Let’s face it though companies prohibit and try to block adult sites, people do surf adults sites when at work. But a government employee in Japan may have broken the record. He has visited adult sites more than 780,000 times in just nine months. At his peak, he logged 170,000 hits on multiple sites in last July alone.
The 57-year-old man worked in the construction division of the city government office of Kinokawa in western Japan. Though he was spending way too much time and visiting the sites very frequently throughout the day, no one in the office had any clue. After nine months, this February his habit came to light when his computer was repeatedly infected with the same virus. That prompted the officials to check his online activities. People where shocked to find the frequency of his visits. He was visiting sites outside Japan that were not blocked by the security set up for the city computers. From June 2007 to February 2008, he had logged 780,000 visits to various adult sites. He was suspended for three months and demoted with a $190 monthly pay cut.
The question that comes to mind is that how he got time to do any work if he spent so much time watching porn. But then he works for the government, and so it is not clear if he did any work at all.
How about wrap the baby in a towel, get dressed, and jog to the hospital with the umbilical cord still attached. No, this is not a scene from a crazy movie. This is what Xochitl Parra, a 17-year old high school sophomore from California, did for real. Her new born son is doing fine.
She was home alone around 5:30 in the morning and taking shower to get ready for school. While in the shower the contractions got real close, and she felt the baby was coming out. She sat down and gave birth in the bathroom. When she was done she wrapped the baby in a towel, got dressed, and jogged to St. Mary Medical Center close to her home. If you are wondering why she did not call 911 or ask for help from family or neighbors, here are some clues. Her home phone was disconnected so she could not call 911. Xochitl had kept her pregnancy a secret in the fear that her mother won’t approve and throw her out of the house, so no one at home knew about it. As for asking the neighbors, she felt it was too early to wake them up. Fortunately, she arrived at the hospital with the umbilical cord and placenta still attached but without any incident, and the baby boy is doing great.
Xochitl’s mother agreed to take care of them so that she can continue with her education. What she did was stupid, but at the same time brave. And without doubt way better than dumping the baby in garbage can.
One on in their right mind would. But then again Angelique Vandeburg may not fall under that category. Last week, she shot her eight year old daughter in the thigh with a BB gun to win $1 bet from her boyfriend. The girl could not walk for the past week due to the pain.
On April 26 or 27, Angelique and her boyfriend got into a drinking session at her house. After she had a dozen beers, the boyfriend pulled out a BB gun and dared her to shoot the girl for one dollar. She grabbed the gun and shot her own daughter who was just sitting in bedroom along with her seven year old brother. The BB hit the girl on her high and then hit the younger boy. Even the drunk boyfriend couldn’t believe it and took off in a panic. The mother told the daughter not to tell anyone saying it was a “family thing.” It was not until four days later when a school counselor reported the incident to police a formal investigation started. Even after few days the circular mark from bruising was clearly visible, and Angelique was charged with intentional child abuse.
During her first court appearance on Friday, Angelique blamed it on the girl. According to her the girl was lying to get attention. That goes to show that some us of are not in our right mind even when sober.
How about a few days. Eighty four year old Blanche Roberts was trapped under the body of her dead husband since Wednesday. Bruce Pitts, who delivers newspaper to their house, rescued her after four days on Sunday.
On Wednesday evening, Fred Roberts died of heart attack at the age of 77. While he died, he fell on his wife and her right leg was pinned under his weight. Fred was a man of considerable size, whereas Blanche is rather petite and frail. Though she tried, she could not get her leg free. The elderly couple lived along and no visitors came by to check. After a few days, Bruce noticed that the newspapers are piling up, which in his three years of service has never happened before at Roberts’ house. Though he never met the couple, he got tips in letters from her and she wrote that she prayed for him whenever the weather was bad. Bruce and his wife called her the prayer lady and were fond of her. On Sunday he decided to check out what was wrong after his route. He and his wife came by the house, and rang the door bell a few times. When they did not hear a response, they opened a side of the door and found her helplessly trapped only two feet away. She was not scared and was in good health. She thought her husband fell asleep.
A little prayer worked wonders for her.
Apparently that is the opinion of a middle aged father from Tampa. Robert Hancock took his six month old boy from the boy’s grandparents’ house, brought him to a strip club, and requested the employees to babysit the boy for a week or two.
