Archive for June, 2007
Saturday, June 30th, 2007
Japanese Defense Chief: Atomic Bombing ‘Couldn’t Be Helped’
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma said the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan by the United States during World War II was an inevitable way to end the war, a news report said Saturday.
“I understand that the bombing ended the war, and I think that it couldn’t be helped,” Kyodo News agency quoted Kyuma as saying in a speech at a university in Chiba, just east of Tokyo.
Kyuma’s remarks drew immediate criticism from Japanese atomic bomb survivors.
Posted in Politically Incorrect, War | No Comments »
Saturday, June 30th, 2007
JetBlue passengers endure 25-hour trek from Fort Lauderdale to N.Y.
A 2 ½-hour JetBlue Airways flight bound from Fort Lauderdale to New York on Wednesday turned into a 25-hour odyssey that finally ended Thursday afternoon, as a chain of problems left 150 passengers staggered by the mind-boggling delay.
The cascade of problems occurred just four months after a disastrous five-day period in February when the airline canceled more than 1,000 flights in the New York area. And it again raises questions about how much of the blame should fall on airlines when flights encounter unexpected delays.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Technological Travesties | No Comments »
Friday, June 29th, 2007
Flight Log: The First Private Expedition to the Moon
You don’t have to pack your bags quite yet, but passenger travel to the Moon is on the flight manifest of a space tourist company.
The price per seat will slap your wallet or purse for a swift $100 million – but you’ll have to get in line as the first voyage is already booked.
Space Adventures, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, is in negotiations with the customers who will fly the first private expedition to circumnavigate the Moon.
“I hope to have those contracts signed by the end of the year,” said Eric Anderson, Space Adventures’ president and CEO.
Posted in Modern Narcissism, Space | Comments Off
Friday, June 29th, 2007
Hype Smackdown: iPhone v. Paris Hilton
It’s a battle of pop culture titans as two empires — one high-tech, one high-rise — clash in explosive PR fury. Since these two heavyweight memes have climbed into the competitive media ring of their own volition, we thought we’d size them up for you. As Stephen Colbert would say: “Pick a side — we’re at war!”
iPhone: Simple to use.
Paris Hilton: Simple.
iPhone: Questionable protection against viruses.
Paris Hilton: Has herpes.
As the saying goes, read the whole thing!
Posted in Idiot Celebrities, Technological Travesties | 1 Comment »
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Politician okays marijuana in food
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who opposes legalizing marijuana, doesn’t mind the drug being used in cooking, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
“It’s alright to use it as a food seasoning, but it should not be fully legalized,” Kalla was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post daily.
Kalla was commenting on a recent study by two Indonesian agencies dealing with drug abuse that recommended the government review its policy to outlaw the use of marijuana for recreational purposes, the Post said.
Posted in Drugs, Unintended Consequences | No Comments »
Thursday, June 28th, 2007
Man mistakes straw bale for stricken woman, gives it CPR
A Hilton Head Island man confused bales of pine straw with a dead woman, and tried to resuscitate them early Tuesday morning, according to a sheriff’s report.
The 39-year-old called deputies to the parking lot of Hilton Head Cabanas, 32 South Forest Beach Drive, at 1:49 a.m., saying he had just tried to perform CPR on a dead woman, according to the sheriff’s report.
They arrived to find him talking to a large bale of pine straw.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
Sore Jaw Could Undo Icon’s Hot Dog Reign
In the world of competitive eating, you can’t make it anywhere if you can’t open wide.
But the state of perhaps the most important tool in competitive eating legend Takeru Kobayashi’s toolbox is in question after he posted a blog entry Sunday loosely translated as “Vocational Disease.”
In it, Kobayashi paints a dire picture of his oral health, claiming that he has been diagnosed with a form of temporomandibular joint disorder — pain in the joint that connects the lower jaw to his skull.
Kobayashi writes that he can only open his famous hatch as wide as a fingertip without suffering extreme pain and draws a comparison to a baseball pitcher with torn elbow ligaments.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Human Oddities | No Comments »
Monday, June 25th, 2007
Germany bans Cruise film shoot from military sites
Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defense Ministry said on Monday.
Cruise, also one of the film’s producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognize as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.
The U.S. actor has been cast as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, leader of the unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Nazi dictator in July 1944 with a bomb hidden in a briefcase.
Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers “will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult”.
Posted in Conspiracies, Idiot Celebrities, Scientology | No Comments »
Monday, June 25th, 2007
Solar system and Milky Way doing the splits
Our solar system is travelling in a different direction to the rest of the Milky Way, scientists say.
When they used radio signals from two spacecraft nearing interstellar space to map the route, they had some unexpected results.
The researchers determined that the magnetic field in interstellar space is propelling our solar system along at a 60-90° angle to the rest of the galaxy.
That’s happening because the part of the interstellar magnetic field that comes closest to our system is not parallel to the spiraling arms of the galaxy, as it appears to be elsewhere.
As a result, our solar system has taken on a bullet-shaped appearance as it soars through space, says Dr Merav Opher, an assistant professor from George Mason University in Virginia, who publishes the research in the journal Science.
