Archive for February, 2010
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Cuomo team quizzes Paterson aide’s ex to launch probe
Investigators for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s Office spent four hours Friday questioning Sherr-una Booker as it kicked off its probe into whether State Police — and possibly Gov. Paterson himself — intervened to quash her domestic-violence case against an administration official.
They asked about the incident last Halloween between Paterson’s top aide, David Johnson, and Booker in the Bronx apartment they shared, according to a person briefed on the investigation.
Booker had previously told cops that Johnson choked her, ripped off her clothes and pushed her into a mirror.
Later on Friday, investigators turned the heat on Maj. Charles Day, head of the governor’s security detail, who reportedly contacted Booker the day after the altercation and the day before she complained of State Police pressure in a Bronx Family Court appearance, the source said.
…
The Post revealed yesterday that the inquiry will also look at Booker’s purchase of a $40,000 Lexus shortly before she dropped her case.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Greed is Good, Politico Follies | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
It’s raining fish in the Northern Territory
WHILE the Top End and Central Australia have been battered by torrential rains, a Territory town has reportedly had fish falling from the sky.
The freak phenomena happened not once, but twice, on Thursday and Friday afternoon about 6pm at Lajamanu, about 550km southwest of Katherine, The Northern Territory News reports.
Christine Balmer, who took the photos of the fish on the ground and in a bucket, said she had to pinch herself when she was told “hundreds and hundreds” of small white fish had fallen from the sky.
“It rained fish in Lajamanu on Thursday and Friday night,” she said, “They fell from the sky everywhere.”
“Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere. “
“These fish were alive when they hit the ground.”
Posted in Most Mysterious | No Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Matt Stone & Trey Parker Are Not Your Political Allies (No Matter What You Believe):
News broke this week that a Blackwater subsidiary was arming violent drug users in Afghanistan. They took hundreds of weapons intended for the Afghan National Police and at least one of them (probably more) signed for the shipments with the name “Eric Cartman.”
When I asked “South Parks”’s creators what they thought of these men co-opting their character they were completely unfazed.
“It makes perfect sense. It’s the name I would use,” Trey Parker said.
“Our first reaction to any story is ‘How do we put this into the show?’ and the second reaction is ‘Did Cartman do that?’ because he’s so real to us it’s like ‘I bet Cartman did that.’”
“I saw that and thought, ‘Wow, Cartman did that? That’s pretty cool. Sounds like something he would do,’” Matt Stone agreed.
Posted in Ars Gratia Artis, Concentrated Criminality | No Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Harrison Ford slammed for ‘unnecessary’ flights:
Environmental activists have blasted Harrison Ford for making “unnecessary” trips by air, following revelations he once made a jet journey to buy a cheeseburger.
The “Indiana Jones” star began flying when he was 52. After receiving his license, he went on to purchase several aircraft, which he keeps at Santa Monica Airport in California.
He recently revealed in an interview the extent of his love for piloting, telling Britain’s Live magazine, “Learning to fly was a work of art. I’m so passionate about flying I often fly up the coast for a cheeseburger.
Flying is like good music; it elevates the spirit and it’s an exhilarating freedom.” But the 67-year-old has come under fire from experts at Carbonfootprint.com over the comments, who are outraged he would make an airplane journey for such an “unnecessary” trip.
Posted in Idiot Celebrities, Modern Narcissism | No Comments »
Saturday, February 27th, 2010
US court rules ‘Zombies have free speech rights’:
A court has allowed a group of protesters dressed as zombies to continue with a lawsuit against police who arrested them for disorderly conduct.
The appeal court overturned a previous finding that the group had correctly been arrested over a 2006 protest in a shopping centre.
The group had been wearing makeup designed to make them look like and extra in a horror flick, with white faces, fake blood and black circles round their eyes.
They then proceeded to stagger round the shops, urging consumers to “get your brains here”.
They also carried audio equipment, which police described as “simulated weapons of mass destruction”, even though they were mobile phones.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Emergency shipment of condoms headed to Olympic athletes
Rowdy curling crowds; spontaneous street parties; public drunkeness.
You don’t have to look far for evidence that the crowds at Winter Games in Vancouver know how to have a good time.
And, as if anymore proof is needed that a wild Olympic atmosphere permeates B.C.’s largest city, now there’s an apparent condom shortage.
That’s right. As you read this, an emergency shipment of condoms is desperately making its way across Canada to the West Coast city.
Health officials in Vancouver have already provided 100,000 free condoms to the roughly 7,000 ahtletes and officials at the Games. That’s about 14 condoms per person.
But as of Wednesday, those supplies started running dangerously low.
Posted in Sex | No Comments »
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Questions of Influence in Abuse Case of Paterson Aide
Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.
In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it.
The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail.
Then, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer.
She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.
Many details of the governor’s role in this episode are unclear, but the accounts presented in court and police records and interviews with the woman’s lawyer and others portray a brutal encounter, a frightened woman and an effort to make a potential political embarrassment go away.
Posted in Concentrated Criminality, Idiot Authorities, Politico Follies | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Blackwater in Kabul, or Eric Cartman Gets an AK-47:
The Senate Armed Services Committee is holding a hearing today on Paravant, a previously little-known subsidiary of Xe Services (aka Blackwater). It caps a six-month investigation by the committee, and it promises to be a doozy.
Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chair of the committee, met with reporters yesterday to give a sneak preview. According to a statement released last night by Levin, the investigation revealed “failures in U.S. government oversight” that allowed employees of Blackwater — sorry, Paravant (Levin said he saw “no meaningful distinction between the two”) — to go buck wild in Afghanistan.
