Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Brooksville plane forced down near Everglades by military
A man who allegedly took a plane from a Brooksville airport was forced down by a military aircraft Wednesday afternoon.
According to Wendell Stephens, a supervisor at American Aviation in the Hernando County Airport, the owner and pilot of the plane was a French citizen who was licensed to fly the plane.
A Federal Aviation Administration-certified instructor who flew with the man recommended that he not fly the plane because he could not communicate in English with anyone on the ground or in the air.
This was explained to the pilot through an interpreter, and the pilot became indignant and took off in the plane anyway, Stephens said.
…
Salac said she wasn’t sure who called authorities at the North American Aerospace Defense Command — the military agency that handles airspace threats — but jets responded quickly to pursue the small plane. Two F-15s forced the plane down at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Collier County.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Neo-Nazi bomb plot linked to Auschwitz sign theft
It sounds like the plot of a Steig Larsson thriller: a band of eastern European criminals is contracted to steal an iconic piece of Nazi memorabilia, which is then sold to a mysterious collector to finance a neofascist bomb attack on the Swedish parliament.
But today it emerged that Swedish investigators are helping Polish detectives investigate the theft of the sign from Auschwitz, amid reports that the robbery was linked to a rightwing terror plot.
The wrought iron plaque reading Arbeit Macht Frei (work sets you free) which spanned the entrance at the former Nazi death camp was wrenched from the gate on 18 December, and recovered three days later, cut into three pieces, in a forest in northern Poland.
The robbery prompted Poland to declare a state of emergency, and provoked impassioned calls for the sign’s return from concentration camp survivors and the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
The five men being held in police custody in Krakow in connection with the theft have been described by Polish prosecutors as common criminals who had apparently acted for financial gain.
But according to the Danish daily Aftonbladet, the men were contracted by a neo-Nazi group which planned to sell it on to a third party, a foreign rightwing extremist or collector of Nazi memorabilia, with the aim of using the funds to finance a string of attacks in Stockholm.
Posted in Nazis | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
TSA subpoenas bloggers, demands names of sources
As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.
TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them.
The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.
Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer.
Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn’t cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.
“It literally showed up in my box,” Frischling told The Associated Press.
“I do not know who it came from.” He said he provided the agents a signed statement to that effect.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
Secret mobile phone code cracked:
Computer hackers this week said they had cracked and published the secret code that protects 80 per cent of the world’s mobile phones. The move will leave more than 3bn people vulnerable to having their calls intercepted, and could force mobile phone operators into a costly upgrade of their networks.
Karsten Nohl, a German encryption expert, said he had organised the hack to demonstrate the weaknesses of the security measures protecting the global system for mobile communication (GSM) and to push mobile operators to improve their systems.
“This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate,” Mr Nohl told an audience of about 600 people at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, a four-day conference of computer hackers.
“We have given up hope that network operators will move to improve security on their own, but we are hoping that with this added attention, there will be increased demand from customers for them to do this,” he told the Financial Times.
Posted in Hackers and Hacking | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Mystery surrounds new Obama order on classification
President Barack Obama has apparently issued a long-awaited executive order on classification that fulfills one of his campaign promises by setting up a National Declassification Center to oversee the release of historical documents.
But the announcement, ironically, is shrouded in secrecy and confusion.
“While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information that would compromise the national security, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment,” National Security Council official William Leary wrote in a blog post announcing the order.
Oddly, that blog post was dated and time stamped at 4:44 p.m. Monday but does not appear to have shown up on the White House website until a little before noon Tuesday.
Adding to the mystery, the link to the executive order was dead at that time. Then, shortly after this reporter inquired about that dead link, the entire blog post disappeared.
The order reportedly sets deadlines for declassification of information exempted from automatic 25-year declassification requirements and eliminates a veto the intelligence community held over declassification orders from an interagency panel that hears appeals of such cases.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Most Mysterious | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Photo Catches N.Y. Prison Guard Sleeping on Job in Front of Inmate
A city correction officer took a cell phone photo of his co-worker sleeping on duty, leading to disciplinary action against both of them.
The photo shows guard Nadja Green, in uniform, leaning back in a chair with her arms folded on her chest, eyes closed and mouth open. An inmate is standing next to her, making a “peace” sign.
The photo, published in the New York Post on Tuesday, came to the attention of Department of Correction officials last week, said Deputy Commissioner Stephen Morello. Once it was authenticated, Green was transferred from her post at the Rikers Island infirmary and removed from supervising inmates.
The department also did the same to Claudel Barrau, the officer who took the photo. Phone numbers for Green and Barrau could not be found. Green has been in the department for 4 1/2 years; Barrau for 18 years.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Poland Probes Swedish Link in Auschwitz Sign Theft
Poland will formally seek Sweden’s help in investigating the theft of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the Auschwitz memorial, confirming that Polish authorities suspect a Swedish link in the crime.
Boguslawa Marcinkowska, a spokeswoman for Krakow prosecutors, says her office will send a formal request for help Wednesday to the Swedish Justice Ministry in Stockholm.
Polish media have been reporting that the theft was commissioned by a collector living in Sweden, but investigators have not confirmed that.
Posted in Nazis | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
22 and counting: Mystery fires rattle Houston:
A four-foot pile of ash and charred debris is all that remains of the Rodriguez family’s two-story garage, which had been stuffed with tools, machinery, couches and appliances when a mysterious fire ripped through it earlier this month.
It was the 22nd arson that has taken place since August in a historic Houston neighborhood called the Heights, known more for its comforting small-town feel in the midst of big city sprawl than for being the center of criminal activity.
Most of the fires have taken place in the middle of the night and nearly always in abandoned structures, though flames have leapt to some adjacent occupied homes, frightening residents like the Rodriguez family.
“I just don’t know when they are going to catch this guy,” a dejected Jesus Rodriguez said as he stood over his truck’s pickup bed, dirtied by ash and scorched pieces of wood after it had been used to haul away the debris.
Authorities charged a suspect last month for starting one of the blazes. But he has not been charged with any of the other arsons and the fires continued even after his arrest.
Residents of the Heights, which sits on one of Houston’s rare hills overlooking nearby downtown, have taken some comfort no one has been hurt. But they worry their property could be next.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Fire | No Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Chinese hackers linked to ‘Warmergate’ climate change leaked emails controversy:
The investigation into the so-called Warmergate emails – the leaked data from the University of East Anglia’s climate change department – took a new twist last night when The Mail on Sunday tracked the stolen messages to a suspect computer which provides internet access to China.
The address used to post the emails is also on an international ‘black list’ which highlights suspicious behaviour on the internet. The revelation comes after the Russian security service, the FSB – the former KGB – authorised the release of confidential information that allowed us to retrace the route taken by the email traffic.
A computer company in Siberia was ultimately used to post the controversial messages – which cast doubt on the reliability of scientists’ global warming claims – on the internet. The revelation led to claims that the Russians were behind the release of the information.
But, anxious to distance themselves from the leak, the FSB revealed how the data had been sent to Siberia from a computer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The evidence passed to The Mail on Sunday now raises questions about whether Chinese hackers, backed by the communist regime, are the source of the emails.
Posted in Crazed Dictatorships, Greed is Good, Hackers and Hacking | No Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
India Governor, 86, Resigns After 3-Woman Sex Tape
The 86-year-old governor of a southern Indian state resigned, a day after a television news channel broadcast a tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women.
Pressure mounted on Gov. Narain Dutt Tiwari to quit after the tape allegedly showing him in bed with three women was broadcast Friday, prompting the opposition and women’s right groups to hold street protests in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh’s state capital, demanding his resignation.
Tiwari’s office denied the allegation, denouncing the tape as fabricated. Tiwari, a veteran governing Congress party leader at the national level, sent his resignation letter to the Indian president on Saturday, citing health reasons, a state official said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
”The news channel report is fabricated, false and malicious to tarnish the image of the governor,” said a statement issued by Aryendra Sharma, an aide to the governor.
