`A group of Indians in southern Colombia have created a new soft drink made from coca leaf extract and plan to market their product as an alternative to Coca-Cola.
Coca Sek, a golden, carbonated drink, will go on sale this week in parts of Colombia. But its makers expect they won’t be able to export to the United States due to rules blocking the entry of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine.
The soda looks like apple cider, has a tea-like fragrance and a flavor somewhere between Seven-Up and ginger ale.’
There’s something a bit wrong about holding your 11 week presumably miscarried fetus in your hand in the first place. Taking photos and putting them on the net just compounds the error. Kinda icky.
`Virgin Galactic, the British company created by entrepreneur Richard Branson to send tourists into space, and New Mexico announced an agreement Tuesday for the state to build a $225 million spaceport.
Virgin Galactic also revealed that up to 38,000 people from 126 countries have paid a deposit for a seat on one of its manned commercial flights, including a core group of 100 “founders” who have paid the initial $200,000 cost of a flight upfront. Virgin Galactic is planning to begin flights in late 2008 or early 2009. [..]
The spaceport, to be located some 25 miles south of the town of Truth or Consequences, will be constructed 90 percent underground, with just the runway and supporting structures above ground.’
`A 500-pound man in Seminole County, Fla., was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of scamming fast-food restaurants out of large amounts of milk shakes and tacos, according to a Local 6 News report.
Investigators said George Jolicoeur, 33, would visit fast-food businesses and order food.
Jolicoeur would then call or visit the restaurants posing as a police officer or a firefighter and ask for a refund because there was a hair in his food, according to the report. [..]
“Jolicoeur’s rap sheet is as thick as a book,” Local 6 reporter Chris Trenkmann said. “When he was first checked into the jail in 1991, he weighed 360 pounds. This morning, the jail weighed him at 500 pounds.”‘
`A large object has been found beyond Pluto travelling in an orbit tilted by 47 degrees to most other bodies in the solar system. Astronomers are at a loss to explain why the object’s orbit is so off-kilter while being almost circular.
[..] at 47 degrees, 2004 XR190’s orbit is one of the most tilted, or inclined, Kuiper Belt Objects known. That suggests it was flung out of the solar system’s main disc after a close encounter with another object – such as Neptune or perhaps a star that passed by the Sun billions of years ago. [..]
These traits make the object, nicknamed “Buffy” after the US television series about a vampire slayer, hard to explain. “Maybe Buffy is going to be a bit of a theory slayer,” Allen told New Scientist.’
`US President George W Bush has said that he does not live “in a bubble” and that he is well aware of what is going on outside the White House, rejecting critics’ claims that he is out of touch with public opinion.
“I don’t feel in a bubble,” Bush said in an interview on NBC Nightly News.
Bush said he gets “really good advice” from “very capable people” and that people from all walks of life provide information to him and his advisers.’
`In a recent episode of the NBC series Medium, writers had to work the movie Memoirs of a Geisha into the dialogue three times because of a deal the network made with Sony earlier in the season. They even had the characters go on a date to an early screening of the movie and bump into friends who had just viewed Geisha to tell them how good it was.
Another product placement intruded a touching scene on ABC’s soap opera, All My Children, when writers were forced to incorporate a line about a new Wal-Mart perfume into the dialogue as a character, Greenlee, sat at the bedside of her husband who was suffering from a fatal gunshot wound.’
Maybe it’s just me, but if the marketting is targeting people suffering from fatal gunshot wounds, unless they offer free delivery to hospitals, people are probably gonna be dead before they get a chance to buy it. Unless it’s a daring new line of fragrance for corpses. Odeur de la mort could be the next big thing.
`I have not worn these leather pants for the following reasons:
I am not a member of Queen.
I do not like motorcycles.
I am not Rod Stewart.
I am not French.
I do not cruise for transvestites in an expensive sports car.
These were not cheap leather pants. They are Donna Karan leather pants. They’re for men. Brave men, I would think. Perhaps tattooed, pierced men. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say you either have to be very tough, very gay, or very famous to wear these pants and get away with it. [..]
They are size 34×34. I am no longer size 34×34, so even were I to suddenly decide I was a famous gay biker I would not be able to wear these pants. These pants are destined for someone else. For reasons unknown – perhaps to keep my options open, in case I wanted to become a pirate – I have shuffled these unworn pants from house to house, closet to closet. Alas, it is now time to part ways so that I may use the extra room for any rhinestone-studded jeans I may purchase in the future.’
`An Australian held as a terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay has won a legal battle in the UK High Court to be registered as a British citizen. [..]
A judge in London ruled that Home Secretary Charles Clarke has “no power in law” to deprive Mr Hicks of his citizenship “and so he must be registered”.
Mr Hicks’ lawyers will now press ministers to make arrangements for him to take the required citizenship oath and pledge.
