the songs”.

After the album’s release in June 1966 on MGM’s Verve label, the band went on tour, then in November that year took up a six-month residency at the Garrick theatre in New York, during which they played 14 shows a week. Sherwood was working for the band as equipment manager and roadie, and sometimes operated the lighting during the Garrick shows. These were a bizarre mix of music and performance art, featuring puppet shows and interludes when the band would pelt the audience with fruit.

It was when the Mothers made their first trip to England, in mid-1967, that Sherwood was finally hired as a full-time musician. It was the band’s vocalist and percussionist Ray Collins who gave Sherwood the nickname “Motorhead”, through his love of working on cars and trucks and motorcycles: “He said ‘it sounds like you’ve got a little motor in your head’, so they just called me Motorhead and that seemed to stick.”

Sherwood contributed on baritone and/or tenor saxophone, and sometimes percussion and vocals, to Absolutely Free, We’re Only in It for the Money, and the doo-wop album Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, taking in the Zappa solo album Lumpy Gravy en route. Zappa disbanded the original Mothers of Invention in 1969 for financial reasons and what he perceived as public apathy, but Sherwood appears on the albums Uncle Meat, Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, recorded before the split but released subsequently.

Sherwood makes an appearance in Zappa’s bizarre and confusing 1971 movie 200 Motels (“Frank wanted me to play a newt rancher and I was supposed to be in love with a vacuum cleaner,” as he put it). In 1973, he played baritone sax on the album For Real!, by Ruben & the Jets. This was a band formed by Ruben Guevara, inspired by Zappa’s album Cruising with Ruben & the Jets, and Zappa played some guitar on their debut album as well as producing it.

Sherwood appeared on the further Zappa releases You Are What You Is (1981), Civilization Phaze III in 1993, the year of Zappa’s death, and the Läther box set, released three years later.

In the 1980s, Sherwood performed with the Grandmothers, and played on a couple of albums with them. During the 1990s, he joined forces with Billy James and his Ant-Bee project.

James, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston, wanted to express his fascination with psychedelic and experimental music from the 1960s, for which he assembled musicians from the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart’s band. Sherwood appears on three Ant-Bee albums, though by this time he had given up playing the saxophone and his contributions are limited to “snorks”, in which you “snort through your nose, sucking air in through your nose”. He added further snorks to Sandro Oliva’s album Who the Fuck Is Sandro Oliva?!? (1995).

“I just feel honoured to have spent time with [Frank Zappa] and the other guys in the early group,” said Sherwood. “[He was] an incredible person, and his music is just something I enjoy listening to all the time.”

• Euclid James Sherwood, musician, born 8 May 1942; died 25 December 2011″

(Via .)

(Via .)

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 | Blogs | Vanity Fair: “Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.

“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.

“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.”

““

Fox LA Reporter Hits New Low in #OccupyLA Coverage | Crooks and Liars: “This is Fox 11′s Gigi Graciette. Gigi doesn’t cover Dodger games or the Rose Parade by mentioning the debris discarded by attendees, but apparently that’s how she covers a international protest’s local chapter: they have trash left behind after they’ve been arrested en masse. Gross trash, too. Way to inform the public. No question as to why 292 Angelenos all but volunteered to be arrested last night. No mention of what nonviolent struggle has accomplished in American history (ahem civil rights). No mention of the cruel irony of the protesters getting evicted because they brought homeless people to the steps of City Hall instead of the usual safe distance of two blocks east. No mention of the politics involved and how the City decided to support the protest, then negotiated with them and then suddenly reneged – made apparent by the 1400 LAPD officers in riot helmets on the streets of Los Angeles last night.

But here’s the thing that really makes this clip disgusting from a basic journalism perspective: Gigi doesn’t know and didn’t find out what that mysterious white liquid was in those water bottles before she reported on them. She didn’t know and instead of being hesitant to make accusations or start any rumors – she just does it without pause. I saw her there at around 11pm – she was there all night and never asked anyone what it was before she went live?! You’re supposed to know MORE than the people on their couches watching you – because you’re on the scene! This is hackery at its worse.

The white liquid is more than likely Maloxx. They had it on site because it is supposed to neutralize the pain of pepper spray and tear gas. Yes, there’s a story – there were hundreds of Angelenos willing to be pepper sprayed for a political statement. They were (their phrase) militantly nonviolent and had been spending days training and planning to be raided by police and THAT is what that mysterious white liquid symbolized – that’s what it meant. They were willing, to quote Mario Savio “put their bodies upon the gears.”

Since I will always assume the best in people, I will guess it’s just laziness. Just not caring about telling a real story about Occupy LA and opting for the easy “look at the stuff on the ground” to fill up airtime. I say laziness and not incompetence or malice. But I’m feeling generous today.”

British Director Ken Russell Dies Aged 84 – The Hollywood Reporter: “LONDON – Iconic British filmmaker Ken Russell has died aged 84. OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS

‘The Devils’ With Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave Scares Up U.K. DVD Release Reports of his death broke across the Internet  early Monday in the U.K. Russell’s friend, arts writer, novelist and columnist Norman Lebrecht, said a family friend told him of Russell’s death on Sunday morning. The filmmaker is reported to have died peacefully in his sleep.”

