Newzity

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.

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.

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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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.

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.

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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.

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.