Posted in Space | No Comments »
Monday, June 25th, 2007
Worms are killing the planet, says top researcher
Worm composting could be doing more harm than good to the environment, a leading researcher claimed today.
Composting Association research director Jim Frederickson said: “Worms produce a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Recent research done by German scientists has found that worms produced a third of nitrous oxide gases when used for composting.”
The ‘wiggly ones’ naturally produce nitrous oxide gases when they are put into the process of composting.
Worms can be used for home grown composting or commercial composting and are typically red worms. They are used to recycle food scraps and other organic material into valuable soil worm compost, otherwise known as vermicompost. This compost can then be used to grow plants.
“We have concentrated on getting waste out of landfill and into worm composting systems but they can actually produce more greenhouse gases than landfill sites produce,” Frederickson said.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, End of the World Update | No Comments »
Monday, June 25th, 2007
Odds Given on iPhone Failure
When the long-awaited iPhone hits store shelves this week, no doubt many Apple enthusiasts will adopt early as they’ve done in the past with other products from the company. But just how crazy it gets is anyone’s bet.
In fact, BetUS.com figures the odds are 20-1 that someone will get trampled while scrambling to snag one June 29. The site has also put odds on how long the batteries will last and whether the devices will be recalled.
The idea for creating these odds and a host of others surrounding the iPhone was spurred by past electronic firsts that have been greeted with enthusiasm but also a slew of unrealized defects and bugs.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Saturday, June 23rd, 2007
Qatar’s cannibals fingered by victim
FOUR Asians who murdered another Asian and then ate his body were caught when one of their victim’s finger was found in the stomach of one during treatment for acute food poisoning, the daily Al-Sharq newspaper said today.
The Qatari newspaper said the four men had to seek emergency hospital treatment after eating part of the corpse, various bits of which, including a finger, showed up on hospital X-rays.
Posted in Cannibal Update | No Comments »
Friday, June 22nd, 2007
‘Mile-wide UFO’ spotted by British airline pilot
One of the largest UFOs ever seen has been observed by the crew and passengers of an airliner over the Channel Islands.
An official air-miss report on the incident several weeks ago appears in Pilot magazine.
Aurigny Airlines captain Ray Bowyer, 50, flying close to Alderney first spotted the object, described as “a cigar-shaped brilliant white light”.
Posted in Aliens | No Comments »
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
Squirrels torch man’s home — twice
If you think Alan Turcott has bad luck, just think of the squirrels in his neighborhood.
For the second time in eight days, Turcott’s Blue Island home caught fire when squirrels knocked high-voltage wires loose from a utility pole and onto his three-story house, fire officials said.
“This is unbelievable,” Blue Island Fire Chief Robert Copp said. “I’ve seen where squirrels have shorted things out or blown a fuse, but nothing like this before.”
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
N.Z. Couple Can’t Name Their Son ‘4real’
New Zealand authorities have blocked a couple’s bid to officially name their new son “4real,” saying numerals are not allowed.
Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby “4real” shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.
“For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and … there’s no direct link between the meaning and the name,” Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. “With this name, everyone knows what it means.”
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Bad Parents, Kara's Classics | No Comments »
Thursday, June 21st, 2007
Austin crowd kills passenger of car that hit child
A crowd of Juneteenth partyers outside an East Austin housing project turned violent with several beating a man to death after the car he was riding in apparently struck a small child.
A veteran police official said Wednesday that he never had seen such a “spontaneous” eruption of mob violence.
Witnesses reported that several males attacked David Rivas Morales, 40, who was riding home from a painting job with a co-worker his family knew only as “Victor.”
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Thieves Steal Herman Munster’s Identity
Did Internet thieves steal Herman Munster’s MasterCard number?
Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from “The Munsters” TV sitcom.
The thieves apparently didn’t realize Munster was a fictional TV character and dutifully offered to sell Munster’s personal details — accurately listing his home address from the television series as 1313 Mocking Bird Lane — and what appeared to be his MasterCard number. Munster’s birth date was listed as Aug. 15, 1964, suspiciously close to the TV series’ original air date in September 1964.
Posted in Idiot Criminals | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Sewage flows down aisles of trans-Atlantic flight
Passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for hours as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic.
“To be blatantly honest, I was more nervous than I had ever been on a flight,” said Collin Brock. The University Place man was on board Continental Airlines flight 1970 from Amsterdam to Newark, New Jersey last week when things went bad.
“I’ve never felt so offended in all my life. I felt like i had been physically abused and neglected. I was forced to sit next to human excrement for seven hours,” said Brock.
That’s after lavatories — in the middle of a flight filled with passengers — started spewing sewage.
“Sickening. It’s a nauseating smell. It’s very uncomfortable,” said Brock.
It was last Wednesday afternoon when his flight left Amsterdam, but roughly two hours into it, the passengers were told the lavatories were out of commission. An unplanned landing in Shannon, Ireland was made to fix the problem.
