The Goldblum is NOT dead!

The most important celebrity death news all week -- The Goldblum is alive!! Not that anything could kill The Goldblum. Dude will survive us all. From Brisbane Times:

They say bad news comes in threes.

Perhaps that explains major media outlets' rush to believe unconfirmed reports this morning that American actor Jeff Goldblum had died.

As the world came to terms with the news pop superstar Michael Jackson had suffered a heart attack and former Charlie's Angels actress Farrah Fawcett had lost her long battle with cancer, the rumour of Goldblum's death surfaced.

The news has now been revealed as a hoax.

But only after gaining widespread news coverage - from ABC Radio to Richard Wilkins on Channel Nine - and generating a flurry of activity on social networking websites.

"Jeff Goldblum dead" was at 11am the third-most popular search term on Google.

All the other top-10 search terms revealed on Google Trends related to Michael Jackson's death.

It appears the rumour of Goldblum's death originated on a spoof website that generates generic news stories about celebrity deaths.

(Thanks Kelly!)

Scary NY welcome to French tourists: police chase, cab crash.

Pretty crazy - 7-mile chase with tourists in the van! I hate those unlicensed cabs and the scammers in front of the airports, tricking newbies into taking them. From Newsday:

Five French tourists got a harrowing start to their New York visit: a wild police chase.

As they looked for a ride at the Air France terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday morning, the visitors were lured to a van that was not licensed to provide taxi service, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey spokesman John Kelly said.

Plainclothes police recognized the man who enticed the tourists, Ian McFarland, as a repeat offender previously arrested for corralling passengers into unlicensed cars. A Port Authority officer reached inside the van to try and grab the keys, but the driver, Khaalis Preacher, sped off with the tourists inside, knocking the officer to the ground, Kelly said.

Port Authority police sped after the van, which snaked through residential streets and traveled about seven miles through two boroughs before it crashed through a gate at a U.S. Postal Service facility in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

The tourists said they screamed and prayed during the chase.

"I was scared," Paris resident Esther-Ethy Mamane, 26, said Wednesday at a news conference. Mamane and her mother, Claudine, traveled to New York to attend a religious seminar. She said she tried to keep the other passengers inside the van calm during the chaos.

Preacher and McFarland jumped out while the van was still moving. Mamane said there was smoke and the rear doors wouldn't open from the inside, so she jumped out the front as the van rolled and ran around to open the doors. Mamane's mother tried to jump from the van, fell and the vehicle rolled over her arm. She was treated at a hospital and released. Mamane and the other passengers, a woman and her parents, were not injured.

Meanwhile, police chased the two suspects on foot and arrested them on charges of unlawful solicitation, criminal trespass and possibly other charges, Kelly said. It wasn't clear whether they had attorneys.

Claudine and Esther-Ethy Mamane were given a bag full of New York City goodies, including tickets to the Broadway show "Chicago," passes to the Museum of Modern Art and transit fare cards at a news conference Wednesday. The other tourists decided not to attend.

The women, who spoke little English, said they were grateful to the Port Authority officers who never let the van out of their sight, and they are looking forward to a good trip in New York.

Whale watching in Japan more profitable than whaling.

From Breitbart:

The whale and dolphin watching industry in Japan is growing annually by around 6.4 percent and last year generated nearly $23 million in revenues, according to a new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Environmentalists publicized the data on Wednesday in an attempt to show whaling nations the benefits of focusing on conservation rather than hunting.

In the report, IFAW revealed that 13 million people took whale and dolphin watching tours in 119 countries in 2008, generating ticket fees and tourism expenditures of more than $2.1 billion.

According to IFAW, the number of people who participated in whale and dolphin watching tours in Japan stood at 191,970 in 2008, with the figures showing an average annual growth rate of 6.4 percent over the last 10 years.

There were 104 tour operators in Japan last year, generating $7,375,076 in direct revenues from ticket sales, with an additional $15,345,902 being produced in tourism revenue for the local economy, the report stated.

The whale watching industry in Japan is the most profitable in Asia, according to one of the contributors to the document, pointing out that it generates much more in revenue than the subsidized whale meat industry.

Iran arrests 70 professors.

From the LA Times:

Iran's leading opposition figurehead, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, launched a lengthy broadside against the Iranian leadership and state-owned media in comments published today on his website as authorities arrested 70 university professors who had met with him.

The former prime minister, in comments apparently delivered Wednesday to the arrested social scientists and posted on one of his websites today, accused Iran's supreme leader of not acting in the interests of the country and said a dramatic change for the worse had taken place in the country.

He slammed state-controlled broadcast outlets, which have intensified a media blitz against the West and alleged that the recent unrest over disputed June 12 presidential election was the work of Iran's international antagonists.

Wallabies get high, create crop circles.

I want to believe. From News.com.au:

Wallabies are breaking into Tasmania's poppy fields and getting high.

The strange occurrence, revealed in a State Government Budget Estimates hearing, has also solved what some growers say has spurred a campfire legend about mysterious crop circles that appear in northern Tasmania's poppy paddocks.

In true X-Files-style, Attorney-General Lara Giddings said the drugged out wallabies had been found hopping around in circles squashing the poppies, creating the formations – and hence solving the mystery.

The wallabies are increasingly entering the fields and eating the poppy heads, The Mercury reports.

That causes them to get high and run around in circles creating "crop circles".

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Ms Gidding said.

Pitcher plant doubles as toilet.

Jeez, a little privacy for the tree shrew, please?? From Live Science:

When you gotta go you gotta go, and for small tropical mammals called tree shrews, a pitcher plant serves as a handy toilet, new video research finds.

The jug-shaped plants make out just fine, too: They use the shrew's feces as a much-needed nitrogen source.

Most pitcher plants are carnivorous, trapping ants and other insects that slip down the sides of the pitcher into a pool of digestive enzymes. The new finding, published online June 10 in the journal Biology Letters, reveals at least one type of pitcher plant "feeds on" the poop from tree shrews in lieu of insects.

"Basically it's a toilet complete with a feeding station," said study team member Jonathan Moran of Royal Roads University in British Columbia.

Update: Girl confesses she wanted 56 star tattoos on face.

From Daily Mail:

A teenage girl who claimed 56 stars were tattooed on her face as she slept when she'd only asked for three has admitted she was awake the whole time - and lied because her father was 'furious'.

Belgian Kimberley Vlaminck said last week she woke up in horror to find her face covered in the stars of various sizes which spread out over the left-hand side of her head.

She went on to blame the Flemish-speaking tattooist for not being able to understand her French and English instructions.

Amid a frenzy of media attention, she then vowed to sue tattoo artist Rouslan Toumaniantz for the £9,000 she needs for laser surgery to have them removed.

She said after the tattooing: 'It is terrible for me. I cannot go out on to the street. I look like a freak.'

But the 18-year-old has finally confessed she did not fall asleep, that she wanted all the stars and was 'fully aware' of what Toumaniantz was doing.

Miss Vlaminck told a Dutch TV crew: 'I asked for 56 stars and initially adored them.

'But when my father saw them, he was furious.

'So I said I fell asleep and that the tattoist had made a mistake.'

Coozer-Bits.

Aww: Scientist secretly working on time travel so he can meet his dad.

WTF: Crocodile causes helicopter crash.

Awesome: Kung fu master cracks four coconuts with finger.

Hot Cha Cha: North Carolina beach going for world's biggest skinny dip.

Biz: Philip Morris agrees to pay $200 million to settle Colombia tax evasion suit.

Yipes: Dad kills son during argument on Father's Day.

Hot Cha Cha: Top 10 sexiest PETA ads (borderline NSFW?).

