moonbuggy

`North American scientists have discovered the longest bird penis ever – a 42.5cm organ belonging to a duck.

Dr Kevin McCracken of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and colleagues, report in this week’s Nature that they have found a specimen of the Argentine lake duck (Oxyura vittata) that has a penis as long as its body – nearly half a metre long.

This has extended an earlier estimate of the length of the duck’s corkscrew-shaped penis, which was 20cm.’

`At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little too quick on the draw when they shot and killed Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run off the airplane shortly before take-off. [..]

“I never heard the word ‘bomb’ on the plane,” McAlhany told TIME in a telephone interview. “I never heard the word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word bomb. That is ridiculous.” Even the authorities didn’t come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. “They asked, ‘Did you hear anything about the b-word?’” he says. “That’s what they called it.” [..]

“I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my head and said put your hands on the seat in front of you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my hand. Then I realized it was an official.”

In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began crying in fear, he recalls. “They were pointing the guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the ground,” he says “One little girl was crying. There was a lady crying all the way to the hotel.”’

That’s the best way to fight terror. Putting shotguns to innocent peoples heads and making children cry. Take that, Osama!

Play with his hair, eyes and mouth. Vaguely amusing.

This is kinda cool in a way. Store your data and make children cry simultaneously. What could be better? 🙂

(580kB Windows Media)

Cool little image showing the countries of the world resized according to population.

India is big. 🙂

`Although John Gilmore lives just five blocks from San Francisco’s Department of Motor Vehicles, his driver’s license is expired. On purpose.

The outspoken, techno-hippie, wealthy civil libertarian doesn’t want to give his Social Security number to the DMV.

Neither will he show his driver’s license at airports, or submit to routine security searches. This refusal to obey the rules led him to file suit against the Bush administration (Gilmore v. Gonzales) after being rebuffed at two different airports on July 4, 2002, when he tried to fly without showing identification. One airline offered to let Gilmore fly without showing ID, but only if he underwent more intensive security screening, which he declined. [..]

“I’m a millionaire,” Gilmore said. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, right? Why should I run around without an ID? Because no one else was paying attention to that and letting our liberties slip down the drain. I figured it was worth some amount of money and some amount of personal sacrifice to keep a free society.”‘

`An experienced rock climber died early Tuesday after he climbed to the tip of a 10-story crane on the University of Colorado campus and then used rock climbing gear to create what amounted to a giant swing.

Ryan Young, 22, may have been blown off course by a gust of wind, sending him crashing into a building across the street, CU police Lt. Tim McGraw said.

“As we all know, the winds were blowing last night, and as we also know, crane arms aren’t tied down,” McGraw said. “They’re somewhat akin to a large weather vane. A little movement on the end of the crane could have a huge impact.”‘

`A Miami Beach man is being called a “Scrooge” by his neighbors. The reason is his unusual holiday display that is upsetting both parents and children.

[..] The scene, a life sized Santa Clause blind folded, with his wrists bound, a noose tied around his neck and hung from a tree on west 50th street. [..]

The homeowner, who does not live in the home only said that it is his right to display the Santa however he chooses.’

`Seven weeks after his car was stolen, Terry Dresdow got a call from police saying it had been found.

Oh-oh, this usually isn’t good. What tree is it wrapped around? How many pieces is it in? Where did you say that chop shop was again?

Not this time. Terry’s ride had been pimped, as they say on TV. [..]

The new “owner” had coated the blue 1989 Chevrolet Caprice Classic in white paint, installed one of those killer stereos that fill the trunk with woofers and power boosters, and added shiny, spoked wheels and wide, low-profile tires.

“I also have keyless entry that I didn’t have before, for the door and also the trunk,” Terry said.

There’s no indication that the new accessories were stolen, so they are his to keep.’

`OpenVPN is a full-featured SSL VPN solution which can accomodate a wide range of configurations, including remote access, site-to-site VPNs, WiFi security, and enterprise-scale remote access solutions with load balancing, failover, and fine-grained access-controls.

