moonbuggy

`Russia and Iran signed a nuclear fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington today, paving the way for Tehran to start up its first atomic power plant next year, state media reported.

The agreement, signed by the two countries’ nuclear energy chiefs at the Bushehr atomic reactor in southern Iran, came as Tehran faced heightened pressure from the United States, which accuses it of secretly developing nuclear weapons.’

`Research into medieval Icelandic gender and sexuality has found that even the heroes of Viking Age sagas were troubled by the thought that size really does matter.

Dr Carl Phelpstead of Cardiff University’s School of English, Communication and Philosophy presented a paper: ‘Size Matters: Penile Problems in Sagas of Icelanders’ to the International Medieval Congress, held in Leeds last week.’

`A student is planning to carry out a crime spree by travelling across the United States and breaking weird local laws along the way.

Richard Smith, 23, will risk being arrested for falling asleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota and going whale-hunting in landlocked Utah. He intends to break about 40 strange state and town laws as he crosses America, starting from the notorious former prison island of Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.

His 18,000-mile journey across the continent will end in Hartford, Connecticut, where it is illegal to cross the road while walking on your hands.’

`A woman forced her husband to have sex with a 13-year-old girl, threatening both with a spear, because of bad spirits, a Darwin court heard today.

Savonne Scrubby, 33, has pleaded guilty to a charge of rape in the Northern Territory Supreme Court, saying she was the principal offender.

With her plea, the prosecution dropped a charge of rape against the man.’

`This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.’

`Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has “signed off” on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.’

Amusing clip from some game show.

(4.3meg shockwave)

`The world’s population will increase by 40 percent to 9.1 billion in 2050, but virtually all the growth will be in the developing world, especially in the 50 poorest countries, the U.N. Population Division said.

In a report Thursday, the division said the population in less developed countries is expected to swell from 5.3 billion today to 7.8 billion in 2050. By contrast, the population of richer developed countries will remain mostly unchanged, at 1.2 billion.’

`Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps: “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says: “Calm down, I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: “OK, now what?”‘

`The story begins in 1938. My grandmother’s uncle, Peter Traini was living in Italy. In the Ascola Piscena region (Boy I hope I spelled that right or my grandmother will kill me). Several years prior, his brother, Ferdinand Traini, left for America. One day Peter recieved a letter from Ferdinand telling him how wonderful and full of prosperity America was. So Peter decided to make the trip. He boarded a ship in Italy and came to the new and wonderful country Ferdinand had wrote to him about. With him Peter brought only the clothes on his back and this cheese, as a gift for Ferdinand. The cheese even passed through Ellis Island with Peter.’

`3M puts its money where its mouth is.

That’s great advertising (yes, that’s real money in there).’

`The widow of US writer Hunter S Thompson has said her husband killed himself while they were speaking to one another on the telephone. [..]

She said: “I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and did it.”

Mrs Thompson said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly column, but instead of saying goodbye, he shot himself.’

`Gay men employ the same strategies for navigating as women – using landmarks to find their way around – a new study suggests.

But they also use the strategies typically used by straight men, such as using compass directions and distances. In contrast, gay women read maps just like straight women, reveals the study of 80 heterosexual and homosexual men and women.

“Gay men adopt male and female strategies. Therefore their brains are a sexual mosaic,” explains Qazi Rahman, a psychobiologist who led the study at the University of East London, UK. “It’s not simply that lesbians have men’s brains and gay men have women’s brains.”‘

`Two small boys and two girls were married off to four puppies by tribal villagers in the small northern Indian state of Jharkhand to ward off evil, a report said on Wednesday. [..]

One of the tribals, 54-year-old Sonamuni, who blessed the marriage of her three-year-old grand-daughter Priya, said the wedding was no less important than other such ceremonies and all customs normally associated with marriage were followed.

The mother of “groom” Durga, aged one, said that if the first tooth of a baby came out in the upper jaw it was considered “inauspicious” for the child as well as the family and dog marriages had to be performed.’

The site is in Russian, but the pictures are in English. 🙂

`A toxic chemical used to make rocket fuel was found in every sample taken in a new study of the milk of nursing mothers.