Paravant employees were supposed to be helping train Afghan security forces. But according to the committee investigation, Paravant employees were also indulging in extracurricular activities like joyriding with automatic weapons, and treating an Afghan National Police arsenal like their own personal weapons stash.
The company first garnered headlines after two former Paravant contractors were arrested on murder charges in the shootings of two Afghans in a May 2009 traffic accident in Kabul. They were charged under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act. According to the Senate investigation, Paravant employees were involved in a second, previously undisclosed shooting that happened in December 2008.
Paravant program manager Johnnie Walker told committee staff the incident happened after an employee decided to get on the back of a moving car with a loaded AK-47 and “ride it like a stagecoach.” The employee accidentally discharged the rifle when the vehicle hit a bump. The round struck another Paravant team member, who was seriously injured.
Hat tip to Larvae!
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Anarchy, War | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
1 dead at SeaWorld Orlando Shamu attraction
A SeaWorld employee died this afternoon during an incident at SeaWorld’s Shamu Stadium, an Orange County Sheriff’s Office official confirmed.
SeaWorld, rescue personnel and the Sheriff’s Office are not revealing the identity of the victim, although a local TV station is reporting that it was a female employee who was killed after she was grabbed by one of the theme park’s whales at the start of a public show.
Park guest Victoria Biniak told Local 6 that the trainer was a veteran of SeaWorld and had just finished explaining to the audience what they would see during the performance.At that point, Biniak said, the whale came up from the water and grabbed the woman.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Indonesian ranger freed from jaws of Komodo dragon.
An Indonesian park ranger escaped an attack by a Komodo dragon, the worlds largest lizard species, when his colleagues heard his cries for help and drove the reptile away.
Marcelinus Subanghadir was outside his hut on Komodo Island late Monday when a nearly 7-foot-long more than 2-meter-long dragon grabbed hold of his right foot, Komodo National Park chief Tamen Sitorus said.
The dragon had Subanghadirs foot clamped in its shark-like, serrated teeth until fellow rangers heard his screams and drove it off with wooden clubs, Sitorus said.
ySubanghadir, 34, suffered deep lacerations and was recovering at a hospital on nearby Bali.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Scientology Church hires reporters to investigate newspaper
After decades of digging into the Church of Scientology, reporters and editors at the St. Petersburg Times are accustomed to being denounced by its leaders. But they find it unsettling that three veteran journalists — a Pulitzer Prize winner, a former “60 Minutes” producer, and the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors — are taking the church’s money to examine the paper’s conduct.
While the journalists have promised an independent review, the Times has refused to cooperate, saying their work will be used to fuel the church’s ongoing campaign against the Florida paper. “I ultimately couldn’t take this request very seriously because it’s a study bought and paid for by the Church of Scientology,” says Executive Editor Neil Brown.
“Candidly,” he adds, “I was surprised and disappointed that journalists who I understand to have an extensive background in investigative reporting would think it’s appropriate to ask me or our news organization to talk about that reporting while (a) it’s ongoing, and (b) while they’re being paid to ask these questions by the very subjects of our reporting.”
Posted in Scientology | No Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Royal astronomer: ‘Aliens may be staring us in the face’
Lord Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen, said the existence of extra terrestrial life may be beyond human understanding. He made the remarks shortly after hosting the national science academy’s first conference on the possibility of alien life.
“They could be staring us in the face and we just don’t recognise them. The problem is that we’re looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology,” he said.
“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there as aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”
Posted in Aliens | No Comments »
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Greece loses EU voting power in blow to sovereignty
The European Union has shown its righteous wrath by stripping Greece of its vote at a crucial meeting next month, the worst humiliation ever suffered by an EU member state.
The council of EU finance ministers said Athens must comply with austerity demands by March 16 or lose control over its own tax and spend policies altogether. It if fails to do so, the EU will itself impose cuts under the draconian Article 126.9 of the Lisbon Treaty in what would amount to economic suzerainty.
While the symbolic move to suspend Greece of its voting rights at one meeting makes no practical difference, it marks a constitutional watershed and represents a crushing loss of sovereignty.
“We certainly won’t let them off the hook,” said Austria’s finance minister, Josef Proll, echoing views shared by colleagues in Northern Europe.
Some German officials have called for Greece to be denied a vote in all EU matter until it emerges from “receivership”.
Posted in End of the World Update, Greed is Good | No Comments »
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
New UCSD racial incident sparks rage, confrontation
Minority students at the University of California San Diego declared a racial state of emergency yesterday, presenting administrators with a list of 32 demands — many of which the school accepted on the spot.
Students, already upset by an off-campus party Monday that mocked Black History Month, reacted with tears, outrage and a march across campus after a second racially charged episode.
In the latest incident, members of an irreverent student organization aired a live segment on closed-circuit television Thursday night supporting the party.
Campus officials have been unable to locate a tape of the broadcast. According to the Black Student Union, hosts of the show called critics of the party ungrateful and used a derogatory term for African-Americans.
…
In years past, Koala TV has been temporarily unplugged at least once for airing pornographic material. The Koala publication has poked fun at Muslims, Latinos and Asians for years, and has been repeatedly criticized by the administration. The editor of the publication, Kris Gregorian, declined to comment unless offered beer.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Man swallows metal dope pipe, X-ray confirms
A 44-year-old man made quite an accomplishment — he swallowed a metal marijuana pipe.
