Sonny Liston
Hookers No Longer Welcome On Craigslist
Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch: After coming under increasing scrutiny from various state attorney generals for the open prostitution listings in its “erotic services” category, Craigslist is now folding in the face of criminal charges. The company said in a blog post that it will replace the erotic services category with a new “Adult services” category where each ad will be individually reviewed before posting.
Existing ads in the erotic services category will remain for seven days, but already new ads are not being accepted in that category. People trying to place an ad in the adult category are reminded: “Ads suggesting or implying an exchange of sexual favors for money are strictly prohibited” and “Ads including pornographic images, or images suggestive of an offer of sexual favors are strictly prohibited.”
A quick glance at the erotic services section for New York City shows a lot of flesh with ads promising “IT’S NOTHING LIKE…
Why Having Wolverine’s Claws Would Suck
Cracked.com: If you could choose just one superpower … hold out for two.
Meet Kari Ferrell: The Hipster Grifter
Doree Shafrir, New York Observer: It’s likely that when Kari Ferrell walked into the Vice magazine offices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last month to interview for an administrative assistant job, they thought they’d hit the jackpot. Ms. Ferrell — petite, 22 years old, of Korean heritage — had a huge tattoo of a phoenix across her chest and a cute pixie haircut. She was talkative, funny, charming, adorable. She had a tattoo on her back that read “I Love Beards.”
She told them she’d been working for the New York office of the concert promotion company GoldenVoice, which puts on huge rock festivals like Coachella near Palm Springs, Calif., and that she’d moved to New York from Utah just a few months earlier. They hired her on the spot.
A few days later, one of Ms. Ferrell’s new colleagues came by her desk. “I said, ‘Excuse me, miss, is [her boss] downstairs?’” the 29-year-old…
New Orleans Man Loses Chunk of Arm in Possible Zombie Attack
Xeni Jardin, BoingBoing: The headline is a keeper: “Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm.” The story is horrible, but more frightening still, it suggests the imminent threat of a worsening zombie onslaught.
“Lancellotti said he tried to defend himself with a garden rake. As the men struggled over the rake, the stranger bent over and bit Lancellotti on his right forearm, the report said. Lancellotti’s flesh ripped away as he fell to the ground. The man then got on top of Lancellotti and began choking him, the report said.
“It was then that neighbor Chantal Lorio, a podiatrist and director of the Wound Center at East Jefferson General Hospital, came out to check on Lancellotti. Lorio said Monday that she first thought Lancellotti was having a heart attack and the other man was trying to help him.
“The stranger was still gripping Lancellotti as Lorio noticed her…
5 Great Men Who Built Their Careers on Plagiarism
Robert Evans: As anyone here at Cracked will tell you, without even the slightest provocation, writing is hard. When the strain of coming up with new material becomes too great to bear, a writer has two options: He can pepper his work with penis jokes and pictures of cute animals, or he can steal his words from a better writer.
Occasionally, a brilliant (or at least sort of clever) mind comes across a bad spell of writer’s block and gives into the temptation to be a cheating plagiarist. Sometimes this blatant plagiarism ends up being the catalyst that launches their career like a rocket powered by lies.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
What’d He Do? We’re not saying that King wasn’t an incredible person who did more to advance the human race than most of us can ever hope to do. We’re just saying that he was also a plagiarizing butthole.
What’s the Problem? For starters,…
Britain Running Out of Cocks And Gaining Wangs
Metro (UK): The number of people in Britain with amusing surnames like Cockshott, Balls, Death and Shufflebottom has declined by up to 75 percent in the last century — as people with silly names either fail to pass them on to the next generation, or leave the country entirely.
A study found the number of people with the name Cock shrank to 785 last year from 3,211 in 1881, those called Balls fell to 1,299 from 2,904 and the number of Deaths were reduced to 605 from 1,133.
People named Smellie decreased by 70 percent, Dafts by 51 percent, Gotobeds by 42 percent, Shufflebottoms by 40 percent, and Cockshotts by 34 percent, said Richard Webber, visiting professor of geography at King’s College, London.
Wangs, however, have experienced dramatic growth.
‘If you find the (absolute) number goes down, it’s either because they changed their names or they emigrated,’ Webber, author of the study, told Reuters.…
Who Says Sex Workers Want To Be ‘Saved’?
Nathalie Rothschild, Guardian: In these times of economic implosion, it seems there is one industry that the government is actually keen on crushing. The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, recently unveiled a proposal for new legislation aimed at bringing the sex industry to its knees (metaphorically speaking). If we tackle the demand, Smith proclaimed, then supply will diminish. In other words, Smith wants to penalise punters.
Under the proposal, anyone who buys sex or other erotic services from someone who is “controlled for another person’s gain” could be fined and receive a criminal record. Ignorance of the circumstances would be no defence. Harriet Harman, the minister for women, believes the proposed legislation will help stamp out sex trafficking, which she has described as a “modern-day slave trade”.