But Texas Tech researchers said it’s too early to know whether the perchlorate levels are dangerous. [..]

The review found that every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, and only one sample of dairy milk contained no detectable levels. The concentration of the chemical in the breast milk samples was on average five times those detected in dairy milk pulled from grocery stores.’

`The family of a woman who died after being moved out of a trauma room to accommodate the ailing Michael Jackson plans to sue both the hospital and the star.

Manuela Gomez Ruiz, 74, was transferred out of the main trauma room at the Marian Medical Centre in Santa Maria, California, when Jackson was rushed in suffering from “flu-like symptoms” last week.

Her family claims she was taken off a machine ventilator and her breathing was instead assisted manually by a handpump.’

`The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests.

Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s and thus help to prevent mental decline.

They hope the cannabinoid may be used to developed new drug therapies.’

`A 97-year-old woman was arrested Tuesday after police in Portland raided a suspected drug house located across the street from an elementary school [..]

Agents arrested the woman and 18 others in the raid.

Oregon police spokesman Brian Schmuatz said people were throwing crack out windows of the home during the raid.

Some neighbors said the woman did not know what was going on inside the house but detectives don’t believe it.’

A Red vs. Blue movie.

(1.9meg .wmv)

‘A British Airways jumbo jet carrying 351 passengers was forced to make an emergency landing after an 11-hour transatlantic flight with a failed engine.

The fault occurred on take-off from Los Angeles but the pilot declined all opportunities to land in the US and instead continued on three engines for 5,000 miles to Britain.

The incident happened three days after a European regulation came into force requiring airlines to compensate passengers for long delays or cancellations. Under the new rules, if the pilot had returned to Los Angeles, BA would have been facing a compensation bill of more than £100,000.’

`Here at /8====>, we’ve already combined two things essential to live, strip clubs and food. Now it’s time to put sex and video games together in a pair we like to call The SeXBox. The second you start playing with this while on XBox Live, it turns into teledildonics!

This mod didn’t take any engineering. There’s nothing new or amazing that we’re doing with this, hell, we really didn’t even think of the method first. However, we DID involve sex, so we win!’

`The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) overstepped its authority by requiring devices capable of receiving digital TV broadcasts to recognize data called a ‘broadcast flag’ that can prevent copying, a federal judge has said.

US Circuit Judge Harry Edwards told the FCC that it had “crossed the line” when it required DRM technology to be included in all DTV devices on sale in the USA from 1 July. This would include TVs, set top boxes, PC tuner cards, VCRs, DVD players, and similar devices.’

`Watch the trailer for ‘A Scanner Darkly,’ starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder.’

I like the book. Not quite so sure about Keanu tho. Winona I can live with. 🙂

`I love it when a plan for a plan coming together comes together.

It’s a B-grade show that’s been off the air for almost 20 years and lasted only five seasons, but people everywhere still hum its theme song before rolling into action. What does “The A-team” mean to people today? Stuffo set out to build our own A-team from scratch, and in the process find out if Faceman, B.A., Hannibal, and Murdock still live on in the hearts and minds of dreamers everywhere.

Phase 1: Recruiting. If you were looking for a band of misfit ex-military types with welding and stunt-driving experience, where would you look? The “real” A-team lived in LA. So we placed an ad on Craigslist’s LA site. There was no category for “crack commandoes” so we settled for “gigs>>crew.”‘

`The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge alternative energy project isn’t driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high thermal power station called the Solar Tower.

Announced several years ago, the 3,280-foot Solar Tower is one of the most ambitious alternative energy projects on the planet: a renewable energy plant that pumps out the same power as a small reactor but is totally safe. If built, it will be nearly double the height of the world’s tallest structure, the CN Tower in Canada.’

`Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s No. 2 airline, may seek redress for cancellations and delays from German authorities who temporarily brought the Frankfurt area to a standstill yesterday for a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, damaging business for local companies.

Lufthansa had to cancel 92 flights, affecting 5,730 passengers, as a consequence of air traffic restrictions, said spokesman Thomas Jachnow in a telephone interview. Delays to another 330 flights totaled around 300 hours. Jachnow said losses went “well into the millions,” though he declined to elaborate.’