And now for a little Scientology Smackdown, care of the Germans…

via Reuters: BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defense Ministry said on Monday.

Cruise, also one of the film’s producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognize as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

The U.S. actor has been cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944 with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers “will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult”.

says no to

Via UnRep, via people.co.uk:

A FRUSTRATED girl prisoner is demanding that jail chiefs buy her a SEX TOY.

The lusty lag is even threatening to sue them in the European Court of Human Rights if she doesn’t get a Rampant Rabbit vibrator.

She claimed she is a sex addict and said: “Some prisons allow electric shavers so why not vibrators?”

The woman wrote to Brian Ritchie, governor at Send prison, Woking, Surrey, to complain that banning sex toys discriminates against hetero-sexual prisoners.

She said: “Homosexual acts of every kind are carried out blatantly yet are disregarded by officers. It is openly condoned. If the Prison Service has a duty of care, how come any request for sex-related essentials such as a harmless dildo for stimulation has been termed ridiculous?”

The bizarre demand comes after 200 junkies prevented from taking heroin in jail got £749,000 Home Office compensation.

The unnamed inmate said: “Drug addicts get help, smokers get cigarettes but what do we legitimate sex addicts get? Zilch.” She also protested that conjugal visits are not allowed as they are in other EU countries.

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It makes me want to… well… someone else made this picture but it sums it up for me:

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This one I just had to make, and has nothing to do with the video above:

via KOTV.com: A burglary ring in Tulsa is going to extreme measures in their heists. Tulsa police are trying to solve a string of big time burglaries done by professionals that pick targets carefully, and plan the crimes to the last detail. The thieves drop down through rooftops, tunnel through walls, even crawl through ductwork to get the job done. News On 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright reports they leave behind no fingerprints, no witnesses and no surveillance tapes.

The most recent target was a Best Buy store near I-44 and Yale. It’s a high traffic area, has alarms and surveillance, yet the burglars spent hours in the store making off with tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods. According to police the suspects cut a hole in the stores roof, rappelled down 12 feet to the ceiling of the office, cut a hole in that, defeated the alarm system, took all the surveillance tapes, then loaded up on 40 to 50 laptops, 60 inch plasma televisions and even the store safe.

Disabling alarms and taking safes are signature trademarks for these burglars, police say. On Christmas Eve 2005 the suspects robbed Letney Jewelers. Police say the thieves tunneled through the wall of an adjacent business, grabbed jewelry and the safe, which they needed a trash truck to remove.

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Welcome to the future, kids! Where we finally get thieves as cool as the movies. I mean, come on! We were told for years this shit wouldn’t work, but guess what – it does!

Via Robyn, my movie Sith Lord.

Truly I am excited all over again.

SWORD GUITAR

From the ebay listing:
Here is an absolutely awesome sword guitar from the ESP Custom Shop. It was custom made for the Alfee’s guitar player Takamizawa. This is an awesome one of a kind guitar.

The Alfee is one of the biggest rock acts in Japan and Takamizawa is well known for his Angel and other Gothic themed guitars. Notice the cool as hell wings on this baby!!! I have included some links to sites featuring his guitars etc. But look around on your own too!! I imagine whoever buys this will have been wanting something like this and know all about them already though.
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All right. Enough with the descriptions. What does it look like?

I mean here’s this guy in Japan, playing for a band with this fucking thing. And you know he thinks he’s in an anime where he has to use the Sword Guitar to fight off monsters, right? He’s all doing a bitchin’ solo and then it’s all slash and stab and wooosh! Yeah! FUCK YEAH!

Sword Guitar!
Oh how I love thee!
Sword Guitar!
You stabbed my fam-i-ly!
Sword Guitar!
Nothing is better!
Sword Guitar!
I’ll use you forever!

Yeah, I figure SG has a theme song.

Sword Guitar!
Sword Guitar!
Stabbing my enemies!
Sword Guitar!
Sword Guitar!
Slicing their flesh with G’s (background: G-chords, oh yeah!)
Sword Guitar!

I mean why wouldn’t something as wonderful and powerful as the SWORD GUITAR have a fucking theme song? You’re damn right it does.

DAMN RIGHT!

SWORD GUITAR!

via Variety: Here he comes, here comes “Speed Racer,” back on the smallscreen.

Lionsgate will announce today plans for its first animated series, a new version of the 1960s toon “Speed Racer.” Nickelodeon’s 24-hour cartoon channel, Nicktoons, is aboard to run the initial 26 episodes.

The new “Speed Racer” cartoon is set to launch next year, around the same time that Warner Bros.’ live-action “Speed Racer,” directed by the Wachowskis, hits theaters.

In the new franchise, young Speed Racer enters a racing academy for the fastest kids on Earth — and discovers that he’s the son of the legendary (and original series’) Speed Racer. He also finds out in the first few episodes that he has a brother — the new Racer X — whom he never knew existed.

Speed Racer wows the school with his Mach 6 (an updated version of the original show’s Mach 5) — the most advanced vehicle in the universe, which doesn’t run on gas. Speed and X team together to prevent villains from stealing the Mach 6 and to find out who’s behind the mysterious disappearance of their father.

Other characters returning include original Speed Racer’s younger brother Spritle, now headmaster of the racing academy. And chimpanzee Chim-Chim is now a mechanical robot.

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And yes they had a pic of the Mach 6. It makes me wonder how I feel about all this. They aren’t rebooting Speed. They’re moving forward. Which is a good thing, really. And yet… Chim-Chim is now a robot. Why? did Chim-Chim die and they moved his brain to a robot? Did they just surprise Chim-Chim and lock him in a robot shell? Can’t Spritle find a better name as an adult? Where’s Speed? Speed and Racer X are now on the same side from the get go? And in a school of the fastest racing kids? What? What is this school? Does it mean we’ll have episodes where the whole school races? Or gets involved in cases? Because you know as well as I do that is what it will mean.

But then, it might be fun!

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand authorities have blocked a couple’s bid to officially name their new son “4real,” saying numerals are not allowed.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby “4real” shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

“For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and … there’s no direct link between the meaning and the name,” Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. “With this name, everyone knows what it means.”

But when the parents filed the name with New Zealand’s Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, they were told names beginning with a number were against the rules.

The government office has opened negotiations with the parents about the name under a policy that says all unusual names must be given case-by-case consideration.

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Now, the woman (Hi Jude!) who mentioned this to me also mentioned she has seen names far worse than this. We all have. But come on. It’s time to put a stop to the madness!

And for fuck’s sake, don’t name your kid a diminutive of their name. If you have a kid and you want to call him Robby don’t name him Robby. Name him Robert and then call him Robby, so when he grows up he can choose to use his full name as well.

4real.

Fuckers.

Via Scott Bateman.