If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity.

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Friday, August 31, 2007

Man rams police station with stolen bulldozer

By David Tirrell-Wysocki,

Associated Press Writer

CONCORD, N.H.--A man who said he had been harassed by police in Troy stole a bulldozer and rammed the town police station early Friday, heavily damaging the building, police said.

"He hit it three times," State Police Sgt. David Griffin said. "He took out the whole front, which included the main entrance to the police department."

Stanley Burt, 34, who has had numerous run-ins with the local police, is charged with criminal mischief and reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, as well as driving and probation violations.

No one was inside the building at the time and no one was hurt.

In court Friday morning, Burt said the police drove him to it.

"I've been harassed to the point this has brought this to," said Burt, wearing a t-shirt depicting a construction excavator. "I want an investigation started."

Officials said Burt's record includes 20 driving offenses. He recently was released after serving 12 months in the county jail after being convicted of being a habitual motor vehicle offender.

"He's had a number of contacts with the Troy Police Department," Griffin said, "non of them favorable to him."

Griffin said as bad as the situation was, it could have been much worse.

Troy Officer Kevin Stone and two civilians were in the small building about a half hour earlier, he said.

"If this had happened when they were there, Officer Stone would have had to take some drastic measures," Griffin said.

Stone pulled into the station parking lot just before 12:30 a.m. and saw the bulldozer repeatedly smashing into the front of the building.

Burt entered no plea in court Friday morning to the new charges. He was ordered held on $200,000 bail.

Investigators say Burt stole the bulldozer from a nearby construction site.

A structural engineer was inspecting the building Friday to evaluate the damage.

The incident brought to mind an incident three years ago where a man with a grudge and a fortified bulldozer went on a rampage in the mining town of Granby, Colo.

Marvin Heemeyer, a 52-year-old muffler-shop owner who had a dispute and zoning battles with the town, spent months fortifying a bulldozer with concrete and steel plates before going through a 90-minute rampage in June 2004. Six buildings were destroyed and seven were damaged.

Heemeyer killed himself inside the vehicle after it got stuck in the wreckage of a building.

Quoted from http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2007/08/31/man_rams_police_station_with_stolen_bulldozer/:

Man rams police station with stolen bulldozer - Boston.com

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China kung fu monks seek apology for ninja affront

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user who said its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Photo

Shaolin Temple, in the northern province of Henan, became famous in the West as the training ground for Kwai Chang "Grasshopper" Caine in the 1970s "Kung Fu" TV series.

Ninjas -- professional assassins trained in martial arts -- date back to mediaeval Japan.

"The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user to apologize to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did," the Beijing News said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks.

Relations between Chinese and Japanese are sensitive at the best of times, with emotions still running high over Japan's invasion and occupation of parts of China in the first half of the 20th Century.

The Internet user, calling themselves "Five Minutes Every Day", said on an online forum last week that a Japanese ninja came to Shaolin, asked for a fight and many monks failed to beat him, the newspaper said.

"The facts that the monks could not defeat a Japanese ninja showed that they were named as kung fu masters in vain," the Internet user was quoted as saying in the post.

The Shaolin temple "strongly condemned the horrible deeds" of the user, the newspaper said.

"It is not only extremely irresponsible behavior with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation," it quoted the monks as saying.

 

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSPEK26932820070831?rpc=92:

China kung fu monks seek apology for ninja affront | Technology | Internet | Reuters

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Thursday, August 30, 2007

More DOG


More DOG
Originally uploaded by homis

Teen driver held over 140 mph YouTube video

LONDON (Reuters) - A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of having posted a video of himself on YouTube driving at speeds of more than 140 mph, police said on Thursday.

The car, a Ford Escort, was filmed on the A76 single-carriageway road in southwest Scotland.

The detained 19-year-old has not been named.

Photo

Sergeant Scott McLachlan, from the Roads Policing Unit at Dumfries and Galloway police, described it as "completely foolish behaviour".

"Not only did he endanger his own life, but that of other road-users. It is unacceptable, and to post a recording of such driving on the Internet is entirely stupid."

One-in-three fatal accidents involve drivers under the age of 25, he added.

"Young men in particular seem to think they are invincible behind the wheel -- but the facts tell a different story."

 

Quoted from http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL3092589620070830?rpc=92:

Teen driver held over 140 mph YouTube video | UK | Reuters

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Wrinkle-face


Wrinkle-face
Originally uploaded by homis

Cool Cloud


Cool Cloud
Originally uploaded by homis
This was taken using my Motorola Q from my front porch.

Man Performs Daredevil Stunts With Alligator

 

Check out the daring antics this alligator wrestler put on display recently at the Nebraska State Fair.

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Man loses top of his head in brain operation

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court has awarded 3,000 euros ($4,100) in damages to a man who had to have the top of his skull replaced with plastic because of a faulty hospital fridge.

Doctors removed the top of the man's head and put it in cold storage while they operated on his brain, the court in the western city of Koblenz said Tuesday.

Because the refrigerator was defective, the section of skull was not kept cool enough and could not be reattached. Doctors replaced the bone with a plastic prosthesis.

The man sought compensation of at least 20,000 euros on the grounds that the prosthesis caused him headaches, affected his balance and made him unduly sensitivity to the weather.

Following consultations with experts, the court found that the operation had caused the man's discomfort, not the loss of the top of his skull.

Compensation of 3,000 euros was "appropriate and sufficient," it said.

"The experts consulted by the court concluded the new skull roof was better than the original," a court spokesman said.

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSHER94722820070829:

Man loses top of his head in brain operation | U.S. | Reuters

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Segregation in schools is increasing: report

By Matthew Bigg

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Public schools in the United States are becoming more racially segregated and the trend is likely to accelerate because of a Supreme Court decision in June, according to report published on Wednesday.

The rise in segregation threatens the quality of education received by non-white students, who now make up 43 percent of the total U.S. student body, said the report by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California in Los Angeles.

Many segregated schools struggle to attract highly qualified teachers and administrators, do not prepare students well for college and fail to graduate more than half their students.

In its June ruling the Supreme Court forbade most existing voluntary local efforts to integrate schools in a decision favored by the Bush administration despite warnings from academics that it would compound educational inequality.

"It is about as dramatic a reversal in the stance of the federal courts as one could imagine," said Gary Orfield, a UCLA professor and a co-author of the report.

"The federal courts are clearly pushing us backward segregation with the encouragement of the Justice Department of President George W. Bush," he said in an interview.

The United States risks becoming a nation in which a new majority of non-white young people will attend "separate and inferior" schools, the report said.

"Resegregation ... is continuing to grow in all parts of the country for both African Americans and Latinos and is accelerating the most rapidly in the only region that had been highly desegregated -- the South," it said.

The trend damages the prospects for non-white students and will likely have a negative effect on the U.S. economy, according to the report by one of the leading U.S. research centers on issues of civil rights and racial inequality.

Part of the reason for the resegregation is the rapidly expanding number of black and Latino children and a corresponding fall in the number of white children, it said.

Contrary to popular belief, the surge in the number of minority children in public schools was not mainly caused by a flight of white students into private schools.

Instead, it said, the post-"baby boom" generation of white Americans are having smaller family sizes.

"During the desegregation period there was a major decline in the education gap between blacks and whites and an increase in college entry by blacks .... That gap has stopped closing," Orfield said.