Reclaimed Farmhouse Beams Made Into Eclectic “Farmpunk” Furniture : TreeHugger: “For those who find the relentless uniformity of modern, mass-produced furniture tedious (and not to mention environmentally unfriendly), there’s always the option of furnishings that are made from recycled materials, like these pieces by the resourceful American trio Unite Two Design. Combining unlikely elements of rustic with the industrial, Unite Two Design’s distinctive furniture is handcrafted from farm beams that are reclaimed locally, and odds and ends of industrial machinery. Calling their unique, juxtaposed style “farmpunk”, it’s cool to see that sometimes each component can hail from different centuries altogether. “

Zombie Feet Sandals – Boing Boing Shop: “Zombie Feet Sandals”

Shepard Fairey Designs ‘Occupy Hope’ Poster, Replaces Obama’s Face With ‘V for Vendetta’ Mask – Los Angeles News – The Informer: “Here we go again. L.A. street artist Shepard Fairey has released a second original design for the Occupy Wall Street movement — and this time, instead of playing it safe with a wistful scene out of an Angela Davis documentary, he’s given his own (in)famous HOPE poster from Obama’s first election campaign a rebellious makeover.”

Triangle-Headed Alien Mummy discovered in Peru — we’re not alone!: “Triangle-Headed Alien Mummy discovered in Peru — we’re not alone!

Triangle-Headed Alien Mummy discovered in Peru — we’re not alone! Behold a giant-headed alien mummy that turned up in Peru. Stare into the all-knowing eye sockets of an alien that somehow wound up on Earth many years ago, and was mummified by the locals. But what was is it doing here?”

World Map Made from Recycled Computers (7 Pictures) > Design und so, Netzkram, Sculptures, urban art > components, macs, old compoter, pcs, university, world map: “Besser kann man alte Computer-Kompenenten vermutlich nicht recyclen: die britische Künstlerin Susan Stockwell hat diese riesige Weltkarte aus alten Motherboards, Verkabelung, Ventilatoren, Platinen und Whatnots für die University of Bedfordshire zusammengebastelt. 2010 hat sie mit dem Sammeln begonnen und ist jetzt gerade fertig geworden. Papier kann sie übrigens auch.

“UK-based artist Susan Stockwell recently completed this gigantic world map made from recycled computer components for the University of Bedfordshire.””

The Top 10 Banned books of all time – ShortLists – ShortList Magazine: “1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)

The gist: Written in 1931 and published a year later, Huxley’s parody of H. G. Wells’ utopian future in his novel, Men Like Gods isn’t wholly dissimilar to George Orwell’s 1984. Addressing the period’s core theme of industrialisation, Huxley explored the loss of identity and increasing dividision of society to devastating effect.

Why was it banned? Initially, Ireland pulled it off the shelves for its controversial themes on child birth, before several states in the US tried to have it removed from school curriculums due to its “themes on negativity.”

Roundworms could hold the key to anti-ageing with daf-2 gene | Mail Online: “”

Vas Deferens Organization – “Eye Peels & Brain Picks”: “Last year’s Ninth Ward Fourth World LP marked the first Vas Deferens Organization (VDO) album in nine years (see AI #42), and now the band are back with a new set – Eye Peels & Brain Picks – once again featuring the trio of Matt Castille, Eric Lumbleau and Christopher Moock.”

Collateral Damage: Mutant Sounds’ Eric Lumbleau

The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music: Article: “”

Shark Attack Mug: “Shark Attack Mug”

Studio 54 – The home of decadence | Decadent Lifestyle: ““Studio 54 was the high temple of the Great Stoned Age, a nightly spectacle of wanton debauch fueled by four main ingredients – marijuana, alcohol, Quaaludes, and cocaine – all of them working toward a common end.””

Brilliantly Sarcastic Responses To Completely Well-Meaning Signs | Happy Place:

“Brilliantly smart-ass responses to completely well-meaning signs.”

Homeschoolers for Perry – Funny Misspelled Sign – Homescholers:

Federal agency blocks FDA-approved marijuana research for veterans | The Raw Story: “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study was sponsored by the nonprofit research organization the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and would have been conducted by Dr. Sue Sisley of the University of Arizona at Phoenix.

“Hundreds of veterans in medical marijuana states already report using marijuana to control their PTSD symptoms,” MAPS said in a statement. “The growing number of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related trauma combined with large numbers of treatment-resistant veterans highlights the pressing need for research into additional treatments for PTSD.””

Matt Stone Trey Parker Acid | Oscar Dresses | Video | Mediaite: “Like many a quinceañera I’ve known, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker delighted, intrigued, confused and repulsed people the world over when they donned copies of iconic celebrity dresses to the Academy Awards in 2000. “What are they on?” many must have wondered. And the answer to that is “acid, of course.”

The duo told Jimmy Kimmel about what exactly happened on that fateful and Lycra-encased evening:”

Limitless Space: Computerized Dataveillance Since 9/11 | Truthout: “Hundreds of state, local and federal databases clog our nation’s digital infrastructure, collecting, sharing and hoarding inconceivable amounts of information about ordinary people. From DHS to the DOJ to the DOE, from the state and local police all the way up to the military and CIA, our government is increasingly relying on a data-driven model of social control. Below is only a tiny sampling of the many hundreds of government databases containing personally identifiable information about hundreds of millions of people. Many of these databases are exempt from the Privacy Act. Some of them remain so secret we don’t know all of the kinds of data kept and shared, or how many records they contain. For more information about data collection and sharing, visit www.privacySOS.org/data.”

