Friday, April 10, 2009

Wall Streeter accidentally plunges to death from penthouse apt.

From the NY Post:

A night of drinking turned deadly for a bond trader who got locked out of his West Village penthouse and fell to the street trying to climb onto his balcony from the roof, sources said yesterday.

Though police had not officially ruled out suicide, a police source and neighbors said Matthew Morahan, 29, had told the super he lost his keys -- only minutes before he fell at 11:45 p.m. Wednesday.

The Jeffries & Co. trader is thought to have slipped while trying to climb over a three-foot wall that separates a rooftop walkway from his terrace, and plummeted over the side of the building.

He fell 11 floors, crash-landing onto the top of a truck with a bang so loud that 911 callers reported hearing an explosion, cops said.

Coozer-Bits.

WTF: NY church twittering the Passion of Christ.

Cthulhu Watch: Cool new jellyfish pics from the Enoshima Aquarium.

Eats: Man dies in explosion at pie factory. (This is how I wanna go..)

Creepy: French AIDS NGO releases shocking ads of people having sex with giant spiders.

Duh: Are hospitals passing off their low-profit patients?

Lame: Billy Bob becomes a prissy diva during radio interview for being called an actor. (Damnit, he's a musician!)

Prophesy: Biofuel threatens water supply.

D'oh: French kill web piracy bill by accident.

Dead: Dungeons & Dragons co-creator.

First Gygax, now Arneson. This is why you should always choose the white mage class. From FOX News:
Dave Arneson, one of the co-creators of the fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons, died after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 61.

Arneson's daughter says he died peacefully Tuesday night in hospice care in St. Paul, Minn.

Arneson and Gary Gygax developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures.

The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys. It eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

Strange insect triggers agroterrorism alert in US.

Just what we need.... weevils. From Colombia Reports:

A strange insect in a shipment of Colombian fruit caused U.S. port authorities to call an alert for a possible "agroterrorism" threat, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) said Wednesday.

The weevil, "never before seen in the United States", was found during the routine inspection of a container ship that has brought the Colombian fruit to Gulfort, Mississippi Monday, CBP spokeswoman Viriginia Dabbs told Spanish press agency Efe.

The bugs were examined by expert entomologists of the Agriculture Department, who identified the little creatures as the Faustinus Rhomfiber Champion", family of the common weevil.

According to the CBP, no preventive measure is exaggerated because of the imminent "agroterrorism" threat.

"We face a new and dangerous dimension since the September 11 attacks (...) which makes the work of our agricultural specialists more crucial than ever," CBP Operations Director in New Orleans, Robert C. Gómez said in a statement.

The ship and its bananas and weevils was sent back to Colombia.

PETA asks Pet Shop Boys to change their name.

I'm surprised they didn't ask this of Skinny Puppy. From CNN:
Just because they named their new CD "Yes," does not mean that British electro-pop duo, the Pet Shop Boys, will agree to just about anything.

The band has turned down a request from an animal rights group to rename itself the Rescue Shelter Boys.

The organization, the People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), sent a letter to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe acknowledging that its request, at first blush, might appear "bizarre."

But, by changing its name, the band could raise awareness at every tour stop of the "cramped, filthy conditions" that breeders keep animals in before selling them to pet stores, PETA said in its letter.

The duo, which has performed under its current name for more than 20 years, reproduced PETA's written request in full on its Web site.

The musicians said they were "unable to agree" to the request "but nonetheless think (it) raises an issue worth thinking about."

Water turned off in Mexico City.

Water is the new oil. In 20 years, we'll be fighting wars over it. From BBC:

Mexico City officials have shut down a main pipeline providing fresh water to millions of residents because reserves have fallen to record low levels.

The closure, due to last 36 hours, will affect five million people, or a quarter of the city's population.

Unusually low rainfall last year and major leakage are blamed for leaving reservoirs less than half full.

Angels pitcher killed in hit-and-run.

Tragic... From Huffington Post:

TMZ reports that 22-year-old Los Angeles Angels rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed in a hit-and-run car accident early Thursday morning — just hours after pitching six shutout innings against the Oakland A's:

Cops say someone driving a minivan blew through a red light and hit the Mitsubishi that Adenhart was riding in. Three people were killed in the crash, including Nick.

Cops say the person driving the van fled the scene -- but was later caught and charged with felony hit-and-run.

