Archive for June, 2008
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Stripper shortage forces Ontario clubs to get creative
Facing a shortage of foreign exotic dancers, a group representing 53 of Ontario’s strip club owners is turning to immigration consultants to find a loophole in the rules governing foreign workers.
The Adult Entertainment Association of Canada is looking for alternative, legal, ways to hire foreign-born strippers and dancers. One way might be to use foreign student visas since foreign students can now work for 20 hours a week in any job, said the group’s executive director Tim Labrinos.
In 2004, then-minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada Judy Sgro resigned after extending the visa of a Romanian exotic dancer who had worked for her election campaign.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Sex | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Obama Vice Presidential Search Chief Quits
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Wednesday said the head of his vice presidential search team and former head of the mortgage giant Fannie Mae had decided to step aside.
Obama said in a statement that Jim Johnson had decided to quit the unpaid position in order to avoid distracting from the process of gathering information about possible vice presidential candidates.
Obama appointed Johnson last week to a three-member team heading the search for his running mate, but Johnson became embroiled in a controversy over questionable loans from lender Countrywide Financial.
Posted in Greed is Good, Politico Follies | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
‘Unicorn’ spotted in Italy
A deer with a single horn in the centre of its head – much like the fabled, mythical unicorn – has been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy, park officials said on Wednesday.
“This is fantasy becoming reality,” Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Centre of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. “The unicorn has always been a mythological animal.”
The one-year-old Roe Deer – nicknamed “Unicorn” – was born in captivity in the research centre’s park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Posted in Animal Weirdness, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Police Find, Defuse Chicken Bomb
As bomb scares go, this one might be the most unusual for local police.
A motorist on Powder Forest Drive Friday morning noticed what looked like a whole chicken — the kind bought at grocery stores for roasting — with a pipe bomb stuffed inside, police said Monday.
When they arrived on the scene around 9 a.m. officers found the roaster had an improvised explosive device where the fowl’s innards should have been.
They closed the road for part of the morning as the Hartford Police Department’s bomb squad was called to detonate the device, police said.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality, Fun with Chemistry | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Weekly Piracy Report
07.06.2008: 1000 LT: 03:18.5N-125:05.8E, Vicinity of Kepulauan Sangir, Indonesia.
Pirates in a speedboat chased and opened fire on a livestock carrier in ballast enroute to Australia. Master took evasive manoeuvres to prevent boarding and reduce casualties to crew and ship. Master informed managers who in turn contacted the Piracy Reporting Centre for assistance. The centre contacted authorities for assistance. The Authorities instructed their local units to assist and respond accordingly. After two hours of continuous firing and chasing, the pirate boat aborted the attempt. Master fearing further attack from pirate boat, discontinued passage to next port and returned to last port, Gen Santos port, Philippines with ETA – am – 08.06.2008. Ship sustained serious damages to bridge, communication equipment and hull. Further reports are awaited.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Pirate Update | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Webb’s rebel roots: An affinity for Confederacy
Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy.
Webb is no mere student of the Civil War era. He’s an author, too, and he’s left a trail of writings and statements about one of the rawest and most sensitive topics in American history.
He has suggested many times that while the Confederacy is a symbol to many of the racist legacy of slavery and segregation, for others it simply reflects Southern pride. In a June 1990 speech in front of the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, posted on his personal website, he lauded the rebels’ “gallantry,” which he said “is still misunderstood by most Americans.”
Webb, a descendant of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s, and seemed to suggest that states were justified in trying to secede.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Politically Incorrect, Politico Follies | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Drunk Baby Born ‘15 Times’ Over the Limit
A mother who was intoxicated during her labor at a Polish hospital gave birth to a baby girl who was almost 15 times over the country’s adult drunk-driving limit, Agence France-Presse is reporting.
The baby girl, born Monday, had a blood alcohol level of 0.29 percent. Poland’s drunk driving limit is 0.02 percent, according to the report.
In the U.S., the adult drunk-driving limit is 0.08.