Female ‘vampire’ busted for trying to eat elderly man | The Raw Story: “”

“

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Weed Temple: Review: Vas Deferens Organization & Brad Laner – Transcontinental Conspiracy (Niklas Records, 2011): “The reissue of the classic album by one of the most overlooked and underrated bands of the 1990’s on the Polish label Niklas Records brings not only the remastered material but also bonus tracks unheard on the original recording. In fact, every track on the album is so multi-styled, multi-layered and hard to describe it would take a paragraph for each track to even briefly describe the variety of sounds on the CD.             The opening “First Plane Not to Plummet Seaward Dallas” stars with a bang: a bitchin’ old school hip-hop beat perfectly suited for a horrorcore rapper paves a way for the amphetamine tribal madness that comes after the distinctly “urban” intro. Everything in VDO’s music is soaked with a specific, surreal sense of humor – the distorted melody among the tribal madness seems to signify that it’s more of a parody of all the “tribal” psychedelic records than the actual “serious” ritualistic psychedelia. In case you didn’t realize the album was released in 1996, there are some mad jungle (or drum’n’bass, if you will) loops replacing the tribal drumming. After a short, quieter interlude the high point of the track (if not the whole album) comes: an electronic, glitchy madness set to a dancefloor-ready, post-punk beat, like the funkiest moments of late 70’s NYC scene meeting the dark experimentalism of This Heat.             The nearly 4-minute “Monk Fish Liver Transplant Plate” might seem small and insignificant in contrast to the massive compositions before and after the track, but it’s still packing a nice punch of Oriental/synthesizer weirdness, seamlessly blending the tribal loops playing “normally” and reversed. The following 20-minute monster of “Last Few Days in a Land of Happy Dreams” summons surreal demons with distorted dreamy vocal loops somewhat in the style of Amon Tobin’s “Nightlife” (even though Amon Tobin’s Permutation will be released two years later). The explosions of low-frequency bass are set against almost unpenetrable walls of frying synthesizers, like the hyper-amplified sound of an egg frying or the sound of a tape completely melting from the endless sped-up processing on reel-to-reel. Again, the Amon Tobin implications appear (I wonder if Tobin ever heard Vas Deferens Organization?), with a looped jazz sample co-existing with bend glitches and bursts of noise. The jazzy interlude then reaches a low point, retiring to relative quiet with sparse drumming and finally it ends with a mangled and truly Dadaist sound collage of speech samples.             Named simply “T”, the penultimate track on Transcontinental Conspiracy can be considered the “heaviest” track on the entire album, if by “heavy” we consider the sheer psychedelic power and ability to disorientate the listener. Beginning almost too “traditionally” to be considered Vas Deferens Organization material, the track unfolds like an extended psychedelic rock jam taking extensive cues from krautrock weirdness (I think I can hear a snippet of some kraut classic in the mix, possibly Guru Guru?), blending processed electric guitar carnage with field recordings (sounds of water pouring into a vessel) and towering, cavernous bass textures.             The finishing bonus track “Scheming Foils” is almost “poppy” by Vas Deferens Organization standards: the vaguely oriental synth-driven jam goes into a whimsical transformation and finally becomes a soothing, ambientalized math rock jam featuring almost jazz fusion-like synth structures. The very end of the track is the last roar of the album, with a wild, distorted guitar solo piercing through the ambience.             Transcontinental Conspiracy is a must-have for all fans of 1990’s experimentalism. Truly a band of open-headed professionals intended for truly open-headed listeners. The 2011 reissue gives a chance to open VDO for a new generation of listeners to whom the work of this Dallas (whose members are responsible for the mesmerizing Mutant Sounds blog) unit was completely unknown and whose music was, until now (hopefully?), known only to a close circle of hardcore weirdo psych enthusiasts.

The CD is available from Niklas Records. Buy it!!!”

Anonymous to Wall Street: Expect Us: “Anonymous to Wall Street: Expect Us By Adbusters 25 August 11

Jammers, dreamers, patriots,

Anonymous has just released a video communique endorsing #OCCUPYWALLSTREET. Using language from our first Tactical Briefing, the video calls on protesters to adopt the nonviolent Tahrir-acampadas model. On the 17th of September, it says, “flood into lower Manhattan, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months … Once there, we shall incessantly repeat one simple demand in a plurality of voices.”"

The Associated Press: Funeral for man entombed for 27 years in chimney: “Funeral for man entombed for 27 years in chimney By MARY FOSTER, Associated Press – 6 days ago  ABBEVILLE, La. (AP) — The narrow, brick chimney of a Louisiana bank became his tomb for 27 years and now Joseph Schexnider will be laid to rest Sunday in a proper grave with a proper farewell by his family. Still, his brother Robert wonders, how did he wind up in that chimney? Didn’t anyone hear any cries for help? Was it a robbery attempt gone awry, an accident or something more sinister? “At least we know where he is now,” Schexnider, 48, said, tears welling in his eyes ahead of his brother’s weekend funeral and burial. “At least he’s home.” Nearly three decades after he disappeared, much mystery lingers about the case of Joseph Schexnider and involving a small town bank in the southern Louisiana city of Abbeville. Police say Schexnider became trapped and apparently died in the bank’s chimney in 1984. But beyond that, they know little more. “Everybody has an opinion,” said Lt. David Hardy, chief of investigations for the Abbeville Police Department. “But no one has evidence to say one way or another.” If Joseph Schexnider did cry out for help, no one heard his pleas. The stench of death was never detected. The decades rolled on until last May when a construction worker helping turn the bank’s vacant second floor into offices tugged some fabric out of the chimney and was showered with old clothes and human bones.”

Jodie Foster helps keep SETI’s search for aliens alive | The Raw Story: “LOS ANGELES — “Contact” star Jodie Foster was among donors helping to revive the 42 radio telescope dishes at a key California institute searching for extraterrestrial life, the group said Tuesday.

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in California, which got a direct hit from federal and California budget cuts, had to halt operations in April for its telescopes pointed toward outer space.

But after a public campaign launched on its website, SETI said it had received $223,000 — exceeding its $200,000 goal — from 2,557 donors, Foster among them.”

Anti-gay Indiana state rep solicited 18-year-old boy on Craigslist | The Raw Story: “Indiana state Rep. Phillip Hinkle (R) is embroiled in controversy after The Indianapolis Star discovered emails appearing to solicit the paid company of a young man, sent from Hinkle’s publicly listed email address.