We're told one of the other men killed in the crash was also affiliated with the Angels organization.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Yakuza boss quits crime to turn Buddhist.

From The Guardian:

Tadamasa Goto, one of Japan's most notorious underworld bosses, is to enter the Buddhist priesthood less than a year after his volatile behaviour caused a rift in the country's biggest crime syndicate.

As leader of a yakuza – or Japanese mafia – gang, Goto amassed a fortune from prostitution, protection rackets and white-collar crime, while cultivating a reputation for extreme violence.

Tomorrow, his life will take a decidedly austere turn when he begins training at a temple in Kanagawa prefecture south of Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper said today, citing police sources.

The 66-year-old, whose eponymous gang belonged to the powerful Yamaguchi-gumi crime syndicate, was expelled from the yakuza fraternity last October after a furious row with his bosses over his conduct.

Known as Japan's answer to John Gotti, the infamous mafia don, Goto reportedly upset his seniors amid media reports that he had invited several celebrities to join his lavish birthday celebrations last September.

Study: Office sex talk isn't all bad.

From the Globe & Mail:
A new Canadian study finds that some employees say they actually enjoy the occasional sexually charged joke, discussions of sexual matters or flirtation around the office.

A quarter of 238 respondents who participated in a series of studies in five different workplaces said they found sexual banter around their office "fun" and "flattering." Another 50 per cent said they were not offended.

That finding is "somewhat surprising," says study co-author Jennifer Berdahl, an associate professor of organizational behaviour in the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

"Previous studies have only looked at the negatives of any behaviour related to sex in the workplace. This looked at the possibility of finding positives. And we did find some."

Still, the finding - based on experiments in which employees were asked to describe the sexual behaviour they'd seen around their office over the past two years - shouldn't be interpreted as open season on sexual banter in the workplace, she says. Employees are tolerant only of some kinds of sexual banter, and can pay a price for raunchy talk.

Study: Vegetarianism is a teen eating disorder.

I've been saying this for years. (See my 1996 zine Just Good Plain Meat.) Vegetarianism is a noble thing, but in the hands of kids it's a gateway drug to self-important rebellion, martyrdom, and listening to Nine Inch Nails. From Time:
Being a teenager means experimenting with foolish things like dyeing your hair purple or candy flipping or going door-to-door for a political party. Parents tend to overlook seemingly mild, earnest teen pursuits like joining the Sierra Club, but a new study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association suggests that another common teen fad, vegetarianism, isn't always healthy. Instead, it seems that a significant number of kids experiment with a vegetarian diet as a way to mask an eating disorder, since it's a socially acceptable way to avoid eating many foods and one that parents tend not to oppose.

The study, led by nutritionist Ramona Robinson-O'Brien, an assistant professor at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University in Minnesota, found that while adolescent and young adult vegetarians were less likely than meat eaters to be overweight and more likely to eat a relatively healthful diet, they were also more likely to binge eat. Although most teens in Robinson-O'Brien's study claimed to embark on vegetarianism to be healthier or to save the environment and the world's animals, the research suggests they may be more interested in losing weight than protecting cattle or swine.

Suicide jumper lands on teen in NYC mall.

Thanks JenK. From Gothamist:
A 56-year-old woman leapt three stories to her death at the Queens Center Mall this afternoon. Her fall was broken by a 17-year-old boy who was injured, one of many teenagers milling about on the concourse level after school. The woman was in the company of two other teenagers before she jumped. She was pronounced dead at the scene; the teenager she landed on suffered serious head trauma, but is in stable condition at Elmhurst Medical Center. WPIX is saying that the teenage victim was walking on the ground level; NY1 says that he was sitting in a massage chair when the woman fell around 2:30.

Roger Ebert smacks down Bill O'Reilly.

Here's the first half of a great letter from Roger Ebert to Bill O'Reilly:
Dear Bill: Thanks for including the Chicago Sun-Times on your exclusive list of newspapers on your "Hall of Shame." To be in an O'Reilly Hall of Fame would be a cruel blow to any newspaper. It would place us in the favor of a man who turns red and starts screaming when anyone disagrees with him. My grade-school teacher, wise Sister Nathan, would have called in your parents and recommended counseling with Father Hogben. Yes, the Sun-Times is liberal, having recently endorsed our first Democrat for President since LBJ. We were founded by Marshall Field one week before Pearl Harbor to provide a liberal voice in Chicago to counter the Tribune, which opposed an American war against Hitler. I'm sure you would have sided with the Trib at the time.