TRIPLE SEGREGATION FOR LATINOS

The record of successive administration reforms such as the Goals 2000 project of former President Bill Clinton and Bush's "No Child Left Behind" in 2001 "justifies deep skepticism," the report said.

Those changes focused pressure and resources on making the achievement of minority children in segregated schools equal to children in schools that were fully integrated.

School desegregation is a sensitive issue in the United States because of resistance to it from white leaders in the decade after a 1954 Supreme Court decision saying segregated public schools were unconstitutional.

One of the chief complaints of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s was that black-only public schools were inevitably starved of resources by local government with the result that black children received inferior education.

Latinos are the fastest growing minority in U.S. schools and for them segregation is often more profound than it was when the phenomenon was first measured 40 years ago, according to the report, "Historic Reversals, Accelerating Resegregation and the need for new Integration Strategies."

"Too often Latino students face triple segregation by race, class and language," it said.

 

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2933434120070829?rpc=92&sp=true:

Segregation in schools is increasing: report | U.S. | Reuters

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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Two-headed Calf Born in California

Check out this two-headed calf recently born in a California dairy farm. Named 'blinky,' she has two ears, but four eyes and two mouths.
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Kangaroo Injured In Low-Speed Chase Through Alps

Skippi Eluded German Authorities For Almost A Month After Escaping Zoo

(AP) BERLIN Skippi, a wily kangaroo on the run since early August was returned to his home at a petting zoo Monday in southern Germany, but not after a chase through the German Alps that left the animal with a strained leg.

The injured marsupial was captured in a cornfield near Leutkirch im Allgaeu, almost 10 miles from where his journey began, police in the nearby town of Ravensburg said.

Though residents in the area had reported multiple sightings of the kangaroo over the past few weeks, Skippi managed to elude authorities every time.

But earlier Monday, police received a call from someone claiming to have seen the animal in a cornfield not far from the last place he was spotted following a run-in with a car Friday.

Authorities captured the kangaroo and brought him to a veterinarian, who determined he had strained ligaments in one of his legs. He was then returned to his home at the petting zoo in Bad Wurzach.

 

Quoted from http://cbs2.com/pets/local_story_239193025.html:

cbs2.com - Kangaroo Injured In Low-Speed Chase Through Alps


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Whale harpooned, hauled in by Japanese boat in front of whale-watching tourists

SAPPORO -- Eco-tourists on a whale-watching vessel, looking forward to observing the mighty creatures in their natural habitat, were instead greeted by the sight of a harpooned whale being dragged in by a Japanese whaling vessel on Friday.

At about 10:44 a.m. on Friday, a whale was spotted spraying water from its blowhole near a whaling boat, about 3.5 kilometers away from the whale-watching vessel off the coast of Hokkaido's Shiretoko Peninsula. But when the vessel approached, the passengers on board found that the whalers had harpooned the Baird's beaked whale, and it was hauled in by the whaling boat about 20 minutes later.

About 20 passengers on the whale-watching vessel looked on, voicing their pity as the whale was captured. A French woman who was on the vessel with her husband reportedly said the experience made her feel ill.

There were two other whale-watching boats nearby, but one of them left after a child started crying.

The 46-year-old captain of the passenger vessel was disappointed by the incident, which took place about 14 kilometers east of Rausu Port in Hokkaido.

"It's my job to show people whales and it's the whalers' job to catch them, but I wonder how this can be avoided," he said.

One of the two whaling companies operating the whaling ship, meanwhile, filed a protest against the whale watching vessel with the Rausu town government.

"The passenger boat approached us, which was extremely dangerous. We think this could be considered dangerous sailing, and we want you to issue a warning," the protest said. (Mainichi)

Quoted from http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20070825p2a00m0na039000c.html:

Whale harpooned, hauled in by Japanese boat in front of whale-watching tourists - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

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Anti-authoritarian group to strategize this weekend for convention protests

The anarchists' plans, which don't include getting a permit, could include confrontational tactics.

By Randy Furst, Star Tribune

A group of activists who describe themselves as "anarchists and anti-authoritarians" will hold a private strategy session over the Labor Day weekend to discuss plans to protest at the Republican National Convention to be held in St. Paul Sept. 1-4, 2008.

The group, called the RNC Welcoming Committee, held a news conference Monday at the Jack Pine Community Center on Lake Street in Minneapolis, where Bea Bridges, speaking for the committee, showed a video that hinted at confrontational tactics, read a statement and walked out, taking no questions.

The group had sent out an announcement last week, saying questions had to be submitted by e-mail a week in advance.

Bridges said the group favors "ending capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy and all other forms of hierarchy" to be replaced with "direct, participatory democracy."

She said the group would not seek permits to demonstrate, and said efforts to restrict protesters in that way constituted repression and a "violent threat."

In discussing future tactics, she said, "Some may choose to resist state violence using pacifist tactics, while others use whatever methods they deem necessary and appropriate."

She said they are expecting "a few hundred people" to attend this weekend's gathering, of which about half are expected to come from out of town.

According to an earlier statement on its website, RNCwelcomingcommittee.org, the group plans workshops and a bus tour of the Twin Cities on Saturday and a private strategy session at Jack Pine on Sunday that is closed to the media. It plans to hold a news conference next Monday.

Darrin Blackford, a spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C., and Tom Walsh, a spokesman for the St. Paul police department, each said they had no comment.

A separate coalition of antiwar groups, which includes Women Against Military Madness, the Anti-War Committee and the Iraq Peace Action Coalition, has already announced plans for a mass march to protest the war in Iraq on Sept. 1, 2008 near Xcel Center in St. Paul where the convention will take place. They say their march will be a peaceful, legal demonstration.

 

Quoted from http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1385565.html?ic:

Anti-authoritarian group to strategize this weekend for convention protests

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Monday, August 27, 2007

SunJournal.com - Study finds bluefish tuna declining

 

Study finds bluefish tuna declining
Monday, August 27, 2007

DURHAM, N.H. (AP) - The number and quality of giant bluefin tuna are declining in the Gulf of Maine, endangering the popular catch, according to University of New Hampshire researchers.
Their study does not pinpoint why the number of bluefins is falling dramatically, or why the remaining fish are getting slimmer, but the researchers suspect a number of factors, including over-fishing from European countries in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea and shifts in migration and foraging patterns due to global warming.
In the mid-1990s, UNH scientists documented 500 to 900 schools of bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine averaging 100 to 150 fish each, said Molly Lutcavage, director of UNH's Large Pelagics Research Center. She said only a "few" schools would be seen in today's waters.
"The horrifying reality is that the huge decline in abundance happened so quickly," she said.
The toll is evident in the number of commercial tuna fishing permits, says Rich Ruais, executive director of the East Coast Tuna Association, who estimates that in the mid-1990s, there were 15,000 permits from Maine down to Texas, where today there are about 4,400.
With relatively low fishing quotas strictly enforced in the Western Atlantic, many point to Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean fisherman for the decline in stocks.
Atlantic bluefin tuna are known for being highly migratory, with spawning grounds in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean. Tagging from UNH scientists has shown the fish travel long distances, often mixing with stocks in the Eastern Atlantic, Lutcavage said.
Bob Campbell, of Yankee Fisherman's Co-Op in Seabrook, kept track in a log book of the 3,082 bluefin tuna he handled, providing the researchers a unique record of their numbers and quality.
"In a drawer, he had two or three notebooks with every fish he graded in the last 14 years, from 1991 to 2004," said UNH graduate student Walter Golet. Golet's findings corroborated observations by fishermen, brokers and cooperative managers that the quality and quantity are declining.
Golet's research showed that a fish caught in September 1991 had only a 9 percent chance of being a C+ grade, with A being the highest, based in part on fat content. In contrast, a fish caught in September 2004, even after a season of feeding in the Gulf of Maine, had a 76 percent chance of being a C+.
The fat content is not just important for taste. The researchers say it's an indicator of the overall health of the bluefin, and of its future.