And Talmadge Edward Mchenry’s feat was confirmed by an X-ray after an Indian River County Sheriff’s deputy took him to the emergency room, according to a recently-released arrest affidavit.
Mchenry, of the 3100 block of Sussex Way, disclosed his cannabis pipe consumption at the jail Wednesday after a breath test showed his blood alcohol content was above the legal limit.
…
After the breath test, Mchenry said he swallowed the metal pot pipe. He was taken to the emergency room, and an X-ray “showed he had a metal pipe inside of his body.”
Hat tip to Will!
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Strongest beer title ‘reclaimed with Sink the Bismarck’:
A controversial Scottish brewery has said it has reclaimed the title of the world’s strongest beer from German rivals – with Sink the Bismarck at 41%.
BrewDog, of Fraserburgh, made headlines last year when it unveiled a 32% beer called Tactical Nuclear Penguin.
However, Schorschbrau released the 40% strength Schorschbock.
BrewDog said its newly released 41%, Sink the Bismarck, would cost £40 for a 330ml bottle and would only be sold online.
Posted in Fun with Alcohol | No Comments »
Saturday, February 20th, 2010
Gay activists attack Ugandan preacher’s porn slideshow
A Ugandan pastor who screened same-sex pornography in a church to try to bolster support for proposed anti-homosexuality legislation has been condemned by gay rights groups.
Martin Ssempa, one of the main backers of a bill that would impose the death penalty for some offenders, aired the explicit slideshow to several hundred people during a church service in Kampala yesterday.
Explaining his decision to display the images, the evangelical preacher said it was necessary to educate people “about what homosexuals do”.
He told the BBC’s Network Africa programme: “In Africa, what you do in your bedroom affects our clan, it affects our tribe, it affects our nation.”
While Ssempa represents the extreme end of widely held homophobic views in Uganda, he does carry strong influence.
On his website he describes himself as “consultant to the government of Uganda”, and his congregants yesterday included David Bahati, the MP who submitted the private member’s bill to parliament last year.
Posted in Idiot Authorities, Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Police say Texas student willingly had buttocks branded, no charges will be filed.
Breckenridge authorities said a Texas Christian University student who suffered burns when his peers branded his buttocks participated in the act willingly and no charges will be filed.
Authorities said Thursday they made the decision not to pursue charges after reviewing statements from Amon Carter IV and a dozen TCU students.
The Summit Daily News reported that Carter had Greek symbols from his fraternity and a sorority branded on his buttocks Jan. 8 during a trip to Breckenridge and needed surgery after suffering second-and third-degree burns.
Posted in College Antics, Doh! | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Citi Warns of Withdrawal Gate
Seen on a recent Citibank (C) statement: “Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change.”
Posted in Greed is Good, Most Mysterious | No Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Pajamas Media » Eleven-Man Team Assassinates Hamas Commander:
Last month, on the night of January 19, Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh arrived in Dubai, oddly without his bodyguards. He checked into the five-star Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel. He was allegedly on a weapons-buying trip.
A little after midnight that same night, eleven European tourists arrived at the Dubai airport carrying tennis rackets and various kinds of sporting equipment, apparently on vacation. Images of the group were captured on CCTV cameras at the airport.
The following afternoon, one of the eleven European tourists checked into the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel, specifically into room 237 located directly across the hall from where al-Mabhouh was staying in room 230. Throughout the day, all eleven Europeans roamed around the luxury hotel.
CCTV camera footage released by the Dubai police shows one of the tourists entering a bathroom. When he emerges, he’s wearing a false beard and a baseball cap. The group was not made up of tourists; rather, they were an assassination team on a mission to kill the commander from Hamas. One member of the hit squad, a female, roams around the hotel in a dark wig, a floppy hat, and sunglasses.
That evening, a little after 8:00 p.m., Mabhouh arrived back at the hotel and immediately went to his room. According to Dubai’s chief of police Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, forensic tests indicate that within the hour, Mabhouh was dead, having been suffocated to death. Two hours after the attack, the assassins left Dubai. They were in the country for only 19 hours.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Oops, War | No Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
In Afghanistan, Marine cheats death by Taliban sniper
Marine Lance Corporal Andrew Koenig is living proof Taliban snipers have been getting more accurate in Afghanistan.
World In a gunbattle this week, the 21-year-old from Casper, Wyoming, took a sniper’s bullet square in his forehead as he fought from the roof of a compound seized by U.S. Marines taking part in an offensive targeting the Taliban hotbed of Marjah.
Knocked back by the blow, he felt for blood from what he was sure was a head wound. Nothing.
“(It was) the craziest experience. I don’t think you could get any luckier than that. Total shock. The gear works, this proves it,” Koenig told Reuters, pointing to his dented helmet.
The bullet struck just above the rim of his helmet, dead center. Without the helmet, the shot was sure to have been fatal.
Posted in War, You lucky bastard | No Comments »
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
UCSD Frat Denies Involvement In ‘Ghetto-Themed’ Party
Administrators at the University of California, San Diego are condemning a weekend ghetto-themed party thrown off-campus by fraternity students to mock Black History Month, but they aren’t likely to discipline anyone, it was reported Wednesday.
The so-called “Compton Cookout” event urged all participants to wear chains, don cheap clothes and speak very loudly, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Female participants were encouraged to be “ghetto chicks.”
“It’s insulting, it’s derogatory, we’re being made fun of, we’re being made a mockery of and we’re not being taken seriously,” said UCSD student Elize Diop, who is black.
The invitation read, “For those of you who are unfamiliar with ghetto chicks — Ghetto chicks usually have gold teeth, start fights and drama, and wear cheap clothes …,” the Union-Tribune reported.