In response to a M4M forum Craigslist post, Hinkle emailed the man, named Kameryn Gibson, and offered him $80 cash, with a tip of $50 or $60 “for a really good time” in the hours he proposed spending together at a local Marriott.

Gibson, whose ad lists him as 20 years old but is actually 18, said he met Hinkle at the hotel, and tried to leave when Hinkle said he was a state politician.”

Dangerous Minds | German experimental music pioneer Conrad Schnitzler has died: “Sad to hear that prolific German experimental music pioneer, Conrad Schnitzler, one-time student of Joseph Beuys, early member of Tangerine Dream and founder of Kluster, has died.

Via Ric Leichtung at Altered Zones:

On August 4th, Conrad Schnitzler passed away from stomach cancer. Member of Kluster and Tangerine Dream, Schnitzler played in an invaluable role in the shaping of kraut and electronic music. Having studied under Stockhausen, Conrad composed more than 90 albums of solo material, and completed his final work, “00/830,” just four days before his death. In preparation for his departure, Schnitzler sent strands of his hair to be buried around the world and created the Global Living Project. In his words:

Since some time, I globalize me. Why just living in one country, why just sleeping in one country, why just being buried only in one country, now that we think and live globally.

I would like to be at beautiful places in the world, without to move me from my place here. I send my DNA (my hair) to different places in the world. This means I’m all over the world. I’m everywhere, even when I’ll be dead. Nobody must come to my grave in Berlin. My friends can visit me in the whole world now.

So if friends want to give me a place…., welcome. I’ll send a DNA sample to bury me. I am in the whole world at home now. I love this feeling.

Friends, family, and fans can pay their respects to Conrad at 9 different sites, including the Green Lagoon in Spain, Norway’s Lysefjord, and Mt. Fuji.

Below, Schnitzler’s “Magic Party”:”

Syrian Ministry Of Defense Website Hacked By ‘Anonymous’: “The activist hacker group known as Anonymous appears to have vandalized the website of the Syrian Ministry of Defense. Visitors to the website early Monday morning were greeted with the green, white and black stripes and red stars of the Syrian flag. After a few moments, the Anonymous logo appears in the middle of the flag, above the following text in English and Arabic:

To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Know that time and history are on your side – tyrants use violence because they have nothing else, and the more violent they are, the more fragile they become. We salute your determination to be non-violent in the face of the regime’s brutality, and admire your willingness to pursue justice, not mere revenge. All tyrants will fall, and thanks to your bravery Bashar Al-Assad is next. To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country – rise up against the regime! – Anonymous The hacker group has recently attacked the websites of a number of high-profile institutions. Earlier in the weekend, the group announced it had stolen sensitive data from around 70 U.S. law enforcement agencies, primarily rural police departments.

The incident occurs as Syrian forces continue a series of brutal raids on protesters. The violent crackdown has left more than 1,700 dead.

In July, President Barack Obama condemned the Syrian regime, saying he is “appalled” by the “horrifying” reports of violence.

Scroll down for a screenshot of the hacked website.”

Native Instruments Komplete 8 Release & Features: “The Native Instruments juggernaut collection of Audio Instruments & Effects just got even bigger. Native Instruments has announced the all new Komplete 8 and it’s bigger than expected. To complete the Komplete 8 package are new versions of Kontakt, now at version 5, Guitar Rig 5 Pro and, a completely new product, Guitar Rig 5 Kontrol.

Komplete now comes in two flavours, Komplete 8 and Komplete 8 Ultimate. The later weighs in at over 240GB and includes over 50 different NI products. In fact, it’s so massive (sic) that it comes on a USB 2.0 external drive. Say goodbye hours spent installing from 20 DVDs!

Learn more about the differences between Komplete 8 and Komplete 8 Ultimate here. In this article let’s take a brief look at some of the new features and products in both Komplete bundles. ”

6 Creepy New Weapons the Police and Military Use To Subdue Unarmed People | World | AlterNet: “1. The Invisible Pain Ray: The ‘Holy Grail of Crowd Control’

Source: Pasadena Star News It sounds like a weapon out of Star Wars. The Active Denial System, or ADS, works like an open-air microwave oven, projecting a focused beam of electromagnetic radiation to heat the skin of its targets to 130 degrees. This creates an intolerable burning sensation forcing those in its path to instinctively flee (a response the Air Force dubs the “goodbye effect”).

“

A Bucket of Blood (1959) – Plot Summary: “A Bucket of Blood (1959) More at IMDbPro »

ad feedback Walter Paisley, nerdy busboy at a Bohemian café, is jealous of the talent (and popularity) of its various artistic regulars. But after accidentally killing his landlady’s cat and covering the body in plaster to hide the evidence, he is acclaimed as a brilliant sculptor – but his new-found friends want to see more of his work. Lacking any artistic talent whatsoever, Walter has to resort to similar methods to produce new work, and soon people start mysteriously disappearing… Written by Michael Brooke

Walter Paisley is a bit of a square and he very much envies the hip beatniks he sees at the club where he works as a busboy. Walter has dreams of being an artist but has no talent. He tries sculpture but has little success until he finds a unique way of capturing vivid images of a dead cat, a dying man and a sexy model. His employer soon figures out exactly what Walter is up to but when his work becomes a hit, would rather have the money. Written by garykmcd

“

House panel approves bill forcing ISPs to log users’ web history | The Raw Story: “The House Judiciary Committee approved legislation on Thursday that would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to collect and retain records about Internet users’ activity.

CNET reported the bill would require ISPs to retain customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and temporarily-assigned IP addresses for 12 months.