Posted in Politico Follies, Sex | No Comments »
Friday, December 25th, 2009
Nuclear Lab Accidentally Blows Up Building
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico accidentally blew up a building on December 16 with a Civil War-style cannon. According to an occurrence report, which was first reported by the Project on Government Oversight, the lab’s Shock and Detonation Physics team was testing a large-bore powder gun when they heard a “loud unusual noise.”
About 20 minutes later, the researchers ventured out of their bunker to see what had happened. Upon further investigation of the facility’s Technical Area 15, the team discovered that Building 562 had been blown apart.
Two doors were “propelled off the structure” and concrete shielding blocks were blasted off the walls. Parts of the cannon were also found lying on the asphalt nearby. The Facility Operations Director declared a “management concern” regarding the explosion.
No-one was hurt, but sources told POGO that damages could cost $3 million. The lab reported that it has conducted a “critique” of the incident.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Woman Knocks Down Pope At Christmas Eve Mass, Says Vatican
A woman has been arrested after jumping over barriers and knocking down the Pope at Christmas Eve Mass.
Pope Benedict Pope Benedict XVI was attacked as he walked down the main aisle to begin service at St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican.
Vatican spokesman Ciro Benedettini said the 82-year-old quickly got to his feet and was unhurt.
Mr Benedettini said the woman appeared to be mentally unstable and was being questioned by Vatican police.
He said she also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, who was taken to hospital for a check-up.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
McDuffie man hit wrong house with firebomb, authorities say:
Authorities say Robert Holt, 25, wanted to get back at his old girlfriend by throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window of her home.
But he got the wrong house. He is being held today without bond, charged with throwing the firebomb through the window of a Dell Drive house on Sunday night.
Mr. Holt was taken into custody shortly after the incident by officers with the Thomson Police Department.
He has been arrested on a number of charges in recent months, authorities say, and is now facing charges of arson in the first-degree, four counts of aggravated assault and possession of an explosive device, according to police records.
Each charge is a felony.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Concentrated Stupidity, Fire, Idiot Criminals | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off:
A Pakistani court has ordered that two men have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them.
The two brothers were found guilty of kidnapping 20-year-old Fazeelat Bibi, one of their cousins, in September.
The judge in Lahore also sentenced them to life in prison. Sentence was passed on Monday under a rarely invoked Islamic law dating from the 1980s.
In the past similar sentences have been revoked on appeal.
Government prosecutor Ehtisham Qadir said the punishment had been awarded in accordance with the Islamic principle of “an eye for an eye”.
Sher Mohammad and Amanat abducted Fazeelat Bibi as she returned home from work at a brick kiln in the Raiwind area of Lahore, the court heard.
“They put a noose around her neck, and then cut off her ears and nose,” Mr Qadir told the BBC.
Posted in Crazed Dictatorships, T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Poland police question men over stolen Auschwitz sign:
The “Arbeit macht frei” sign stolen from Auschwitz in southern Poland has been found in the north and five men are being questioned by police.
The five suspects, aged in their 20s and 30s, were not members of a neo-Nazi group, Krakow police said. The metal sign from the main gate, which symbolises for many the atrocities of Nazi Germany, had been cut into three pieces, they added.
A major search was launched after the sign was stolen before dawn on Friday. Andrzej Rokita, the local police chief in Krakow – where the men were being questioned – said the theft had been financially motivated, and it remained unclear whether it was carried out to order.
“From the information we have, none of the five belong to a neo-Nazi group nor hold such ideas,” Andrzej Rokita said of the suspects.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Nazis | No Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Israeli army admits stealing organs:
ISRAEL has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without their families’ permission.
The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Jehuda Hiss.
The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians to harvest their organs.
Israel hotly denied the charge. Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 TV over the weekend.
In it, Hiss said: “We started to harvest corneas … Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family.”
The Channel 2 report said in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.
In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed the practice took place. “This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer,” the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.
Posted in Mad Scientists, War | No Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Man dressed in animal skin shot dead during hunt
A Greek man dressed in animal hide was mistakenly shot dead while out hunting wild boar for a Christmas dinner.
Police said members of a shooting party made up of families opened fire when Christos Constantinou, 49, moved through the undergrowth.
They are thought to have been confused by the fact the victim was disguised in dark goat skins, which are used to camouflage and to mislead their prey.
The groups had fanned out in pairs of two to track down an animal for the traditional festive dinner when the accident happened.
Posted in Darwin Award | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Man in wheelchair stabs other man in wheelchair to death after dispute at East Village facility:
An argument between two men in wheelchairs ended in deadly violence early Saturday when one stabbed the other after being gashed on the head, police and witnesses said.
A resident of Barrier-Free Living, an assisted-living facility in the East Village, said the killer managed to corner the victim because he was using a motorized wheelchair. The battle started in the early morning hours when a 24-year-old resident smashed a 51-year-old with the footrest of his wheelchair, said resident Norbert Toledo.
“There was an argument over nothing,” said Toledo, who is the victim’s roommate. The older man was enraged and some time later zoomed over to his victim – who was using a manually operated wheelchair – and repeatedly stabbed him with a homemade knife.
“[He] sped up to him and began stabbing him over and over again,” Toledo, who said he watched the murder with guards on a security monitor. “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing.”
The victim was taken to Beth Israel Hospital, where he died. Cops recovered the knife at the scene and arrested the 51-year-old man. Charges were pending.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Muslim police chef defeated in ‘bacon roll’ tribunal faces £75,000 legal bill | Mail Online:
A Muslim chef who lost a claim of religious discrimination against Scotland Yard after complaining he was forced to cook sausages and bacon faces a legal bill of more than £75,000.
Hasanali Khoja accused the Metropolitan Police of failing to consider his Islamic beliefs when he was asked to handle pork products as a catering manager at a police station.
The £23,000-a-year chef claimed suggestions by his bosses that he should wear gloves and use tongs left him ’stressed and humiliated’.
Muslims are banned from eating pork under Islamic law. But Mr Khoja, 62, lost his claim in May after a police employee told an employment tribunal how she saw Mr Khoja eat bacon rolls and sausages.
The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) has now won a ruling ordering Mr Khoja to pay its costs, which total at least £76,200. In its costs claim, the Met said Mr Khoja ‘knew that he had asked for a bacon roll two or three times for personal consumption before bringing his claim and throughout the conduct of his claim’.
‘The fact that he had knowingly come into contact with pork products before bringing the claim shows that the claim had no reasonable prospect of success from the outset.’ Judge Michael Southam agreed and ruled Mr Khoja should pay costs, though these would be determined at a later date at a county court.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Concentrated Criminality, T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
NFL to Ask Players to Donate Brains for Study:
The NFL is partnering with Boston University brain researchers who have been critical of the league’s stance on concussions, The Associated Press has learned.
The league is going to encourage current and former NFL players to agree to donate their brains to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the league also is committed to giving $1 million or more to the center.
Aiello said the league has held discussions with the NFL Alumni Association about suggesting retired players look into participating in BU’s work.
Posted in And then they came for... | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Geologist stands trial for triggering earthquakes in Switzerland
A geologist has gone on trial in Switzerland for allegedly causing earthquakes while drilling for hot rocks to produce clean energy.
Markus Haering, who designed the geothermal project, rejected allegations that he deliberately damaged properties and said local people knew the risks. The deep drilling underground caused a series of earthquakes in 2006, including one of 3.4 magnitude, rattling residents of the north-western city of Basel.
Geopower Basel, the project leader, has already paid around 9 million Swiss francs (£5.3 million) in compensation for cracked walls and other damage on properties near the experiment.
The project was suspended at the time and shut down last week after a risk analysis concluded that more quakes could follow if the drilling continued.
The experiment aimed to be the world’s first to generate power commercially by boiling water on naturally occurring rocks 3 miles underground.
