‘A political battle is raging in Russian cyberspace. Opposition parties and independent media say murky forces have committed vast resources to hacking and crippling their Web sites in attacks similar to those that hit tech-savvy Estonia as the Baltic nation sparred with Russia over a Soviet war memorial.
While they offer no proof, the groups all point the finger at the Kremlin, calling the electronic siege an attempt to stifle Russia’s last source of free, unfiltered information.
The victims, who range from liberal democrats to ultranationalists, allege their hacker adversaries hope to harass the opposition with the approach of parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections in next March.
Some independent experts agree.’
Followup to Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia.
‘A 21-year-old woman was beaten almost daily by three housemates with a frying pan, belt buckle, hammer and other objects as punishment for not doing her housework properly, state police said.
Mickel Johnson, 24, was charged with second-degree assault and second-degree unlawful imprisonment for the physical abuse against Lenisha Artis in the home they shared at Fort Drum. Artis was also tied to a chair with her mouth taped shut and had boiling water poured over her, leaving extreme scarring, troopers said.
State police also charged Trina Strait, 40, with first-degree and second-degree assault and Crystal Johnson, 37, with two counts of second-degree assault.
“She wasn’t doing her chores,” said state police Investigator Stephen Kealy.’
‘A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant was attacked by a man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.
Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city’s Center for Animal Care and Control. [..]
He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping the creature, said worker Felicia Finnegan, 19.
“He was going crazy,” she said.
Asked what he was doing, she said, the attacker explained, “‘I’m killing a vampire!'”‘
‘Scientists say they’ve created embryonic stem cells by stimulating unfertilized eggs, a significant step toward producing transplant tissue that’s genetically matched to women.
The advance suggests that someday, a woman who wants a transplant to treat a condition like diabetes or a spinal cord injury could provide eggs to a lab, which in turn could create tissue that her body wouldn’t reject.
Ethicists disagreed on whether the strategy would avoid the long-standing ethical objections to creating embryonic stem cells by other means.’
‘A bouncer at a popular New York City restaurant ejected a lesbian customer from the bathroom after last month’s gay pride march because she looked too masculine, the woman charged Monday.
Khadijah Farmer, 27, said the incident happened June 24 at Caliente Cab Company on Seventh Avenue South, where she had gone with her girlfriend and another friend to have dinner after the march.
Farmer said she was using the women’s bathroom when a male bouncer burst in and banged on the stall door, saying a customer had complained that there was a man in the women’s room.
“I said, ‘I am a woman and I am where I am supposed to be,”‘ Farmer said. “I offered to show him some identification. I was told that’s neither here nor there.”‘
What happens when you fill a box with photos from gay pr0n magazines and a dildo, write “Free Puppies” on the outside, and then leave it on the street?
Funnily enough, people open the box curiously and then seem surprised.
(7.2meg Windows media)
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‘Pink Floyd fans who may have thought that they had bought their last copy of The Dark Side of the Moon are helping to make the landmark album a best seller again–this time at Apple’s iTunes.
The reason appears to be its availability in a new audio format–yes, again.
Thanks to generations of music fans wearing out copies of the album on LPs, 8-track tapes and cassette tapes, Dark Side has sold more 35 million copies worldwide since it was released in 1973 and has spent more than 1,550 weeks as one of Billboard’s Top 200 best-selling albums–that’s about 30 years. [..]
Now the album is climbing the charts again, thanks to the unprotected 256kbps AAC version available through Apple’s iTunes Plus. Since Apple’s DRM-free music experiment with EMI was launched in May, sales of Dark Side have gone up more than 270 percent.’
Miriam has the answer. 🙂
see it here »
‘A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children’s television program was beaten to death in the show’s final episode Friday.
In the final skit, Farfour was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land. At one point, the mouse called the Israeli a “terrorist.”
“Farfour was martyred while defending his land,” said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed “by the killers of children,” she added.’
‘Authorities said the driver of a Toyota Echo was traveling along the 417 early Tuesday when he decided to stop and relieve himself.
However, in his hurry to urinate, he forgot to put the car in park, the report said.
Seconds later, the man watched as his car rolled down a hill and into a dark pond near Boggy Creek.
Orlando’s dive team put six people in the pond but were not able to find the car, the Local 6 report said.
The fire chief said he feels bad for the driver.’
‘Spanish researchers on Friday said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old, which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever discovered in western Europe.
Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the Atapuerca site said the molar, discovered on Wednesday in the Atapuerca Sierra in the northern province of Burgos, could be as much as 1.2 million years old.
“The tooth represents the oldest human fossil remain of western Europe. Now we finally have the anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago,” the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.
