moonbuggy

‘Groups of elderly Australians are reportedly setting up backyard laboratories to manufacture an illegal euthanasia drug so they can kill themselves when they have had enough of life.

One group has already succeeded in producing the drug nembutal, which is used by vets to put down animals, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday night.

At least four other backyard factories were planned for major cities across the country, with a total of some 800 elderly people prepared to become involved in producing the drug.

Dozens of older Australians were also engaged in illegally importing nembutal from the Mexican border town of Tijuana, close to the US city of San Diego, according to the report.’

‘Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.

However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community.’

‘A rare cancer in the back of the throat is “strongly associated” with a virus transmitted during oral sex, US researchers believe.

A study of 100 women diagnosed with cancers at the back of the throat, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has linked human papillomavirus (HPV) with throat cancer. It concluded oral HPV infection was associated with oropharyngeal cancer among people with or without the other risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use.

Infection with sexually transmitted HPV is a cause of virtually all cervical cancers.’

‘A college degree is fast becoming a necessity for anyone looking to maintain a comfortable middle-class living. Unfortunately for many college students, just paying for this degree is a struggle. The cost of tuition is rising, and two-thirds of all college graduates leave college with debt averaging close to $20,000 (Herbert). In some cases this figure is much higher, and in countless others students can’t even afford to finish college in the first place. According to Tamara Draut, the director of the Economic Opportunity Program for public policy group Demos, the problem is “rooted in the reality that our government no longer really helps people pay for college” (qtd in Herbert). If college students truly want to reap the benefits of their education, they need another source of assistance in paying for college. [..]

This is why I believe students should have the opportunity to sell their organs to the college they are attending in exchange for cash or financial credit.’

‘A 48-year-old man has died while dancing, trying to outdo a rival with an acrobatic move while “battle dancing,” police said.

Robert Stitt and his rival were competing in a parking lot on Main Street Monday night when he tried a forward flip and landed on his head.

“It was just two guys dancing. Everybody was laughing,” Stitt’s friend John Boxley said.

Boxley said James Brown was on the radio and Stitt wanted to outdo a rival dancer, who had flipped in the air.

Police said the victim went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead a short time at a local hospital.’

Looks like he got served.

This is a Rube Goldberg device that makes use of lots of fire and explosions. I like it. :)

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‘Spreading honey on a diabetic ulcer could prevent the need to amputate an infected foot, researchers say.

A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who helped about half a dozen of her diabetic patients avoid amputation has launched a controlled trial to promote the widespread use of honey therapy.

The therapy involves squeezing a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed.

The honey kills bacteria because it is acidic and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics, Jennifer Eddy, a professor at the University’s School of Medicine and Public Health, told AFP.

“This is a tremendously important issue for world health,” Eddy said.’

‘Prosecutors issued arrest warrants Tuesday for eight former prison employees accused of abusing inmates, including forcing some to clean toilets with their tongues.

The eight were among 13 prison employees who had already been fired from the 605-inmate medium and minimum security wards at the Hendry Correctional Institution in the Everglades.

The previous warden and an assistant warden resigned, and three others were reassigned after an inmate was beaten and choked by guards in March.’

‘A 17-year-old boy was growing marijuana on vacant property owned by Ocala’s deputy police chief, authorities said. Deputy Chief Greg Graham said he was told about the plants by neighbors on Saturday. He had bought the lot two months ago as an investment, the Ocala Star-Banner reported. Deputies with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office confiscated nine potted marijuana plants on the lot.

Graham said he has known the teen, who was not identified because of his age, for several years.

“I have no idea why he picked my property,” Graham said.’

‘When you are walking through the park with your wife and newborn baby you must be very careful and subtle when you check out other women who pass by. Follow this guys lead and youll never get caught.’

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‘The parents of a baby that died of starvation after being fed a vegan diet have been found guilty of malice murder, felony murder and first degree cruelty to children.

Jade Sanders, 27, and Lamont Thomas, 31, will get an automatic life sentence for the death of their 6-week-old infant, Crown. After being fed a diet largely consisting of soy milk and apple juice, he weighed only 3 1/2 pounds when he died. [..]