The bill passed by a vote of 19 to 10, and is aimed at helping law enforcement track down pedophiles.

“The bill is mislabeled,” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), a senior member of the panel told CNET. “This is not protecting children from Internet pornography. It’s creating a database for everybody in this country for a lot of other purposes.”"

Audit: Fed gave $16 trillion in emergency loans | The Raw Story: “The U.S. Federal Reserve gave out $16.1 trillion in emergency loans to U.S. and foreign financial institutions between Dec. 1, 2007 and July 21, 2010, according to figures produced by the government’s first-ever audit of the central bank.

Last year, the gross domestic product of the entire U.S. economy was $14.5 trillion.

Of the $16.1 trillion loaned out, $3.08 trillion went to financial institutions in the U.K., Germany, Switzerland, France and Belgium, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) analysis shows.

Additionally, asset swap arrangements were opened with banks in the U.K., Canada, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Norway, Mexico, Singapore and Switzerland. Twelve of those arrangements are still ongoing, having been extended through August 2012.”

21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor | World | AlterNet: “There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages. This marginalization renders them practically invisible, as they are kept hidden from society with no available recourse to improve their circumstances or change their plight.

They are the 2.3 million American prisoners locked behind bars where we cannot see or hear them. And they are modern-day slaves of the 21st century.

“

SF jury acquits man who forgot mushrooms were in his backpack | The Raw Story: “On Friday, a jury in San Francisco found a man not guilty of possession of psilocybin mushrooms on the grounds that he had forgotten they were in his backpack, and therefore could not knowingly be in possession.

The argument was made by Deputy Public Defender Kimberly Lutes-Koths, who took on the case of Eric Meoli. Meoli was arrested for riding his bicycle on a BART platform on May 25. When he handed over his backpack to police, they found a small amount of “magic” mushrooms in an inner pocket.

According to Lutes-Koths, Meoli, a cannabis-club worker, provided ten dollars’ worth of legally-obtained marijuana to “a hippy in Golden Gate Park” who was having trouble sleeping. The hippy gave Meoli the mushrooms in return and Meoli purportedly put them in his backpack and forgot about them for months.

“One of the elements of the law requires that the defendant know of the presence of the substance,” said the attorney. Prosecutors were unable to establish that Meoli knew the mushrooms were there. As a result, the jury returned a not-guilty verdict.

“

This Week In Dallas Music History: The Vas Deferens Organization is Not For Everyone – Dallas Music – DC9 At Night: “In this edition of This Week In Dallas Music History, former Observer music writer Matt Weitz wrote a 1996 piece on the Vas Deferens Organization — an avant garde music collective that engineered recordings so strange, they made Ariel Pink sound like The Beatles.

Interestingly enough, though, it was because of an Ariel Pink recording in Dallas this year that we featured the Vas Deferens Organization in a story about Dennis, Aaron, and Stefan Gonzalez — a local jazz family that connected with Pink because of their relationship with members of the VDO.

Pink isn’t the only high profile artist with connection to VDO, though. This piece features an interesting story of how VDO members Eric Lumbleau and Matt Castille tricked members of Medicine and Mercury Rev into recording on a project called Transcontinental Conspiracy. “

1972!!!

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New bill ending federal ban on marijuana to be introduced in Congress | The Raw Story: “Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) will introduce legislation on Thursday to the U.S. House of Representatives that ends the federal prohibition on marijuana.

The Oakland Tribute reported that the bill would limit the federal government to enforcing cross-border or inter-state smuggling laws, and allow people to grow, possess, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal to do so.

Although over a dozen states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons, it is still outlawed under the federal Controlled Substance Act.”

GOP lawmaker gets drunk, steals truck, wrecks it, then takes nap | The Raw Story: “A Republican state Senator from Idaho was arrested in the early hours of Sunday morning and charged with grand theft auto and driving under the influence, according to police reports.

State Sen. John McGee, currently the majority caucus chair for the Idaho State Senate, had been drinking on a golf course late Saturday night, when he apparently decided to leave on foot.

After walking for miles without shoes, he came upon a truck and trailer that had its keys inside.

He didn’t get far though: Residents of the neighborhood were alarmed around 3 a.m. to discover the truck jackknifed in the back yard of a home down the street.

McGee reportedly exited the vehicle and walked up and down the street several times before returning to the truck and falling asleep. Witnesses said he appeared to be “in another world” and was covered in cuts and scrapes, asking about “the promised land.”"

Facebook refuses to run ‘Marijuana is Safer’ book advertisement | The Raw Story: “The social networking website Facebook has refused to run an advertisement for a book that compares the harms and legal status of marijuana and alcohol.

The publisher of “Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?” hoped to use a Facebook ad to promote a special price being offered to celebrate the book’s success, but their proposed ad was denied. In a message sent to the publisher, Facebook said that the “content advertised by this ad is prohibited” because the popular website does “not allow ads for marijuana and any products related to it.”

Facebook also refused to run ads for the marijuana law reform group Just Say Now and the Libertarian Party last year because the ads contained marijuana leaves. “The image of a marijuana leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies,” a spokesman for Facebook explained.

“Facebook’s decision, reportedly an attempt to be consistent with its ad policies restricting smoking and/or marijuana-related content, is instead primarily silencing an important, motivated voice in a politically significant debate,” Richard Esguerra of the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation said. “For better or worse, Facebook has become a important means of communication and organization for candidates and political campaigns. In this role, Facebook functions best as a neutral platform, hosting the debate without entering it.”"

Former world leaders say decriminalizing marijuana worth trying | The Raw Story: ” NEW YORK — A group of prominent former world leaders said Wednesday the so-called war on drugs has “failed” and that decriminalizing marijuana may help curb drug-related violence and social ills.