I understand you believe one of the Sun-Times misdemeanors was dropping your syndicated column. My editor informs me that "very few" readers complained about the disappearance of your column, adding, "many more complained about Nancy." I know I did. That was the famous Ernie Bushmiller comic strip in which Sluggo explained that "wow" was "mom" spelled upside-down.

Your column ran in our paper while it was owned by the right-wing polemicists Conrad Black (Baron Black of Coldharbour) and David Radler. We dropped it to save a little money after they looted the paper of millions. Now you call for an advertising boycott. It is unusual to observe a journalist cheering for a newspaper to fail. At present the Sun-Times has no bank debt, but labors under the weight of millions of dollars in tax penalties incurred by Lord Black, who is serving an eight-year stretch for mail fraud and obstruction of justice. We also had to pay for his legal expenses.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Coozer-Bits.

Sad: Butterfly numbers plunge; many face extinction.

D'oh: Court case in jeopardy after juror sends Facebook friend request to witness.

Yipes: Document lays bare CIA torture tactics.

Yipes: Toronto man robbed of clothes by gunpoint.

Yipes: Safety team warns of "catastrophic" wiring of US facilities in Iraq.

Zombie Watch: Skeleton found in tree 29 years after suicide.

WTF: Straight-edge cop says oral sex to blame for cocaine in his system.

Heaven discovered: Crown of Thorns galaxy photographed.

From FOX News:
An unusual large galaxy with a shape bordering between spiral and elliptical has been spotted by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

NGC 7049 sits in the southern constellation Indus, and is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). Typical BCGs are some of the oldest and most massive galaxies, which provide excellent opportunities for astronomers to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

The halo, a ghostly region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy, is composed of myriads of individual stars and provides a luminous background to the swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049's core.

Girl sues sperm back over faulty sperm, her own existence.

From New Scientist:

Sperm should be subject to the same product liability laws as car brakes, according to a US judge who has given a teenager with severe learning disabilities the go-ahead to sue the sperm bank that provided her with a biological father.

Brittany Donovan, now 13 years old, was born with fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder causing mental impairment and carried on the X chromosome. She is now suing the sperm bank, Idant Laboratories of New York, under a product liability law more commonly associated with manufacturing defects, such as faulty car brakes.

Donovan does not have to show that Idant was negligent, only that the sperm it provided was unsafe and caused injury. "It doesn't matter how much care was taken," says Daniel Thistle, the lawyer representing Donovan, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Genetic tests have revealed that she inherited the disorder from her biological father.

Russian spies hack into US electrical grid.

Wasn't this a storyline in 24? From Moscow Times:
Russian cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The spies also came from China and other countries and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its web site.

Authorities investigating the intrusions have found software tools left behind that could be used to destroy infrastructure components, a senior intelligence official told the Journal.

"If we go to war with them, they will try to turn them on," he said.

Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk.

Protecting the electrical grid and other infrastructure is a key part of a cybersecurity review by President Barack Obama's administration that is to be completed next week.

The sophistication of the U.S. intrusions suggests that China and Russia are mainly responsible, according to intelligence officials and cybersecurity specialists.

Guinness launches its New Coke.


Does Guinness really need to be improved upon? More here.
The makers of Guinness are promoting a new stout beer in the U.S., a maltier, fizzier version of its older, creamier sibling, the world's best-selling stout.

“This is more about refreshment and zing,” said Guinness master brewer Fergal Murray, who created the new carbonated brew.

The limited-edition Guinness 250 Anniversary Stout celebrates Arthur Guinness' signing of a 9,000-year lease in 1759 at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, still the company's flagship brewery.

When it arrives in U.S. bars and stores April 24, the anniversary brew will be the first new stout Guinness has exported to the U.S. since it brought over Guinness Draught in the mid-1960s.

Woman executes son at shooting range.

The execution was caught on camera. Pics are in the full article, if you're into that sort of thing.

Marie Moore, who thought she was the Anti-Christ, took her 20-year-old son Mitchell to the Shoot Straight range in Casselberry, Florida, for what he thought was an afternoon's firing practice.

But as he concentrated on the target in front of him, his 44-year-old mother picked up a gun, pointed it at the back of his head and murdered him at point-blank range.