Posted in College Antics, Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Noisy children no longer verboten in Berlin:
Children in the German capital Berlin are to be exempt from strict laws on noise pollution.
An amendment to the city’s law now makes it “fundamentally and socially tolerable” for members of the younger generation to make a racket.
Berlin has become the first of Germany’s 16 federal states to adopt such legislation. But all Berliners – children included – must continue to respect the official quiet time at night and all day Sunday.
Until now, only church bells, emergency sirens, snow ploughs and tractors have fallen outside the stringent rules on excessive noise in Germany.
Some day-care facilities have even been forced to close after local residents have gone to court in search of a quiet life.
Now Berlin’s local government, the senate, has passed a law giving children the right to be noisy, the first law of its kind in Germany.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Evicted from Brooklyn Apartment:
She survived the Holocaust, but a tenacious life story wasn’t enough for 92-year old Eta Eckstein to keep her Brooklyn landlord at bay.
While out of her apartment in a rehab facility, the grandmother got evicted.
“It’s unspeakable,” says Eta’s grandson, Idan. “They just threw her belongings onto the street.” Eta’s family got no explanation from the landlord
“Family heirlooms, photographs, my dad’s birth certificate, diplomas. It’s all gone. Everything,” Eckstein told NBCNewYork.com.
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
South Carolina Lawmaker Seeks to Ban Federal Currency
South Carolina Rep. Mike Pitts has introduced legislation that would mandate that gold and silver coins replace federal currency as legal tender in his state.
As the Palmetto Scoop first reported, Pitts, a Republican, introduced legislation this month banning “the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin” in South Carolina.
In an interview, Pitts told Hotsheet that he believes that “if the federal government continues to spend money at the rate it’s spending money, and if it continues to print money at the rate it’s printing money, our economic system is going to collapse.”
“The Germans felt their system wouldn’t collapse, but it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread in the 1930s,” he said.
“The Soviet Union didn’t think their system would collapse, but it did. Ours is capable of collapsing also.”
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Starship pilots: speed kills, especially warp speed
Star Trek fans, prepare to be disappointed. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew would die within a second of the USS Enterprise approaching the speed of light.
The problem lies with Einstein’s special theory of relativity.
It transforms the thin wisp of hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space into an intense radiation beam that would kill humans within seconds and destroy the spacecraft’s electronic instruments.
Interstellar space is an empty place. For every cubic centimetre, there are fewer than two hydrogen atoms, on average, compared with 30 billion billion atoms of air here on Earth.
But according to William Edelstein of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, that sparse interstellar gas should worry the crew of a spaceship travelling close to the speed of light even more than Romulans decloaking off the starboard bow.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Police nab porn hacker behind Moscow traffic mayhem
Russian police said on Tuesday they had arrested a prankster who hacked into a computer system to show a pornographic movie on a giant advertising screen, causing havoc on a busy Moscow thoroughfare.
The two-minute clip, displayed on a video screen above a main road south of the Kremlin, caused midnight traffic jams and a frenzy of excitement across the Russian blogosphere.
Police said the hacker gained control of the screen by breaking into an online company’s server in the volatile southern region of Chechnya as “he didn’t think the police would go looking for him there.”
“(The hacker) is a highly-educated, temporarily unemployed and extremely advanced Internet user,” police said.
“The scandalous film was the talk of the town.”
The 40-year-old man said he wanted to “give people a laugh,” the popular daily Kommersant reported.
Rossiya-24 television said an elderly motorist suffered a heart attack at the wheel after seeing the scenes.
Posted in Hackers and Hacking | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Teen Killed in Freak Car Accident:
A teenager who stuck his head out of a car window died when the teen driver crashed into a parked vehicle in Porter Ranch, a Los Angeles police sergeant said today.
Adir Vered, 17, of Woodland Hills, was killed about 9:25 p.m. Friday in the 10400 block of Wystone Avenue, according to the coroner and Sgt. Charles Swanson of the Valley Traffic Division.
A 16-year-old was driving the car when it hit a parked car, Swanson said.
Vered, who was not wearing a seat belt and had stuck his head out the window, was killed when his head hit the parked car and he was ejected, Swanson said.
Posted in Darwin Award | No Comments »
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Thugs from Central Canada behind Olympic protests:
A loosely organized group of “thugs” from central Canada promoting anarchy were among 200 anti-Olympic protesters who marched through downtown Vancouver Saturday, smashing plate glass windows at Hudson’s Bay and TD bank, overturning newspaper boxes and assaulting bystanders, police say.
They used spray paint on cars and transit buses, tore down signs and threw about road construction barricades as they marched down the street.
The protest through the heart of downtown Vancouver marked the second consecutive day of anti-Olympic protests that organizers say will continue until the Winter Games end on Feb. 28.
The protests have drawn a wide array of groups who are trying to use the Olympics to attract media attention to their causes that range from stopping the tar sands to increasing health-care spending.
A march in memory of missing and murdered aboriginal women, slated for Sunday is expected to once again draw many anti-Olympic protesters.
Seven people were arrested Saturday and could face charges of assault, damage to property and possession of a dangerous weapon, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu told reporters. Police recovered a bag with a hammer.
One protester had a bicycle chain wrapped around his fist when he was arrested. Vinegar-soaked rags were found in bags of some protesters.