“The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the members of the Global Commission on Drug Policy say in a report.

“Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President (Richard) Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”"

WATCH OUT!!!

Supreme Court upholds warrantless search of apartment based on marijuana smell | The Raw Story: “Police find illegal drugs after busting into wrong apartment complex

The smell of marijuana smoke and sound of evidence being destroyed is enough reason for police to knock down an apartment door and search the place without a warrant, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday.

In an 8-1 decision [PDF], the nation’s highest court said the warrantless search of an apartment in Lexington, Kentucky was legal because of ‘exigent circumstances,’ which permits law enforcement officers to conduct a warrantless search if there is a strong likelihood of destruction of evidence.

In the case Kentucky v. King, uniformed Lexington police officers pursued a suspected drug dealer to an apartment complex. The officers approached an apartment door where they believed the suspect had entered, knocked loudly and announced their presence.

The officers said they could smell marijuana smoke and heard noises consistent with the destruction of evidence after knocking.

The officers then kicked in the apartment door — which turned out to be the wrong apartment — and entered, finding marijuana and powder cocaine in plain sight and finding additional evidence during a second search.

Lexington police officers eventually entered another apartment in the complex where they found the initial target of their investigation.”

Ira Cohen, who has died of renal failure aged 76, participated in the 1960s artistic counterculture as a poet, publisher, film-maker and raconteur. In the middle of the decade, he took up photographyseriously. At his loft in Jefferson Street, New York, Cohen built a chamber with walls and ceilings made from sheets of Mylar, a reflective polyester film. Inside this chamber, he took portraits of William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the steady stream of hipsters who visited the loft.

Rather than photograph his subjects directly, he took pictures of their distorted reflections on the chamber’s walls and ceiling. The surrealistic and psychedelic results were described by Hendrix as “like looking through butterfly wings”. The photographer and film-maker Gerard Malanga called the Mylar chamber “a kaleidoscope where the reflections being photographed constantly changed”. Life magazine, in its final issue of the 1960s, praised how close Cohen’s photographs came to ”explaining the euphoric distortions of hallucinogenics”.

Cohen was born to deaf parents, Lester and Faye, in the Bronx, New York. He learned sign language before he could read and write. He attended Horace Mann school and Cornell University, where he took writing classes from Vladimir Nabokov. At Columbia University, he became involved in the jazz and avant-garde scenes of New York’s Lower East Side.

In 1961 he boarded a freighter to Morocco where he spent time with Burroughs and the writers Brion Gysin and Paul Bowles. He embarked on publishing a literary magazine, Gnaoua, centred on the Beat scene in Tangier. In 1964, the only volume of Gnaoua was published, with contributions including a preview of Burroughs’s cut-up novel Nova Express, photographs by Jack Smith and Allen Ginsberg‘s reflections on totalitarianism. A copy of Gnaoua can be seen on the cover of Bob Dylan‘s album Bringing it All Back Home.

Cohen embodied a bohemian intent on doing his own thing. Photograph: Ira Landgarten

In 1966, having returned to New York, Cohen edited and published – under the nom de plume Panama Rose – The Hashish Cookbook, with recipes ranging from cakes and puddings to soups and drinks. He also produced Jilala, an album of Moroccan trance music.

Cohen was a pioneer of the loft scene in the Lower East Side, where the low rents and vast spaces attracted artists, musicians, actors and writers. Happenings were organised in lofts, and he became part of the burgeoning underground which was successfully commercialised byAndy Warhol. Cohen himself was never able to deal with art or writing in any commercial way. He advocated that artists and poets should have patrons and be supported.

One story typifies Cohen’s haphazard luck. Having disturbed a burglar at his loft, he struck up a conversation, explaining the Mylar chamber and his lifestyle. The burglar left but soon returned with a Bolex 16mm film camera and a box of prism lenses, which he sold to Cohen for almost nothing.

In 1968, using the Bolex, Cohen made the film The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, a psychedelic romp that features the Mylar chamber and scenes inspired by the work of Julian Beck’s Living Theatre company. He also produced a documentary about the Living Theatre’s US tour of the play Paradise Now, which involved audience participation and scenes of mass nudity, leading to arrests for indecency.

In 1970 Cohen’s Mylar chamber photographs were used on the cover of the album Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus by the psychedelic rock band Spirit and on the jacket of the first novel by Burroughs’s son, William Jr, entitled Speed. Cohen then departed to Nepal with the Living Theatre actor Petra Vogt and began a small press, Bardo Matrix, publishing books and broadsheets on handmade rice paper, including works by Bowles, Gregory Corso and Angus MacLise. He also published his own poetry, including the collections Gilded Splinters and Poems from the Cosmic Crypt.

Cohen later directed the film Kings With Straw Mats (1998), a documentary about the Kumbh Mela gathering in India, and released the album The Majoon Traveller, featuring the music of MacLise, Ornette Coleman and Master Musicians of Joujouka, mixed with his readings. In his later years, he was feted by a new generation of the counterculture, as The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda and Paradise Now were released on DVD. In 2006, the Whitney Museum of American Art’s biennial featured his photographs of Smith.

I first met Cohen in 1992 when he participated in a Burroughs and Gysin exhibition in Dublin, displaying his Mylar images and other work. He took a central role in the event, hosting daily readings. When it came to publishing, he was enthusiastic and generous. On being asked for a contribution for a book, he was likely to also offer a piece by Bowles or Anne Waldman which had been left over from one of the many publications he had edited. In his personal attire (such as his long kaftan and bead-strewn beard) and his manner, he always embodied a bohemian intent on doing his own thing.

