Hundreds of icebergs heading towards Australia!

From JenK and Treehugger.com:

Ships passing through the southern Pacific Ocean have been issued a warming: beware of hundreds of massive icebergs. Seems that they've broken off of an Antarctic ice floe and are now drifting towards New Zealand.

Scientists have counted over 100 icebergs drifting north to New Zealand. It's a rare event--according to the BBC, the last time such a huge flotilla was amassed was in 2006. Before that, the last record incident of this magnitude was in 1931. Quick, who wants to guess what might be responsible?

There's no major cause for concern, since the waters in which the icebergs are flowing in aren't a major shipping lane, and few boats tread there. And though they're en route to New Zealand, it's doubtful that they'll make it all the way. But they would be a sight to see--some of them have been determined to be over 30 ft high and 650 ft long. Even so, as the BBC reports, "scientists have said they believe these segments will break up long before reaching the New Zealand coastline."

Texas accidentally bans straight marriage.

From Newser:

The geniuses who wrote Texas’ gay marriage ban may have accidentally banned all marriage in the state, according to one Houston lawyer. Subsection B of the ban, a constitutional amendment ratified in 2005, states, “This state…may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” The intent was to prevent even civil unions for gay couples—but it doesn’t actually specify the “gay” part.

The wording essentially “eliminates marriage in Texas,” Barbara Ann Radnofsky, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general tells the McClatchy Papers. “You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says.” Conservatives scoffed at Radnofsky’s tactics. “It’s a silly argument,” said the head of an organization that helped draft the amendment. A lawsuit based on it would have “about one chance in a trillion” of succeeding.

Japanese man weds video game character.

Just stay away from Rikku, buddy. She's mine. From Boing Boing:

On Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The wedding took place during a Make: Japan meet-up held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In attendance were a live audience, an MC, the bride's virtual video game girlfriend — who made a speech — and a real human priest.

Hospital sign has secret meaning.

From Queens Crap:

It shined briefly as a strange beacon of commiseration: the hospital sign that declared in large neon lights something that looks a lot like, “I’m hurt.”

Now the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, where the sign marks the entrance to the emergency room, has decided to cut power to the sign until it is repaired, probably next week, a hospital spokesman said.

“It’s too much attention that wasn’t intended and is not needed,” said Dario Centorcelli, the spokesman. “It will be fixed.’

The strange message was the result of the neon bulbs in two letters in the hospital name burning out — the “E” and “S” — prompting passers-by to find hidden meaning in the surviving text “lmhur t.”

Sushi DNA tests reveal widespread fish fraud.

From Wired:

A biologist walks into a sushi bar and orders some tuna. What does he get? Escolar, a nasty fish with buttery flesh that can cause bizarre episodes of diarrhea, accompanied by a waxy intestinal discharge.

It’s not a joke. It happened five times to the same scientists during a brief research project. The results of that study were published Wednesday in PLOS One.

“A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud or a health hazard,” wrote the authors. “All three of these cases were uncovered in this study.”

The team of researchers from Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History ordered tuna from 31 sushi restaurants and then used genetic tests to determine the species of fishes in those dishes. More than half of those eateries misrepresented, or couldn’t clarify the type of fish they were mongering. Several were selling endangered southern bluefin tuna.

Although their results were shocking, exposing sloppy sushi joints wasn’t their main goal. The scientists were trying to improve on a new species-identification technique, called DNA barcoding. A coalition of labs has been collecting fish, reading their genes and uploading the information to a database called FISH-BOL.

Their goal is to build a catalog of every fish species on earth so that anyone with a handheld DNA reader could definitively identify fish within minutes. Wildlife officials could use that technology to spot-check fish markets, and fine people who are selling protected species.

Obama speechless by reaction to bow.

I don't buy it. Clearly, our president was bowing to our new Gundam Mobile Suit Command overlords. From CBS News:

President Obama's bow to Japan's Emperor Akihito in Tokyo earlier this month ignited anger from some conservatives who complained, in the words of blogger Donald Douglass, that the United States "now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world."

Now the president is responding – kind of. The Atlantic quotes "a US government official who was on the trip" who says the president was left "speechless" by the controversy.

"Obama's attitude was, this is an elderly gentleman in a country where this kind of greeting is customary," said the official. "It does not seem extraordinary to show this kind of gesture to him."

"The Fox News poll said that 67 percent of Americans thought [the bow] was a good thing for him to have done," the official continued. "When the president heard that some people had complained, I'd characterize his reaction as: The notion that the United States is somehow humbling or humiliating itself by showing respect for a local custom, when it is transparently the most powerful country in the world, leaves me speechless."