Posted in Bad Parents, Concentrated Criminality, Fun with Alcohol | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Snake coils on baby’s leg in crib
A Long Island animal shelter is a temporary home for a 1-foot-long snake that a mother found coiled on her 7-month-old daughter’s leg as the baby slept in a crib.
Cari Abatemarco of upstate Troy says she was visiting family in Brentwood last week when her baby’s cries woke her one night. She tells Newsday that she found a snake wrapped around her daughter’s leg.
Abatemarco says she lifted her daughter and the snake fell off. A relative removed the snake from the crib and placed it in a bucket until animal control officers arrived.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, You lucky bastard | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Severed Head, Threatening Note Found Outside Mexico Newspaper Office
A note threatening a Mexican journalist was found outside the office of a newspaper in southern Mexico on Monday, two days after someone left a severed head there.
Tabasco state Attorney General Gustavo Rosario said the letter was directed at Juan Padilla, editor of El Correo de Tabasco, which recently carried reports about migrant smuggling and kidnapping in the area.
“You are next,” the note read.
The head of a man police identified as a low-level drug trafficker was found outside the offices on Saturday. Soldiers later located his body in another part of the city alongside a separate note that said, “This is what will happen to those who go around pointing fingers.”
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality, Yuck! | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Albinos, Long Shunned, Face Threat in Tanzania
Samuel Mluge steps outside his office and scans the sidewalk. His pale blue eyes dart back and forth, back and forth, trying to focus.
The sun used to be his main enemy, but now he has others.
Mr. Mluge is an albino, and in Tanzania now there is a price for his pinkish skin.
“I feel like I am being hunted,” he said.
Discrimination against albinos is a serious problem throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but recently in Tanzania it has taken a wicked twist: at least 19 albinos, including children, have been killed and mutilated in the past year, victims of what Tanzanian officials say is a growing criminal trade in albino body parts.
Many people in Tanzania — and across Africa, for that matter — believe albinos have magical powers. They stand out, often the lone white face in a black crowd, a result of a genetic condition that impairs normal skin pigmentation and strikes about 1 in 3,000 people here. Tanzanian officials say witch doctors are now marketing albino skin, bones and hair as ingredients in potions that are promised to make people rich.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Cultural Oddities | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
FEDS HAVE SPITZER CORNERED
The noose appears to be tightening around sex-crazed ex-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
The federal case against him is so strong that prosecutors had no interest in striking cooperation agreements with the ringleader of Spitzer’s hooker-supplier, Emperors Club VIP, and his second in command, sources told The Post’s Murray Weiss.
Prosecutors have records of Spitzer’s transactions, phone records and taped conversations with Emperors Club, and are confident they need little more to nail him on charges that could include violating prostitution laws and money laundering, sources said. Probers are also said to be looking into whether he used campaign funds to pay for his pleasures.
Posted in Politico Follies, Sex, Sexual Deviants | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
DNA Computer Puts Microbes to Work as Number Crunchers
It’s not your normal, electronic silicon-based machine, but scientists have made a computer from a small, circular piece of DNA, then inserted it into a living bacterial cell and unleashed the microbe to solve a mathematical sorting problem.
“A computer is any system that can read some input and give some readable output,” says Karmella Haynes, a biologist at Davidson College in North Carolina and co-author of a new study appearing in the Journal of Biological Engineering. Haynes and her team looked to harness the power of DNA recombination to solve the so-called “burnt pancake problem”: a puzzle about how to stack different-size flapjacks that are burned on one side and perfectly cooked on the other using the fewest number of flips to arrange them so the largest are on the bottom and all are golden side up.
“This work is the first work I’ve encountered which uses living cells in order to solve a specific computer science problem,” says Tom Ran, a graduate student in the lab of computer scientist Ehud Shapiro at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel.
Posted in Weird Science | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Study: One-Fourth Of NYC Residents Have Herpes
Now might be the time for New Yorkers to take advantage of the free condom campaign the city promotes. A new study by the city’s Health Department found more than a quarter of adult residents are infected with the herpes virus.
