[psmith2.0]

Ah, Europe. Tell me...were they smoking too, by any chance?

[Mugge]

Yeah, Europeans. Poor bastards.

I think such behaviour is within the capabilities of alcohol.

When I was in high-school it was allowed to smoke tobacco at parties, but now they probably have to go outside while doing that.

Marihuana? I guess it's something people would prefer to do at home. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught doing it at a school party or a night-club.

[Foj]

Canada mints 200 pound solid gold coin

The Royal Canadian mint made the coins - 20 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick - mostly to seize the bragging rights from Austria, which had the record with a 70-pound, 15-inch wide coin.

[InactionMan]

It seems everybody's favourite Royal Mint is the news again. This time for scaring U.S. defense contractors with their crazy magical spy coins!



http://www.thestar.com/News/article/211189

[Bryson]

Beware the advanced Canadian/Alien technology!

That's hilarious. How paranoid, exactly, do you need to be to do that? Bleeding sheepdogs....

[Mugge]

Maybe the 200 pound coin was a prototype, and the poppy-spy coin is a die-shrink of it.

[Windswept]

Well, this story really gives me the creeps. ACK!

Boy has spiders inside his ear.

I have to presume that both spiders were alive for a time after entering the ear canal, but when flushed out, one was dead, the other alive.

I guess I thought earwax was fatal to insects and spiders. But maybe one spider died shortly upon entering the ear, and the other spider hunkered down ontop its body, and so avoided contact with wax.

One time, my mom and I were walking her dog at night, and we passed underneath a streetlight that had insects flying around it. By chance, one happened to fly right into my ear, where it fluttered around, flapping its wings.

I cannot even begin to tell you what a strange feeling it is to have a living creature moving around inside your head. It eventually quit moving, and then, presumably, became encased in wax, whereupon it dropped out of my ear a few days later.

But, omigod, the thought of spiders crawling into one's ear while one is sleeping... EEEEAAAAAA!

I imagine our more arachnophobic members are shivering in horror at the very thought.

Spiders in boy's ear.

[709]

Not even going near that link.

*goes downstairs to flush out ears*

[psmith2.0]

I got stung by a wasp on the face while sleeping once. Woke up to a stinging (literally) pain on my cheek, started swiping around in the dark, turned the light on there was a huge wasp on my pillow. Bastard. My cheek got very red and about a 1" diameter circle pooched out about 1/8th or so of an inch (slight swelling) for a day or two.

So I often think about insects, and what they do at night when you turn the lights off and lie down in bed.

That story gives me the creeps.



I'll be awake all night, with every light on in the house, a can of Raid in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper in the other, sitting there all wide-eyed and twitchy at 3:00am.

[cosus]

My friend got stung by a bee on the penis. But I suppose that's what you get when you throw rocks at a beehive.

[Oompa Loompa]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 I got stung by a wasp on the face while sleeping once. Woke up to a stinging (literally) pain on my cheek, started swiping around in the dark, turned the light on there was a huge wasp on my pillow. Bastard. My cheek got very red and about a 1" diameter circle pooched out about 1/8th or so of an inch (slight swelling) for a day or two.

No, no, Pscates! That was a wasp saying that she loves you; you were given a hickey!

Originally Posted by cosus My friend got stung by a bee on the penis.

Well, see, Paul, need I say more?

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by 709 Not even going near that link. *goes downstairs to flush out ears*

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 That story gives me the creeps. I'll be awake all night, with every light on in the house, a can of Raid in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper in the other, sitting there all wide-eyed and twitchy at 3:00am.

[psmith2.0]

Owww, the swelling! Nature's Viagra?

Yeah, your friend kinda got what was coming to him. I tend to leave things like bee hives (and bear dens, scorpion nests, etc.) alone.

That's the "Jackass" culture for you. An entire generation of teen and 20-something males - egged on by their videotaping buddies - engaging in the most idiotic, dangerous stuff imaginable.

"Dude, you should totally go over there and hump that sleeping grizzly bear's ass! I'll give you $20 and half my weed! I dare you, dude!"

[Windswept]

Originally Posted by cosus My friend got stung by a bee on the penis. But I suppose that's what you get when you throw rocks at a beehive.

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Yeah, your friend kinda got what was coming to him.

Not to mention that the friend was apparently...uh...naked at the time?

[Moogs]

File this one under the "WTF is Wrong with People" category...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6639027.stm

[psmith2.0]

They'll have a long time to think it all over.

I hate how it was a "life sentence", but they could get out in 15 years. They may as well opt to say in, since they're going to miss all their normal "growing up" years anyway...how well-adjusted can they be, coming out at 31, after spending all their teens and 20's in the joint? Then again, for them to do this probably points to them not being all that "well-adjusted" to begin with.

Let 'em rot, especially since they express no regrets or remorse.

Two less idiots running around out there.

[psmith2.0]

Holy friggin' crap!