The Olympic Resistance Network, an umbrella group that speaks for some of the protesters, said 13 people were arrested. ORN organizer Alissa Westergard-Thorpev refused to apologize for the vandalism, arguing that protesters have merely damaged property while police were armed with guns, batons and canisters of pepper spray. “Property damage is not the same as physical violence,” said Ms. Westergard-Thorpe.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Anarchy | No Comments »
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
Huge Wave Sweeps Away, Injures Calif. Surfing Contest Spectators
Two huge waves swept away spectators watching a Northern California surfing contest Saturday morning, causing broken bones and other injuries to people standing on a seawall.
Fifteen people had significant injuries, including broken legs and hands, authorities said. At least three of them were transported to area hospitals.
Others were treated at the beach for injuries such as scrapes and bruises. California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Battalion Chief Scott Jalbert estimated “a couple hundred” people were on the seawall at the southern tip of Mavericks Beach when the waves struck, upstaging the surfing competition that draws some of the world’s top surfers.
Posted in Restless Earth | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Which Organs Can I Live Without, and How Much Cash Can I Get for Them?
First, a disclaimer: Selling your organs is illegal in the United States. It’s also very dangerous. Handing off an organ is risky enough when done in a top hospital, even more so if you’re doing it for cash in a back alley.
There are many organs one can theoretically do without, or for which there’s a backup. Most folks can spare a kidney, a portion of their liver, a lung, some intestines, and an eyeball, and still live a long life.
That said, donating a lung, a piece of liver or a section of intestines is a very complicated surgery, so it’s not done frequently on the black market. And no one’s going to make much cash on an eyeball.
“In the U.S., there’s a fairly steady supply of donated corneas from corpses,” says Sean Fitzpatrick, director of public affairs at the New England Organ Bank. “There’s pretty much no market demand for eyes.”
Giving up a kidney, though, is a relatively simple surgery that has netted desperate people a few bucks.
Now, black-market organ dealers don’t do a great job of filing taxes, but here are some prices based on rumored deals and reports from the World Heath Organization.
In India, a kidney fetches around $20,000. In China, buyers will pay $40,000 or more. A good, healthy kidney from Israel goes for $160,000. Don’t expect to pocket all that dough, though.
“The person giving up the organ only gets a fraction of the fee,” says Sally Satel, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank who studies the prices paid by legal and illegal organ-donor operations.
After the organ broker—the guy who sets up your kidney-for-cash transaction—takes his cut, he needs to pay for travel, the surgeon, medical supplies and a few “look-the-other-way” payoffs. Most people get $1,000 to $10,000 for their kidney (probably much less than you were hoping for).
Posted in Greed is Good, Medical Monstrosities, Yuck! | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Neo-Nazis rally on Dresden bombing anniversary:
Thousands of protesters formed a human chain in Dresden on Saturday, determined to stop neo-Nazis from exploiting the German city’s painful history on the 65th anniversary of its deadly Allied bombing in World War II.
Heavy security including riot police was in place to prevent clashes between the two groups, and five police helicopters flew overhead to monitor the crowds.
Neo-Nazis have caused outrage in the past by comparing the 1945 bombing of Dresden to the Holocaust and far-right organizers of Saturday’s protest characterized it as a “mourning march.”
Some 5,000 far-right supporters poured into the city, according to police, who limited them to a rally rather than a march for security reasons.
Posted in Nazis | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Protesters sweep through downtown Vancouver
Chanting “We ain’t got no tickets!” and “Homes Not Games,” more than 1,000 protesters swept through downtown Vancouver toward the Olympic opening ceremony Friday but were held back by police before they could block spectators from entering the celebration.
Billed as an action “against capitalism and colonization,” the first of two major street rallies mobilized demonstrators ranging from aboriginal rights groups to advocates for the homeless, all aiming to mount one of the biggest-ever organized protests against the Olympic Games.
“There’s never been an Olympic protest like this. This is a first,” said Chris Shaw, spokesman for 2010 Watch, which claims Canadian citizens are bearing the brunt of the multibillion-dollar cost of a sporting event they say will benefit land developers and corporate sponsors.
“It was one of the largest rallies in Vancouver history, and the protest led right up to the door of the [International Olympic Committee],” Shaw said.
Posted in Idiot Activists | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Extra human bones found in fire pit with murder victim
An extra fibula and jawbone have investigators wondering who else was burned in the fire pit where Andrew and Elizabeth Hawes are believed to have taken their brother’s body after he was brutally murdered at his Andover home.
The bones, including the partial remains of Edwin Hawes, were discovered more than a year ago when police officers checked out an illegally burning bonfire on Andrew Hawes’ farm in Cottonwood County, nearly 200 miles from the Twin Cities.
When the medical examiner and a forensic anthropologist reconstructed Edwin Hawes’ remains, they discovered three extra human bones.
Mixed in the fire pit were a left eye orbit, a fibula and part of a lower jaw.
It wasn’t until three months ago that the Cottonwood County sheriff’s office was notified about them, which triggered a fresh search of the fire pit.
Deputies found several small bone fragments, according to the search warrant filed in Cottonwood County in November.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Concentrated Criminality, Fire | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Dead Sexy
A small town in Czech Republic is welcoming sex-tourist Germans across the border with a sign warning them that death awaits.
A grinning skull superimposed on to the outline of a sexy female figure is posted alongside the words; ‘Achtung! Syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, Aids.’
A dozen such signs now greet the men who pour into the town of Chomutov for cheap, and dangerous, encounters with prostitutes.
Ever since the fall of Communism, the towns on the Czech side of the German frontier have been a magnet for sex workers, many of whom are diseased and unregulated by the state.