According to the study, 26 percent of city residents have the virus that causes genital herpes, an incurable sexually-transmitted infection that can cause painful genital sores and can double a person’s risk for HIV.
Nationally, 19 percent of the population has the infection, according to the department.
Posted in Disease, Sex, Sinners in the hands of an angry God, Yuck! | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Evidence in Massive Texas Governor’s Mansion Fire Points to Arson
Arson is suspected in a fire that swept through the historic Texas Governor’s Mansion early Sunday and left much of the 152-year-old home charred and severely damaged, the state fire marshal said.
“We have some evidence that indicates that we do have an intentionally set fire,” said state Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado. “So we believe that we may be looking at a criminal act here.”
Calling it a “devastating loss to the state of Texas,” Maldonado did not offer details on how the fire may have been set or whether authorities had identified a suspect.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Fire | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Amy Winehouse racism video
AMY Winehouse faces ruin after being caught on camera revelling in SEX in a public place, out of her head in a CRACK den and singing an astonishing RACIST chant.
Our bombshell revelations— based on sickening video footage and over 100 shocking still photos—will stun fans and threaten to torpedo troubled Amy’s rock career.
The damning scenes were filmed by her husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who is in prison facing trial for GBH and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
We were handed the explosive material by a former friend determined to show the world just what power Blake wields in manipulating the vulnerable young star.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity, Drugs, Fun with Alcohol, Idiot Celebrities | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
What we don’t know won’t hurt?
Beware of the Brown Note.
That’s the word among some political activists as the Democratic National Convention nears.
As legend has it, the Brown Note is an infrasonic frequency believed to resonate through human body parts and cause a loss of bowel control. Some protesters are convinced that Denver police will amplify such low frequencies to subdue them in August.
“They’ll bring out all the technologies they can get their hands on,” says activist Ben Yager. “I wouldn’t put anything past police in terms of crowd control.”
Sounds paranoid?
Maybe. But Mayor John Hickenlooper’s administration is only fueling conspiracy theories by refusing to disclose what equipment it’s buying with $18 million in federal money. Even after being sued last week, the city insists on keeping its list a secret.
Posted in Technological Travesties, Yuck! | Comments Off
Monday, June 9th, 2008
Nectar of the Broke: The World’s 5 Worst Ways To Get Drunk
Getting drunk on a tight budget is practically a rite of passage. Just about all of us have some tale to tell about nights spent getting shitfaced on Olde English 800 or some equally putrid swill.
But party all the time as we might, it’s doubtful any of us have stories that involve being so broke, we had to resort to throwing down any of this. If we had, we’d likely not have lived to talk about it.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does, Fun with Alcohol | Comments Off
Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Man stabs shoppers in Tokyo street, killing seven
A man who said he was tired of life went on a stabbing rampage on Sunday in a crowded Tokyo shopping street, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others.
The man drove a rental truck into a crowd of pedestrians at lunchtime and then walked down the street knifing passers-by in Akihabara district, known for its discount electronics and maid cafes.
“I came to Akihabara to kill people,” Kyodo news agency quoted the attacker as telling police. “I am tired of the world. Anyone was OK. I came alone.”
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality | Comments Off
Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Man jumps from plane with no parachute
A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet with a camera but no parachute Saturday. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said.
Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing on the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said.
Posted in Oops, Suicidal Tendencies, Yuck! | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Iraq Is No Longer Most Violent Nation In The World
With things quieting down in Iraq (U.S. casualties hit an all-time low in May, 2008), South Africa has regained its position as the most violent country on the planet, with a murder rate of 65 per 100,000 population. The death rate is also high in some other African countries (like Sudan, Somalia and Congo), but those placed don’t keep records as effectively as South Africa. The Iraqi rate is now running at about 48 per 100,000.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Shed ignites as bees doused
Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Mullen meant to kill the bees infesting his utility shed Wednesday, but he ended up causing a small explosion, burning the shed to cinders and causing about $80,000 in damage to his Midtown home, according to fire officials.
“There were no injuries, unless you count the bees,” said Mobile Fire-Rescue spokesman Steve Huffman.
