‘A small South Carolina parts supplier collected about $20.5 million over six years from the Pentagon for fraudulent shipping costs, including $998,798 for sending two 19-cent washers to a Texas base, U.S. officials said.
The company also billed and was paid $455,009 to ship three machine screws costing $1.31 each to Marines in Habbaniyah, Iraq, and $293,451 to ship an 89-cent split washer to Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Pentagon records show.
The owners of C&D Distributors in Lexington, South Carolina — twin sisters — exploited a flaw in an automated Defense Department purchasing system: bills for shipping to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority” were usually paid automatically, said Cynthia Stroot, a Pentagon investigator.’
‘Author Stephen King was mistaken for a vandal when he started signing books during an unannounced visit to a shop in Australia, according to local media.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said staff at the Alice Springs book store did not initially realise the writer was autographing his own novels.
Bookshop manager Bev Ellis said: “When you see someone writing in one of your books you get a bit toey [nervous].
“We immediately ran to the books and lo and behold, there was the signature.”
Ms Ellis later approached the author at a nearby supermarket and said he was “very nice, charming”.
“Well, if we knew you were coming we would have baked you a cake,” she told the writer.’
The waves are created by huge chunks of ice falling off a glacier and into the sea.
(3.2meg Flash video)
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‘Son quit job after Dad’s lotto lies
The furious son of a hoaxer who convinced a town he’d won the £35.4million Euro lottery has spoken of his anger.
Jordan Frater quit his job after his father Fergus, 46, promised him a £5million share of the jackpot.
Roofer Jordan told The Sun: “I could kill him. I’m absolutely gutted.”
“When dad told me he’d won the lottery, I phoned my boss to tell him I was leaving. I’ve had to get back on the phone and beg for my job back. [..]
He said: “One minute I was a multi-millionaire, the next I was back to having nothing.”‘
‘About 40 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by water, air and soil pollution, concludes a Cornell researcher. Such environmental degradation, coupled with the growth in world population, are major causes behind the rapid increase in human diseases, which the World Health Organization has recently reported. Both factors contribute to the malnourishment and disease susceptibility of 3.7 billion people, he says. [..]
“We have serious environmental resource problems of water, land and energy, and these are now coming to bear on food production, malnutrition and the incidence of diseases,” said Pimentel.’
‘An 8-year-old girl who recently moved to Florida caused a panic when she tried to ride back home to Ohio on her bicycle out of fear of hurricanes.
A sheriff’s helicopter, search dogs and neighbors found the girl after an hour-long search Wednesday night.
“It is amusing but at the same time sad,” DeLand police Deputy Chief Randel Henderson said. [..]
DeLand police arrived and began a search, aided by tracking dogs and a Volusia County sheriff’s helicopter. A homeless camp also was searched.’
‘President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.
Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy. [..]
The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.’
‘One American student sent major corporations, governments and even the Vatican on the defensive after coming up with Wikipedia Scanner, a software program that reveals who changed Wikipedia entries. [..]
As soon as the software was launched on the internet, chaos erupted. [..]
– The Vatican edits Irish Catholic politician Gerry Adams page
– In the 9/11 Wikipedia article, the NRA added that “Iraq was involved in 9/11″
– Exxon Mobil edits spillages and eco-system destruction from oil spillages article [..]
– UN address calls journalist Oriana Fallaci a racist ‘prostitute”
The whole thing is here: List anonymous wikipedia edits from interesting organizations.
Lots of amusing headlines from newspaper articles and advertisements.
A clamp will make sure you get a good grip of the underwear. :)
see it here »
‘Crows have shown that two tools are better than one when it comes to problem solving, scientists say.
A University of Auckland study has revealed that New Caledonian crows can use separate tools in quick succession to retrieve an out-of-reach snack. [..]
The scientists said the crows’ performance was comparable to that of the great apes in similar experiments.
The team believes that because the birds were able to solve the problem on their first attempt they were using analogical reasoning rather than trial and error.’
‘Dressed in white coveralls and wearing a crash helmet, Gary Le Fever, 70, sat gripping the wheel of his 1921 Model T speedster. Before him loomed a 475-foot-tall hill that in Evansville, Ind. passes as a mountain. He revved his engine, waiting for the climbing contest to begin. Competing with him were other vintage racers and, at FORBES’ request, a 2003 Hummer H2. [..]
When the flag dropped, Le Fever punched both feet to the floor. He crossed the finish line in 9.96 seconds. Later the Hummer had its turn: 10.74.
How? Why? Weight has much to do with it. The 316hp Hummer weighs twice as much per unit of power. Not only did the Model T beat the Hummer, it beat every other comer, including a modern turbocharged Dodge diesel and the county sheriff’s patrol car.’
‘He survived against all the odds; now Peng Shulin has astounded doctors by learning to walk again.
When his body was cut in two by a lorry in 1995, it was little short of a medical miracle that he lived. [..]
Skin was grafted from his head to seal his torso – but the legless Mr Peng was left only 78cm (2ft 6in) tall. [..]
Doctors at the China Rehabilitation Research Centre in Beijing found out about Mr Peng’s plight late last year and devised a plan to get him up walking again.
They came up with an ingenious way to allow him to walk on his own, creating a sophisticated egg cup-like casing to hold his body with two bionic legs attached to it.’
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‘So, driving home from work today I have some fuckwad tailing me, just banging on the horn. I look in my rear view and it is some dork in a BMW or Mercedes or some other overpriced piece of shit. I can see dude’s veins bulging in his forehead and literally I can see the specks of saliva splashing off the windshield and he is LEAAAANNNNNING over the steering wheel yelling at me as if this was going to help me hear him better.
