‘California ground squirrels have learned to intimidate rattlesnakes by heating their tails and shaking them aggressively.
Because the snakes, which are ambush hunters, can sense infrared radiation from heat, the warming makes the tails more conspicuous to them _ signaling that they have been discovered and that the squirrels may come and harass them, explained Aaron Rundus, lead author of a study in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The tail “flagging” places the snakes on the defensive, he said.
Adult squirrels are not the snakes’ prey, Rundus said in a telephone interview. The adults have a protein in their blood that allows them to survive the snake venom, and they have been known to attack and injure snakes, biting and kicking gravel at them.’
‘A North Las Vegas judge has been sacked after telling MySpace readers that his interests include physically beating prosecutors – or words to that effect.
In a post to his public MySpace page, The Associated Press reports, substitute judge Jonathan MacArthur laid out his attitude towards prosecutors using a certain graphic phrase that he claimed was common “among blacks, people who associate with blacks or in a sports context.”
The AP wouldn’t actually quote the phrase and the MySpace page has since been made private, but The Reg can confirm that MacArthur told internet users everywhere that his interests include “breaking my foot off in a prosecutor’s ass” and “improving my ability to break my foot off in a prosecutor’s ass.”
MacArthur is also a criminal defense attorney, but in describing his role as a pro tem judge with the North Las Vegas Justice Court, he said that he was a lot like a substitute teacher in a black choir robe with a disconcerting amount of authority.’
‘Laughter might be unexpected in a liquor store where a robbery just occurred. But that’s how employees responded to the “Duct Tape Bandit” who hit Shamrock Liquors in Ashland and fled nearly empty handed.
A man who had his head wrapped in duct tape to conceal his identity walked into the store last Friday, police said.
Store manager Bill Steele had some duct tape of his own, but his was wrapped around a wooden club that sent the robber fleeing, according to a report by WSAZ-TV in Huntington, W.Va.
Store employee Craig Miller said he chased the man to the parking lot, tackled him and held him in a choke position until police arrived, the station reported. An unidentified customer also helped, police said.’
Also with a video interview with the man from the jail.
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An advertisement focussed on people with a disability.
The question is, which disability? 🙂
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‘A 12-year-old Indian girl was beaten and then hanged by her mother for demanding she be sent to school, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported today.
The girl was beaten unconscious with a rolling pin by her mother in a village in Jodhpur district in the western desert state of Rajasthan this month.
“The mother thought she had killed the girl and, in panic, decided to make it appear like a suicide,” a police officer was quoted as saying.
“She allegedly tied a rope around the girl’s neck and hung her from the ceiling.”
The woman has been arrested.
The girl’s father, a labourer, said he and his wife could not afford a bicycle to send their daughter to school a few miles away.’
‘A Japanese biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for 2 km (1.2 miles), leaving a friend to pick up the missing limb.
The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, on Monday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.
He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.
The man and his leg were taken to hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.’
‘Parents concerned about knife crime are getting “slash-proof” school uniforms for their children.
A company is offering to modify blazers and jumpers by lining them with knife-resistant Kevlar.
Bladerunner in Romford, east London, said it has been contacted by the parents of five local pupils about the £130 adaptation.
But the government said stabbings in schools were very rare and accused the firm of scaremongering for profits.’
‘An Italian doctor has reconstructed vaginas for two women born with a rare congenital deformation, using their own cells to build vaginal tissue in the lab for the first time.
Dr. Cinzia Marchese of Rome’s Policlinico Umberto I hospital, giving details of the operations on Wednesday, told Reuters a 28-year-old woman who underwent the first such operation a year ago now has a healthy vagina.
“She has got married and is living a normal life,” said Marchese, whose study has been published in the journal Human Reproduction. [..]
The two women had a condition called Mayer-Von Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, or MRKHS for short, which affects an estimated one in 4,000 to 5,000 female infants.
Girls with the syndrome are born with no vagina. The patient often has a normal uterus, ovaries and external secondary sexual organs such as breasts, but cannot have sexual intercourse or give birth.’
It’s funny because it’s true.
This is a site run by an apartment complex manager, with lots of interesting and amusing stories about her dealings with tenants. For example, a letter to a tenant:
‘Dear Mr. Levert,
I understand that it’s quite frustrating to receive many upon many late rent notices when you seem pretty convinced you brought the cheque on the first of the month. I also understand that you’re a very busy man and “don’t have time for this shit”, and that I should just, as you eloquently put it, “fucking fix it.” [..]