Coozer-Bits.

Yipes: China executes two over tainted milk scandal.

Science: Large Hadron Collider makes first crossings of proton beams. (I think to stop Zuul.)

Duh: Judge blocks law allowing guns into bars, thinking it might be a bad idea.

Science: Why kids ask why.

Rush: Greatest band in the world bizarrely attacked in KISS review.

World's biggest animal sacrifice begins.

Awful. From News.com.au:

Up to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism.

Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal.

A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig.

The crowd then rushed to a nearby field where 250 sword-wielding butchers were waiting to begin the mass slaughter of about 20,000 buffalo, brought by devotees to be sacrificed near the holy temple.

"This is a very special day for Hindu devotees," head priest Mangal Chaudhary Tharu told AFP as the Gadhimai festival began.

"All the people who came here to worship Gadhimai have been waiting a long time for this day. I am very proud to be part of this event," added Tharu, the fourth generation of his family to serve as a priest at the temple.

An AFP reporter at the scene said up to a million devotees were crammed into the area for the festival. Many were from India, where some states have banned animal slaughter for religious purposes.

[...] The buffalo slaughter took place in a huge field surrounded by three-metre wall, and will be followed on Tuesday by the ritual sacrifice of around 300,000 goats, sheep and birds.

Many festival-goers scaled the wall to get a better view of the killings, carried out by volunteers using specially-built bamboo cages to prevent the animals from escaping.

Man looks for his biological father - and finds out it's Charles Manson!

Wow, this has got to suck. From News.com.au:

A man who went in search of his biological father was shocked to learn it was famed serial killer Charles Manson.

Matthew Roberts, a 41-year-old DJ who lives in Los Angeles, said the shock of discovering his father sent him into depression.

"I didn't want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father,” Mr Roberts told The Sun.

"I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster."

Despite his revulsion Mr Roberts has been exchanging mail with Manson, who is serving life in Corcoran State Prison in California over nine murders committed by his “Family” of followers in 1969.

“He sends me weird stuff and always signs it with his swastika,” Mr Roberts said.

Zombie Watch: Drowned man shows up looking for his clothes.

From Ananova:

A two-day police hunt for a drowned man was called off when the 24-year old turned up at the crime scene looking for his clothes.

Maciej Nowak had disappeared after being dumped by his girlfriend and was last seen drinking heavily into the early hours in Urzedow, Poland.

And when his clothes were found the next morning by a lake, friends feared he had killed himself.

But just as police divers were about to call in a submarine, Nowak appeared and asked what all the fuss was about.

"He told us that he can't remember why he had taken his clothes off because he had been drunk.

"But he woke up at a nearby house. Apparently they had found him naked and taken him in and let him sober up," said a police spokesman.

Nowak's girlfriend Kasia Lubelska, 23, said she wouldn't be getting back with him.

"It's stupid things like this that caused me to dump him. How can I allow someone like him to be the father of my children?" she said.

Insurance company cuts woman's benefits for smiling in picture.

From ABC News:

After a vacation with her mother and a few nights out with friends, Nathalie Blanchard thought nothing of posting a few pictures to her Facebook page.

In the photos, the 29-year-old Canadian woman appears to be having a good time, enjoying the company of family and friends on the beach and at a bar.

Now, Blanchard says her employer's insurance company is using those pictures against her, cutting her benefits because she appeared to be having fun.

For the past year, Blanchard has been on leave from her job at IBM's Bromont, Quebec office. After a doctor diagnosed her with major depression, she started receiving monthly sick-leave benefits from Canada's Manulife Financial Insurance.

But this fall, the checks stopped coming. When Blanchard called Manulife to find out why, she said she was told it was because the Facebook pictures indicated she was no longer depressed and ready to return to work.

Zombie Watch: Man brought back to life after dead for 47 minutes.

From WCBSTV:

CBS 2 HD recently met a Brooklyn man who lived after his heart quit for 47 minutes. We have his amazing story of survival. And it's all thanks to a team of doctors who refused to give up until they brought him back from the dead.

"These doctors did not stop …. Without them and I'm serious when I tell you I wouldn't be here," Joe Tiralosi said through tears.

Tiralosi is a medical miracle. He's been to the edge and back, to a place most people don't return from. Now he's at home in Brooklyn, but three months ago he literally died.

"I think miracle best describes it," Tiralosi said.

