‘Iran’s uranium enrichment program is operating well below capacity and is far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts, according to a confidential U.N. nuclear watchdog report obtained by Reuters.
A senior Iranian nuclear official said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report showed U.S. suspicions about Tehran’s nuclear intentions were baseless.
Officials familiar with the report said the IAEA could open future inquiries into Iran’s atomic activity if new suspicions arose, even after Tehran answers questions about the program under a transparency deal reached this month.’
‘In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Canton, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The facility, which calls itself a “special needs school,” takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten. [..]
The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. [..]’
‘A speed boat is cruising a max speed and when he tries to slow down the driver loses control and flips his boat out of the water.’
(1.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A man who authorities say used his computer to make fake $100 bills to buy lap dances at a strip club has pleaded guilty to counterfeiting charges, federal prosecutors said.
Strippers at Deja Vu in Nashville were suspicious of the bills and called police after Damon Armagost spent $600 of the fake money April 16, authorities said.
When officers arrived, Armagost first told them he got the money when he sold gold coins for $1,400 to an unidentified person.
U.S. Secret Service agents later determined that counterfeit bills with the same serial number had been passed in other parts of the country. When they went to Armagost’s Smyrna home, about 20 miles southeast of Nashville, a family member told agents that an image of a $100 bill had been on a computer there.’
‘A simple key many think could have saved the Titanic from hitting the Atlantic iceberg that sank it 95 years ago will go up for auction in Britain next month.
The key is believed to have been for the luxury oceanliner’s crow’s nest locker that held binoculars crew members could have used to search for dangerous icebergs, The Guardian reported Wednesday. The key wasn’t on the ship during its fateful 1912 maiden voyage because second officer David Blair was taken off at the last minute and he forgot to turn it over to his replacement.
Crew member Fred Fleet, who survived the sinking, told investigators if they had binoculars they would have seen the iceberg soon enough to avoid it.’
‘Saturday May 26th the VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK group attempted to host a hate rally to try to take advantage of the brutal murder of a white couple for media and recruitment purposes.
Unfortunately for them the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.
Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.
“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.’
‘A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected:
a half-gallon of 2% milk,
a carton of eggs,
a quart of orange juice,
a head of romaine lettuce,
a 2 lb. can of coffee and
a 1 lb. package of bacon.
As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated, “You must be single.” [..]’
It’s a pity he isn’t just a little bit taller. :)
(410kB Flash video)
see it here »
‘I’m telling you this story not just for your entertainment but to show you that you shouldn’t be afraid to embarass yourself … your teacher has been much more thorough at this than you ever will be.
We get a fair number of calls from the public on mathematical issues. Years ago I passed by the office and the secretary asked if I could answer such a question. I said sure, and we had this conversation: [..]’
‘ haha, last night, me and pete went out to celebrate his engagement and got hugely drunk
we got this great idea to bury eachother in the sand close to the water and see who would chicken out first
took about a half hour, but the water got up to my face so i freaked and got out
i looked around for pete and he must’ve chickened out before me and stumbled home or something heh
What’d he say when he woke up this morning?
uhh.. he hasn’t come home yet.. i thought he was staying with you?
holy fuck.’
‘Chalk up another new-found power to the Motion Picture Association of America: the ability to force someone to change operating systems. Scott McCausland, who pleaded guilty last September in 2006 to the crime of uploading Star Wars: Episode III to the site Elitetorrents.com, was charged with “conspiracy to commit copyright infringement” and “criminal copyright infringement” by the FBI. This charge carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release. He wound up serving five months in prison and is now on probation. The probation, however, has now taken a strange turn into forced platform advocacy.
“I had a meeting with my probation officer today and he told me that he has to install monitoring software onto my PC. No big deal to me; that is part of my sentence,” he wrote on his Lost and Alone blog. “However, their software doesn’t support GNU/Linux (Which is what I use). So, he told me that if I want to use a computer, I would have to use an OS that the software can be installed on.” The monitoring software in question is only available for Microsoft Windows. Neither Linux nor a Macintosh running OS X would be an acceptable platform.’
‘The Americans were getting close. It was early in the winter of 2004-05, and Osama bin Laden and his entourage were holed up in a mountain hideaway along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Suddenly, a sentry, posted several kilometers away, spotted a patrol of U.S. soldiers who seemed to be heading straight for bin Laden’s redoubt. The sentry radioed an alert, and word quickly passed among the Qaeda leader’s 40-odd bodyguards to prepare to remove “the Sheik,” as bin Laden is known to his followers, to a fallback position. As Sheik Said, a senior Egyptian Qaeda operative, later told the story, the anxiety level was so high that the bodyguards were close to using the code word to kill bin Laden and commit suicide. According to Said, bin Laden had decreed that he would never be captured. “If there’s a 99 percent risk of the Sheik’s being captured, he told his men that they should all die and martyr him as well,” Said told Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer to Al Qaeda who spoke to a NEWSWEEK reporter in Afghanistan.’
