‘China’s heritage bureau has launched a probe into Chinese mining companies alleged to have brought down part of the Great Wall to allow their trucks to avoid paying road tolls, state media reported on Thursday.
Coal mining companies operating near Hujiayao village, on the border between the northern province of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, had also taken soil from parts of the Ming-era (1368-1644) wall to build houses and piled “small mountains” of coal against it, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a local newspaper.
“Big trucks carrying coal had even opened a big gap in the Great Wall to make a coal shipping thoroughfare,” the paper said.’
‘In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.
America’s top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: “We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,” and, “casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.” ‘
‘In 1934, top Nazi party official Hermann Goering received a seemingly mundane request from the Reich Forestry Service. A fur farm was seeking permission to release a batch of exotic bushy-tailed critters into the wild to “enrich the local fauna” and give bored hunters something new to shoot at.
Goering approved the request and unwittingly uncorked an ecological disaster that is still spreading across Europe. The imported North American species, Procyon lotor, or the common raccoon, quickly took a liking to the forests of central Germany. Encountering no natural predators — and with hunters increasingly called away by World War II — the woodland creatures multiplied and have stymied all attempts to prevent them from overtaking the continent.
Today, as many as 1 million raccoons are estimated to live in Germany, and their numbers are steadily increasing. In 2005, hunters and speeding cars killed 10 times as many raccoons as a decade earlier, according to official statistics.’
Here’s some footage shot after the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the nearby town of Pripyat, very shortly before everyone was evacuated.
The radiation levels are so high that in some parts of the film you can actually see radiation hitting the film and leaving a mark. [I assume this would be alpha or beta particles from airborne radionuclides, because I don’t think gamma photons would have enough energy to upset the film like that.]
(13.2meg MPEG)
see it here »
This might be a repost, but getting caught wanking in the 70’s is hilarious.
(1.2meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Approximately 2,600 years ago– around 630 BCE– the Greek island of Thera was plagued by drought and overpopulation. According to legend, an assortment of settlers were selected to sail south to establish a colony in more hospitable climes. The men and women apprehensively put to sea, and the gaggle of enterprising Greeks eventually erected the city of Cyrene on Africa’s northern tip. There, the settlers encountered a local herb which would ultimately bring them and their progeny fantastic wealth.
The prized plant became such a key pillar of the Cyrenean economy that its likeness was stamped upon many of the city’s gold and silver coins. The images often depicted a regal-looking woman sitting in a chair, with one hand touching the herb and her other hand pointing at her genitals. The plant was known as silphium or laserwort, and its heart-shaped fruit brought the ancient world a highly sought-after freedom: the opportunity to enjoy sex with very little risk of pregnancy.’
‘Ned Kelly, the legendary Australian bushranger who evaded police for two years before being captured and hanged in 1880, has gone missing again. His bones have vanished from a mass prison grave in Melbourne where they were believed to be buried. [..]
Pentridge closed in 1997 and the site is being redeveloped for housing, with the state conservation body, Heritage Victoria, overseeing the work. Archaeological tests were recently carried out at the mass burial site, but no human remains were found.
Archaeologists discovered evidence that the soil had been disturbed about 50 years ago, probably during major drainage works.
Ray Tonkin, the head of Heritage Victoria, said yesterday: “We now believe these remains were probably removed in the 1950s or 1960s, as part of the installation of large service pipes that took place at the prison at the time.” The remains of about 32 criminals are believed to have been lost, possibly dumped in a quarry.’
‘According to the caller, the mysteries had actually been solved by Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, more than two decades ago. Davidovits claimed that the stones of the pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. [..]
A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.
The stones also had a high water content-unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau-and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.
The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. “Therefore,” says Barsoum, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.”‘
‘If you hadn’t heard, TechCrunch20, the conference which alleges to put a sense of merit back into startup conferences, has declared MC Hammer a Web2.0 “expert” and put him on the panel of judges. These judges will select amongst the bajillions of entries the rarified few who will present their wares to VC’s and industries insiders over a two day period.
Who are the other judges?
* Mark Andreeson, founder of Netscape.
* Chris Anderson, Editor-In-Chief of Wired.
* Dave Winer, grandfather of RSS, and author of one of the first blogs ever.’
Also, stop! It’s hammer time..