The Swiss efforts are being closely watched in the United States, where the energy department is sponsoring more than 120 geothermal energy projects in several states.
A leading US company, AltaRock Energy, in September stopped drilling at one key development site north of San Francisco, citing drilling difficulties, but said quake fears were not a factor.
“We had very little knowledge of seismicity” before starting to drill, Mr Haering testified. He called the resulting quakes “a learning process for everyone involved”.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Mad Scientists, Oops | No Comments »
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Impeachment appears imminent for federal judge:
It’s not the lifestyle of a typical federal judge: Five or six vodka cocktails during lunch; gambling with borrowed money; bankruptcy under a phony name; cash, trips or home repairs from lawyers; and a bail bondsman with business before his court.
Witnesses in the congressional impeachment case against U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. paint a jarring portrait of the former Louisiana state judge appointed to the federal bench in 1994 by President Clinton.
As Congress wrapped up several weeks of evidence-gathering hearings this week, legal experts who testified before a House task force suggested Judge Porteous is a clear candidate to become just the eighth federal judge in U.S. history to be impeached and convicted by Congress.
Lawmakers appear poised to take their advice and bring charges early next year, setting up a historic trial in the Senate.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Snow traps three Eurostar trains in Channel Tunnel
Three Eurostar trains travelling from Paris to London were stuck in the undersea Channel Tunnel linking France and Britain early on Saturday because of snowy weather, a Eurostar spokesman said.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 passengers were on the trains but were safe and efforts were being made to get them to London, he said. A fourth train travelling to London returned to Paris before reaching the tunnel.
“It’s a technical failure and the trains are stuck at the moment,” the spokesman told BBC television. A rescue locomotive and a shuttle train were being used to move passengers out of the tunnel.
The temperature difference between inside the tunnel and outside had caused “technical problems,” the spokesman said.
“It is snowing in northern France, its very cold, conditions are very bad. Everyone is suffering from the bad weather, the airports are suffering, people on the roads are suffering, and so are our Eurostar trains,” he said.
Posted in I hate it when that happens, Oops, Technological Travesties | No Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
UFO pyramid reported over Kremlin
A giant pyramid which appears to be a UFO hovering over the Kremlin has caused frenzied speculation in Russia that it is an alien spacecraft.
The shots, one taken at night from a car and one during the day, were both filmed by amateurs.
The ‘craft’ was said to have hovered for hours over Red Square in the Russian capital.
The clips of the ‘invasion’ have gone to the top of the country’s version of YouTube. The identity of the shape has not been confirmed.
Russian reports ruled out a UFO but police refused to comment. Nick Pope, a former Ministry of Defence UFO analyst, said it was “one of the most extraordinary UFO clips I’ve ever seen”.
Posted in Aliens | No Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Drunk Santa scares kids while looking for his reindeer:
A drunken Santa Claus prompts a mom to call 911 after he stumbles into her yard apparently looking for his reindeer and scaring her kids.
Officers ticketed 55-year-old Thomas Arnold of Sparta for having an open beer in a car. The man driving that car, 47-year-old Kevin Arnold, was arrested for OWI. But, the kids say they knew right away this Santa was a hoax.
“He smelled like alcohol. So I knew it wasn’t the real Santa because Santa doesn’t drink alcohol,” says 9-year-old Katie Dockerty.
Katie says the Santa that ended up in her lawn was loud and had really dirty hands. She says he tried to put his hat on her little sister.
Six-year-old Zoe describes him in one word: “Drunk.”
Posted in Fun with Alcohol | No Comments »
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Police: Auschwitz ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ sign stolen
Polish police say the infamous iron sign over the gate to the Auschwitz memorial site with the cynical phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” — German for “Work Sets You Free” — has been stolen.
Police spokeswoman Katarzyna Padlo said police believe it was stolen between 3:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday, when museum guards noticed that it was missing and alerted police.
Padlo says the iron sign, which spanned a gate at the main entrance to the former Nazi death camp in southern Poland, was removed by being unscrewed on one side and pulled off on the other.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Nazis | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Deputies: Cache of 60 stolen gnomes found
A string of lawn gnome disappearances in Washington state was solved when winds blew down a fence around the yard where they were being kept, authorities said.
Lisa Soneda of Mount Vernon said her daughter told her this month that the fence separating her back yard from that of her next-door neighbor had blown down to reveal an unusual sight, Seattle’s KOMO-TV reported Thursday.
“I looked over the fence and I think the first thing I said was: ‘Holy crap!’” she said. “Lots and lots of gnomes,” Soneda said of the spectacle.
“I counted like 46.” Skagit County sheriff’s deputies said the total was closer to 60, and many of the gnomes, as well as other garden accessories, were found to have been taken from the yards of neighbors.
Deputies said about a dozen gnomes have been returned to their rightful owners thus far and the woman living next door to Soneda could face misdemeanor theft charges.
Posted in Cryptozoology | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems.
Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America’s enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington’s growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Posted in Hackers and Hacking, War | No Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
BBC slammed for debating Ugandan bill to kill gays
Politicians are criticizing the BBC for inviting debate on whether homosexuals should face execution in Uganda.
The broadcaster launched an on-line debate over a proposed Ugandan law that would punish some homosexual acts by life imprisonment or death.
BBC’s “Africa Have Your Say” Web site asked for people’s views on whether Uganda has gone too far and whether there should be any laws against gays.
But several British politicians said Wednesday that the BBC should not treat the execution of gays as a legitimate topic for discussion.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Taekwondo monkeys attack trainer:
A troop of performing monkeys instructed in the martial art of taekwondo has taken revenge on their trainer.
Lo Wung, 42, taught the monkeys so they could entertain crowds outside a shopping centre in Nshi, in eastern China’s Hubei province. But the money-spinning primates turned the tables on their trainer when he slipped during a show, with one quick-thinking monkey flooring him with a kick to the head.
Hu Luang, 32, a bystander who photographed the incident, said: “I saw one punch him in the eye – he grabbed another by the ear and it responded by grabbing his nose. They were leaping and jumping all over the place. It was better than a Bruce Lee film.”
At one point the monkey trainer grabbed a staff to hit the monkeys, only to find himself facing a stick-brandishing monkey that cracked him over the head.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Signs of Life Detected on the Moon?
A website based in India has reported researchers with the Chandrayaan-1 mission may have found “signs of life in some form or the other on the Moon.” DNAIndia.com quoted Surendra Pal, associate director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre as saying that Chandrayaan-1 picked up signatures of organic matter on parts of the Moon’s surface. “The findings are being analyzed and scrutinized for validation by ISRO scientists and peer reviewers,” Pal said.
At a press conference Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union fall conference, scientists from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also hinted at possible organics locked away in the lunar regolith. When asked directly about the Chandrayaan-1 claim of finding life on the Moon, NASA’s chief lunar scientist, Mike Wargo, certainly did not dismiss the idea but said, “It is an intriguing suggestion, and we are certainly very interested in learning more of their results.”
Chandrayaan-1’s Moon Impact Probe, or MIP impacted the within the Shackleton Crater on the Moon’s south pole on Nov. 14, 2008. An anonymous Chandrayaan-1 scientist said MIP’s mass spectrometer detected chemical signatures of organic matter in the soil kicked up by the impact.
“Certain atomic numbers were observed that indicated the presence of carbon components. This indicates the possibility of the presence of organic matter (on the Moon),” a senior scientist told DNAIndia.
Posted in Mad Scientists, Most Mysterious, Space | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Tourists enjoy White House breakfast:
It wasn’t a state dinner, and they didn’t crash it on purpose. Still, a Georgia couple who showed up at the White House a day early for a tour somehow wound up at an invitation-only breakfast with President Barack Obama and the first lady.
It left the White House once again explaining how people who were not on an event guest list wound up being ushered into the presidential mansion anyway.
