Tristan Taormino use of Facebook, Twitter as effective as Lady GaGa and Justin Bieber.
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/340938
FB is good for people showcasing their Business.

Ke$ha Claims She Had Sex With A Ghost.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tommywes/keha-claims-she-had-sex-with-a-ghost?s=mobile

Artist against the Third Reich: Ernst Barlach , 1933.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Barlach
http://www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/37/ernst-barlach

In Munich, Julien Bryan documented the spirited Nazi assault on modern art when he visited the infamous and popular Entartete Kunst [Degenerate Art] exhibition. This exhibition featured over 650 paintings, sculptures, prints, and books which hadbeen confiscated from German public museums, including the works of some important 20th century artists like Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Emil Nolde, Georg Grosz, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Thepieces were chaotically hung withaccompanying criticism and derisivetext, in order to clarify to the German people what type of art was considered unacceptable. Afterwards, many works were sorted out for sale and sold at auction. Some were acquired by museums, and othersby private collectors. Certain pieces were appropriated by Naziofficials and some were burned. Josef Goebbels ordered a more thorough scouring of German art collections after the exhibition, bringing the total number of modern works seized by the Nazis to over 16,000.
To Hitler, it was ugly and 'degenerate' - but, ironically, the art he condemned exemplifies the best of German modernism.
Adolf Hitler didn't do many favours for German culture. Goethe, Beethoven and Dürer will never be enough to liftthe curse he put on it - not least because he praised them all. And that's beforewe start on Wagner. How many people go on holiday to seethe art treasures of Nuremberg? There's as much artistic greatnessin Germany as anywhere. But we don't want to know. Now there's a small exhibition of German art at Tate Modern that offers a wayto recognise what we're missing. And, bizarrely, our excellent guide is the führer.
I've got to admit, I hadn't ever paid much attention to Karl Schmidt-Rottluff - he painted the kind of lozenge-eyed portraits and angular nudes that have always tended toblur into my vague image of"German expressionism". Schmidt-Rottluff's Frau mit Tasche (Woman with Bag), in the Tate show, looks innocent enough, if a littledistorted. Then you see it - her face is hard and elongated, jutting in space, awkwardly placed on her body. There's something foreign here, and then you realise: this woman's head isan African mask.
To many spectators today,this might seem a comparatively gentle modernistwork. But try to see its disorder, eroticism and racial impurity through Hitler's eyes. In 1937 Schmidt-Rottluff,one of the founder-members of the Dresden avant-garde group the Brücke - the Bridge - had more than 50 of his works exhibited in the most notorious art event of the 20th century. The Entartete Kunst - Degenerate Art - exhibition opened in Munich in July of that year. It was the most successful modern art exhibition of all time. In six weeks it had a million visitors, and a million more caught it on tour.
This is what all the hep people would be doing if the Nazis had won the war, said Hunter S Thompson of LasVegas. What all the hep people were doing in Nazi Germany in 1937's summer of unlove was sneering at Schmidt-Rottluff's paintings - not to mention those of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde, FranzMarc, Lyonel Feininger and Marc Chagall.
It was shameful, and the Tate documents it as such. All the artists in this room had works in the Degenerate Art exhibition. Nolde's 1930 painting The SeaB is so German - a morbid, romantic landscape, echoing Caspar David Friedrich, or a Wagner prelude - and yetNolde had no fewer than 1,052works of his removed from German museums in 1937. His prominent inclusion in the Entartete Kunst exhibition baffled him all the more in that he was a Nazi.
The Tate show presents this story as tragedy; and of course it is. One great painter, Kirchner, committed suicide within a year of the Degenerate Art exhibition. The fascinating archive documents build up a picture of misery; the spiritual-minded Wassily Kandinsky writesof his confusion, as an apolitical person, about what is going on.
It's a story of defeat - but it could be told differently. It would be great to see a full-scaleexhibition. In fact, it would be worth reconstructing the entire Degenerate Art exhibition. The restaging would,I suspect, profoundly alter our view of modern art. We would see how German it is.
There's a crucial aspect of the Degenerate Art exhibition I had never understood before. I always pictured it as a global denunciation of modernism. At the 1933 Nuremberg Rally Hitler lambasted futurism (despiteits fascist affiliations) and dada. So I pictured the Naziart connoisseurs marching contemptuously through rooms filled with Picassos and Duchamps . . . but that is not what it was like at all. The degenerates on view were mostly homegrown.
When Nazi art experts ransacked German public collections for anything modernist to putin the show, of course they grabbed plenty of treasures by Picasso and Van Gogh, to be sold abroad or destroyed. But Hitler had other views. He wanted to abolish German modern art.
Hitler's decree ofJune 30 1937, authorising Goebbels to ransack museums, specified"German degenerate art since 1910". Talk about knowing your enemy. Likea lot of failed artists, Hitler fancied himself an art critic - andin picking 1910 as the year whenall the good old-fashioned values of realismand beauty had been brutally overturned in German art, he was right. That was the year German expressionists founded the New Secession inBerlin. Newspapers in that year were full of scornful attacks on the sensationalism of these young German artists - perhaps the would-be artist Hitler read the reviews.
The Degenerate Art show was not just an attack on modernism, it was an attack ona version of Germany. It was German artists Hitler denouncedas sick: "In the name of the German people itis my duty to prevent these pitiable unfortunates, who plainly suffer from defects of vision,from attemptingto persuade others by their chatter that these faults of observation are indeed realities and present them as 'art'."
And so, if we could put this exhibition back together again - which is impossible because it wouldmean resurrecting destroyed masterpieces such as Marc's Tower of Blue Horses - it wouldnot be some disgusting exercise in Nazi kitsch. Despite its loathing and violence - because of its loathing and violence - Degenerate Art was the most revealing exhibition ever staged about German modernism. The fact this art was hated and even feared by Hitler is high praise. And what the Munich show catalogued was the subversive energy and revolutionary brilliance of the Germany killed by Hitler.
From now on, the world would not think of Germany as the nation of GeorgeGrosz and John Heartfield, of Hannah Höch's dada collages, but as a small-minded country of beer-swiggingBavarian mediocrity. Hitler won - in most people's perceptions, he has still won. The Tate Modernexhibit isn't big or bold enough to change that. But the Degenerate Art show had the power to changehow we see Germany. Look how Hitler hatedwhat Berlin really was - look at it his way.
German modern art was incredible. Schmidt-Rottluff is a perfect example - that disjunctive quality, a certainintellectual toughness, connects the icy fire of the expressionist palette with the dadaists who rebelled against expressionism itself. More than anywhere else, this art was confrontational -and there's the rub.
You might even say German artists were asking for it. French modernism, by and large, inhabits a world of its own, confident in its own significance. German artists could not draw on the Paris tradition of bohemia and knew they were a radical youthful minority in a nation of - as Otto Dix and Grosz depict it - crippled nationalist war veterans and drunken Prussians. German modern art wasn't accidentally fragmentary anddisturbing; it set out to fragment and disturb. As the Nazi party fought for a neworder, artists aggressively created disorder.In fact, if you want a word to unify all the currents in German modern art in the first three decades of the 20th century,then"degenerate" is quite good. But instead of abuse,this is a term of praise. Modern art has never looked as degenerate as it did in Germany before Hitler imposed his vision of banal beauty.
Ugliness is life and beauty is death, might be our conclusion, ifwe could really revive the Degenerate Art exhibition. Modern art is ugly - and alive. Hitler praised quiet landscapes and classical nudes, and he was death.
http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/16/secondworldwar
“ Degenerate ” Art | The Greatest Theft in History Educational Program
http://www.greatesttheft.com/lessonplan.php?id=1