OpenVPN implements OSI layer 2 or 3 secure network extension using the industry standard SSL/TLS protocol, supports flexible client authentication methods based on certificates, smart cards, and/or 2-factor authentication, and allows user or group-specific access control policies using firewall rules applied to the VPN virtual interface. OpenVPN is not a web application proxy and does not operate through a web browser.’

`The names and licenseplate numbers of about 30 people who protested three years ago in Colorado Springs were put into FBI domestic-terrorism files, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Colorado said Thursday.

The Denver-based ACLU obtained federal documents on a 2002 Colorado Springs protest and a 2003 anti-war rally under the Freedom of Information Act.

ACLU legal director Mark Silverstein said the documents show the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force wastes resources generating files on “nonviolent protest.”

“These documents confirm that the names and license plate numbers of several dozen peaceful protesters who committed no crime are now in a JTTF file marked ‘counterterrorism,’” he said.’

`The story starts over a year ago with a Marine blogger in Iraq. On June 2nd 2004 “The Green Side” – we’ll get back to the signficance of this source later – describes suicidal attacks by insurgents in Fallujah: “We could not understand why they kept coming but they did.” The reason, it turned out, was drugs: “…these ‘holy warriors’ are taking drugs to get high before attacks. It true, as we pushed into the town in April many Marines came across drug paraphernalia (mostly heroin). Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug BZ that makes them high and very aggressive.”’

`Night after night in April, May and June of 1974, Pastor Richard Greene had a vision in which he saw a large ark located on a hillside and people coming from all over the world to see it.

Through this repeated vision, God told Pastor Greene to build his congregation’s new church as a replica of Noah’s Ark. The church was to be built as a sign to the world of God’s love and the soon return of Jesus!’

`Taking advantage of a pretty good education in the sciences I built a device to make that practice much more enjoyable and offered encouragement while I worked to perfect my oral abilities. I built the BJmatic. It basically works like this. I slide the dildo all the way down my throat until my nose presses a switch on the wooden board. This turns a vibrator on for 8 seconds. After 8 seconds it turns off. There has to be a delay because I need time to pull out a little and breath. Since the vibrator is being held against my clit, that offers a powerful incentive to keep in a steady rhythm and to keep depressing the switch with by nose. Once I can keep the vibrator from turning off during the 5 to 10 minutes it takes for me to come I then move the dildo out so it has to slide father down my throat in order for my nose to hit the switch. I’ve been practicing a lot so I think when the time comes the lucky guy is going to be pretty happy:-)’

`In the 1980s the CIA produced a small illustrated booklet in both spanish and english designed to destabilise the nicaraguan government and economic system.’

`I haven’t been this excited about any product in quite some time. Combining your RSS addiction with your daily trip to the can has never been easier, with the RSStroom Reader, from Yi Tien Electronics. It’s this crazy machine that hooks up to your computer wirelessly, and prints random RSS posts right to your toilet paper, for you to read before you, eh, use it.’

`Police officers stepping into hostage standoffs and other dicey situations now have something new to throw into the mix — a baseball-sized camera that can be hurled from afar, survive the landing and wirelessly relay video and audio back to base for two hours.

The EyeBall camera weighs less than a pound and is protected by a rugged rubber and polyurethane housing. That allows it to be thrown through windows or bounced off walls. When it comes to a rest, the ball stabilizes itself, then begins transmitting footage and sound up to 200 yards away.’

`A Kansas professor whose planned course on creationism and intelligent design was canceled after he sent e-mails deriding Christian conservatives was taken to the hospital Monday following what he said was a beating.

University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World that two men who beat him were making references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this coming spring. Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” the course was canceled last week at Mirecki’s request. [..]

“I didn’t know them,” Mirecki said of his alleged assailants, “but I’m sure they knew me.”‘

Surprisingly tough little car..