They will then urge the Home Office to seek his release from the detention camp in Cuba in the same way it has won freedom for all nine other British citizens held there.’
`Britain’s youngest grandmother has spoken of her shock over learning that her 12-year-old daughter had given birth.
The 26-year-old woman said she had been devastated by the news but intended to support her daughter and baby grandson. [..]
The baby’s grandmother, who gave birth herself at 14, told a news conference at Rotherham police station: “We had no idea she was pregnant. Nobody in the family did.
“She had put on a little bit of weight but we didn’t suspect anything.
“I couldn’t believe it when it started happening and I even threatened to smack an ambulance man when he said she had given birth.”‘
`The guy in the pictures was stabbed at a party I was at. He was arguing with someone about how is was the toughest guy alive, and how he could withstand anything that would kill regular people and a bunch of shit like that. Anyways the person he was arguing with grabbed a knife out of the kitchen and stabbed him in the side, then beat him. Afterwards, the victim just picked up a beer and a smoke and pretended like nothing even happened.
I later found out that he passed out in a car and almost bled to death. Fortunately he was found in time, and was taken to the hospital. The knife, which was seven or eight inches long, penetrated his lung, his stomach, and his large intestine.’
`Something odd is circling our planet. It’s small, perhaps only 60-ft long, and rotates once every minute or so. Amateur astronomer Bill Yeung first spotted the 16th magnitude speck of light on Sept. 3rd in the constellation Pisces. He named it J002E3.
Automated asteroid surveys scan the skies every few weeks, yet there was no sign of Yeung’s object earlier this year. “It must have entered Earth orbit recently,” says Paul Chodas of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program at JPL. “But it doesn’t match any recently-launched spacecraft.”
In other words, it’s a mystery.’
I don’t know whether it’s the ugly kids with big teeth, or the fact that they’re being prompted by people off camera, but it is definately horribly. Not to mention the the lyrics.
see it here »
`A cameraman was hurled in the air after a drag car driver lost control yesterday and crashed at 200km/h at Meremere Dragway in north Waikato.
The impact shunted the track barrier into a media stand, sending cameraman Robert Miller flying.
He was treated at the track for minor injuries but the stand was destroyed.
Last night Mr Miller was at home nursing his injuries, a few cuts and scratches, including a gash that cut through to the bone on his left leg.’
A gash down to the bone? S’ok, it’s just a scratch. With a photo of the man flying thru the air.
A strange and somewhat gay music video.
see it here »
`Cold remedies that can be used by drug dealers to make methamphetamine would be forced behind store counters under legislation Congress is poised to pass by year’s end.
Lawmakers hope that federal restrictions — included in the agreement reached Thursday to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act — will stem a meth trade that has hit rural America particularly hard. [..]
Stores would be required to keep medicines like Sudafed and Nyquil behind the counter and consumers would be limited to 3.6 grams, or about 120 pills, per day and 9 grams, or about 300 pills, a month. Purchasers would also need to show a photo ID and sign a logbook.
Those limits target meth dealers who buy large quantities of the drugs to extract the pseudoephedrine.’
9 grams of pseudoephedrine a day? That’s one serious blocked nose. Good thing they have the Patriot Act for targetting terrorists drug dealers.
`A man ended up “trussed up like a chicken” after taking on the mainly elderly members of the Christchurch Petanque Club who found him hiding in the ladies’ loo.
The pensioners yesterday became crime fighters as they turned up for their regular game. [..]
One of the women members tried to enter the ladies’ toilets, alerting other members the door was locked, before a very large tattooed man aged in his 30s or 40s tried to push past.
“He’d locked himself in the ladies’ loo and we didn’t know we’d disturbed him …” she said.
“He burst out of the loo, he couldn’t get out any other way.”
Price said the ensuing struggle was like an episode of the Keystone Kops.’
`Researchers have finished mapping the genome of the domestic dog.
The results show among other things that dogs, mice, and humans share a core set of DNA. [..]
Scientists had previously found that about 5 percent of the human genome sequence appears in the mouse genome. The new study shows that 5 percent of the human genome is also shared with dogs.
Significantly, the sequences that are conserved in all three species are virtually the same.’
`His female caretakers thought they were caring for a handicapped adult, but William Mucklow was really a financial analyst.
His nurses say he had a scheming mind and a penchant for Pampers. More than 20 women allege Mucklow behaved like a baby and asked them to change his diapers. [..]
Sheila Anderson/Private Investigator: “He kept trying to raise up my shirt and I had to change his dirty diaper. I really believed he was a child.”‘
`[..] the RIAA’s contact information is just buried. Now, they’ve been fighting vigorously to uncover file-swappers’ addresses and phone numbers, developing tracking codes that can be embedded within MP3 files. And yet, they have an unlisted phone number. Paging Dr. Irony. There is a phone call for Dr. Irony.
It took hours of searching before I finally found a phone number and was able to get through to someone. I spoke with a young, mild-mannered executive who patiently answered my questions, which I delivered in my best “dumb guy” voice.’
Kinda amusing. Would be better if there was audio, especially of this bit:
`JH: A penis?
RIAA: [Long pause] What?
JH: You asked if my service provider told me I have a penis?’
see it here »
`Paul last saw the Gulfstream V about 18 months ago. He comes down to Glasgow airport’s planespotters’ club most days. He had not seen the plane before so he marked the serial number down in his book. At the time, he did not think there was anything unusual about the Gulfstream being ushered to a stand away from public view, one that could not be seen from the airport terminal or the club’s prime view.
But that flight this week was at the centre of a transatlantic row that saw the prime minister being put on the spot on the floor of the House of Commons and the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, forced on the defensive during a visit to Europe. The Gulfstream V has been identified as having been used by the CIA for “extraordinary renditions” – abducting terror suspects and taking them to secret prisons around the world where they may be tortured.’
And some images of CIA planes.
`Shot glasses can get expensive especially if you want a lot of them for a big party, here we make shot glasses out of ice, it costs very little to make a bunch, and they’re pretty sweet.’
Pretty cool idea.
`The researchers, with Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, tried to train the bees to realize that a photo of one man had a drop of a sugary liquid next to it. Different photos came with a drop of bitter liquid instead.
A few bees apparently failed to realize that they should pay attention to the photos at all. But five bees learned to fly toward the photo horizontally in such a way that they could get a good look at it, Dyer reported. In fact, these bees tended to hover a few centimeters in front of the image for a while before deciding where to land.
The bees learned to distinguish the correct face from the wrong one with better than 80 percent accuracy, even when the faces were similar, and regardless of where the photos were placed, the researchers found. Also, just like humans, the bees performed worse when the faces were flipped upside-down.’
`On issues like war crimes, torture, toxic dumping and stifling freedom of speech, corporations like Coca Cola, Chevron and Philip Morris are way out ahead of the rest. [..]
Corporations carry out some of the most horrific human rights abuses of modern times, but it is increasingly difficult to hold them to account. Economic globalization and the rise of transnational corporate power have created a favorable climate for corporate human rights abusers, which are governed principally by the codes of supply and demand and show genuine loyalty only to their stockholders.’
`The tiny hobbit-like humans of Indonesia may have lived in Australia before they became extinct about 11,000 years ago.
The startling claim comes from archaeologist Mike Morwood, leader of the team that in 2003 uncovered remains of the 1m-tall hominid at Liang Bua cave on Indonesia’s Flores island.
They believe the pint-size person – known officially as Homo floresiensis and unofficially as the “Hobbit” – was wiped out by a volcanic eruption that spared their Homo sapiens neighbours. [..]
He suggested that the Hobbits may have been pushed out by the bigger people, in part because their population was too small to compete.’
`Class of 2008 president Greg Hogan was arrested Friday on charges of robbery, police said.
The robbery occurred at the Wachovia Bank at 943 Union Blvd. at 3:02 p.m. Hogan handed the teller a note that demanded money and said he had a weapon. Police haven’t confirmed if he had a weapon.
According to police, Hogan – the son of a Baptist minister – then left the bank with $2,871 and entered a black Ford Explorer owned and driven by Student Senate President Kip Wallen. Hogan was arrested Friday at 8:30 p.m. at Sigma Phi Epsilon — both are brothers there.’
Is it a surprise? When the president of your country starts behaving like a criminal, surely it’s not gonna be long before student presidents start committing crimes too. 🙂
Apparently, a male wearing a blue and white jersey with the number 21 on it just stole a Playstation. There’s a witness, but they don’t want to talk to the police.
`In a terrifying escalation of the conflict, up to 70 cars from Hurstville invaded Cronulla and Brighton-le-Sands to launch revenge attacks, following the vicious attacks by Cronulla locals on people of Middle Eastern appearance on Sunday. [..]
At 10.45pm, on the Kingsway at Caringbah, about 12 cars sped by, followed by another vehicle that stopped. Four men got out and began attacking patrons of Antonio’s Pizzeria. They knocked a woman unconscious on the footpath and smashed the window of a denture clinic. [..]
In Bay Street, Brighton-le-Sands, a young woman was sitting in a car when men approached and opened the door to her vehicle and put a hand up her dress, saying: “We are going to rape you, you Aussie sluts.”
A witness, Linda El-Hassan, 19, said a shot was fired at the woman’s car but she was unhurt. Miss El-Hassan said she was Lebanese and opposed the violence. “We all came to this country and we are all one in this country.”‘
What the fuck is wrong with people?