Taormino to speak on feminist pornography
Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012, 4:30 p.m. · Wallace Hall, Room 165
e-mail | print
Author and director Tristan Taormino will speak on " Feminist Porn: The Politics of Producing Pleasure " at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 27, in Wallace Hall, Room 165. She will discuss issues of gender, sexuality, race and class in pornography, and argue that feminists must disrupt normative depictions in the medium and create new kinds of imagery.
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S35/33/59K07/index.xml?section=announcements
Subsequently, she directed Tristan Taormino's House of *** for Adam & Eve,
which shows a number of " porn stars" (from famous to unknown).
The Feministing Five: Tristan Taormino.
Tristan Taormino is a feminist pornographer and sex educator, and the author of half a dozen books, including the acclaimed The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women . Taormino is also the editor of the annual anthology Best Lesbian Erotica , which she has worked on for many years. For nine years, she was a syndicated sex and relationships columnist for The Village Voice , and she still offers relationship and sex advice to readers at her website. She is also responsible for the new DVD “The Expert’s Guide to Female Orgasm,” which, according to Miriam’s review earlier this week, is very, very hot.
Taormino has her own film production company is called Smart *** Productions, which allows her the freedom to make feminist porn. Taormino’s pornography is feminist, by her definition, because it focuses on female pleasure, and because she strives to make porn that humanizes the performers and takestheir desires into account. This is partlybecause this is the kind of porn Taormino believes in,and partly because she knows there’s a segment of the porn-watching publicwho are “tired of seeing videos where the women either don’t come or their orgasms are clearly fake.” To that end, Taormino makes porn with a “focus is on fresh and accessible performers, hot, spontaneous sex, realchemistry and real orgasms for everyone.”
Taormino also travelsthe country speaking and giving workshops, and she’sgoing on tour next month. Check out her schedule to see if she’s coming to a citynear you.
And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Tristan Taormino.
Chloe Angyal: How did you get into feminist pornography and sexeducation?
Tristan Taormino: Well, I was supposed to go to law school, and that didn’t happen. I went to Wesleyan University in the early nineties, and it was this hotbed of activism, and I did a lot of LGBT activism and lived in a special interest house called Womanist House. I really imagined that Iwas going to go on to law school to do public service for people who didn’t have access to the system. And I had really good grades, and a really great resume and recommendations, and I had average LSAT scores and everyone told me notto worry. But in the spring of my senior year, I was rejected by all thirteen schools that I appliedto. I was in a panic, and I went to see my thesis adviser, Professor Claire Potter, and I was crying, saying, “This was the plan, this was the plan, I have no plan now!” And she said, “Tristan, I don’t think you want to go to law school, and I don’t think you want to be a lawyer. I think you want to write about sex. And I think you’re really good at it.” I had written about sex in my senior thesis project, which was about lesbian sexuality, but it neveroccurred to me that it could be a job. I got off the wait list for one school, and she encouraged me to defer admission for a year and figure out what I wanted todo. I never went to law school, and that amazing teacher really changed the course of my life.
I started writing about sex as fiction, really writing about my own sexual experiences and changing people’s names and descriptions to protect their privacy. In 1996 I started my own zine. It was called Pucker Up, and it was all about sex and gender and radical sexuality and identity. People contributed fiction and non-fiction, and poetry and photos. That kind of put me on the map, and from that I got my job doing the anthology Best Lesbian Erotica for Cleis Press. At that point, there just wasn’t a lot of lesbian erotica on theshelf, so it was a risk for them, for sure. After I’d been working with them for a year, they sent out a call saying that they were looking forproposals for books about a single sex topic. They didn’t want a broad sex how-to book, they wanted to know what single sex topic we would focus on if we could. I thought about that question and I had the answerright away, which was that I wanted to write a book about anal sex, and I wanted it to be for women. They didn’t anticipate that that’s what I’d say, and I didn’t think they’d anticipated that this would be the first book they would publish in this series that they went on to do, but they’re a queer, feminist, sex-positive press, and they really believed in it when bookstores and others were a little bit freaked out aboutit.