Mitchell slumped to the floor dead as his mother stepped back, placed the gun in her mouth and again pulled the trigger. She died a short time later in hospital.

'I'm so sorry. I had to send my son to heaven and myself to Hell,' she wrote in a suicide note.

In rambling and tearful audio messages recorded before the incident she said she planned her son's slaughter to save the world from violence.

She said she heard God telling her: 'You have a gun. You can do it.'

'I have to die and go to hell so there can be a thousand years peace on earth,' she explained in the two tapes.

Banana companies have been paying off paramilitaries.

Corporate funding of paramilitary murder is BANANAS! B-A-NANAS! From Colombia Reports:

Paramilitary leader 'Carlos Tijeros' told prosecutors that every single multinational banana company in Magdalena paid him for "protection".

"All banana companies that exist today and those that existed, except for Chiquita, paid me 70 thousand pesos per hectare per year," 'Tijeros', whose real name is José Gregorio Mangones Lunes, told prosecutors.

Chiquita did not pay an annual fee, but paid the boss of the AUC in Magdalena 3 cents per produced box of bananas, because that was the deal the company had made with the AUC in Urabá, where the banana company was active too.

So far, Chiquita Brands is the only multinational company that admitted paying the AUC. Other companies deny having paid the paramilitaries, despite the growing number of testimonies of paramilitary warlords who say the opposite.

The extortion payments for the smaller producers of bananas happened in a more aggressive fashion, the paramilitary warlord said. "If a farm in Guacamayal didn't pay, we would tell one of the commanders of the mobile columns to go there and not allow any of the crops to leave the farm. If the farmer was difficult he needed to be killed. That was the order."

Texas judge refuses to reconsider 100-year prison term for boy with IQ of 47.

This is awful. The last paragraph is heartbreaking. From the Chicago Tribune:
PARIS, Texas — For more than six hours Tuesday, as a parade of witnesses testified about the severity of Aaron Hart's mental retardation and his inability to understand his legal rights, the 18-year-old defendant with an IQ of 47 sat silent and shackled in a chair, alternately fidgeting and making faces.

But in the end, none of it was enough to persuade a judge in this small east Texas town to reconsider the 100-year prison sentence he gave Hart in February after Hart pleaded guilty to molesting a 6-year-old boy.

Ruling in a case that critics of the local justice system say raises questions of fairness for the mentally challenged, Lamar County Judge Eric Clifford denied defense motions seeking either a new trial or a new sentencing hearing for Hart. His former special-education teacher testified that Hart functions below the level of a 1st grader.

Last September, Hart confessed to police that he forced the boy to perform oral sex. The boy's stepmother had discovered them both behind a shed with their pants lowered. Hart's court-appointed attorney entered guilty pleas on his behalf to five related felony counts, a jury recommended multiple sentences and Clifford stacked the prison terms to run consecutively, for a total of 100 years.

But Hart's appellate attorney, David Pearson, argued Tuesday that Hart had received ineffective legal assistance because his trial attorney had failed to present any expert testimony about Hart's mental functioning or his ability to comprehend the charges against him.

"This case cried out for a mental health evaluation, to explain this disability to the judge and jury," Pearson told Clifford. "One of the features of people with this kind of mental retardation is they cannot appreciate degrees of wrongfulness."

[...] Hart will remain in jail pending the outcome of an appeal likely to be heard in the fall. Hart's parents say he has been raped repeatedly by other inmates since he was first arrested last September.

Kal Penn leaves Hollywood to work for Obama.

This is admirable. From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Actor Kal Penn, who stumped around the country for the Obama presidential campaign, is going to leave Hollywood to work in the Obama White House.

Penn had a recurring role on the Fox TV show "House," but his character killed himself in Monday's episode. The character's reasons were left a mystery to the show's fans, but Penn explained his own decision to EW.com.

"I thought this might be the right time to go off and do something else," Penn said. "The ultimate irony, of course, is that I love being on 'House.' "

Penn also starred as Kumar in the drug- and raunch-soaked "Harold and Kumar" movies.

Penn, whose parents are Indian-American, will work with the Asian-American and arts communities in the White House Office of Public Liaison.

"They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations," he told EW. "They're basically the front door of the White House. They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House."

NY pastor stole parish funds for Botox, plastic surgery.

From Breitbart:
A former pastor in New York City is accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his parish to pay for plastic surgery, Botox injections and prescription drugs. The Rev. William Blasingame cited medical reasons when he resigned in January from St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church on Staten Island.

