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Walmart is always good for destroying your faith in humanity on Black Friday, and this year was no exception : By day’s end, reports emerged from stores across the country of biblical struggles over waffle makers, pepper-spraying, and even at least one shooting. Maybe if shoppers took a closer look at Walmart’s business doings they wouldn’t be so willing to whip out legal airborne torture for a bargain Xbox. Or maybe they would, I don’t know. Still, what Frugal Dad has strung together in Weight of Walmart above, has to give even the most hardened Black Friday criminals pause. It takes what are by now well-worn statistics about Walmart--it’s America’s largest grocery, and the world’s largest retailer, employer, and earner of corporate revenue--and puts them into context, comparing the company to other businesses, industries, and even countries, to demonstrate the astounding reach of a corporation that looks more like a superpower every day.
Infographic Of The Day: Walmart Dwarfs Entire Industries And Nations
Green-moss Graffiti - Culture
File under " more delightful street art "-these moss bunnies and Bambis in Williamsurg, Brooklyn, are by artist Edina Tokodi . A statement about how divorced we city slickers are from nature and wildlife, the animals are the latest in a series by Tokodi. (Another awesome image below.)From the artist's statement: "As a cultivator of eco-urban sensitivity, I usually go back to the sites to visit my plants or moss, sometimes to repair them a bit, but nothing more generally as they tend to get enough water from the air, condensation, and rain – especially in certain seasons. ... I am curious about how people receive them, if they just leave them alone, or if they want to, take care of them or dismantle them. This is what makes my work similar to graffiti, although I am searching for a deeper social meaning...."
'Star Trek' Divorce: Fan Forced To Leave Spaceship Digs (VIDEO)
One man boldly went where no interior designer had gone before -- but now, divorce is taking it all away from him. For the past 10 years, British DJ Tony Alleyne, 58, has been working to transform the interior of his Hinckley, England apartment into an exact replica of the Starship Enterprise from "Star Trek." But the nerd-enviable apartment -- where he's lived alone since he separated from his wife in 1994 -- belongs to his ex, and now a court has ruled that she has the right to sell it, British tabloid The Sun reported .(Newser) – Sweden may not condone file-sharing—it's still illegal—but the country is officially OK with belief in the practice. Some 3,000 passionate file-sharers have gotten their beliefs recognized as an official religion. The Missionary Church of Kopimism—as in, "copy-me-ism"—has sought official status in Sweden since 2010, and it's finally won the battle, TorrentFreak reports. The decision follows a pair of rejections; authorities wanted Kopimism to define its prayer practices. "Our main ritual is the act of copying and connecting with each other by sharing information," the church's founder tells Wired .
Sweden Has Official New Religion: File Sharing - Believers join Missionary Church of Kopimism
(Newser) – Talk to any prison inmates lately? The answer might be yes if you've called a call center for help or to register a complaint. MSNBC profiles a little-known but long-running federal program called Unicor under which inmates staff call centers in both the public and private sector. One example: New Yorkers who call the DMV might well be chatting with an inmate from the Greene Correctional Institution or the Bedford Hills prison for women. The program also works with the business world. In Arizona, for example, the state prison system partners with a company that provides marketing services for companies such as Microsoft and Hitachi.
Your Call Center Helper Might Be an Inmate - Prisoners often staff centers in private and public sector
(Newser) – BuzzFeed reports that Occupy Wall Street is on the lookout for its first employee: an accountant. A subcommittee within the movement called the OWS Accounting Working Group is interviewing for the position, although the actual hiring must ultimately be approved by the General Assembly—Occupy Wall Street's decision-making body. Donations have swelled OWS coffers to $230,000, not including a $100,000 bail fund for jailed Occupiers. While hiring an accountant might not seem to jibe with the anti-Wall Street vibe, a member of the group's media team says the hire would "remove any issues of transparency by just kind of paying someone to do it, like an independent auditor in a way." The bookkeeper could also help with internal money disputes, such as the time Occupying drummers demanded $8,000 for their performances, writes Rosie Gray.