So I started teaching workshops all about anal sex, based on my book. I got up in front of a room full ofpeople, most of themstrangers, I talked about anal sex, and the very first time I taught a workshop was a light bulb moment, like, “This iswhere I’m supposed to be, and this is what I’m supposed to be doing.” So fromthere I expanded my repertoire of teaching, I went on to write my column for The Village Voice , and then I wanted tomake a video versionof my book. I knew I wanted it to be reallyexplicit, and I knew that would automatically put it in the territory of porn, of hardcore, explicit sex. I pitched it to a bunch of reallymainstream adult companies. All of them turned me down, and then John Stagliano called a couple of months later and said he wanted to make the movie. So I made my movie The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women . I kept doingmy sex education work, and then in 2005 I came back to porn, because I felt like there still wasn’t enough educational porn out there. I wanted to see if I could put my own stamp on it, and I was also interested in making porn that wasn’t necessarily educational, that wasn’t framed as educational, but that represented the kind of porn that I wantedto see but didn’t feel was on the shelf.
CA: Who is your favorite fictional heroine, and who areyour heroines in real life?
TT: I think it’s the Wicked Witch of the West, from Wicked the book and the musical. She’s also known as Elphaba, orthe Green Witch. She’s always struck me as a really strong character. She’s an outcast, yet she has this tremendous confidence and self-assurance to stand up for what she believes in. She defies The Wizard, with a capital W. Andshe does it not by pitting herself against another woman who’s different from her, but by joining forces with this other woman, who’s different and has hada very different life experience. And I was raised by a gay man, so I love musicals.
My heroines in real life are easily. Susie Bright, Betty Dodson,Annie Sprinkle, Nina Hartley. These are women who really broke ground in the field of feminist porn,queer porn and feminist sex education. I feel like, individually, each of them kicked down somany doors, and thatI wouldn’t have the career that I do without all the work that they did, and that they continue todo. These are womenwho are still writing, teaching and educating, and creating really necessary work, and are really the founders of the modern sex-positive movement.
CA: What recent newsstory made you wantto scream?
TT: A better question is, is there a recent news story that doesn’t make me want to throw my computer across the room? It’s a little depressing, and there are times whenI have to turn away from CNN because it makes me so crazy. The one that comes to mind is that at thevery end of the year, there was this Gallup poll released on the most admired women on 2010. And Sarah Palin was on the list. And I think she was second – above pretty incredible, kick-*** women. I’m still entirely baffled by how Sarah Palin is onthe national political stage. I’m sure she’s a nice enough person, but she has a political background that’s sketchy at best – there’s a lot of rumors and scandals swirling around her political career in Alaska. She’s not thatbright, and I personally want my leaders to be smarterthan me. And she spouts this pseudo right wing-feminism,and it’s entirely perplexing to me that people buy it. I guess I just can’t understand what people see in her, because I don’t see it.
CA: What, in your opinion, is the greatest challenge facing feminism today?
TT: There seem to be a lot of them. On the one hand, there are some amazing youngfeminists. They’re a different generation than I am, and they’re living in a different time, and we need to really listen to them. But onthe other hand, thereare all these young women who I meet at colleges who don’tidentify as feminists. And I feel like they take for granted some of the things that past generationsreally fought for. They don’t have a sense of history. It’s like everyone skipped Women’s Studies 101. So I’m perplexed about whyyoung women shy away from this label, “Feminist.” And the irony is that feminists fought so hard and made so much change – they sort of fought for your right to be so blasé about not identifying as a feminist. And that’s aweird paradox to me.
The other piece of it is that the why our media culture is now,everything feels very black and white. Everything feels structured around debates. And to me, feminism is about complexity and different voices, and it’s about me and Catherine MacKinnon both considering ourselves feminists, and disagreeing, rabidly, about some major issues. I feel like feminism is about nuance and layers, and I don’t know how to translate that into the media culture wehave now, where it’s all about soundbites and where you stand.You’re on one side or the other. I was interested to see Jaclyn Friedman take on Naomi Wolf and provide this nuanced point of view. She said, “Do I think the charges against Julian Assange are politically motivated?Yeah. But do I think that there’s also some really ****ed up **** being said about rape? Yeah!” But in some ways, there’s no room in mainstream media outlets to say that. You’ve got to be on one side or the other.And that’s not my idea of feminism, and I feel like feminism is in conflict with this entirely soundbite-driven media culture.
CA: You’re going to a desert island, and you’re allowed to take one food, one drink and one feminist. What do you pick?
TT: Chocolate shortbread cookies from Soma in Toronto, freshly squeezed lemonade and the feminists who are in my Buddhist book club – Alice, Amber and Wyndi.
http://feministing.com/2011/01/08/the-feministing-five-tristan-taormino/