Mullen said that, in an attempt to rid his utility shed of bees, he dumped about a drinking-glass-size amount of gasoline on some towels the bees were swarming around. He walked away to pick up some trash in the yard and heard a “whoosh.”
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Concentrated Stupidity, Fire | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Coach’s secret porn collection comes as surprise
Dick Dickinson seemed like your typical youth football coach.
On and off for three decades, he taught teams of Orland Park Pioneers how to block, tackle and pass. And the Orland Park man was always there to cheer on his varsity players.
Dickinson became such a fixture in the youth league that the Pioneers decided to honor his dedication by holding an annual golf outing in his name.
Little did anyone know that the father of three now-grown children, who lived in the 14700 block of South Park Lane, had a secret penchant for young boys and violent child pornography.
“We were completely sidetracked,” Pioneer board member Dan McMillan said of learning the news last year that Dickinson was arrested for possession of child pornography. Federal agents revealed the varsity coach’s secret after closing in on him at his home – which is located just across the street from Doogan Park – in a child pornography sting.
Posted in Sexual Deviants, Sinners in the hands of an angry God | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Black Group Offended by Delivery of T-Shirt
The president of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation is disturbed by an offensive t-shirt the group received in the mail Wednesday, the day after Barack Obama claimed his party’s presidential nomination. The shirt has a cartoon image of Curious George, the beloved children’s character, with a paper bag over his head holding a sign that says “A Truth We Can Believe in ‘08!!!” written underneath.
CBCF President Elsie Scott says she believes the timing of the package was no coincidence. “We received it as a reaction to Obama winning the nomination,” she tells the Sleuth.
The t-shirt was made by a company called Spring River Tees, which also on its Web site sells “Obama in ‘08″ t-shirts that depict Curious George. The “truth-we-can-believe-in” t-shirt that the CBCF received is also sold on the web site, titled “Hussein,” which is Obama’s middle name.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Citys Top Crane Inspector Is Arrested
The city’s chief crane inspector was arrested Friday and charged with taking bribes to allow cranes under his review to pass inspection and for taking money from a crane company that sought to ensure that its employees would pass the required licensing exam, the authorities said.
The man, James Delayo, the acting chief inspector for the Cranes and Derricks Unit at the city Department of Buildings, was in charge of overseeing the issuance of city licenses for crane operators.
He is also facing charges that he provided a copy of the crane operator’s exam and the test answers to a crane company in exchange for $3,000, said an official involved in the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the charges had not yet been formally filed.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Greed is Good | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Japanese School Caves to ‘Monster’ Parents, Gives All Kids Lead in School Play
The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.
For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan’s emerging new class of “Monster Parents.”
For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role.
Posted in Bad Parents, Concentrated Stupidity | Comments Off
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
German war dead no one wants to remember
It has been a long, troubled journey for the brittle bones and skull of Obergefreiter Horst F, from the dusty frontline ditch where he was killed in 1945, via a Czech lavatory fittings factory to a military warehouse. Soon, though, he and more than 4,000 German soldiers will be laid to rest: Europe’s forgotten warriors, the corpses that no one wants to bury.
If the the luck of the German lance corporal holds, he will have not only a priest but also a civil servant at his graveside; and if the German War Graves Commission can trace the family in time, there may even be a distant relative. But one thing is for sure: it will not be the funeral of a war hero. More likely, the president of the war graves commission, Reinhard Fuehrer, will say similar words to those he used a few years back when he buried a thousand German Wehrmacht corpses in Krasnodar, southern Russia: “We are here today to represent the German people that has learnt its lesson from history and is now looking to the future.”
Posted in Nazis, War | Comments Off
Friday, June 6th, 2008
Fire officials say hoarded gasoline led to fire
Authorities say a couple trying to beat the high cost of gasoline accidentally caused a fire that burned their apartment complex.
Fire Chief Richard Arruda says the couple had about 45 gallons of gasoline in nine plastic jugs stacked in a closet that also housed an air conditioning unit.