It is not clear why he took the baby out of the house the baby’s grandparents who took care of him. But the 42 year old father came up with clever ideas on how to take care of the baby. On Sunday evening little before 8 p.m. he dropped by a strip club drunk. When he asked for the cell phone from the 23 year old Minouche Eliasin working at the door, she got suspicious. She thought it was odd that the baby was inside the car with all the windows up. She started asking him about the baby and his mom, and he started acting real strange and told her not to call the authorities. She told her manager, and they called police. In the mean time Eliasin and her coworkers took care of the baby: they changed his soiled dippers and gave him a bottle. Robert slowly disclosed his plan to Eliasin. Since the people at the strip club were so helpful, he wanted to drop the baby off for a week or two. He promised he would come back later to pick him up.
Soon the police arrived and he was arrested on multiple charges. He had such a clever plan but the club’s no child policy ruined it all.
No, don’t go with the obvious answer before you read what a group of German artists have to say about it. According to the seven young artists, they are pushing the limits of realism and blurring the boundaries between art and life by living in an Israeli museum with their lice infested heads for three weeks.
Now you can start scratching your head. They are trying to create a parallelism between the museum hosting the artists as guests and the artists hosting the lice in their heads. If you are still wondering how we got to this point where lice infested heads can even be hosted in museum, lets not forget it did not happen overnight. There was the 1995 Turner Prize winner pickled cow by Damien Hirst. And the elephant dung art by Chris Ofili. So in that context head lice though disgusting is not that shocking. In a world when we don’t have the time to appreciate art and only react to shock, artists continue to push the limits of what is shocking. Most of these artists love to mimic Keats’ famous line and say art is life and life is art. There may be some truth to it. What is considered art is just a reflection of what we value in our lives. And if you think about it, the change has not been limited to art.
To protect the visitors from getting head lice artists wear plastic shower caps. Another simple way to protect yourself is to avoid museum all together for a while.
Normally, not a chance in hell. But with the invention of SMS and Internet speak things have changed a bit. Correct spelling in job application is not required for Lilcat website. On the contrary, you may have a better chance if your resume is full of Lolspeak.
If you are still scratching your head about Lolcat and Lolspeak, then you are one of the few who missed the last year’s Internet craze about the kitty photo blog on Wordpress.com called I Can Has Cheezburger. It consistently featured on top list until this year’s craze Stuff White People Like came along. The Lolcat site typically would feature a picture of a cat with a caption in Lolspeak: an adult trying to be funny by mimicking a below average second grader spelling skill with an immature first grader sense of humor. But it seems that is what people love. Now Lolcat has a job opening and 250 people applied for it. The owner of the site cannot go over all the applications, but the filtering has nothing to do with spelling. In fact bad spelling may be a sign of hidden sense of humor that seems to be crucial for the success of such sites. The job itself was posted under the heading Kittehs Want Moar Workerhumans.
The job requires one to sort though over 9,000 daily submissions. Love for cat is not essential.
That is what AT&T would like us to believe. The company says unless a lot of money is spent on network infrastructure we will run out of bandwidth by 2010. But before you panic remember AT&T may be to coming up with these dire warnings for selfish reasons and they may have little to do with helping the average people like us.
One possibility is that they want to jack up the price. It will go something like this: some of the spending in the infrastructure will be passed on to the consumer as a premium service. That means unless we pay up we will get a reduced rate service under the current plan. Today’s regular service will be tomorrow’s premium. Then there is the net neutrality debate that is raging in capital hill. Companies like AT&T would love to charge different price for different traffic. That way they can make more money. That argument goes like this: the bandwidth is limited and to make sure everyone gets a fair share companies like AT&T should have the right to allocate who gets how much. Sounds logical until we realize it is just another way of controlling price to make more money. People are already complaining that companies like AT&T are engaged in prioritizing traffic giving preference to data from certain source and ignoring others.
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This was not a mistake. Drivers in Philadelphia got a real break from high gas price when a local gas station offered a special price of 76 cents a gallon for gas. The promotion was tied to the occasion of 76ers making it to the playoffs.
This is the first time in past three years Philadelphia 76ers are in the playoffs. A local gas station owner wanted to mark the special occasion with a promotion that drivers can really celebrate. Starting at noon, the station offered gas for 76 cents a gallon. That is almost one fifth or 20% of the normal price of $3.69 a gallon. The drivers did not want to miss the opportunity and started lining up from early morning at 6:30am. By noon there were more than hundred cars waiting in the line. But there was a catch. The offer was for limited time only: 76 minute to be precise. About 100 cars got the deal before the 76 minute was up.