Prosecutors said it was a chilling case of murder by starvation, a painful and prolonged death. Attorneys representing Sanders and Thomas told jurors the first-time parents did the best they could while adhering to their vegan lifestyle. Vegans typically live free of animal products.

“They’re not vegans, they’re baby killers,” Fulton prosecutor Mike Carlson told the jury Tuesday during his closing arguments.’

‘An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department’s false espionage warning earlier this year, The Associated Press has learned.

The odd-looking — but harmless — “poppy coin” was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as “anomalous” and “filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology,” according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP. [..]

The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy’s red colour from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada’s 117,000 war dead.’

Followup to Canadian spy coins never existed.

‘Climbing into a giraffe’s cage at the local zoo seemed a good idea after a few drinks. But the prank went wrong when the 1.3-ton animal flew into a rage and attacked the three student trespassers at a zoo in Lithuania on Monday night.

Ruta Greiciute, a 22-year-old student at Kaunas Technology University, was hospitalized with a broken collar bone and nose after the 9-year-old male giraffe, named Solut, attacked her. [..]

“This was a very silly thing they did. The scared giraffe could have stomped her to death,” Kaunas Zoo spokeswoman Angele Grebliauskaite said.’

‘An upstate New York couple didn’t think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer.

Months later, they found out how wrong they were when they discovered more than a ton and a half of bat droppings up there.

Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly.

Then they forgot about the bats until they smelled a foul odor in January. When they checked the attic, they found dead bats and piles of guano.’

I’d call this cruel.

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‘This is what I found in someone’s stomach. Before surgery, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on until I found this big hairball in his stomach. He also had a small bowel obstruction from another hairball that had broken off and migrated downstream (aptly named Rapunzel syndrome). Post op I found he’d been eating hair, even sneaking it out of his mom’s hairbrush.’

‘A woman forced an 83-year-old housemate to smoke crack cocaine so she could steal personal information to get a credit card and run up more than $3,000 in charges, authorities said.

Pasco County sheriff’s investigators accused Theresa M. Stanley-Morgan, 41, of getting the older woman to smoke the drug at least twice to make it easier to exploit her financially.’

‘In October 1957, after several years of successful operation, the workers at Windscale noticed some curious readings from their temperature monitoring equipment as they carried out standard maintenance. The reactor temperature was slowly rising during a time that they expected it to be falling. The remote detection equipment seemed to be malfunctioning, so two plant workers donned protective equipment and hiked to the reactor to inspect it in person. When they arrived, they were alarmed to discover that the interior of the uranium-filled reactor was ablaze.’

This tortoise doesn’t like cats invading it’s territory, apparently. Determined little bastard. :)

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‘Mike Olson had been working under his dad’s deck for about 20 minutes when he realized he wasn’t alone. “I cocked my head back, and I saw those two eyes looking at me,” Olson said of the Monday encounter. “I got out real fast.”

Olson had seen what he thought was a gray wolf. “It was probably 6 feet away,” he said. “It was just laying down. It had its head up and was just looking at me.”

Olson and his dad, Erling, called the police, who responded expecting to find a large, wolf-like dog beneath the deck.

“They put their head under the deck, and sure enough, it was a wolf,” said Craig Mattson, deputy chief for the Thief River Falls Police Department.’

‘By Day 2 in the blazing Utah desert, Dave Buschow was in bad shape. Pale, wracked by cramps, his speech slurred, the 29-year-old New Jersey man was desperate for water and hallucinating so badly he mistook a tree for a person.

After going roughly 10 hours without a drink in the 100-degree heat, he finally dropped dead of thirst, face down in the dirt, less than 100 yards from the goal: a cave with a pool of water.

But Buschow was no solitary soul, lost and alone in the desert. He and 11 other hikers from various walks of life were being led by expert guides on a wilderness-survival adventure designed to test their physical and mental toughness.

And the guides, it turned out, were carrying emergency water on that torrid summer day.’

‘A Jewish girl away from home at college prank calls her parents and tells them she started dating an Italian guy. The father threatens to kill the guy and the mothers comments are priceless.’

