`A man running from a routine traffic stop early Tuesday sank waist-deep in mud and apparently died of exhaustion and cold while authorities tried to pull him out.
Deputies stopped Shawn E. Leflore, 33, for having an outdated registration sticker, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.
“He thought he was wanted. That is why he ran,” Peritz said. “But it turns out he wasn’t wanted for anything, except his driver’s license was expired.”‘
`New York workers have discovered a trove of Cold War-era supplies within the masonry of the Brooklyn Bridge, a cache meant to aid in survival efforts in the event of nuclear attack.
City Department of Transportation employees were conducting maintenance on the structure Wednesday when they found the cache on the top floor of a three-floor space inside the bridge’s base, agency spokeswoman Kay Sarlin said.
Some containers were marked with two dates notorious in the annals of the Cold War: 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, and 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis when the two superpowers may have come closest to war.’
`The White House has offered some clarification to its earlier statements that Iraq is doing well three years after the American invasion, grammatical clarifications which will doubtless offer solace to all those concerned about the differences between the Administration’s descriptions and the reality perceived by the rest of the world.
The President said that he understood why many Americans had had their confidence in the war shaken after watching scenes of carnage on television despite assurances that “the situation is under control.”
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” said President Bush in a press conference. “If ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”‘
`Fifty minutes, 35USD, and four humans later, I’d filed my first bug report with Microsoft. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. Since I started this process, I’ve received six e-mails from Microsoft: one describing my new Passport account, one asking me to activate my Passport account, two receipts for 35USD (I hope that doesn’t mean I paid twice), and two form mails from Kim, one saying she was taking charge of my case and one saying my case had been resolved by filing a bug report. I hope that means I get my money back.’
`A Kansas man was arrested at a Tulsa strip club after police say his toddler son wandered from an unlocked car into the club over the weekend.
Christopher Greg Killion, 31, was arrested Saturday on a complaint of “encouraging a minor child to be in need of supervision.” He posted $500 bond and was released from the Tulsa Jail.
The toddler told police that his father told him to stay in the car, and that if he left it, “monsters would eat him,” reports indicate.’
`The brother of Pittsburgh Steelers safety Tyrone Carter had his sentence for driving with a revoked license increased from six months to five years because he failed to report to jail on time.
Tank Carter was scheduled to report to a Broward County prison on Jan. 6, but decided against it when his brother told him the Steelers had a good chance of going to the Super Bowl. On Tuesday, Broward Circuit Judge Stanton S. Kaplan increased the sentence.
“Even knowing what I know now, I would do it again,” Carter said. “It was the greatest game in my life.”‘
`There’s no place for the Sun to hide its face anymore.
The rotating star’s far side, out of view to astronomers, has now been fully seen for the first time using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
A new technique allows scientists to detect potentially damaging solar storms that may be brewing on the far side of the Sun and, weeks later, will be rotated into view and aimed our way.’
`A U.S. Army dog handler was sentenced to six months in prison for tormenting detainees at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail with his unmuzzled Belgian shepherd, an Army spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Sgt. Michael Smith, 24, faced up to 8 1/2 years in prison after he was found guilty on six of 13 counts brought against him. He will also have his rank reduced to private and must pay a total of $2,250 in fines for harassing and threatening inmates in 2003 and 2004, Army spokeswoman Shaunteh Kelly said. [..]
Photos of inmates being intimidated by dogs and sexually humiliated were broadcast around the world after the abuses became public in 2004, undermining Washington’s efforts to win support for its war in Iraq.
Several of these photos were introduced as evidence in Smith’s trial.’
`Laser communications chips capable of pumping data through the veins of gargantuan “petaflop” supercomputers have been demonstrated by NEC in Japan.
The communications chips can transfer information through optical fibres at a blistering 25 gigabits per second (a gigabit is a billion bits). This is a record for such components, according to NEC, and is many times faster that the purely electronic interconnects used in today’s supercomputers.
Communications chips can convert electronic signals into optical ones. Using optical fibres to relay data between the chips is what may give this type of supercomputer the edge over previous ones using processors connected electronically.’
`Phillip Williams doubted whether he was being sold actual crack cocaine, police say. So he approached two uniformed Tampa officers and allegedly asked them to test his crack pipe so he could be sure.
Turned out Williams, 47, was getting the real thing, and he was arrested shortly after approaching the officers Tuesday morning.’
`But the way our media talks about the war it sounds like a stroll through Candy Land. A hot, dusty, ghetto Candy Land. The muffin man lives in downtown Baghdad in a mud house that has a plastic tarp for a door and in his spare time watches bakery porn on satellite television.
I can tell you that this place isn’t Candy Land. Car bombs are going off killing civilians, people are blowing up mosques, the kidnapping and subsequently beheading of people, these fuckers don’t wear identifiable uniforms, and friends of friends are getting killed over here. I personally find it insulting that what little amount of news I’m given isn’t realistic. I feel like the main character in “Clockwork Orange” with his eyelids held open while being brainwashed. Maybe I’ll start chasing people around with a giant porcelain penis, too.’
`The songs of the humpback whale are among the most complex in the animal kingdom. Researchers have now mathematically confirmed that whales have their own syntax that uses sound units to build phrases that can be combined to form songs that last for hours.
Until now, only humans have demonstrated the ability to use such a hierarchical structure of communication. The research, published online in the March 2006 issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, offers a new approach to studying animal communication, although the authors do not claim that humpback whale songs meet the linguistic rigor necessary for a true language.’
`Young adolescents who wear T-shirts and hats packing an alcohol brand name are more likely to start drinking, a new study finds.
The study was based on a survey of more than 2,000 students age 10-14 in New England. Surveys were done in 1999 and again one or two years later. The results were announced today.
Rate of drinking among those who owned a branded item was 25.5 percent, compared to 13.1 percent of those who did not own a branded item. After controlling for other risk factors for drinking, students who owned alcohol-branded merchandise were 1.5 times more likely to initiate drinking during the study period than those who did not.’
`A bus driver in Britain – who was caught playing video games at the wheel instead of watching the road – has been sacked, the transport authorities said on Monday.
Passengers in Blackburn, in the county of Lancashire in north-west Britain, reported the driver after hearing sound effects of the game coming from the driver’s compartment.
They claimed the driver was using a PlayStation Portable (PSP) when he should have been watching the road.’
`Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency’s top official in New York.
“As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts,” Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting.
“We just don’t have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field,” he said.’
How fucken much does it cost to run a mail server? Stupid.
`An employee at a Davie Burger King might have needed just a bit more customer service training before the company put him in a drive through window to serve customers. Police say the man burst into a rage, jumped out of the drive through window, and attacked two of his customers in their truck…over change.
Employee Michael Perez had been working at the Burger King for just four days, when he apparently had a whopper of a problem as he was serving the Gillis family at the store’s drive-through window. Perez and Kevin Gillis got into an argument over the coins used for Gillis’s change.
Police surveillance tape shows what happened next. [..]’
`A German court ordered viagra to be given to a stallion after his new owner claimed he was impotent and refused to pay the full asking price.
The buyer of the horse called Vedor paid just a tenth of the price of over 4,000 euros ($6,700), claiming it had only one testicle and failed to get frisky with a female pony.’
`Dutch schoolchildren as young as 12 are being treated for addiction to a powerful home-grown marijuana which is up to 20 times stronger than imported varieties, an addiction clinic in the Netherlands has revealed.
But while the age of regular and dependent cannabis users has dropped sharply in recent years, the dangers and health hazards of soft drugs have been “completely underestimated” by parents caught “in a flower- power time warp”, Dr Romeo Ashruf, an addiction specialist, said.’
`Samsung has launched what it reckons its the world’s first 32GB NAND Flash-based hard disk drive replacement unit. The company claimed the so-called “solid state disk” can access data three times faster than an HDD can and write files one-and-a-half times more quickly – though we don’t know what HDD spec it was comparing its product to.
The SSD is a 2.5in form-factor product that operates at 5V and connects across a 66MHz Ultra DMA parallel ATA bus. Samsung said the unit consumes just five per cent of the energy it takes to run a hard drive.’