Czech authorities have tried in vain for years to stem the trade, fuelled by low costs – sex sometimes costs less than five pounds – and lax border controls.
The road into Chomutov is known across Europe as the ‘Mile of Lust.’ Mother-of-three Simona Kmonickova, 41, has been instrumental in trying the clean up the town.
“I really started this because I want to protect my daughters who must daily pass a parade of prostitutes to get into school,” she said. “It is disgusting and I knew that something had to be done.”
Posted in Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Tofu can harm environment more than meat, finds WWF study:
Becoming a vegetarian can do more harm to the environment than continuing to eat red meat, according to a study of the impacts of meat substitutes such as tofu.
The findings undermine claims by vegetarians that giving up meat automatically results in lower emissions and that less land is needed to produce food.
The study by Cranfield University, commissioned by the environmental group WWF, found that many meat substitutes were produced from soy, chickpeas and lentils that were grown overseas and imported into Britain.
It found that switching from beef and lamb reared in Britain to meat substitutes would result in more foreign land being cultivated and raise the risk of forests being destroyed to create farmland.
Meat substitutes also tended to be highly processed and involved energy-intensive production methods.
Posted in Weird Science | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Boarders swept up by avalanche
THIS is the heart-stopping moment three snowboarders were engulfed by a massive avalanche. The thrill-seekers are seen zig-zagging across fresh snow on this amazing video — but their carefree attitude quickly changes when tons of the white stuff starts roaring down the mountain towards them.
Eight people have died in similar incidents in just 48 hours across Italy, where the dramatic footage was caught by a walker on another slope. The three boarders, whose aggressive moves are not recommended on new snow, are seen frantically trying to escape — but one by one they are picked off.
The walker immediately alerted police and mountain rescue teams, who raced to the 7,100ft Mt Cimone in the Apennines, close to Modena. But despite searching for more than four hours with dogs, heat-seeking equipment and a helicopter, no trace of the three was found.
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity, Crazy is as Crazy Does | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Pro-porn protesters target government websites
An internet protest group has launched an attack on Government websites in a protest against the proposed internet filter and censorship of some pornography.
The attack, dubbed Operation Titstorm by the group known as Anonymous, brought down a number of Government websites this morning, with the Parliament House site remaining offline well into the afternoon.
Anonymous claimed the attack was to highlight moves by the Government to ban the import of films featuring female ejaculation (which was classified as urination) as well as films featuring small-breasted women, over fears such films were simulating child pornography.
“More importantly, Anonymous does not approve of the steps already undertaken by the Australian Government to control what their populous [sic] sees,” the statement said
“Claiming to be cracking down on ’simulated child pornography,’ many depictions of women with small breasts in pornography have been banned,” the group said in a statement.
Posted in Hackers and Hacking | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Skydiving From Space:
The Red Bull Stratos team has kept itself under wraps until today’s press conference at the New York Academy of Sciences in NYC. The ambitious project marks the first major attempt at breaking an old but daunting skydiving record, one that starts at the edge of space.
In 1960, U.S. Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger stepped out of a capsule at 102,800 feet above the Earth’s surface and, in just minutes returned to the surface by simply falling. The falling part was easy. The surviving part was not—his first jump, from the Excelsior I module nearly ended in disaster when a parachute cord wrapped around his neck. His main chute, attached to a timer, deployed and saved him.
In Excelsior III, he failed to report a malfunctioning glove and nearly lost his hand to depressurization. But his record-breaking jump was successful, and having fulfilled its mission, the Air Force stopped jumping from record heights. His would-be successor is cut from the same mold, but has traveled a far different road.
Felix Baumgartner wears two tattoos—one, on his arm that says “Born to Fly” and another on his back, 502, that marks his BASE-jumping code—and has built a career out of from skydiving with frightening regularity and launching himself from architectural landmarks like the Gold Gate Bridge and Taipei 101 with a parachute on his back.
He is a daredevil, but according to Kittinger and the rest of the Red Bull Stratos team, he is a calculating one that has survived thousands of skydives by knowing how to prepare and when to back away from a jump.
So then, is this jump a stunt? In a way, it is. This is sponsored by Red Bull, after all, which has associated itself with extreme, entertaining, and daring sporting endeavors for the last decade or so, from the Dakar Rally to snowboard racing.
Posted in Crazy is as Crazy Does, Hard Core! | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
New York Gov’s security detail transferred amid drugs, sex rumors
Governor David Paterson’s spokespeople are denying any possible-career ending scandal that will push him out of office as a result of a bombshell story The New York Times is said to have on him. Unconfirmed rumors relating to sex, drugs, and women appear to be the most brought up topics surrounding the story.
However, Mr. Paterson seems intent on running for office, as reports say he plans to announce his campaign for governor next week. Serving as Eliot Spitzer’s Lieutenant Governor, Mr. Paterson came to New York’s Governor’s mansion after Mr. Spitzer resigned in disgrace amid a sex scandal involving a prostitute.
“I think its going to have to be something really bad for him to resign. He admitted to past drug use. I don’t think anybody would be surprised or necessarily all that shocked if he and his wife had an understanding. It would have to be something beyond the pale for him to resign,” a long time Albany insider with GOP ties said to The Washington Times Water Cooler.
The Washington Times learned from our Albany source that at least fourteen of Mr. Paterson’s security detail were transferred to other areas of New York’s State Police this past weekend.
“I’ve been around Albany a long time and this is as strange as it gets,” he said after pointing out that he recognized a number of the names on the detail roster who were part of this transfer as long time government employees, who served previous New York Governors as security detail.