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‘Two Canadian comedians have fooled France’s president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy with a crank phone call.

The ‘Masked Defenders’ – Marc-Antoine Audette and Sebastien Trudel – called Mr Sarkozy pretending to be Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The caller apologised for his poor French skills and invited Mr Sarkozy to visit Canada to eat a popular Quebec dish of fries, cheese curds and gravy.

Mr Sarkozy accepted, but hung up when the comedian suggested they invite the US President George W Bush and said he had always wanted to host a “dinner of fools”.’

‘During today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he doesn’t know whether the 2002 resolution authorizing force in Iraq is still valid, acknowledging that his view differs with that of President Bush.

During his questioning of Gates, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) noted that the authorization listed two purposes for the use of force: 1) to defend the United States against Saddam Hussein and 2) enforce U.N. resolutions against Hussein’s government. Byrd asked Gates, since Hussein’s government no longer exists, “do you agree that this authorization no longer applies to the ongoing conflict in Iraq?”

Gates responded: “I think the honest answer, Senator Byrd, is that I don’t know the answer to that question.” Gates admitted that his answer contradicts that of the President, who believes the resolution “still continues to authorize the actions that we are taking in Iraq.”’

‘Local artist and drag performer Jojo Baby thinks he’s fairly open minded, but what he saw inside a Wicker Park apartment this week blew him away.

Baby was at eBay seller Brian Sloan’s apartment to buy vintage mannequins for his studio, where he creates dolls and puppets.

But instead, Baby said he saw human skulls boiling inside Sloan’s apartment. [..]

Sloan has a law degree but makes a living selling various items on the Internet — including a batch of vintage mannequins that were on the steps of his back porch. Sloan said the skulls are imported legally, but police still confiscated them.’

‘Some reported asks a couple some various questions about their sex life. The clip kinda drags until the final answer given which shocks both the husband and the reporter.’

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‘Police are seeking the vandals who spray-painted the words “Go Home” on a Samoan Shepherd who enjoys wandering, unleashed, though its Idaho neighborhood. As seen in the below evidence photos, the dog, named Wiley, had one word painted on each side of his body. According to a Bannock County Sheriff’s Department report, Wiley’s owner called cops late last month after discovering her dog “had been spray painted with gang graffiti.” Actually, it appears that the ambulating animal wasn’t tagged by an Idaho Blood or Crip, but rather by some annoyed neighbor or juvenile delinquent. A sheriff’s deputy advised Wiley’s owner, Marilyn Hardenbrook, to keep the dog in her own yard (and under her control while the pooch was “out and about”).’

‘These concrete towers were unique AIR RAID SHELTERS of Nazi Germany, built to withstand the destructive power of WWII bombs and heavy artillery. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate only at a heavily fortified base.
Cheaper to build above ground than to dig bunkers, they were quite effective, as it was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside. Plus the “footprint” of such tower was very small when observed from the air, so it was very hard for the bombers to ensure a direct hit.’

‘A woman who claimed she was raped in her home by a man pretending to be a police officer today admitted in court that she made up the allegation. [..]

Before she went to a doctor to lay the false complaint May made numerous preparations.

Police said she cut her telephone line, pulled out clumps of her hair, rubbed her knees on the carpet until they bled and scratched her buttocks.

She also put a condom over a hammer handle and used it to create sexual attack trauma.’

‘James Dowdy has admitted his hankering for women’s hosiery has been his undoing, earning him three stints in prison and repeated scoldings from judges over the years. So police say it’s no surprise the 36-year-old man is knee deep in trouble again because of his lust for leggings.

St. Clair County prosecutors charged Dowdy on Friday with felony attempted burglary for his uninvited visit to a parked car and with misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge for dropping stolen socks “in an unreasonable manner, as to alarm and disturb.”

“He’s obviously got some problems,” Belleville police Capt. Don Sax said Monday of Dowdy, who remains jailed on $50,000 bond. “We can’t crawl into his head and come up with a particular answer to why he does this. We have to assume it’s part of his sexual deviation.” [..]

“To the best of our knowledge, he’s just after the socks,” Sax said. “Generally, they are almost always female socks.”‘