Politics: In Colombia, 28 of 33 governors and 70% of mayors investigated for corruption. Sounds like the US.

PSA: Cruise lines don't often respond properly - and sometimes cover-up - rapes on cruises.

Dunkin' Donuts creates most important iPhone application ever.

This is WAY easier than writing down everyone's orders! Maybe they should create an app that doesn't turn their donuts stale by 11 am.

Tired of scooting around the office, writing down everyone's order in a piece of scrap paper before making that run to Dunkin' Donuts?

[...] Well, it seems the IT folks at the coffee company can feel your pain.

Dunkin' Donuts today unveiled a new Web site, Dunkin' Run, along with an iPhone application, designed to help customers solicit and submit group orders online.

"We conceived of Dunkin' Run as a social application that helps hard-working Americans stay slightly more productive," said Baba Shetty, chief media officer at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos Inc., Dunkin's advertising firm.

Here's how it works:

The person making the run can initiate a group order at her company using a PC, a mobile device or the new iPhone application, which can be downloaded for free from iTunes. Then alerts are sent to the runner's list of co-workers or friends informing them that a run is going to be made and that they can place their order online. Users can look at the menu online or check out their own list of favorites.

The runner then can print out the page and take it to the store, or she can bring the page to the local Dunkin' Donuts on her mobile device.

From here.

Goldman Sachs to make record bonus payouts.

From The Guardian:

Staff at Goldman Sachs staff can look forward to the biggest bonus payouts in the firm's 140-year history after a spectacular first half of the year, sparking concern that the big investment banks which survived the credit crunch will derail financial regulation reforms.

A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.

Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.

Goldman is expected to be the biggest winner in the race for revenues that, in 2006, reached £186bn across the entire industry. While this figure is expected to fall to £160bn in 2009, it will be split among a smaller number of firms.

Woman swallows toothbrush.

I like the frankness of Colombia's media. From Colombia Reports:

A woman from the town of Jericho in Antioquia had to undergo surgery to remove a toothbrush from her intestines she swallowed for inexplicable reasons.

The toothbrush was stuck in the intestines of the woman after she apparently incidentally swallowed it while brushing her teeth Friday evening. The woman is not able to explain how she was able to swallow the object and whether it was because of an accident or stupidity.

Doctors in her hometown -- alarmed by the seriousness of the situation -- referred the woman to Ciudad Bolivar to undergo treatment, but the doctors there also felt incompetent to remove the toothbrush and referred the woman to a Medellin hospital.

Woman trampled to death by cows.

She should've mooooved out of the way! From CNN:

A woman was trampled to death by cows while walking her dogs in northern England, police said Monday.

The 49-year-old died at the scene, said a press officer for North Yorkshire police, where the incident took place on Sunday just after noon local time (7 a.m. ET).

"She had two dogs with her," said the spokeswoman, who declined to be named in line with police policy. They were not on a leash, she added.

"We believe the cows may have gotten protective of their calves," she said.

Angry son puts dad's ashes up on eBay.

This item is from last week, so the auction might be over. Sorry collectors!

A Warwickshire man is auctioning his dad's ashes on eBay - in revenge for abandoning him as a child.

William Ireland, 50, of Atherstone, claims he was six when dad Ken left his mum to start a new life, reports The Sun.

He later tracked him down and admitted: "I spent a lot of childhood pining for dad.

"When I found him we started seeing each other then he died in 2006. I found out his estate was going to the woman he left my mother for and their son.

"I thought he might have made it up to me. Obviously he never cared."

Mr Ireland got the ashes after paying for the funeral. His father's second wife and family are thought to want them back.

The eBay ad reads: "Here are the ashes of my father, Kenneth Ireland, an adulterer who left a wife, two children and just £17 in her pocket. He never paid a penny towards his kids' upbringing."

Chicago parents looking to ban Sherman Alexie book.

I love Sherman Alexie. I hope these parents actually take the time to read the book; maybe they'll learn something. From the Chicago Tribune:

Some parents of incoming freshmen at Antioch High School want an assigned summer reading book pulled from the school's shelves and the curriculum because it uses foul, racist language and describes sexual acts.

The book, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," by Sherman Alexie, is an award-winning story of a 14-year-old American Indian who leaves his school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school. The main character faces many of the same challenges the incoming freshmen will face when they start school in the fall, said John Whitehurst, chairman of the English department at Antioch High School.

Jennifer Anderson said she was one of seven parents who attended the Community High School District 117 School Board meeting Thursday to ask that the book be banned from the curriculum, or at the very least be accompanied with a warning about the content.

"I can't imagine anyone finding this book appropriate for a 13- or 14-year-old," said Anderson, whose 14-year-old son will be a freshman this fall. "I have not met a single parent who is not shocked by this. This is not appropriate for our community."

District 117 Supt. Jay Sabatino said he has not read the book but planned to do so over the weekend and asked two school board members to do the same. On Monday, the group will reconvene to discuss the appropriate action to take, he said.

Dead: Inventor of the vibrating bed.

May his eternal slumber be on a vibrating cloud. RIP.

The inventor of the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed," which brought weary travellers 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease" for a quarter in U.S. motel rooms during the 1960s and '70s, has died. He was 92.

John Joseph Houghtaling died Wednesday at his home in Fort Pierce, his son Paul Houghtaling said Friday in a telephone interview.

Tinkering in the basement of his New Jersey home, Houghtaling invented the "Magic Fingers" machine in 1958.

"Put in a quarter, turn out the light, Magic Fingers makes ya feel all right," Jimmy Buffett sang in "This Hotel Room."

Kitschy and titillating, Magic Fingers remained a staple of American pop culture even after the device began disappearing from motels. The vibrations triggered a beer explosion in the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," and FBI agents Mulder and Scully relaxed to the pulsations in an episode of "The X Files."

From here.

Thief falls asleep after stealing, eating 11 lobsters.

From Breitbart:

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - A man suspected of breaking into a Maine restaurant will have to get used to jailhouse food after workers at the eatery discovered lobsters and wine missing—and the suspect asleep on a bench.

Police say Paul Bruneau broke into the Portland Lobster Co. through a rear window and stuffed his pockets with cash before chowing down on the better part of 11 prepared lobsters worth about $300. He washed it all down with a white wine.

The Portland Press Herald reports Bruneau also left a refrigerator open, causing about $1,000 worth of food to be thrown away.

Bruneau, who was already out on bail, was being held Friday at the Cumberland County Jail. He couldn't be reached for comment.

US pilot almost dropped nuclear bomb on North Carolina.

...and that nuclear bomb is still missing! By the by, I hope the military doesn't still practice missions with real nuclear arsenal. That seems somewhat foolish. An excerpt from a fascinating report from BBC News:

[...] Shortly after midnight on 5 February 1958, Howard Richardson was on a top-secret training flight for the US Strategic Air Command.

It was the height of the Cold War and the young Major Richardson's mission was to practise long-distance flights in his B-47 bomber in case he was ordered to fly from Homestead Air Force Base in Florida to any one of the targets the US had identified in Russia.

The training was to be as realistic as possible, so on board was a single massive H-bomb - the nuclear weapon he might one day be instructed to drop to start World War III.

As he cruised at 38,000 feet over North Carolina and Georgia, his plane was hit by another military aircraft, gouging a huge hole in the wing and knocking an engine almost off its mountings, leaving it hanging at a perilous angle.

At his home in Mississippi, Colonel Richardson said: "All of a sudden we felt a heavy jolt and a burst of flame out to the right.

"We didn't know what it was.

"We thought maybe it was something from outer space, but it could only be another plane."

The colonel thought his number was up. His bomber started plummeting to earth and he struggled with the flight deck to get any kind of response.