‘The China Daily is reporting that a bull elephant from Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan has recovered from a serious heroin addiction it picked up as a victim of illegal elephant trading. The elephant, nicknamed “Big Brother”, was fed heroin-laced bananas in order to make it easier to control him and his herd, which they led westward to Dehong, near China’s border with Myanmar.
According to the article, Big Brother developed a strong need for heroin after a few weeks of being drugged and would drool and twitch if not given regular doses. When the elephant smugglers arrived in Dehong they were arrested by the Dehong Forest Police. The China Daily explains what happened when the police tried to get Big Brother home:
“While driving the herd back to Xishuangbanna, Big Brother started drooling and bellowing and even tried to run away. The police were surprised to learn from one of the traders that it was suffering from withdrawal symptoms and could pose a danger to people, if not fed drugs immediately…’
‘US Representative Benjamin Sinclair (R-Ohio) has a plan to reduce skull fucking levels in America by 5 to 7%’
(6.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A Burning Man participant was found dead this morning, hanging from the inside of a two-story high tent, according to Mark Pirtle, special agent in charge for the Bureau of Land Management.
The apparent suicide would be the festival’s first in its 21 year history, Pirtle said.
Pershing County coroners are investigating the scene and preparing to remove the body. Pirtle said the man was hanging for two hours before anyone in the large tent thought to bring him down. “His friends thought he was doing an art piece,” Pirtle said.’
‘A Minneapolis man was attacked with 2-by-4s and grapefruit-size rocks early Sunday after he told a group of eight to 10 people to turn down their music, police said.
The 28-year-old man returned to a duplex in south Minneapolis about 1:35 a.m. and found the group in the backyard drinking and listening to music, according to a police report. A 45-year-old woman and 13-year-old girl were with the man.
The man asked the group to turn down its music. The suspects then knocked him to the ground, kicked him, beat him with 2-by-4s and struck him about five times with landscape rocks, the report said.
When the woman tried to protect the man, one suspect threw a can of beer in her face. The 13-year-old was thrown to the ground by another suspect as she tried to flee.’
‘The Meng brothers felt pretty good about their chances of making it out of the collapsed coal mine, until the sound of digging from outside stopped.
With no food or water, they were forced to eat coal and drink their own urine from discarded bottles. When they were too exhausted to try to dig themselves out, they slept huddled together in the cold and dark.
Meng Xianchen and Meng Xianyou finally clawed their way to the surface after nearly six days underground – a rare tale of survival in China’s coal mines, the world’s deadliest, where an average of 13 workers are killed every day.
The two even managed to crack jokes about their wives remarrying once they were dead after they emerged Friday from the illegal mine – which had no oxygen, ventilation or emergency exits – in Beijing’s Fangshan district.’
‘Let’s get this action goin’, baby.’
(5.5meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘The good news for this mystery blonde is that the digital camera she mislaid on holiday has been found.
The bad news is that the revealing pictures of herself stored on its memory card have been posted on the internet.
And since then she has attracted over 23,000 admirers, all professing their desperation to track her down so that she can get back her lost property. [..]
The Facebook group description reads: “We are trying to track down the lovely lass in these photos so she can be reunited with her lost digital camera. She certainly knows how to use it!’
Update: Also the NSW pictures and her MySpace page.
‘Forget everything you know about reducing fractions — it turns out you can just cancel individual digits: [..]’
‘A helicopter with a pilot and a single passenger was flying around above Seattle when a malfunction disabled all of the aircraft’s navigation and communications equipment. Due to the darkness and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter’s position and course to get back to the airport.
The pilot saw a tall building with lights on and flew toward it, the pilot had the passenger draw a handwritten sign reading “WHERE AM I?” and hold it up for the building’s occupants to see.
People in the building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said “YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER.”‘
‘A man who was impaled by a metal post said he was walking on his own the day after it was removed from his body.
James Graham, a truck driver, was seriously injured on Aug. 16 when a 10-foot pole went through the driver’s side door and into his body after he crashed his 18-wheeler into a chain-link fence.
Graham said he remembered the crash, but doesn’t remember the pole going through his body.
“I didn’t even know I was stuck until a bypasser got up on the truck and said, ‘Oh man, you’ve been stabbed with a pole,”‘ Graham said. “I was like, ‘What?'”‘
‘Actor Owen Wilson was taken to a hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., Sunday, reportedly after attempting suicide.
Wilson was transported to St. John’s Hospital. Citing sources, The National Enquirer and Star magazine said the star of “Wedding Crashers” and “Starsky & Hutch” had cut his left wrist and taken an undetermined amount of pills.
He was found by a family member who called for help.
Santa Monica police confirmed only that the actor had been taken to a hospital, TMZ.com reported.’
‘Rockets can help power robotic arms, which could help lead to “better, stronger, faster” bionic limbs, research now reveals.
A new prototype rocket-powered mechanical arm can lift about 20 to 25 pounds—three to four times more than current commercial prosthetic arms—and can do so three to four times faster.
“Our design does not have superhuman strength or capability, but it is closer in terms of function and power to a human arm than any previous prosthetic device that is self-powered and weighs about the same as a natural arm,” said researcher Michael Goldfarb, a roboticist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
“It has about 10 times as much power as other [robotic] arms,” Goldfarb said.’
‘Lose a game of chess to a computer, and you could bruise your ego. Lose an arm-wrestling match to a Japanese arcade machine, and you could break your arm.
Distributor Atlus said Tuesday it will remove all 150 Arm Spirit arm wrestling machines from Japanese arcades after three players broke their arms grappling with the machine’s mechanized appendage.
“The machine isn’t that strong, much less so than a muscular man. Even women should be able to beat it,” said Atlus spokeswoman Ayano Sakiyama, calling the recall “a precaution.”
“We think that maybe some players get overexcited and twist their arms in an unnatural way,” she said. The company was investigating the incidents and checking the machines for any signs of malfunction.’
‘Vermont’s clothing-optional capital is stripping off its temporary ban on public nudity.
A month after passing the temporary ban, the Brattleboro Selectboard voted 3-2 on Tuesday to reject a proposed ordinance that would have made it permanent. When the emergency temporary ordinance expires next month, public nudity will no longer be illegal.
It’s all about tolerance, one board member said.
”We in this country are going down a slippery slope these days,” said Dora Bouboulis, noting a national newspaper recently published an article about the emergency ordinance under the headline ”Tolerant town gets intolerant.”’
‘The urethra, unlike other orifices, is strictly designed for one-way activity. There’s no negotiating that – it’s the way things are. I’m not ashamed to admit that at one point in my life I’ve had the infamous STD test which involves the doctor sticking a Q-Tip into your urethra. I learned two very important things from that test: One – I don’t have chlamydia. Two – inserting an object into your peehole HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCK. It does. It really hurts. Things aren’t supposed to be in there, and your body has a rather dramatic way of telling you that. But such things are small obstacles to those determined to find new ways of pleasuring themselves – you see, for a growing number of people, inserting objects into the urethra is all kinds of fun.
In the darkest corners of the internet, you’ll find guys sticking all sorts of objects into their pee tubes. For example…’
‘In what critics call a dangerous power grab, the Monsanto Company is seeking wide-ranging control over swine reproduction methods in the form of patents which, if granted, would give the corporation economic rights over any offspring produced using those techniques.Documents obtained by Christoph Then, a Germany-based researcher for Greenpeace, show Monsanto’s attempts to secure broad intellectual property protection for swine herds. [..]
Monsanto spokesperson Chris Horner said that the company merely wants protection for its selective breeding processes, including the means to identify specific genes in pigs and use of a specialized insemination device. [..]
But Then, who has been studying patents for a decade, said that there is really nothing new to the breeding processes of which Monsanto is seeking to claim exclusive ownership; rather, the patents attempt to privatize farming techniques already in existence for centuries.
“There’s no invention in this,” he said. “It’s just normal pig breeding.”‘
‘Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city’s sewer plant.
The test wouldn’t be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.
Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking. [..]
She said that one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week.’
‘An Arizona woman has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing her estranged husband in the chest during sex, MyFOXPhoenix.com reports.
Falon Gonzales, 23, was released on $100,000 bond after being booked Tuesday night, according to the report. Her husband, Juan Carlos Gonzales, 26, was listed in serious condition at a local hospital.
He fled to neighbor Tony Ballard’s home on West Stanford Avenue in Gilbert, Ariz., after the attack, MyFOXPhoenix.com reports.
“I’ve never had a naked man run to my house bleeding, you know what I mean?” Ballard told MyFOXPhoenix.com.
Ballard told MyFOXPhoenix.com that the couple was in the middle of sex when the alleged attack occurred.
“She was on top and she reached out of a bag and pulled a knife out of a bag and drove it into his chest,” Ballard said of the incident.’
