It's called Skunk, a type of "malodorant," or in plainer language, a foul-smelling liquid. Technically nontoxic but incredibly disgusting, it has been described as a cross between "dead animal and human excrement." Untreated, the smell lingers for weeks.
The Israeli Defense Forces developed Skunk in 2008 as a crowd-control weapon for use against Palestinians. Now Mistral, a company out of Bethesda, Md., says they are providing it to police departments in the United States. [...]
The Israelis first used it in 2008 to disperse Palestinians protesting in the West Bank. A BBC video shows its first use in action, sprayed by a hose, a system that has come to be known as the "crap cannon."
Mistral reps say Skunk, once deployed, can be "neutralized" with a special soap -- and only with that soap. In another BBC video, an IDF spokesman describes how any attempt to wash it via regular means only exacerbates its effects. Six weeks after IDF forces used it against Palestinians at a security barrier, it still lingered in the air.
Stink Bombs
Chekhov's Balloons
Googlipede
It Begins...
Paging Dr. David Icke...
Prosopometamorphopsia and facial hallucinations:In July, 2011, a 52-year-old woman presented to our psychiatric outpatient clinic in The Hague with a life-long history of seeing people's faces change into dragon-like faces and hallucinating similar faces many times a day. She could perceive and recognise actual faces, but after several minutes they turned black, grew long, pointy ears and a protruding snout, and displayed a reptiloid skin and huge eyes in bright yellow, green, blue, or red.
She saw similar dragon-like faces drifting towards her many times a day from the walls, electrical sockets, or the computer screen, in both the presence and absence of face-like patterns, and at night she saw many dragon-like faces in the dark.
The woman suffered from prosopometamorphopsia, a psychiatric disorder that causes faces to appear distorted. Even within the context of the condition, the woman's case was rare in the specificity of her hallucinations.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
Eeet's naaaht a teratohhhhma
Baby's Rare Brain Tumor Had Teeth:
After an analysis of tumor tissue, doctors determined the child had a craniopharyngioma, a rare brain tumor that can grow to be larger than a golf ball, but does not spread.
Researchers had always suspected that these tumors form from the same cells involved in making teeth, but until now, doctors had never seen actual teeth in these tumors. [...] "It's not every day you see teeth in any type of tumor in the brain. In a craniopharyngioma, it's unheard of," Beaty said.
Craniopharyngiomas commonly contain calcium deposits, "but when we pulled out a full tooth... I think that's something slightly different," Beaty told Live Science.
Teeth have been found in people's brains before, but only in tumors known as teratomas, which are unique among tumors because they contain all three of the tissue types found in an early-stage human embryo, Beaty said. In contrast, craniopharyngiomas have only one layer of tissue.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
DNA Lounge: Wherein hammers are imminent.
When I heard their plan to wedge a third floor on top of the building I thought: "There's no way that's going to happen! That building, like every other building on this block, is constructed primarily of cardboard and wishful thinking. They'd have to tear it down and start over." Well what do you know: they tore it down and started over.
I also loved this quote from the article:
The space was the home of a leather bar called Febe's from 1966 to 1986, and at least one neighborhood leather man came to a Planning Commission meeting last September to voice his objections to the massive alterations that are getting made to the space, which is not technically considered historic.
In other words: "Though I have literally not set foot in this business for twenty-nine years, I insist that nobody change anything about it at all, ever."
But that's not the former gay bar that is most of interest to me... We get the keys to CW next week! The interminable slog through the paperwork process has been going reasonably well:
- Entertainment permit: applied for, 30 day clock ticking;
- Liquor license transfer: applied for; neighbor notifications mailed; 30 day clock ticking;
- Demolition permit: approved!
- Walk-in refrigerator construction permit: approved!
- Kitchen construction permit: not quite yet.
- New pizza oven: we've decided which model we want, I think?
So it sounds like we're swinging hammers on Monday!
In honor of that, please enjoy this FLASHBACK TO THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND.
Also, I have to share with you one of the finer incident reports I've gotten recently. It begins with a long but not particulary notable story about a customer behaving extremely badly and being escorted out, and then:
REDACTED then attacked STAFF and they restrained him. We then decided that it was time to call.
After talking to REDACTED, SFPD decided that they would drive him home because he lives a couple of blocks away, but only after he apologized to everyone. The male officer informed him he was never to come here again, or he would personally take him to jail. REDACTED then stood up and began making a pass at the female officer. That is when we noticed he had shat his pants.
The officers decided at this time they would walk him home instead of putting him in their car.
I must say, that is some extremely tolerant police work. Bravo.
This batch of photos turned out to be all Hubba! That's because I recently back-filled a few galleries of some Monday Night Hubbas from earlier this year:
