‘A German paraglider is being hailed as “the luckiest woman in the world” after surviving a storm cell that sucked her higher than Mount Everest during a flight in northern New South Wales.
Ewa Wisnierska, 35, spent 40 minutes unconscious while being carried to a height of approximately 30,000 feet, where she was pounded by hail, narrowly avoided lightning and was covered in ice.
A 40-year-old Chinese paraglider sucked into the same storm cell was found dead yesterday, a day after going missing.’
‘The author of ForestBlog, a blogging tool, has discovered that the MPAA was using his code in violation of his license. He gives the code away for free, but requires that users link back to his site and keep his name on the software. The MPAA deleted all credits and copyright notices from his work, and used it without permission. They ripped him off:
Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That’s right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!’
‘The word “scrotum” does not often appear in polite conversation. Or children’s literature, for that matter.
Yet there it is on the first page of “The Higher Power of Lucky,” by Susan Patron, this year’s winner of the Newbery Medal, the most prestigious award in children’s literature. The book’s heroine, a scrappy 10-year-old orphan named Lucky Trimble, hears the word through a hole in a wall when another character says he saw a rattlesnake bite his dog, Roy, on the scrotum.
“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”’
‘Just when you think Republicans can’t get any crazier, we find out that the powerful chairman of the Texas House Appropriations Committee, Warren Chisum, doesn’t even believe that the earth revolves around the sun.’
‘It’s V to the A to the D E R.. Reconstructing the Death Star..’
(8.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘The opiate drug morphine is effective in easing long-standing coughs, as doctors have suspected, a study shows.
Physicians have been prescribing, on a hunch, the powerful drug to people with stubborn coughs for years.
But until now, there was no hard proof from a trial comparing the effect of morphine with a dummy treatment.’
‘Police announced they uncovered a plastic bag stuffed with the skeletal remains of at least six newborns Sunday after searching the grounds of a Christian missionary hospital in the central Indian town of Ratlam.
Director General of Police A.R. Pavar said they found the remains hidden in a drainage ditch on the hospital’s property in Ratlam after scouring the grounds following a tip off from a local.
All 390 bone fragments are thought to be from newly born babies and fetuses, but Pavar said an investigation will offer more information. [..]
Bishop L. Maida, the senior official who represents the church that runs the hospital, told CNN the hospital is more than a century old and nothing like this has happened before.’
‘You people suck, you filthy bastards. How dare you do this to me you sick morons?’
(11.2meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘Britney Spears appeared in a tattoo parlor in the San Fernando Valley with her head shaved completely bald. [..]
Before heading to the tattoo parlor, Spears grabbed an electric clipper and shaved her own head at a San Fernando Valley salon Friday night, it was reported.
“I tried to talk her out of it. I said, ‘Are you sure you’re not having a bad day and tomorrow you’ll feel differently about it? Why don’t we wait a little bit?”‘ salon owner Esther Tognozzi said.
“She said, ‘No, I absolutely want it shaved off now.’ Next thing I know, she grabbed the buzzer and she went to the back of my salon and she was shaving off her own hair,” Tognozzi said.’
(7.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘A hole in a frozen pond in northern Latvia achieved unexpected notoriety on Wednesday as rumours began circulating that it was created by an object falling from outer space.
“We’ve been collecting information on the story all day, and we’ll definitely report it in the morning,” Inguna Plume, editor of local newspaper Ziemellatvija, told reporters.
The “unusually large hole” appeared in the ice of a frozen pond near the northern Latvian village of Karki in early February, the Leta news agency wrote. Despite sub-zero temperatures, the hole reportedly did not freeze over for two days.
Locals initially reported seeing “strange things” in the area.’
This is one of those games where you have to move the cursor through a maze type thing, without touching the walls.
Some of you may have no trouble when it comes to not being able to touch the sides.. :)
(32kB Shockwave)
see it here »
‘Anything starting with catholic and ending with fucking your mother has got to be good.’
This stuff bounces for ages. It’s excellent. :)
If I could bounce this much I’d rule the world. And you’d all love it.
(3.6meg Google video)
see it here »
‘AIDs patients suffering from debilitating nerve pain got as much or more relief by smoking marijuana as they would typically get from prescription drugs – and with fewer side effects – according to a study conducted under rigorously controlled conditions with government-grown pot.
In a five-day study performed in a specially ventilated hospital ward where patients smoked three marijuana cigarettes a day, more than half the participants tallied significant reductions in pain.
By contrast, less than one-quarter of those who smoked “placebo” pot, which had its primary psychoactive ingredients removed, reported benefits, as measured by subjective pain reports and standardized neurological tests.’
‘An 84-year-old woman accused of attempted rape involving an 11-year-old boy in her foster care has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after confessing to having sex with the child, prosecutors said Thursday.
Georgie Audean Buoy, of The Dalles, a Columbia River town about 90 miles east of Portland, will serve 36 months in prison, said Leslie Wolf, chief deputy district attorney for Wasco County. [..]
Buoy also must pay $5,000 to the victim, as well as up to $7,500 in restitution for counseling.
Buoy will be the oldest female inmate in the Oregon corrections system, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.’
‘The experiments began in July 1961, three months after the start of the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?”
(23.4meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Deep in the dusty, unlit corridors of Kenya’s national museum, locked away in a plain-looking cabinet, is one of mankind’s oldest relics: Turkana Boy, as he is known, the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found.
But his first public display later this year is at the heart of a growing storm — one pitting scientists against Kenya’s powerful and popular evangelical Christian movement. The debate over evolution vs. creationism — once largely confined to the United States — has arrived in a country known as the cradle of mankind.
“I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it,” says Bishop Boniface Adoyo, head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, which he claims have 10 million followers. “These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.”‘
‘In this simple but interesting online game, you have to control the cute dolphin in performing various jumps and tricks and score as many points as possible before time runs out.
In order to achieve this objective, you need to utilize some special skills in landing the jumps cleanly with nose first to gain entry bonus. Try to take off soon after landing to chain the jumps together for the big combos.’
(206kB Shockwave)
see it here »
‘Ryan Burke decided it would be a great idea to amass a crowd of 100s of UNC students to witness him breaking up with his girlfriend Mindy. (Valentines Day 2007)’
‘I’m not ready to make it right, I’m not ready to back down..’
see it here »
‘Early on the morning of Dec. 13, police officers responding to a 911 call arrived at a house in Hull, Mass., a seaside town near Boston, and found a 4-year-old girl on the floor of her parents’ bedroom, dead.
She was lying on her side, in a pink diaper, the police said, sprawled across some discarded magazines and a stuffed brown bear.
Last week, prosecutors in Plymouth County charged the parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, with deliberately poisoning their daughter Rebecca by giving her overdoses of prescription drugs to sedate her.
The police said the girl had been taking a potent cocktail of psychiatric drugs since age 2, when she was given a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder, which is characterized by mood swings.
The parents have pleaded not guilty, with their lawyers questioning whether the child should have been prescribed such powerful drugs.’
‘My friend, all I can say is that you are clearly insane. We’ve recieved word from him since that he has been suspended from school for 30 days as well as being charged with sexual harrassment by the teacher in the photo above. I’m actually speechless. I don’t know what to say. Let this be a lesson to all, kids- the C&H world and reality do not mix well. Our poor friend here found that out the hard way. Unlucky, soldier!’
‘The state troopers in Rhinebeck realized that they were dealing with a specialist. The burglar left no fingerprints or clues. There wasn’t much to do except alert the antiques publications, the auction houses, and the Times, which ran a brief article about the burglaries. [..]
Mason and Abruzzini had warned me that Nordahl always talked about changing his ways. “Blane couldn’t go straight if you snapped a chalk line for him,” Abruzzini said. Luanne, his ex-girlfriend, had also told me that he would never stop. “He’ll be seventy-eight with a goddam cane, walking down the street stealing silver,” she said.’
‘Researchers who wanted to find out why it is not only taboo to kiss your sister, but also disgusting, said on Wednesday they have discovered why in a discovery that challenges some basic tenets of Freudian theory.
The instinct evolved naturally and cannot be taught, John Tooby and Leda Cosmides of the University of California Santa Barbara wrote in their report in the journal Nature. [..]
“This data shows that the degree to which we feel those things is governed by these cues that, for hunter-gatherers, predict whether somebody is a sibling. And it works regardless of your beliefs — who you are told who your siblings are,” she said.’
Full House was a silly show.
(7.0meg Flash video)
see it here »
(74kB Shockwave)
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‘A man who allegedly faked his own kidnapping to keep his wife from finding out he crashed her new car could face criminal charges, police said.
Jorge Alberto Mejia, 35, told police two kidnappers held him up at gunpoint at a San Rafael bar Saturday and ordered him to drive to Santa Rosa, California, where he purposely crashed the car into a wall to escape. Under questioning Monday, Mejia admitted to investigators he made the story up, including detailed descriptions of the nonexistent kidnappers.’
‘Anni Sheriffius said she was trying to wash off what she thought was dirt on her dog Jasmine’s ear when the ear fell off.
Sheriffius rushed her dog to the veterinarian to learn that the dog’s ear had been cut off by a dog groomer and super-glued back on.
“And I saw the ear float away, and it freaked me out,” Sheriffius said.’
see it here »
This is a pretty cool little animation.
(12.2meg Windows media)
see it here »