Posted in Yuck! | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Naked couple die from S.C. rooftop fall
Police on Wednesday were investigating how a naked couple fell 50 feet from the roof of a downtown office building to their deaths.
The bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver around 5 a.m. Wednesday.
Clothing was discovered on the roof, leading authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.
Hat tip to Parky!
Posted in Doh!, Sex | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
Stab victim ‘continued masturbating’
A Brisbane woman stabbed a male friend twice in the shower after he refused to stop masturbating in front of her children.
Defence lawyers for Kylie Louise Wilson, 28, said the mother of two “lost it” when her friend of six years, Daniel Peter Blair, went on a masturbation marathon on April 6 last year.
Brisbane’s District Court this morning heard Mr Blair had showed up at Wilson’s unit at Birkdale unit, in Redland Shire, where he took amphetamines before having a shower.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Kara's Classics, Sex, Sexual Deviants, T.R.O.P. | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Unwanted Result of Ballot Confusion: A Beerless Town
This sleepy Finger Lakes town, which does not lay claim to any actual lakefront, misses much of the tourism that helps support the picturesque region. Agriculture is the main industry here in this dot of a town of 1,800, where drivers have to yield to roosters that wander onto the road.
Without help, the nearest six-pack will soon be 10 miles from Potter.
There are no bars or liquor stores, but the town does have three restaurants and one small grocery, which has long sold beer, lots of beer.
Residents say that nearly two years ago they made a sobering mistake that has bedeviled them ever since. While trying to grant one of the restaurants permission to serve beer and wine with meals, voters unwittingly banned the sale of all alcohol in the town’s 37 square miles.
Hat tip to Joey!
Posted in Doh!, I hate it when that happens, Unintended Consequences | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Weekly Piracy Report
07.06.2007: Off Eritrean waters, Eritrea.
Pirates attacked and fired upon an Egyptian fishing vessel underway and forced the vessel to stop. They hijacked the vessel to Eritrean regional waters and held 23 fishermen and sailors as hostages.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Pirate Update | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Man gets sick benefits for heavy metal addiction
A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits.
Roger Tullgren, 42, from Hässleholm in southern Sweden has just started working part time as a dishwasher at a local restaurant.
Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren’s salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Slack! | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Customs find snakes in garden gnomes
Customs and Quarantine officers have broken a smuggling racket in which snakes and lizards were sent as gifts, concealed in the hollow spaces of pottery figurines and garden gnomes.
Garden gnomes sent to an address in Blacktown were seized on June 10 when a customs officer saw snakes moving in the package, a customs spokesman said.
Two snakes and three lizards were found inside the gnomes at the Australia Post Gateway Facility at Clyde in Sydney’s west.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Treason is as Treason Does | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007
Jet Pack – 2 New Rocket Belts On Sale
To some extent, everyone’s in the market for a jet pack. But since Bell Labs built the first rocket belt (the correct, if less exciting, name) in 1953, potential buyers have been stymied by two problems: Rocket belts aren’t for sale, and even prototypes run on modern-day fuel (as opposed to whatever the Jetsons use) — which means rocket belts can weigh upwards of 100 pounds, with only enough fuel to stay aloft for under a minute. Now, a pair of companies have solved one of these problems — rocket belts are for sale.
Mexican start-up Tecnologia Aeroespacial Mexicana (TAM) offers its custom-built TAM Rocket Belt for $250,000, which includes flight and maintenance training. On a full tank of hydrogen peroxide the belt weighs 124 to 139 pounds (the bigger the pilot, the bigger the belt), and provides 30 seconds of flight. TAM’s sole competitor is Jetpack International, a Colorado-based company that sells what it calls “the world’s longest-flying jet pack.” Technically speaking, it’s true — the hydrogen-peroxide-burning Jet Pack H202 can stay in the air for 33 seconds, 3 seconds longer than TAM’s model. The H202 weighs 139 pounds, and is competitively priced at $155,000, flight classes and all.
Posted in Toys! | No Comments »
Monday, June 18th, 2007
Utah boy killed by bear while camping
An 11-year-old boy was dragged screaming from his family’s tent and killed by a black bear during a Father’s Day outing in the Utah wilderness.
The boy, his mother, stepfather and a 6-year-old brother were sleeping in a large tent Sunday night in American Fork Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Salt Lake City, when the stepfather heard the boy scream “something’s dragging me.”
The boy and his sleeping bag were gone. The cut in the nylon tent was so clean, his family, who was not identified, first believed the boy had been abducted, U.S Forest Service officers said.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Monday, June 18th, 2007
Student stages robbery to wipe bad grades
A 16-year-old Berlin student was so worried he would have to repeat a year at school because of poor marks he convinced two friends to storm his class and steal the report cards with his bad grades.
“The student probably honestly believed that he could avoid repeating the school year if he made the report cards disappear,” said a spokesman for local police Monday.
Posted in Teen Antics | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
Milan airport shut by hare plague
Officials have been forced to suspend flights into an airport in the Italian city of Milan due to a plague of hares.
The animals invaded the runways at Milan’s Linate Airport – and affected the operation of vital equipment.