`Older women who say talk shows and soap operas are their favorite TV programs tend to score more poorly on tests of memory, attention and other cognitive skills, researchers reported Monday.
That doesn’t mean that daytime television is a brain drain, they say, since it’s not clear that there’s a direct relationship between the two.
But the findings do point to some association between TV choices and intellectual function, and that could prove useful in evaluating older people for cognitive decline, according lead investigator Dr. Joshua Fogel of Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.’
‘I suppose across the world their are various ways to greet someone. Looks like Italy is definitely the friendliest. This is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi greeting a traffic cop just before he gets in his limousine.’
Watch this video and laugh. Then imagine John Howard doing the same thing and laugh a second time. Go on, you know you want to.
(1.4meg Windows media)
`North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North’s official news agency. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.
“As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike,” the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. “Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States.”
Last week, the communist country warned that it had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it would strengthen its war footing before joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this weekend.
The North’s spokesman said it would be a “wise” step for the United States to cooperate on nuclear issues with North Korea in the same way it does with India.’
`The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that’s now the home of as many as 120 U.S. helicopters, a “heli-park” as good as any back in the States.
At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq’s western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.
At a third hub down south, Tallil, they’re planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.
Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.
“I think we’ll be here forever,” the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.’
`Strategy Page columnist James Dunnigan says that CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapons Systems) — which are big guns manned remotely by someone inside an armored vehicle with a joystick and live cam — have proved highly successful in Iraq because the soldiers operating them grew up playing (presumably first-person shooter) video games. Experienced gamers have no difficulty gaining total situational awareness and whipping around the video camera on the guns, spotting hints of trouble and blasting anything that moves.’
`One third of French people say they are racist, a French human rights watchdog said on Tuesday, after a survey that showed an increase from last year in the number of people who acknowledged being racist.
Some 33 percent of 1,011 people surveyed face-to-face by pollsters CSA said they were “somewhat” or “a little” racist, up 8 percentage points from last year, according to an annual report by the National Consultative Commission for Human Rights.
The poll asked the question “When it comes to you personally, would you say you are …” followed by a list of options: somewhat racist, a bit racist, not racist, not very racist, not racist at all and don’t want to say.’
`The human death toll from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu reached 103 after five people died from the disease in Azerbaijan, the World Health Organization said Tuesday. WHO said seven of 11 patients from Azerbaijan had tested positive for H5N1 in samples checked at a major laboratory in Britain. Five of those cases were fatal.
The sources of infection were still under investigation, but officials suspected a connection to the feathers of dead swans.’
`Ben Worthen of CIO has an interesting post about who in the context of the Net Neutrality debate. He worked with Lumeta’s chief scientist Bill Cheswick to create a map of the North American Internet backbone, including 134,855 routers, colored by telecom company (Verizon, AT&T, Qwest, Level 3, Sprint Nextel, cable companies, smaller players).’
`A bill that allows public high schools to offer classes on the Bible sped through the House Monday, passing overwhelmingly with no debate.
The legislation, which passed 151-7, would allow high schools to form elective courses on the history and literature of the Old Testament and New Testament eras. The classes would focus on the law, morals, values and culture of the eras. [..]
The proposal also requires that the courses should be taught “in an objective and nondevotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students.”‘
`Spoke POV is an easy-to-make electronic kit toy that turns your bicycle wheel into a customized display! The project includes a free schematic design, open source software for uploading and editing stored bitmap images, and a high-quality kit with all the parts necessary to build your own.
Tired: A red blinker on your seatpost
Wired: Programmable full-wheel images in any color’
`Troops began delivering aid Tuesday to an estimated 7,000 people who lost their homes to the cyclone that battered Australia’s northeastern coast.
No one was killed when Category 5 Cyclone Larry came ashore near Innisfail early Monday, and only minor injuries were reported. But the storm flooded streets, tore roofs off homes and flattened sugar and banana plantations.
“There most certainly would be around 7,000 people … that are effectively homeless,” federal lawmaker Bob Katter told The Associated Press. “They’re sitting in four walls but no roof.”‘
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