The gasoline fumes apparently set off Thursday’s fire, which was quickly put out by a sprinkler system.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity, Fire | Comments Off
Friday, June 6th, 2008
Circus elephants break free after tornadoes
More strong thunderstorms were forecast across the nation’s heartland Friday, continuing a week of severe weather that included twister-spawning storms that caused a pair of circus elephants to break out of their enclosure and roam a Kansas town.
Forecasters said the greatest threat for severe weather Friday was in Illinois, as a low pressure system continued its trek across the Great Plains.
…
One of the animals entered a backyard less than a mile from the fairgrounds in WaKeeney and was blocked off by fire trucks until trainers could coax it onto a truck, Trego County Sheriff Richard Schneider said.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Restless Earth, Uncategorized | Comments Off
Friday, June 6th, 2008
Black Japanese watermelon sold at record price
A jumbo black watermelon auctioned in Japan on Friday fetched a record $6,100, making it one of the most expensive watermelons ever sold in the country.
In a society where melons are a luxury item commonly given as gifts, the watermelon’s hefty price tag followed another jaw-dropping auction last month, when a pair of “Yubari” cantaloupe melons sold for a record $23,500.
The 17-pound, black-skinned “Densuke” watermelon, a variety grown only on the northern island of Hokkaido, was purchased Friday by a marine products dealer who said he wanted to support local agriculture, according to Kyodo News agency.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | Comments Off
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Alcohol ‘cuts risk of arthritis’
A regular tipple cuts the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis by up to half, Swedish research suggests.
The Karolinska Institute assessed 2,750 people in two studies, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases reports.
The risk was up to 50% lower for those who drank the equivalent of five glasses of wine a week compared with those who drank the least, they found.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol | Comments Off
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
Statue of Jesus Stolen Off Cross in Detroit
Thieves seeking copper to sell as scrap may have stolen an 8-foot statue of Jesus Christ off a crucifix in Detroit. Problem is, it’s made of plaster.
The Rev. Barry Randolph said Wednesday that the statue at the Church of the Messiah is a green color and looks like copper, one of several metals coveted by thieves because of soaring scrap prices.
Thieves have damaged copper pipes and stolen aluminum gutters at the church over the past few months as the congregation has dwindled from about 350 members to just 50, congregation member Donya Ray-Gregg said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Concentrated Stupidity, Idiot Criminals, Sinners in the hands of an angry God | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Nuclear Explosion Occurs Near Epicenter of the Sichuan Earthquake
Boxun News, a Chinese-language Web site based outside China, reported that an unnamed expert has claimed that there was a nuclear explosion near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake, based on witness reports and the discovery of concrete rubble believed to have come from an underground military installation. The news of this nuclear explosion has raised questions about the cause of the earthquake.
Mr. He, a local resident, stated that when the earthquake occurred on May 12, people saw something erupt from the top of a mountain next to the valley, “It looked like toothpaste being squeezed out,” said He. “No, it wasn’t [magma]. It was these concrete pieces. The eruption lasted about three minutes.”
According to a China News Services (CNS) report on May 31, 2008, paramedics from People’s Liberation Army (PLA) hospitals and psychologists from Beijing onsite May 23 found concrete debris at the bottom of a valley near the epicenter. The half-mile-wide valley was covered with debris 10 – 20 inches thick, covering the valley floor for almost 1.5 miles.
Posted in Cloak and Dagger, Most Mysterious, Oops | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
FBI, sheriff: Lynching report false
A black man who told police he was nearly lynched by a group of white men actually ran into a clothesline after arguing with his wife, said Carter County Sheriff Ken Grace.
Last week, the man whose name was not immediately available, called the sheriff and said a group of men tried to hang him in rural Carter County after he stopped to help an elderly farmer round up straying cattle.
Grace said deputies and FBI agents investigated the case, and the man told officers that he made up the false claim.
“He said they accused him of stealing cattle, wrapped a rope around his neck and dragged him around and beat him,” Grace said. “Later, he admitted that he was arguing with his wife at an apartment complex and went running through the yard and ran into a clothesline and got the burn on his neck. His wife confirmed that.”
