Archive for April, 2007
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Flash flood at Thai waterfall kills 23, many missing
At least 23 people died Saturday and many more were missing after a flash flood swept over a popular waterfall in southern Thailand, officials said. The tragedy took place at about 2:00 pm (0700 GMT) at the Sairung waterfall in Trang province, some 700 kilometres (434 miles) south of Bangkok. “At least 23 people were confirmed dead and we have learned that more bodies are coming,” a local hospital official said, adding that she did not know how many people were missing.
Posted in Restless Earth | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Tethered sailors washed off sub, report finds
As the pilot prepared to scramble up on deck, the first violent wave slammed into the submarine, pushing the heavy outer hatch down on top of him. The ocean’s force made him bite through his upper lip and sunk him in seawater inside the bathtub-like inner hatch. He pushed the heavy lid back open and looked topside.
Immediately a second wave hit, this time from the bow and then down the length of the submarine.
The three American sailors who had been on the deck seconds before to help guide him off the ship were now gone — shoved into the frigid, 53-degree water.
Posted in Nautical Nightmares | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Genes Show T. Rex Related to Chickens
An adolescent female Tyrannosaurus rex died 68 million years ago, but its bones still contain intact soft tissue, including the oldest preserved proteins ever found, scientists say.
And a comparison of the protein’s chemical structure to a slew of other species showed an evolutionary link between T. rex and chickens, bolstering the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
The collagen proteins were found hidden inside the leg bone of the T. rex fossil, according to two studies published in the April 13 issue of the journal Science. Collagen is the main ingredient of connective tissue in animals and is found in cartilage, ligaments, tendons, hooves, bones and teeth. It yields gelatin and glue when boiled in water.
Posted in Paleontology Update | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Crocodile Bites Off Zoo Worker’s Arm
A zoo worker had his forearm reattached Thursday after his colleagues recovered the severed limb from the mouth of a 440-pound Nile crocodile, an official said.
The crocodile severed Chang Po-yu’s forearm on Wednesday at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when the veterinarian tried to retrieve a tranquilizer dart from the reptile’s hide, zoo officials said. The Liberty Times newspaper said Chang failed to notice the crocodile was not fully anesthetized when he stuck his arm through an iron rail to medicate it.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
“Big, powerful law firms like Nashville’s King & Ballow really ought to hire someone with journalistic and new media experience to advise them on how to handle clients who complain about things published by bloggers. Then they wouldn’t do stupid things like issue threats of libel suits that they can’t win against bloggers who, it turns out, have lots of friends willing to make the law firm and its client look bad for it.
That thought occurred to me as I read that Nashville blogger Katherine Coble is being threatened by the powerful Nashville law firm King & Ballow with a libel lawsuit unless she removes from her blog something she wrote that offended one of the law firm’s clients. King & Ballow sent Coble a “demand letter” demanding she take down a post she published. K&B and the client – the headhunter firm JL Kirk Associates – are already getting blowback – and it’s only going to get worse as word of the case spreads throughout the blogosphere.”
Posted in Career Limiting Move | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Private stations could take paying astronauts
Private space exploration took a potentially significant step forward this week as Nevada-based Bigelow Aerospace announced plans to send a series of inflatable space stations into orbit over the next decade.
The spacecraft, initially designed by NASA for use with the International Space Station, would be available to train astronauts from nations not currently active in space, as well as companies that could manufacture unique products in weightlessness.
“We think the time will come when orbiting space complexes won’t be considered a novelty, but a necessity,” said company President Robert Bigelow, who made a fortune as founder of Budget Suites hotel chain.
“When the first satellites went up, they were a novelty too,” he said. “Now they are a major business with enormous commercial importance. This is a logical next step.”
Posted in Space | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
School Sex Tape Causes Furor in Chicago:
A principal and a teacher at a suburban elementary school quit amid allegations they were caught on video having sex in the principal’s office, authorities say.
In keeping with Cook County’s reputation for bare-knuckle politics, the scandal broke after copies of the sex tape were mailed anonymously to parents this week, just days before a contested school board election.
The case has also created something of a mystery: Who planted the camera that recorded the action?