A recent study has concluded that, believe or not, people enjoy having sex more than using Facebook! Crazy, I know.
The frightening newsfor our collective sex lives, though, is researchers did not always believe this tobe so: a University of Chicago study was released in October suggesting that people are just as enticed to check theirFacebook and Twitter accounts as they are to get it on.
While Facebook is an awesome platform tostalk people you wish you could have sex with, the new study from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand found that sexual pleasure ranked first in three different categories they studied: pleasure, engagement and meaning. Of the 173 people in the small study, which examined 30 common activities, drinking alcohol and volunteering followed close behind nookie (and partying!). Checking Facebook was sandwiched betweenundesirable activitieslike recovering from illness and housework.

Topless nuns were seen hosing down anti-gay marriage demonstrators with “holy sperm” last Sunday in Paris.
Go ahead. Read that sentence again.
Of course, these weren’t real nuns! FEMEN , the breast-baring Ukrainian women’s movement, is famous for spreading awarenessabout a cause through nudity. When FEMEN found out that more than 100,000 Catholics would be protesting against France’s legislation to allow gay marriage and adoption, they got their weapons ready.With various slogans written across their chests, including “In Gay We Trust” and “**** God,” Femen members got creative with baby powder, spraying themist on protesters, calling it “Jesus Sperm.”
In both photos and videos, the women of FEMEN are shown being shoved by both protestors and policemen, with one activist losing a toothand another with a broken nose. Sounds a bit scary. Alas, as the gay rights movement begins to gain acceptance in more countries throughout the world, protests on both sides of the debate are sure to spark some fire … and spread some more cleavage.
http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-11-22/topless-nuns-spray-jesuss-sperm-in-paris-protest/
Topless 'Nuns' From Activist Group Femen Allegedly AttackedBy Anti-Gay Catholic ProtestersIn Paris (NSFW VIDEO)
One of the victims suffered a broken nose, the other lost a tooth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=2158033