“Since it is an isolated fossil remain, it is not possible at this point to confirm which Homo species this tooth belongs to,” the foundation added, but said first analyses “allow us to suppose it is an ancestor of Homo antecessor (pioneer).”‘
This is some safety device that’s meant to let you escape from high rise buildings in an emergency.
Looks to me that you need to remember to tie one end to yourself, _and_ one end to a sturdy anchor.
(6.0meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘An 80-year-old man on the verge of completing a round-Japan cycling tour was struck and killed by a truck on Monday only a few hours ride from his home, police said.
Kamesaburo Harano, a resident of the central prefecture of Nagano, set off in April 2006 to circle his homeland, Kyodo news agency said, and had just arrived back in Nagano.
One Internet cycling page carries a photo of a fit, smiling Harano taken last October, standing by a bicycle laden with panniers on the picturesque southern island of Yakushima.
Police said he was struck and killed on Monday while cycling in a tunnel.’
‘A judge spared a man who raped a girl of ten in a park — because she wore a “provocative” frilly bra and thong.
Window cleaner Keith Fenn, 25 — who could have got life in jail — will be free in just four months after admitting twice having sex with the child.
Judge Julian Hall decided to be lenient because the girl “didn’t look 10”.
He caused fury earlier this year by freeing another paedophile, telling him to buy his six-year-old victim a new bicycle.
The judge referred to the 10-year-old as a “young woman”, and called her “very disturbed, very needy and sexually precocious”.’
‘A former Kashmiri rebel was wounded when a tiny detonator planted in a cigarette by suspected militants exploded when he lit it up in a police station, a newspaper report said on Thursday.
The small blast, the first of its kind in the revolt-torn Himalayan region, took place in a remote village of Doda district where Mohammad Rafiq had surrendered to police, the Daily Excelsior said.
Separatist militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed region since 1989 frequently target their former colleagues who surrender to the police or the army.
“The small detonator, planted inside the cigarette, exploded when Rafiq was smoking, causing him minor injuries. He has been hospitalised,” the newspaper quoted a senior police officer as saying.’
‘An Adelaide woman has been arrested in the United States for allegedly trying to kidnap a 17-year-old boy she had met playing role-playing game World of Warcraft on the Internet.
Police say 31-year-old Tamara Broome encouraged the boy to leave his home in North Carolina to join her in Australia.
The chief of detectives in the city of Greenville, Lee Moore, says the pair began a relationship while playing World of Warcraft.
“The best that we can discover is that they wanted to meet,” he said.’
Fuel + oxidizer = chemical fun.
(1.4meg Windows media)
see it here »
‘Former astronaut Lisa Nowak didn’t wear diapers during her 950-mile road trip to confront a romantic rival, her lawyer said Friday, disputing one of the more bizarre details to emerge from the NASA love triangle.
“The biggest lie in this preposterous tale that has been told is that my client drove from Houston, Texas, to Orlando, Florida, nonstop, wearing a diaper,” Donald Lykkebak said after filing motions to suppress evidence in Nowak’s criminal case. “That is an absolute fabrication.”
The tidbit that Nowak wore diapers during her trip was written in the police report filed after Nowak’s arrest in February.
“I then asked Mrs. Nowak why she had baby diapers,” according to the charging affidavit written by Officer William “Chris” Becton. “Mrs. Nowak said that she didn’t want to stop and use the restroom, so she used the diapers to collect her urine.”‘
Followup to Lisa Nowak NASA Astronaut DIAPER left behind..RARE!.
‘Cow pies processed in a small Nebraska town may soon be helping to lower the price at the pump.
The Genesis plant near Mead is the first to combine a feed lot operation in its production of ethanol.
“The manure is used to produce bio gas,” said Brian Barber, of E-3 Biofuels.
That gas fires the boilers needed to make ethanol, and the bi-produced from that creates distiller’s grain that is then feed back to the cattle.
“This is truly a historic event,” said CEO Dennis Langley.
At a dedication ceremony on Thursday, Langley said his company’s patented closed-loop system is 12 times more efficient than any other fuel source in the world.’
‘Banned from honking their horns, drivers in China’s commercial hub Shanghai are switching to music or voice recordings to make themselves heard, a local newspaper reported Wednesday.
Shanghai banned honking in the downtown area beginning this month, threatening fines for those leaning on the horn. Not even police cars are exempt, with the use of sirens banned in all but emergencies, the rules say.
Yet some drivers who still feel the need to express themselves are spending the equivalent of about C$100 for customized horns, the Shanghai Daily newspaper said.