But it’s all okay, because calling you and getting screamed at that you don’t have time to fix our fuck-up and that we better stop sending late rent notice makes me feel quite special, especially as the eviction date draws closer (and I love nothing more than having TWO pending evictions in one month). [..]’
‘Every once in a while you’ll stumble upon a forum or an online community that is so specific, so insane, so completely ridiculous that you are forced to conclude that you have reached the end of the Internet. Sure, you may continue on your merry clicking way, but you do so with the deep-seated feeling that there is nowhere else to look; you have seen everything the Internet could possibly hope to provide. Here are the eight online communities that killed our adventurous spirit, made us sure that we’d seen everything the online world has to offer, and even more certain that we didn’t want to try to find anything more depressingly fascinating.’
I don’t think I’d seen the #1 strangest community before. It’s rare, these days, to come across a strange fetish I’ve never heard of before. But, that’s the internet for you. Strange. 🙂
They’re gonna break their elbows, surely.
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‘The blood that stained the courtyard of the modest Thousand Oaks apartment complex had been washed away by Monday morning. In its place stood a makeshift memorial: A teddy bear and a few balloons. A Winnie-the-Pooh baby blanket. And a single rose for every year the young victim had lived.
Sev’n Molina, age 6, was hacked to death with a meat cleaver Sunday night, as his mother fought to save his life, terrified neighbors called 911 and the bravest among them tried to intervene in the grisly struggle. [..]
After the boy burst from the apartment into the communal courtyard, witnesses said, Sharp followed him, wielding the cleaver, and began hacking at the child’s head and shouting, “Die, die!”‘
On his last day of work his colleagues decide to put his car up on cinder blocks so he can’t drive away. I wonder how long it took him to figure it out. 🙂
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‘Like any three-year-old, Tom Trueman is constantly at risk of taking a tumble.
But in his case every fall could prove fatal – which is why he wears a safety helmet every waking moment.
Tom, who has already had ten operations, had half of his skull removed after a hospital infection attacked most of the bones in his head.
He has astounded doctors with his progress since but, as his everwatchful parents know, a knock from a fall or a glancing blow from a stray football could cause permanent brain damage or prove fatal.’
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‘US researchers say they have invented a lightweight paper battery that could serve as an enhanced power storage device for the next generation of consumer electronic devices.
The battery produces electricity in the same way as the conventional lithium-ion batteries that power so many of today’s gadgets, but all the components have been incorporated into a lightweight, flexible sheet of paper.
An early prototype of the device, just big enough to be held between thumb and forefinger, kicks out 2.5 volts, enough juice to power a small fan, or illuminate a light, and its inventors say the battery can be easily scaled up to provide enough power to run any number of electronic gadgets.
“You can stack one sheet on top of another to boost the power output,” said Robert Linhardt, a biology and chemistry professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, and a project team member.’
‘When a little green plant cropped up suddenly in Helge and Helga Nilsson’s garden a couple of months ago, they thought nothing of it. In fact, thinking it was rather pretty, they nurtured it as it grew until it was one-and-a-half metres tall.
The couple, from Löddeköpinge, near Lund in southern Sweden, did not know the name of their plant until they saw a television report about drugs which showed footage of cannabis plants. Helga Nilsson reacted immediately.
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“Lord, Helge – we’ve got one of those in the garden,” were Mrs Nilsson’s words to her husband after seeing the report, according to Sydsvenskan.
The couple asked the Lund Botanical Gardens for advice, and now plan to remove the plant, although the couple say they will be sorry to see it go.
“It’s really quite decorative,” Mr. Nilsson said’
‘This poor little guy kept getting picked on until he finally had enough and ended up whopping the bigger guys ass. When it was over the bully ended up leaving the party crying.’
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‘The head of a Chinese toy manufacturing company whose products were the target of a massive recall in the U.S. because they contained lead-tainted paint has committed suicide.
Zhang Shuhong, who ran the Lee Der Industrial Co. Ltd., was found hanged in his warehouse Monday morning.
His death comes days after the Chinese government announced a temporary ban on exports by the company.
Earlier this month, Mattel subsidiary Fisher-Price said it was recalling 967,000 toys — including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters — because their paint contained excessive amounts of lead. The Fisher-Price recall involved 83 types of plastic preschool toys made by the Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August.’