"One of the big consequences of not fattening as much is the potential impact it could have on reproduction," says Golet. "Reduced energy stores can often force a fish to skip spawning in a particular year."

SunJournal.com - Study finds bluefish tuna declining

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Saturday, August 25, 2007

South Portland dealing with honeybees after chicken debate

South Portland dealing with honeybees after chicken debate

By
Friday, August 24, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — With the debate over chickens simmering, South Portland is now taking on the issue of beekeepers within city limits.

Mark Tinkham complained to City Hall that his family has to retreat indoors on warm days when honeybees from a neighbor’s hives are active. The bees especially like the children’s small swimming pool, he noted.

Patricia Doucette, the city’s longtime code enforcement officer, hopes to sit down one-on-one with beekeeper Omid Ghayebi to discuss the situation. But she said the bees violate rules limiting farming in residential zones.

"We have determined that this type of activity is offensive and detrimental to the neighborhood," she said.

For his part, Ghayeb has no intention of stopping his beekeeping hobby or evicting his estimated 200,000 tenants.

"The code pretty much says the keeping of farm animals is prohibited," said Ghayebi. "It doesn’t say anything about beekeeping." Besides, he said, his honeybees do a lot of good and they’re not aggressive like hornets.

The bee flap follows an effort led by 10-year old Olivia Collins to allow chickens in residential areas. An ordinance allowing limited ownership of chickens passed a first vote by the council, and could be formally adopted Sept. 5.

Oddly enough, this is not the first chicken-and-bee controversy in Greater Portland.

Westbrook residents have engaged in similar debates about Robert Ledoux, who keeps chickens in his backyard, and Mark LeClair, who tends hives on his property.

The city initially told the men to get rid of their chickens and hives, but the city worked with them after they fought City Hall. A change to the city ordinance was crafted, allowing the activities under strict guidelines.

 

Quoted from http://www.bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=153506&zoneid=586:

South Portland dealing with honeybees after chicken debate

 

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How close is World War 3.0?

Examining the reality of cyberwar in wake of Estonian attacks

By Carolyn Duffy Marsan,

Network World,08/22/07

When the Estonian government was hit with major, sustained denial-of-service attacks this spring, the headlines screamed that it was the first incident of modern cyberwarfare.

The attacks disrupted a dozen government Web sites and networks run by ISPs, financial institutions and media outlets for several weeks in April and May. A global botnet of compromised home computers was used to create and direct the packet flood attacks that reached a peak of 90Mbps. Hackers also defaced key government Web sites with anti-Estonian slogans.

Pro-Russian activists were behind the cyber attacks, which were motivated by the Estonian government’s decision to move a Soviet World War II memorial. All in all, the hackers launched hundreds of individual cyberattacks against Estonian Web sites, ranging from less than one minute to 10 hours or more.

The Estonian attacks have left U.S. IT and network professionals wondering if they’ve entered a new era of cyberwar and what they should be doing to prepare for politically motivated attacks.

Glen Baker, CIO of Outsource Partners Inc. (OPI), says he is "absolutely" concerned about the Estonia incident and the threat of politically motivated attacks against his company's network. The New York City firm does finance and accounting outsourcing for multinational companies, and it has the majority of its 1,500 employees in India and Bulgaria.

"We're in the process of hiring a security consulting firm to try to mitigate this threat," he says. "They will do analysis for us and build what a typical industry response should be."

Baker says OPI suffered Web defacements in 2001 and sees regular virus and spam attacks through incoming e-mail. He says he's more concerned about hactivism than he is about internal threats such as disgruntled employees.

"We have locked down facilities in India and Bulgaria. Users don't have many access rights or Internet access. They can't bring personal items on to our networks," Baker says. "But we do worry about external attacks. We can imagine political or anti-outsourcing attacks. Those are the ones we are trying to target and trying to mitigate."

Jose Nazario, senior security researcher with Arbor Networks, says CIOs in government and industry have been asking about the Estonian incident and whether it is evidence of a new online threat.

"As we move more critical infrastructure to the Internet and we depend on it more and more for communications, the threat [of cyberwar] is real," Nazario says. "It could be as specific as shutting down a phone system or it could be like the Estonian attacks, which were hitting key government sites and mail servers. It could be both making a statement and disrupting an activity."

Security experts agree that despite the damage caused by the Estonian attacks, they were more hactivism than all-out cyberwar. However, experts fear that we could be entering an era of more frequent politically motivated attacks and that commercial networks will be targeted.

Experts say that the success of the Estonian attacks and the publicity they received may encourage other disgruntled individuals or groups to launch copycat attacks. Companies with unpopular employment policies, business practices or those contributing to global climate change could be hit by similar attacks, they warn.

"There is potential for [politically motivated attacks] to be more frequent based on the attention brought to what happened in Estonia," says Michael Witt, deputy director of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team within the Department of Homeland Security.

"We’re sort of in unchartered territory," Witt adds. "You don’t know what is going to upset an individual or a group to see if later they will launch a cyber attack."

Read aQ&A with Witt.

Among the industries that could be targets for future cyber attacks are not only ISPs and banks but also oil and electric companies.

"When you think about the citizens of many countries that may disappear beneath the ocean from global warming within 50 years, it’s fairly easy to imagine a small, disaffected group [launching cyber attacks] because they’re not being heard otherwise," says Eugene Spafford, executive director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue University. "We have seen various groups because of racial or religious extreme ideologies…circulating literature about bringing down utility grids."

Was it cyberwar?

Despite the initial headlines, most security experts say the Estonian incident wasn’t all-out cyberwarfare because it doesn’t appear to have been sponsored by the Russian government.

"I would call it more of a political statement," Witt says.

Spafford says true cyberwarfare would be undertaken by one nation to bend another to its political will, and network attacks would likely be a companion to other physical attacks.

"The activity that was carried out in Estonia was malicious and criminal," Spafford says. "If you look at some of the political demonstrations held in countries around the world, where traffic is brought to a standstill and there are work stoppages and banks are shut down as a matter of political statement, you wouldn’t call that warfare."

Charles Kaplan, chief technology strategist at Mazu Networks, says the Estonian attacks appear to have been conducted by Russian citizens but weren’t orchestrated by the Russian government.

"If it really was a government-caused event, we would have seen something more damaging," Kaplan says. "This was a pure demonstration of brute force, and it did have some economic impact. If somebody really wanted to take these guys down, the damage would have been greater than it was."

There are only two other known network attacks that were as devastating as the Estonian incident and have been called cyberwarfare. One, dubbed Titan Rain by the U.S. government, took place in 2003 and involved Chinese military attacks on networks run by Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal and NASA. The other incident, which the U.S. government refers to as Moonlight Maze, occurred in 1999 and involved Russian attacks on classified military information.