The improbable adventure of Harvey and Paula Darden, Obama supporters from Hogansville, Ga., took place on Veterans Day, two weeks before Virginia socialites Tareq and Michaele Salahi infamously crashed the Obamas’ state dinner for the prime minister of India.
The Dardens mistakenly showed up a day early for a tour scheduled through their congressman. The White House and Secret Service both said the Dardens went through the appropriate security screenings and were allowed into the breakfast as a courtesy because there were no public tours the day they arrived.
That explanation was news to Harvey Darden, 67, a retired pharmacist, who said he and his wife never were told about the breakfast. They thought they were simply starting their tour until they were ushered into the East Room, offered a buffet spread and told they’d be meeting the president.
“The further we got into the White House, the more surprised we were,” Darden told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“My wife looked at me and I looked at her, and I said, ‘You know, I don’t know if we’re in the right place.’”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
For Accenture, breaking up with Tiger Woods is hard to do
Dropping Tiger Woods is not as easy as taking down a few billboards or canceling a media campaign.
For Accenture, the corporate consultancy that on Sunday announced it would discontinue its six-year relationship with the celebrity golfer, Woods is so tightly intertwined in every component of its brand – appearing even on company stationery – that it must now essentially start from scratch to redefine itself to the public and its clients.
The enormity of the marketing challenge facing Accenture is leading some in the marketing industry to take a look at the wisdom of resting an entire corporate identity on a single individual.
“No matter how blue chip a stock is, it can always go bad on you,” says Jeremy Mullman, sport marketing reporter for Advertising Age.
Posted in Oops | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
The perfect way to slice a pizza – physics-math
LUNCH with a colleague from work should be a time to unwind – the most taxing task being to decide what to eat, drink and choose for dessert. For Rick Mabry and Paul Deiermann it has never been that simple. They can’t think about sharing a pizza, for example, without falling headlong into the mathematics of how to slice it up.
“We went to lunch together at least once a week,” says Mabry, recalling the early 1990s when they were both at Louisiana State University, Shreveport. “One of us would bring a notebook, and we’d draw pictures while our food was getting cold.”
The problem that bothered them was this. Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-centre, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-centre cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighbouring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza – and if not, who will get more?
Of course you could estimate the area of each slice, tot them all up and work out each person’s total from that. But these guys are mathematicians, and so that wouldn’t quite do. They wanted to be able to distil the problem down to a few general, provable rules that avoid exact calculations, and that work every time for any circular pizza.
As with many mathematical conundrums, the answer has arrived in stages – each looking at different possible cases of the problem. The easiest example to consider is when at least one cut passes plumb through the centre of the pizza. A quick sketch shows that the pieces then pair up on either side of the cut through the centre, and so can be divided evenly between the two diners, no matter how many cuts there are.
So far so good, but what if none of the cuts passes through the centre? For a pizza cut once, the answer is obvious by inspection: whoever eats the centre eats more. The case of a pizza cut twice, yielding four slices, shows the same result: the person who eats the slice that contains the centre gets the bigger portion. That turns out to be an anomaly to the three general rules that deal with greater numbers of cuts, which would emerge over subsequent years to form the complete pizza theorem.
Posted in Weird Science | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Cattle mutilations baffle Colorado ranchers
Manuel A. Sanchez has ruled out every logical explanation for the fate that has befallen the calves on his ranch in southern Colorado.
Over the past month, he’s found four calves dead in a way that he cannot reconcile with anything in his 50 years of raising cattle: eyes and ears missing, tongues and genitals excised in what appeared to be a series of fine cuts.
Mountain lions, bears or coyotes would leave messier marks, he said. And Sanchez found no tire tracks or footprints that would suggest a human invader — nor even bloodstains he’d expect to find around the carcasses if someone had butchered them.
“There’s nothing to go by,” said Sanchez, who estimated his financial loss at $10,000. “I can’t figure it out.”
Costilla County Sheriff’s Sgt. James Chavez agreed: “There’s nothing to follow up on.”
Besides Sanchez’s calves in San Luis, several cases have been reported near Trinidad.
It’s not the first time. In the 1970s, ranchers in eastern and southern Colorado filed more than 200 mutilation reports, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports.
The agency investigated, even conducting an undercover operation, but to no avail.
“It was such a bewilderment,” recalled Tillie Bishop, a state senator at the time. Some people suspected satanic cults. Others grew convinced of an otherworldly explanation — space aliens.
Posted in Aliens | No Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
New York Is Energy-Efficient but Mayor Is Not
The average New Yorker uses one-half to one-third the electricity of other Americans. Our carbon footprints are just 29 percent of people who live outside the five boroughs, and City Hall has practical plans to reduce even that amount by nearly a third over the next two decades.
No wonder that this month, in a talk at the New York Academy of Science, Rohit Aggarwalat, the mayor’s chief adviser on sustainability, said the city was “the most environmentally efficient society in the United States.”
So it makes perfect sense that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is going to Copenhagen on Monday and Tuesday to address the international conference on climate change: his administration is working to head off problems that will not emerge until long after he is gone.
A strong case can be made that when it comes to energy and climate issues, Mr. Bloomberg is the most visionary public official in the country. And a strong argument can also be made that on a personal level, he ranks among the worst individual polluters ever to hold public office. Mr. Bloomberg owns a helicopter and two jets, both Falcon 900s. He flies everywhere on private jets, by far the least efficient form of transportation on or above the earth. He takes his jet to Bermuda many weekends. He has flown around the globe on it. He uses it to go to Washington. He is planning to get to Copenhagen for the climate conference by private jet, too.
The carbon math works out like this: by taking his Falcon 900 to Denmark, Mr. Bloomberg will be responsible for the release of 37 times the carbon dioxide than if he and his entourage flew on a scheduled commercial flight. The calculations were done at my request by Dimitri Simos, the developer of software used by the airline industry to assess aircraft emission and performance.
Mr. Simos said that a Falcon 900 carrying eight people from Newark to Copenhagen would produce 21.6 tons of carbon dioxide. By adding eight people to the scheduled Scandinavian Airlines flight, the aircraft, usually an Airbus A330-300, would produce an additional 0.58 tons of carbon dioxide. Mr. Bloomberg’s routine trips to Bermuda are even more carbon costly: the private jet produces 130 times more emissions than going commercial. On those jaunts, Mr. Simos said, the Falcon produces 4.3 tons of carbon dioxide; putting another two people on an American Airlines Boeing 757-200 that flies to Bermuda would produce only 66 more pounds.
Posted in Gore Effect Update, Greed is Good, Idiot Activists | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Accenture ends sponsorship of Tiger
Global consulting firm Accenture Ltd. is ending its sponsorship of Tiger Woods, saying the golfer is “no longer the right representative” after the “circumstances of the last two weeks.”
Accenture’s announcement Sunday marks the company’s first statement since allegations of Woods’ multiple infidelities surfaced in recent weeks. The move makes Accenture the first sponsor to cut ties altogether with Woods since his marital troubles came to light and since his statement Friday that the 33-year-old is taking an indefinite leave from golf to work on his marriage.
The relationship between Woods and Accenture goes back six years, with the New York-based firm in 2006 crediting its “Go on, be a Tiger” campaign with boosted its image significantly. Accenture has used Woods to personify its claimed attributes of integrity and high performance.
“After careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising,” the company said Sunday, adding that “it wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.” Accenture said it will immediately transition to a new advertising campaign, with a major effort scheduled to launch later in 2010.
Posted in Greed is Good, Idiot Celebrities | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Prince Philip mocked blind hero Stephen Menary
PRINCE Philip mocked a hero Army cadet blinded by a terrorist explosion by poking fun at his dress sense.
The Queen asked brave Stephen Menary how much sight he had left, but before he could answer, the gaffe-prone Duke of Edinburgh joked: “Not a lot, judging by the tie he is wearing”.
Prince Philip’s tasteless joke was met with an embarrassed silence all-round and Her Majesty gave her husband a disapproving glare.