A new Irish Republican Army faction in Northern Ireland claimed responsibility Monday for its first killing and defended the bloodshed as a necessary act of vengeance.
The group, a merger of factions that brands itself as simply the IRA, said in a statement to the Irish News in Belfast its members shot to death David Black this month because he worked as a guardat Northern Ireland's top-security Maghaberry prison.
About 40 members ofIRA factions are imprisoned there. The inmates have protested for more than a year against a policy of strip-searching them in search of weapons, drugs and cellphones.They have previously threatened to kill off-duty guards.
Black, 52, was shot ashe drove to work on Nov. 1. He had worked as a guard for three decades and expected to retire soon.
He was the first prison officer killed in Northern Ireland since 1993, the year before the dominant anti-British paramilitary group, the Provisional IRA, began an open-ended truce that inspired Northern Ireland's peace process. The Provisionals renounced violence and disarmed in 2005.
The group that claimed Black's killing was formed in July by the merger of three anti-British splinter groups led byformer Provisionals who still pursue violence in Northern Ireland. The merger represented an effortby breakaway IRA members to mount a more coherent campaign, given thatmost of their bombings and shootings fail because of faulty equipment or British intelligence tipoffs.
In the latest such episode, British Armyexperts dismantled a bomb Monday that had been found in the middle of a road near an elementary school in north Belfast. Police said the bomb had been attached to the underside of the intended victim's car but failed to detonate and insteadfell off.
The new group's statement said it had"a responsibility to protect and defend" its imprisoned members. It described the Black killing as a direct response to "the degradation" of prison strip-searching.
The three groups that now constitute the self-styled IRA faction are the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs and Oglaigh na hEireann, the Gaelic equivalent of "IRA."
The Real IRA was responsible for the deadliest bombing inNorthern Ireland history: the 1998 car-bomb attack on the town of Omagh that killed 29, mostly women and children. The other factions are of more recent vintage, with the RAAD group focused on targeting criminalrivals in Northern Ireland's second-largest city, Londonderry.
A fourth faction also still committed to violence, the Continuity IRA, has declined to merge.
Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party thatdelivered the Provisionals' disbandment, said today's IRA remnant had no coherent political strategy and should abandon violence too.
Gerry Kelly, a senior Sinn Fein politician and convicted Provisional IRA car bomber, said any fringe IRA factions"cannot deliver a united Ireland," the traditional IRA goal of forcing Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and into the Republic of Ireland.
"These groups need to realize that they cannot derail the peace process and their actions will not resolve anything within the jail or in wider society. They are killing for the sake of killing and should stop immediately," he said.
Black's family barred Sinn Fein politicians from attending his funeral. Like most prison officers, he came from the province's British Protestant majority and also was a member of the Orange Order, a conservative Protestant brotherhood that is despised by many Irish Catholics.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/11/12/new-ira-faction-claims-northern-ireland-killing-says-guard-slain-as-part-prison/
2 IRA Suspects Arrested over Prison Guard Killing
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/125669

Ex-Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital on 23 November 2006 from radiation poisoning.
Mr Litvinenko meets two Russian men at a London hotel - one a former KGB officer.
Health experts say they believe Mr Litvinenko was deliberately poisoned by radioactive matter, believed to be polonium-210.
Police find traces of radioactive material at the sushi bar and the hotel where the former spy had meetings on 1 November, and at his north London home.

"Unexplained, elevated" level of polonium-210 on Arafat's clothing, keffiyeh and toothbrush
Highest levels found on items with bodily fluids
Toothbrush measured 54 millibecquerels (mBq); underwear 180mBq compared with 6.7mBq from another man's specimen underwear
More than 60% of polonium was not from natural sources
Source: Al-Jazeera TV
Many Palestinians continue to believe that Israel poisoned him. Israel has denied any involvement. Others allege that he had Aids.
In 2005, the New York Times obtained a copy of Arafat's medical records, which it said showed he died of a massive haemorrhagic stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown infection.
Independent experts who reviewed the records told the paper that it was highly unlikely that he had died of Aids or had been poisoned.
A murder inquiry waslaunched by French prosecutors in Augustafter an investigationby al-Jazeera TV , working with scientists at the Institute of RadiationPhysics (IRA) at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, found"significant" traces ofpolonium-210 present in samples taken from Arafat's personal effects, including his trademark keffiyeh headdress.
In some cases, the elevated levels were 10 times higher than those on control subjects, and most of the polonium could not have come from natural sources, the scientists said.
But the institute also said Arafat's symptoms - as described in medical reports - were not consistent with polonium poisoning.

The body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is to be exhumed on Tuesday, Palestinian officials say.
His body is to undergo tests to find out whether his death in Paris in 2004was caused by poisoning.
Arafat's medical records say he had a stroke resulting from a blood disorder.
But France began a murder inquiry in August after Swiss experts working witha documentary crew found radioactive polonium-210 on Arafat's personal effects.
Analysis
Richard Galpin
BBC News, Ramallah
The chief investigator Taufik alTirawi said they had recently asked the Russians to take part in this investigation because they had "anhistorical relationship" with Moscow.
It seems the Palestinians do not fully trust France and Switzerland when it comes to proving or disproving that their former leader was murdered.
It is not known how long it will take the three countries to complete their tests. But it will be a key moment - and it is possible they will reach different conclusions.
While most Palestinians are certain their leader was murdered, there are serious questionsabout the validity of testing for polonium poisoning eight yearsafter Mr Arafat's death. The half-life ofpolonium is less than five months.
His tomb, in Ramallah in the WestBank, was sealed off earlier this month.
Once the body is removed from the tomb inside the stone-clad tomb mausoleum, scientists from France, Switzerland and Russia will each take samples, former Palestinian intelligence chief Tawfik Tirawi told reporters.
The experts will then take these samples to their respective countries to be tested for Polonium 210 and possibly other lethal substances.
Arafat's body will be reburied the same day with military honours.
Arafat, who led the Palestine Liberation Organisation for 35 years and became the first president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996, fellviolently ill in October 2004 at his compound.
Two weeks later he was flown to a French military hospital in Paris, where he died on 11 November 2004, aged 75.
His widow, Suha, objected to a post-mortem examination at the time, but later appealed to the Palestinian Authority to permit the exhumation "to reveal the truth".

*. Cult leader Warren Jeffs is in jail, convicted of sexual abuse of young girls
*. His 8,000 followers continue to believe that he is a prophetand God who has wrongly imprisoned
*. Jeffs ordered married couples to stop having sex andhandpicked 15 mento father all the FLDS children
*. He also ordered 500-600 followers to be banished from the compound
Cult leader Warren Jeffs has spent the past six years behind bars after being arrested and later convicted of sexual abuse of young girls, but that has not stopped him from continuing to exude complete control over his polygamous community.
A Friday expose on ABC’s 20/20 has revealed the insulated world of The Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints Church where Jeffs’ 8,000 followers continue to believe that he is a prophet and God who has been wrongly imprisoned.
‘Anybody who thinks that Warren Jeffs' incarceration ended his rule in this community has no idea what they're talking about,’ said reporter Mike Watkiss.
‘He is in many ways more powerful because now he's martyred.’
Innocent victims: Children living in Warren Jeffs'compound are taught that the self-proclaimed prophet convicted of child sex abuse is the U.S. president
A 2008 raid on Jeffs' FLDS stronghold in Eldorado, Texas, revealed the polygamous community which included pregnant child brides in pastel prairie dresses with elaborate braided hairdos.
The FLDS holds polygamy as a fundamental belief and its men take multiple wives in what are termed 'celestial marriages' each performed in a ceremony called a 'sealing'.
The Utah-based church believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and arranged marriages sometimes involve underage girls.
More than a year after his conviction ofchild sex abuse, it appears that little has changed in the remote Yearning for Zion compound in Colorado City housingthe Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, a radical wing of the Mormon Church.
Religious studies: Children in the local schoolhouse are taught Jeffs' proverbsin place of science or history
Oppressed: In the male-dominated community, the women live in polygamous marriages where each man has at leastthree sister wives
Styling tips: Fundamentalist Latter Day Saint women are not allowed to cut their hair because it is believed that they will need it to wash men's feet in heaven
Like in the past, Jeffs decides where people live, whom they marry and even what they eat and how they dress.
Children of cult members receive little more than a grade school education where science and history are ignored in favourof religious studies with an emphasis on Jeffs’ proverbs, and where every school book must be personally approved by the leader.
Totalitarian leader: Jeffs was convicted last year of molestingtwo teenage girls and sentenced to life in prison, but he continues to have control over his sect
One proverb reads: 'When you disobey there must and will always be a punishment.'
Children in the local schoolhouse are also taught that Jeffs was the president of the United States and that God led Neil Armstrong away from the moon during the Apollo 11.
When questioned by an ABC reporter about their general level of knowledge, atrio of girls who escaped the cult several months earlier along with their mother said that they had never heard of Ronald Reagan, Santa Claus or AIDS.
The women are always covered from neck to ankle because they believe their bodies are sacred.
Town dressmaker Lizzie Jeffs said: 'We believe in being modest.
'The Lord teaches us that if we can dress properly, it is easier to see each other as awhole person inside and out.'
Women must never cut their hair becauseit is believed that they will need it to wash men's feet in heaven.
They all live in polygamous marriages where each man has at leastthree sister wives.
The FLDS organization is protected by Utah’s homeschooling law, which means that state officials have no say about the content of the curriculum taught on the grounds of the secured compound.
In August 2011, Jeffs, 56, was found guilty of molesting two girls ages 12 and 15 whom he took as brides in 'spiritual marriages’.
Handpicked fathers: FLDS children bath in a river in their clothes for modesty in the cult where 15 men have been handpicked by Jeffs to father all the children. Married couples are banned from having sex
Banished: Jeffs ordered 500-600 menand women expelled from FLDS, among them Carling Steed (pictured with third wife Suzette)
Modesty is sacred: The women are always covered from neck to ankle because they believe their bodies are sacred. Town dressmaker Lizzie Jeffs (pictured) said the dresses 'make it easier to see each other as a whole person inside and out'
Apostates: Carling Steed's third wife, Suzette, second left, and their six daughters, left the community and the church in search of a normal life
Grim prediction: FLDSapostate Willie Steedsaid that as long as Jeffs lives, his community will remain loyal to him
Eleven other FLDS men were charged with crimes includingsexual assault and bigamy. So far, all seven, who have been prosecuted, have been convicted - receiving prison sentences of between six and 75 years.
In recent months, it appears that the all-powerful self-proclaimed prophet has begun unraveling, issuing ever more bizarre edicts to the members of his community such as a ban on children’s toys and the consumption of corn.
More importantly, Jeffs has ordered married couples in his community to stop having sex or even touching one another.
Instead, he selected 15 men from among his trusted followers to father all the future FLDS children.
Now, if a woman wants to have a baby, she has to approach one of the men handpicked for the task by Jeffs. The sexual act must be witnessed by two other men from the group.
In a tragic twist, the jailed cult leader ordered that 500-600men and women be banished without any explanation fromthe compound, whichfor many of them had been the only home they had ever known.
The effect of this decree issued from behind bars has beendevastating to many families that were torn apart.
So absolute is Jeffs’ control over his flock that those members who were ordered toleave, severed all tieswith their loved onesstill living on the compound for fear ofretribution.
Willie Steed, 18, who left the group along with his mother, Suzette, and six sisters after their father Carling was banished, said that as long as Jeffs is alive, his spell over the insular community of Colorado City will not be broken.
‘He is their idol, and they worship him,’ he said.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2237728/The-shocking-truth-life-inside-Warren-Jeffs-FLDS-Members-tell-believe-cult-leader-U-S-President-15-men-responsible-fathering-ALL-children.html