`Many sleepers experience that after they turn off the alarm clock they go on sleeping. One thing that sometimes wakes you up at night and prevents you from sleeping is the mosquito or blowfly when flying around your room. The Blowfly alarm clock works like a Blowfly. At the desired time it flies off from it’s cage and starts flying and making sound around you. The only way to stop it is to wake up catch it and put it back in the cage.’

I might actually make it to work before 11am one day if someone buys me one of these. 🙂

`A police officer has been charged with using a Taser on his partner during an argument over whether they should stop for a soft drink. [..]

Dupuis and partner Prema Graham began arguing after Dupuis demanded she stop their car at a store so he could buy a soft drink, according to a police report.

The two then struggled over the steering wheel, and Dupuis hit her leg with his department-issued Taser, the report said. She was not seriously hurt.’

`The very layout of his new house is testament to Travolta’s love of flying. It’s located immediately off the main airstrip, and is designed so his jets can taxi right up to two outbuildings connected to the main structure, which is shaped like a squat air-control tower. Travolta literally can walk out his door, under a canopied walkway and into the cockpit, open the long mechanised gate and be airborne in a matter of minutes.’

There’s a picture of Travolta’s crazy looking house with the aeroplanes parked right next to it.

`Welcome to the world of Deflexion, the game that combines lasers with classic strategy for an experience enjoyed by players of all ages. Players alternate turns moving Egyptian themed mirrored pieces around the playing field after which they fire their low powered laser diode with the goal of illuminating their opponent’s pieces to eliminate them from the game.’

`Pennsylvania police said a man who died after being struck by a vehicle may have been left on a roadside for days because his body was apparently mistaken for a dead deer.

Police said the man was found on Monday by a motorist, who at first thought the man was a deer because of tan clothing and snow that covered part of his body.

The motorist realized the man wasn’t a deer after noticing his shoes.’

`The Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia is going to make an appeal for royal clemency for a jailed expatriate worker following a court order that his one eye be gouged out for partially blinding a Saudi national in a fight.

Abdul Lateef Naushad, 34, from Kerala got into a fight with a Saudi man and injured him in 2003. The Saudi man reportedly lost sight in one eye several weeks later.’

`In a column I wrote in the 1990s, I proposed the creation of an .xxx top-level domain to make it easier to prevent what I then described as a porn storm. These were onerous self-spawning pornography page attacks that took place on the desktops of unsuspecting users. This phenomenon evolved into the “pop-ups” that we still see today and is essentially driven by a flaw in the design of browsers. Since most of these storms were created by porn sites, it seemed as if the easiest way to control them would be to create an .xxx domain for porn and filter the storms out unless you actually wanted to see them.

I harped on this topic on and off for a decade, and it was finally going to happen when, in a surprise move last week, Vint Cerf removed the initiative from the agenda of an ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) board meeting. It appears that a mere 6,000 canned letters sent to the Commerce Dept. did the trick. These apparently stemmed from a cell of evangelical organizations. That’s all it took.’

`Steven Zorn had put the pen gun to his head and clicked before, thinking it was jammed and would not work.

But on the third try, the tiny, silver pistol went off as the 22-year-old budding rap singer was drinking to celebrate an impending record deal. He died later at the hospital. [..]

“He walked up to his computer and pulled the pen gun out of his pocket and started playing with it,” Hanes recalled. “I looked at him and said, ‘Steve, you shouldn’t be playing with that, that’s a loaded gun.'”‘

`Brainiacs and scholars everywhere may gnash their teeth, but according to a recent study of bats, nature forces the males of a species to make a painful trade-off between mental capacity and sperm production.

Because of the high-energy demands of both brains and sperm, scientists believe males cannot generate large amounts of both.

Bats were ideal subjects for the study. Some female bat species are unusually promiscuous, so natural selection led to males evolving enormous testicles in order to compete with more virile suitors – however at the expense of their brain capacity.’