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Sex | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Bail set at $1 million for teen accused of baby murder
A 17-year-old stabbed her newborn baby 135 times and disposed of her body in a garbage can outside her home in Oakdale, authorities alleged Thursday.
Nicole Marie Beecroft was charged Thursday with first-degree murder. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. She was being held in a juvenile detention facility. Bail was set at $1 million on Friday afternoon.
Posted in Bad Parents, Teen Antics | No Comments »
Saturday, April 14th, 2007
Lawyer dies in Empire suicide horror
A lawyer leaded to his death from a 69th-floor office at the Empire State Building yesterday, severing a leg that crashed to the sidewalk in front of horrified onlookers.
Cops raced to the 102-story landmark just before 3 p.m. after several witnesses called 911 to report a body part on the ground on W. 33rd St. A police source identified the dead man as Moshe Kanovsky, 31, of Brooklyn.
Posted in Suicidal Tendencies | No Comments »
Friday, April 13th, 2007
Feds will retry pot activist on cultivation charges:
The government will retry a prominent marijuana advocate on cultivation charges even though he faces no punishment if convicted, beyond the one day in jail he’s already served, a federal prosecutor said today.
Prosecutors decided on a second trial for Ed Rosenthal after a “thorough and careful review,” Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who had urged him to reconsider his decision at a hearing last month.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, April 13th, 2007
Genie shows barred by Islam, clerics say
Malaysian Islamic scholars have called for a halt to popular exhibitions billed as featuring ghosts, genies and other supernatural beings, saying they are forbidden and could undermine the faith of devout Muslims.
Many Malaysians are willing to suspend disbelief when dealing with the supernatural, and the exhibitions capitalise on a widespread fascination with the ghouls and goblins that populate Malaysia’s legends and folklore.
But supernatural beings should not be played up in exhibitions, state news agency Bernama quoted the chairman of Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council as saying.
Posted in T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Friday, April 13th, 2007
Rogue Seal Bullies Surfer, Pit Bull
Nibbles the elephant seal is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern California coast.The 2,000-pound lone male is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal’s aggression.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Kara's Classics | No Comments »
Friday, April 13th, 2007
Alleged D.C. Madam Starts Naming Names in Sex Scandal
A woman charged with running a D.C.-area prostitution ring on Thursday made good on her threat to identify high-profile clients, naming a military strategist who developed the combat theories known as “shock and awe” as a regular customer in court papers. Harlan K. Ullman, a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was named in court papers filed by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who is acting as her own lawyer. Ullman, in a brief telephone interview, declined comment on the claim. “The allegations are beneath the dignity of a comment,” he said.
Posted in Politico Follies, Sex | No Comments »
Friday, April 13th, 2007
Zookeeper dies after anteater attack
A YOUNG Argentine zookeeper who worked on a giant anteater conservation project died today after she was attacked by an anteater who mauled her abdomen and legs with its sharp front claws.
“Her injuries were very serious and when she was admitted she was already in critical condition,” Jose Potito, director of the hospital, said.
Mr Potito said Melisa Casco, 19, died after an operation to amputate one of her legs.
Casco worked at the Florencio Varela zoo outside Buenos Aires as part of a conservation and reproduction project involving endangered giant anteaters.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Man Gets 33,500 Pennies in Lawsuit Payout
A penny saved is a penny earned, but one man believes 33,500 pennies won are best donated to a worthy cause.
Bob Wilson, who won a small claims court case last month, will donate the pennies to the Oakland Livingston Human Service Agency, which has helped him with heating bills.
Wilson was given the pennies by Karl Stepen, owner of NSK Motorsports in Fowlerville, after a judge ruled in Wilson’s favor and awarded him $335.
Stepen said he paid Wilson in pennies to show his contempt for Wilson. “We paid him in legal U.S. currency,” Stepen said.
Posted in Doh! | No Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Beckham car ‘may be in Macedonia’:
The interior minister of Macedonia has promised to return the car she is driving to David Beckham, if it is proven to have been stolen from him. Gordana Jankulovska told the BBC there was no confirmation that the BMW X5 car had belonged to the football star. The car was impounded by the Macedonian police after being shipped from Greece.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Israeli Jets Scramble to Intercept U.S. Airliner After Communications Loss
Israel air force fighter planes scrambled Wednesday to intercept a U.S. airliner after it lost communications with air controllers, security officials said.