He is accused of stealing $84,537 over three years. The money was earmarked for parishioners in need and the upkeep of church grounds.

Blasingame could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted of second-degree grand larceny and possession of stolen property.

Attorney James Hasson calls the allegations a "bad mistake" and says there's "some kind of a vendetta" against his client.

Kurt Cobain estate swindled out of all its money.

From News.com.au:

Kurt Cobain's estate has lost all the money left to his widow Courtney Love and their daughter, Frances Bean, in an alleged money laundering scam.

The New York Post reports bank accounts using the social security numbers of Cobain, Love and Frances Bean were allegedly set up to buy and sell real estate across the US.

"There is now a web of homes which were bought, flipped and used to launder money - up to $US500 million worth," Love's lawyer Rhonda J. Holmes said.

Investigators, forensic accountants and lawyers hired by Love found that the Nirvana singer's estate had lost more than $45 million cash and up to $705 million in real estate.

[...] Ms Holmes said that Love only noticed the money was gone when there wasn't any left.

Cat teaches puppies how to catch mice.

Reprinted in full due to extreme cuteness. From Ananova:

A cat in China has adopted two orphaned puppies - and is trying to teach them how to catch mice.

The female cat - named Tom - nurses the puppies and washes them with her tongue, reports the Yaxin Network.

Owner Ms Shen, who lives in Urumchi, said the puppies' natural mother, Mao Mao, died delivering them a month ago.

She hoped that Tom might take care of the puppies as she had just given birth to three kittens and had been close friends with Mao Mao.

"We didn't dare put the puppies in Tom's basket at first, but just outside of it. Unexpectedly the puppies crawled over to Tom and started to fight for breast milk with the kittens," Ms Shen said.

She said Tom was treating her adopted children very well, even feeding them first, before the kittens.

And, each day, Tom was trying to show the puppies how to catch mice, including how to jump onto the sofa and hide in a corner before pouncing on them.

However, the two puppies lacked the cat's agility and generally failed to jump on to the sofa and just bit and scratched the cover instead.

Spray created to make sex last 6 times longer.

Dude, I am going to kill the ozone layer with this spray! From BBC:

A spray can help men with premature ejaculation problems prolong the length of time they have sex by six times.

Men who used the treatment five minutes before having intercourse extended their love-making from half a minute to almost four minutes, trials showed.

The spray, developed at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, contains local anaesthetics that numb the penis.

A British Journal of Urology International study says it could be available in the next couple of years.

[...] The men who tested the spray, called PSD502, were able to last 6.3 times longer on average.

In comparison, men who tested a "dummy" spray containing no drug lasted only 1.7 times longer.

PSD502 helped 90% of the men enjoy sex for up to four minutes, where they had previously only lasted for seconds.

How logicians pick up girls.

Ladies, do not fall for this! From ABC News:

Suppose a man flirts with a woman and then asks her, "Will you solemnly promise to give me right now your telephone number if I make a true statement and, conversely, not give me your number if I make a false statement?"

Maybe he can soften the statement a bit, but let's assume that this is its gist.

Feeling that this is a flattering and benign request, the woman promises to give him her number if and only if he makes a true statement.

The man then makes his statement: "You will neither give me your telephone number now nor will you sleep with me tonight."

What's the trick? Note that she can't give him her number since, if she were to do so, his statement would be made false, and so she would have broken her promise to give him her number only if he made a true statement. (This is the crux of it.) Therefore, she must not give him her number under any circumstances.

But if she also refuses to sleep with him, his statement becomes true, and this would require her to give him her number.

The only way she can keep her promise is to sleep with him so that his statement becomes false. The woman's seemingly innocuous promise ensnares her.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I suspect that the class of people for whom this seduction technique would prove effective is probably rather small. Nevertheless, it might make an interesting premise for a Star Trek episode or perhaps form part of a logicians' dating manual.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Watch the Wolverine movie here!

Click here to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine in its entirety.

Looks fantastic. Way better than I expected.

Star Wars vs. Snatch.

Amazing mashup. Warning - profanity.

Coozer-Bits.

Film: Disney execs are nervous about Pixar's new one, Up, because of its lack of commercialization.

Lame: Paris liberation made "whites only."

Creepy: EU forcing ISPs to store all internet user data, including emails and net phone calls.

Creepy: Israeli strips in supermarkets to protest the sale of bread.

Top 10: 10 things you might not know about eggs. (Lame list, actually - this article has little to do about eggs themselves.)

WWIII Watch: North Korea satellite made out of popsicle sticks fizzes out, lands in ocean. WWIII averted.

Misc: Stephen King finishes book in progress for 30 years.

Yipes: Colombia investigates 22,000 disappearances.

RUW: Your grandchild will be a robot.

Eats: Chocolate helps with math.

Tech: Viruses used to grow greener batteries.

Lame: 1,000 hipsters take over Wall Street with pillows.

WTF: Gisele and Tom Brady's bodyguards open fire on paparazzi.

Rush: 5 things you didn't know about Rush.

Duh: Nicotine is really, REALLY bad for you.

Aww: Dog overboard survives deserted island, returns to family four months later.

Japanese pop star, dressed as a pineapple, beaten and robbed.

Orange you glad you're not a pineapple? From Breitbart:
STOCKHOLM - Police say a Japanese pop star dressed up as a pineapple has been robbed while shooting a music video in southern Sweden.

Police spokesman Bo Paulsson says three young men beat up 41-year-old Hideki Kaji and robbed him of camera equipment as well as about C$3,000 in cash late Saturday.

Paulsson says the pineapple-clad artist had been left alone with the equipment while the camera crew went for a break.

He was left with a cut lip and lost a dental implant.

Police said they had no suspects for the crime Sunday.

Spinal Tap announce world tour.

From BBC:

Spoof band Spinal Tap have announced a "world tour" consisting of a single June date at London's Wembley Arena.

The tour marks the 25th anniversary of mockumentary film, This is Spinal Tap, which launched the band's career.

The band will be backed by 1960s folk trio The Folksmen, the focus of another spoof film, 2003's A Mighty Wind.

Spinal Tap's lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel commented: "If we're going to do a World tour on only one night, at least it's this world."

Bassist Derek Smalls added: "one night is not enough, and it's way too much".

Spinal Tap have used a variety of drummers over the years due several untimely deaths, including a spontaneous combustion on stage.

[...] Spinal Tap are played by Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. The three actors will be touring America this summer in their own personae for a series of acoustic gigs called Unwigged and Unplugged.

40% of Australian women wear DD cup or higher.

Next stop - Australia!
The bra market is expanding, literally. Up to 40 per cent of Australian women now buy bras with a cup size of DD or higher, new figures from lingerie suppliers show.

In the 1950s, the most common bra-cup size was a B - three sizes less than a DD.

Modern breasts are getting so large that some bra companies have introduced cup sizes as high as K, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

Experts blame the cleavage boost on obesity, contraceptive pills and artificial hormones.

Myer lingerie buyer Kerryn Sawyer said sales of DD-plus bras have grown from about 20 per cent of sales to 28 per cent in just five years.

Many lingerie labels such as Berlei and Triumph are now offering G cups while Fayreform, Freya and Le Mystere are producing select styles up to a size J.
More here.

Dude has sex in seat on plane while girlfriend naps.

Wow, this is balls. From News.com.au:

ARMED police boarded a flight at London's Heathrow Airport and arrested a trio involved in mid-air argument over a sex act.

The incident involved a model who allegedly flew into a drunken rage on a plane after catching her boyfriend engaging in a sex act with a woman sitting next to him.

Magazine covergirl Sarah Hannon, 35, is said to have woken from a nine-hour flight onboard Kingfisher Airlines to London from the Indian city of Bangalor to find partner Daniel Melia enjoying a sexual act, The Sun reports.

A police source said Ms Hannon fell asleep after drinking with Mr Melia before and during the flight.

Mr Melia then “got on well” with Ms Irby underneath a blanket but was stopped by hostesses – at which point Sarah awoke and started screaming.

Old woman loses control of her mobility scooter.

There are only two explanations for this: Gremlins or a sentient mobility scooter. From Ananova:
An 87-year-old Cornish woman had to be rescued by police after her mobility scooter sped out of control.

Eileen Bishop was on her way to church with husband Anthony in Perranporth when she suddenly shot off.

Police later found her heading along the A3075 towards Newquay, five miles from home, reports the Daily Telegraph.

[...] Mrs Bishop said that she was not sure how she became separated from her husband: "I just lost him," she said. "I was half asleep to tell you the truth."