‘A factory that makes uranium fuel for nuclear reactors had a spill so bad that it kept the plant closed for seven months last year and became one of only three incidents in all of 2006 serious enough for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include in an annual report to Congress. After an investigation, the commission changed the terms of the factory’s license and said that the public had 20 days to request a hearing on the changes.
But no member of the public ever did. In fact, no member of the public could find out about the changes. The document describing them, including the notice of hearing rights for anyone who felt adversely affected, was stamped “official use only,” meaning that it was not publicly accessible. [..]
[..] The letter from the congressmen says the agency’s report suggests “that it was merely a matter of luck that a criticality accident did not occur.”’
‘Yesterday, just after BMEfest and just before ModProm, we did the rather stress-inducing experiment of doing the first three “eyeball tattooing” experiments on sighted eyes. The procedures were done by Howie (LunaCobra.net), with photos by Lane Jensen (of Tattoo and Piercing Magazine). The first procedure was done on Pauly Unstoppable using a traditional hand-poked technique. The eye distorted significantly but it was difficult to get ink to hold. Probably about forty strikes in all were done but so far it seems like limited ink held.’
‘Federal inspectors were able to slip a fake bomb through a checkpoint at Albany International Airport during a test of the facility’s Transportation Security Administration screeners, according to individuals familiar with the incident.
The unannounced inspection by TSA officials took place early last week. The airport’s security measures failed in five of seven tests, most of the problems occurring at the passenger checkpoint, the sources said.
In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also contained a bottle of water. Passengers are prohibited from carrying containers holding more than three ounces of liquids, gels or aerosols through airport checkpoints.’
This video shows a few different easter eggs hidden in Google.
(4.4meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘An Australian Catholic school is at the centre of an unholy row over claims it refused entry to a five-year-old boy with the surname Hell.
Alex Hell said St Peter the Apostle School, Melbourne, had welcomed his son Max when enrolled under his mother’s maiden name, Wembridge.
But they baulked when the family had a change of heart over the surname.
School officials now say Max has a place, but Mr Hell claims they changed their minds because of media attention.
He said he would not now be taking up the school’s offer.’
‘People living in communities surrounding a large shallow lake have been overrun by field mice after floodwaters drove the rodents out of islands on the lake, state media reported Monday.
The mouse invasion began on June 23 when the Yangtze River flooded, raising the water level in central China’s Dongting Lake and submerging mouse holes on lake islands, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Now, an estimated 2 billion mice are ravaging crops in 22 counties around the lake, and authorities were rushing to construct walls and ditches to keep the rodents out. Residents have killed more than 2.3 million field mice — or 90 tons of the rodents, Xinhua said.’
‘I have always loved to cook. I remember being in the kitchen with my grandmother when I was young and begging to do anything I could to help make dinner. I purchased an Italian restaurant in Three Rivers, Michigan in 1999 in hopes of getting the opportunity to bring in some my own recipes. However, the restaurant was so popular before I purchased it, that I was afraid of making any great changes to the menu. We basically continued using the previous owners recipes. So I will express my cooking creativity here on the internet, where there is no danger of going out of business.
I have also always loved beer. [..]’
‘Investigators say James Coldwell, 49, robbed the Citizens Bank at 1550 Elm St. while clad in clothing adorned with tree branches held on by duct tape.
Coldwell was charged with one count of robbery after answering questions at the police station, Capt. Dick Tracy said.
Video surveillance of the Saturday morning robbery showed a thin white man leaving the bank in a shroud of tree branches, all duct-taped to his shirt and head. His short, dark hair and mustache were clearly visible between the leaves.
Bank
Tracy said police were tipped off by several anonymous callers after the footage appeared on a nightly news broadcasts.’
(1.1meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘The delivery man told officers he was taking pizza and sodas to an apartment in the area about 8:30 p.m. when two men approached him and demanded the food and beverages. As one of the men grabbed them, the delivery man felt a shock and pain in his back that officers later determined was from a Taser, according to a police statement recounting the episode.
The delivery man was not seriously injured, according to the statement.’
‘A Sydney woman charged with murdering her father and sister and seriously injuring her mother was apparently denied psychiatric treatment because of her parents’ alleged Scientology beliefs, a court has been told.
The 25-year-old woman, who cannot be named, appeared briefly in Bankstown Local Court today charged over the stabbing attacks at her family home in Revesby in Sydney’s south-west last Thursday.
She made no application for bail because she was unfit to be interviewed, her legal aid lawyer Wade Bloomfield told the court.
