moonbuggy

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`Italy will campaign at the United Nations for a global ban on the death penalty, Prime Minister Romano Prodi has said.

The leader of the current centre-left coalition has said no crime can justify one person killing another.

Politicians from both the left and right have been expressing disgust at the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Italy took one of the 10 non-permanent Security Council seats this week.’

`Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon, but a group of United Airlines employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O’Hare Airport in November.

The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn’t have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds, according to a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune. [..]

“Our theory on this is that it was a weather phenomenon,” Cory said. “That night was a perfect atmospheric condition in terms of low (cloud) ceiling and a lot of airport lights. When the lights shine up into the clouds, sometimes you can see funny things.”

The FAA is not investigating, Cory said.’

Followup to: ‘UFO’ spooks pilots over Chicago

Guess what happens when you look down the barrel of a gun then pull the trigger to see if it’s stuck?

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`A man who has a history of smashing windows to indulge his fetish for female mannequins could draw a long prison term for his latest arrest. Ronald A. Dotson, 39, of Detroit faces up to life in prison if convicted of a charge of attempted breaking and entering at a cleaning-supply company in the Detroit suburb of Ferndale.

The potential life sentence is because prosecutors charged him as a habitual offender. Authorities say he has at least six convictions for breaking and entering and a stint in state prison over the last 13 years. [..]

Dotson was arrested Oct. 9 after police say he smashed a window at a cleaning-supply company to get at a female mannequin dressed in a black and white French maid’s uniform. He had been out of prison for less than a week.’

`Attempts to wean Britons away from binge drinking toward a more continental European “cafe style” culture may never work because too many like getting drunk, a cabinet minister said Sunday.

“I don’t know whether we’ll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine,” Labor Party chair Hazel Blears said.

“Maybe its our Anglo-Saxon mentality. We actually enjoy getting drunk,” she told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.’

Big free books, full of information that might be useful.

Not to might right at the moment, really. But I’m bored and I like getting parcels in the mail. 🙂

`Happy New Year, ladies and gents! I’m sure you’re all still full of the optimism and good cheer that only the blank slate of a new year can bring. This week’s Comedy Goldmine, which features Forums Goon DARNTOOTINHOSS’s idea MSpaint images created by the stupid things we all did back when we were little, is sure to bolster that feel-good buzz we all hope will never wear off.’

`The FBI on Tuesday released documents showing at least 26 of the agency’s employees witnessed aggressive mistreatment and harsh interrogation techniques of prisoners by other government agencies or outside contractors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“On several occasions witnesses saw detainees in interrogation rooms chained hand and foot in fetal position to floor with no chair/food/water; most urinated or defecated on selves and were left there 18, 24 hours or more,” according to one FBI account made public.

One FBI witness saw a detainee “shaking with cold,” while another noted a detainee in a sweltering unventilated room was “almost unconscious on a floor with a pile of hair next to him (he had apparently been pulling it out through the night).”

Another witness saw a detainee “with a full beard whose head was wrapped in duct tape.”‘

`AIDS researchers said a new drug shows promise for inhibiting the HIV virus in patients new to treatment or those currently taking a drug cocktail.

Clinical studies of the drug, called an integrase inhibitor, showed that, when combined with two existing drugs, it reduced the virus to undetectable levels in nearly 100 percent of HIV patients prescribed a drug regimen for the first time, The Los Angeles Times said Tuesday. It had a similar effect in 72 percent of salvage therapy patients, who take a mixture of existing medications aimed at stalling the virus until new drugs appear.

The drug essentially prevents the virus’ DNA from integrating with a host’s cells, inhibiting its ability to replicate itself.’

`An overweight woman who got stuck in a South African cave trapped 22 fellow tourists for more than 10 hours and had to be prised free with liquid paraffin.

The woman became trapped in the Tunnel of Love obstacle in the Cango Caves in Western Cape on New Year’s Day.

The caves’ manager said the woman had been warned she might not be suitable but she insisted on trying. [..]

No drilling equipment was needed and the woman was eventually freed with a pulley and paraffin used to grease the surface at about 2320.’

`Fifty new pink coloured taxis serving women only were introduced Monday in Dubai by the Public Transport Organisation under the name “Women’s Taxi”. The taxis are being operated by 100 women drivers of different nationalities.

“The women drivers have been trained on driving skills at specialised institutes as well as dealing with the customers according the customs and traditions of the community,” said Mohamed Obeid, chairman of the Public Transport Organization.

“They have been also trained on dealing with women and children, handling emergencies as well as reaching governmental organizations, entertainment and tourist sites.”‘

`1. UKRAINIAN PARTISANS

From 1945 to 1952, the CIA trained and aerially supplied Ukrainian partisan units which had originally been organised by the Germans to fight the Soviets during WWII. For seven years, the partisans, operating in the Carpathian Mountains, made sporadic attacks. Finally, in 1952, a massive Soviet military force wiped them out.

2. CHINESE BRIGADE IN BURMA

After the Communist victory in China, Nationalist Chinese soldiers fled into northern Burma. During the early 1950s, the CIA used these soldiers to create a 12,000-man brigade which made raids into Red China. However, the Nationalist soldiers found it more profitable to monopolise the local opium trade.’

‘In the 1960s, Dr. Peter Witt gave spiders various kinds of drugs and alcohol to observe the effects on their webs. The results were pretty interesting.’