Airport bosses are baffled as to why the hare population at Linate has risen so dramatically in the past few months.
Whatever the cause, the result has been chaos – in the past two weeks alone, two hares have ended up beneath the wheels of charter planes.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’
THE BBC is institutionally biased, an official report will conclude this week. The year-long investigation, commissioned by the BBC, has found the corporation particularly partial in its treatment of single-issue politics such as climate change, poverty, race and religion.
It concludes that the bias has extended across drama, comedy and entertainment, with the corporation pandering to politically motivated celebrities and trendy causes.
Posted in Corrupt Journos, Idiot Activists, Idiot Celebrities, Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
French wine-growers go guerrilla
A shadowy group in France has issued the French government with an unusual ultimatum: raise the price of wine or blood will flow.
The group’s name is the Crav, which stands for nothing more threatening than the Union for Viticultural Action in the Languedoc region in the south.
The Crav’s deadline to the government runs out this weekend, which marks exactly 100 years since wine-makers in the region led their last revolt.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Fun with Alcohol | No Comments »
Sunday, June 17th, 2007
British body backs inter-species clones
Making human-animal embryos for scientific experiments should be allowed because of the benefits to science and medicine, British experts said in a report released for Sunday.
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Such embryos should never, however, be implanted into either a woman or an animal, said the Academy of Medical Sciences.
The combinations would include animal eggs and the nucleus, containing the genetic material, of a human being, or human embryos that carry the genetic material of an animal, the independent advisory body said.
Posted in Mad Scientists | No Comments »
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
Kudos, Too, to My Blankety-Blank Teacher
A music teacher is under investigation by school officials after a student stunned a concert audience with a profane tirade that she said was merely imitating the instructor’s style.
Savannah Larson, 13, gave the first performance in the spring concert attended by about 700 students, teachers, relatives and friends at Monticello Middle School. At the end of singing Rogers & Hart’s “Where or When,” she delivered what first appeared to be a verbal nod to the instructor, Constance S. “Connie” Noakes.
“I forgot to thank my wonderful choir teacher, Ms. Noakes, for all that she’s taught me these past couple of years, like always knowing what to say in any situation, like…,” Larson began, then let fly a stream of expletives and obscenities she said Noakes regularly used in class.
The next day, June 6, the eighth grade honors student was suspended for 10 school days, forcing her to miss her graduation ceremony and party.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Idiot Authorities, Teen Antics | No Comments »
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
Judge Orders Man Not to Have Girlfriend
A judge has ruled that a 24-year-old Canadian man is not allowed to have a girlfriend for the next three years.
The ruling came after Steven Cranley pleaded guilty on Tuesday to several charges stemming from an assault on a former girlfriend.
Cranley, who has been diagnosed with a dependent personality disorder, attacked his girlfriend in an argument after their breakup.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Suicidal Tendencies | No Comments »
Saturday, June 16th, 2007
French Say ‘Non’ to U.S. Disclosure of Secret Satellites
A French space-surveillance radar has detected 20-30 satellites in low Earth orbit that do not figure in the U.S. Defense Department’s published catalogue, a discovery that French officials say they will use to pressure U.S. authorities to stop publishing the whereabouts of French reconnaissance and military communications satellites.
After 16 months of operations of their Graves radar system, which can locate satellites in orbits up to 1,000 kilometers in altitude and even higher in certain cases, the French Defense Ministry says it has gathered just about enough information to negotiate an agreement with the United States.
Posted in Cloak and Dagger, Most Mysterious, Space | No Comments »
Friday, June 15th, 2007
Michael Moore’s ‘Sicko’ Leaked Onto Web
Michael Moore’s new documentary “Sicko” has been pirated and is now widely available for download on peer-to-peer content sites like www.thepiratebay.org.
Last week, the Oscar winning director announced that he’d decided to stash a copy of “Sicko” in Canada, in case the Federal government decided to impound it over an apparently unauthorized trip to Cuba made during its filming. As it turns out, the hard part won’t be getting the film released, but getting audiences to pay to see it now that its available for free.
Posted in Hackers and Hacking, I hate it when that happens, Idiot Celebrities, Pirate Update, Unintended Consequences | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
HPD: Mom gave out cards to sell girls for sex
A 16-year-old girl endured being sold into prostitution by her mother but finally went to Houston police after seeing her younger sister also forced to perform sex acts, investigators said Wednesday.
The teenager had complied with her mother — who even distributed business cards offering her daughters for sex — but feared that her 14-year-old sister would be hurt, officers said.
Nelsi Yolanda Latuda and her boyfriend, Pedro Espinoza-Escama, both of the 5500 block of Antoine, are charged with two counts each of compelling prostitution of a minor. They were ordered held in lieu of bail totaling $20,000 each.
Posted in Bad Parents, Concentrated Criminality, Sex | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3
An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.
The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said Thursday.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Abandon Ship? Computer Failure May Force Crew to Leave Space Station
An unprecedented computer failure in the Russian segment of the International Space Station has engineers at space centers in Houston and Russia racing the clock to solve the problem before the Space Shuttle Atlantis undocks on June 19.