The Continental passenger plane was flying in from the U.S. when it lost contact. Following anti-terror procedures, two Israeli warplanes intercepted the plane and guided it back over the Mediterranean Sea until communications were restored, Channel 10 TV reported.
Posted in War | No Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Pennsylvania DJ fired for repeating Imus slur as part of contest:
A radio station in the Poconos fired its longtime morning DJ on Wednesday for holding an on-air contest in which listeners were encouraged to say “nappy-headed ho,” the slur that got talk-show host Don Imus suspended.
Gary Smith, of the “Gary in the Morning” show on WSBG-FM in Stroudsburg, was fired after station management reviewed a tape of Tuesday’s broadcast, said Rick Musselman, executive vice president of station owner Nassau Broadcasting Partners L.P.
Smith told listeners to call WSBG and say “I’m a nappy-headed ho” for Tuesday’s “Phrase that Pays” contest, Musselman said. He said three of the listeners who called were awarded tickets to a NASCAR promotion at a local club.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Blair blames spate of murders on black culture
Tony Blair yesterday claimed the spate of knife and gun murders in London was not being caused by poverty, but a distinctive black culture. His remarks angered community leaders, who accused him of ignorance and failing to provide support for black-led efforts to tackle the problem.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
Early Earth Was Purple, Study Suggests:
The earliest life on Earth might have been just as purple as it is green today, a scientist claims.
Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the Sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue.
Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants, absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum.
“Why would chlorophyll have this dip in the area that has the most energy?” said Shil DasSarma, a microbial geneticist at the University of Maryland.
Posted in Restless Earth | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
‘Girls Gone Wild’ creator in custody:
The founder of the “Girls Gone Wild” video empire was taken into custody by federal marshals early Tuesday to face a contempt of court citation after initially defying a federal judge. Joe Francis was booked into the Bay County Jail, said Ruth Sasser, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. “His attorneys continue to work toward a settlement,” Ronn Torossian, a Francis spokesman, said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. Francis, 34, makes an estimated $29 million a year from videos of young women baring their breasts and in other sexually provocative situations.
Posted in Modern Narcissism, Sex | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
First sign of water found on an alien world
Water has been detected in the atmosphere of an alien world for the first time, a new analysis of Hubble Space Telescope data suggests. Water was widely believed to exist on the planet, but previous observations with other telescopes had failed to find it.The planet, called HD 209458b, is about 70% as massive as Jupiter and is scorched by the heat of its parent star, which it orbits 9 times as close as Mercury does to the Sun.
Because it is one of a small number of extrasolar planets observed to pass directly in front of and behind their parent stars as seen from Earth, astronomers have been able to glean a lot of information – such as its size and mass – about the distant world.
Posted in Space | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
Annual UFO survey records 736 reported sightings across Canada last year:
Aliens and spaceships are a bit passe these days, but 736 reported UFO sightings across Canada last year shows an “underlying, real phenomenon” going on, says one of the country’s top UFO researchers.
“It’s true, we don’t have as many aliens on TV as we used to – they used to be on commercials selling us everything from Pepsi to decongestants,” says Chris Rutkowski, director of the Winnipeg-based Ufology Research institute.
“And yet the phenomenon persists, which to me says there is a basic underlying, real phenomenon that extends beyond media and pop culture.”
Posted in Aliens | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 9th, 2007
‘Porn & Pancakes’ fights X-rated addictions
At 8 o’clock on a recent Saturday morning, more than 250 men gathered at New Life Christian Church in Morton, Illinois, for a breakfast of porn and pancakes.
The event, not as titillating as it sounds, is the brainchild of Craig Gross, founder of the online Christian ministry, XXXChurch.com. Gross concocted the idea of “Porn & Pancakes” as a way to get Christians and church officials to talk about pornography addiction.
It’s a problem, he said, that is growing, among Christian communities.
Posted in Idiot Activists | No Comments »
Monday, April 9th, 2007
Deaf black lesbian accused of chainsaw murder
The trial in South Dakota of a deaf, black lesbian accused of murdering a rival and dismembering her with a chainsaw has shocked the rural midwestern US state.
Daphne Wright, 43, could become the first woman sent to death row in South Dakota, which has not executed a prisoner in more than 60 years.
Wright is accused of kidnapping and murdering a heterosexual deaf woman, Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, whom she thought was spending too much time with her girlfriend.
…
VanderGiesen’s mother sobbed and stepped out of the courtroom as jurors passed around her daughter’s charred brassiere on Thursday.
But she managed to sit stoically as a maintenance worker described finding her daughter’s head and navel wrapped in bags and bed sheets that other witnesses linked to Wright.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Monday, April 9th, 2007
Big Bang at the atomic lab after scientists get their maths wrong
A £2 billion project to answer some of the biggest mysteries of the universe has been delayed by months after scientists building it made basic errors in their mathematical calculations.The mistakes led to an explosion deep in the tunnel at the Cern particle accelerator complex near Geneva in Switzerland. It lifted a 20-ton magnet off its mountings, filling a tunnel with helium gas and forcing an evacuation.
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It appears Fermilab made elementary mistakes in the design of the magnets and their anchors that made them insecure once the system was operational.
Last week an apparently furious and embarrassed Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, wrote to his staff saying they had caused “a pratfall on the world stage”. He said: “We are dumb-founded that we missed some very simple balance of forces. Not only was it missed in the engineering design but also in the four engineering reviews carried out between 1998 and 2002 before launching the construction of the magnets.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Mad Scientists | No Comments »
Monday, April 9th, 2007
Ten Missing WWII Airmen are Identified:
The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of ten U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.
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On April 16, 1944, a B-24 Liberator crewed by these airmen was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft was altering course due to bad weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor, but it never returned to friendly lines.
In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage of a World War II bomber had been found in Morobe Province. Early the next year, a JPAC team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage and remains. They also collected more remains and Grady’s identification tag from local villagers who had found the items at the crash site.
Later in 2002, a JPAC team began excavating the crash site and recovered remains and crew-related items, including identification tags for Knight and Smith. The team was unable to complete the recovery, and another JPAC team re-visited the site two weeks later to complete the excavation. The team found additional remains and identification tags for Sargent and King.
Posted in Historical Oddities, War | No Comments »
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
Boy jailed over clock change mix-up
A fifteen-year old boy in America was incarcerated for twelve days, wrongly accused of making a hoax bomb threat – because his school had forgotten that the clocks had gone forward. Cody Webb was arrested last month, after Hempfield Area High School received a bomb threat on their student hotline – which provides a range of information to students about the school – at 3.17am on March 11th. They believed they’d found the culprit when they traced the phone number they thought was responsible to Webb.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
Swearing grounds NWA jet:
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a Northwest Airlines pilot who locked himself inside an airplane lavatory while screaming obscenities before the flight was scheduled to take off for Detroit from Las Vegas on Friday. As passengers boarded Northwest Flight 1190 at McCarran International Airport they heard the captain shouting curse words.
Posted in Career Limiting Move | No Comments »
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
Pranksters glue doors shut at school
Forget being glued to their seats: Kids at a suburban San Diego County high school couldn’t even get through their classroom doors Friday. With only a day to go before spring break, vandals plugged locks on all the exterior gates and doors on campus with super-strength adhesive.
Posted in Teen Antics | No Comments »
Saturday, April 7th, 2007
Mummified corpses found in death rite mystery
Five decomposed bodies, possibly of a couple and their children who died one after another several years ago, have been found in a house in Japan, triggering media speculation on religious death rites.
Japanese police have not been able to identify the partly mummified, partly skeletonised bodies, which were found lying on their backs on mattresses in a house in Omuta on the southwestern island of Kyushu, a police spokesman said.
Japanese media said the bodies could be of a couple in their 90s and their two daughters and son who had lived in the house.
“They died between about 20 years ago and four years ago, one after another,” the Yomiuri newspaper quoted a relative as saying.
Posted in Most Mysterious | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2007
English football fans in disgrace again, or are they?:
British newspaper headlines suggested Friday that English football fans had disgraced themselves again after the UEFA Cup match between Sevilla and Tottenham Hotspur.However, the analysis of Thursday’s incidents in Spain which came 24 hours after 13 Manchester United fans were taken to hospital after fighting between riual fans and police at Roma’s Olympic stadium in Italy, was rather different.
The words mayhem and madness proliferated many of the British reports on Friday. By contrast in Spain, what little mention there was of incidents of crowd violence during the 2-1 win by the local side and UEFA Cup holders over the visitors from London was confined to a few paragraphs on the inside pages.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2007
Mortician kills self at Falls casino table
A 45-year-old businessman walked into the Seneca Niagara Casino on Thursday morning, went directly to a blackjack table and shot himself in the chest. Michael A. Pellegrino, a funeral director who lives in Getzville, was rushed to Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, where he died about an hour later, at 11:46 a.m. Pellegrino was owner of the Perna- Pellegrino funeral homes in Buffalo and Amherst. His death was related to a failed relationship with a female dealer who works at the casino, according to various sources associated with the incident.
Posted in Suicidal Tendencies | 2 Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2007
Man damages Old Master painting at Milwaukee Art Museum
A man put his foot through a $300,000 painting Wednesday afternoon at the Milwaukee Art Museum and told museum workers later that the image disturbed him.
Advertisement The 22-year-old Pewaukee man started kicking “The Triumph of David” by Ottavio Vannini as it hung on the wall in the museum’s Early European Gallery, said David Gordon, CEO and director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Painted in 1640, the oil painting depicts the outcome of the biblical tale of David and Goliath, with David carrying the giant Goliath’s severed head, Gordon said.
“He was kicking it, aiming his blows at the head of Goliath, and then he pulled it off the wall and started kicking it,” Gordon said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2007
Hero Cat Roused Sleeping Owner as Carbon Monoxide Filled Family’s Home
A cat helped spare a family from death by carbon monoxide poisoning by jumping on the bed and meowing wildly as fumes filled the home, the owners said. Eric and Cathy Keesling said their 14-year-old cat, Winnie, played a crucial role in saving their lives March 24 after a gasoline-powered water pump in their basement caused the odorless but deadly gas to build up. About 1 a.m., the domestic shorthair began nudging Cathy’s ear and meowing loudly. “It was a crazy meow, almost like she was screaming,” said Cathy, who hesitated to get up until Winnie’s caterwauling and jumping persisted.
Posted in Animal Weirdness | No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2007
‘World’s worst car’ jibe puts Malaysia’s anger into Top Gear:
NOTORIOUSLY opinionated television presenter Jeremy Clarkson has found himself embroiled in a row with the Malaysian government. Clarkson savaged the Perodua Kelisa mini in a review on the TV programme Top Gear. He said the model, 2,400 of which have sold in the UK, was “without doubt not just the worst car in its category, but in the world”. The BBC presenter suggested the car’s name sounded like a disease and he described the small, three-cylinder model as a “piece of junk” with no flair, no passion and designed just to make profit. He then further fuelled Malaysian ire by attacking a Kelisa with a sledgehammer, before suspending it from a crane and blowing it up.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
Scientists Directly Control Brain Cell Activity With Light:
New Stanford-led research published in the April 5 issue of Nature describes a technique to directly control brain cell activity with light. It is a novel means for experimenting with neural circuits and could eventually lead to therapies for some disorders.
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Karl Deisseroth, an assistant professor of bioengineering and of psychiatry who led the research group that authored the paper, received the NIH award in 2005. “This research provides a tool that we didn’t have before, which is precise on-or-off control over specific neural cells in living creatures and intact circuits,” says Deisseroth, whose Stanford research group collaborated with researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and the University of Würzburg in Germany. “This gives us the power to ask what the causal role of specific cell types is in neural circuit function.”
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To selectively take control of neurons, the researchers used a virus to insert genes for producing light-sensitive proteins into cells of interest. The gene ChR2 is derived from an algae that makes affected neurons more active when exposed to blue light. Deisseroth and collaborators first showed this in a paper in Nature Neuroscience in 2005. In this week’s paper, they demonstrate that another gene, NpHR, which is borrowed from a microbe called an archaebacterium, can make neurons less active in the presence of yellow light. Combined, the two genes can now make neurons obey pulses of light like drivers obey a traffic signal: Blue means “go” (emit a signal), and yellow means “stop” (don’t emit).
Posted in Mad Scientists, Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
Disease underlies Hatfield-McCoy feud
The most infamous feud in American folklore, the long-running battle between the Hatfields and McCoys, may be partly explained by a rare, inherited disease that can lead to hair-trigger rage and violent outbursts.
Dozens of McCoy descendants apparently have the disease, which causes high blood pressure, racing hearts, severe headaches and too much adrenaline and other “fight or flight” stress hormones.
No one blames the whole feud on this, but doctors say it could help explain some of the clan’s notorious behavior.
Posted in Historical Oddities | No Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
Porn swap tied to Aegis info leak
Top-secret data on Aegis destroyers obtained by a Maritime Self-Defense Force petty officer 2nd class were found to have been obtained after he copied obscene images to his hard disk from a colleague’s computer, without knowing the information contained the secret data, police sources said Wednesday.
The Kanagawa prefectural police also found the secret information was leaked to another petty officer, meaning the case now involves three petty officers, including the 33-year-old 2nd class petty officer, who is a crew member of the destroyer Shirane of Escort Flotilla 1.
Hard disks and computers of each officer were found to have contained obscene images along with the secret information, the police said.
The police believe that repetitive exchanges of such images triggered the spread of the secret information.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Concentrated Criminality, Sex | No Comments »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
Morphing a conspiracy?
A Chattanooga Internet firm doctored a photo of White House aide Karl Rove to show him holding a folder with the company’s logo, fueling speculation in the blogosphere that the president’s top adviser is running White House correspondence through a nongovernment e-mail system.
”It’s easy for people to plant disinformation and misinformation out there,” said Josiah Roe, executive vice president of Coptix, based in St. Elmo.
Mr. Roe said the company altered the photo and placed it on the Internet after bloggers implied that Coptix was involved in a “vast right-wing conspiracy” because the company — along with another local firm, SmarTech — provides an Internet service for the Republican National Committee.
Posted in Idiot Activists | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 5th, 2007
Toxic truth of secretive Siberian city:
A BBC team has entered a remote region of Russia normally closed to foreigners that produces almost half the world’s supply of palladium – a precious metal vital for making catalytic converters. But, as the BBC’s Richard Galpin reports, it is accused of being the world’s largest producer of acid rain.
It took more than two months for the Russian authorities to grant us permission to travel to the secretive Siberian city of Norilsk.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Kim Jong Il ate my rabbits for his birthday
The offspring of the 12 giant rabbits were supposed to help to feed starving North Koreans. Now doubts about their fate have brought an abrupt halt to one of the more unlikely hunger-alleviating projects. Karl Szmolinsky sold the rabbits to Pyongyang so that they could be used to set up a breeding programme to boost meat production in the Hermit Kingdom. However, amid concerns that they have been eaten by the country’s leaders, Mr Szmolinsky will not be sending any more.
Posted in Crazed Dictatorships, N. Korea | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Wireless Power Chargers About to Hit Market
Cords and cables have been a reality for consumer devices since the advent of home electronics.
That reality may be changing very soon, however, as a number of companies continue to make inroads into eliminating the wires that keep our gadgets tethered to a wall — and to one another.
Powercast, a new Pennsylvania-based startup, says its solution for wireless power harvesting is not only reliable, FCC-approved, and safe, but is also ready to debut in millions of small devices by the end of 2008, according to John Shearer, Powercast’s founder and chief executive.
The technology? Radio waves, the same technology driving cellular phones and your FM dial.
Whether it’s the promise of short-range wireless technologies like ultra wideband (UWB), wireless USB, and the wireless high-definition interface (WHDI) that transmit data from one device to another, or methods for supplying those devices with power, such as induction — or now, radio frequency (RF) — the future home looks to be increasingly cordless.
Posted in Toys! | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Womb transplant pregnancy success:
Four sheep have become pregnant after having their wombs removed and then reconnected, Swedish scientists say. It is an important step towards successful womb transplants in humans. Professor Mats Brannstrom and colleagues carried out an autologous transplant in the sheep – where the same womb is removed and reconnected.
Posted in Mad Scientists, Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Skeleton challenge to Africa theory:
A 40,000-YEAR-OLD skeleton found in China has raised questions about the “out of Africa” hypothesis on how early modern humans populated the planet.
The fossil bones are the oldest from an adult “modern” human to be found in eastern Asia.
They contain features that call into question the widely held view that all humans alive today are descended from a small group of sub-Saharan Africans who made their way out of the continent about 60,000 years ago. Gradually they colonised other parts of the planet, replacing older human species such as the Neanderthals, which became extinct. The older humans had themselves originated in Africa but moved out more than 1 million years earlier.
Posted in Paleontology Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
DNA Boosts Herodotus’ Account of Etruscans as Migrants to Italy
Geneticists have added an edge to a 2,500-year-old debate over the origin of the Etruscans, a people whose brilliant and mysterious civilization dominated northwestern Italy for centuries until the rise of the Roman republic in 510 B.C. Several new findings support a view held by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus — but unpopular among archaeologists — that the Etruscans originally migrated to Italy from the Near East.
Though Roman historians played down their debt to the Etruscans, Etruscan culture permeated Roman art, architecture and religion. The Etruscans were master metallurgists and skillful seafarers who for a time dominated much of the Mediterranean. They enjoyed unusually free social relations, much remarked on by ancient historians of other cultures.
Posted in Historical Oddities | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Gunman warned ‘Get out my way, pimping’
A man shot and killed his former girlfriend inside the CNN Center complex in Atlanta, Georgia, Tuesday afternoon before being shot by a security guard, police said.
Witness Charles Williams was riding up the escalator toward the Omni Hotel lobby when he saw the man pulling his victim by her hair with his left hand.
She was screaming and crying and holding on to her hair close to her head with both hands, Williams said.
“I was walking directly toward them and he and I were eye-to-eye, and so I started looking at his right hand to see if he had something,” said Williams.
The suspect warned Williams, “Get out my way, pimping.”
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Keith Richards snorted father’s ashes
Keith Richards has acknowledged consuming a raft of illegal substances in his time, but this may top them all.
In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father’s ashes mixed with cocaine.
“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
“He was cremated, and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared,” he said, adding that “it went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.”
Posted in Drugs, Modern Narcissism | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
N Korea envoys ‘keeping children’:
North Korean diplomats stationed overseas are reportedly refusing an order to send their children home, according to South Korean media. The order was issued earlier this year in an apparent attempt to stop defections from the hardline regime. It said diplomats should send all but one of their children back to North Korea by the end of March.
Posted in Crazed Dictatorships, N. Korea | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Pit bull dog owner bites policeman
The owner of a pit bull bit a policeman after his dog ran away during a confrontation with officers, daily Diario de Noticias reported on Tuesday.
Two policemen stopped the dog owner for walking the animal without a leash and a muzzle on Sunday in Cova da Moura — a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Lisbon.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Fury at RAF Kamikaze plan:
RAF Top Guns were stunned last night after being asked to think of being Kamikaze pilots in the war on terror. Elite fliers were shocked into silence when a senior RAF chief said they should consider suicide missions as a last resort against terrorist targets. Air Vice Marshal David Walker put forward the attacks — like those flown by desperate Japanese pilots in World War Two — as a “worst case scenario” should they run out of ammo or their weapons failed.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Suicidal Tendencies, War | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Weekly Piracy Report:
01.04.2007: early hours: Nigeria. An expatriate worker was abducted by pirates and taken ashore from a platform rig. The pirates boarded the rig via the support vessel which was secured alongside the rig at the time of the incident. The owners are in contact with the Nigerian authorities to get the worker released.
Posted in Pirate Update | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
Couple fights to name baby “Metallica”
Metallica may be a cool name for a heavy metal band, but a Swedish couple is struggling to convince officials it is also suitable for a baby girl. Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child after the legendary rock band.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Bad Parents, Kara's Classics | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Man Jailed for Having Deadly TB
Behind the county hospital’s tall cinderblock walls, a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient sits in a jail cell equipped with a ventilation system that keeps germs from escaping. Robert Daniels has been locked up indefinitely, perhaps for the rest of his life, since last July. But he has not been charged with a crime. Instead, he suffers from an extensively drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis, or XDR-TB. It is considered virtually untreatable.
Posted in Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Mundaneum, the Index Card Internet:
When the Mundaneum opened in 1910, its purpose was to collect all of the world’s knowledge on neatly organized 3″ x 5″ index cards. The brainchild of Belgian lawyer Paul Otlet and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henri LaFontaine, the vast project eventually totaled 12 million cards, each classified according to the Universal Decimal Classification system developed by Otlet.
Posted in Historical Oddities | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Former Football Player Accused of Murder
A former football player was charged with murder for allegedly throwing a neighbor to his death from a third-floor balcony at their apartment building in suburban Chicago.
Hubert D. Thompson, 28, who played for Michigan State, surrendered peacefully late Friday after holing up in his apartment for nearly seven hours while police SWAT teams surrounded the building. He was ordered held on $3 million bond.
Police found James Malone, 66, sprawled on the pavement below the balcony when they arrived around 1:45 p.m.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Former FBI Agent Reported Missing in Iran
The U.S. is seeking information from Iran about a former FBI agent who was reported missing while on a business trip there several weeks ago. FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said Monday the agent had retired nearly a decade ago and appeared to be in Iran on private business. He said the missing man was last seen there in early March and was not working for the FBI as a contractor. “At this time, there are no indications that this matter should be viewed other than as a missing person case,” Kolko said.
Posted in Crazed Dictatorships | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Demolition ends China house row:
The home of a Chinese family who defied property developers in a high-profile campaign has been demolished after a deal was reportedly agreed. The family of Wu Ping, or Stubborn Nail as Chinese media called her, gave up defending the house – isolated in the middle of a huge construction pit. Ms Wu’s family was the only one of 281 in the area who rejected an initial deal to move from the Chongqing site.
Posted in Mega Engineering | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Hitler link alarms German resort:
Germans have been embarrassed by the fact that Adolf Hitler remains an honorary citizen of Bad Doberan, a town that will host the annual G8 summit.
The town council has held a special meeting to officially remove Hitler from the roll of honour.
Leaders from the world’s major industrial nations will meet in one of the town’s districts, Heiligendamm, in just over two months’ time.
Posted in Nazis, Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Indian Couple Commits Suicide Over the Death of Their Dog
Unable to come to terms with the death of their pet dog, a childless couple in southern India hanged themselves. The bodies of 67-year-old retired soldier C.N. Madanraj and his wife, Tarabai, 63, were found Sunday in their home in a suburb of Hyderabad.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Darwin Award, Kara's Classics, Suicidal Tendencies | No Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2007
Sharks Bite Surfer, Boy in Separate Events
A 9-year-old boy and a 30-year-old surfer were apparently bitten by sharks in separate attacks on nearby barrier island beaches, authorities said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. The attacks happened within an hour of each other Saturday on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie County on Florida’s east coast. Authorities did not release the names of either victim.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, April 1st, 2007
Dianne Feinstein: A Question of Ethics:
In the November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.
As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.
Posted in Politico Follies | No Comments »
Sunday, April 1st, 2007
Wrong-way driver killed in crash with Greyhound bus
A car going the wrong way on a divided highway collided head-on with a Greyhound bus early Saturday, killing the driver of the car and injuring 20 other people, police said. Panicked passengers crawled out the bus’s windows.
The bus driver had tried to evade the oncoming car, police and a passenger said. Heather Marie Thomas, 23, was driving southbound in a northbound lane on Interstate 85 at the time of the 3:05 a.m. crash, said police Lt. Mark Drinkard.
Police said they did not know why the car was in the wrong lane or whether alcohol was involved.
…
The bus driver did all he could to try to avoid the oncoming car, said Cannon, a construction worker from Asheville, North Carolina, who was returning home from a job in New Orleans. “When the bus would turn right, the car would turn right. When the bus would turn left, the car would turn left,” he said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Darwin Award | No Comments »
Sunday, April 1st, 2007
Mystery of the village’s 5,000 prize daffodils decapitated days before Bloom contest
For years Peter Dungworth painstakingly planted thousands of daffodil bulbs in the hope of one day leading his village to a Britain in Bloom award.
But just days before he was due to welcome judges to view this year’s entry he awoke to find each and every flower had been deliberately beheaded.
Now police have launched an investigation amid claims that mean-spirited saboteurs from a rival village may have crept in under the cover of darkness.
Posted in Most Mysterious | No Comments »