Moogs, I'll see your "two Aussie teen twits" story and raise you:

Man dies trying to cut his own head off



Now there's your "file under 'WFT is wrong with people?' story".

[murbot]

This guy deserves a few pats of the back.

Steakhouse Owner Refuses to Serve O.J. Simpson

[billybobsky]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Holy friggin' crap! Moogs, I'll see your "two Aussie teen twits" story and raise you: Man dies trying to cut his own head off Now there's your "file under 'WFT is wrong with people?' story".

Now this is creepy.

[murbot]

Maybe that's what happens when you turn down your mentally unstable son's request for head.

She could have made it through the hard times with mouthwash and therapy, but noooooo...

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by murbot This guy deserves a few pats of the back. Steakhouse Owner Refuses to Serve O.J. Simpson

I saw that earlier this morning (there's video on CNN.com).

You know what? Good for him. If people don't like it, waaaah. This guy owns the joint, he gets to decide. It's that simple. And I'm glad Simpson seemed to understand and not try to make a big thing out of it (the week's not over yet, I realize). Hopefully this doesn't turn into some legal thing, with lawsuits and all.

Hey, if I owned a restaurant or bar I wouldn't serve his punk-ass either. Sorry, but I wouldn't.

EDIT: ah, shit...I re-read, more closely, the story and saw this toward the end:

Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, said the incident was about race, and he intended to pursue the matter and possibly go after the restaurant's liquor license.

DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!

No, it's not about "race". It's about a guy who the owner (and a lot of other people, including myself) believes killed two people, got away with it and is living his life as though nothing happened. It could've been Joe Montana or any number of former NFL stars of any race and the guy would've done the same thing (I would've).

This pisses me off because I was going to make a comment about it earlier (about how Simpson showed a bit of class by leaving and not turning into a big racial thing), but I'll be damned...it turns out that it'll probably go that way after all.



So now we're at the point where a business owner can't deny service (hasn't that always been something we've seen done, "we reserve the right to refuse service...") because this idiot lawyer is going to make it about something it's not? It doesn't occur to this guy that maybe the owner doesn't want someone of O.J.'s character and background in there, regardless of the color of his skin? That's just lost on them?

And people ask why I despise these types of attorneys. They live for shit like this, and, in many cases, actively create situations for themselves to "go to work on". There's nothing to this...this is strictly "lawyers acting like lawyers", and they probably figure with the recent Sharpton/Imus thing, they've got a pretty good shot at having it go their way.

Assholes.

[spikeh]

http://www.physorg.com/news97857326.html

They have produced near conclusive evidence that all humans evolved from a common ancestor. Particularly noteworthy for me as I started on Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale just recently.

So I'll take credit for this discovery. Thx.

[Elysium]

It isn't that surprising that the first mode of colonization occurred after the Penultimate glaciation 170-190 ka from an ice age limited population. This was curtailed by the Toba eruption 70,000 years ago which essentially reduced the population in Africa to an estimated 5,000 females which then expanded to repopulate the world at 50,000 years ago.

So I'd say the odds were in our favor to eventually find a common ancestor.

[Windswept]

Wow. An Uzbek guy, age 17-20, has taken hostages, including the ambassador, in the Russian embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Wonder what the story behind 'this' will turn out to be?

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=3166169

[InactionMan]

I had a nice long post to accompany this link but my computer blew up and took the post with it. I'm not re-typing it.

Anyway, NY Times article on double-amputee sprinter that the IAAF wants to ban from competing with able-bodied athletes lest a cripple beats the perfect image of a man at the Olympics.

Lots of interesting issues raised.

Firefox's Restore Session feature doesn't always work. Boooo!


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/sp.../15runner.html

[Windswept]

Truck runs over bicycle rider's helmeted head.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/man....ap/index.html

Excerpt:

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (AP) -- Ryan Lipscomb lived to tell how it felt to have a truck run over his head. "Really strange," he said. Lipscomb, 26 of Seattle, suffered a concussion but was otherwise unhurt. He was shaken up, especially after he saw his mangled helmet. Lipscomb, a graduate student in medical physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was riding down a bike path in Madison on Friday afternoon. As he approached an intersection, he said, he noticed the oncoming delivery truck preparing to make a right turn in front of him. The truck wasn't going to stop, Lipscomb said, so he slammed on his brakes, flipping his bike and landing in the street. A moment later the truck rolled over his head. "I didn't see it coming, but I sure felt it roll over my head," he told The Capital Times newspaper. "It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head." His black helmet was flattened, tread marks visible on the cracked frame. Lipscomb was taken to a hospital and released about three hours later.

Just...wow!

*********************************************

Teen carries his mother's severed head to a police station and turns himself in.