Yet if speakers at a panel debate this week on sex trafficking held at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts are to be believed, most sex workers…
Strapped for Cash? Take a ‘Fakecation’
Laura Sullivan, MINT: Now more than ever you’re lusting after a vacation that will take your mind off all the gloom and doom in the news. The trouble is you just can’t afford it. But exotic travel doesn’t have to be expensive. That is if you’re willing to suspend disbelief and consider a variety of travel alternatives that can stand-in for the real thing. There are some real deals on the fake deal.
If you want to go to Spain, fake yourself out with St. Augustine, Florida.
You’d like to be baking in the sun off the coast of Spain in oversized sunglasses which reflect the villas lining the beach, a glass of sangria in hand. Go to St. Augustine Florida instead. The minute you feel those rays bearing down on you, you’ll be glad you got away and the feel of the place will quickly transport you to another time and…
‘Great Sex’ Sermons Cause Stir in Rural Town
AP (GOOD HOPE, AL): It’s one thing for a church in a big city like Dallas or Atlanta to tackle the ticklish topic of sex. It blends in with the urban scene.
It’s another thing when a small-town congregation puts up billboards with the phrase “Great sex: God’s way” on rural highways to promote a sermon series. You can’t even legally buy beer in Cullman County, and a preacher is talking about S-E-X on Sunday morning? Daystar Church, whose congregation has grown dramatically under pastor Jerry Lawson, has run up against the sensibilities of a conservative north Alabama community with a monthlong focus on sex.
Sex just isn’t an appropriate topic for church, some say, and others are upset over the church’s signs, which advertise the sermon series and accompanying Web site. “It’s really stirred up the people here,” said Good Hope town clerk Joann Jones.
Evangelist Roland Belew, a self-described fundamentalist and…
Wal-Mart Customer Finds Human Teeth in New Wallet
What’s in your wallet?
A Wal-Mart customer shopping for a new wallet found 10 human teeth while looking through a billfold he was about to buy, the police said yesterday.
Police said the man was shopping in the Teaticket Highway store when he unzipped one of the wallet’s compartments and discovered what police have identified as 10 human teeth. One of the teeth — which police said are from an adult — had a filling, police said.
The male customer turned the wallet and the teeth over to Wal-Mart employees, but left the store without giving his name before police arrived. The wallet still had the original merchandise tags on it.
Police said they cannot perform DNA tests on the teeth because there was no blood or gum tissue. Wal-Mart officials did not release further details on the incident but said the company will investigate.
…
Porn in the USA: Conservatives are Biggest Consumers
Ewen Callaway, New Scientist:
Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography.
A new nationwide study of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.
“When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different,” says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.
However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
“Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by,” Edelman says.
The New Pornographers
What’s more disturbing — that teens are texting each other naked pictures of themselves, or that it could get them branded as sex offenders for life? Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon:
The photographs show three naked underage girls posing lasciviously for the camera. The perps who took the pictures were busted in Greensburg, Pa., and charged with manufacturing, disseminating and possessing child pornography — and so were their subjects. That’s because they are one and the same.
It all started when the girls, ages 14 and 15, decided to take nudie cellphone snapshots of themselves. Then, maybe feeling dizzy from the rush of wielding their feminine wiles, the trio text-messaged the photos to some friends at Greensburg-Salem High School.
When one of the students’ cellphones was confiscated at school, the photos were discovered. Police opened an investigation and, in addition to the girls’ being indicted as kiddie pornographers, three boys who received the pictures were slammed…
Are We About to Eliminate AIDS?
Clare Wilson, New Scientist: WHAT if we could rid the world of AIDS? The notion might sound like fantasy: HIV infection has no cure and no vaccine, after all. Yet there is a way to completely wipe it out — at least in theory. What’s more, it would take only existing medical technology to do the job.
Here’s how it works. If someone who is HIV positive takes antiretroviral-drug therapy they can live a long life and almost never pass on the virus, even through unprotected sex. So if everyone with HIV were on therapy, there would be little or no transmission. Once all these people had died, of whatever cause, the virus would be gone for good.
It’s a simple idea, but the obstacles to implementing it worldwide are enormous. Persuading everyone with HIV to start therapy purely for public health reasons could be ethically dubious. To identify everyone who is…
Mexico City Mayor Offers Free Viagra to Poor Men Over 60
MARC LACEY, NY Times: Flashing a boyish grin, the silver-haired septuagenarian fidgeted nervously. His voice dropped to a whisper. A reddish hue enveloped his face. All this because he was asked how the latest social program to be offered by Mexico City’s government was affecting his home life.
“Things have changed,” Angel Posadas Sandoval, 74, finally confessed, not going into specifics but nonetheless making himself abundantly clear. He was talking, however obliquely, about the free Viagra the government is giving away to poor men age 60 and above.