In a report tendered to the court, Dr Mark Cross, consultant psychiatrist and clinical director of Liverpool and Fairfield Mental Health Services said the woman was diagnosed with a psychotic illness at Bankstown Hospital in late 2006.
But her parents had refused her appropriate follow-up treatment.’
‘A San Francisco company said Friday it plans to build the world’s largest solar power farm near Fresno, California.
The 80-megawatt farm is to occupy as much as 640 acres (260 hectares) and upon completion in 2011 will be 17 times the size of the largest U.S. solar farm, said Cleantech America LLC, a privately held 2-year-old company.
The farm will also be about seven times the size of the world’s biggest plant and double the largest planned farm, both in Germany.
Bill Barnes, CEO of Cleantech, said the scale of the Kings River Conservation District Community Choice Solar Farm will change renewable energy and make California the global leader for huge solar projects and replace Germany as the solar energy hub of the world.’
‘The first publicly available pictures have emerged of China’s new Jin-class nuclear-powered submarine, which is capable of firing intercontinental ballistic missiles against the US.
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst for the Federation of American Scientists, spotted the new submarine while reviewing photos of north-eastern China that had been snapped by a commercial satellite for Google Earth.
The photos taken late last year show the submarine alongside a pier at the Xiaopingdao Submarine Base south of the city of Dalian.’
‘A bidet company’s advertising plans in Times Square are too cheeky for the pastor of a nearby church.
Rev. Neil Rhodes, pastor of the interdenominational Times Square Church, is asking a state court to block a billboard company from posting huge ads that feature naked buttocks with smiley faces on them. The display is to go up on two sides of the Broadway building that houses Rhodes’ church, its Bible school and day-care center.
“You walk into a church building, you have naked bodies before your eyes, how are you going to close your eyes and seek God?” Rhodes told the New York Post in an article published Sunday.’
Tommy Chong and Steven Colbert talk a bit about Paris Hilton.
(10.7meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘They might seem like modern-day Robin Hoods, but they’re really just cyber-robbers.
Some fraudsters have become generous — with other people’s money, donating to charities with stolen credit cards to verify the numbers are valid before selling them, the security firm Symantec Corp. said Friday on its blog.
Unverified cards fetch up to $6 while verified cards can bring up to $18, said Javier Santoyo, a manager at Symantec. “Even the bad guys want to verify the other bad guys.”
The verification method has become popular because the monitoring software at credit-card companies may not question donations to charities, according the Symantec blog. Santoyo said the schemers usually donate less than $10.’
‘Continued leaps in agricultural technology ensured more production per acre. The result was likewise predictable: the same old food surpluses and low prices. My late parents, who owned the farm I now live on in central California, used to sigh that the planet was reaching 6 billion mouths and so things someday “would have to turn around for farmers.”
Now they apparently have. Food prices are climbing at rates approaching 10 percent per year. But why the sudden change?
There have been a number of relatively recent radical changes in the United States and the world that, taken together, provide the answer [..]’
‘Optus will release new broadband/phone bundles this week, but will make a dramatic shift in the way it counts broadband usage.
According to Optus sources, the new “Optus Fusion Plans” will now count uploaded data as well as downloaded data, which can significantly reduce value for money. Optus’ existing broadband plans (with free uploads) will still be available for those that want them. [..]
Most ISPs do not count upload data, as it typically doesn’t cost them anything. This is because ISPs purchase bandwidth pipes that are capable of the same speed in both directions. Traditionally, download usage always exceeds upload usage, making upload usage irrelevant to the buying equation.’
‘Although crime did fall dramatically in New York during Giuliani’s tenure, a broad range of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that the mayor deserves only a fraction of the credit that he claims. The most compelling information has come from an economist in Fairfax who has argued in a series of little-noticed papers that the “New York miracle” was caused by local and federal efforts decades earlier to reduce lead poisoning.
The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States. It offers a unifying new neurochemical theory for fluctuations in the crime rate, and it is based on studies linking children’s exposure to lead with violent behavior later in their lives.
What makes Nevin’s work persuasive is that he has shown an identical, decades-long association between lead poisoning and crime rates in nine countries.
“It is stunning how strong the association is,” Nevin said in an interview. “Sixty-five to ninety percent or more of the substantial variation in violent crime in all these countries was explained by lead.”‘
‘A missing staple in the court file of two of the state’s most notorious killers has given them a fresh appeal – and the possibility of being set free.
In an astonishing blunder, sloppy record keeping in the Court of Criminal Appeal registry has led to two murderers of Sydney clerk Janine Balding being given special leave to take their case to the High Court.
Amazingly, the appeal has been granted because a staple was found to be missing in their court file.