Posted in Career Limiting Move, Politico Follies, Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
France moves to boost national pride:
The French flag will be hoisted at every school in France and the national anthem sung by students at least once a year as part of government efforts to instill in citizens a sense of pride in being French, Prime Minister François Fillon announced Tuesday.
Language training and instruction on gender equality are foreseen for newly arrived immigrants, while new citizens will attend a solemn ceremony and sign a pact listing the duties that go with being French once a law is adjusted to make that possible.
Many of the measures are more symbolic than concrete, but all are the fruit of an often noisy government-sponsored countrywide debate on the French identity that on occasion plunged into racial slurs, often directed at France’s estimated five million Muslims.
The debates in 350 locations around the country aimed at bolstering France’s national identity in a globalized world and in an increasingly diverse nation that is proud by nature but afraid of losing its bearings.
France has long fought to preserve its language, but while previous governments focused on protecting French from the onslaught of English, the current government wants newly arrived immigrants to be able to communicate.
Posted in End of the World Update | No Comments »
Monday, February 8th, 2010
McItaly burger controversial in home country
Italy’s agriculture minister defended his sponsorship of McDonald’s new all-Italian burger Monday amid criticism that he is selling out to a multinational corporation and sacrificing Italy’s culinary reputation in the process.
Minister Luca Zaia has argued that McDonald’s new McItaly burger — using all Italian beef, Asiago cheese and artichoke spread — will pump €3.5 million ($4.8 million) more a month into the pockets of Italian farmers grappling with tough economic times.
But for a country that gave birth to the Slow Food movement a quarter-century ago and prides itself on its varied, delicious and healthy cuisine, Zaia’s enthusiastic support of McDonald’s has been hard to swallow.
It didn’t help that Zaia and McDonald’s executives launched the new burger last month at McDonald’s flagship restaurant in Rome’s historic center near the Spanish Steps, the chain’s first Italian outpost.
The opening of those Golden Arches in 1986 famously inspired a relatively unknown Turin foodie, Carlo Petrini, to launch what became Slow Food — the international movement that embraces local, organic food and home cooking over fast food and the industrialized food chain.
Posted in Politically Incorrect | No Comments »
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
After a day of barbering, Rodolfo Gregorio went to his neighborhood karaoke bar still smelling of talcum powder. Putting aside his glass of Red Horse Extra Strong beer, he grasped a microphone with a habitué’s self-assuredness and briefly stilled the room with the Platters’ “My Prayer.”
Next, he belted out crowd-pleasers by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. But Mr. Gregorio, 63, a witness to countless fistfights and occasional stabbings erupting from disputes over karaoke singing, did not dare choose one beloved classic: Frank Sinatra’s version of “My Way.”
“I used to like ‘My Way,’ but after all the trouble, I stopped singing it,” he said. “You can get killed.”
The authorities do not know exactly how many people have been killed warbling “My Way” in karaoke bars over the years in the Philippines, or how many fatal fights it has fueled. But the news media have recorded at least half a dozen victims in the past decade and includes them in a subcategory of crime dubbed the “My Way Killings.”
The killings have produced urban legends about the song and left Filipinos groping for answers. Are the killings the natural byproduct of the country’s culture of violence, drinking and machismo? Or is there something inherently sinister in the song?
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Cultural Oddities | No Comments »
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Knicker-stealing Lancashire ex-mayor jailed:
The ex-mayor of a Lancashire village who got “sexual kicks” from breaking into women’s homes to steal underwear has been jailed for two years.
Ian Stafford, 59, who admitted three counts of burglary, resigned his post in Preesall after his arrest last year.
Preston Crown Court heard how he would creep into their bedrooms and search drawers for the underwear, before carrying out a sex act.
He was caught after one victim set up a hidden camera, catching him in the act. The burglaries took place at buildings in Poulton-le-Fylde and Stalmine between 1 January and 26 June last year.
Posted in Politico Follies, Sexual Deviants | No Comments »
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Protesters amass ahead of Olympics
While past Olympics have been magnets for protests over issues such as aboriginal rights in Australia and oppression in Tibet, the Vancouver Winter Games are preparing to host one of the biggest displays ever of organized opposition to the Olympics themselves.
Building on years of disgruntlement over the increasingly corporate nature of the Games — and widespread alarm over a projected $5.6-billion price tag — a resistance network has vowed to post thousands of protesters outside venues, some of whom aim to disrupt the events.
Security analysts have warned that such domestic protesting is as great a threat to the seamless unfolding of the Games as the possibility of a terrorist attack. Canadian officials, however, have promised to give the demonstrators as much leeway as possible, backing off plans to ban signs, cordon off protesters and use high-tech sonic weapons to disperse unruly crowds.
That open door reflects not only British Columbia’s tradition of tolerance and commitment to free speech, but also an acknowledgment of Vancouver residents’ reservations about hosting the Games, the infrastructure for which will probably take years to pay off.
In recent weeks, politicians and small-business owners have been among those raising questions about whether the two-week event, which begins Friday, can possibly be worth the large public expenditures, traffic disruptions and environmental damage.
Posted in Idiot Activists | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Dad of Fight Club student heard son complaining about not being cheered on:
The “fight club” scrap at a Queens elementary school was uncovered only after the father of one of the combatants heard his son whining that he didn’t have enough fans in his corner.
Tomas Rivera said that he overheard his son complaining to his sparring partner — as the pint-sized pugilists played video games Thursday evening — that he wasn’t getting enough applause during their bout at PS 65 in Ozone Park.
“I heard him go, ‘Oh, they were cheering you more than they were cheering me,’ ” the father told The Post.
Rivera then quizzed his son, also named Tomas, and the 10-year-old spilled the beans about the clash, which was allegedly set up by Joseph Gullotta, the kids’ fourth-grade teacher.
Rivera said his son initially had a beef with another student when Gullotta told the boy, “Don’t fight with him because I like you guys too much.”
Instead, the teacher allegedly told his son to take out his aggression on longtime pal Justin Stokel, 9.
Posted in A Bit of The Old Ultraviolent, Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Swordfish attack Angolan oil pipeline:
Swordfish punctured part of an oil loading pipe in Angola, causing a three-day delay to tanker shipments of Girassol crude, traders said on Tuesday.
French oil company Total TOTF.PA, which operates the crude stream declared force majeure on shipments, but lifted it on Monday.
In general, force majeure frees an operator from supply obligations due to extraordinary circumstances.
“It was caused because of swordfish. Now the swordfish have passed, so the force majeure has been lifted,” said one trader, who buys the crude on a regular basis.
Slight delays to cargo loadings scheduled in February and March were likely, traders said. Total later said that a swordfish had damaged a flexible loading pipe.
“Total confirms that a force majeure was declared that was lifted on Monday” a company spokeswoman said.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
SEC Workers Investigated for Porn-Surfing:
More than two dozen SEC employees and contractors over roughly the past two years have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers.
The work computer of one regional supervisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed more than 1,800 attempts to look up pornography in a 17-day span: “It was kind of distraction per se,” he later told investigators. But he wasn’t alone. More than two dozen SEC employees and contractors over roughly the past two years have faced internal investigations after they were caught viewing pornography on their government computers, according to records obtained by The Washington Times through the Freedom of Information Act and other public documents.
The activities of porn-surfing SEC workers, a small fraction of the overall work force, have been serious enough to warrant a mention in each of the past four semiannual reports sent to Congress by the SEC’s office of inspector general.
In response to the open records request by The Washington Times, the inspector general’s office provided more than 150 pages of records and transcripts on the investigations, but declined to identify the employees involved. The office noted that disclosure of the employees’ names “could conceivably subject them to harassment and annoyance in the conduct of their official duties and private lives.”
Allan Bachman, education manager for the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, said such problems are hardly unique to the SEC. He also said the findings are troubling aside from “the egregious nature of what they’re doing.”
Posted in Idiot Authorities | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
DIY jetpack sled experiment ends in burns ward
A MICHIGAN man who rigged an explosive backpack for a backyard sledding stunt suffered burns to 18 per cent of his body when it blew up.
The Detroit Free Press reported the 62-year-old man from Independence Township had been hosting an outdoor winter party in his backyard and was reportedly drinking before the Sunday night mishap.
“Apparently, he has this sledding party every year, and he always does outrageous things at it, but he’s never blown himself up before,” Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe told the paper.
The man, whose name was not released, was believed to have constructed the backpack from an old car muffler, which he filled with gasoline and gunpowder, “trying to get a rocket-launch effect”, Mr McCabe said.
“He asked another person to light a wick and then began to sled down a hill.
“At some point during the ride, the device exploded.”
Posted in Concentrated Stupidity | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Hippy apes caught cannibalising their young
So much for the “hippy chimp”. Bonobos, known for their peaceable ways and casual sex, have been caught in the act of cannibalism.
An account of a group of wild bonobos consuming a dead infant, published last month, is the first report of cannibalism in these animals – making the species the last of the great apes to reveal a taste for the flesh of their own kind.
The account comes from a group of primatologists led by Gottfried Hohmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
The team has studied bonobos in the wild at a site in Salonga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on hundreds of days since 2002. Few were more eventful than 9 and 10 July, 2008. Early on the morning of 9 July, Andrew Fowler spotted an ape known as Olga with her two daughters: 5 or 6-year-old Ophelia, and Olivia, who was three years her junior.
“By 8 o’clock Olivia was dead,” says Fowler. She showed no obvious traces of blood or bruises, so it seems unlikely she had been killed by other members of her group.
Fowler’s team lost sight of the apes not long afterwards, but early the following day he saw Olga join them carrying Olivia’s body, which had already begun to decompose. “It was smelling, limp and wet,” he recalls. Olga and seven others spent the rest of the day devouring the corpse.
Posted in Animal Weirdness, Bad Parents, Cannibal Update | No Comments »
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Bees Can Be Trained to Recognize Human Faces
Bees need not recognize human faces when going about their pollination business. Yet scientists have now found that they can train bees to recognize the arrangement of human facial features, by rewarding the classy striped insects with sugar. That could inspire new facial recognition systems, given that bees manage this feat with brains the size of a microdot.
The bee ability to distinguish between human faces was first noticed by Adrian Dyer, a vision scientist from Monash University in Australia. But biologist Martin Giurfa from the Université de Toulouse in France wanted to better understand how bees managed to learn facial features, and so he teamed up with Dyer to carry out a more systematic test.
It turns out that bees don’t consciously recognize individual people, so much as the relative pattern that makes up a face. Researchers tested this by first training the bees to recognize simple faces made of dots and slashes, and then seeing if the bees could distinguish between two different faces. The bees passed the test.
Next, the research team gave the bees a choice between new faces and a random assort of dots and slashes. The bees still ended up homing in on the face-like patterns. Equally as impressive, the bees learned to recognize stick-and-dot faces against face-shaped photographs, and still identified the correct faces without the photo backgrounds.
Posted in Animal Rebellion Update | No Comments »