It is not clear how the person who was in front of the line but missed the deal felt.
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There is a high chance if you got the child from Vietnam. In a nine-page report U.S. Embassy says that Vietnam has failed to prevent illegal and unethical practice of baby sold for adoption. Corruption and fraud are on the raise for the lucrative child adoption black market.
In 2003, U.S. imposed ban on all adoption from Vietnam due to corruption. The ban was lifted in 2006, and since then there is a boom in adoption from Vietnam. Angelina Jolie’s much publicized adoption fueled the fire. In the first 18 months since the ban was lifted a total of 1,200 babies were adopted by American families. That is more than two babies per day. In 2007 the adoption jumped more than 400 percent. The adoption also has become a lucrative business. American couples are ready to pay $25,000 for a baby, and some agencies pay $10,000 of that money to the Vietnamese orphanages. The increase in demand and the lure of the money have helped flourish a black market. People are scouring villages to buy babies; hospitals are coercing poor mothers to give up infants and then selling them; relatives are giving away babies for money without parents’ permission. The babies are sold to the brokers for as little as $400 dollars, and they sell it to the orphanages for a few thousands making a huge profit. Given the lucrative nature of the business, Vietnam government is not doing much to stop it.
Fortunately the current agreement expires in September, and it is not expected to be renewed. U.S. will impose the ban again, at least for a short time.
It is an irony that parents with good intentions are helping the black market to flourish and hurting the babies they wanted to help in the first place.
Yes. Florida Senate has voted to ban all Truck Nutz. The truckers in Florida hang the decorative items at the end of trailers. But the new ban makes such display illegal and anyone caught using them would be fined $60.
It is a common practice in Florida to accessorize the trailers with a pair of metal or plastic bull’s testicles to mimic a real bullock wagon. Truckers dangle the novelty item to their trailers with a cheek-in tongue masculine sense of humor. But many find it offensive and Republican Senator Cary Baker proposed the ban. In his view guns are better way to express manliness as he owns a gun shop in Florida. The measure is a part of transportation bill and had its critics. They say it is a matter of freedom of expression. The Republican Senator Jim King, the Senate Rules chairman, is one of them. He adorned his truck with a pair until his wife found out. Talk about manliness.
For now Florida Senators have gone nuts and the drivers lost their Truck Nutz.
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It seems TV reporters are the choice for a carjacker in Cleveland. No sane person would think of asking for directions from anyone while carjacking, let alone TV reporters. But a nineteen year old man stopped to ask for directions from a pair of TV crews as he was holding the driver at gunpoint.
Two members of the WOIO-TV stations - newswoman Shannon O’Brien and photographer Eric Walls - happened to be on the sidewalk on their assignment. They were there to report a problem with the local bank. A SUV stopped next to them and the passenger asked for directions to nearest US Bank. As they came close to help, the driver signaled them that he was held at gunpoint. They finished their directions, called the 911, and followed the car until police arrive. Police caught the man with a loaded handgun. The man was arrested for aggravated robbery without any incident and was held on $50 thousand bond.
How lazy and stupid the carjacker must be to ask for directions. The directions he got, led him directly to jail.
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Apparently sunny San Francisco. And this is not a movie plot. A thirty something couple was arrested for terrorizing their tenants. They wanted to force the tenants to leave.
Kip and Nicole Macy, both in their early thirties, unlawfully evicted one of the tenants from their six-unit building. Their motivation was to make more money by raising rent with a new tenant. But when the tenant fought the eviction in court and won the case, the couple decided on plan B: to make his life a living hell so that he would be forced to leave. They shut off his electricity, his phone line, and hired people to cut a hole in his living room floor from underneath. If that was not enough, they went on to remove the beam that supports his floor. This is not their first attempt. They had practice on other tenants. They broke into another apartment and poured ammonia all over the tenant’s belongings including clothes, beds, and TV.
The couple is not short on money. First of all they have a six-unit building in San Francisco and Kip is a software engineer and Macy is a real estate agent. I guess they are just greedy.
We are talking about a $297 dollar budget deficit here. One would naturally assume that is an absurd proposal. But labor leaders in Montgomery County are proposing to ration toilet papers for convicts to help solve their $239 million budget shortage.
Criminals lose most of their freedom when they are in prison. That is expected punishment for their crime. Tax payer money should also not be wasted to provide luxury for them. But one would think that toilet paper is neither matter of freedom nor considered luxury - rather it is a matter of necessity. But in Maryland some labor leaders think it is a luxury that inmates do not deserve. They are proposing to limit each inmate to no more than two or three rolls of toilet papers per week. The proposal comes as a part of the recommendation to save money to handle the $239 million dollar budget deficit in Montgomery County.
Besides the silliness, one might question the practicality of the proposal. How much money are we talking about saving per roll here? The total annual budget for low grade toilet papers used by inmate is about $67,500.
Of course they do. Otherwise how would we know that they are snobs? And it is no joke. The 25-th richest man of the world thinks all the money, fame, and luxury are not enough until the ultra-rich gets their own magazine. This summer he will start publishing Snob magazine.
There would also be website and television dedicated to all the Russians snobs. You see, all the magazines of the world are about the rest of us common people. It is not fair to the ultra-rich. It is high time they have their own. Forty two year old Mikhail Prokhorov, worth $22 billion, will spend $150 million to set up the magazine, website, and a TV station - all called Snob. He thinks boasting about money is justified if you earned it. A few in Russia in recent days have become rich from rising energy prices, and Moscow has most billionaires. At the same time one in five Russians lives under the poverty line. But Russian ultra-riches love to flaunt their money to underscore the depressing disparity.
The middle age bachelor Mikhail thinks the magazine would give a voice to the ultra-rich. Or could it be just the midlife crisis of a rich man?
Not in a big way, but there are signs. The two largest retails chains, Sam’s Club and Costco, are putting restriction on how much rice one can buy. They blamed the decision on the current change in supply and demand.
Following news of the global food crisis there is a surge in people stocking up large quantities of food items in the fear of rising price. To prevent supply shortage Costco warehouse in California started limiting purchases of flour, rice and cooking oil. Following that Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart, is limiting customers to four bags at a time of imported jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice. The limit applies only 20-pound bags and not smaller retail size bags. Another chain BJ’s Wholesale Club said it is not imposing limits for now but watching the situation and may impose restriction later. Rising demand from all developing countries compounded by lower crop yields has incased the price of rice by more than 70 percent since January. The shortage of rice, a staple food for half of world population, can cause a serious problem days ahead.
The present restrictions seemed to target small business and restaurants that might be stocking up in anticipation of higher prices down the road. For now, there is no real shortage of food supply in US.
Clinton’s campaign tactics have such a right wing tone to it, the swift boat flavor, working under the shadow feel. They have embraced the win-at-all-cost theory and gone to such an extreme place where even John McCain has refused to go. Not to mention the vast right wing support for Hillary.
McCain thinks an ad referring to Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy is too extreme and should not be aired. This is in contrast to the position Hillary camp has taken with ads: the notorious 3 a.m. ad, the new ad featuring Bin Laden. Remember the race card they played from the start. Bill Clinton made reference to the fairy tale candidacy and even in the recent days he was accused of playing the same race card. But every time when confronted, Hillary camp denied it. This is classic bait and switch technique we have seen often form right wing. And then there are those other rumors they wanted everyone to know: Obama is a Muslim, he is not a patriot, and he is not a true American. Haven’t we heard this soft of smear campaign before? Now Hillary says she against Bush’s war, but she is ready to obliterate Iran. And then there is her new love to guns and religion. She even accused Democratic grass roots plotting against her. No wonder Hillary is the darling of the right wing including active support from Rush Limbaugh and Richard Mellon Scaife.
It makes you wonder who the new right wing is.
Okay, the blind part is a joke. But scientists think regular masturbation helps men reduce the risk of prostate cancer. The same is not true for regular intercourse though.
Australian researchers came to the conclusion form a survey of 1,000 men with prostate cancer and 1,250 healthy men. They found men between 20 to 50 years of age with frequent ejaculation were least likely to have the cancer. It is more effective for younger men in their 20’s, and a frequency of more than five times a week reduced the risk of prostate cancer by a third. They think ejaculation helps men flush out the cancer-causing chemicals that accumulate in the prostrate glad. One such chemical is 3-methylchloranthrene, also found in cigarette smoke. However, frequent intercourse with multiple partners actually increases the risk by 40% due to the increased risk of STIs.