Whether it was cyberwar or hactivism, the Estonian incident shows the devastation that a politically motivated network attack can have on government and commercial networks.

Security experts agree that it should be an eye-opener for CIOs, who have been focused on profit-oriented attacks and should consider the threat of politically motivated ones, too.

Spafford calls the threat of political or ideological attacks against U.S. corporate networks significant. He points out that many early viruses and Web defacements were political statements.

"There are many organizations that may be targets for ideological groups because they do business somewhere in the world that may be unpopular," Spafford says. "If you’re part of the banking or power industries, you may be a target for purposes of harm to the overall economy."

Spafford estimates that there are thousands of politically motivated attacks across the Internet each year. "Many of them aren’t that coordinated or don’t have as big of an impact as in Estonia," he adds.

However, the majority of cyber attacks are economically motivated, with the most common targets being gambling, e-commerce, pornography and financial Web sites.

"We don’t see a lot of denial-of-service attacks these days because most of the cyber attacks we see are profit motivated," says Steve Bellovin, an Internet security expert and professor of computer science at Columbia University. "The most common are extortion, especially against gambling sites."

 

Lessons learned from Estonia

The packet floods used in the Estonian DoS attacks were not new. What was unusual about these attacks was the duration and the disruption they caused, experts say.

"The size and scale of these attacks in terms of the bandwidth and packets per second is in the middle in terms of what we have seen for these kinds of attacks," Nazario says. "But they lasted for weeks, not hours or days, which is much longer than we’ve seen for most of these attacks in the past. And the targets and the inferred motivation were geo-political rather than economic or a simple grudge. That suggests we have turned a corner."

Spafford says what’s important for U.S. companies to learn about the Estonian incident is how much damage a small number of people with resources can do.

Another lesson learned from this incident is that the Estonian response – of admitting the problem and getting help from ISPs and international governments – was largely successful.

Find out what Estonia did right.

One suggestion for network managers is not to worry too much about figuring out where a cyber attack is coming from or why. Ed Amoroso, CSO at AT&T, says network managers should instead focus on mitigating the attack.

"For the day to day types of attacks people are dealing with, the goal of trying to determine where the attack originates remains very elusive because most of the attacks involve bots," Amoroso says. "It’s so tempting in cyber security to say let’s trace back the attack to see where it’s coming from, and let’s hypothesize what the geo-political situation is. Let’s assume if we see that it’s an intense attack, that it’s well funded. But it’s just as likely to be a kid sitting in Brooklyn. That’s one of the great difficulties of doing cyber security."

The good news for U.S. CIOs is that they are better positioned to defend themselves against similar DoS attacks because the United States is so much larger than Estonia and has a more robust network infrastructure.

"The country of Estonia is about the size of Rhode Island [based on population]," says Marty Lindner, a senior member of the technical staff at the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. "They only have so much infrastructure. When somebody decides to launch a DoS attack, all it takes is a little more energy than the size of your infrastructure to knock it over. The attacker here decided to take out 11 to 12 Web sites….If you take a big corporate network in the U.S., it is bigger and more robust than Estonia’s will ever be."

Even though the U.S. network infrastructure is more robust than Estonia’s, hactivism and other politically motivated attacks are still a worry for CIOs, Witt says.

"We have worked diligently with our critical infrastructure owners and operators, whether in the telecom industry or the IT industry or the chemical or energy sectors," Witt says. "We’ve been working at this for many years to make sure we have a more robust type of backbone to deal with this kind of attack. Is that to say we are 100% protected against this type of attack? Absolutely not. It all comes back to best practices and having plans in place to deal with attacks."

What will happen next?

Security experts predict that politically motivated attacks will be more targeted than all-out cyberwar aimed at taking down the Internet.

"What motive would Russia or China have to try to take out the U.S. suddenly? If they do that, they’re going to get hurt, too," Bellovin says. "If they take out the internaps, they take them out for themselves, too. If they take out our economy, they take out some of their big trading partners, which hurts them, too. There’s not an obvious motive for something happening on that scale in the very near future."

Bellovin says the more likely scenario is that hactivists or cyber terrorists would disrupt individual commercial or government targets.

"What if someone said: Pay us $100 million or the denial-of-service attack that took out the electrical grid in California is going to happen again?" Bellovin asks. "That would be an act of war. And from a military perspective, every major country is looking at attacks and defenses on this issue."

Kaplan says politically motivated attacks are more likely to come in the form of spear phishing attacks rather than DoS attacks like those used against Estonia.

"If I want to steal a piece of information from a particular company or government, I just look around at publicly available information such as Google, find the controller of that information, and send that particular person a phishing e-mail," Kaplan explains. "He’s the only one who gets it, and it’s specific enough that he opens up. I can’t do that on a mass scale, but I can do it to get deep into a particular organization."

Kaplan also worries about hard-to-detect polymorphic viruses and malware hiding in virtualization engines.

"This is not to say that a big cyberwar attack couldn’t happen," Kaplan adds. "But when I think about what a group of kids or terrorists could do, there are so many other options that are more attractive than all-out governmental cyberwarfare."

Experts say what will happen next in cyberwar is that hactivists will launch whatever kinds of attacks – DoS, Web defacements, worms, viruses, phishing or pharming – that help them meet their goals.

"It’s an arms race. I would never predict what the next bad thing will be,” Lindner says. “The best thing that a corporation or anyone can do is have a good layered defense, understand their exposures and have a good plan for managing the attacks when they occur."

Most of the steps that CIOs should take to prepare for hactivism involve keeping up with state-of-the-art security practices. And these steps will protect networks from both political and profit-driven attacks.

"You shouldn’t neglect politically motivated attacks as a threat, but you should be worrying much more about the economic impact today," Bellovin says. "Most of the things you should do about that would help to protect you against this threat as well."

 

Quoted from http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2007/082207-cyberwar.html&pagename=/news/2007/082207-cyberwar.html&pageurl=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082207-cyberwar.html&site=security:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082207-cyberwar.html

 

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Friday, August 24, 2007

Naked Rodeo On Assateague

By The Dispatch Staff
Originally published August 24, 2007

ASSATEAGUE – Two Ocean City men were arrested on disorderly conduct charges and other offenses after a wild incident on Assateague Island involving attempting to ride wild ponies and tackle sika deer.

Around 6 a.m. last Saturday, Aug. 18, Maryland Natural Resources Police (NRP) responded to a campsite in Assateague State Park for a report of two highly intoxicated men, later identified as Thomas A. Chapman, 33, and Anthony J. Marchiano, 27, both of Ocean City. Witnesses advised NRP officers Chapman was attempting to ride wild ponies and tackle sika deer. He was also observed running nude around the campsite.

When NRP officers made contact with Chapman, he continued to yell profanities until he was placed under arrest. Chapman was charged with disorderly conduct and attempting to feed, touch, tease, frighten or intentionally disturb wildlife in a state park. He was taken before a Worcester County District Court Commissioner and released on an unsecured bond. Marchiano was issued a citation for disorderly conduct and released on his signature.