Janine’s mother, Bev Balding, yesterday expressed dismay and outrage at the legal loophole, which effectively quashes the pair’s unsuccessful 1992 appeal.’
‘A Chewbacca impersonator sexually assaulted a Marilyn Monroe impersonator in front of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in June. The wookie then evaded arrest, police said.
According to an officer with the LAPD, Chewbacca allegedly took the platinum-coiffed actress’s hand and placed it on his private parts as the characters performed for tips from tourists. [..]
Earlier in the year, police arrested an actor in a Chewbacca costume after a tour guide told him to stop harassing a pair of Japanese tourists. Police are unsure if the same wookie is involved in today’s assault.’
Followup to Superman witnesses Wookie attack
‘A man was charged with elderly abuse after his mother was found covered in red ants and lying in her feces in a trailer with no electricity, authorities said Friday.
Lillian V. Smith, 83, died at a hospital Thursday, two days after she was discovered in the abandoned trailer with no running water or bathroom, authorities said. Newspapers had been stuffed in her anus to stop feces from spilling onto the bed, according to a police report obtained by The Miami Herald.
Doctors said she also had a fractured right leg that had not been treated, the arrest report said.’
‘Lara Madden is a 25-year-old porn movie actress who uses the stage name Syvette Wimberly when starring in films like “Anal Camera 19.” While Madden’s professional alias is catchy and distinctive, the name is identical to that of a former Texas high school pal of the X-rated performer. As a result, Kristen Syvette Wimberly, 25, has filed a lawsuit against Madden and the porn distributor Vivid Entertainment for the misappropriation of her name. In a June 26 complaint filed in Harris County District Court, Wimberly notes that she and Madden became friends after meeting at the beginning of ninth grade in Kingwood, Texas. That friendship, however, “ended due to conflict,” according to the lawsuit, a copy of which you’ll find below. The complaint adds that Madden (who is pictured at right) married while in high school and did not graduate with Wimberly, who lost contact with her former friend. Until recently, that is, when Wimberly discovered that, “there was a woman appearing in multiple explicit pornographic videos” using her name. Wimberly soon learned, the lawsuit reports, that the porn actress who boosted her name “was her former high school friend Lara Madden.” The porn star, Wimberly alleges, deliberately chose to use her name, despite realizing that it would cause “extreme embarrassment and unsubstantiated association with the pornography industry and other consequences.” [..]’
‘Two teenagers were accused of gang raping a woman and forcing her 12-year-old son to join in the attack, then beating him and pouring cleaning solution into his eyes.
Authorities allege Avion Lawson, 14, and Nathan Walker, 16, were among a group of about 10 masked suspects who forced their way into the woman’s apartment in a crime-ridden housing project the night of June 18. [..]
“Any rape case is horrible but this takes it to another level, something you can’t think of even in your worst dreams,” police spokesman Ted White said.
According to the police report, a man knocked on the woman’s door at about 9 p.m. and told her he had a flat tire. The mother and son, whom police have not identified, went outside and were ambushed by a group of gun-wielding suspects.’
‘The infection incident occurred on 9 February 2006. Several A&M researchers, including Principal Investigator Thomas Ficht, were in a BSL-3 lab training in the use of the Madison Aerosol Chamber. Supervising was David McMurray, an A&M professor and self-described inventor of the chamber, who has characterized it as “foolproof”.
Following a “hot” run that blew aerosolized brucella into the chamber to expose mice, researchers began clean up procedures. Using what Texas A&M now admits were inappropriate protocols, a researcher “cleaned the unit by climbing partially into the chamber to disinfect it.” A&M officials later concluded that the brucella bacteria likely entered her body via her eyes as a result of this improper procedure. (This is the third instance of lab-acquired infections related to the Madison chamber that the Sunshine Project has uncovered. The others were in Seattle and New York City.)
By April 2006, the researcher had “been home sick for several weeks.” Nobody apparently suspected brucellosis, despite the occupational exposure and, presumably, familiarity with its symptoms. [..]’
I suppose if your employees drive huge bulldozer type machines around all day, you don’t wanna piss them off. 🙂
(7.7meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘A man said he failed the Massachusetts bar exam because he refused to answer a question about gay marriage, and claims in a federal lawsuit the test violated his rights and targeted his religious beliefs.
The suit also challenges the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, which was legalized in Massachusetts in 2003.
Stephen Dunne, who is representing himself in the case and seeks $9.75 million, said the bar exam was not the place for a “morally repugnant and patently offensive” question addressing the rights of two married lesbians, their children and their property. He said he refused to answer the question because he believed it legitimized same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting, which is contrary to his moral beliefs.’