This is similar to the connection between breast cancer and lactation: breastfeeding also helps to get rid of cancer causing chemicals in women.
This time it was Tony himself. On Monday he was caught without a ticket on train to London’s Heathrow airport on his way to the US. He has made millions last year and wanted to skip on a $50 train ticket.
This is nothing new for the Blair family. Cherie Blair, wife of Tony, was fined in 2000 for riding a train without a ticket. And she is a judge of all things. Tony Blair got on the express train without buying the ticket, and when he got caught by the ticket inspector he said he had no money on him to pay for the ticket. He was let go without any fine. This made some people really unhappy. The transit authority said they are pleased to have the former prime minister as a customer, but they are not giving any special discount to him, and expect him to pay the regular fare. Maybe Blair family follows the tradition of queen of England who does not carry money with her.
It is now known how many times he traveled without ticket before he got caught.
It might sound absurd but 13 people were arrested for practicing black magic. A wave a panic has spread in Kinshasa, the capital of Congo, followed by attempted mob lynching of the people suspected of witchcraft. They are accused of making the victims’ genitals shrink or disappear just by touch.
In West Africa there is a deep rooted believe in black magic and feared to be a tool for taking revenge on enemy. And men’s genitals are often assumed to be the target. About a decade ago twelve people were beaten to death for the assumed crime in Ghana. A score of men in Kinshasa are convinced that they were victims of black magic. The fear spread and people were advised to avoid the touch of strangers wearing gold rings in public transport. The victim first claimed they lost their organ but when asked to prove it they say they suffered a great shrinkage. Kinshasa residents believe a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province is trying to settle score for the recent crackdown by government.
But before you judge others for being superstitious, remember how many people fall prey to the bogus emails promising the opposite.
It may sound odd, but scientists think so. Women who opt for low calorie diet and skip breakfasts during conception and pregnancy are more likely to have baby girls. Women who eat high energy meals and have regular breakfasts are more likely to have boys.
No, this does not mean women determine the sex of the baby. It is still the man’s job. So what’s going on? Scientists are not really sure. They think the high level of glucose in mother’s blood helps the development of male embryos while it works against females. As a result, woman with low glucose level tend to have baby girls more often. When a woman skips breakfast, her body reads it a sign of food shortage, and as a natural response the body lowers glucose level. Even a subtle change in glucose level is enough to change the viability of the embryos. The findings may explain why in the developed countries there is a decline in birth rate of boys in the recent years. Young women in wealthy countries tend to prefer low calorie diet. That is ironic, since they adopt low calorie diet as a response to the abundance of food.
This means malnourished woman would give birth to more baby girls. Not sure how many women would use the breakfast as a tool to control the sex of their baby.
You may not, but a pair of NY men did exactly that. They put their dead friend on an office chair and wheeled him to a store to cash a $355 dollar social security check.
The sixty-six year old man was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and died. But his two younger friends used an office chair with wheels to bring him to a check cashing place in downtown Manhattan. They left him outside and went to cash one of his social security checks worth $355 on which they forged his signature. The person at the counter asked to see the old man before cashing the check. But when the two went out there was a crowd around the dead body. A police officer who was having lunch nearby found out the old man was dead.
Since the coroner could not pin point the exact time of death, the two friends could not be punished for forgery and other related crimes.
No it is not a Disney movie. A mother dumped a newborn baby girl under a pile of mud and left her to die outside a village in Indian state of Bihar. A pack of stray dogs dug the baby out of the mud, and started barking. Villagers came and rescued the baby.
Female infanticide is common in India. According to UN, there are about 2,000 unborn girls killed every day. Indians prefer boys over girls since they have to pay a large sum of money to get their daughters married. Baby girls are in danger if the parents find out the sex before birth. In India testing center would advertise ultrasound scanners with cruel and blatant message like spend $20 now and save $2000 later. But villagers cannot even afford $20, and they mostly abandon their baby girls after birth. This baby girl was lucky. A pack of stray dogs found her in time. They removed the layer of mud off her, and she started crying. The dogs’ barking and the baby’s cry got the attention of the villagers. They came and rescued her. Police is looking for the mother.
The baby girl is doing fine, and was adopted on the spot by a childless couple. It is an unusual story of affection: a newborn is left to die by her mother but stray dogs and strangers come to rescue.
