So the story goes: a bunch of KKK members are holding an initiation rite. One woman who they met online was there... now I'm not sure if she was the only one being initiated, but at some point she didn't want to be a part of it and wanted to leave. That's when the leader Raymond Foster, 44 (photo) decided to kill the woman. There's 7 others involved.

Now the only reason why I'm mentioning this is because... dang... the leader is so cute. How can such cuteness just be so evil...? It's like discovering your favourite teddy bear you love to cuddle has fangs and decided to bite you. It just saddens me when guys I find cute turn out to be evil creatures.

What a weird and wacky world we live in - here's a story right out of a Stephen King novel: Anthony Morley, age 36, chef... who was Mr. Gay UK back in '93... murdered his boyfriend then cooked up a part of his flesh and ate it.

In the court they mentions that he has been confused about his sexuality... he invited his victim over and they watched 'Brokeback Mountain', kissed and cuddled and that was about it. When Morley woke up, he caught his victim performing a sexual act on him, so he decided to kill him.

His argument is that due to his confusion about whether he likes boys or girls, he resorted to murder and then cannibalism... he's gotten life.

First off - congratulations to Bob & Mark (photo) for getting married. Actually, there have been a lot of same sex couples that I know of that have been getting married, ever since California and Connecticut have permitted gay couples to get married (Massachusetts has allowed it for some time now, since 2004).

So Bob & Mark went to Los Angeles and tied the knot. You can read all about it on Mark's LJ page 360 Sound. To see more of Bob, check out his profile BearBob1952, and make sure to send them a congrats email.

Richard Cooey is not too fat to be executed. Awhile back (article), PlanetBears mentioned that death row inmate Richard Cooey was making a plea that he was too fat to be executed for a double murder he committed over 22 years ago. At 5'7 and 267 pounds, he was worried that they will not be able to execute him properly due to bad veins from his obesity. His plea, however, was not accepted and Cooey was executed as scheduled, so says this CNN story.

This is an interesting article that I found on CNN this morning. It's about an inmate, Richard Cooey, who is making the plea that he's 'too fat to execute'. Cooey is 5'7" and weighs 267 pounds. He murdered 2 women back in 1986 and is scheduled to be executed on October 14th.

Seems Cooey is taking a drug for migraines, one which could affect the execution process. Also, Cooey has bad veins, and he's afraid that they have worsened in the past 5 years, as he's been gaining weight. Why does it worry him that he has bad vein? It's because he is reminded of what happened to Christopher Newton (video), an inmate that was executed a year ago. From Wiki: "The controversy surrounding Newton's execution was primarily attributed to the many problems associated with the administration of the injection. In particular, because he weighed 265 pounds, Newton's veins were very difficult to find. It took over two hours and 10 attempts before the execution was completed. It took so long that Newton was given a bathroom break".

Before there was the net, one would get home from work, turn on the TV and watch the 6 o'clock news. They'd start you off with the 'OH MY GOD' news such as someone committing genocide, or some star or politician that has fallen from grace, or about some war in some part of the world... then a commercial... then they come back and then talk about your local news; what's happening in your little town... then another commercial... then they would come back and chat about the Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Weather... commercial... then you end the news by watching all the anchor people at the desk smiling, cracking a couple of jokes, and then they inform you that you can catch all the news once again at 11.

Those days are dead...

With the net, the news is everywhere at all times of the days... everyone is walking around with a camera catching everything, then uploading it. No more is the news dictated to us... we are forming the news. We are there, we are the I-Reporters.

And there's more and more sites that are allowing people to add the news, such as Wikinews, updated as the news is happening. However, Wikinews is moderated, filtered and there's tons of people adding stuff while others are deleting what's added. What's much more interesting are all these 'I the Reporter' sites that are appearing. CNN was one of the very first to initiate this ~ they bought I-Report.com that they opened in March '08 and you can easily spend hours just sifting thru the images and videos. Their tag line? Unedited. Unfiltered. News.

And then there are others who have been following suit. ABC with I-Caught, Fox with uReport and MSNBC's FirstPerson.

No longer is news dictated to us... news has been free from its old format... the news is immediate, and it's shaky and raw from some brave soul who was close enough to the story and had a camera to capture it.

I was checking out the featured flicks on YouTube and today they had one called ToyBoize. It's a mockumentary about a boy band that had a #2 album back in 1988 and most of gang gets back together 20 years later so as to whether they've still 'got it'. It's really well done with fine British humour, and one of the characters Tim is a Chub Bear who's a bit sick and twisted in very subtle ways.

Check out their series they've done. So far there's 3 episodes with a handful of short clips of them making video diaries. They actually make you feel embarrassed for them. Visit their site as well.

ps - after seeing this, I immediately thought of the NKOTB (New Kids on the Block), and how my sister used to love these guys when she was 7 (I was 22 at the time). So I check out NKOTB on Wiki (I check out everything on Wiki) and lo and behold, they are getting back together and are coming out with a new album. There's even a new video out. Oye...

This website is not about Bears but about everyone on this beautifully green and blue planet of ours. It's called Worldometers ~ the following is from their site: "Worldometers is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Sources are carefully selected to include only data published by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world. The counters that display the real-time numbers are based on Worldometers’ algorithm that processes the latest and most accurate statistical data available together with its estimated progression to compute the current millisecond number to be displayed on each counter based on the specific time set on each visitor’s computer clock".