Occupy Wall Street Seeks ... Accountant - Flush with cash, group hunts for a bookkeeper
A California-based teen is hoping to spearhead a national boycott of Girl Scout cookies after the organization's controversial decision to admit a 7-year-old transgender child to a Colorado troop this past fall. The girl, which World News Daily has identified only as Taylor from Ventura County, Calif., appears in a YouTube video in which she claims her organization is using proceeds from sales of the popular cookies to "[promote] the desires of a small handful of people." "Right now, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A...is not being honest with us girls, its troops, its leaders, its parents or the American public," Taylor, who claims to have been a Girl Scout for eight years, says in the clip.
Girl Scout Launches Cookie Boycott Campaign After Organization's Inclusion Of Transgender Child (VIDEO)
Penis Tattoo Causes Permanent Erection For Iranian Man
At least he can get it up. A man who got a tattoo on his penis is now left with a permanent semi-erection, according to an article in the latest issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine . As MSNBC's The Body Odd reports, the 21-year-old Iranian man found himself between a rock and a hard place after he got a tattoo in Persian script reading "borow be salaamat" (good luck on your journeys), and the first initial of his girlfriend's last name ("M"). So what went wrong during the penis-pummeling procedure? The article in Sexual Medicine explains that a tattoo artist crafted the tattoo using a handheld needle which resulted in "bleeding from deep penile tissue for several days complicating the tattooing." MSNBC noted that the man had shunt surgery -- which drains excess fluid from inflamed areas of the body -- performed to correct the problem, but the procedure was unsuccessful.
Kim Kardashian Tweets Barbie On Christmas, Continuing Confusing Trend
For a reality star, Kim Kardashian seems to have a precarious handle on real life. Or, just a tendency to tweet after a night of egg nog consumption. Either way, she took her tendency to talk to her "dolls" to a whole new level on Christmas night. Kardashian sent out a series of tweets on Sunday evening, including two messages to the official Twitter account of Barbie.
Rachel Maddow © NBC News. Rachel Maddow doesn’t shy away from the liberal label. But she says there’s an important distinction between what she and her MSNBC colleagues do and how their counterparts operate at Fox News.
Rachel Maddow takes on Fox News in interview with Jacob Weisberg
Remember when Prince William was an awesome dancer? Uh, neither do we. But the British royal does, on occasion, find excuses to bust out some moves, creating some amazing photo opportunities in the process.
Prince William 'Swag Dance' Cracks Everyone Up (VIDEOS, PHOTO)
Carl Franzen Reading another person’s mind is impossible. But it is now possible to see what’s going on in there visually, thanks to scientists at the University of California-Berkeley, who on Thursday announced they had managed to decode the brain signals of three individuals into watchable movies . YouTube movies , to be exact.
Scientists Glimpse Images In Your Mind
Photo by Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images. Muammar Qaddafi hearts Condi Rice. Big time. Among the bizarre items rebels have found among the Libyan strongman’s Bab al-Aziziya compound is a photo album someone took the time to fill with photos of the former U.S. Secretary of State, msnbc.com reports.
Qaddafi's Condi Rice Crush: Rebels find photo album filled with Rice pictures in Tripoli compound
When it comes to birth control , it's a lot harder figuring out how to stop a bajillion little sperm than one little egg, but a scientist in India has managed to develop an injection for men that has so far proven to be 100% effective and completely reversible with no side effects. Sign me up. The injection is called RISUG, which stands for "reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance." Let's just get the uncomfortable bit out of the way first: you can't just be injected anywhere, the doctor has to stick a needle into your scrotum. Twice. Yeah, bad times, but you'll deal, and here's why: after two tiny injections taking all of 15 minutes, study after study has shown that the injection is 100% effective at preventing pregnancy.
Radical new birth control for men: 100% effective for 10 years
We have experienced dozens of brand and product launches. Much of the time, we are not impressed. Small baby-steps, same-old-same-old, reiterations of existing and stale ideas, broken brand promises, confusing off-brand presentations, mind-numbing marketing-speak, boring PR. Blah blah blah. No matter how much we are lavished and pampered with free trips and swag, if we are not impressed, we are not impressed, and we will not write about it. If it’s not cool, it’s not cool.