Link

Excerpt of longer article:

TOKYO — A teenage boy carrying a severed head walked into a Japanese police station Tuesday saying he killed his mother, the latest in a series of grisly dismemberments that have horrified a nation renowned for its low crime rates. The 17-year-old suspect led officers to his house in northern Fukushima prefecture (state) and pointed out his headless mother on her futon mattress, with a frank, "It's in here," Kyodo News reported. He told police he beheaded his mother on the eve of her 47th birthday while she slept, and added, "It didn't matter who I killed," Kyodo reported. Police confirmed the arrest. Japan has long prided itself on safe streets and low incidents of violent crime. But the latest killing triggered soul searching about what some worry is a disturbing new trend — particularly with its mix of youthful aggression and icy remorselessness. "If true, it's horrifying," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said. Last year, a jobless man allegedly cut up his mother and entombed her body parts in concrete-filled buckets left abandoned in a yard. In January, Tokyo was put on edge when a woman confessed to dismembering her husband with a saw and dumping the parts around the capital. Then just weeks ago, the nation was riveted by a high-profile verdict in the death of a British hostess whose body was also dismembered and stashed in a seaside cave. While dismemberment crimes are not unique to Japan, experts say such cases are on the rise as Japan grapples with the fallout of a decade of economic malaise. Alienation and a trend toward objectifying fellow humans is also fueling the violence. "There have been a high number of incidents involving dismembered bodies and I certainly think there is a chain reaction going on," said Susumu Oda, an expert in criminal psychology at Japan's Tezukayamagakuin University. Tuesday's case recalls a 1997 slaying in which a 14-year-old boy beheaded an 11-year-old and left his head at a school gate with a sinister note stuffed in his mouth.

[Windswept]

Holy crap! In Holland, a zoo gorilla escapes, runs amok, grabs a woman and drags her along with him, lies down with her, and then sinks his teeth into her.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- A 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo Friday, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued, officials and a witness said. The Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo was evacuated and the 11-year-old gorilla, named Bokito, was eventually contained in a restaurant within the park, police spokeswoman Yvette de Rave said. Four people were injured, including the woman who was bitten, zoo director Ton Dorrestijn said. Bokito was shot with a sedative dart and recaptured, said zoo spokeswoman Lilian Jonkers, but she couldn't say what his condition was. It was not immediately clear how he managed to climb the high stone walls surrounding his enclosure. "He got over the moat, which in itself is remarkable, because gorillas can't swim," Dorrestijn said. "He got onto a path for visitors and started running and went at full speed through tables and diners at the Oranje restaurant." A witness, Robert de Jonge, told NOS radio that he didn't see the gorilla escape but began following it and tried to help after he saw people running and screaming that the animal had grabbed a woman. "I saw the beast running through the park with a woman behind him, him grabbing her forearm," De Jonge said. At a distance of around 30 yards, he saw the gorilla lie down near the woman and then heard her scream. "He bit her, or I think he bit her, because when he stood up his mouth was covered in blood," De Jonge said. He said he then stopped to tell arriving police what had happened and ran with them as they traced the gorilla to a nearby restaurant terrace. The zoo was packed with visitors as many Dutch took advantage of a national holiday Thursday to make a long weekend. "Everyone was in panic, running away, screaming, wailing, screaming kids running around, I don't know what all, kids without parents -- it was a total drama," De Jonge said. Children cowered in their parents' arms as the gorilla loped past. People tried to hide inside the restaurant and were trying to bar the door, but fled as the gorilla approached, De Jonge said. Bokito then punched through the glass door and ran inside. "They were all in panic -- the animal, too, I mean -- and all the people ran outside the restaurant, and zoo personnel were running up and they were able to keep the animal inside by barricading the doors with garden furniture and things," he said. De Jonge said he later saw the woman "covered in blood," but walking unaided.

Yikes!

[spikeh]

PLEASE SAVE US JESUS!

http://www.celebrityhack.com/spice-girls-reunion/

The Spice Girls are getting back together after seven years (has it only been seven years? Feels like not long enough...) pursuing solo careers, female offspring and Eddie Murphy. Beware the mark of the beast!

[Dorian Gray]

The famous Cutty Sark, a tea clipper which plied the South China seas from 1870, was early this morning ablaze in suspicious circumstances. The damage, while severe, is not thought to be irreparable, but will add to the cost and duration of the restoration effort that was taking place. Obviously some of the structure will have to be replaced with modern materials, so a bit of authenticity is lost in any case.

In happier times

In her current resting place

How she looked until this morning

History burning

The Cutty Sark is only about ten minutes from my house, which for some reason makes me particularly annoyed about this!

PS. That Bokito story is pretty crazy, but will we ever know what happened to the poor lady? We see the headlines, but never the follow-up.

[Windswept]

I am just devastated about this.

One of the things I was *really* looking forward to (whenever I finally manage to get to England) was seeing your olde ships.

I'm 'so' drawn by the lure of adventure that they represented in earlier times.

Even today, a long journey in a sailing ship is still a true adventure, even 'with' our immense array of navigation and communication devices.

If someone set this fire deliberately, they deserve to have terrible things happen to them.