In the mid-1950s he married Arlene Bond, with whom he had two children. He later married Carolina Gosselin, with whom he had a daughter. Both marriages ended in divorce. He also had a son from another relationship. He is survived by his children and his sister, Janice.

• Ira Cohen, photographer, poet, publisher and film-maker, born 3 February 1935; died 25 April 2011

TUAW — The Unofficial Apple Weblog: “If you want to know which supercomputer is the fastest in the world, you check the Top 500 list. The keeper of that list is Dr. Jack Dongarra, who teaches at the University of Tennessee.

Dongarra is one of the authors of the Linpack computing benchmark, introduced way back in 1979. With this benchmark, supercomputing sites can rate computers’ relative performance at solving a set of linear equations.

Dongarra’s group has ported Linpack to the iPad 2 to see how fast it really is, according to the New York Times. Tests on the iPad 2 have so far only been run on a single core of the A5 processor, but Dongarra estimates that a dual-core Linpack run will yield performance of between 1.5 and 1.65 gigaflops — that’s up to 1.65 billion floating-point operations per second. That raw performance means that the iPad 2 would have remained on the list of the world’s speediest supercomputers until about 1994.”

Ahmadinejad allies charged with sorcery | World news | The Guardian: “Close allies of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being ‘magicians’ and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as ‘a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds’.”

Trump’s ‘University’ Accused Of Scamming Customers: “Trump’s credentials as an educator may be undercut by the recent history of his so-called university. The for-profit institution is the target of a class-action lawsuit in federal court and the attorneys general of six states are investigating numerous complaints about it.

Last year in New York, Trump University was forced to change its name by the Department of Education. State officials sent the mogul a tough letter saying that it was misleading for his company to use the term ‘university.’ Several months earlier, the Better Business Bureau gave the program a D-minus rating. The BBB is also currently reviewing several complaints against the renamed Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.”

Wall Street Journal launches WikiLeaks imitation | The Raw Story: “WASHINGTON — The Wall Street Journal launched a WikiLeaks rival called ‘SafeHouse’ on Thursday, calling for online submissions to help uncover fraud and abuse in business and politics.

‘If you have newsworthy contracts, correspondence, emails, financial records or databases from companies, government agencies or non-profits, you can send them to us using the SafeHouse service,’ the Journal said at wsjsafehouse.com.

The newspaper said SafeHouse’s security features include file encryption and the possibility for a contributor or whistleblower to remain anonymous.

It said the SafeHouse site was located on secure servers managed directly by Journal editors.

The Journal said SafeHouse’s interests include ‘politics, government, banking, Wall Street, deals and finance, corporations, labor, law, national security and foreign affairs.’

‘SafeHouse will enable the collection of information and documents that could be used in the generation of trustworthy news stories,’ Journal managing editor Robert Thomson said in a statement.

‘We’re open to receiving information in nearly any format, from text files to audio recordings and photos,’ the newspaper said. ‘Help The Wall Street Journal uncover fraud, abuse and other wrongdoing.’

The Wall Street Journal is the latest news organization to launch a site similar to WikiLeaks, which has released tens of thousands of US military documents from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and secret diplomatic cables.

Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, told Yahoo! News in January that the newspaper was considering the creation of a site for leakers.

Pan-Arab television network Al Jazeera launched a ‘Transparency Unit’ in January seeking documents, photos, audio and video clips as well as ‘story tips.’

A former WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, has also launched a WikiLeaks competitor, OpenLeaks.

“

Carl Sagan Quotes on Marijuana in LSD Technicolor | 420 Tribune @420Tribune.com: “‘The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.’”

DNA tests link Southern leprosy cases to armadillos | NOLA.com: “With some genetic sleuthing, scientists have fingered a likely culprit in the spread of leprosy in the southern United States: the nine-banded armadillo.”

Drug-bashing RI Republican charged with drug use | The Raw Story: “Robert Watson, a high-ranking Republican state legislator in Rhode Island, is in hot water after being charged with driving under the influence of marijuana and possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. Drug charges alone would be bad enough for a public official, but Watson, Rhode Island’s House minority leader, is still remembered for his controversial anti-drug, anti-gay and anti-immigrant remarks.

In February, Watson said the Rhode Island legislature had their priorities right ‘if you are a Guatemalan gay man who likes to gamble and smokes marijuana.’

Watson was a guest on a radio show soon after the luncheon where he made the misstep, and in response to the outcry over his comments said, ‘I reject the suggestion that it’s insulting.’ He went on to say that lawmakers were ‘preoccupied with a number of issues, primarily social issues,’ when Watson thought they should focus on the economy.

‘I apologize when appropriate and/or necessary,’ Watson told the Providence Journal in February. ‘I identify this situation as representing neither circumstance.’

Watson was pulled over at a police checkpoint Friday, East Haven police told the Associated Press. Police noted a ‘strong odor of marijuana’ coming from Watson’s car, and charged him with possession and driving under the influence. The lawmaker was released after he promised to appear in court, and has not yet issued a statement.

“

20 Banned Books of 2010: “Before jumping into this, it’s important to note that a ‘banned’ book is often just a challenged book. In library lingo, this means a parent (usually) or a concerned citizen has filled out a request to have a particular book reviewed and then pulled from the shelves. Most often, a library or book store has a criteria used for selecting works and when a book is challenged, the librarian checks to see if the book in question meets that criteria. If the book is justified, it stays in the library. If it’s not, it’s usually up for the principal and then school board to be banned and then removed.

This process has been developed to keep school boards and principals from removing works without any due process. Of course, even the best laid plans fail – as evidenced in the list below. These twenty titles are among the most amusing ‘banned’ books from 2010 according to various library resources in the US and the UK. As you look at the list of the top twenty banned (or controversial) books, you’ll notice that most are more tame than the song you just heard on the radio – but one person’s obscene is another’s Mark Twain it would seem.”

