Posts Tagged: ‘News’

May 6, 2012

Nazi Party Wins Seats in Greece

Just beyond comprehension:

Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn warned rivals and reformers Sunday that “the time for fear has come” after exit polls showed them securing their entry in parliament for the first time in nearly 40 years.

“The time for fear has come for those who betrayed this homeland,” Golden Dawn leader Nikos Michaloliakos told a news conference at an Athens hotel, flanked by menacing shaven-headed young men.

“We are coming,” the 55-year-old said as supporters threw firecrackers outside.

According to updated exit polls, the once-marginal party will end up winning over six percent of the vote and sending 19 deputies to the 300-seat parliament on a wave of immigration and crime fears, as well as anti-austerity anger.

A bad day in history. No two ways about it.

More from The Guardian.

Posted by Thom

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April 27, 2012

Stop Sign Yarn Bombing [update II]

Hilarious:

A stealth knitter has been turning Clairemont stop signs into flowers under cover of night. But San Diego is about to crack down on the so-called yarn-bomber and his cohorts.

Sixteen months ago a computer programmer named Bryan (who agrees to talk without disclosing his last name) encased five stop sign posts in his Clairemont neighborhood in knitted green “sweaters” with leaves.

“It’s a way to beautify the community — a fun way to be artistic,” says Bryan.

Two months ago, he and his knitting circle friends, with funds raised via the online Kickstarter program, brought the number of cozy-clothed stop sign posts to 100 – most between I-5 (west), I-805 (east), Route 52 (north) and I-8 (south). One also popped up in Point Loma, in Normal Heights and a few near Balboa Park.

Best part: We’ve got a whole contingent of BRIers in San Diego – more pictures as soon as we can get ‘em…

Update: Oh boy, Mana the Magnificent has agreed to a secret mission regarding the yarned stop signs…stay tuned over the weekend!

Update II: Success!

Posted by Thom

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April 24, 2012

Deadly Booby Traps Set in Utah National Park

Unbelievable:

A deadly booby trap rigged along a popular Utah trail could have killed someone if they had tripped a ground wire set up to send a 20-pound, spiked boulder swinging into an unsuspecting hiker, authorities said Monday.

Another trap was designed to trip a passer-by into a bed of sharpened wooden stakes, authorities said.

Two men arrested over the weekend on suspicion of misdemeanor reckless endangerment told authorities the traps were intended for wildlife, but investigators didn’t believe the story.

Look at this thing:

Things like this make us think that somebody’s in dire need of a nice cold can of whoopass. Arg!

• In a booby-trap-related story from Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader (page 54): In 2002 a Dutch guy set up a booby trap to protect his garden shed: If you opened the door to the shed—a shotgun would blast you in the stomach. The guy was so proud of his garden shed booby trap that he showed it off to some friends…by opening the door to the shed…upon which he was immediately shot in the stomach by his own booby trap. When police arrived they discovered why the guy had set up a booby trap to guard his garden shed: he had 15 marijuana plants in there. When he recovered from the shotgun blast…he went to jail.

Posted by Thom

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April 17, 2012

Levon Helm in Final Stages of Fight With Cancer

Kick in the gut:

Levon Helm, a treasured voice in Americana music whose Southern drawl and busy-but-tight drumming brought an authenticity to The Band, is losing his decade-long battle with cancer, his family announced on Tuesday.

“Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer,” a message reads on Helm’s website. “Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.”

Levon Helm always seemed like one of the real good guys in all of rock and roll, someone who was in it for all the right reasons, and left the whole scene bigger, cleaner, and better by being part of it. And that voice  - just so big and embracing and raw and authentic.

Just rotten news.

Rolling Stone’s got a list of Levon’s best moments.

And 50,000 websites will have this song up today – and so will we:

Posted by Thom

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April 13, 2012

14-Year-Old Saves 25 Horses From Fire

Ho hum:

“I got kicked in the shoulder by one of the horses in there and I got knocked down a few times,” she said. “But my adrenaline was so high at the time that it didn’t phase me.”

She’s just ovr four feet tall. And weighs 86 pounds. Yowza.

P.S. Must be something in the air.

Posted by Thom

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March 24, 2012

Japanese Tsunami Ship Nearing Canada

Wow. One year later, a catastrophe’s strange side effects, far, far away:

“A fishing trawler swept away more than a year ago by a tsunami off the east coast of Japan has been spotted floating near British Columbia, Canadian officials said…

The trawler is part of a giant debris field that was generated by the giant wall of water that struck the east coast of the island nation following a 9.0 earthquake, sweeping everything from cars to houses into the ocean.”

There’s a whole lot of other stuff out there, too. Check out this story, and this map someone made last November:

Tsunami Debris

 

Posted by Thom

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March 18, 2012

63 Years in an Airplane

One excerpt from a nice Sunday read about a guy who has been a flight attendant for 63 years:

Burt Lancaster had 12 or 13 martinis, then came and bartended with me as if he hadn’t had one.

And a related note, from Uncle John’s 24-KARAT GOLD Bathroom Reader (page 387):

BREATHLESS
In February 2011, the Federal Aviation Agency ordered every U.S. airline to dismantle the oxygen generators (those things that drop out of the ceiling if the plane loses cabin pressure) in airplane bathrooms. Apparently, the government is worried that terrorists might be able to use the equipment to start a fire or set off a bomb in the bathroom. So are you doomed if the plane loses pressure while you’re on the pot? No, but you may be embarrassed: As soon as the flight attendants put on their own oxygen masks, they will unlock the bathrooms and pass bottles of oxygen in to anyone caught with their pants down. The FAA is working with airplane manufacturers to come up with a safer oxygen system…just for bathrooms.

Posted by Thom

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March 13, 2012

The Encyclopedia Britannica is History

Encyclopedia Britannica

The print version, anyway:

Its legacy winds back through centuries and across continents, past the birth of America to the waning days of the Enlightenment. It is a record of humanity’s achievements in war and peace, art and science, exploration and discovery. It has been taken to represent the sum of all human knowledge.

And now it’s going out of print.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has announced that after 244 years, dozens of editions and more than 7m sets sold, no new editions will be put to paper. The 32 volumes of the 2010 installment, it turns out, were the last. Future editions will live exclusively online.

Is there something very right – or very wrong – that we are now linking you to “The History of the Encyclopedia Britannica“…at Wikipedia?

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Posted by Thom

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February 9, 2012

Crying Orca Saved From Net By Diver

These stories are so cool:

Can’t wait until someone does it with a trapped great white shark…

P.S. The Coromandel Peninsula, just to take the opportunity to make this a geographical learning experience, is on NZ’s North Island, just east of Aukland. The town of Coromandel is on the peninsula’s western shore.

Posted by Thom

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January 24, 2012

Delta Rerouting Flights Due to Solar Flares

Yowza:

Jan 24 (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines said it is diverting some flights on polar routes between Detroit and Asia to avoid disruptions to aircraft communications by a strong solar radiation storm.

The storm has caused minor disruptions for U.S. airlines. Delta said it altered routes for “a handful” of flights and that changes are adding about 15 minutes to travel times.

“We are undergoing a series of solar bursts in the sky that are impacting the northern side of the world,” said Delta spokesman Anthony Black on Tuesday.

“It can impact your ability to communicate,” he said. “So, basically, the polar routes are being flown further south than normal.”

Here’s our question: Shouldn’t a news story about one airline doing this (they do say that one other did a wee bit of rerouting) be about…one airline doing this?

Here’s a good article on the recent flares.

And oh heckyeah. Awesome NASA video:

Posted by Thom

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