(10meg Flash video)
see it here »
‘Did you ever log onto Active BBS or Interactive over the past 10 years? If you have, well then.. you are a loser. Wait no! Just kidding.. This myspace was created by Nick (NickZ) and Adela (Cupid) for all us crazy activities who want to stay in touch.. or just to say hi or if you are wondering where everyone is nowdays.’
Blah, MySpace. [shrug] 🙂
‘Cult film production company Hammer Horror is set to be revived after being sold off to a consortium led by Dutch media billionaire Jon de Mol, the creator of Big Brother.
No official price was given for the deal. But sources at Hammer, which created gothic horrors in the 1950s and 1960s such as Dracula, the Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy, said Cryte Investments, in which Mr de Mol is a major shareholder, got it for a “few million” pounds. The new owners plan to invest at least £25m initially to resurrect the popular British films – and plans are in the pipeline with a UK broadcaster to launch a Hammer Horror TV series.
Cryte also hopes to restart Hammer’s production division and create new films for the first time in more than 30 years.’
I used to love watching Hammer movies.
This is a review of nuclear criticality accidents made in 2000 by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
There’s 158 pages of cool technical stuff.
(3.7meg PDF)
‘In October 1957, after several years of successful operation, the workers at Windscale noticed some curious readings from their temperature monitoring equipment as they carried out standard maintenance. The reactor temperature was slowly rising during a time that they expected it to be falling. The remote detection equipment seemed to be malfunctioning, so two plant workers donned protective equipment and hiked to the reactor to inspect it in person. When they arrived, they were alarmed to discover that the interior of the uranium-filled reactor was ablaze.’
‘These concrete towers were unique AIR RAID SHELTERS of Nazi Germany, built to withstand the destructive power of WWII bombs and heavy artillery. Their cone shape caused bombs to slide down the walls and detonate only at a heavily fortified base.
Cheaper to build above ground than to dig bunkers, they were quite effective, as it was possible to cram as many as 500 people inside. Plus the “footprint” of such tower was very small when observed from the air, so it was very hard for the bombers to ensure a direct hit.’
‘Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The record is intended as a combination time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human, that recovers either of the Voyager craft. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.
The following is a selection of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.’
‘Scientists believe they have for the first time identified an ancient graveyard for gladiators.
Analysis of their bones and injuries has given new insight into how they lived, fought and died. [..]
“I’ve looked at quite a few hundred Roman skeletons. I’ve seen examples of head injuries, healed and unhealed. I’ve seen evidence of decapitations,” she says.
“But this (new find) is extremely significant; there’s nothing been found in the world at all like it. They’ve really dispelled quite a lot of myths about gladiators and how they fought.”‘
‘In praise of the opaque green liqueur beloved by his creative contemporaries, Oscar Wilde once posed the rhetorical question, “What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?”
The prosaic answer, at least for Americans, has long been one of legality: sunsets can be freely enjoyed, but absinthe was forbidden because it contained thujone, a potentially toxic compound.
Intrepid drinkers have worked around the ban by ordering imported bottles off the Internet or smuggling them back from Eastern Europe. Now they have a third, less dodgy option: Lucid, which is being marketed as the first legal, genuine American absinthe in nearly a century.’
‘Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi – a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century.
A chemical analysis has shown that the 6-metre-tall organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago. [..]
“No matter what argument you put forth, people say it’s crazy,” says C. Kevin Boyce, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, US. “A 6-metre-fungus doesn’t make any sense, but here’s the fossil.”‘
‘Workers digging at the site of a future Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa have unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that’s estimated to be about 10,000 years old.
Arizona State University geology museum curator Brad Archer hurried out to the site Friday when he got the news that the owner of a nursery was carefully excavating bones found at the bottom of a hole being dug for a new ornamental citrus tree.
“There’s no question that this is a camel; these creatures walked the land here until about 8,000 years ago, when the same event that wiped out a great deal of mammal life took place,” Archer told The Arizona Republic.’
‘Boris Yeltsin was always good for a laugh, which is probably why on the occasion of his death people outside of Russia are not calling him words like scum and monster, but instead recalling him fondly, with a smile, as one would a retarded nephew who could always be counted on to pull his pants down at Thanksgiving dinner. [..]