Hero Stephen was just 14 when he picked up a torch bomb that was hurled into a Territorial Army barracks in White City, west London, by the Real IRA in 2001.
He was almost blinded and his left hand was blown off. His mum Carol, 48, said: “Prince Philip is completely out of touch with reality, he is from another world.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Colombian farmer castrates himself:
It is a man’s worst nightmare but for Colombian farmer Luis Alfonso Sanchez it seemed the logical thing to do.
The 40-year-old decided to castrate himself to avoid cheating on his wife who refused to have sex with him. Mr Sanchez had performed the act on many of his animals in the past and believed the procedure would be as easy for him saying: “I’ve castrated pigs, cats, dogs and three days later they are healed.
“I thought that’s what it was going to be like with me. I had practice with animals, so I went ahead, put some pressure on it, and cut them to remove them by force!”
“When I saw that I could no longer count on her (his wife), so that I would’t keep bothering her, I made the decision to cut my testicles off because I am a Christian and did not want to go look for another (partner).”
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Times Sq. gunman held weapon like rapper:
A Times Square bloodbath was narrowly avoided because the machine-pistol-toting thug who fired at a cop flipped the gun on its side like a character out of a rap video, causing the weapon to jam after two shots, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.
When scam artist Raymond “Ready” Martinez held the MAC-10-style gun parallel to the ground, it caused the ejecting shells to “stovepipe,” or get caught vertically in the chamber, the sources said. The gun is designed to be fired only in a vertical position.
If he had fired the weapon — which had another 27 rounds in the clip — properly, Martinez, 25, could have killed the hero cop pursuing him and countless others walking through the swarming tourist mecca Thursday morning.
Instead, Sgt. Christopher Newsom was able to return fire — killing Martinez with four shots before anyone was hurt. The fatal gun battle erupted after Martinez bolted from cops who approached him for aggressively peddling his own rap CDs to tourists and shaking them down for cash. Newsom gave chase and shouted for Martinez to put up his hands.
Martinez instead pulled the machine gun from a sling under his coat and turned to fire as he ran into the parking breezeway within the Marriott Marquis Hotel. One of the shots shattered a gift-shop window and a second struck the car of an out-of-town couple coming to see the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality, Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Iranian scientist who vanished ‘gave nuclear secrets’ to UN inspectors sent to Qom site
An Iranian scientist who vanished six months ago has revealed secrets of his country’s nuclear programme with international weapons inspectors, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
Shahram Amiri briefed United Nations nuclear monitors in a clandestine meeting at Frankfurt airport just hours before they flew to Iran to inspect a hidden uranium enrichment plant, according to French intelligence sources.
An award-winning atomic physicist, Mr Amiri had worked at the heavily-guarded underground site at Qom. He was attached to a Tehran university named by the EU last year as part of the regime’s nuclear-proliferation operations.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was told of the existence of the Qom facility by the US and its European allies in September. But the meeting with Mr Amiri in October would have provided inspectors with key insider knowledge before they made the sensitive trip.
The scientist is the focus of an extraordinary international row stretching from the Gulf to Washington after Iran last week accused Saudi Arabia and the US of “terrorist behaviour” for allegedly colluding in his abduction.
The nuclear scientist, who is in his 30s, disappeared after arriving in in Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage in late May, leaving behind his wife and extended family. The Saudi authorities say they do not know where he is.
But contrary to Iranian claims, Mr Amiri actually defected after an elaborate international cloak-and-dagger co-ordinated by the CIA, according to a well-connected French intelligence analysis website.
Posted in Treason is as Treason Does | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Prince William to share Queen’s duties: Treasury document reveals secret plan to make him the ‘Shadow King’
The Queen is to hand oSver a substantial part of her public duties to Prince William to help him prepare for the day when he becomes King, according to a confidential document obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
ecret papers reveal that plans to ease the strain on the 83-year-old monarch and her 88-year-old husband, Prince Philip, are at an advanced stage.
The disclosures come despite months of denials from the Palace that the Queen was planning to step back from her official work in favour of her 27-year-old grandson.
The information is contained in a briefing note written by Chancellor Alistair Darling’s Treasury officials about new financial arrangements for Prince Charles and his sons.
Key paragraphs, disclosing the reason for the changes, are blacked out. But this newspaper has obtained an uncensored version of the document which confirms that the Queen is grooming William as a ‘Shadow King’.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Military Mutiny in Iran:
Leading commentators and diplomats have been pondering for quite some time why the Iranian leader is not prepared to act against the revolution in a major way.
The “China model” could be applied, a brutal, fast, and extremely violent strike against the opposition. According to conventional wisdom, tyrants will use all means to eliminate their opponents.
So why haven’t the mullahs adopted Chinese methods?
…
What did these soldiers write?
The last section of this brief but powerful statement will surely immortalize these brave officers: “The army is a haven for the nation and will never want to suppress the people at the request of politicians. We shall remain true to our promise not to intervene in politics. But we cannot remain silent when our fellow citizens are oppressed by tyranny.”
They go on: “Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.”
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Crazed Dictatorships | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Violence breaks out at climate protests:
Some 300 youths shrouded in black have thrown bricks and smashed windows as at least 30,000 people demonstrated in central Copenhagen to turn up the heat on world leaders debating global warming.
The rioters, whose faces were also covered, went on the rampage in the heart of the city, prompting swift arrests as some 50 policemen in riot gear intervened.
Demonstrators were forced to the ground and then bundled into vans. The rest of the march – the centrepiece of protests planned in 130 cities across the world – remained peaceful although tension was building as protesters condemned the violence.
The heart of the Danish capital was taken over by environmentalists and anti-capitalist demonstrators on a six-kilometre march that would take them to the venue of the ongoing UN conference.
Posted in Anarchy | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Giant pet rabbit that thinks he’s a dog after copying behaviour of family’s cocker spaniel
A pet rabbit has had an identity crisis after spending too much time with the family cocker spaniel and now believes he is a dog.
The Giant Poobah rabbit – also named Poobah – has gone barking mad and spends hours cuddled up with spaniel puppy Scout in his dog basket. He has also started rejecting his green food and will only eat treats bought for Scout – including his wet dog food.
The confused rabbit has copied Scout’s behaviour to such an extent that he even gets up on his hind legs and begs for snacks.
But Poobah has asserted himself as top-dog in the house and is piling on the weight from all the dog biscuits he is eating.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Women to row Atlantic naked
Two British women attempting a world record by rowing across the Atlantic say they hope to shave a few days off the trip by completing the feat naked.
Mel King, 37 and Annie Januszewski, 40, of Bristol, England, said they are hoping to row 3,000 miles from Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua in the West Indies in only 70 days, to beat the previous 75-day record for a two-woman team, The Sun reported Wednesday.
The women, who planned to start the voyage Wednesday if the weather is favorable, said they originally planned to row for 15 hours a day in their bras and underwear, but decided to strip down completely to reduce chaffing from friction with clothing.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Grave robbers steal ex-president’s body:
Thieves opened the grave of former Cypriot president Tassos Papadopoulos and stole his corpse during the night, state television has reported, interrupting its normal programming.
The current leader of Mr Papadopoulos’s centre-right DIKO party, Marios Garoyan, has condemned what he called a “heinous and terrible crime”.
Andros Kyprianou, head of the communist AKEL party that leads the Mediterranean island’s government, expressed outrage at the crime, which came the day before a memorial service had to be held to mark the first anniversary of Mr Papadopoulos’s death.
“I don’t know what kind of people would create such a terrible crime and steal a corpse,” he said.
Posted in Yuck! | No Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Mengele stole my kidney: Auschwitz survivor reveals why he avoided doctors for 64 years :
Heart specialists have saved the life of an Israeli man who refused to visit a doctor for 64 years – and learned the terrible secret of his mistrust of the medical profession.
When Yitzchak Ganon, 85, came around from the anaesthetic at the hospital near Tel Aviv he was informed he only had one kidney.