With midterm elections looming in July, Mayor Marcelo Ebrard has been rather creative in his attempts to make life more livable for the people of this sprawling metropolis, which finds itself clogged with traffic, overwhelmed by smog, prowled by criminals and reeling from the global financial crisis.
Kinky Sex Is on the Rise, Therapists Say
Sexual Fetishes, Sadomasochism, Bondage, Swinging, Even Bestiality: Is it the Internet?
SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES, ABC News: Eroticism is in the eye of the beholder. In Japan, some women turn to electrically charged squid for sexual satisfaction. In the American world of masochism, one man begged to be tied on a spit and roasted over sizzling coals. His counterpart, a latex-loving dominatrix, reached ecstasy merely watching his pain.
What is abnormal may not necessarily be unnatural, according to sexologists who study the outer limits of the human psyche.
And, increasingly, as seen in a plethora of new books and films — not to mention thousands of sites on the Internet — kinky sex is getting more attention. “To badly paraphrase Alfred Kinsey, [who pioneered sex research in the 1940s and 50s, filming couples in flagrante in his Indiana attic], ‘the only unnatural sex act is the one you can’t perform,’” said Robert Dunlap, a…
Heidi Fleiss: Renewable Energy Business Better Than Sex
Dave Burdick | Huffington Post: Heidi Fleiss, best known as the Hollywood Madam, had always had plans of opening up an above-board brothel in the Las Vegas area. But the economy has changed, and so have her plans:
“I think I’m going to put all my property up for sale in Crystal,” Fleiss said recently by phone from her house in Pahrump. “I don’t want to work so hard … and deal with all the nonsense in the sex business.”
Instead, she is focusing her attention on an alternative energy project she said is “perfect for Nevada.” “That’s where the money is,” she said. “That’s the wave of the future.”
‘Pre-Historic Viagra’ Found in Siberian Mammoth DNA
Will Stewart | Daily Mail: Russian scientists working at a ‘graveyard’ of extinct mammoths and woolly rhinos in Siberia claim to have found a bacterium which could prolong human virility and life span.
Already nicknamed ‘pre-historic Viagra’, experiments on mice show it increases mental alertness, physical prowess and sexual activity, with females reportedly having babies into old age.
The findings are an unexpected byproduct of detailed research into the extinct creatures whose well-preserved remains have been found in the permafrost Yakutia region of eastern Russia. Scientists in Russia, America and Japan are working on DNA studies which could lead to attempts to clone both the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros, bringing them back from the dead.
Five Real Life Rambos
Marc Russel, Cracked.com: We all understand that action movies are cheesy escapism. After all, could one commando really take out a whole compound full of bad guys?
Actually, yes. It turns out the history books are full of stories of soldiers doing things so badass they’d hesitate to put them into a film for fear of killing the realism. Like these five, for example.
#5. Simo Hayha: Simo Hayha had a fairly boring life in Finland. He served his one mandatory year in the military, and then became a farmer. But when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland in 1939, he decided he wanted to help his country.
Since the majority of fighting took place in the forest, he figured the best way to stop the invasion was to grab his trusty rifle, a couple of cans of food and hide in a tree all day shooting Russians. In six feet of snow. And…
Surgeons Remove Healthy Kidney Through Donor’s Vagina
It’s on CNN: In what is being heralded as a “first-ever procedure,” surgeons removed a healthy kidney through a donor’s vagina, the Johns Hopkins Medical Center has announced.
Although the procedure has been previously done to extract cancerous and nonfunctioning kidneys that threatened a patient’s health, the January 29 surgery was the first time it was done for donation purposes, the center said in a news release issued Monday.
“The kidney was successfully removed and transplanted into the donor’s niece, and both patients are doing fine,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, chief of transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins, said in the release.
The surgery is considered less invasive and could pave the way for an increase in organ donations, it added.
“Removing the kidney through a natural opening should hasten the patient’s recovery and provide a better cosmetic result,” Montgomery said.
He told CNN on Tuesday, “We want to make it easier for people to donate, to have…
Porn Clip Penetrates Super Bowl Broadcast
TMZ: One minute it was Kurt Warner going deep … the next, it was some porn star!?
Super Bowl fans in Tucson, AZ were subjected to 30 seconds of hard core porn — wang and all — when somehow, the game feed was suddenly interrupted by a clip from an adult television channel.
Yes, this actually happened. Comcast — the cable company in Tucson — is working on an explanation, but right now it appears the porn break-in only occurred in its standard-definition feed reaching analog TV sets.
Fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on your taste — high def viewers were spared the wiener shot.
UPDATE: Comcast released this statement: “We are mortified by last evening’s Super Bowl interruption and we apologize to our customers. Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act. We are conducting a thorough investigation to determine who was behind this.”
Note: Censored clip below, the actual broadcast can be…