It said at least one taxi driver has converted his to a recording of a woman’s voice saying: “Please mind the car, we are making a turn.”‘
‘A young man was admitted from prison to a psychiatric facility after reports that he had been acting in a bizarre manner. He had been arrested for stealing motor vehicles and assaults with weapons. At interview he was found to be experiencing the delusion that he was a player inside a computer game (adult-certificate game, widely available) in which points are scored for stealing cars, killing assailants and avoiding police vehicles. Psychotic symptoms had emerged slowly over two years. His family had noticed him becoming increasingly withdrawn and isolated from social activities. He developed delusions that strangers were planning to kill him and also experienced auditory hallucinations, constantly hearing an abusive and derogatory voice. Previously a computer enthusiast, he began to play computer games incessantly. He felt that the games were communicating with him via the headphones. In a complex delusional system he came to believe he was inside one of these games and had to steal a car to start scoring points. He broke into a car and drove off at speed, believing he had `invulnerable’ fuel and so could not run out of petrol. To gain points he chose to steal increasingly powerful vehicles, threatening and assaulting the owners with weapons. Later he said he would have had no regrets if he had killed someone, since this would have increased his score.’
‘Not everybody in military-ruled Myanmar is cursing the blackouts.
Thieves in the former Burma’s main city, Yangon, are taking advantage of outages often lasting for more than 20 hours a day to steal the copper power cables, police said on Friday.
Sometimes, of course, they get unlucky.
“The thieves are risking their lives as it is impossible to know exactly when the power is going to be restored. It’s just like playing Russian roulette,” said one Yangon police officer who did not want to be named.
“I’ve seen a few cases in which thieves were electrocuted. In April, a 16-year-old boy was found dead, holding a broken cable from a lamppost. Only God knows for sure whether he was a thief or not.”‘
‘Sushi made with deer meat, anyone? How about a slice of raw horse on that rice?
These are some of the most extreme alternatives being considered by Japanese chefs as shortages of tuna threaten to remove it from Japan’s sushi menus — something as unthinkable here as baseball without hot dogs or Texas without barbecue.
In this seafood-crazed country, tuna is king. From maguro to otoro, the Japanese seem to have almost as many words for tuna and its edible parts as the French have names for cheese. So when global fishing bodies recently began lowering the limits on catches in the world’s rapidly depleting tuna fisheries, Japan fell into a national panic.’
‘So much for US justice: juries get the verdict wrong in one out of six criminal cases and judges don’t do much better, a new study has found.
And when they make those mistakes, both judges and juries are far more likely to send an innocent person to jail than to let a guilty person go free, according to an upcoming study out of Northwestern University.
“Those are really shocking numbers,” said Jack Heinz, a law professor at Northwestern who reviewed the research of his colleague Bruce Spencer, a professor in the statistics department.
Recent high-profile exonerations of scores of death row inmates have undermined faith in the infallibility of the justice system, Heinz said.’
‘A synthetic version of a molecule found in the egg cells of the Northern Leopard frog (Rana pipiens) could provide the world with the first drug treatment for brain tumours.
Known as Amphinase, the molecule recognises the sugary coating found on a tumour cell and binds to its surface before invading the cell and inactivating the RNA it contains, causing the tumour to die.
In new research published in the Journal of Molecular Biology, scientists from the University of Bath (UK) and Alfacell Corporation (USA) describe the first complete analysis of the structural and chemical properties of the molecule.
Although it could potentially be used as a treatment for many forms of cancer, Amphinase offers greatest hope in the treatment of brain tumours, for which complex surgery and chemotherapy are the only current treatments.’
‘It’s not the first time the Polish weekly Wprost has gotten in trouble in Germany. This week, the cover depicts Chancellor Angela Merkel breast-feeding the Kaczynski twins. But it could have been worse, the editor-in-chief points out. At least they used a 21-year-old model.
“Europe’s Step-Mother:” Polish magazine Wprostdoes it again.
It’s not exactly how one expects to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel: The broad, friendly smile seems completely at odds with her open blouse, two bare breasts spilling out. On each breast, one of Poland’s governing Kaczynski twins is affixed — Prime Minister Jaroslaw is suckling on the left, President Lech has attached himself to the right. One of them is holding up the “victory” sign right in Merkel’s cleavage.’
‘Illegal networks selling nuclear technology to the highest bidder on the black market are posing a greater threat than ever, an expert has warned.
A speaker at non-proliferation talks in Washington said technology essential for enriching uranium was now freely available on the black market.
Others said that efforts to tackle the problem were tepid and in disarray.
The conference also raised concerns that the issue has receded from the non-proliferation agenda.’