‘I know,’ he replied. ‘The last time I saw the other one it was pulsating in the hand of a man called Josef Mengele. He was a doctor too.’
Mr Ganon revealed to his stunned family why he never visited a doctor since he was freed from the death camp of Auschwitz in January 1945.
None of them knew of his suffering there at the hands of the infamous Mengele.
Posted in Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Sword-wielding man dies after being Tased in Hampton
A sword-wielding man died early this morning hours after being Tased twice by police. Police identified him later Friday as Hatchel Pate Adams III, 36, of the first block of Overlook Court in Hampton.
According to a news release from Hampton Police, officers responded to a complaint involving an emergency custody order in the 1st block of Overlook Court about 11 p.m. Thursday.
Officers tried to make contact with Adams, but he refused to come to the door, police said. They went inside after calling one of the man’s relatives, who came to the scene.
Adams, carrying a Samurai-style sword, swung it at the officers, police said. Officers Tased him. He continued to swing the sword, police said, so officers Tased him a second time and tried to arrest him.
Adams stopped breathing, and officers called medics and performed CPR. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 a.m.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Friday, December 11th, 2009
Tiger, lion and bear form unusual friendship
Baloo the bear, Leo the Lion and Shere Khan the tiger have the most unusual and unlikely friendship between them.
Rescued eight years ago during a police drugs raid in Atlanta, Georgia, the three friends were only cubs at the time and barely two months old. They had been kept as status symbol pets by the drug barons.
Delivered to the Noah’s Ark animal rescue centre in Locust Grove, Georgia, the decision was made to keep the youngsters together.
“We could have separated them, but since they came as a kind of family, the zoo decided to keep them together,” said Diane Smith, assistant director of the Noah’s Ark zoo.
“To our knowledge, this is the only place where you’ll find this combination of animals together, they are our BLT, (bear, lion and tiger).
Posted in Animal Weirdness, End of the World Update | No Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Tiger Attack: Circus Trainer Mauled During Dinner Show:
An animal trainer who had raised tigers by hand was attacked and seriously injured by his own big cats on Tuesday night. The man stumbled during a performance and lost control of the animals. The show director said the tigers just wanted to ‘play.’
A circus show ended in a near tragedy on Tuesday after a group of tigers mauled their own trainer. The animal tamer was attacked and seriously injured by his own tigers during a “dinner circus” show in Hamburg’s Hagenbeck Zoo.
Around 150 guests had just started their four-course meal when the 28-year-old Christian W. stumbled and lost control of five Bengali tigers.
Three of the animals then jumped on their trainer. The big cats bit into his head and upper body, and he lost part of his left hand. Some of the circus team managed to push the animals into a corner using water jets and fire extinguishers, and then got them back in their cage within seconds.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Language teachers Alini Brito, Cindy Mauro caught by janitor having naked romp in HS classroom:
Who’s hot for teacher? Looks like the other teacher.
Two female Romance language instructors were tossed out of their Brooklyn high school after being caught “undressed” in an empty classroom, sources told the Daily News Tuesday.
Students at James Madison High School in Midwood were watching a talent show in the auditorium while Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro were speaking the international language of love, sources said.
A janitor stumbled on French teacher Mauro, 33, and Brito, 29, a married Spanish instructor, and tattled to school officials on Nov. 20.
Both tenured teachers were removed from the classroom and sent to Education Department “rubber rooms” while they’re investigated for misconduct, sources said.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Sex | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Nobel peace prize: Norwegians incensed over Barack Obama’s snubs
Barack Obama’s trip to Oslo to pick up his Nobel peace award is in danger of being overshadowed by a row over the cancellation of a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner.
Norwegians are incensed over what they view as his shabby response to the prize by cutting short his visit.
The White House has cancelled many of the events peace prize laureates traditionally submit to, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel committee, a press conference, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace and a music concert, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honour at the Nobel peace centre.
He has also turned down a lunch invitation from the King of Norway.
According to a poll published by the daily tabloid VG, 44% of Norwegians believe it was rude of Obama to cancel his scheduled lunch with King Harald, with only 34% saying they believe it was acceptable.
“Of all the things he is cancelling, I think the worst is cancelling the lunch with the king,” said Siv Jensen, the leader of the largest party in opposition, the populist Progress party.
“This is a central part of our government system. He should respect the monarchy,” she told VG.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity, Idiot Celebrities | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
How Not to Succeed in Washington
SO far, the journey of Michaele and Tareq Salahi from unknown arrivistes to notorious party crashers has focused on the apparent slipups of the Secret Service and the White House social secretary.
But to fully grasp the ongoing conniption inspired by the episode, you need to understand that when Ms. Salahi strutted onto the South Lawn in that bright red lehenga, she and her husband breached far more than a secure perimeter. They also trampled countless protocols that are the social, business and networking bedrock of official Washington.
Essentially, the couple used the mixed martial arts approach to upward mobility in a town that still cherishes the Marquess of Queensberry rules. And it looks like the town will be spluttering about it for quite some time.
“Washington is a small ‘c’ conservative kind of society, in which people are aware of the traditions and boundaries of appropriate behavior,” said Wayne Berman, a Republican lobbyist.
“It’s a city about rules, about conventions and if there’s no keg at the party, it doesn’t get crashed.” Of course, if the Salahis had slipped past the bouncers at, say, P. Diddy’s birthday bash and then posted the evidence online, the feat would never have been noticed. But a magnetometer is not simply a velvet rope that beeps, and just because Washington has long been called Hollywood for ugly people doesn’t mean that what works in Hollywood — or New York, or anywhere else, for that matter — will work in Washington.
Posted in Greed is Good, Idiot Authorities, Idiot Celebrities, Illuminati, Modern Narcissism | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Boy Gets Tongue Stuck to Frozen Streetlight Pole
A 10-year-old boy in Hammond, Ind. got his tongue stuck to a streetlight pole Wednesday evening during a cold snap he’ll likely never forget.
And yes, his friends dared him, according to a local newspaper report.
The uncomfortable stunt is typically preceded by a triple-dog dare, as in the modern movie “A Christmas Story,” in which Flick tries it as his friend Ralphie watches on with horror.
But many people (presumably including the Hammond boy) aren’t sure it can really happen.
Here’s how it works: The tongue is covered with moisture, so when exposed to temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, that moisture can freeze. The temperature in Hammond was about 10 degrees Wednesday evening.
Of course, the heart constantly pumps warm blood to the tongue, trying to keep it from freezing. But a frigid metal pole has no heart.
“The metal is a much better conductor than your tongue (up to 400 times more powerful),” explains Frank J. DiSalvo, director of the Cornell Center for a Sustainable Future and co-director of the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute. “The metal takes heat faster than your body can replenish it.”
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Christmas story: Boy licks pole, gets stuck
It’s become an annual winter tale: A young boy gets his tongue stuck to a metal pole, perhaps as the result of a dare.
This year, the scene straight out of the movie “A Christmas Story” unfolded Tuesday morning in Boise with a boy of about 10.
Boise firefighters used a glass of warm water to free the unidentified boy from the metal fence pole.
Fire Capt. Bill Tinsley says the boy’s tongue was bleeding a little, but he was OK and allowed to continue walking to school. Firefighters estimate the boy was 10 years old.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Right out of ‘A Christmas Story:’ Girl’s tongue freezes to a pole
Remember that scene in the movie, “A Christmas Story” where the little boy gets his tongue frozen to a metal pole? Well it happened Monday in Spokane Valley.
It was a reminder to every one of what not to do. A 13-year-old girl stuck her tongue on a metal pole at the old Pratt Elementary in ten degree weather and it froze there.
She did it right after her friend stuck her lip on the pole and it came off. When the tongue froze to the pole, her friend called 911 and firefighters had to come out and pour water on it to get it unstuck.