Cmdr. Fyodor Yurchikhin stayed up all night to work with flight controllers in Russia’s Mission Control to repair the problem.
All three computers for command and control, plus three guidance computers, which provided triple redundancy for vital space station functions, have failed; repeated attempts to force the computers to reboot have failed.
UPDATE: Apparently nobody involved (Russians, Germans, Americans) ever heard of surge suppressors!
Posted in Space, Technological Travesties | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Woman jailed for testicle attack
A woman who ripped off her ex-boyfriend’s testicle with her bare hands has been sent to prison.
Amanda Monti, 24, flew into a rage when Geoffrey Jones, 37, rejected her advances at the end of a house party, Liverpool Crown Court heard.
She pulled off his left testicle and tried to swallow it, before spitting it out. A friend handed it back to Mr Jones saying: “That’s yours.”
Monti admitted wounding and was jailed for two-and-a-half years.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Doh!, I hate it when that happens | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
Zimbabwe ‘will collapse in 6 months’
Inflation is likely to bring Zimbabwe’s economy to a standstill within six months with the possible paralysis of President Mugabe’s Government and civil unrest, international aid agencies warned their staff yesterday.
The country’s plight is likely to force Mr Mugabe to introduce emergency rule, said a group representing 34 organisations, including the United Nations, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Oxfam.
The warning came as the country’s consumer watchdog reported that the cost of living for an average urban family had risen by 66 per cent last month. In April inflation stood at a record 3,700 per cent. The internal memorandum from the Heads of Agencies Contact Group is the first evidence that international organisations are taking steps to prepare for a collapse.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Crazed Dictatorships, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Thursday, June 14th, 2007
‘Humongous fungus’ takes toll on fir forest
Question: What does the world’s largest living organism do all day? Answer: Pretty much whatever it wants. But very slowly.
The U.S. Forest Service has adopted an informal live-and-let-live policy for the enormous tree killer it calls the “humongous fungus.”
The huge root-rot infestation underlies 2,200 acres east of Prairie City in a remote corner of eastern Oregon’s Blue Mountains at an elevation of about 6,500 feet near the Strawberry Mountain and Monument Rock wilderness areas.
The Forest Service plans to publish a brochure about the gigantic fungus, Armillaria ostoyae, this summer. “There is no way to eliminate it,” said Malheur National Forest ecologist and tree expert Mike Tatum of John Day.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
Bay Area teen seriously injured faking fall for a MySpace.com photo
A 17-year-old Livermore boy was seriously injured Monday night in Mt. Diablo State Park when he tried to fake a fall for a camera and then actually fell 75 feet onto rocks, a park ranger said Tuesday.
The teenager was on Sentinel Rock, a vertical formation near Rock City popular for its views, when he moved outside the handrail, lost his footing and fell into a crevice and became wedged between rocks, San Ramon Valley Fire District Battalion Chief Mike Brown said.
Friends of the boy, who is hospitalized with multiple traumatic injuries, told rescuers he had been trying to stage a photo of a fake fall for a MySpace Web site when he slipped and fell for real, said Dan Stefanisko, supervising ranger at Mt. Diablo State Park.
Hat tip to Joey!
Posted in Myspace Classics, Teen Antics | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
Rogue ninja captured in Italy
A ninja who had been terrorising farmers in northern Italy has finally been captured by police.
The ninja, dressed entirely in black, would strike at remote farms in the Rovigo region, near Venice in north-east Italy. Moving in the shadows, as silent as nightfall, 32-year-old Russian Igor Vaclavic armed himself with a bow and arrow, and strapped a hunting knife to his leg to carry out his robberies.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality | Comments Off
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007
19th-century weapon found in whale
A 50-ton bowhead whale caught off the Alaskan coast last month had a weapon fragment embedded in its neck that showed it survived a similar hunt — more than a century ago. Embedded deep under its blubber was a 3 1/2-inch arrow-shaped projectile that has given researchers insight into the whale’s age, estimated between 115 and 130 years old.
“No other finding has been this precise,” said John Bockstoce, an adjunct curator of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.
Calculating a whale’s age can be difficult, and is usually gauged by amino acids in the eye lenses. It’s rare to find one that has lived more than a century, but experts say the oldest were close to 200 years old.
Posted in Animal Weirdness, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
Florida Boater Knocked Unconscious by Leaping Sturgeon
A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on Florida’s Suwannee River, officials said.
Tara Spears, 32, was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.
She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Kara's Classics | No Comments »
Monday, June 11th, 2007
D-Day – ‘Beast of Omaha’ weeps as he recalls slaughter of thousands on beach
FOR Hein Severloh the ‘Longest Day’ meant nine hours constantly machine-gunning American soldiers as they attempted to land on Omaha Beach.
One image still brings tears to his eyes. A young American had run from his landing craft and sought cover behind a concrete block. Severloh, then a young lance-corporal in the German army in Normandy, aimed his rifle at the GI. He fired and hit the enemy square in the forehead. The American’s helmet flew away and rolled into the sea, his chin sank to his chest and he collapsed dead on the beach.
