2-year-old killed in kitchen knife fight.

This story reminds me of Kill Bill. Only sucky cuz it's real.

Houston, TX: Police are investigating the death of a 2-year-old toddler who was fatally stabbed at a northwest Houston apartment Friday afternoon, authorities said.

Keenan Bernard Conner, 23, the mother's boyfriend, got in a fight around 3:25 p.m. with his 16-year-old brother in the 5700 block of Thousand Oaks Circle, authorities said. At some point, one of the brothers pulled out a kitchen knife. During the struggle, Avery Rhodes Williams, 2, was accidentally stabbed in the chest, authorities said. He was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

US officer: Pakistan forced aided Taliban.

From the Army Times:

Pakistani military forces flew repeated helicopter missions into Afghanistan to resupply the Taliban during a fierce battle in June 2007, according to a Marine lieutenant colonel, who says his information is based on multiple U.S. and Afghan intelligence reports.

The revelation by Lt. Col. Chris Nash, who commanded an embedded training team in eastern Afghanistan from June 2007 to March 2008, adds a new twist to the controversy over a U.S. special operations raid into Pakistan Sept. 3.

Pakistani officials strongly protested that raid, with a statement issued by the foreign ministry calling it a “gross violation of Pakistan’s territory.”

But fewer than 15 months earlier, Pakistani forces were flying cross-border missions in the other direction to resupply a “base camp” in Nangarhar Province occupied by fighters from the Taliban, al-Qaida and the Hezb-i-Islami faction led by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Nash told Army Times in a Sept. 17 telephone interview.

Worst raffle prize ever?

Tourism bureau's raffle grand prize is so morbid, the winner doesn't want it. From Ananova:

An Italian raffle winner has turned down the first prize - a VIP coffin, complete with pillow and an antique brass reading light.

A spokesman for the local Borgo Magna association which promotes tourism in the city of San Marco in southern Italy and which organised the raffle said: "The prize is still valid.

"Whoever won it can give it to someone else if they don't want it and there is no deadline on when it can be claimed."

Why would a tourism group think this was a good idea? Though this is still a better prize than this one giveaway at Shea Stadium. I was there once when they had one of their "choose a seat randomly and give the ticketholder an awesome prize" raffles. Usually it's a free upgrade to a box seat, so it's pretty awesome when you're chosen. Anyway, they randomly chose this big, burly guy who started jumping up and down, shouting into the camera, totally stoked. Then they gave him a free Celine Dion CD. The look on his face was priceless - he looked like he was just handed a flat tire or a bag of dog shit. It was awesome.

Illuminati agent gets stuck in air vent.

People may laugh at this kid, but we Discordians know exactly what happened and why his precious mission failed. #0931 won't be ruining our plans anymore. YOU HEAR THAT ILLUMINATI?!! Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!

It wasn't the preferred way to enter the Knoxville Museum of Art, but Richard Anthony Smith told police he was on a mission. The 25-year-old Knoxville man called 911 from his cell phone before dawn Wednesday saying he was trapped in an air conditioning duct leading from the museum roof, Knoxville police spokesman Darrell DeBusk said.

Police and firefighters reached the roof, found a rope and cable and followed them to a vent shaft. Peering inside, they spotted Smith about 45 feet down.

"Mission failed," he told them.

Hoisted up and read his rights, Smith told police he was a "special agent from the United States Illuminati, badge number 0931" and had rappelled onto the museum from a helicopter, a police report said.

He said he was following orders to "defuse and confiscate" a Soviet-made nuclear warhead, specifically a "MERV6SS-22AN" warhead, according to the report. The bomb supposedly was hidden in a blue, plastic cow sculpture in the museum basement, he said.

However, Smith told officers his "agency" called while he was in air-vent limbo to say it made a mistake and the bomb might be in a Memphis museum instead.

Article here.

I hate Joseph Petcka.