Captain John Lovell from the Spokane Valley fire department told KREM 2 news, “evidently she hadn’t seen Christmas Story and didn’t believe it would happen, even though her friend had done it right before her so hopefully they learned a lesson here.”
Posted in Teen Antics | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Monkey sightings in Novato:
The Marin Humane Society has gotten two reports of simian sightings over the past week, and spokeswoman Carrie Harrington said something may really be out there.
It all began at 8:15 a.m. Tuesday, when a school bus driver reported seeing a monkey darting across the road on Captain Nurse Circle near Bolling Drive, Harrington said.
The school bus driver said he was absolutely sure it was monkey, with a foot-and-a-half-long tail, she said. The Humane Society was inclined to laugh it off as a squirrel, or perhaps a cat or small dog.
But then a woman called about 5 p.m. Tuesday to report that her 11-year-old daughter had seen a monkey in the same area Thursday, Harrington said.
The girl said, “Mom, look, there’s a monkey over there,” but the woman didn’t see it, Harrington said. The girl said the monkey was dark brown and the size of a bottle of soda.
Marin animal control officers have been patrolling the area but haven’t seen the animal, Harrington said.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway
A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave – although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet.
The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate.
Within seconds a giant spiral had covered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out from its centre – lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely.
Posted in Aliens | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Wild Elephant Kills 11 on Two-Week Rampage in Nepal
Wildlife officials are frantically hunting for a wild elephant which they believe is responsible for the deaths of 11 people in Nepal, Sky News reported.
The animal has gone on the rampage across three districts in the south of the country for more than two weeks.
One victim, an 18-year-old male, was killed while attempting to worship the animal as the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh.
According to news site newkerala.com, two women and a seven-year-old girl have also been killed by the male beast.
“We don’t plan to kill the marauding elephant as it is protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species),” said Yadav Dhital, District Forest Officer.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Student killed by exploding chewing gum
The 25-year-old chemistry student, who has not been named by police, was working at his parents’ home in Konotop when relatives heard a “loud pop”.
They rushed to his room and discovered his body. The lower half of his face had been seriously disfigured by the blast.
The Russian news agency Ria Novosti said forensic tests found the chewing gum was covered with an unidentified chemical substance, thought to be some type of explosive.
Posted in Oops | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Porn star Joslyn James brings the number of women linked to Tiger Woods to 11 « Entertainment:
Tiger Woods’ list of possible paramours grew to eleven Tuesday with the addition of a second porn star. The New York Post reports that Veronica Siwik-Daniels, aka Joslyn James, was linked to Tiger in a post on the sports website Deadspin.com.
The most recent women to have been linked to Tiger Woods. Here then is the list to date of the women linked to Woods.
TIGER’S RUMORED WOMEN
1.) Rachel Uchitel. The club hostess was the first of the women to be linked to Woods after the National Enquirer reported that she traveled to Australia to be with Woods during a golf tournament there. So far, she has denied the affair.
2.) Jamie Grubbs. The 24-year-old reality show contestant and cocktail waitress claims she carried on a 31-month-long affair with Woods until his crash last month. She offered a Woods voicemail to prove it.
3.) Kalika Moquin. The 27-year-old club manager from Las Vegas is reported to have had a brief sexual relationship with Woods. She would neither confirm nor deny the report.
4.) Cori Rist. The 31-year-old swimsuit model reportedly met Woods at a Manhattan club last year before they began a sexual relationship that led to Woods flying her out to various secret locations for hook-ups, and her introducing the golfer to her 7-year-old son.
5.) Jamie Jungers. The 26-year-old, who sold her story to a British newspaper, is a former employee of Trashy Girls Lingerie. She said she met Woods in Las Vegas.
6.) Mindy Lawton. The 33-year-old pancake house waitress from Orlando claims she was dumped by
Woods in 2007. According to the Post, it was her affair with Woods that was caught on camera by the National Enquirer, when he was snapped dropping her off at her trailer park. The threatening news later led to a Woods Men’s Fitness cover in exchange for the magazine’s silence about the alleged affair, the New York Post reports.
7.) Holly Sampson. The 36-year-old from Los Angeles is a former porn star, who has starred in such films as “OMG, Stop Tickling Me” and “Flying Solo 2.” According to the Sun, she has neither confirmed nor denied her affair with Woods.
8.) Unidentified Alleged Mistress No. 8. A former cocktail waitress from Orlando, Fla. does want to reveal her identity yet, according to her attorney Michael O’Quinn. But this she has said: at the time the affair allegedly began, she was 20 years old and met Woods at the Roxy in Orlando, where she was a VIP server.
9.) Unidentified Alleged Mistress No. 9 is reported to be a “sexy” British TV presenter who was single at
the time, but is now married.
10.) Unidentified Alleged Mistress No. 10. is reported in a UK paper to be a “sex-addicted cougar.”
11.) Joslyn James. The star of many, many porn videos was named on the sports blog Deadspin.com as a Tiger regular, but did not respond to the site’s call for comment.
Posted in Idiot Celebrities, Sex, Sexual Deviants, Sinners in the hands of an angry God | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Elin hits the road as bimbo tally hits 10:
She’s really teed off now!
Tiger Woods’ beautiful wife, Elin Nordegren, has left their Florida mansion amid the onslaught of shocking claims that the golf great cheated on her with at least 10 other woman, it was revealed yesterday.
Nordegren, who has two kids by the skirt-chasing Woods, is now living at a residence near the Windermere home they once shared, RadarOnline.com reported, citing neighbors and sources close to Woods.
“She’s incredibly hurt by what has gone on, but . . . she’s working it out as best she can,” Elin’s friend and Grand Slam tennis champ Lindsay Davenport told “Entertainment Tonight.”
“Everyone’s wish when you get married is to make it work, and we’ll see if they’re able to do that.” Woods’ lawyer, publicist and agent did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Last week, Nordegren, 29, a Swedish model, bought a $2.29 million house on an island near Stockholm, according to the Daily Express newspaper in London.
Posted in Idiot Celebrities, Sex, Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
Police say Westport man was devoured by his starving dog
Westport police investigating the discovery of a decomposing body at a bush campsite were shocked to find most of the body had been devoured by a dog, a coroner’s inquest in Greymouth has heard.
Regional coroner Richard McElrea said yesterday he would have dealt with the case in the privacy of his chambers but Douglas Arllington, a brother of the dead man, had concerns that warranted a public airing. The remains of Charles Harold Arllington, 53, of Westport, were found on August 22 last year.
A reclusive man, Arllington had been living in a tent amid dense bush bordering a farm on Nine Mile Road, about eight minutes’ drive from the Westport Post Office.
When a farmhand, Joshua McDonald, got sick of Arllington’s dog scavenging near the house he went to the campsite to remonstrate with him – and instead discovered a collapsed tent and the remains of a body.
Detective John Cunneen said little but the torso and head remained of the man, and marks on the body were consistent with a dog having gnawed on it, the Greymouth Star reported.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
White House forgot that they told McChrystal to defeat the Taliban:
To set the scene, this comes from the October 8 war room meeting on Afghanistan, with McChrystal teleconferenced in from Kabul to explain what he’d been doing since receiving his orders in March. Smart power:
In June, McChrystal noted, he had arrived in Afghanistan and set about fulfilling his assignment. His lean face, hovering on the screen at the end of the table, was replaced by a mission statement on a PowerPoint slide: “Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population.”
“Is that really what you think your mission is?” one of the participants asked. In the first place, it was impossible — the Taliban were part of the fabric of the Pashtun belt of southern Afghanistan, culturally if not ideologically supported by a major part of the population. “We don’t need to do that,” Gates said, according to one participant. “That’s an open-ended, forever commitment.”
But that was precisely his mission, McChrystal responded, enshrined in the Strategic Implementation Plan — the execution orders for the March strategy, written by the NSC staff.