‘I once got talking to a guy whose job it was to go into a company, sit alongside the Systems Administrator for two weeks, and write a professional audit on his processes and practices.
Naturally the sys admin would be on his best behavior, showing off all the clever things he did to keep the company’s computer network ticking over.
At the end of the two weeks, the sys admin would be fired. There was never any audit: this was just the method the company used to replace their IT people without disruption, making sure the new guy was trained up and the old guy didn’t cause any damage before he left.’
‘A teenager was taken to hospital after overdosing on espresso coffee.
Jasmine Willis, 17, developed a fever and began hyperventilating after drinking seven double espressos while working at her family’s sandwich shop.
The student, of Stanley, County Durham, was taken to the University Hospital of North Durham, where doctors confirmed she had overdosed on caffeine.
She has since made a full recovery and is now warning others about the dangers of excessive coffee drinking.
Ms Willis, who had thought the coffees were single measures, said the effects were so severe that she began laughing and crying for no reason while serving customers at the shop.’
‘The Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department was seeking a man Monday who broke into a home and tried to steal from a toddler’s piggy bank. [..]
Sheriff’s Capt. Dave Adams gave the following account:
Julie Herscheb of Wilson woke Friday night and heard a noise about 10:30 p.m.
With her husband asleep in the basement, she grabbed a baseball bat and opened the door to her 2-year-old daughter’s bedroom. Herscheb saw a man trying to shake money from the child’s piggy bank.
She shut the door and went to call 911. She dropped the phone, making a noise. The man was gone when deputies arrived.’
If your friend ate your lunch would you shoot then with a paintball gun to teach them a lesson? What if they were standing on a ladder at the time? 🙂
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‘”Brady Bunch” parody “Not the Bradys XXX” hits stores Sept. 18, bringing back memories of the sweet innocent times of the 1970s, according to the company.
“This movie just makes you feel good as you watch it,” said co-producer Scott David of X-Play, which produced the movie with distribution coming through LFP.
“This is a family-style porn movie, which I’m not sure has ever been done,” said the movie’s co-producer Jeff Mullen. “We live in an era of extremely hardcore sex where double-doubles and reverse bukkakees with anal triple-Lutz moves reign supreme, however ‘Not the Bradys XXX’ isn’t about that, but it is the kind of movie you can show the entire family. [..]
The film also stars Mike Horner playing the sensible father, Alana Evans as Carol the mom, Lynn LeMay as Alice and Ron Jeremy as Sam the Butcher. [..]’
‘News agency Reuters has been forced to admit that footage it released last week purportedly showing Russian submersibles on the seabed of the North Pole actually came from the movie Titanic.
The images were reproduced around the world – including by the Guardian and Guardian Unlimited – alongside the story of Russia planting its flag below the North Pole on Thursday last week. [..]
The mistake was only revealed after a 13-year-old Finnish schoolboy contacted a local newspaper to tell them the images looked identical to those used in the movie.’
Followup to Russians to dive below North Pole.
‘Leroy Greer meant to say it with flowers to his girlfriend, but his wife heard about it too, and now the whole arrangement is in federal court.
Claiming 1-800-flowers.com made his life considerably less rosy, Greer sued the flower delivery company, alleging it made his divorce case thornier by faxing his wife a receipt for flowers he had sent his girlfriend — along with the romantic words he wrote for the card.
The suit, filed this week in Houston, asks that the company pay for his mental anguish and for the increased amount he figures he’ll have to pay in his divorce case, pending since 2005 in Fort Bend County, because his wife has new evidence against him.’
Some guy is dared to dip his whole head in a bucket of paint. How can you resist such a dare? 🙂
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‘Three hundred chickens died in panic early on Sunday when a drunken German teenager on a joyride crashed a van into their shed, police said.
“Apparently some of the chickens were so desperate to get away that they ran into the wall and died,” the spokesman said. “Others suffered heart attacks.”‘
‘A grandmother taking a leisurely swim in a Swedish river ended up in the hospital after a beaver attacked her with its tail, regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda reported Wednesday.
Police sources said it was the second time a beaver had attacked humans at the beach on the banks of the Bottenaa River, around 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Stockholm, the newspaper reported.
“The beaver attacked the grandmother. She was seriously hit by the animal’s tail and received a number of bites and scratches,” an officer told the newspaper.
The authorities have decided to kill the dozen or so beavers living near the beach to eliminate any further risk to local bathers.’