Tormented by the memory, Severloh now weeps at the thought of the unknown soldier’s death.
Severloh was safe in an almost impregnable concrete bunker overlooking the beach. He had an unimpeded view of the oncoming Allied forces. He was the last German soldier firing, and may have accounted for about 3,000 American casualties, almost three-quarters of all the US losses at Omaha. The Americans came to know him as the Beast of Omaha.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Nazis, War | No Comments »
Saturday, June 9th, 2007
School defends serving 6th-graders gin
An Ohio charter school that emphasizes African history and culture served gin to sixth graders at a graduation ceremony and state education officials said they plan to investigate.
Four students were given a teaspoon of gin mixed with water in a ceremony modeled on a Ghanian rite of passage event, said Kwa David Whitaker, a Phoenix Village Academy official.
The ritual was intended to teach truthfulness, said Whitaker, who oversaw the Tuesday ceremony.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Fun with Alcohol, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, June 8th, 2007
Paris Hilton Arrives at Jail to Finish Serving Sentence
A screaming, weeping Paris Hilton was back in the slammer Friday after a judge ordered her to go back to prison to serve out the remainder of her 45-day sentence for a probation violation in a reckless driving case.
Leaving the courthouse, Hilton shouted “It’s not right!”
“Mom!” she called out to her mother in the audience.
Posted in Idiot Celebrities | No Comments »
Friday, June 8th, 2007
Patient bleeds dark green blood
A team of Canadian surgeons got a shock when the patient they were operating on began shedding dark greenish-black blood, the Lancet reports.
The man emulated Star Trek’s Mr Spock – the Enterprise’s science officer who supposedly had green Vulcan blood.
Posted in Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Friday, June 8th, 2007
Judge Orders Paris Hilton Back To Court
Hours after Paris Hilton was sent home under house arrest Thursday, the judge who put her in jail ordered her into court to determine whether she should be put back behind bars.
Hilton must report to court at 9 a.m. Friday, Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini told The Associated Press.
“My understanding is she will be brought in in a sheriff’s vehicle from her home,” Parachini said.
Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer issued his order after the city attorney filed a petition late Thursday afternoon questioning if Sheriff Lee Baca should be held in contempt of court for releasing Hilton Thursday morning.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Idiot Celebrities | No Comments »
Friday, June 8th, 2007
Vandals kill 400 minks, two dogs at farm
As he’s done nearly every morning for decades, mink farmer Robert DeMatteis headed to his pens early Wednesday to feed thousands of the sleek animals his family has raised since the 1930s in Butler County.
Moments later, Mr. DeMatteis, 48, was staring in horror at the aftermath of an overnight rampage: smashed and toppled cages, carcasses of trampled minks and the bloody bodies of his children’s two pet dogs.
“It was just total death everywhere, with minks loose or stomped and both dogs dead,” said his wife, Kim DeMatteis, 43, as she wept yesterday at the family’s Oakwood Mink Farm in Marion. The farm is one of nine where minks are raised for sale in Pennsylvania.
“Whoever broke in brutally injured or killed baby minks, nursing mothers, and totally tore the whole ranch apart. Whoever could do something this cruel and vicious to animals [is dangerous].”
Intruders set loose nearly 2,800 minks, resulting in the deaths of at least 443 animals, after slipping in and opening the farm’s pens late Tuesday or early Wednesday. They also nearly severed the heads of the family’s 19-year-old sheepdog, named Sy, and 2-year-old sheepdog-beagle mix, named Sandy, by shooting or bludgeoning them with something sharp. Mrs. DeMatteis said.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Idiot Activists | No Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
Lion, tiger kill man at Mexican meat plant
A lion and a tiger kept as exotic pets on the roof of a Mexican meat processing plant killed a man feeding them on Monday, Mexican media said.
Caretaker Angel Aguilar, 56, was taking pieces of chicken to feed the two big cats when the lion swiped at him through the bars of its cage and pulled him inside, Reforma daily said. The tiger then joined in the attack.
Paramedics arrived at the plant in the rough Mexico City neighbourhood of Iztapalapa while the man was still alive but they could not get past the animals to treat him.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
Semi-truck takes man and wheelchair for a ride down Red Arrow Highway
A 21-year-old man was taken on a wild ride Wednesday afternoon when the wheelchair he was in became attached to the grille of a semi-truck and was taken four miles down a highway at about 50 mph.
The man, whose name police did not release, was not injured. The driver was unaware he was pushing the man, according to a news release from the Michigan State Police.
Authorities began receiving calls about 4 p.m. that the semi was traveling westbound on Red Arrow Highway, just outside of Paw Paw, with the wheelchair.
Posted in Doh! | Comments Off
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
International Space Station holed by meteorite
A mini-meteorite has left a bullet-sized hole in a module of the
International Space Station (ISS), but the three-person US-Russian team of astronauts inside are not in danger, a Russian official said Wednesday.