 

Quoted from http://www.mdcoastdispatch.com/article.php?cid=23&id=1201:

Ocean City Maryland News and Newspapers - Maryland Coast Dispatch

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Thursday, August 23, 2007

More than half of minority teacher applicants fail test

BOSTON--More than half of black and Hispanic applicants for teaching jobs in Massachusetts have failed a crucial state licensing test.

Since the start of the test nearly a decade ago, 52 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of blacks failed the writing portion of the test compared to a 23 percent failure rate among white applicants.

Blacks and Hispanics also fall behind white applicants in other test subjects like English, history and math.

Education officials say the gap is making it harder to bring more diversity to the state's teaching ranks.

Chris Anderson, chairman of the state Board of Education, said he's willing to consider other ways of assessing teachers, as long as standards remain high.

"There's no reason to have any barriers to quality teachers if we don't need them," Anderson told The Boston Sunday Globe. "At the same time, we need to have accountability and assurance that there are basic abilities for any new teacher in Massachusetts."

The problem is so persistent that a special state task force of teachers, state education officials and hiring directors has been set up to find out why minorities don't do better on the tests.

Sally Diaz, a vice president at Emmanuel College in Boston and a member of the panel, said one test shouldn't make or break a career.

"One of the fallouts which is particularly upsetting in our experience across the colleges is fewer and fewer students of color are even going into teaching because word has gotten out that these tests are very difficult for them," she said.

Adding to the worries are stricter federal rules focused on improving teacher quality.

Under the 2001 federal law, states must prove their teachers have met a competency bar set by the state. Massachusetts school districts risk losing federal funding if they aren't making progress toward licensing all their teachers.

Some deans of education schools are raising questions about whether the lower results among minority applicants shows the tests are culturally biased and whether the quality of education that minority applicants receive is good enough.

Some minority applicants say the tests includes questions that white applicants and those with liberal arts backgrounds can more readily identify with, such as questions about ancient literature or investing in the stock market.

A Cambridge lawyer said he's planning to file a class action lawsuit against the state Department of Education and the testing company on behalf of three minority teachers who failed the test multiple times.

 

Quoted from http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/08/19/more_than_half_of_minority_teacher_applicants_fail_test/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Globe+West:

More than half of minority teacher applicants fail test - Boston.com

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Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tracking feline memories on the move


When a cat steps over an obstacle with its front legs, how do its hind legs know what to do? A new study in the August 21st issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press, reveals that it is the foreleg stepping movement itself that leaves a lasting impression. By comparison, feline memories of having just seen an obstacle proved rather fleeting.


Indeed, the researchers found that cats could remember having stepped over a hurdle for at least ten minutes. The findings suggest that cats’ working memories can extend much longer than earlier studies had shown, according to the researchers.

"We've found that the long-lasting memory for guiding the hind legs over an obstacle requires stepping of the forelegs over the obstacle," said Keir Pearson of the University of Alberta, Canada. “The main surprise was how short lasting the visual memory on its own was—just a few seconds when animals were stopped before their forelegs stepped over the obstacle.”

The researchers examined the animals’ memories by stopping cats after their forelegs, but not their hind legs, had cleared an obstacle. They then distracted the animals with food and lowered the obstacle into the walking surface. The nature of the subsequent step revealed whether the animal remembered having stepped over the “disappearing” obstacle. To find out whether the cats remembered what they saw versus what they did, Pearson’s group repeated the experiment, but this time they stopped the cats just before they made their first step.

The results revealed that when the animals stepped over the obstacle with the forelegs they remembered this action for a long time and stepped up with their hind legs to clear the necessary height. However, if the forelegs did not step over the obstacle, the memory of the obstacle was quickly lost; simply seeing that an obstacle lay in their path wasn't enough.

“Animals, including humans, unconsciously keep track of the location of objects relative to the body as they move, and this tracking is largely dependent on signals associated with movement of the body,” Pearson said.

Although it is not entirely clear how the four-legged stepping of cats relates to people, Pearson said such memories might play a role in humans’ ability to navigate objects in the dark—for example, when you move through a cluttered room in the light, turn out the light, and continue avoiding objects you can no longer see.

Rock climbers might experience a similar phenomenon, Pearson added. “We have not tested this yet, but it is possible that the trajectory of the hands relative to potential impediments establishes a memory for guiding the trajectory of the feet in the absence of vision,” he said.

Source: Cell Press

Quoted from http://www.physorg.com

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Time Travel Machine Outlined

Time Travel Machine Outlined

By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience

 

A new concept for a time machine could possibly enable distant future generations to travel into the past, research now suggests.

Unlike past ideas for time machines, this new concept does not require exotic, theoretical forms of matter. Still, this new idea requires technology far more advanced than anything existing today, and major questions remain as to whether any time machine would ever prove stable enough to enable actual travel back in time.

Time machine researchers often investigate gravity, which essentially arises when matter bends space and time. Time travel research is based on bending space-time so far that time lines actually turn back on themselves to form a loop, technically known as a "closed time-like curve."

"We know that bending does happen all the time, but we want the bending to be strong enough and to take a special form where the lines of time make closed loops," said theoretical physicist Amos Ori at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. "We are trying to find out if it is possible to manipulate space-time to develop in such a way."

Many scientists are skeptical as to whether or not time travel is possible. For instance, time machines often are thought to need an exotic form of matter with so-called "negative energy density." Such exotic matter has bizarre properties, including moving in the opposite direction of normal matter when pushed. Such matter could theoretically exist, but if it did, it might be present only in quantities too small for the construction of a time machine.

Ori's latest research suggests time machines are possible without exotic matter, eliminating a barrier to time travel. His work begins with a donut-shaped hole enveloped within a sphere of normal matter.

"We're talking about these closed loops of time, and the simplest kind of closed loops are circles, which is why we have this ring-shaped hole," Ori explained.

Inside this donut-shaped vacuum, space-time could get bent upon itself using focused gravitational fields to form a closed time-like curve. To go back in time, a traveler would race around inside the donut, going further back into the past with each lap.

"The machine is space-time itself," Ori said. "If we were to create an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves, it might enable future generations to return to visit our time."

Ori emphasized one significant limitation of this time machine—"it can't be used to travel to a time before the time machine was constructed." His findings are detailed in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Physical Review D.

A number of obstacles remain, however. The gravitational fields required to make such a closed time-like curve would have to be very strong, "on the order of what you might find close to a black hole," Ori told LiveScience. "We don't have any way of creating such strong gravitational fields today, and we certainly have no way of manipulating any such gravitational fields."

Even if time machines were technically feasible, the gravitational fields involved need to be manipulated in very specific, accurate ways, and Ori said his calculations suggest any time machine could be very unstable, meaning "the tiniest deviations might keep one from working. We need to explore the problem of stability of time machines further."

Theoretical physicist Ken Olum of Tufts University in Medford, Mass., who did not participate in this study, was skeptical concerning how this new model claimed to sidestep prior theoretical objections to time travel.

Still, Olum noted, "It's important if it's right—that there really is some kind of loophole. So this should be scrutinized very closely." The point of such work, he added, was to "expand the bounds of what's possible, what kind of things we can have and what kinds of things we cannot have."

 

Quoted from http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/070820_time_machine.html:

Time Travel Machine Outlined | LiveScience

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Robber jailed for sex toy 'armed' raid

Press Association
Monday August 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


CCTV image of Nicki Jex holding up a bookmakers shop using a concealed sex toy

A robber who held up a bookmakers with his girlfriend's vibrator was jailed today.