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
UFO sightings: UFO explodes over small Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc | Mystery as no planes missing in area
A UFO exploded in mid air – showering a small Vietnamese island with metal-like debris.
The unidentified flying object is NOT believed to be a plane as none have been reported missing in the area.
Investigators are working on the theory the explosion happened five miles above the ground.
A search of Phu Quoc island off southern Vietnam uncovered shards of grey “metal” up to four feet long.
Posted in Aliens | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
Surgeons Remove 16 Steel Washers From Man’s ‘Nether Region’
An Australian man was operated on in Hornsby Hospital in Berowra Sunday where surgeons removed 16 stainless steel washers from “down under,” The Daily Telegraph reports.
Berowra Fire Rescue officers were called to alleviate the man from his awkward predicament at 3 a.m. Berowra is a suburb of northern Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia.
It was not clear how the man’s situation arose.
Posted in Sexual Deviants, Yuck! | Comments Off
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
Disease made Karl Marx boil with anger
Karl Marx suffered from a skin disease that can cause severe psychological effects such as self-loathing and alienation, according to a British dermatologist.
The father of communism’s life and attitudes were shaped by hidradenitis suppurativa, said Sam Shuster in the British Journal of Dermatology. One of its symptoms is alienation – a concept that Marx, a martyr to boils and carbuncles, put into words as he wrote Das Kapital.
The condition was described as early as 1839 by a French physician, Alfred Velpeau. But, Professor Shuster says, ideas crossed the Channel less readily than wine and Marx’s true condition was never diagnosed.
Hidradenitis suppurativa is a disease of the apocrine sweat glands, found in the armpits and the groins. The skin in the affected areas shows a mixture of blackheads, lumps that look like boils, spots and areas that leak pus. Doctors and Marx, who was born in Germany but lived most of his life in London, called them “furuncles, boils and carbuncles”, but Professor Shuster says that they were too persistent and recurrent for that. He searched Marx’s letters and found that he had started complaining of carbuncles in 1864, when he was 46, though it is possible that he had them earlier.
Posted in Commies, Disease, Sinners in the hands of an angry God | Comments Off
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
French plastic surgeon on trial for dozens of ‘mutilations’
A French doctor who told investigators he was one of the world’s best cosmetic surgeons went on trial Monday accused of mutilating and endangering the lives of dozens of men and women.
Michel Maure is facing 97 charges of misleading advertising, aggravated deceit, endangering lives, and involuntary injury between 2000 and 2004 in the trial in the southern port of Marseille set to last two weeks.
The 59-year-old, who has been struck off the medical register, is also accused of not declaring workers in his clinic and of threatening a victim to stop her from making a complaint about him.
Maure denies any wrongdoing and insists he is the “victim of a plot” by competitors who wanted to close down his business.
“People were never hurt,” he told reporters on Monday. “The witnesses are people who refused to pay for their operation, they are simply thieves.”
One of his former patients, who said she was given a botched facelift by Maure in 1999, said he “must be punished.”
Posted in Medical Monstrosities | Comments Off
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
Businessman Drops $10,600 From Plane
An Indonesain businessman sparked a scramble for cash when he dropped $10,600 (100 million rupiah) in banknotes from an aircraft to promote a book he has written.
A 13-year-old girl lost consciousness running after the notes and had to be rushed to a nearby hospital, the Detikcom online news service said.
Posted in Anarchy, Crazy is as Crazy Does, Greed is Good | Comments Off
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
Booze Ban On London Underground Spurs Chaotic Night of Partying
Police arrested 17 people and shut six London Underground stations during a chaotic night of partying to mark the last day of drinking on the Tube.
A booze ban is now in effect on the Tube, London buses, Docklands Light Railway and tram services across the capital.
Passengers are no longer allowed to drink from or carry open containers of alcohol.
The measure was announced earlier this month by new London mayor Boris Johnson.
But a night that started in a celebratory mood soon turned sour as thousands of revelers poured into London’s Tube stations.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol, Idiot Authorities | Comments Off
