`China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military.
According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a “kill vehicle” and destroyed the satellite by ramming it.
The test took place on January 11.’
Sometimes when you fly sideways around a corner at high speed you don’t see large animals standing in the middle of the road until it’s too late. :)
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`The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can.’
‘.. is an art intervention that involves placing a gigantic banana over the Texas sky. The object will float between the high atmosphere and Earth’s low orbit, being visible only from the state of Texas and its surroundings. From the ground the banana will be clearly recognizable and visible day and night; it will stay up for approximately one month.’
`A man who ran several marathons while claiming disability benefits has been given a 10-month prison sentence.
Paul Appleby, 47, from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, started claiming benefits in 1994 – saying he needed a wheelchair or walking frame to walk.
But Appleby, who claimed £22,300 in total, joined a running club in 2001, competing in road races and marathons. ‘
This is an old trailer for the first Star Wars movie. It makes the whole movie look stupid, so I assume they came up with a better one before the movie was actually released. :)
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`The “reckless” action of the party host precipitated the explosion that killed a 22-year-old New Milford man and injured several others last fall, according to a lawsuit filed in Danbury Superior Court.
The legal action, filed on behalf of Darren Snyder, a 36-year-old restaurant owner who was hurt in the blast, identifies Matt Johnson as the person who tossed an empty beer keg into the fire during a pig roast on his parent’s Aspetuck Ridge Road property in October.
After cooking for several hours, the stainless steel keg blew up, taking the life of another party guest, Sean Caselli.’
`It ranks among the most enduring mysteries of the cosmos. Physicists call it the Fermi paradox after the Italian Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi, who, in 1950, pointed out the glaring conflict between predictions that life was elsewhere in the universe – and the conspicuous lack of aliens who have come to visit.
Now a Danish researcher believes he may have solved the paradox. Extra-terrestrials have yet to find us because they haven’t had enough time to look. [..]
He found that even if the alien ships could hurtle through space at a tenth of the speed of light, or 30,000km a second, – Nasa’s current Cassini mission to Saturn is plodding along at 32km a second – it would take 10bn years, roughly half the age of the universe, to explore just 4% of the galaxy.’
`After a losing a pile of money at a casino, a man drove directly to the Casino Control Commission and put his name on a list of people banned from the casinos for life.
It’s a decision he immediately regretted – even more so when he learned that in this case, what happens in Atlantic City does not stay in Atlantic City.
The state commission, identifying the man by his initials, S.D., on Wednesday rejected his bid to become the first person allowed to gamble in the state again after placing himself on the list.
The self-exclusion list was established in 2001 as a way for compulsive gamblers to avoid the temptation. People can choose to be banned for one year, five years or life. There are about 525 people are on the list now – about half for life.’
This is a blanket specially designed for people who don’t wanna bother getting dressed when friends come over. It actually looks like it works fairly well. :)
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`New research shows that the level of nicotine in major brands of American cigarettes has gone up by 11 per cent in the period 1998 to 2005. [..]
The scientists examined annual data submitted by tobacco manufacturers to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH). [..]
Upon analysing the data the scientists found that the manufacturers have increased the level of smoke nicotine yield in cigarettes by an average of 1.6 per cent for each year between 1998 and 2005. And they did this in two ways. First by directly altering the concentration of nicotine, and secondly by changing the design features to increase the delivery efficiency of nicotine.’
`Three thieves who allegedly stole 14 global positioning system devices didn’t get away with their crime for long. The devices led police right to their home.
Town officials said the thieves didn’t even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.
According to Suffolk County police, the GPS devices were stolen Monday night from the Town of Babylon Public Works garage in Lindenhurst. The town immediately tapped its GPS system, and it showed that one of the devices was inside a house. Police said that when they arrived there, Kurt Husfeldt, 46, had the device in his hands.’
Some guys change the Windows shutdown sound on their friends lap top, then film him using the computer in a library.
Baa!
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`Everyone knows to keep their curtains closed, drink lots of water and wear sunscreen on a hot day.
But there are other dangers hidden in garages most people would not even think about in the heat.
An Alfredton family learned this the hard way on Tuesday when Ballarat’s maximum temperature topped 38C.
Jan Cornish said she was shocked on that night to discover a can of paint remover stored in the garage had exploded.
Unfortunately the liquid did exactly what it was made to do on two cars – stripped paint.’
`Invoking Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Hankey from the television series “South Park,” the lawyer for an ex-professor accused of leaving dog feces at a congresswoman’s office said her client’s actions qualify as protected speech under the First Amendment.
Kathleen Ensz faces a misdemeanor charge of “use of a noxious substance.” She is accused of taking dog feces from her backyard, wrapping it in a political mailer from Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, and leaving it at the Republican’s office, according to court documents.
Ensz, a Democrat, was angered by repeatedly receiving mailings from Musgrave, the documents said.’
This woman is driving through a gate, but doesn’t do a particularly good job. I bet she was surprised. :)
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‘Reversing itself, the Defense Department says an espionage report it produced that warned about Canadian coins with tiny radio-frequency transmitters was not true.
The Defense Security Service said it never could substantiate its own published claims about the mysterious coins. It has begun an internal review to determine how the false information was included in a 29-page report about espionage concerns.’
Follow up to: Canadian coins bugged, U.S. security agency says
`It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their "immortality". The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.
It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.’
`New Zealand policeman, constable Jonathon “Jono” Erwood has been discharged without conviction by a judge at the New Plymouth District Court and has been allowed to keep his job after he arrived to a car crash scene drunk. [..]
When constable Erwood arrived at the double fatality July 9, 2006 crash scene on his day off he was taken aside by another police officer and breathalysed and then charged with drunk driving.
The judge who discharged him, Louis Erwood, said that constable Erwood risked his life by responding to the accident. “There was nothing personal in this for you and it reflects a commitment to your job which you should be proud of.”‘
Surprised the baby is even alive, really.
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`Rebels in eastern Congo have killed and eaten two silverback mountain gorillas, conservationists said Wednesday, warning they fear more of the endangered animals may have been slaughtered in the lawless region.
Only about 700 mountain gorillas remain in the world, 380 of them spread across a range of volcanic mountains straddling the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda in Central Africa.
One dismembered gorilla corpse was found Tuesday in a pit latrine in Congo’s Virunga National Park, a few hundred yards from a park patrol post that was abandoned because of rebel attacks, according to the London-based Africa Conservation Fund. Another was killed in the same area on Jan. 5, said the group, which based its report on conservationists in the field.’
This looks like fun. Terrifying fun. :)
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`Six workers in Honduras were crushed to death by sacks of coffee beans unleashed when a wall in a warehouse gave way, rescue officials said.
The men were young seasonal workers at a coffee farm in Villanueva in the north of the Central American nation.
Officials said the wall collapse caused an overhead storeroom to come down, burying the men under around 10 tons of coffee beans.’
`A determined 9-year-old runaway who managed to board flights from Seattle to Texas in efforts to rejoin his grandfather in Dallas was seeking a father figure, his mother said.
Sakinah Booker said her son dislikes his new neighborhood, is afraid of a sex offender who lives nearby and has been impatient with her efforts to move back to Dallas.
She said her son, Semaj Booker, misses having a father.
“He needs a male role model and he’s really seeking it,” she said Thursday morning in a report aired on CNN. [..]
Meanwhile, authorities scrambled to determine how Semaj, an 80-pound, 4-foot-9 fourth grader, managed to slip through airline and airport security.’
Kinda strange and kinda cool at the same time.
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`Venezuela’s National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for 18 months.
Mr Chavez said he wants to approve “revolutionary laws” to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes.
He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and scrap limits on the terms a president can serve.’
`North Dakota’s Legislature is encouraging disrespect for the law by making it illegal for a man and woman to live together without being married, a legislator says.
If North Dakota prosecutors began enforcing the anti-cohabitation law, which provides a 30-day jail term and a $1,000 fine, the state would need a “$10 billion prison,” Sen. Tracy Potter, D-Bismarck, said Wednesday.
“We’re saying that we have optional laws, laws that we don’t really mean,” Potter said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the repeal measure. “We shouldn’t have laws like that.”‘
It’s not the best idea to take your dog to a funeral, but you’ve still gotta be pretty unlucky to have something like this happen. :)
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`For the month of November, I’m only spending $30 on food. The only exception will be things that are freely available to the average person (salt taken from restaurants, sauce packets from Taco Bell, free coffee from an office). Buying in advance is fine, but at the end of the month, it all has to add up to $30 or less.’
And there’s a daily blog for the month.
`With studies showing that U.S. jails can’t enforce bans on sex between inmates, lawmakers and AIDS-prevention advocates say it’s time to start distributing condoms in Washington prisons.
Legislators are pushing a bill calling for a five-year plan to reduce the number of sexually transmitted infections among inmates.
Though the bill does not specify condom distribution, its prime sponsor, Rep. Jeannie Darneille, D-Tacoma, said she hoped it would rekindle stalled discussions about providing inmates with protection. “We have to start somewhere,” she said.’