Nicki Jex concealed the Rampant Rabbit sex toy in a carrier bag and pretended it was a gun during the raid on the Ladbrokes shop in Leicester on December 27 last year.

A member of staff at the branch handed over more than £600 in cash when he pointed the bag at her, Leicester crown court was told.

Jex, 27, of Braunstone, pleaded guilty to the robbery, which was captured on a CCTV camera inside the shop.

Sentencing him to five years behind bars, the judge, Philip Head, said: "It's right to record that you did not have a firearm but you pretended you had and intended that those you confronted believed that you did, and it must have been truly terrifying for them at the time."

The surveillance camera recorded Jex striding into the shop brandishing the "firearm" minutes before staff were due to close for the day.

Tim Palmer, prosecuting, told the court: "The defendant pointed the item in the carrier bag at the cashier. She immediately assumed it to be a firearm. In fact, what was contained within the carrier bag was the defendant's girlfriend's vibrator."

The cashier retreated behind the counter and he turned the imitation weapon on the shop manager, demanding cash. She handed over £613 in till contents and other money, the court was told.

As Jex made his escape, the shop's only remaining customer, Wayne Vakani, followed him outside.

"The defendant pointed the vibrator in the bag at Mr Vakani and warned him to back off," said Mr Palmer. "Mr Vakani then kept a discreet distance but kept an eye on the defendant and watched where he went."

Jex visited a local pub "obviously flush with money" to buy friends a drink. Thanks to Mr Vakani, the defendant's hat worn in the robbery and containing his DNA was discovered nearby.

Jex also tried in vain to sell the distinctive camel-coloured coat he had been wearing during the raid.

When he was arrested he denied any involvement in the robbery, but he later owned up.

The court was told that Jex, a drug addict, had a string of previous convictions dating back to February 2002, including shoplifting, failing to surrender and possession of heroin.

In mitigation, Phil Gibbs, defending, said Jex, a qualified chef and engineer, had fought a battle against drug addiction and had a "fragile" state of mind.

The judge awarded £500 to Mr Vakani for his "very considerable courage".

 

Quoted from http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2152787,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront:

Robber jailed for sex toy 'armed' raid | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

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Friday, August 17, 2007

Anger Management

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don't take it out on someone you know, take it out on someone you don't know.I was sitting at my desk when I remembered a phone call I'd forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it.

A man answered, saying "Hello."I politely said, "This is Chris. Could I please speak with Robyn Carter?"Suddenly a manic voice yelled out in my ear "Get the right f***ing number!" and the phone was slammed down on me. I couldn't believe that anyone could be so rude .

When I tracked down Robyn's correct number to call her, I found that I had accidentally transposed the last two digits.After hanging up with her, I decided to call the 'wrong' number again.When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled "You're an asshole!" and hung up.

I wrote his number down with the word 'asshole' next to it, and put it in my desk drawer. Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I'd call him up and yell, "You're an asshole!" It always cheered me up.

When Caller ID was introduced, I thought my therapeutic 'asshole' calling would have to stop. So, I called his number and said, "Hi,this is John Smith from the telephone company. I'm calling to see if you're familiar with our Caller ID Program?"He yelled "NO!" and slammed down the phone. I quickly called him back and said, "That's because you're an asshole!" and hung up.

One day I was at the store, getting ready to pull into a parking Spot. Some guy in a black BMW cut me off and pulled into the spot I had patiently waited for. I hit the horn and yelled that I'd been waiting for that spot, but the idiot ignored me. I noticed a "For Sale" sign in his back window, so I wrote down his number. A couple of days later, right after calling the first asshole (I had is number on speed dial,) I thought that I'd better call the BMW asshole, too.

I said, "Is this the man with the black BMW for sale?"He said, "Yes, it is." I asked, "Can you tell me where I can see it?" He said, "Yes, I live at 34 Oaktree Blvd, in Fairfax. It's a yellow ranch, and the car's parked right out in front."

I asked, "What's your name?" He said, "My name is Don Hansen," I asked, "When's a good time to catch you, Don?" He said, "I'm home every evening after five."

I said, "Listen, Don, can I tell you something?"

He said, "Yes?"

I said, "Don, you're an asshole!"

Then I hung up, and added his number to my speed dial, too.

Now, when I had a problem, I had two assholes to call.

Then I came up with an idea. I called asshole #1. He said, "Hello." I said, "You're an asshole!" (But I didn't hang up.) He asked, "Are you still there?" I said, "Yeah," He screamed, "Stop calling me," I said, "Make me," He asked, "Who are you?" I said, "My name is Don Hansen." He said, "Yeah? Where do you live?" I said, "Asshole, I live at 34 Oaktree Blvd, in Fairfax, a yellow ranch, I have a black Beamer parked in front." He said, "I'm coming over right now, Don. And you had better start saying your prayers." I said, "Yeah, like I'm really scared, asshole," and hung up.

Then I called Asshole #2. He said, "Hello?" I said, "Hello, asshole," He yelled, "If I ever find out who you are..." I said, "You'll what?" He exclaimed, "I'll kick your ass," I answered, "Well, asshole, here's your chance. I'm coming over right now."

Then I hung up and immediately called the police, saying that I lived at 34 Oaktree Blvd, in Fairfax, and that I was on my way over there to kill my gay lover.

Then I called Channel 9 News about the gang war going down in Oaktree Blvd. in Fairfax.

I quickly got into my car and headed over to Fairfax. I got there just in time to watch two assholes beating the crap out of each other in front of six cop cars, an overhead news helicopter and surrounded by a news crew.

NOW I feel much better. Anger management really does work.

 

Quoted from http://www.manbottle.com/humor/Anger_Management:

The Manbottle Library - Anger Management


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Surnames that reveal Pirate ancestry

By Nick Britten

With all that pillaging and looting, it could be one of the bloodiest reunions in history when descendants of six of Britain's famous pirates are invited to a get-together.

People with the surnames Morgan, Rackham, Bonny, Read, Kidd or Teach, are being invited to discover possible connections with the likes of Blackbeard and Calico Jack, in a series of events by English Heritage. Dressing as a sea dog is optional.

Proving your lineage with a real-life buccaneer, however, may prove difficult. Abigail Baker, of the genealogy research organization Achievements Ltd, said: "What could be more exhilarating than finding you are related to one of Britain's most colorful characters?"

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However, said Miss Baker, due to their nefarious backgrounds, pirates rarely kept records of their activities. So proving a link can be tricky.

The six most famous British pirates are:

Sir Henry Morgan (a privateer, or legal pirate), born in 1635 in Glamorgan, Wales, who went on to rule Jamaica.

William Kidd, born around 1645 in Renfrewshire, Scotland, and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean.

Edward "Blackbeard" Teach was thought to be born in Bristol around 1680. He wove slow-burning fuses into his beard to create clouds of smoke around his scowling face. He is said to have had 14 wives and died in battle, his head being cut off and hung from the rigging.

John "Calico Jack" Rackham's was born in 1682, and so named for his penchant for brightly colored clothing. He is remembered for employing two female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Rackham was executed in Jamaica in 1720.

Anne Bonny, born around 1698 near Cork, met Rackham in the Bahamas and started an affair with him, before eloping and joining his crew. She was said to be intelligent, attractive, and quick-tempered.