I'm going to be honest and say that the only real reason why I am posting this event is because I kinda fell in love with their logo, especially when Puppy training has nothing to do with the Bear culture. So yes, I might be shallow or easily persuaded when I see cute paws, nevertheless here's an article about the upcoming International Puppy & Trainer Conference (IPTC) which will be taking place in Dallas, TX from September 26th thru the 28th. From IPTC: "Whether you are a Puppy, a Trainer or just curious about the lifestyle, we encourage you to join us at The Sterling Hotel for the IPTC and Pup Out! This weekend will include classes specifically designed for pups and trainers as well as a panel discussion with pups and a trainer to field questions and topics. All pups need play time, so there will be three scheduled mosh pit times available for all those pups who want to really get into head space and have fun with other pups".

All I can add here is... woof...?

Earth Hour, according to Wikipedia (here): "Earth Hour is an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of 29 March at 8PM local time until 9PM to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions".

If you haven't checked Google today, well they turned off their lights as well. I signed up as well... it doesn't feel like I'm doing much, turning off the lights for an hour, but imagine 6.7 billion people doing it.

Here's a commercial for an energy drink that was seen during the super bowl.

I've never tried energy drinks... they actually scare me.

Push it... Push it real good...

There used to have this show called American Gladiators in which regular folks went against some seriously insanely huge men and women in order to win cash and glory and fame and all that. Looks like the show is coming back. Check out this video which shows the list of guys those who auditioned to be the newest gladiators yet didn't make the cut. Had I been there, Nitro would have definitely been allowed to return.

Completely unrelated - check out this guy's profile. His name is NiltonAgain and he posted a bunch of Bears in bondage stuff. I love what he says in his profile. I quote: "I WILL BE DELETED FOR THIS. BUT, I WILL RETURN AGAIN, AND I WILL USER MY USERNAME 'NILTON'... anything". Meaning - he posts material and he knows at some point YouTube is going to remove his profile due to violations, but he promises to return. He's like some kind of internet vigilante - a little guy from Brazil sticking it to the big YouTube and promising to do it again. Oh the guts and the glory. Such sacrifices for such little recognition. 

I mentioned this webpage last year but I just have to mention again. It's called Elf Yourself, a site in which you 'elfamorphosize' yourself. Now this year they have upped the ante because you can add up to 4 elves, so if you have a family or friends, then elf them up by including their picture to the fold. My partner Roger decided to elf himself up, including myself as well as the puppies. The result? Right here.

Here comes another Bubble by the Richter Scales. This is not Bear related, it's just funny... and sad... yet funny and sad at the same time. Remember the dot.com bubble back around 1999-2000, when sites were dropping left and right...? Well the guys who made this video are stating that we're in for another crash soon.

Ok so they are playing Nostradamus, however the song is great (which you can even download from their site) and altho the video has been removed from YouTube, it's available elsewhere on the net. You're sure to be humming along at some point (thanks to Niko our AdminBear (TubeBear profile) for pointing out this video).

December 1st is World AIDS Day as described by Wikipedia (here): "World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. AIDS has killed more than 25 million people, with an estimated 38.6 million people living with HIV, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history. The concept of a World AIDS Day originated at the 1988 World Summit of Ministers of Health".

This is not Bear related but it's interesting enough to mention: video games have jumped leaps and bounds since the 1972 game Pong. For example, just take a look at this upcoming game called Rage by id Software.

However... for some reason I am continually reminded of the early arcade games, such as Pacman, Ms Pacman, Donkey Kong and the like. Now that I'm 40, some of these games I played 30 years ago, yet they have left an impression on me - and just not me - since there have been so many emulators online that allow you to play these games. Well there is one great emulator that is so simple since it's Java based - it's called Jemu2 and you can grab it here. It allows you to play quite a few of the classics. There's surely a few games on there that guys my age will remember wasting more than a few quarters on.

On top of that, there's also a few home console games you can choose from - and to be honest I don't know any of them, but it's just more games to browse. And as a bonus, check out the virtual arcade. It's more of a novelty than anything else, but it's definitely worth a visit. Overall, Jemu2 is fun and is free - nothing wrong in any of that.

This one is worth it - head on over to this beer site for Bar da Boa beer and just put in your name and surname (or name and nickname) - don't worry about adding your email address - and then hit 'Visualizar...' and enjoy the couple of seconds of feeling that you are actually a part of this beer commercial.

Find Your Future You...

If you have a few minutes today, check out this excellently designed site created by Svedka vodka. Find a picture of yourself and see what you will look like in the year 2033. I saw this link over at Dart's blog page who runs BearBound (here's his TubeBear profile).

There was this special show in Canada called Kids in the Hall (Wiki) and one of the recurring sketches was with Mr. Tyzik aka 'The Headcrusher' (Wiki - YouTube). Now that you know more about The Headcrusher, please meet lexpro (YouTube profile). He's a husky guy who crushes cars for a living with his feet. From his profile "I'm a guy who loves to crush (toy) cars under his feet, pretending to be a giant".

Now this has nothing to do with his sexual preference... this article is for guy's who like looking at Bearish feet, even if those feet are doing the oddest of things.