By the looks of him, he is a pretty big dude. So, unluckily for me, I have to stop at a light. [..] So, of course Mr Testosterone has to get out of his car and confront me. [..]
So, I continued to look straight ahead, I rolled my window down, maybe a 1/3, not quite half and asked him if he was having a bad day. Without warning, Road Rage Guy punches at me. Fucking longest light in the history of Vancouver right here…sadly for him, his big fucking mitt hit most of my window–shaking his hand he yelled for me to get out of the car–LOL, here is where it gets funny. [..]’
‘Whenever folks who have lived or traveled in Germany gather for a beer, sooner or later one subject is sure to rear its ugly head: what is the deal with those toilets? [..]
We’ve had innumerable bad experiences with German toilets. In Berlin, we lived on an upper floor and the water pressure was too weak to push a healthy-sized log off the shelf. After a few minutes’ fruitless flushing you’d be forced to grab a wad of toilet paper and give the horrid thing an encouraging nudge. Then followed a lengthy bout of brushing and cleaning to remove the skid marks from the porcelain. At the other extreme, in Munich we lived in a basement suite where the water pressure was too high. Worse, the shelf was actually slightly concave, forming a shallow bowl. The first time I flushed the toilet the water came rushing through so forcefully that a small chunk of poo launched off the lip and shot out over the floor. After that we always held the lid down when we flushed. I swore you could feel a kick as the turd ricoched off the underside.’
It’s kinda like a backwards version of the old classic. You’re the asteroid. Destroy the ships.
‘The ultimate solution to the Rubik’s cube has come closer thanks to hours of number crunching on a supercomputer.
The research has proved that a Rubik’s cube can be returned to its original state in no more than 26 moves.
The supercomputer took 63 hours to crank out the proof which goes one better than the previous best solution. [..]
The study brings scientists one step closer to finding the so-called “God’s Number” which is the minimum number of moves needed to solve any disordered Rubik’s cube.
It is so named because God would only need the smallest number of moves to solve a cube. Theoretical work suggests that God’s Number is in the “low 20s”.’
‘According to an alarming new Department of Defense report combining civilian, military, and calendric evidence, Iran may be as few as nine years away from the year 2016.
“Every day they get one day closer,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said during a White House press conference Tuesday. “At the rate they’re going, they will reach 2016 at the same time as the United States—and given their geographic position relative to the international date line, possibly even sooner.”
The report recommended that the U.S. engage in bellicose international posturing, careless brinksmanship, and an eventual overwhelming series of nuclear strikes in order to prevent Iran from reaching this milestone.’
‘MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way to create in the lab large amounts of cancer stem cells, or cells that can initiate tumors. The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.
The findings also contradict an assumption about the trajectory of cancer cells. According to current cancer models, any normal cell can evolve toward a malignant state through a series of alterations, including mutations. Given the right alterations, any cell could eventually acquire the ability to invade other tissues.
But the new study suggests that some normal cells are more prone to become tumor-initiating and have a higher potential to metastasize, or spread to other tissues.’
‘Damn it! These fish sticks are as hard as tits!’
‘All you ever do is stay at home and play with your tits and look at your ass at the same time!’
(22.1meg Flash video)
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‘Malaysian police have arrested a man who practised as a dentist for 29 years although he had no medical training and treated patients at his home in a cast-off examining chair.
The impostor’s closest brush with the dental profession was during the years 1962 to 1978, when he assisted an army dentist by carrying his bag on visits to plantation workers’ homes, the New Straits Times reported.
“I watched the doctor diagnose and treat problems with teeth,” the paper quoted the unidentified man as saying when officials raided his home this week.
“I also saw how he would extract teeth and make models and measurements for dentures.”‘
‘Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons – energetic packets of light – through two prisms.
When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.
But a few appeared to “tunnel” through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.
Although these photons had travelled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.
Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: “For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of.”‘
‘Deputies said they spotted a vehicle Tuesday night and attempted to stop the driver on suspicion he was driving drunk.
The driver then led police on a chase that ended on Mott Avenue in the Lockhart area.
Officers said the driver tried to run them down before jumping from the vehicle and running away.
The man was spotted fleeing while still clutching a beer.
“There was a 12-pack of Corona he was working on in the front seat,” Orange County sheriff’s Cmdr. Jeff Stonebreaker said. “He decided to take one of those over the fence with him. So, he bails out of the car and runs from the deputies with a beer in his hand.”‘
‘Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez unveiled a plan to rewrite the constitution that would allow him to seek indefinite re-election and deepen the country’s transformation to a socialist political and economic system.
Chavez, 53, addressed the nation last night from the National Assembly, outlining his proposal to create new federal, military and municipal districts, nationalize natural gas and coal resources and grant the state increased power to expropriate property, among other measures.
“We have to change the geometry of power,” Chavez said in comments broadcast by state television, in which he proposed the creation of communes and federal cities across the country. “All of these proposals will deepen this Bolivarian democracy,” Chavez said.’
‘The legend was almost too good to be true.
For decades, a mysterious figure dressed in black, his features cloaked by a wide-brimmed hat and scarf, crept into a churchyard to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
Now, a 92-year-old man who led the fight to preserve the historic site says the visitor was his creation.
“We did it, myself and my tour guides,” said Sam Porpora. “It was a promotional idea. We made it up, never dreaming it would go worldwide.”‘