Joseph Petcka needs to suffer horribly in prison. From the Daily News:

Responding to questions from his lawyer, Petcka admitted he kicked the cat "hard." He denied intending to hurt the cat, who he said hissed at him regularly.

[...] Dr. Robert Reisman, the ASPCA's top animal cruelty investigator, said Norman died an agonizing death after possibly being whacked against a countertop.

"The easiest way to cause those injuries would be to control the cat and hit its face on a hard surface," Reisman said. The animal doc said Norman's horrific injuries were similar to those caused when a pet tumbles out a window or gets hit by a car.

He compared the blows inflicted on the cat with a soccer kick and rejected Petcka's claim he "swatted" the cat in self-defense. "This is kicking it at a goal," Reisman said. "This was not pushing it away."

Norman suffered three broken ribs, a ripped lung and liver, chipped teeth and torn tongue.

He likely survived for up to 15 minutes following the initial attack, and could have dragged his crumpled body into a bedroom where he was found.

The cat died when blood filled his chest, Reisman said.

This just makes me sick to my stomach. Since I can't legally take a hammer to Petcka, I'll be donating to the ASPCA in Norman's memory.

One-legged man beats mother to death with crutch.

Jesus.

A one-legged Queens man beat his 80-year-old mother to death with a crutch Friday - then called the cops and confessed.

"I just killed my mother and I don't know why," Sergeui Mamontov said, according to a police source.

When cops arrived, they discovered that Mamontov had also tried to castrate himself, telling the officers he was "trying to remove the evil," a police source said.

Mamontov, who has a history of mental illness and tried to commit suicide before, was taken to Bellevue Hospital, the source said.

Coolest tax write-off ever?

He may have erectile dysfunction, but this guy's got balls. Oh, and check out the article - the best part is that he looks like Woody Allen.

This was not the "happy ending" William Halby was looking for.

The 77-year-old Brooklyn lawyer owes tens of thousands of dollars in back taxes for wrongly deducting more than $300,000 in prostitutes, porn, sex toys and erotic massages, a state tax judge ruled yesterday. The ruling came despite the meticulous efforts of Halby - a tax lawyer - to prove the deductions were reasonable medical expenses in his effort to fight depression and erectile dysfunction brought on by age.

"I was depressed," Halby, who's divorced, semi-retired and living alone in a Bay Ridge apartment, told The Post yesterday. "I live a solitary life. I have no social life. I needed that release."

[...] All told, Halby spent about $322,000 to satisfy his desires, according to court papers.

In 2002 alone, Halby deducted $111,364 for "therapeutic sex" and massages "to relieve osteoarthritis and enhance erectile function through frequent orgasm."

He claimed another $2,173 on porn "to enhance sexual performance in lieu of taking Viagra."

In 2003, his $101,930 in deductions included $162 for "sexual performance aids" such as lubes, condoms and nipple clamps, the court papers said.

FDA is trying to kill us all with plastic.

So the FDA recently told everyone that the ubiquitous plastic all around us is safe. And yet a more recent scientific study just confirmed that it can cause every debilitating disease under the sun. So why would the FDA lie? From WebMD:

A recent draft report by FDA scientists concluded that the amount of BPA humans typically consume in food and drinks does not pose a health risk.

Craig Henry, chief operating officer for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, submitted testimony at the hearing that the FDA performed a thorough, well-documented review of the available toxicological information. He said the research used a sound analytical approach and that the FDA's evaluation of the science on BPA was comprehensive.

And Steven Hentges, PhD, a scientist with the American Plastics Council, called the FDA's preliminary review "completely appropriate." He also said the industry supports more research into alleged brain and other health effects of BPA.

Glad to hear the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the American Plastics Council provide information to the FDA and supports their "completely appropriate" review. I am sure these groups are completely unbiased and not looking after their own interests, which would be the manufacturing and selling of plastic products.

Plant pain & communication Part 2.