30 Awesomely Bad School Portraits – Worst Class Photos | Ace Online Schools: “One of the major advantages of going to school online — besides avoiding stories like these — is that there’s no yearbook and thus no school portrait capturing the awkwardness that is your life. Not YOUR life, of course, but, you know, one’s theoretical life (ahem). Granted, you can still commemorate this time in your life for all eternity by going down to you local Glamour Shots studio (and frankly, some of the folks below might have done so), but before you do, take a peek at what can go wrong.”

30 Awesomely Bad School Portraits – Worst Class Photos | Ace Online Schools: “One of the major advantages of going to school online — besides avoiding stories like these — is that there’s no yearbook and thus no school portrait capturing the awkwardness that is your life. Not YOUR life, of course, but, you know, one’s theoretical life (ahem). Granted, you can still commemorate this time in your life for all eternity by going down to you local Glamour Shots studio (and frankly, some of the folks below might have done so), but before you do, take a peek at what can go wrong.”

Tofu Love : Peas and Thank You:

“Whenever anyone tells me they don’t like tofu, I simply say, ‘Yes, you do. You just don’t know how to cook it.’”

DreamWorks Animation Flips Its Lid for Sid & Marty Krofft’s Lidsville – FOX19 News and Weather – Greater Cincinnati Area: “Information contained on this page is provided by companies via press release distributed through PR Newswire, an independent third-party content provider. PR Newswire, WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.

SOURCE DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc.

GLENDALE, Calif., Feb. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (Nasdaq: DWA) today announced that it will bring the well-loved Sid & Marty Krofft characters from the 1970′s television series Lidsville to the big screen in a feature film by the same name.

Conrad Vernon (Monsters vs. Aliens, Shrek 2) – animation veteran and lifelong fan of the Krofft’s work – brought the project to DreamWorks Animation. Brothers Sid & Marty Krofft will serve as executive producers. Vernon, DreamWorks Animation’s head of development Alex Schwartz and development executive Chris Kuser are overseeing the project at the studio.

‘Sid and I have had a longstanding relationship with Jeffrey Katzenberg and we’re excited to bring Lidsville to DreamWorks Animation,’ said Marty Krofft. ‘It’s incredible to envision a high-quality 3D animated movie being made out of one of our favorite shows.’

‘The Krofft brothers helped define a generation with the wildly imaginative characters and worlds they created,’ said Alex Schwartz, head of development for DreamWorks Animation. ‘I am thrilled that Conrad is joining forces with them on the first animated feature film adaptation of their work.’

‘Over the past year I’ve had the privilege of working with and getting to know Sid and Marty and I thought their brand of crazy kookiness would work well at DreamWorks Animation,’ added Vernon.

Lidsville will take inspiration from the premise of the original television series, in which a young rebellious kid falls into an alternate reality world of living hats and talking caps. The Los Angeles public TV station KCET Kids & Family Channel recently announced that it will feature the Lidsville television series in an all-new ‘The Sid & Marty Krofft Hour’ together with H.R. Pufnstuf during its weekend programming block on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 9:30-10:30 a.m.

About Sid & Marty Krofft

Brothers Sid & Marty Krofft have been producing quality family entertainment for over 40 years. Sid & Marty became a household name in the ’70s with a series of remarkable programs that featured elaborate sets and fanciful characters. H.R. Pufnstuf was the first in a long line of beloved programs created by the Kroffts, including The Bugaloos, Lidsville, Land Of The Lost, Far Out Space Nuts, Sigmund & The Sea Monsters and The Krofft Supershow which included Electra Woman & Dyna Girl, Wonderbug, Dr. Shrinker and Bigfoot & Wildboy. The Kroffts’ success with Saturday morning television prompted a demand for them to produce prime-time programming. They produced various prime-time series and specials, including The Brady Bunch Hour, The Donny & Marie Show and Barbara Mandrell & The Mandrell Sisters. On April 5, 2011 Vivendi Home Entertainment will begin releasing The Complete Series Collector’s Editions of all the classic Krofft shows, including H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, and The Bugaloos.”

The Life & Loves of Grumpy’s Honeybunch: Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Buns: “Not only is this my first pumpkin post for this Fall, it is also my first ever Pumpkin Cinnamon Bun recipe! My friend Theresa came to visit me over the weekend so I decided that as a special treat I would make the Pumpkin Cinnamon Buns. I have only eaten a Pumpkin Cinnamon Bun once, and that was at a little mom/pop diner in Watertown almost 2 years ago – where I really didn’t care for it at all. I’m thinking I didn’t care for it because it was dry and just not flavorful enough for me. (probably was more than a day old…..) “

7mate – Channel 7 – Yahoo!7 TV: “Female feet fetish

Tarantino loves female feet. He’s obsessed with them. And that’s why he’ll try his best to have as many shots as possible of the feet of the actresses (and even extras) in his movies. Some of the actresses who have exposed their beautiful (and not so beautiful) feet in Tarantino movies are: Uma Thurman, Angela Jones, Jennifer Beals, Bridget Fonda, Lucy Liu, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Rosario Dawson, Zoe Bell, Mélanie Laurent.”

sebastian errazuriz: metamorphosis: “chilean born, new york-based designer and artist sebastian errazuriz’s ‘metamorphosis’ bookshelf is hand carved from baltic birch plywood. it was created for the exhibition of his furniture work ‘beautiful premonitions’ which opens april 28th, 2011 at the cristina grajales gallery in new york. originally based on the thick ivy that he used as natural shelves for his childhood garden toys, errazuriz collaborated with woodworkers from the horm furniture company to develop the piece entirely in italy.”