Miss Piggy's Grocery Store Checkout Headlines

[ronin sparthos]

3 arrested in slaughter of 50 seals

3 arrested in slaughter of 50 sealsRCMP on P.E.I. have arrested three people in connection with the death of 50 seals found on the shore on the southeastern tip of the Island in January.

The arrests were made on Friday and Saturday.

No charges have yet been laid, but RCMP say the three, all from Kings County, face Criminal Code charges of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.

The suspects are all males — aged 15, 17 and 18 — and have been released to the custody of their parents, until their next court date, which is tentatively scheduled for April 11.

The seals, many of which were pups, were discovered by a group of veterinary students on Jan. 27. A subsequent necropsy on 10 of the animals found that they had been bludgeoned to death. Some had not died instantly, and had been left to die in the cold.

Investigators executed four search warrants on Friday, resulting in the seizure of items they say are connected to the crime scene.

Literally clubbing baby seals to death? What has the Internet done.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Clubbing baby seals is waaaaaaaaaay older than the internet.

[Kerberoz]

...did they not skin them? Must have forgot the step between "Club baby seals" and "Profit"

[SurRival]

No, it just literally became ???

[Churchill]

http://kotaku.com/5985822/why-were-t...tation-4-event

[Qalbert]

didn't nintendo like chain 3DSes to booth babes when they announced it?

[Kohan]

http://kotaku.com/5985822/why-were-t...tation-4-event

I have to agree with the majority of people responding to that "article"—it's a pointless piece that proves nothing, and it's hardly even sensationalism. Really, it's just garbage.

Let's say, however, that someone was absolutely determined to write a piece about the lack of women at the event. Instead of attacking the event itself, which is idiotic—if everyone doing the presentations is already employed by the respective developer, publisher, etc., and is male, then what did they expect, stand-ins?—the more intelligent approach would be to talk about women already in the industry, where they work, and what they do. It wouldn't be nearly as exciting, but it also wouldn't be retarded.

Kotaku's featured a few well-written articles in the past several months; I've always despised the site for its lackluster "journalism," and those pieces inspired me to view it a little more often than never. Clearly, this was a cause for alarm, and they were eager to remind the world that they're best-known for publishing garbage.

didn't nintendo like chain 3DSes to booth babes when they announced it?

Nintendo has been doing things like that forever, and with members of both sexes.

One of my fondest memories is of a Nintendo executive flying from Japan, literally with a briefcase chained to his arm, to show our team their developing Super Mario 64 game. We were all blown away and it served as motivation for us to make Pilotwings 64 as good as we possibly could.

http://n64blog.com/2012/12/30/interv...pilotwings-64/

[Churchill]

The author consistently shits out shit like that. I'd wonder why she isn't fired, but then kotaku is terrible so they're obviously afraid of a lawsuit.

[Kohan]

The author consistently shits out shit like that. I'd wonder why she isn't fired, but then kotaku is terrible so they're obviously afraid of a lawsuit.

I decided to do a little investigating, and—despite her having an incredibly generic and therefore hard-to-research name—discovered that she's the co-founder of this:

http://nightmaremode.net/about/

Nightmare Mode refers to a group of outsiders, insiders, aliens, starfighters, and the occasional human being who refuse to work within the marketing machine. Fuck that. We write thoughtfully, meticulously, critically, sometimes absurdly about games, their industry, and their surrounding culture.

Fucking hilarious. They're outsiders, guys! They rage against the machine! They are rebels! Watch out!

[Charismatic]

So this chick thinks she's Haruhi who writes about video games?
The. Definition. Of. Crazy,

[Kohan]

So this chick thinks she's Haruhi who writes about video games?
The. Definition. Of. Crazy,

There's also some sad fucker who couldn't beat the first level of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" when they were a kid. What a sorry-ass chump.

[Komm Suesser Tod]

I have to agree with the majority of people responding to that "article"—it's a pointless piece that proves nothing, and it's hardly even sensationalism. Really, it's just garbage.

Let's say, however, that someone was absolutely determined to write a piece about the lack of women at the event. Instead of attacking the event itself, which is idiotic—if everyone doing the presentations is already employed by the respective developer, publisher, etc., and is male, then what did they expect, stand-ins?—the more intelligent approach would be to talk about women already in the industry, where they work, and what they do. It wouldn't be nearly as exciting, but it also wouldn't be retarded.

Kotaku's featured a few well-written articles in the past several months; I've always despised the site for its lackluster "journalism," and those pieces inspired me to view it a little more often than never. Clearly, this was a cause for alarm, and they were eager to remind the world that they're best-known for publishing garbage.



Nintendo has been doing things like that forever, and with members of both sexes.

I think my question would be how many presenters were there, and what percentage of the total game industry is comprised of women, and especially at the level where one would be chosen to present at something like this. I'm aware that there is a problem with how few women are in the gaming industry, and that is certainly worth exploring the causes behind and working on changing it, but simply attacking an event like this with ad-hominem attacks seems pointless and rather petty.

A lot of the entertainment industry suffers from a lack of women, and moreover, what women are in the various industries seem fairly pigeonholed and are trotted out to say hey look, we have a woman!

Someone was complaining about the lack of female protagonists in books, and I started thinking about that. I read a pretty large amount of books, and I had a hard time coming up with a book I'd read with an actual female protagonist, and I couldn't. (Unless you count Twelfth Night) Now, there have been plenty of female characters I've liked quite a bit, and especially strong ones, but I still couldn't think of a lead protagonist. More and more, I came to the conclusion that most of the books written with female protagonists seem to be about "girly things." I have no evidence of this, but it seems more likely that the book industry, concerned with what is marketable and what sells, don't give much traction to books that don't fit a certain predetermined idea of women's books.

[Lucavi]

Just another reason why I got the fuck out of Journalism as fast as I could once I learned enough about what's really up. If I wanted to lie for a living, I'd become a lawyer and get paid a shit-ton more.

[Aristio]

So I take it Kotaku is the Fox News of the gaming world? I've never really been on their site besides a few linked articles about feminism in gaming. I never bought into the whole Feminism in games anyhow, no matter the breast size, because it's just what companies do to sell to their market. For the longest while, Males were the target and we all can agree that companies, especially the giants out there, don't like to budge from their business model.

[Lucavi]

Something like that... but they don't have an outward agenda towards another rival philosophy or group. They're just biased as hell towards whatever they're supporting and writing about.

[Kuishen]

Holy shit @ that website Kohan. All of those people are terrible. Read a couple of articles there and this one chick would start every article about the woes of being a transgender woman and then go into a game related topic that most times had literally nothing to do with the little story at the beginning.

Oh well, as long as they keep their shitty livejournals on that site instead of anywhere with any shred of credibility (i.e. not Kotaku) it's a good thing.

EDIT: Oh and let's not forget the guy that wrote an article blaming videogames for being unemployed for two and a half years after getting out of college.

[Kohan]

Holy shit @ that website Kohan. All of those people are terrible. Read a couple of articles there and this one chick would start every article about the woes of being a transgender woman and then go into a game related topic that most times had literally nothing to do with the little story at the beginning.

Oh well, as long as they keep their shitty livejournals on that site instead of anywhere with any shred of credibility (i.e. not Kotaku) it's a good thing.

Given how their co-founder managed to creep onto Kotaku's payroll, I would not be surprised if another one or two eventually showed up. I would say "brace yourself," but anyone looking for quality writing already avoids Kotaku, so who gives a shit?

Perhaps the worst thing about this is how emboldened Hernandez must feel in relation to the trash she's produced. All of those comments insulting her work? The work of misogynists, clearly. They're proving her right with their seething jealousy! They couldn't possibly have any valid criticism, nor could she be responsible for making it harder to discuss any legitimate women's issues. No, not at all. She is a woman, hear her roar.

[Outlaw]

A pair of elementary school teachers in Manhattan are facing disciplinary action stemming from a homework assignment that involved word problems using examples of slaves being whipped and dying on slave ships.

A student teacher at P.S. 59 in Manhattan brought the issue to school officials after she was asked to photocopy a worksheet to be given as homework for a fourth-grade class taught by Jacqueline Vitucci. The assignment featured questions such as

“One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month (31 days)? Another slave got whipped nine times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month? How many times did the two slaves get whipped together in one month?"

The student teacher, Aziza Harding, refused to photocopy the worksheet and used another one instead while bringing the issue to administrators. The worksheet also included a question about a ship filled with 3,799 slaves, asking

"One day, the slaves took over the ship. 1,897 are dead. How many slaves are alive?"

The assignment had been created a month earlier by fourth-grade social studies teacher Jane Youn, who was teaching her students the history of slavery and used the topic during a math lesson, according to the New York City Department of Education. The students were asked to create word problems based on their lesson about slavery, and Vitucci used the same worksheet created by Youn's class.

http://todaynews.today.com/_news/201...of-slaves?lite

[myreality]

US to bomb Guam with dead mice

http://rt.com/usa/us-snake-guam-mice-308/

In a desperate attempt to kill off two million brown tree snakes that are plaguing the territory of Guam, the US is bombing the island with poisoned dead mice, hoping that the snakes will eat them.

“We are taking this to a new phase. There really is no other place in the world with a snake problem like Guam,” Daniel Vice, assistant state director of the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services in Guam, told the Associated Press.

The pile of dead mice, laced with painkillers that are deadly for snakes, will rain down onto Guam’s jungle canopy as scientists drop them from helicopters in a last-ditch attempt to eradicate the invasive species.

Even though the venom of brown tree snakes is nonlethal for humans, the snake infestation has damaged infrastructure and wiped out other species in Guam. Slithering into homes, the snakes often bite people and damage power lines and wires, resulting in large-scale blackouts. The tree snakes can grow to more than 10 feet in length, although most of them are usually just a few feet long.

Nearly all of Guam’s native birds have become wiped out in the years since the tree snake first came to the island aboard a US military ship more than 60 years ago. With much of Guam’s wildlife having become endangered or extinct, tourism has dwindled, thereby inflicting an economic toll on the US territory.

Located 3,000 miles away, officials in the state of Hawaii have long feared that the snakes could make their way over to the tropical island and destroy its local habitat, as well.

Vice predicts that if the US and Guam make no attempts to contain the snakes, "the possibility of the snakes getting to Hawaii is inevitable."

The National Wildlife Research Center estimates that a Hawaiian brown tree snake infestation would inflict $593 million to $2.14 billion in economic damages each year, including widespread power outages and a significant decrease in tourism. In an attempt to control the Guam-based infestation and prevent it from spreading, the US government will bombard the island with the dead mice starting this spring. The painkillers that the mice will be laced with include acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in medicines such as Tylenol.

Brown tree snakes are one of very few snake species that eat the corpses of dead animals that they didn’t kill themselves. Being highly vulnerable to acetaminophen, snakes that consume the dead mice will most likely expire.

Scientists will drop the dead mice individually from a helicopter. The bait will be attached to a flotation device with streamers that would ensure that the poisoned mice get caught in the branches of a tree, where the snakes live and feed.

Birds are also vulnerable to acetaminophen, but scientists claim that most of the birds have already been wiped out by the snakes anyway.

AP reports that the US government plans to begin dropping the poisoned mice in April or May.

I wonder how this will affect the rest of the ecosystem.

[Moss]

Guam sounds like a terrible place