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Porn stars with and without clothes. Vaguely interesting.

`Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson predicted Tuesday a horrific terrorist act on the United States that will result in “mass killing” late in 2007.

“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”

Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

“I put these things out with humility,” he said.’

God told me that Pat Robertson is a fuckwit. I say this, of course, with the utmost humility.

Update: video of this here – Pat Robertson’s Predictions for 2007

Another video of people using dry ice to vapourize alcohol. This time they use a breathalyzer to show that ethanol is infact being vapourized. The hookah is a nice touch. 🙂

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`A new report by scientists studying Louisiana’s sinking coast says the land here is not just sinking, it’s sliding ever so slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

The new findings may add a kink to plans being drawn up to build bigger and better levees to protect this historic city and Cajun bayou culture. [..]

Researchers have known for years that the swampy land under south Louisiana is sinking (potholed streets and wobbly porches and floors are visible evidence of that) but a lateral movement of the land into the Gulf enters largely unstudied terrain.’

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`The Defence Department is investigating why a rocket launcher was found by a man at a rubbish tip in central Queensland.

James Maloney said he bought the rocket launcher for $2 at the recycling centre for the tip at Yeppoon, near Rockhampton.

“I work in the local theatre restaurant and wanted to use it as a stage prop,” Mr Maloney said.

“But I read in the local paper about the army misplacing rocket launchers and they were worried about them getting in the hands of terrorists, so I thought it might be a good idea I gave it back to the authorities.’

`This site is a nonprofit resource for those women who have already decided that they would like to earn a living as a stripper. I’m not going to get into the pluses and minuses of the profession. There are a great deal of misconceptions out there about strippers and that is something you will have to deal with if you enter the profession. I will say this- I truly enjoy what I do and I have never felt exploited because I’m a stripper. In fact I have always felt it was far more personally empowering than any other profession. But it’s not for everyone. It requires a certain temperament. Don’t go and become a stripper because you feel you “have” to. If you hate what you do it WILL show and you will make very little money.’

They look like they make a comfortable chair.

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‘A tele-evangelist with a large following across the United States is being sued by relatives over her claim that prayer cured her brother’s throat cancer.

Darlene Bishop’s claims appear in her book, Your Life Follows Your Words, which fails to mention that her brother, the songwriter Darrell “Wayne” Perry, died of the disease 18 months ago.

Mr Perry’s four children have filed a lawsuit against their aunt for wrongful death, claiming that she persuaded him to stop chemotherapy and to depend instead upon God’s healing.

Mrs Bishop, who is co-pastor at a 4,000-congregation Ohio church, also claims that prayer cured her of breast cancer.’

`A military nurse who cared for Saddam Hussein in jail said the deposed dictator saved bread crusts to feed birds and seldom complained to his captors, except when he had legitimate gripes.

Master Sgt. Robert Ellis cared for the former Iraqi dictator from January 2004 until August 2005 at Camp Cropper, the compound near Baghdad where Saddam and other “high value detainees” were held. [..]

Saddam told Ellis that cigars and coffee kept his blood pressure down, and it seemed to work. Saddam would insist that Ellis smoke with him.

Ellis said Saddam did not complain much, and, when he did, his complaint was usually legitimate. “He had very good coping skills,” Ellis said.’

Crazy monkeys.

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`Pledging revenge, hundreds of mourners flocked to Saddam Hussein’s tomb in northern Iraq yesterday, as America mourned the 3000th American soldier to die in the conflict.

Saddam’s hanging on Saturday, shown in a video that swept the internet, has polarised an Iraqi society already on the brink of civil war.

His fellow Sunni Arabs flocked to Awja, near Tikrit, to see his grave and vent their fury at Shiite officials who taunted him on the gallows.

In an outpouring of grief and anger mourners knelt and prayed by his tomb, over which the Iraqi flag had been draped.’

`Chloe, a 14-foot female Burmese python and the only serpent at the Tarpon Springs Aquarium, was considered the favorite among the animals.

But on Saturday, Chloe likely mistook the hand of 18-year-old Alison Cobianchi, an aquarium employee and St. Petersburg College freshman, for a rabbit and attacked, sinking her teeth into Cobianchi’s knuckles and wrapping around her arm and waist.

It took a police Taser to get Chloe to turn her victim loose and return to her cage.’

‘Guy came home to find his house broken into and naked guy sleeping on his couch.’

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`Schoolboy Jack Double was hit with a £50 litter fine – for feeding a seagull half a chip.

Two zealous officials handed Jack, 14, an on-the-spot ticket after seeing him toss the halfeaten morsel at the hungry bird.

They even followed him to his school to enforce the penalty.

Yet three weeks earlier litter chiefs from the same council proudly awarded him a certificate praising him for binning rubbish.’

`Scientists said yesterday that they have used genetic engineering techniques to produce the first cattle that may be biologically incapable of getting mad cow disease.

The animals, which lack a gene that is crucial to the disease’s progression, were not designed for use as food. They were created so that human pharmaceuticals can be made in their blood without the danger that those products might get contaminated with the infectious agent that causes mad cow.

[..] In one experiment, tissues from one of the animals’ brains were grown in a culture dish and exposed to two different strains of infectious, mad cow prions. As expected, the bad prions did not propagate, according to a report in yesterday’s online issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology.’