Just to reiterate the awesomeness in layman's terms, here's that second section rewritten by LiveScience:

Scientists think that the methyl salicylate has two functions: stimulating a process similar to the immune response in animals that helps plants resist and recover from disease, and acting as a form of chemical communication to warn neighbors of threats.

"These findings show tangible proof that plant-to-plant communication occurs on the ecosystem level," said study team member Alex Guenther. "It appears that plants have the ability to communicate through the atmosphere."

Plants produce their own painkillers.

I'm glad now I don't have a lawnmower. From NSF:

Walnut trees respond to stress by producing significant amounts of a chemical form of aspirin, scientists have discovered.

The finding, by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., opens up new avenues of research into the behavior of plants and their impacts on air quality, and also has the potential to give farmers an early warning signal about crops that are failing.

"Unlike humans, who are advised to take aspirin as a fever suppressant, plants have the ability to produce their own mix of aspirin-like chemicals, triggering the formation of proteins that boost their biochemical defenses and reduce injury," says NCAR scientist Thomas Karl, who led the study. "Our measurements show that significant amounts of the chemical can be detected in the atmosphere as plants respond to drought, unseasonable temperatures, or other stresses."

This part is even more interesting.

Karl and his colleagues speculate that the methyl salicylate has two functions. One of these is to stimulate plants to begin a process known as systemic acquired resistance, which is analogous to an immune response in an animal.

This helps a plant to both resist and recover from disease. The methyl salicylate also may be a mechanism whereby a stressed plant communicates to neighboring plants, warning them of the threat. Researchers in laboratories have demonstrated that a plant may build up its defenses if it is linked in some way to another plant that is emitting the chemical.

What this means is that plants can communicate with each other! Holy crap.

Coozer-Bits.

ABC News: Gov't bailout of greedy corporations to cost taxpayers 1 TRILLION.

BBC News: Australia rethinking $800m uranium sale to Russia.

BBC News: Crazed mob kills man for smoking in bar.

FTC: Natural, herbal "cancer cure" may actually cause acute toxic hepatitis. (see Native Essence Herb Company)

The Hill: GOP turns on Bush because of his economic crisis response.

Chicago Sun-Times: Ike's pet victims saved thanks to Katrina law.

Philanthropy News Digest: GAO: Major charities not prepared to respond to catastrophic events. (Then again, neither is the government.)

$200 billion in gold sits under NYC subway.

I had no idea about this, and I can sniff out gold pretty well. 1/4 of the world's gold sits under a urine-soaked, rat-infested subway. From ABC News:

Nearly $200 billion worth of gold rests on bedrock five stories underground, 30 feet below the city's subway system, inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's vault.

That's more than can be found in Fort Knox.

Very little of it belongs to the U.S. government.

There are roughly 540,000 gold bars belonging to 48 foreign central banks and 12 international organizations such as The International Monetary Fund or The Bank for International Settlement. The United States has about 5 percent of its gold stored there.

Fed officials were very tight-lipped about who owns what gold. Accounts are just identified by number, not name.

[...] This vault contains about 25 percent of the world's gold reserves.

Study: Replacing coaches doesn't solve problems.

Science Daily tells us what we Mets fans already know.

Bringing in a new coach rarely solves problems, regardless of when it is done. This is the conclusion of a study from Mid Sweden University about hiring and firing coaches in the Swedish Elite Series ice-hockey league during the period 1975/76-2005/06. Despite this fact, coaches are nevertheless very publicly fired. The study shows that it is a mistake to replace the coach.

[...] “The Study shows that replacing the coach seldom solves the problem, no matter when it is done,” says Leif Arnesson. “If you’re thinking about getting a new coach, you should at least avoid making your move while the season is underway. A word of advice to those who are in charge of recruiting coaches is therefore: ‘Don’t replace the coach, at any rate if you have a good coach, if you’re in the middle of the season, or if the team is in trouble.’”

The findings are also generally applicable. The situation is roughly the same in all major team sports, including soccer.

Finding Nemo... in a boy's penis.

From the Daily Telegraph:

A 2cm long fish apparently found its way into the penis of a 14-year-old boy from India in a bizarre medical case.

The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home.

Professor Vezhaventhan and Professor Jeyaraman, who treated the boy and later wrote a paper on the case, explained: "While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. When he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra and then he developed all these symptoms.

[...] He was later admitted into counseling to help him overcome any trauma.

Pregnant women love eating rocks.

This is pretty wacky, but then again I secretly love Taco Bell.

From BBC:

Researchers from the University of Nigeria interviewed 1,071 pregnant women attending a prenatal clinic at the Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi.

At least 800 of those interviewed said they ate soil, stones and other non-food items during their pregnancy.

But it is not only those who are pregnant who indulge in this habit.

Sylvia Moi still finds the soft stones irresistible, 14 years after she gave birth.

"I cannot do without it... Walking without it makes me feel bad, as if I'm lacking something [or] I'm hungry," Mrs Moi says.

Cell phones can affect sperm quality.

I'm only reprinting this cuz I like when mainstream media says "gonads." From CNN:

Keeping a cell phone on talk mode in a pocket can decrease sperm quality, according to new research from the Cleveland Clinic.

"We believe that these devices are used because we consider them very safe, but it could cause harmful effects due to the proximity of the phones and the exposure that they are causing to the gonads," says lead researcher Ashok Agarwal, the Director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine.

* Snicker snicker *

Large Hadron Collider already breaks down, dooming us all.

I guess this malfunction happened last week but is only now being reported? Or did I miss the fanfare? From CNN:

A 30-ton transformer that cools the world's largest particle collider malfunctioned, forcing physicists to stop using the atom smasher just a day after launching it to great fanfare, the European Organization for Nuclear Research said Thursday.

The Japan Times profiles Doreen Shaffer and The Skatalites.

This one goes out to all my rudie peeps. Pick it up, y'all.

From the Japan Times:

Making musical history was the last thing on Doreen Shaffer's mind when she joined The Skatalites. Still a schoolgirl, she was just happy to be singing in a band.

Looking back, the vocalist, now 65 and one of three original members still touring with the group, realizes the extent of their impact. In a burst of creativity during the early 1960s, The Skatalites defined the sound of ska, the forebear of a myriad of Jamaican musical styles. Often described as the Caribbean island's first indigenous form of music, ska spawned rocksteady, which morphed into reggae. From there, the list goes on.

"At that time, it didn't register," Shaffer says by phone from her home on New York's Long Island ahead of a five-date Japan tour that starts Sept. 26. "Everybody had anxiety because you so badly wanted to be on a record. Young people think about the present. It's not like you're looking back after 10 years."

Skittish wimps more likely to be Republicans.

No word yet if these wussy participants also got "two for flinching." From LiveScience:

Individuals who are more easily startled by threats are more likely than others to support protective policies, such as military spending, the Iraq War and the death penalty, finds a new study.

[...] The researchers also measured the intensity of the participants' eye blinks in response to sudden, jarring noises. Harder blinks are linked with a heightened state of fear, the researchers say.

Participants who scored high on the skin and blinking stress tests also tended to support military spending, warrantless searches, death penalty, the Patriot Act, obedience, patriotism, the Iraq War, school prayer and the concept of Biblical truth. And they tended to oppose pacifism, immigration, gun control, foreign aid, compromise, premarital sex, gay marriage, abortion rights and pornography.

Those who were less startled by threatening images and noises were more likely to favor foreign aid, liberal immigration policies, pacifism and gun control.

Ben Kingsley as Ian MacKaye.

This is the strangest thing I've ever seen.

Sir Ben Kingsley fronting Minor Threat. For reals.


Sir Ben Kingsley STOMPS into the shoes of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye from Mean Magazine on Vimeo.