April 11, 2007

Another Heaping Helping Of Your Mother In Law's Links

This is the ultimate resistance to eminent domain. A Chinese couple is holding out in their home despite it now being an island in the middle of a giant foundation pit for an upcoming building. They have no way to access their home. The picture is awesome.

Apparently, in Thailand, being a skillful boxer can get you early release from prison. Thanks, Jason.

Disney will now be allowing fairy-tale weddings for gays. I think Disney was paid off by late show monologue writers. Insert Jay Leno fairy/princess joke here.

Each year on Good Friday, a bunch of Filipinos crucify themselves as a form of worship. They get nailed to crosses and everything, other than the staying up there until they die part. One guy has done it twenty-one times! Silly Christians!

Cara posted about a Beijing restaurant whose primary products are the penises of various animals. They insist that literally eating cock has all sorts of medicinal properties (some of which are most effective if the penises are eaten raw). Maybe Disney's fairy-tale weddings are a health-based decision?

When their teacher left the room, four fifth-graders--two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year old boy--had sex in their classroom. A fifth boy kept watch outside the door, while another 10 students just sat at their seats watching. The five students are now facing charges of obscenity. This is absolutely crazy. In fifth-grade I barely knew a vagina was. Props to all those kids for doing their part to debunk the idea that consent can only happen after age seventeen (depending on your state).

For the nerds, an Israeli comedy group envisioned a common supermarket outfitted with all the typical Web 2.0 features (user-generated content, RSS feeds, AJAX, tags, recommendations, etc.). The video is hilarious.

Bruce Schneier, cryptography and security guru (check out the Bruce Schneier Facts, a geeky, funny takeoff of the Chuck Norris facts), has posted a contest on his blog to write a terrorist movie-plot involving some everyday item.

We all know that a good plot to blow up an airplane will cause the banning, or at least screening, of something innocuous. If you stop and think about it, it's a stupid response... Your goal: invent a terrorist plot to hijack or blow up an airplane with a commonly carried item as a key component. The component should be so critical to the plot that the TSA will have no choice but to ban the item once the plot is uncovered. I want to see a plot horrific and ridiculous, but just plausible enough to take seriously... Make the TSA ban wristwatches. Or laptop computers. Or polyester. Or zippers over three inches long. You get the idea.