Fake UK Government Ad Looks for Secret Agents, Codename 007.
An ad that appeared on the official job site of the UK Government is looking for a secret agent that doesn’t scoff at “removing” individuals which pose a threat to public safety.
“From time to time the UK Government has a need to removepeople whose continued existence poses a risk to the effective conduct of public order. So we require particularly skilled professionals who are prepared to work on a non-attributable basis to deal with these problems,” the ad says.
The ad promises travel to numerous foreign countries andall the necessary equipment, droppingseveral quite obviousnods to a certain secret agent we all know and love. “This role is particularly appropriate for thosewho like their martinis shaken and not stirred,” the ad states.
Of course, it’s all a joke, and the ad has been quickly pulled from the site, but TheVerge managed to grab a screenshot.
The job listing appeared on the UK Government’s recently launched gov.uk , touted as “the new place to find government services and information.” Some security improvements are in order, though, as pranks such as this one just should not appear on an official government website.

You probably knew that Mormons can baptize people who are already dead — but you probably didn't know quite how many historical figures the Mormon religious leaders have managed to baptize over the years.
Most of the time, when Mormons are baptizing the long-dead, it's because a current member of the faith wants to recruit his or her ancestors into the church. But at least some high-profile baptismsskipped over this requirement — arousing more than alittle controversy. Like the time they decided to baptize Hitler. And hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims.
Top image: Doctor Who, "Let's Kill Hitler"
Releasing the dead from Spirit Prison
So where does baptism for the dead even come from? It started at the same time as the Mormon faith itself: in the firsthalf of the 19th century. Founder Joseph Smith endorsed this practice, as part of his spiritual revelation.
Currently, Mormons believe baptism is necessary for an individual to exit from "Spirit Prison" – a place akin to purgatory in the Catholic Church. Anyone outside the Mormon faith enters Spirit Prison at the time of their death.
By baptizing the dead, Mormons offer the people in Spirit Prison the option to accept Mormonism, and enter the Celestial Kingdom .
So how do you do it? Here's the process: A proxy, often a young adult over the age of 12, is submerged under water while a name or list of namesis called out by an officiant, with the actof recitation confirming the baptism. These baptisms can only occur at Temples, of which there are 139 around the world.
The baptism, in the eyes of Mormons, does not make the baptized a Mormon. The act only gives the baptized the option to select Mormonism, if the church's view of the afterlife turns out to be correct. Taking this option into account, many Mormons look at this process as a"quantity over quality" situation, attempting to baptize as many individuals by proxy as possible.
Through this relatively mundane process of recitation and submersion, Mormon church members have baptized a number ofhistorical figures. This list includes some particularly evilones, like Vlad the Impaler and Adolf Hitler. Serial killer Ted Bundy is anotherindividual to add to the "evil" category —but at least Bundy had practiced Mormonism while alive.
Constant Controversy
To aid in proxy baptism, the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains the Family History Library in SaltLake City, Utah. The$8 million building allows members of the Mormon faith to research their desiresto baptize their deceased family members. Over two billion names are currently within the genealogical database.
The LDS maintains a free geneological site, Family Search , as well as a user-restricted site, using this database.
In the course of baptizing as many of the dead as possible, Mormon followers baptized between 300,000 and 400,000 Jewish Holocaust victims, garnering the ire of religious groups across the world. Members also baptized Pope John Paul II four times in 2006.
The church claims that it no longer baptizes the deceased, unless theyare direct relatives ofa living member of the Church. Controversial baptisms can still occur, however, sincea church member could submit almost any name for baptism, without anyoutside approval needed.
Baptizing family members outside of the Mormon faith is common, to ensure that the family is not separated in the afterlife. In 1993 , church members baptized Mitt Romney's deceased father-in-law, Edward Roderick Davies, a life-long atheist.
Also, Mormons have baptized Richard Feynman, George Carlin, and Eazy-E , making for some interesting moments in the afterlife if the Mormon concept of life after death is correct.
http://io9.com/5962336/the-time-mormons-baptized-adolf-hitler-and-vlad-the-impaler?utm_source=io9.com&utm_medium=recirculation&utm_campaign=recirculation

The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort.