He’s been on the verge of death so many times…His doctors themselves are in shock that he’s still alive. Half the blood vessels in his brain are about to burst after his strokes, his intestines are spotted all over with holes, he has giant ulcers in his stomach, his heart is in absolutely disgusting condition, he is literally rotting…He could die from any one of dozens of physical problems that he has, but contrary to all laws of nature — he lives.’
‘Russian military pilots have described how they created rain clouds to protect Moscow from radioactive fallout after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Major Aleksei Grushin repeatedly took to the skies above Chernobyl and Belarus and used artillery shells filled with silver iodide to make rain clouds that would “wash out” radioactive particles drifting towards densely populated cities.
More than 4,000 square miles of Belarus were sacrificed to save the Russian capital from the toxic radioactive material.’
‘A woman arrested following two car crashes last week registered a .47 blood-alcohol content on a breath test – nearly six times the legal intoxication threshold and possibly a state record.
Deana F. Jarrett, 54, was taken to Evergreen Hospital as a precaution following her arrest April 11, the Washington State Patrol said Wednesday. No one was injured in the accidents.
Jarrett blew the .47 on a portable breath tester after she collided with two other vehicles in quick succession, the patrol said. A check of all 356,000 breath tests administered since 1998 in Washington turned up only 35 above .40 – and none of those was higher than .45.’
I wonder if she gets a medal.
‘A fight at an Indiana high school turned into a medieval attack when a freshman girl hit another student and tried to hit a teacher with an uncommon weapon.
As CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot reports, Gary police say the girl still has not said how she got the medieval weapon, which weighs about six pounds. The freshman, who has been charged with battery, told police she brought the weapon to school because she was tired of being picked on.
“She was aiming for my face,” said Shanique Ballard, the target of the attack.
Ballard said she bumped into one of the freshman’s friends in the hallway at Lew Wallace High School, and an argument started. Ballard said that’s when the young girl pulled out a flail – a sharp, spiked metal ball attached to a handle by a chain or short stick – and started swinging.’
‘Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle’s tires and stop an intruder.
Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.
Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.
She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-calibre handgun.’
‘The world’s oldest continuously operating family business ended its impressive run last year. Japanese temple builder Kongo Gumi, in operation under the founders’ descendants since 578, succumbed to excess debt and an unfavorable business climate in 2006.
How do you make a family business last for 14 centuries? Kongo Gumi’s case suggests that it’s a good idea to operate in a stable industry. Few industries could be less flighty than Buddhist temple construction. The belief system has survived for thousands of years and has many millions of adherents. With this firm foundation, Kongo had survived some tumultuous times, notably the 19th century Meiji restoration when it lost government subsidies and began building commercial buildings for the first time. But temple construction had until recently been a reliable mainstay, contributing 80% of Kongo Gumi’s $67.6 million in 2004 revenues.’
‘Researchers have decoded genetic material from a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex, an unprecedented step once thought impossible.
“The door just opens up to a whole avenue of research that involves anything extinct,” said Matthew T. Carrano, curator of dinosaurs at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
And, the new finding adds weight to the idea that today’s birds are descendants of dinosaurs. [..]
“The fact that we are getting proteins is very, very exciting,” said John Horner of Montana State University and the Museum of the Rockies.
And, he added, it “changes the idea that birds and dinosaurs are related from a hypothesis to a theory.”
To scientists that’s a big deal.’
‘Vampire Killing Kit
The accoutrements for the destruction of the Vampire
This box contains the items considered necessary for the protection of persons who travel into certain little known countries in Easter Europe where the populace are plagued with a peculiar manifestation of evil, known as Vampires… Professor Ernst Blomberg respectfully requests that the purchaser of this kit carefully studies his book. Should evil manifestations become apparent, he is then equiped to deal with them efficiently… Professor Blomberg wishes to announce his grateful thanks to that well known gunmaker of Liege, Nicholas Plombeur, whose help in compiling of the special items, the silver bullets,etc., has been most efficient. The items enclosed are as follows…
1. An efficient pistol with its usual accoutrements
2. A quantity of bullets of the finest silver
3. Powdered flowers of garlic (one phial)
4. Flour of Brimstone (one phial)
5. Wooden stake (Oak)
6. Ivory crucifix
7. Holy Water (one phial)
8. Professer Blomberg’s New Serum’
21 Gay Street is, I assume, the lesbian version of 21 Jump Street.