Mary Read, born in 1695 in London. She joined Calico Jack's crew and became one of history's most fearsome female pirates. She spent much of her life dressed as a man, and died in 1721.

The English Heritage events start this weekend at Dover Castle in Kent and continues next weekend at Whitby Abbey, North Yorks.

Anyone who can prove they share the name of one of the six most feared pirates will get in free.

Ten pirate facts

1. The idea of buried treasure is mostly a mythical one which is romantically portrayed in books such as Treasure Island. However, one pirate who was known for burying his treasure was Captain Kidd and it is believed he may have started the myth.

2. The notion that pirates only plundered gold, silver and exotic treasure is unfounded. Records suggest a normal haul was far more mundane and involved stealing linens, cloths, food, anchors, rope and sometimes medical supplies.

3. Pirates were therefore very selective about which boats they targeted, to be certain the booty was worth the risks of battle.

4. Most pirates were extreme squanderers and rarely accumulated enough treasure to bury. Due to the danger and uncertainty of their profession, they were usually determined to live for the present rather than save for the future.

5. The Jolly Roger is the pirates' most famous flag, flown to induce their target to surrender. The history of the terms is the subject of great conjecture, a popular theory being it stemmed from the word “rogue”. “Old Roger” is also the term for the Devil.

6. There is no evidence that pirates ever made their victims walk the plank; there was far too much sport of another kind to be had. A favorite method of dealing with prisoners was to tie them to the mast and then pelt the unfortunate victim with broken bottles.

7. In pirate language, “splice the mainbrace” means to have a drink and “to dance with Jack Ketch” means to go to the hangman.

8. Pirate hooks, a popular addition to any costume, probably stemmed from the story of Peter Pan and his arch enemy Captain Hook, who replaced his hand lost in battle with a hook. However, pirates often lost hands in battle and it was common for them to search the ship for something to use as a replacement.

9. Port Royal, Jamaica, became a safe haven for pirates, a place of great wealth and debauchery known as “the wickedest city on Earth”.

10. Modern day pirates exist, especially in the waters off Indonesia and Somalia. Rather than relying on cannons and swords though, they tend to prefer using AK-47 rifles and speed boats.

Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/17/npirate117.xml:

Surnames that reveal Pirate ancestry - Telegraph

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Annoying Things To Do On An Elevator

1) CRACK open your briefcase or handbag, peer Inside and ask "Got enough air in there?"
2) STAND silent and motionless in the corner facing the wall without getting off.
3) WHEN arriving at your floor, grunt and strain to yank the doors open, then act as if you're embarrassed when they open themselves.
4) GREET everyone with a warm handshake and ask him or her to call you Admiral.
5) MEOW occasionally.
6) STARE At another passenger for a while. Then announce in horror: "You're one of THEM" - and back away slowly
7) SAY -DING at each floor.
8) SAY "I wonder what all these do?" And push all the red buttons.
9) MAKE explosion noises when anyone presses a button.
10) STARE, grinning at another passenger for a while, then announce: "I have new socks on."
11) WHEN the elevator is silent, look around and ask: "Is that your beeper?"
12) TRY to make personal calls on the emergency phone.
13) DRAW a little square on the floor with chalk and announce to the other passengers: "This is my personal space."
14) WHEN there's only one other person in the elevator, tap them on the shoulder, then pretend it wasn't you.
15) PUSH the buttons and pretend they give you a shock. Smile, and go back for more.
16) ASK if you can push the button for other people but push the wrong ones.
17) HOLD the doors open and say you're waiting for your friend. After a while, let the doors close and say "Hi Greg, How's your day been?"
18) DROP a pen and wail until someone reaches to help pick it up, then scream: "That's mine!"
19) BRING a camera and take pictures of everyone in the lift.
20) PRETEND you're a flight attendant and review emergency procedures and exits with the Passengers.
21) SWAT at flies that don't exist.
22) CALL out "Group hug" then enforce it.

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Don't Argue With The Gay Flight Attendant

Don't Argue With The Gay Flight Attendant

My flight was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served us food and drinks.

As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and told us "Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super."

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed an extremely well-dressed and exotic young woman hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines but I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground."

She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a Princess and I take orders from no one."

To which the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, "Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country I'm called a Queen, so I outrank you. Tray up, Bitch."

Quoted from http://humour.200ok.com.au/gay-flight-attendant.html:

Don't Argue With The Gay Flight Attendant | Funny Shit


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Scientists break the speed of light

By ANDREW LEVY

It was supposed to be the one speed limit you cannot break.

But scientists claim to have demonstrated there is the possibility of travel faster than the speed of light.

The feat contradicts one of the key tenets of Einstein's special theory of relativity - that nothing, under any circumstances, can move faster than 186,000 miles per second, or the speed of light.

Speed of light beaten: One of the key tenets of Einstein's theory of relativity is proved wrong

Traveling faster than light also, in theory, turns back time. According to conventional physics, an astronaut moving beyond light speed would arrive at his destination before leaving.

But two German physicists claim to have forced light to overcome its own speed limit using the strange phenomenon of quantum tunneling, in which particles summon up the energy to cross an apparently uncrossable barrier.

Their experiments focused on the travel of microwave photons - energetic packets of light - through two prisms.

When the prisms were moved apart, most photons reflected off the first prism they encountered and were picked up by a detector.

But a few appeared to "tunnel" through a gap separating them as if the prisms were still held together.

Although these photons had traveled a longer distance, they arrived at their detector at the same time as the reflected photons. This suggests that the transit between the two prisms was faster than the speed of light.

Dr Gunter Nimtz, of the University of Koblenz, told the magazine New Scientist: "For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of."

Quoted from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=475587&in_page_id=1965

Scientists break the speed of light | the Daily Mail

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Lipid regulator linked to good breast milk

Lipid regulator linked to good breast milk LA JOLLA, Calif., Aug. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists have discovered a nuclear receptor that regulates fat storage is a vital link in the production of high quality breast milk.

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies determined mouse mammary glands deficient in the regulator PPARa produce toxic milk that causes inflammation and baldness in suckling pups.

"We were quite surprised by the unexpected quality control mechanism that ensures the quality of breast milk," said Professor Ronald Evans, who led the study. "Our finding explains why breast milk is always clean and healthful, even when there’s a lot of inflammation going on in the mother’s body."

Evans and colleagues hope a better understanding of PPARa will lead to understanding the role lipids and inflammation play in hair loss and other skin disorders.

The research appears in the August issue of the journal Genes & Development.

 

Quoted from http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Science/2007/08/15/lipid_regulator_linked_to_good_breast_milk/2729/:

United Press International - NewsTrack - Science - Lipid regulator linked to good breast milk

 

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Severe Eye Injury in Saco River Incident

By M. Dirk Langeveld , Staff Writer
FRYEBURG - A Massachusetts man was charged with reckless conduct after seriously injuring a New Hampshire man's eye with a water balloon Sunday.

Jonathan D. Buell, 26, of 108A Myrtle St. in Boston was initially charged with elevated aggravated assault for the incident. He was held at the Oxford County Jail on $50,000 cash or $100,000 surety bail. After his arraignment Monday at the South Paris District Court, the charge was reduced and the bail lowered to $2,000 unsecured cash.