"We had ejection seats - I told 'em: 'Don't hit the ejection seats just yet. I'm gonna see if we can fly.'"

As he dropped to 20,000 feet, he somehow got the damaged craft under control and levelled out.

He and his co-pilot then made a fateful decision which probably saved both their lives and the lives of countless people on the ground.

Scientists discover "gangsta gene."

Life ain't nothin' but money and bitches and monoamine oxidase proteins. From ABC News:

It's not nearly as overt as a hand sign or a coloured bandana, but DNA may offer one clue as to whether someone belongs to a gang or not.

Males with a particular form of gene called MAOA are twice as likely to join a gang, compared to those with other forms, finds a new study of more than 2000 US teens. What's more, gang members with these mutations are far more likely to use a weapon than other members.

"For the most part, people haven't really thought of the biological or genetic underpinnings to gang membership, says Kevin Beaver, a biosocial criminologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, who led the study.

The relatively common mutations result in reduced levels of a protein, called monoamine oxidase A, which recycles several of the chemicals that foster neuron connections.

Strip club sues its own 14-year-old dancer.

Yeah, the strip club is the victim here. From the Houston Chronicle:

A strip club that hired a 14-year-old as an exotic dancer is now suing the girl, saying the seventh-grader swindled them into breaking state law.

The San Antonio teen allegedly exposed her breasts while working at Cheetah Club in Corpus Christi, a violation of state law.

Alan Yaffe, the club’s attorney, said the club didn’t know the girl was a minor.

“She came (into the club) with 6-inch stiletto heels and a miniskirt and looked just like a model from a Miss America’s contest,” Yaffe said.

Yaffe also disputed the sequence of events that authorities say brought the 14-year-old girl to Club Cheetah, where she exposed her breasts — a violation of state law.

Police say Leslie Campbell, 48, kidnapped the teenager in San Antonio in March, took her to Corpus Christi, sexually assaulted her over the course of a week, gave her a false identification card and forced her to strip at the club.

Police say the girl, who has not been identified, escaped from Campbell’s home and has been reunited with her parents in San Antonio.

Campbell was arrested and remains in Nueces County Jail on charges of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.

RJL Entertainment Inc., — which is doing business as “Cheetah Club,” according to tax records — filed the lawsuit last week.

The suit seeks unspecified damages from Campbell, the girl and her parents, as well as a declaration from a judge that it did not intend to hire a minor.

“We’re the victims here,” Yaffe said.

Authorities also arrested Jeffery Shawn Martinez, a manager at the club, on charges of employment harmful to a minor and sexual performance of a child. He was released on bail.

Yesterday was the happiest day of the year.

Gosh, didn't notice it considering NYC has had about 30 straight days of rain. From Ananova:

Britons should have plenty to smile about on Friday, 19 June - as it's officially the happiest day of 2009.

Our spirits have apparenty been boosted by the sunny start to summer, the longest days of the year, the nearing of payday - and optimism that Andy Murray could win Wimbledon.

Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall devised a formula to pinpoint the day we are all most likely to feel the happiest.

And the Cardiff University lecturer said people should forget credit crunch worries because the secret of happiness lies with things which are free.

Dr Arnall, 44, said feel-good sensations are enjoying time with friends and loves ones, appreciating nature in the sunshine and looking forward to the weekend and a holiday.

His complicated mathematic formula is: O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He.

O = being outdoors and outdoor activity, N = nature, S = social interaction, Cpm = memories of childhood summers and other positive thoughts, T = temperature, and He = excitement about holidays.

iPod saves girl hit by lightning.

From Daily Mail. The pics in the article are crazy!

A teenage girl who was struck by lightning may have been saved by her iPod, it emerged today.

Sophie Frost and boyfriend Mason Billington, both 14, were sheltering beneath a tree in a storm when the 300,000-volt bolt hit her iPod, knocking them out.

But since her headphones were hanging from her school uniform - and not in her ears - the wires diverted some of the current away from her body, avoiding vital organs.

The effect of the strike was also reduced because she was holding hands with Mason at the time, splitting the shock between them.

Sophie escaped with minor burns while Mason, who recovered first and heroically carried her to safety, received eye damage which doctors hope will not be permanent.

OMG GOLDBLUM!

The Goldblum just defended flies on The Colbert Report.

OMG!

The Goldblum is LOVE.

Japan bans all trade with North Korea.

From AFP:

Japan on Tuesday banned all remaining trade with North Korea to punish the isolated communist regime for its latest nuclear and missile tests, the government said.

Prime Minister Taro Aso's cabinet "agreed on a ban on all export goods" to the impoverished state on top of an import freeze imposed after the North's first atomic test in 2006, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura.

Tokyo's latest move comes amid worries Pyongyang may soon conduct a third nuclear test after the UN Security Council voted Friday for tougher sanctions in response to the regime's May 25 underground test.

Japan's exports to the North -- mainly machinery and transport equipment such as trains and vehicles, food, electronics and industrial goods -- totalled just 792.6 million yen (8.2 million dollars) last year, the finance ministry says.

Analysts see Japan's new sanctions as largely symbolic because North Korea conducts the bulk of its trade with its large communist neighbour and closest ally China, also its biggest source of aid.

NSA analysts spied own girlfriends, wives.

From Raw Story:

According to the reporter who first broke the NSA wiretapping story, there is no proof the agency has scaled back its interception of the personal phone calls and email messages of American citizens as promised by the Obama administration or even that it is being straight with Congress about its activities.

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed the NSA’s over-collection of data in an article for the New York Times on Tuesday, noting that one NSA analyst was even found to have been reading the private email of former President Bill Clinton.

Risen told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann the next day that he knew of no other cases like the Clinton incident but that many NSA analysts had been abusing their powers in other ways. “It sounded like, from the former NSA analyst that we interviewed, that it was rare to access the emails of celebrities or famous people,” Risen stated, “but that it was fairly routine, according to him, for people to access the emails of girlfriends or wives or other people that they might know.”

Vampire gets road rage.

From Ananova:

A road rage driver bit a pedestrian in Romania because he took too long to cross the road.

Mihai Nicoara, 36, told police the furious motorist leapt from his car and sunk his teeth into his belly at a crossing in Iasi.

"He just shouted at me and then grabbed me by the belly with his teeth. He tore my shirt and I have a pretty nasty wound now," he said.

[...] "Now I'll make sure I never dawdle again," he added.

British navy captain bans Brussels sprouts for being the "devil's vegetable".

It's about time someone in authority spoke out against demon sprouts.

A British navy captain has banned Brussels sprouts from his ship and labelled them the "devil's vegetable", reports said Wednesday.

Commanding Officer Wayne Keble made the order to his 390-strong crew on HMS Bulwark because he "hates" the vegetable, the Daily Telegraph reported.

But he denied speculation that he brought in the ban because sprouts make the sailors suffer from flatulence in the cramped conditions on board.

Captain Keble disclosed his order after he was asked to confirm reports that he had banned fried foods from his ship for health reasons.

He said: "The only thing I have banned on board is Brussels sprouts. They are the devil's vegetable and the only thing I do not like, and the only thing I hate.

"Brussels sprouts are absolutely banned on board HMS Bulwark. I do not eat them so I do not know what the after-effects are."

The distinctive smell of sprouts is caused by sulphur compounds released when cooked.

More here.

Teen wakes up at tattoo parlor with 56 stars on her face.

Wow, I'm totally not going here to get my dolphin tramp stamp. From Ananova:

A Belgian teenager is suing a tattooist for £10,000 after claiming she woke up with 56 stars on her face.

Kimberley Vlaminck, 18, claims Rouslan Toumaniantz spoke such bad English and French that he misunderstood her at the Tattoo Boy studio in Courtrai, Belgium.

She claims she fell asleep while the tattooist went to work and woke up to find 56 stars on her face.

"It is horrible," sobbed Kimberley. "He has turned me into a freak. I can't go out on the street now without people looking at me."

However, Mr Toumaniantz insists she "got what she wanted" - and only complained when her dad got angry and her boyfriend dumped her.

Miss Vlaminch wants compensation to undergo laser treatment to remove the tattoos, but even after the treatment - that will cost upwards of 10,000 Euros, she is likely to be left with scars for life.

Sen. Ensign, GOP candidate for 2012, admits to affair.

John Ensign:

GOP wunderkind? Check.
Born-again Christian? Check.
Member of Promise Keepers, who are "committed to practicing spiritual, moral, ethical and sexual purity"? Check.
Voted to impeach Clinton? Check.
Asserted that any politician who cheats on their spouse should resign? Check.

Yay, I won GOP Hypocrisy Bingo!

More here.

Woman cancels wedding after discovering fiance is porn star.

My wife still doesn't know that I was a grip on Edward Penishands. A very strong grip. From the Telegraph:

Haylie Hocking, 27, only found out that strapping 30-year-old fitness fanatic Jason Brake made adult films just weeks before the big day.

A friend organising her hen night searched online for a male stripper and spotted Jason with a woman in a porn movie.

Now Haylie has called her vicar to cancel the wedding.

She said: "There was no way I could marry an adult film star."

The pair met last year when Jason became a customer at the garage where Haylie worked.

He told her he was a personal trainer and the couple began dating.

She told a magazine she found he was a romantic, thoughtful and passionate lover and six months after meeting he moved into her flat in Bristol.

Robotic ferret to detect hidden drugs and weapons, destroy humanity.

From EurekAlert:

A new type of robot being developed will make it easier to detect drugs, weapons, explosives and illegal immigrants concealed in cargo containers.

Dubbed the 'cargo-screening ferret' and designed for use at seaports and airports, the device is being worked on at the University of Sheffield with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The ferret will be the world's first cargo-screening device able to pinpoint all kinds of illicit substances and the first designed to operate inside standard freight containers.

It will be equipped with a suite of sensors that are more comprehensive and more sensitive than any currently employed in conventional cargo scanners.

New, superheavy element to enter periodic table.

From NewsDaily:

A new, superheavy chemical element numbered 112 will soon be officially included in the periodic table, German researchers said.

A team in the southwest German city of Darmstadt first produced 112 in 1996 by firing charged zinc atoms through a 120-meter-long particle accelerator to hit a lead target.

"The new element is approximately 277 times heavier than hydrogen, making it the heaviest element in the periodic table," the scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research said in a statement late on Wednesday.

The zinc and lead nuclei were fused to form the nucleus of the new element, also known as Ununbium, Latin for 112.

Operation: Mindcrime... The Musical?

This isn't surprising. Mindcrime is totally theatrical, even operatic. Plus it rocks my stupid ass. From Playbill News:

Adam Pascal, the Tony Award-nominated actor-singer known for his dual passions of musical theatre and rock music, is pursuing a dream he's harbored since his teen years: to create a stage musical version of "Operation: Mindcrime," the 1988 concept album by metal group Queensrÿche.

Pascal, currently starring in his Tony-nominated role of Roger in the new national tour of Rent, told Playbill.com that Queensrÿche (pronounced "Queens-Rike") has given permission to — and will collaborate with — Pascal to conceive a Broadway-aimed musical of their popular recording about a brainwashed drug addict, Nikki, who becomes an assassin and seeks the love of a reformed hooker named Mary, who is now a nun.

The project is in the early stages, with no director, librettist, producer or music director attached, but Pascal said that Queensrÿche — including frontman and co-songwriter Geoff Tate and manager Susan Tate — has given him the go-ahead, and that the new musical will include new songs and connective material by the band.

[...] The musical might incorporate some content from the 2006 follow-up album, "Operation: Mindcrime II," but Pascal said that he had no interest in cobbling together a Queensrÿche "jukebox" show that might include, for example, the band's non-"Mindcrime" hit, "Silent Lucidity."

More on the Crunchberry legal saga.

From Lowering the Bar, my favorite litigation news blog:

The tale of Janine Sugawara, the woman who sued the manufacturer of "Cap'n Crunch with Crunch Berries" for allegedly misleading her about the "berries," has turned out to be extremely popular, bringing literally tens of thousands of people to this site over the past few days.

Unfortunately, one of them was her lawyer.

He thought I had been unfair to his client and asked me to clarify that she had not alleged that she personally believed "crunchberries" to be an actual kind of fruit. This was a little puzzling to me, especially since the judge who dismissed her case seemed to have interpreted her claims the way I had (and I had quoted his opinion at length in my post). The lawyer ultimately seemed to accept that this was understandable, but asked me to look at the pleadings and the motion for reconsideration they have filed (that's the "update" - they are asking the judge to reconsider), in order to get a better sense of what the plaintiff was really arguing. So I did that.

If you read her complaint(s) very closely, Ms. Sugawara may not have clearly said that she thought crunchberries were an actual fruit that exist in nature. But she did claim (and still does) that she was misled by the Crunchberries packaging, specifically (1) the word "berry" in the name of the product, (2) the picture of "pieces of cereal in bright fruit colors, shaped to resemble berries," and (3) "the product's namesake, 'Cap'n Crunch,' thrusting a spoonful of 'Crunchberries' at the prospective buyer." See Motion for Reconsideration at p. 2. In the motion, she then says this: "There can be no other reason for the emphasis on berries than to lead consumers to believe the Product is made with real fruit content." Id.

So if I understand correctly, she wasn't saying she thought the cereal was actually made with a fruit called "crunchberries," but rather that the word "berries" and the colorful berry-like objects on the box led her to believe that the "crunchberries" being thrust at her by the Cap'n contained some kind of real berries or real berry parts, when in fact they did not. (Actually, they did - at least "a touch of strawberry fruit concentrate" - though not very much. But let's set that aside for now.)

There is a distinction there, but I'm not sure it's one that makes much of a difference. Here's where I think the problem is: how can a reasonable consumer claim to be misled by the word "berries" immediately following the word "crunch," if that person does in fact know whether or not "crunchberries" really exist? Shouldn't the use of a term that the person supposedly knows is not real be considered a reasonable signal that what's inside the box might not be real, either?

I mean, if you read "The Hobbit," I'm not sure you can complain later that you thought it was going to be a true story.

Poor showing for US in ranking of best cities to live in.

I remember we were taught in school that the US is the best country in the world and we're so lucky to live here. I suppose that's still true if you don't consider western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, Singapore, Japan etc. See 2009 rankings here.

Wait... Luxembourg? Seriously?

Marijuana damages DNA and may cause psychosis, cancer.

I can be accused of cherry picking my news to defend my biases (blah blah, suck it), so I thought I'd point this item out to give the anti-pot folks a little ammo. Just something for them to gloat over as they enjoy their next double martini spiked with prescription drugs.

From LiveScience:

A lot of studies have shown marijuana is not good for you. It can fry the brain and contribute to psychosis. The latest one finds "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

Toxic substances in tobacco smoke can damage DNA and increase the risk of lung and other cancers. However, there has been uncertainty over whether marijuana smoke has the same effect.

Scientists are especially concerned about the toxicity of acetaldehyde, present in both tobacco and marijuana. However, it has been difficult to measure DNA damage from acetaldehyde with conventional tests.

Using a highly sensitive new method called modified mass spectrometry, Rajinder Singh at the University of Leicester and colleagues found the data they sought, they report in the June 15 issue of Chemical Research in Toxicology, a journal of the American Chemical Society.

"These results provide evidence for the DNA damaging potential of cannabis [marijuana] smoke, implying that the consumption of cannabis cigarettes may be detrimental to human health with the possibility to initiate cancer development," the researchers write. "The data obtained from this study suggesting the DNA damaging potential of cannabis smoke highlight the need for stringent regulation of the consumption of cannabis cigarettes, thus limiting the development of adverse health effects such as cancer."

Earlier this year, a separate study found evidence that adolescents and young adults who smoked a lot of marijuana are more likely than non-users to have disrupted brain development. Research in 2007 found pot smokers have on average a 41 percent increased risk of developing psychotic disorders later in life.

Scientists doom planet after resurrecting 120,000-year-old bacteria.

Oh, great idea! That bacteria we know nothing about that can survive and propagate on so little? Let's reintroduce it to the planet! From New Scientist:

A tiny bacterium has been coaxed back to life after spending 120,000 years buried three kilometres deep in the Greenland ice sheet.

Researchers who found it say it could resemble microbes that may have evolved in ice on other planets.

Officially named Herminiimonas glaciei, the bug consists of rods just 0.9 micrometres long and 0.4 micrometres in diameter, about 10 to 50 times smaller than the well-known bacterium, Escherichia coli.

"What's unique is that it's so small, and seems to survive on so few nutrients," says Jennifer Loveland-Curtze of Pennsylvania State University, whose team has described the new species.

She speculates that thanks to its tiny dimensions, it can survive in minute veins in the ice, scavenging sparse nutrients that were buried along with the ice. It also has extensive tail-like flagella to help it manoeuvre through the veins to find food.

"Along with the snow, you get dust, bacterial cells, fungal spores, plant spores, minerals and other organic debris," says Loveland-Curtze. "So we postulate that it lives in these microniches in the ice."

Researchers in the team coaxed it back to life by keeping it at 2 °C for 7 months, then at 5 °C for a further four-and-a-half months, after which they saw colonies of very small purplish-brown bacteria.

Follow-Up: Snakes defeated.

We reported recently that snakes were taking over the world. It is with mixed feelings that we report today that the tide has turned, even though it took (wtf) AK-47s to do so...

Power hoses and AK-47 assault rifles have succeeded where Sierra Leone's snake-charmers failed by removing 400 cobras and vipers that overran a police station.

Authorities in the southern district of Bo called in police, army and fire fighters after the snakes scared away police officers and residents reporting crimes.

"We have forced water into the building and some of the snakes trying to escape were shot by our men carrying AK-47s," said Brima Kontu, head of the police station in Gerihun.

About 250 of the estimated 400 snakes who had made the station their home have been killed.

"Hopefully the combined force will be able to free the house from the snakes by next Tuesday," Kontu told Reuters.

More here.

Minutemen vigilantes storm immigrant home, kill child.

Messed up... more here.

A female vigilante from an anti-illegal immigration group led a raid on a house where a man and his nine-year-old daughter were shot dead, it emerged today.

Shawna Forde, 41, and two others allegedly dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into the family's rural home just ten miles from the Mexican border.

Brisenia Flores and her 29-year-old father, Raul Junior Flores, died and Brisenia's mother, who has not been named, was wounded in the attack.

Forde, Jason Eugene Bush, 34, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with first degree murder along with other charges said Sheriff Clarence Dupnic of Pima County, Arizona.

Forde and Bush are part of Minutemen American Defence, a small border watch group in Arizona whose mottos are 'Doing the job our Government won't do' and 'Defending America's borders'.

According to the group's website Forde is the leader while Bush, who also goes by the nickname 'Gunny', is its operations director.

According to Sheriff Dupnic the motive for the murder was financial.

He said: 'The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs.

'This was a planned home invasion where the plan was to kill all the people inside this trailer so there would be no witnesses.

'To just kill a nine-year-old girl because she might be a potential witness, to me, is just one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of,' he added.

Curse word on school roof spotted from space.

From LiveScience:

Students at a UK grammar school used bricks to spell out a certain word for a certain bit of male anatomy (co*k), on the school's roof. Then it was spotted by satellite, in a Google Earth image, according to The Register.

The headmaster requested it be taken down. But hey, maybe the kids were just doing some kind of cosmic rooster worship?

Meantime, what can't be seen from space these days? The military has spy satellites with enough resolution to actually spot that human anatomy, er, in the flesh, were it to be displayed thusly. Google Earth uses images that aren't so crisp, yet a search (yes, on Google, but we're not going to provide the links here...) will reveal lots of, well, sunbathers.

San Francisco to fine people $100 for throwing out food.

Oh, San Fran. You so crazy. From MSNBC:

Trash collectors in San Francisco will soon be doing more than just gathering garbage: They'll be keeping an eye out for people who toss food scraps out with their rubbish.

San Francisco this week passed a mandatory composting law that is believed to be the strictest such ordinance in the nation. Residents will be required to have three color-coded trash bins, including one for recycling, one for trash and a new one for compost — everything from banana peels to coffee grounds.

The law makes San Francisco the leader yet again in environmentally friendly measures, following up on other green initiatives such as banning plastic bags at supermarkets.

Russian museum guarded by cats.

In Mother Russia, museums say Meow instead of Miro! Okay, that sucked, but thanks to La for the tip! From here.

For years, Russia’s Hermitage museum has employed a secret army to protect over three million works of art dating back to Peter the Great.

Recently, the identity of this secret force has come to light: cats!

Although no longer allowed to roam freely through the galleries, around 60 felines earn a living in the basement of the huge former Tsarist palace.

Maria Khaltunen, Hermitage State Museum: "They (cats) work here. They execute, so-called, preventive activities so that rats and mice will stay away or are kept at a minimum. All the museum visitors can see them in the summer. Generally they walk on the square and on the embankment, and also they come out into the big yard. But these (cats) are only those who like to deal with people. Others who prefer living in their community stay in basement."

The priceless treasures of the museum are under the watchful eye of these cats. These four-footed employees are always on guard against rats and mice that can damage the Hermitage collection. They work in the labyrinths of the basement, hunting by day and night.

Cats have been guarding the museum for the last 200 years since the Tsarist period. They first appeared during the reign of Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth. Fed up with hundreds of rodents running through the palace Elizabeth signed a decree ordering the best rat and mice-catching cats to be sent to Her Majesty’s court.

Genius creates Girl Scout Samoas-flavored ice cream.

Edy's ice cream, which is already pretty delicious, has evoked heaven by mixing in Samoas (known by morons as Caramel deLites). Thank you Larissa for this tip! (And screw you, scale!) Awesomeness here.

Bringing home your favorite Girl Scouts® Samoas® Cookie Ice Cream is a delicious way to give something back to your family. It's Samoas® Cookies in Caramel Ice Cream with Fudge. Best of all, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of this product goes to support Girl Scouting.

Trend Spotting: Heroin use on Long Island skyrockets.

I'd need heavy painkillers too if I lived on Long Island... From Newsday:

Between 2004 and 2008, at least 1,068 people in Long Island lost their lives in overdoses of either heroin or prescription opiates. In 2007 alone, a staggering 10,418 people were admitted to rehab facilities in both counties for opiate addiction. Statistics from other locales were unavailable yesterday.

Authorities say aggressive promotion by dealers, increased purity that allows users to snort or smoke the drug, rather than inject it with a needle, prices as low as $5 for a one-time high, and similarity to popular but costly opiate painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin are behind heroin's growth in popularity.

Experts say these painkillers - often found in parents' medicine cabinets, and legally prescribed - are more often than not the entry point to heroin addiction.

Umpire ejects entire crowd at baseball game.

Can this umpire work at Fenway, please?

An umpire emptied the stands at a high school baseball game, ejecting the entire crowd of more than 100 fans for being unruly.

Umpire Don Briggs said he had no problem with any of the student athletes during Thursday's game between Winfield-Mount Union and West Burlington.

He said he had to take action because fans were being unruly, yelling and arguing.

However, West Burlington Superintendent James Sleister said he didn't see any unusual behavior and said he thought the umpire overreacted.

Teen arrested in Miami cat mutilations.

I hate kids who abuse animals, but this little creep is even smiling in his mugshot. Hope the judge realizes this is a future serial killer and puts him away for a long time.

A teenager was arrested early Sunday and accused of committing a string of gruesome cat mutilation deaths that had horrified residents of his Miami area community, authorities said.

For the past month, shocked pet owners in the Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay neighborhoods have reported finding more than two dozen cats killed and mutilated. Some of the dead cats were missing fur and appeared to have been cut with a sharp, straight instrument, police said.

Tyler Weinman, 18, was taken into custody early Sunday at a party, police said. Weinman was charged with 19 counts of animal cruelty, 19 counts of improperly disposing of an animal body and four counts of burglary.

[...] In all, the deaths of more than 30 cats were under investigation, but Miller said some of those cats were likely killed by dogs. She said additional arrests might be forthcoming, but she declined to name other suspects.

Six Flags files for bankruptcy.

From the NY Daily News:

The amusement park company Six Flags says it has filed for bankruptcy.

The New York-based operator of 20 theme parks in the U.S., Mexico and Canada said Saturday that the filing in a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware is part of its plan to reorganize and shed $1.8 billion worth of debt.

Company CEO Mark Shapiro said the move won't effect the day-to-day operations of the parks.

Six Flags said it actually had a great year in 2008. It saw 25 million visitors and posted record revenues.

However, it said it needed to do something about its crushing debt load.

An earlier plan to work out an out-of-court deal with creditors wasn't successful.

Honking horn not constitutionally protected speech.

The whole item is great. The story just gets better and better. From Seattle Times:

As free-speech cases go, Monday's ruling against Helen Immelt may not qualify as a landmark, but it does clear up one question: The prolonged honking of your car's horn in front of your neighbor's house in the wee hours of the morning isn't a constitutionally protected First Amendment right.

But if it's not a free-speech landmark, it may be one in neighbor feuds: The honking was in retaliation for the neighbor's complaint about Immelt's chickens.

And it may also qualify for sheer quixotic determination. For the noise violation in 2006, Immelt went through and lost a three-day jury trial, then appealed the case to the Washington Court of Appeals, representing herself. In his opinion, Justice C. Kenneth Grosse interpreted the words of the Founding Fathers thusly: "Horn honking per se is not free speech."

Here are the details, according to court documents:

Immelt, 52, got a letter from her neighborhood homeowners association in Monroe in 2006, telling her that covenants prohibited the chickens she'd been keeping in her yard. And it literally made her honking mad.

She confronted one neighbor, who called the cops because of Immelt's "accusations, threats and demeanor." Then, Immelt confronted the association's president and the ensuing shouting match drew some other neighbors.

One of them, John Vorderbrueggen, fessed up that he'd had the beef with her chickens.

So, at 5:50 the next morning, Immelt parked in front of Vorderbrueggen's house and leaned on her car's horn for about 10 minutes.

Burglar can bite through steel bars.

This is pretty amazing.

Police who solved a spate of mystery burglaries were shocked to find the culprit was biting his way through steel window bars.

Detectives in Nanjimen region, Chongqing, were puzzled by continuous reports of break-ins through caged windows.

"Through our investigations, we found the grids had been cut but with deep tooth prints," a local police spokesman told the Chongqing Business Daily.

Eventually, their inquiries led them to interview a man who revealed he was sharing a hotel room with a man who could crack walnuts with his teeth.

Police brought in the man, Xiong, 23, for questioning and he confessed that he was behind the burglaries.

He revealed that he had turned to crime after failing to find a job and could not even remember how many houses he had broken into over the last two years.

Xiong told police he had grown up in a mountain town and had developed strong, sharp teeth by using them to open the walnuts which grew there in abundance.

He had found that he could chew open any steel bars up to 1cm in thickness, by prising open welding spots with his teeth.

The millionth word in English is... Web 2.0.

And yet they continue to ignore "Goldblumin' " (1. adj. Unbearably awesome. 2. verb Fornicating with an attractive person.)

The English-language's millionth word, spewed out of a computer in Texas yesterday, and it's downright geeky: Web 2.0.

Runners-up include "jai ho," a Hindi phrase indicating the joy of victory, popularized in the Oscar winning film Slumdog Millionaire, and n00b, a put-down in gamers' lingo for a newcomer. Yes, those are zeros in the word.

With a worldwide network of computers scanning billions of web pages, the Global Language Monitor media analytics firm has been counting and tracking English words for six years, measuring a word's use and geographic distribution. To be deemed a word, trackers have to find it at least 25,000 times.

Among the other runners-up:

Cloud computing – technical jargon for the Internet.
Carbon neutral – relating to an effort to stem climate change.
Sexting – sending email or text messages with sexual content.

From here.

A dogs' "guilty look" is just your imagination.

Aw, poor innocent puppy pups. From BBC:

That "guilty look" on a dog's face is all in the imagination of the human owner, suggests research.

Dog owners have often claimed they can read the expressions of their pets - particularly that tell-tale look when they have done something wrong.

But researchers at a New York college tricked owners into thinking innocent pets had misbehaved - with the owners still claiming to see this guilty look.

The study found that the expression had no relation to the dogs' behaviour.

And researchers found that pet owners' belief that they could read their dogs' "body language" was often entirely unfounded.

Fox with foot fetish steals 120 shoes.

From Ananova:

More than 120 shoes have gone missing from homes and gardens in Germany after a fox developed a bizarre fetish.

The mystery was only solved when a forestry worker found a stash of the missing footwear in the fox's lair near Fohren.

Tiny tooth marks on the leather show the vixen - dubbed Imelda Marcos after the shoe-mad president's wife - may have used them as toys for her cubs to play with.

Local landowner Count Rudolf Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt said: "She's clearly got a thing about shoes.

"We found 86 shoes in the den and a further 32 in a nearby quarry where they like to play. That includes 12 or 13 matching pairs of shoes."

Coozer-Bits: Solid Snake Edition.

Snakes are all over the news today!

Creepy: Scientists figure out how snakes slither.

RUW: Israel develops a robot snake that can spy on enemies and plant bombs.

Yipes: Hundreds of poisonous snakes overtake police station.

Health: 11 amazing animals that improve your health.

Health: Anti-depressants can make sperm sad.

Sad: 1,500 Chicago city employees laid off.

Aww: Rare yellow lobster, only 1 in 30 million, is spared the pot.

TV: New popular Japanese cartoon is about a lucky piece of poop.

Duh: Men prefer averagely shaped women.

Lame: Lawyer has sex with client and then bills her for his time!

Yipes: Peru police kill dozens of protesters, toss bodies in river.

Sad: Australian police kill Aborigine by letting him roast alive in hot prison van.

Politics: Mayor barred from talking to employees.

Rumor: The Goldblum finds tongue is LOST in young actress' throat.

They would make the perfect couple since The Goldblum, like the Lost island, can travel through time. From Best Week Ever:

A tipster is reporting that 56-year-old actor Jeff Goldblum has once again robbed the sex cradle, as he was spotted making out in front of The Whitney with Tania Raymonde, 21, who played Alex, Ben/Rousseau’s daughter, on Lost (before she was killed off — thanks Dan for the info.) Says our tipster, “they were all huggy giggly.” Congrats to Tania, who can now say she got with that dude from Powder and ID4.

But you know what that means, don’t you? It means… GOLDBLUM HAS STILL GOT IT MOTHAF*CKUHS! No, really, he’s got it. He’s 56 years old and is in AMAZING shape and is Jeff Goldblum.

Competition between two MMORPGs shuts down internet for 300 million people.

From New Scientist:

In online games like World of Warcraft, the violence is normally restricted to fantasy realms populated by orcs and wizards. But when a dispute broke out between rival gaming services recently, it brought down large chunks of China's internet.

Problems started when hackers linked to an unnamed gaming company launched an attack on a server that provides access to a competitor site. The Xinhua News Agency says the attackers disabled the server by flooding it with incoming signals. Other, connected servers were slowed too, in a chain reaction that caused internet problems for 300 million people.

Two suspects were arrested on 29 May. Chinese authorities rate the disruption to the country's internet as the worst since an earthquake ruptured undersea cables near Taiwan in 2006.

Reindeer population plunges.

Really sad....

Reindeer and caribou numbers worldwide have plunged nearly 60 percent in the last three decades due to climate change and habitat disturbance caused by humans, a new study finds.

Global warming and industrial development are driving the dramatic decline, said Liv Vors, a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta who did the study with university biologist Mark Boyce.

"Their future is dubious if climate change and habitat disturbance continue at their current pace," Vors told LiveScience. "We do not know how quickly they can adapt to this changing world."

Reindeer and caribou are two names for the same species. "Generally speaking, caribou are the North American version and reindeer are European," Vors explained. Exact numbers for the creatures are not known, because not enough study has been done. But for those populations that have been studies, the average decline in numbers is 57 percent.

More here.

Bill would make it harder for Israeli women to avoid draft.

From JPost:

The hundreds of young women who avoid the draft every year by falsely claiming that they are religious and thus exempt from IDF service may soon find it a bit harder to take the easy way out, if a bill sponsored by MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima) becomes law.

Hasson, the head of the Knesset Lobby against Draft Evasion, will bring his bill to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation Sunday in the hopes of garnering coalition support for the measure.

Under the current guidelines, all a young woman must do is report to a judge or a rabbinic court official and sign a statement that she is religious and therefore cannot morally serve in the IDF, as well as that she keeps kosher both in and out of the house and does not travel on Shabbat.

The women are exempt from all national service, including the civilian National Service Corps.

Hasson's bill would require that applicants state that in addition to being religious, they studied for at least two of the last three years in a religious educational establishment, and that they provide documentation to back up the statements.

Even in those cases in which the exemption-requester did not study in a religious institution, Hasson proposes that she be granted an interview with a draft board official in which she can try to convince him that there are special conditions that justify her being exempted.

Trip to laundry room averts British nuclear disaster.

More here.

A chance decision to wash some clothes narrowly averted a nuclear disaster, a safety report has found.

While using the laundry room at Sizewell A power station, a contract worker spotted a leak from a cooling tank.

By the time he raised the alarm more than 40,000 gallons of radioactive fluid had spilled out from a 15ft long crack in a pipe. Some of it reached the North Sea.

Although the water level in the tank had dropped by more than a foot none of the sophisticated alarm systems at the power station on the Suffolk coast had picked up on it.

The next scheduled safety patrol was not due for ten hours, by which time the level would have dropped enough to expose the nuclear fuel rods, possibly causing them to overheat.

Had they caught fire, a plume of radioactive material would have engulfed the coastline putting hundreds of lives at risk.

Man gets 33 years for killing sparked by hot sauce.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kansas City man has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for killing a man during a melee that erupted when someone threw a bottle of hot sauce.

The Kansas City Star reports that 29-year-old Jarvis T. Williams was sentenced Thursday for his convictions on second-degree murder, three counts of assault and four counts of armed criminal action.

Prosecutors claim he fired more than 20 rounds from an assault rifle into a car in October 2005, killing 22-year-old Gary Scott and wounding three others.

Prosecutors said the victim had thrown a bottle of hot sauce at a woman's car, angering Williams.

Obama writes note to get Wisconsin girl out of class.

From Breitbart:

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin - Ten-year-old Kennedy Corpus has a rock-solid excuse for missing the last day of school: a personal note to her teacher from President Barack Obama.

Her father, John Corpus of Green Bay, stood to ask Obama about health care during the president's town hall-style meeting at Southwest High School on Thursday. He told Obama that his daughter was missing school to attend the event and that he hoped she didn't get in trouble.

"Do you need me to write a note?" Obama asked. The crowd laughed, but the president was serious.

On a piece of paper, he wrote: "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." He stepped off the stage to hand-deliver the note - to Kennedy's surprise.

"I thought he was joking until he started walking down," Kennedy said after the event, showing off the note in front of a bank of television cameras. "It was like the best thing ever."

Boy survives being hit by a METEOR.

From Ananova:

A German schoolboy is thanking his lucky stars - after surviving being hit by a meteorite.

Gerrit Blank, 14, was rushing to school when he saw a massive fireball heading straight towards him from the sky.

"At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand," he explained. "Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."

The white-hot meteorite hit the ground so hard it left a foot wide crater in the tarmac and a three-inch long scar on Gerrit's hand where it bounced off him.

"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards.

"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.

Clarcon skin products have high levels of disease-causing bacteria.

Risk of bacterial contamination has led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to warn consumers to not use any products made by Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory Inc.

The Roy, Utah, firm voluntarily recalled some skin sanitizers and skin protectants sold under a variety of brand names after a recent FDA inspection found that the products contained high levels of disease-causing bacteria.

List of products can be found here.

Tourists return to find koala napping in bed.

OMGKOALA!

Most hotels turn down your rooms while you're out and about during the day, tidying up your bathoom, changing your towels and organizing your belongings. Nicer hotels come back a few times, filling your ice cube bucket and sometimes leaving fresh fruit, cookies or candies.

A trio of Australian women weren't expecting a live koala sleeping on their bed when they returned though. Discovering the marsupial when they checked into their vacation rental, they watched the animal wander around the balcony for a bit then climb up onto the bed and fall asleep.

Cute as they may seem, koala bears can be viscious animals, and one can't just walk over and wake one out of slumber. The women did the smart thing and called the local wildlife preserve who sent a ranger out to pick up the sleeping marsupial. He was safely returned to the wild.

From here. Thanks Jen!

Tadpoles mysteriously appearing in parking lots.

From Asahi:

KANAZAWA, JAPAN--Residents in Nanao and Hakusan, Ishikawa Prefecture, remain mystified after finding dozens of dead tadpoles in locations the creatures should not be.

A city employee in Nanao was shocked to discover about 100 tadpoles--about 2 to 3 centimeters long--in the parking lot of Nakajima Shimin Center last Thursday afternoon.

There are no tall buildings nearby from which a tadpole-tossing villain could operate.

In Hakusan, about 80 kilometers away, a woman found about 30 tadpoles splattered on and around her daughter's car Saturday morning.

The Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory said atmospheric conditions over the two cities had been stable, and it was unlikely a tornado had been generated.

Gunman leaves name, address at scene.

From Breitbart:

KENTWOOD, Mich. (AP) - Police in Michigan say a man who held up a gas station left behind a major clue—a piece of paper bearing a name and address. Police said they went to the address and arrested a 42-year-old suspect. The holdup took place Tuesday at a Speedway station in the Grand Rapids suburb of Kentwood.

Police told The Grand Rapids Press the robber told the station clerk he had a gun. He appeared to be holding a weapon beneath a piece of paper.

After getting cash, the man dropped the paper and ran when the clerk made a move toward him.

Officers said the address on the paper was for a Grand Rapids apartment. They arrested the suspect when he arrived about an hour after the robbery.

The gun turned out to be a homemade fake.

Woman who missed doomed Air France flight killed in car crash.

This is very Final Destination-ish. From Times Online:

An Italian woman who arrived late for the Air France plane flight that crashed in the Atlantic last week has been killed in a car accident.

Johanna Ganthaler, a pensioner from Bolzano-Bozen province, had been on holiday in Brazil with her husband Kurt and missed Air France Flight 447 after turning up late at Rio de Janeiro airport on May 31.

All 228 people aboard lost their lives after the plane crashed into the Atlantic four hours into its flight to Paris.

The ANSA news agency reported that the couple had managed to pick up a flight from Rio the following day.

It said that Ms Ganthaler died when their car veered across a road in Kufstein, Austria, and swerved into an oncoming truck. Her husband was seriously injured.

Solar system wobble could smash Earth into Mars.

From Daily Mail:

A wobble in the precise clockwork of the solar system could see the Earth collide with Mercury, Mars or Venus, scientists predict.

But they say reassuringly that such a mishap is unlikely to occur for billions of years.

The orbits of the planets are not completely stable because of the gravitational interplay between them.

Over time, the system can become increasingly disordered - like a poorly balanced tyre that eventually tears itself off the axle of a moving car.

Confirmed: Futurama revived for new episodes.

Good news, everyone! From io9:

Confirming yesterday's rumor, Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Files confirms that Comedy Central is reviving Futurama — and not just for 13 episodes, but for 26. In a jar somewhere, the disembodied head of Al Gore is smiling.

Citing the precedent of Family Guy, reanimated after cancellation due to its popularity in reruns and DVD sales, 20th Century Fox television told EW it was responding to a similar hunger for Matt Groening and David X. Cohen's futuristic spoof. "Futurama was another series that fans simply demanded we bring back," said 20th Century Fox TV Chairmen Gary Newman and Dana Walden in a press release, "and we couldn't have been happier when Matt and David agreed that there were many more stories yet to tell." Groening chimed in with a statement, saying, ""We're thrilled Futurama is coming back. We now have only 25,766 episodes to make before we catch up with Bender and Fry in the year 3000." The new Futurama episodes will air in 2010, so that gives Groening and Cohen 990 years to go.

Teacher arrested for growing pot on school's roof.

ICHINOMIYA, Aichi -- Police arrested a cram school teacher here on Monday for allegedly growing cannabis on the roof of his school building.

Kazuomi Fujiwara, a 37-year-old teacher and manager of the Nishiharu branch of major prep school Nodajuku, was caught growing cannabis on the rooftop of the cram school building in Kita-Nagoya in violation of the Cannabis Control Law.

He has reportedly admitted to the charges, saying he had been using cannabis since high school. Fujiwara planted the cannabis last summer for his personal consumption, according to Aichi Prefectural Police.

More here.

Japanese company rents out friends for weddings.

How much to drunkenly hit on a bridesmaid? From the Telegraph:

Along with choosing a dress and booking a honeymoon, there is one other item to add to the wedding checklist in Japan: hiring fake friends.

Office Agents, a Tokyo-based company, rents out friends, work colleagues and even relatives to pad out the guest list.

For £127, one of the company's agents will attend the wedding as a guest, while a heart-tugging speech will cost an extra £64 and a song or dance will set clients back a mere £32.

Brides or grooms who want to impress their prospective partners with their sheer volume of friends are among those secretly padding the guest list with fakes.

The recession has also boosted the popularity of the service. With unemployment rising and a growing number of Japanese in part time jobs, people rent fake bosses or colleagues.

Others turning to the company for fake work-related guests are those who have recently lost their jobs but want to maintain an air of respectability, according to Hiroshi Mizutani, who heads Office Agents.

Slim Jim manufacturing plant explodes.

From CNN:

Two people were found dead and a third person is still believed missing in a North Carolina food plant heavily damaged in a morning explosion, police said Tuesday night.

Four people were in critical condition after the explosion at the ConAgra Foods plant in the town of Garner, CNN affiliate WRAL-TV reported.

The explosion, reported about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, caused sections of the roof to collapse. Search efforts for those missing were slowed by ammonia leaks and a fire that was not extinguished until afternoon.

[...] Police said recovery workers still were trying to get the two bodies out of the plant, which makes Slim Jim food products. The victims' names weren't immediately available.

More than 300 people were in the plant when the explosion happened, authorities said. The cause of the blast was unknown, according to Garner police spokesman Joe Binns.

Recycling has created radioactive consumer goods.

Jeez, even recycling causes cancer! From Live Science:

An investigation by Scripps Howard News Service reveals that millions of pounds of metal have been contaminated with radioactive material during the recycling process, which can lead to low levels of radiation in consumer products including handbags and tableware.

The contamination occurs because as metal is recycled, multiple products are melted in a furnace to produce new metal sheets. If one piece of this metal contains radioactive material, it can be spread during the melting process.

Among the incidents reported in the investigation, two separate facilities in Florida and Texas melted metal containing Cesium-137 with other scrap metal, resulting in approximately 1.4 million and 500,000 pounds of recycled radioactive steel.

The radioactive recycling also occurs internationally. In 1998, a Brazil recycler shipped 430,000 pounds of Cobalt-60 tainted steel to the U.S. The steel was used in brackets for Reclina-Rocker chairs, but contamination was discovered before the chairs were shipped to stores.

US has two million 40-year-old virgins.

From New Scientist:

Contrary to Hollywood notions, the 40-year-old virgin is not an awkward yet funny and endearing electronics salesman played by Steve Carell.

He is a church-going teetotaller who has neither been to jail nor served in the military, according to a new survey of more than 7000 people. He also represents an estimated 1.1 million American men and 800,000 women aged 25 to 45 who have never had sex.

The study, led by urologist Michael Eisenberg of the University of California, San Francisco, will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

His team's survey found that 13.9 per cent of men and 8.9 per cent of women said they have never had sex.

Men and women who attended church at least once a week were respectively 5 and 3.9 times more likely to be virgins than those who attended church less often. Virgins of both sexes were slightly less likely to have swigged a beer in the last year, compared to non-virgins. And women with college degrees were 5.4 times more likely to be virgins than women who never got their Bachelor's.

Coozer-Bits.

Duh: Carradine killed by secret society of martial arts assassins.

WWIII Watch: Canadians angered over "Buy American" rules.

Creepy: Britney Spears goes topless in new video (NSFW).

Sad: Parking tickets pile up on car while dead driver rots inside.

Cthulhu Watch: Kite-surfer lands in two-mile patch of poisonous jellyfish.

Pret A Manger stops selling tuna.

Kudos to Pret A Manger! From Daily Mail:

High Street food shop Pret A Manger is to stop selling tuna sandwiches after its boss was horrified by a hard-hitting new film about how intensive fishing methods are destroying the seas.

Pret founder Julian Metcalfe says tuna and cucumber sandwiches will be taken off the menu at his 155 British shops.

He has also banned endangered bluefin tuna from sushi boxes sold at Pret and its sister outlet Itsu.

Mr Metcalfe’s tuna sandwich ban comes on the eve of the premiere at 50 cinemas across Britain tomorrow of The End Of The Line, a hard-hitting documentary about overfishing inspired by a book by environmental journalist Charles Clover.

The documentary – being premiered to coincide with World Oceans Day – focuses on the destruction of the seas and investigates the effects of overfishing.