Connecticut Dem To 17-Year-Old Girl: If You’re Bashful, I’ve Got A Snake Right Here Under My Desk

Did I forget to mention that he said this at a public hearing? Out: War on women. In: War on girls.

“After I first heard about it, I thought maybe in the broader sense maybe he was misunderstood and it may not be that big a deal,” [Connecticut House Speaker J. Brendan] Sharkey said in an interview.

“But based on the audio, it’s hard to interpret it that way. It’s hard for anyone who heard the audio or was there to think it was anything other than a sexual innuendo.

“I guess the best word I can use to describe this is disturbing,” Sharkey said.

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2013 Oscars: Inside the Top-Secret Show (+video)

Photo Credit: Video ScreenshotSecurity is airtight at the Dolby Theater in the days leading up to Oscar Sunday, but ET has your ticket inside the heavily guarded streets of Hollywood as the Academy preps for the big day!

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Japanese Engineer: That’s not a Robot, that’s my Girlfriend (+video)

Photo Credit: Aubrey BelfordRobotics in many parts of the world is driven by military aims. Pacifist Japan takes a different approach: This is a digital love story.

Osamu Kozaki’s life in Tokyo is, by his own admission, often a lonely one. The 35-year-old, an engineer who designs industrial robots, has had few relationships with women in his life. Those few have almost always gone badly.

So when Kozaki’s girlfriend, Rinko Kobayakawa, sends him a message, his day brightens up. The relationship started more than three years ago, when Kobayakawa was a prickly 16-year-old working in her school library, a quiet girl who shut out the world with a pair of earphones that blasted punk music.

Kozaki sums up Kobayakawa’s personality with one word: tsundere – a popular term in Japan’s otaku geek culture, which describes a certain feminine ideal. It refers to the kind of girl who starts out hostile but whose heart gradually grows warmer. And that’s what has happened; over time, Kobayakawa has changed. These days, she spends much of her day sending affectionate missives to her boyfriend, inviting him on dates, or seeking his opinion when she wants to buy a new dress or try a new hairstyle.

But while Kozaki has aged, Kobayakawa has not. After three years, she’s still 16. She always will be. That’s because she is a simulation; Kobayakawa only exists inside a computer.

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Video: Mt. Aetna Erupts in Spectacular Fashion

Mount Etna erupted in Italy and sent gas and lava shooting into the air. The eruption was the first of 2013 for the volcano. The colorful and powerful display has gone viral on YouTube.

The volcano is located in Sicily. Mount Etna is regarded as one of the most active volcanoes in the world, Science World Report notes. The volcano in Italy has been spewing lava for [a long time]. The first known Mount Etna eruption was in 1500 BC. Periods of dormancy for the volcano in Sicily are extremely rare.

Even though Mount Etna is so active, approximately a quarter of the population in Sicily live nearby. Airports were not closed when signs that an eruption were imminent, the Daily Mail reports. Folks living on the on the island city of Catania were not alerted about Mount Etna either.

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‘Lethal Weapon’ Star Danny Glover Says US Should ‘Abolish Guns’

Photo Credit: thedamper.comHollywood actor and political activist Danny Glover, star of the “Lethal Weapon” films with Mel Gibson, told The Daily Caller that Congress should “abolish guns” in the U.S.

“I don’t own a gun and definitely not only Gun Control, we should abolish guns, the personal guns. That’s how far I’m willing to go,” Glover told TheDC at a TransAfrica Forum benefit event on Wednesday night.

“There are many people in this country who do not have guns, who don’t own guns and are still under the same, are still susceptible to being burglarized or anything, but that doesn’t mean that we should willingly accept the fact that we need guns. We have to find some sort of way in which we live together, some sort of way in which we move on, for the human species to move on without guns.”

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Fireball From Outer Space: 1,000 Injured As 40-Ton Meteor Travelling At 33,000mph Explodes Over A Terrified Town

Photo Credit: Daily MailSome feared a plane was about to fall out of the sky while others thought the world was ending.
In fact, it was a meteor streaking across the sky before exploding in a fireball brighter than the sun.
The terrifying sight was caught in these astonishing pictures by residents of central Russia as they headed to work yesterday.

A thunderous ‘sonic boom’ shattered windows, rocked buildings and interrupted mobile phone networks.
Almost 1,000 people were injured by flying fragments of glass and rubble – at least 112 seriously.
Footage taken by ‘dashcams’ – dashboard cameras common in the cars of Russians in case of accidents on winter roads or disputes with corrupt traffic police – mean the supersonic blaze has been captured, and shared with the world, in unprecedented detail.

The burst of light and thunderous sound were caused by a 40-ton meteor penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of at least 33,000mph.

As it raced through the sky, the 50-foot wide chunk of space rock compressed the air ahead of it, creating the enormous temperatures that meant it exploded in a fireball somewhere between 18 and 32 miles above the ground at around 9.20am local time.

Although some debris fell to earth, ‘whipping up a pillar of ice, water and steam’ and creating a 20-foot-wide crater, the damage in nearby towns was actually caused by shockwaves created by the meteor breaking the sound barrier and then exploding.

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Amish Leader Gets 15 Years For Beard Attacks (+video)

A leader of a breakaway Amish community in rural eastern Ohio was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison for forcibly cutting the beards and hair of community members.

Samuel Mullet Sr., 67, and 15 followers were found guilty last year in connection with what authorities said were the religiously motivated attacks on several fellow Amish people. Mullet and others were convicted of conspiracy to violate a federal hate-crime law.

Prosecutors said the followers, at Mullet’s instruction, shaved the beards and cut the hair of Amish people who had left his group over various religious disagreements.
Five attacks happened in four eastern Ohio counties between September and November 2011.

Four of the followers were sentenced to seven years in prison, three were handed five-year sentences, two were sentenced to two years and six were sentenced to a year and a day, according to the Justice Department.

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Beyonce Dogged By PETA For Showing Too Much (Snake) Skin At The Superbowl

Photo Credit: Christian PetersonThe animal rights organization PETA was not moved by Beyoncé‘s Super Bowl showing. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) threw a flag on the play for the singer’s wardrobe choice, which included leather, python, and iguana skins.

“We would take a bet that if Beyoncé watched our video exposés, she’d probably not want to be seen again in anything made of snakes, lizards, rabbits, or other animals who died painfully,” PETA’s statement said. “Today’s fashions are trending toward humane vegan options, and Beyoncé’s Super Bowl outfit missed the mark on that score.”

The first video was of Joaquin Phoenix, who lends his voice to a behind-the-scenes clip that shows how the exotic-skins industry brings products to the market.

The other “here” links to a page titled “Project Runway’s Tim Gunn Exposes Fashion Cruelty in New Video.”

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Ahmadinejad Wants To Be Iran’s First Astronaut

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that he’s ready to take the risk of being the first Iranian astronaut sent into space as part of Iran’s goal of a manned space flight.

“I’m ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country’s scientists,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in an address to space scientists in Tehran.

Space tourist Anousheh Ansari was the first Iranian to make a journey into space aboard a Soyuz TMA-9 capsule from Baikonur, Kazakhastan, in September 2006. The 40-year-old telecommunications entrepreneur paid a reported $20 million for a space station visit. Her journey became an inspiration to women in male-dominated Iran.

Iran sent a monkey into space last Monday, describing the launch a successful step toward Tehran’s plan to send an astronaut into space within the next five to six years. The monkey named “Pishgam,” which means pioneer in Farsi, reportedly traveled 120 kilometers (72 miles) and safely returned to Earth.

In 2010, Iran said it launched an Explorer rocket into space carrying a mouse, a turtle and worms.

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