The puncture, in an outer pumping component on the module, was detected in the Russia “Zaria” module of the station during a spacewalk by the two Russian cosmonauts on board, the spokesman for the Russian space agency, Vladimir Solovyev, said.
It was the first time a meteorite hole had been found on a module of the ISS. Several holes have been observed on the big solar panels that spread out from the orbiter.
Posted in I hate it when that happens, Space | No Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
100-million-year-old amber tomb traps ancient mushroom
A Kentucky nurse has found the oldest known mushroom, entombed in a 100-million-year-old piece of amber from Burma.
A closer examination of the mushroom cap measuring less than a tenth of an inch revealed it had been infected by an ancient parasite, which a second parasite was feeding on.
“I was amazed enough with the mushroom,” said George Poinar, a retired entomology professor in Corvallis, Ore. “But then seeing the parasites was astonishing. No one has ever seen this three-tier association before.”
Posted in Paleontology Update | No Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
It’s criminal what the full moon does to folk, police claim
EXTRA police are to be deployed on Britain’s streets over the next two months after research showed a direct link between the full moon and violence.
Analysts at Sussex police in southern England investigating the factors that influence people’s behaviour found a rise in unruly incidents at full moon.
Together with paydays, the full moon was identified as a time when aggressive behaviour rose, particularly among drinkers in pubs and nightclubs.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Weird Science | No Comments »
Thursday, June 7th, 2007
Dutch students develop powdered alcohol
Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors.
The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros (70 pence-1 pound).
Top it up with water and you have a bubbly, lime-coloured and -flavoured drink with just 3 percent alcohol content.
“We are aiming for the youth market. They are really more into it because you can compare it with Bacardi-mixed drinks,” 20-year-old Harm van Elderen told Reuters.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol, Fun with Chemistry | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Man Sues Health Drink Maker Over Erection
A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.
The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.
Woods’ court papers say he woke up the next morning “with an erection that would not subside” and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.
Hat tip to Kara!
Posted in Kara's Classics, Medical Monstrosities, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Weekly Piracy Report
01.06.2007: Evening hrs: Enroute Sharjah to Mombasa.
Pirates in three boats boarded a general cargo ship underway and hijacked it. Coalition forces aircraft noticed the vessel with the three boats in tow heading towards the Somali coast. The ship has been anchored off the coast of Hobyo. Further details are awaited.
Posted in Pirate Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Moose killed, woman hospitalized after crash
A moose chase that began in Stamford yesterday morning came to a tragic end when the animal collided head-on with a car on the Merritt Parkway.
The driver, a 51-year-old New Hampshire woman driving alone, was rushed to Norwalk Hospital shortly after the accident at 3:48 p.m., according to state police on the scene and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, Suicidal Tendencies | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Epileptics force Olympic logo offline as public’s alternative designs pour in
On Monday it was unveiled to a torrent of criticism for being, well, a mess. Yesterday it was being blamed for causing epileptic fits.
Life’s never dull for Olympic logomakers.
Twenty-four hours after its launch, an epilepsy expert claimed that part of the animated footage of the London 2012 Olympic emblem had caused a number of fits, forcing organisers to remove part of the film.
Graham Harding, an epilepsy photosensitivity expert, told BBC London News last night: “We now know of eight cases in which seizures have occurred. What it appears has happened is that the flash rate of the diving sequence contravenes the Ofcom guidelines.” He said that susceptibility was particularly prevalent among people aged between 7 and 19 and that three quarters of those who suffered from photosensitivity would do so for life.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Medical Monstrosities | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Judge now wants just $54M from cleaner
A judge who was seeking $67 million from a dry cleaners that lost his pants has loosened the belt on his lawsuit. Now, he’s asking for only $54 million, according to a May 30 court filing in D.C. Superior Court.
Roy L. Pearson, a District of Columbia administrative law judge, first sued Custom Cleaners over a pair of pants that went missing two years ago. He was seeking about $65 million under the D.C. consumer protection act and almost $2 million in common law claims.
He is now focusing his claims on signs in the shop that have since been removed. The suit alleges that Jin Nam Chung, Soo Chung and Ki Chung committed fraud and misled consumers with signs that claimed “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “Same Day Service.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
One in six adults classed as a ‘problem drinker’
More than eight million people in Britain are considered problem drinkers, according to figures released yesterday by the Department of Health.
The startling statistic – equivalent to one adult in six – comes as the Government makes its latest attempt to challenge booze culture.
People also do not know they are drinking too much.
According to figures from the Office of National Statistics and HM Revenue & Customs, people drink twice as much alcohol as they think they do.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
Animal Services seizes 120 pet rats
An 81-year-old Wilmington woman was found Monday afternoon by Los Angeles Department of Animal Services officers in her home with more than 100 rats and 35 other animals she kept as pets.
Wanda Langstom was taken to a hospital to be treated for animal bites. Her arms were covered with open wounds that were probably caused by her animals, said Annette Ramirez, an animal control officer.
Animal control officers also seized the animals, which included about 120 rats, most in cages but some running loose, 25 rabbits, a dog, six parakeets, a quail and a cockatiel.