Tiralosi suffered sudden cardiac arrest. His heart stopped beating for 47 minutes.

"Not a moment goes by that I don't take for granted every second because I know it only takes the blink of an eye to lose your life," he said.

Last week, the 56-year-old father of two returned to New York Presbyterian Hospital to thank the medical team who saved his life and share his story with CBS 2 HD.

On Aug. 17, Tiralosi walked into the emergency room feeling sick and disoriented. He collapsed a minute later.

"The doctors themselves were responsible for giving my chance to live again," Tiralosi said.

Doctors Rahul Sharma and Flavio Gaudio led the team who worked on him.

"It's a miracle for which it is difficult to find words," Dr. Gaudio said.

"When Joe came in he was talking. It was his presence when he came in that made us all say we're not going to give up," Dr. Sharma added.

"I felt he had a good pulse with the compressions so part of me thought that we had bought some time," Gaudio said.

It took 4,500 chest compressions and eight shocks from a defibrillator to get Tiralosi stabilized at 11:55 a.m. While his doctors worked frantically to save him he barely remembers anything about that day.

French hotel lets you pay to be treated like a hamster.

From Gadling, courtesy of JenK:

Hands up if you ever had the sudden urge to be treated like a hamster for a couple of days? Well, your wish has come true, though it will involve a flight to France.

In the French town of Nantes, you can pay just under $150 a night to eat hamster food, run around in a giant wheel, and sleep in hay stacks.

According to the first two paying guests, being able to experience how a hamster lives helped them "come out of their daily routine". Well, yeah, I can see how pretending to be a hamster for a couple of days will change things a little.

The owners of the "Hamster Villa" run a company that specializes in unusual and bizarre hotels. One of the owners used to dress up as a hamster, making their venture just a bit weirder. Sadly, the new "hamsters" in this hotel are already demanding WiFi access and a flat panel TV, so the current $150/night rate will be going up in the near future.

EasyJet apologizes for "triviliaizing the genocidal massacre of Jews."

Well, there goes our Coozer Files' Hot Babes of Dachau ad campaign. From Daily Mail:

EasyJet yesterday withdrew all copies of its in-flight magazine after it published pictures of designer-clad models posing in Berlin's Field of Stelae Holocaust Memorial which commemorates the six million Jewish victims of Nazi genocide.

After Jewish campaigners accused the airline of 'trivialising the genocidal massacre of Jews', easyJet withdrew all copies - estimated at 250,000 - and issued a 'profuse apology'.

Labour MP Denis MacShane, who heads the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism, said: 'This is further evidence of the banalisation of anti-Semitism.'

The Field of Stelae Memorial is a 19,000 square metre site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or 'stelae' arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. It is designed to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.

Ninja impales himself on fence in failed jump.

Fake ninja jump like grasshopper instead of fly like wallaby. From FOX News:

Seattle police say a man who thought he was a ninja was impaled on a metal fence when he tried to leap over it.

An officer who was looking for an assault victim nearby Monday night heard the man screaming for help.

Police supported him to prevent further injuries until medics arrived and took him to a hospital, where he was in serious condition in intensive care on Tuesday.

Police spokeswoman Renee Witt wrote in a department Web site posting that officers thought the man might have been involved in the reported assault, but he insisted he was just a ninja trying to clear a 4- to 5-foot-tall fence.

Witt says the man was "overconfident in his abilities," and that alcohol likely played a role.

His name was not released.

Coozer-Bits.

Awesome: Costco drops Coke.

Science: Music improves brain function (unless it's Insane Clown Posse).

Yipes: Nanoparticles used in common household goods cause genetic damage in mice.

Yipes: Lion opens car door during safari, tries to hitch a ride.

Cthulhu Watch: Climate change forcing coral to eat jellyfish.

Check-in system failure affects 485 airlines worldwide.

From News.com.au:

ALL Qantas check-ins have been thrown into chaos, after the computer check-in system failed across the country and the world.

The Amadeus program used by Qantas to check in passengers went into meltdown at about 5pm (AEDT) yesterday across the network, the Herald Sun reports.

The computer glitch was rectified just after 8pm, but the airline reported delays of between 45 minutes.

Qantas said services across the country are returning to normal.

During the system shutdown staff were forced to check people in manually, which was the major cause for delays.

All Qantas flights across the country were affected, along with another 485 airlines across the world.

Major airlines such as British Airways, Air France, South African Airways, Thai Airways, Lufthansa and United Airlines were all affected in the global check-in chaos.