“I wouldn’t say there was quite a ‘whoa’ moment,” a senior defense official said of the reaction around the table. “It was just sort of a recognition that, ‘Duh, that’s what in effect the commander understands he’s been told to do.’ Everybody said, ‘He’s right.’”
“It was clear that Stan took a very literal interpretation of the intent” of the NSC document, said Jones, who had signed the orders himself. “I’m not sure that in his position I wouldn’t have done the same thing, as a military commander.” But what he created in his assessment “was obviously something much bigger, and more longer-lasting . . . than we had intended.”
They told him — in his official orders — to come up with a plan to eliminate the enemy and, dummy that he is, he thought that meant he was supposed to come up with a plan to eliminate the enemy. Then they told him he didn’t have to. Six months later.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, War | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Gordon Brown snubbed by soldiers’ ‘curtain’ protest
Gordon Brown was snubbed by badly injured Afghan veterans when they closed curtains round their beds during a hospital visit and refused to speak to him.
More than half the soldiers being treated at the Selly Oak hospital ward in Birmingham either asked for the curtains to be closed or deliberately avoided the prime minister, according to several of those present.
The soldiers, who have sustained some of the worst injuries seen in Afghanistan, described his visit as “opportunistic” and a “waste of time”.
Furious about equipment shortages and poor compensation for their injuries, one soldier said: “It is almost as if we are the product of an unwanted affair … he has done nothing for us.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities, War | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Cori Rist, Jamie Jungers and Mindy Lawson make it six alleged Tiger Woods mistresses:
Three more women say they have played a round with Tiger.
Two more blonds and a brunette were added to Tiger Woods’ sultry scorecard Saturday – bringing the married father of two to six over par on his betrayed supermodel wife.
Sources told the Daily News that Manhattan clubgoer Cori Rist, 31, is yet another blond beauty who has hit the sheets with Tiger.
A Las Vegas cocktail waitress and aspiring model – Jamie Jungers – became the fifth woman linked to the golf pro Saturday.
Jungers, 26, reportedly hired an Orlando lawyer and prepared to dish her story to a British tabloid, RadarOnline.com reports.
Posted in Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Lego my toy gun
If you were wondering what happens to 29-year-old men who still play with Lego, take Jeremy Bell as an example.
The partner at digital marketing company Teehan+Lax was surrounded by heavily armed tactical officers, cuffed and held against the wall of his Richmond St. W. office — until, that is, the cops found the gun he had been holding in front of the window about 90 minutes earlier was a pile of blocks.
The BrickGun Semi-Automatic gun (purchased online from BrickGun, “designers and builders of the world’s most realistic custom Lego weapon models”) arrived at Bell’s office Wednesday.
The lifetime Lego fan finished assembling his toy — complete with build-it-yourself magazine — at 5:40 p.m.
It was in one piece for about 10 minutes before it fell apart, he recalled yesterday.
But the tenant in an apartment about six metres across the way didn’t see that last part. And so the tenant called the cops.
At about 7 p.m., as Bell and some colleagues played a video game, the Emergency Task Force moved in.
“They were screaming in the hallway for me to come out,” Bell said. “When I went out there and I saw there was an officer kind of crouched down in the stairwell, it was clear what was going on.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Oops, Toys! | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Man leaves money to towns that share his name
A man has left around £220,000 in his will to towns across the world that share his surname.
Solicitors acting on behalf of Eric Gordon Douglas from Edinburgh, have sent a cheque for £10,887.73 to Douglas Borough Council on the Isle of Man as part of the bequest. But the council for the island’s capital have appealed for more information on Mr Douglas in order to recognise his donation.
Council leader David Christian said today: ”There was around £220,000 left to 20 places across the globe that shared his surname.
”If we can get more information then that would be excellent. We literally know nothing about the gentleman apart from his name and that we were told by his lawyers that he was from Edinburgh.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Copenhagen prostitutes promise to make city steamy hot… by offering climate conference delegates free sex
Copenhagen’s Lord Mayor has written to all 500 climate change delegates pleading with them to abstain from using services of the city’s ‘unsustainable’ prostitutes.
The city council contacted 160 hotels asking them not to arrange prostitutes for guests attending the conference. Enlarge Copenhagen’s Ritt Bjerregaard said: ‘I think it’s deplorable that you can buy a woman for sex’
Together with the anti-trafficking organisation, The Nest International, and tourism group Wonderful Copenhagen, it issued postcards featuring the slogan, ‘Be sustainable – don’t buy sex’, which been distributed to hotels.
A sex workers interest organisation, SIO, has hit out at claims that sex tourism increases during high-level summits.
Posted in Sex, Sinners in the hands of an angry God, Weird Science | No Comments »
Friday, December 4th, 2009
Vladimir Putin praises Stalin for creating a superpower and winning the war
Joseph Stalin sent millions to their deaths during his reign of terror, and his name was taboo for decades, but the dictator is a step closer to rehabilitation after Vladimir Putin openly praised his achievements.
The Prime Minister and former KGB agent used an appearance on national television to give credit to Stalin for making the Soviet Union an industrial superpower, and for defeating Hitler in the Second World War.
In a verdict that will be obediently absorbed by a state bureaucracy long used to taking its cue from above, Mr Putin declared that it was “impossible to make a judgment in general” about the man who presided over the Gulag slave camps.
His view contrasted sharply with that of President Medvedev, Russia’s nominal leader, who has said that there is no excuse for the terror unleashed by Stalin.
Mr Putin said that he had deliberately included the issue of Stalin’s legacy in a marathon annual question-and-answer programme on live television, because it was being “actively discussed” by Russians.
Posted in Commies, Crazed Dictatorships | No Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Professor Creates Alcohol in a Pill:
A Russian professor has evolved a technique that turns alcohol into powder for packaging in pill form.
Evgeny Moskalev of Saint Petersburg Technological University created the pills, which allow people to consume their favorite drinks just like any other solid food, the Times of India reports .
The new technique can solidify any kind of alcohol. People would be able to measure the amount of alcohol they consume by taking the pills.
“We have developed a technology that allowed us to turn any liquid solution into powder,” Moskalev said.
The technology has been tested on liquor containing as much as 96% alcohol content.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol, Weird Science | No Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
Orangutan takes photos, shares them on Facebook:
She’s like the Ashton Kutcher of the ape world: an orangutan in the Vienna Zoo now has a Facebook fan page to showcase the photos she takes with a digital camera.
The orangutan, named Nonja, uses a Samsung ST 1000 point-and-shoot that automatically uploads the photos.
When this post was published, Nonja had over 9,000 “fans” subscribed to her page.
But there’s a catch: coverage of the camera-toting ape in the U.K.’s Daily Mail explains that the camera has been modified to dispense a raisin whenever the shutter button is pushed.
So Nonja is evidently more interested in tasty treats than in artistic endeavors.
Posted in Animal Weirdness | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
It’s no miracle, I could see but now I am blind
FIVE people who stared at the sun in the hope they might be witnessing religious apparitions are being treated for serious eye damage, a top eye surgeon has revealed.
And a number of people who attended the recent religious gathering at the Catholic shrine are reporting symptoms of damaged retinas, said Dr Eamonn O’Donoghue, of University College Hospital in Galway.
Dr O’Donoghue revealed he is treating five patients for serious eye injuries caused by staring at the sun at recent gatherings at Knock organised by Dublin “spiritual healers” Joe Coleman and Keith Henderson.
And he has warned those planning to attend a similar gathering this Saturday that they risk damaging their eyes if they stare at the sun for any length of time.
Hat tip to Una!
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Artificial meat grown in laboratory:
Meat has been grown in a laboratory for the first time, Dutch researchers say.
Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University, told The Sunday Times that he and colleagues have succeeded in growing what he described as soggy pork in a lab and are now investigating ways of improving it enough to pass potential consumers’ taste tests.
“What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue,” Post told the newspaper. “We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there. This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it.”
Posted in Mad Scientists, Weird Science | No Comments »