“Langstom basically became overwhelmed at how quickly the rats reproduced. She said it just started with two but it got out of hand,” Ramirez said. “Hoarding pets is something we see in Los Angeles frequently so it’s not actually that rare a case.”
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007
Komodo dragon mauls boy to death
A RARE Komodo dragon has mauled a boy to death on an island that is part of the Komodo national park in eastern Indonesia.
Mansur, nine, was having a toilet stop in a bush area on Komodo island on Saturday when he was attacked by a Komodo dragon, Manggarai barat district police chief Buce Hello said.
“The Komodo attacked him, bit him and tossed him around, and only released him after villagers came and threw stones at it,” Mr Hello said.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
Hustler offers $1.2m for Congress smut
HUSTLER magazine in the United States is looking for some scandalous sex in Washington again – and is willing to pay for it.
“Have you had a sexual encounter with a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official?” read a full-page advertisement taken out by Larry Flynt’s pornographic magazine in Sunday’s Washington Post.
It offered $US1 million ($1.21 million) for documented evidence of illicit intimate relations with a congressman, senator or other prominent officeholder. A toll-free number and email address were provided.
The last time Flynt made such an offer was in October 1998 during the drive to impeach president Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Posted in Modern Narcissism, Sex, Sexual Deviants, Sinners in the hands of an angry God | No Comments »
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
German man spits, falls off balcony
A 43-year-old German man was taken to hospital in critical condition after he fell off a second story balcony during a spitting contest with his 12-year-old son, police said on Friday.
A spokesman for the police in the eastern town of Cottbus said the man in Forst had apparently lost his balance after thrusting too far forward in his attempt to outspit his son.
Posted in Darwin Award, Idiot Parents | No Comments »
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
Democracy stuns Polish coma man
A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.
Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival.
“It was Gertruda that saved me, and I’ll never forget it,” Grzebski told news channel TVN24.
“For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband’s position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections,” Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as saying.
“When I went into a coma there was only tea and vinegar in the shops, meat was rationed and huge petrol lines were everywhere,” Grzebski told TVN24, describing his recollections of the communist system’s economic collapse.
Posted in Doh!, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
Violence as 30,000 join G-8 demos
Masked demonstrators hurled stones and flagpoles at police during a demonstration Saturday by tens of thousands of people against the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Germany, creating chaotic scenes near the harbor of the northern port of Rostock.
Officers in helmets and full body armor at one point had to back off before a hail of stones, while other officers chased down fleeing protesters.
Police marched in a line through a harborside street to scatter demonstrators, and were pelted with stones from behind. One of the organizers pleaded for calm from a loudspeaker.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Anarchy, Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007
Founder of anti-gang group arrested
The founder of an anti-gang organization known as No Guns, once funded by the city of Los Angeles, was arrested Thursday and charged with selling firearms to federal undercover officers.
Hector “Big Weasel” Marroquin, 51, was arrested at his home in the 8000 block of 6th Street in Downey, said Susan Raichel, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
He was charged with the sale of an assault rifle, a machine gun, two pistols and two silencers, Raichel said.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Dream home of India’s richest man
Details have emerged of a huge new building in Mumbai that is being built by India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani.
His skyscraper home in the city will be over 170m tall and will have an army of 600 staff to manage it.
Its 27 floors on a 4,532 sq metre plot will provide a panoramic view of the entire city of Mumbai (Bombay) once it is completed next year.
Posted in Modern Narcissism | No Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Deer makes inroads in Canada politics
Seemingly interested in Canadian politics, a deer wandered through an open door of the New Brunswick legislature on Thursday but then smashed through a window to escape some beastly debates, said staff.
Under the gaze of a stunned security guard, the fawn roamed through the building in the eastern Canadian province, traipsing into the lobby, in and out of elevators and the press gallery — all captured on security footage.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Amazing Science: Apes ‘Talk’ to Humans
The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos — a close relative of the chimpanzee — and three orangutans. But if you think Iowa might be a strange place for them to live, don’t say it out loud … these apes understand English.
Really. No kidding.
You can talk to the apes, and they know what you are saying.
The residents of the Great Ape Trust are part of groundbreaking language research where the apes are being taught to communicate with humans by pressing 350 lexigrams — symbols that appear on a screen and represent thoughts and objects.
Posted in Animal Weirdness | No Comments »
Friday, June 1st, 2007
Cocaine, Cannibis Found in Rome’s Air
Researchers may have figured out what makes la vita so dolce in Rome. A report from Italy’s National Research Council released Thursday found that there are traces of cocaine and cannabis in the air of the Eternal City.
The institute made the discovery during a study of toxic substances in the air of Rome, Taranto, in the heel of boot-shaped Italy, as well as in Algiers. The results found that in Rome, there were traces of cocaine and cannabis — as well as nicotine, caffeine and benzopirene, which is commonly released in cigarette smoke and auto emissions.
“The highest concentrations of cocaine were found in the center of Rome and especially in the area of the University of La Sapienza,” said Dr. Angelo Cecinato, who led the investigation.
Posted in Drugs | No Comments »