PeaceTreaty?!?

An explosion has hit a public bus in the heart of Tel Aviv, wounding at least 10people, even as frantic diplomatic efforts continued to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas.
Police described the explosion as a terror attack. It endangered truce talks taking place between Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State.
A police spokesman said that of the wounded, five people were moderately to seriously hurt.
"A bomb exploded on a bus in central Tel Aviv. This was a terrorist attack. Mostof the injured suffered only mild injuries," said Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Mr Netanyahu.
The bus was charred and blackened, its side windows blownout and its glass scattered on the asphalt.
An Israeli driver whowitnessed the explosion told Army Radio the bus was"completely charred inside." Another witness said there were few passengerson the bus when it exploded.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said authorities were investigating whether the bomb had been planted and left on the bus or whether it was the work of a suicidebomber.
Witnesses told the BBC that they saw a man leave something on the bus near the nation'smilitary headquarters.
The attack happenedon the eighth day of an Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip which it launched with the stated aim of preventing rocket strikes from the Palestinian enclave.
Celebratory gunfire rang out in Gaza City when local radio stations reported news of the Tel Aviv explosion.
The last time Israel's commercial capital was hit by a serious bomb blast was in April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand nearthe city's old central bus station. "There are about 10 people wounded of whom three are in serious condition," emergency services spokesman Zaki Heller told public radio.
"There was an apparent explosion on a bus in Shaul HaMelech Street in Tel Aviv. The background and circumstances are not clear yet," police spokesman Luba Samri told AFP.
News of the explosion came as Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state,is engaged in strenuous shuttle diplomacy to wring an elusive truce deal from Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, after earlier attempts to end more than a week of fighting broke down amid heavy overnight bombing.
Mrs Clinton joined other diplomats in shuttling between Jerusalem, the West Bank and Cairo, trying to piece together a deal aftera week of fighting and mounting casualties.
After meeting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, in Jerusalem on Tuesday night, Mrs Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning.
She then returned toJerusalem for furthertalks with Mr Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, the defence minister and AvigdorLieberman, the foreign minister.
She was due to travel to Cairo, carrying Israeli demands for further Egyptian assurances that the flow of armsto Hamas, the militant faction that controls Gaza, can becut off.
Protesters angered by the eight-day Israel operation to bomb Gazan rocket arsenals gathered outside the Ramallah complex housing the Palestinian Authorityas Mrs Clinton met Mahmoud Abbas, its president.
The US envoy arrivedin Israel last night and met Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister who launched Operation Pillar of Defence last Wednesday. He said the US and Israel would take the opportunity to align their positions so that diplomacy coulddraw the conflict to a close.
"If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem with diplomatic means, we prefer that," he said. "But if not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people."
Sources in Gaza reported the death toll in Gaza had reached 139 by Wednesday morning.
Instead of an expected cessation, Israel’s military laid on a heavy bombardment of artillery and aerial bombing on Gaza after warning residents to move todesignated “safe areas”.
In the hours of darkness, Israeli forces targeted dozens of “terrorist infrastructure sites”. More than 30 strikes overnight also included government ministries and a banker's empty villa.
At least four strikes within seconds of each other pulverised a complexof government ministries covering acity block, rattling nearby buildings andshattering surrounding windows. Hours later, clouds of acrid dust still hung over the area and smoke still rose from the rubble.
The list of targets destroyed in bombing runs included weapon depots, smuggling tunnels and rocket-launching bases.
A Hamas operations centre on the seventh floor of a high-rise building was hit. Offices in the building included media organisations, who were warned their status would afford them no protection as Israel sought highvalue targets.
“Warning to reporters in Gaza,” the army said in a message on Twitter. “Stay away from Hamas operatives & facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.”
Three journalists were among the dead on Tuesday as Israel hit cars it believed contained Hamas figures.
Two worked for news outfits affiliated with Gaza'sHamas government and a third journalistworked for a private radio station was killed in a separate incident.
Two Israelis were also killed by rocket fire from Gaza, bringing to five the casualties in Israel.
Egypt's Islamist government is mediating talks and had floated hopes for a ceasefire by late Tuesday.
Hamas leaders in Cairo accused the Jewish state of failing to respond to proposals and said an announcement on holding fire would be pushed into Wednesday.
Officials suggested that no outcome would be sealed until Mrs Clinton metPresident Mohammad Morsi in Cairo this afternoon.

I am planning a trip to Dubai ...