Eric A. Nelson, 26, of Manchester, N.H., was struck in the eye Sunday by a water balloon launched from the direction of Buell's campsite. According to a report filed by Cpl. Richard W. Murray of the Fryeburg Police Department, Nelson was taken by Fryeburg Rescue to a North Conway hospital with lacerations to the eye and surrounding area.

Nelson was later flown to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston. On Monday, Nelson's mother told Murray that Nelson had suffered a broken ocular bone and lacerations to his nose and eyelid.

Murray states that a physician at North Conway hospital told him Nelson may lose his eye due to the extent of the injury. He states that doctors at the Massachusetts hospital told Nelson's mother that it is unlikely Nelson will be able to see again out of the injured eye.

According to an affidavit filed by officer D. Shane Reininger of the Fryeburg Police Department, Reininger was working paid detail at Fiddlehead Campground when he heard a report of an injured person on the property shortly after midnight.

Reininger stated that several people reported that Nelson had been injured. Nelson was bleeding but coherent, and said he knew he was hit by a water balloon because he felt the water splash.

Nelson's friends identified Buell's campsite as the location the balloon had been fired from. Reininger and officer Carol Clark of the Fryeburg Police Department approached the campsite and confirmed that a group there had been firing water balloons.

The officers confiscated two water balloon slingshots, a homemade 200 pounds per square inch water balloon cannon, a portable air compressor, and three water balloon remnants that matched remnants found at the site of Nelson's injuries.

Chief Wayne Brooking of the Fryeburg Police Department said Nelson was 67 feet from where the balloon was fired. He said the water balloon cannons and slings are designed for long-range firing, and the proximity contributed to Nelson's injuries.

Buell stated that he had been firing balloons over the Saco River at other campsites. According to Reininger's report, Buell was unaware that he had injured anyone and said that "there was no way that any of his water balloons could have caused injuries."

Brooking said the slings require three people to operate, but that Buell was believed to be "instrumental" in the launch that caused the injury.

Buell told Reininger that he had consumed four beers earlier in the evening, but Reininger stated that he did not show signs of alcohol impairment. He said Buell was cooperative during the discussion.

Brooking said he has seen injuries caused by water balloons, but none so traumatic. He said a similar incident occurred on the Saco River last year when a woman received a black eye from a launched balloon. The person who fired the balloon was charged with assault.

Frederick J. Lavitman, 26, of Framingham, Mass., was charged with aggravated reckless conduct in the incident. He was held at the Oxford County Jail on $25,000 cash or $50,000 surety bail, but the charges were later dropped by the District Attorney's Office.

Brooking said there was probable cause for Lavitman's arrest, but not for prosecution.

Brooking said two officers from the Fryeburg Police Department work paid detail at the campground on weekends. The Saco River is a frequent site of weekend arrests, and four people were arrested by the department on Saturday.

Buell and Nelson declined to comment.

Quoted from http://www.sunjournal.com/story/225369-3/OxfordHills/Severe_eye_injury_in_Saco_River_incident/:

SunJournal.com - Severe eye injury in Saco River incident


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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Biker fails to notice missing leg

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese biker failed to notice his leg had been severed below the knee when he hit a safety barrier, and rode on for more than a mile, leaving a friend to pick up the missing limb.

The 54-year-old office worker was out on his motorcycle with a group of friends in the city of Hamamatsu, west of Tokyo, on Monday, when he was unable to negotiate a curve in the road and bumped into the central barrier, the Mainichi Shimbun said.

He felt excruciating pain, but did not notice that his right leg was missing until he stopped at the next junction, the paper quoted local police as saying.

The man and his leg were taken to a hospital, but the limb had been crushed in the collision, the paper said.

 

Quoted from http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUST13970120070815:

Biker fails to notice missing leg | Oddly Enough | Reuters

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Bronchitis more resistant to antibiotics

Bronchitis more resistant to antibiotics NORTHBROOK, Ill., Aug. 14 (UPI) -- First-line antibiotics such as amoxicillin and ampicillin are becoming ineffective in treating chronic bronchitis, U.S. and Greek researchers say.

Second-line antibiotic use in patients with acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis is becoming greater because of an increase in first-line drug resistance among those with chronic bronchitis, reported a study published in the journal Chest.

To compare the effectiveness of first- and second-line antibiotics, researchers evaluated patients with acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis from 12 randomized control trials.

The researchers found that second-line antibiotics were more effective and that there was no difference in mortality or safety, when compared with first-line antibiotics, the study said.

Quoted from http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Health/2007/08/14/bronchitis_more_resistant_to_antibiotics/7446/:

United Press International - NewsTrack - Health - Bronchitis more resistant to antibiotics

 

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Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven'

By Mark Kinver
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

The idea that the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has created a wildlife haven is not scientifically justified, a study says.

Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.

But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed".

The findings appear in the Royal Society's journal, Biology Letters.

In April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded.

After the accident, traces of radioactive deposits were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere.

The paper's authors, Anders Moller of University Pierre and Marie Curie, France, and Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, said their research did not support the idea that low-level radiation was not affecting animals.

"Recent conclusions from the UN Chernobyl Forum and reports in the popular media concerning the effects of radiation from Chernobyl has left the impression that the exclusion zone is a thriving ecosystem, filled with an increasing number of rare species," they wrote.

Instead, they added: "Species richness, abundance and population density of breeding birds decreased with increasing levels of radiation."

The study, which recorded 1,570 birds from 57 species, found that the number of birds in the most contaminated areas declined by 66% compared with sites that had normal background radiation levels.

It also reported a decline of more than 50% in the range of species as radiation levels increase.

The findings build on a previous study of barn swallows in the affected area, which showed that the number of the birds declined sharply in contaminated areas.

The birds' decline was probably the result of depressed levels of antioxidants after its long migration back to the area, making it more vulnerable to the low-level radiation, the researchers concluded.

"It suggests to us that barn swallows are not alone; there are many other species that appear to be affected in a similar way," Professor Mousseau told BBC News.

"This paper also suggests that birds feeding on insects that are living in the upper surface of the soil, where contaminates are highest, seem to be most likely to be missing or depressed."

He added that they were currently carrying out research to find out whether the decline was a result of the birds eating contaminated insects, or whether it was a result of fewer insects living in affected areas.

"We are also looking for funding to expand the range of ecological studies to include invertebrates, as well as plants and animals."

Radioactive retreat

A recent paper published in the American Scientist magazine suggested that plants and animals were better off in the exclusion zone than specimens outside the 30km radius surrounding the site of the destroyed nuclear reactor.

One of the paper's co-authors, Robert Baker from the Texas Tech University, said that the benefits for wildlife from the lack of human activity outweighed the risks of low-level radiation.

Writing on his university web page, Professor Baker said: "The elimination of human activities such as farming, ranching, hunting and logging are the greatest benefits.

"It can be said that the world's worst nuclear power plant disaster is not as destructive to wildlife populations as are normal human activities."

Professor Mousseau acknowledged Professor Baker's description: "It is true that the Chernobyl region gives the appearance of a thriving ecosystem because of its protection from other human activities.

"However, when you do controlled ecological studies, what we see is a very clear signature of negative effects of contamination on diversity and abundance of organisms.

"We clearly need to be applying scientific method to ecological studies before we can conclude, based on anecdotal observations, that there are no consequences."

Quoted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6946210.stm:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven'