Things you didn’t know

Sometimes you have to share things you receive in your mail box… I had a good chuckles and laugh. I am sure you will too.

October 9th, 2008 | Posted in World news | 6 Comments |

October 9th, 2008 | Posted in World news | No Comments |

What have we learned in 2007. Nothing stays, at least from my experience. I have been on this planet 48 years in August. If you would have told me we would be talking on phones the size of your palm I would have said roll another and lets dream.. lolol well it has happened and so much more.. read on

TRANSPORTATION -Hydrogen Bomber
It may be years before you can buy a Chevy powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Tired of waiting, Shanghai-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies decided to design and market the H-racer, a 6-in.-long toy car that does what Detroit still can’t. It runs on hydrogen extracted from plain tap water using the solar-powered Hydrogen Station, below, and can travel more than 300 ft. in a single fuel-up. The car’s miniature scale gives it one advantage over full-size prototypes: since it uses only a trace amount of flammable hydrogen, there’s no risk of it pulling a Hindenburg in your living room. (more)

TRANSPORTATION INVENTIONS – Batteries Included
What goes from zero to 60 in 4 sec., tops out at more than 130 m.p.h. and appears to be missing a gas tank? The Tesla Roadster 100. It’s pure California: a hot sports car that doubles as a statement against pollution and oil dependence. Its massive lithium-ion-battery array can power it for up to 250 miles of highway travel, and even though it will fatten your electricity bill, the Roadster is still twice as efficient as a Toyota Prius. (more)

YOUTUBE – BY LEV GROSSMAN
Meet Peter. Peter is a 79-year-old English retiree. Back in WW II he served as a radar technician. He is now an international star.One year ago, this would not have been possible, but the world has changed. In the past 12 months, thousands of ordinary people have become famous. Famous people have been embarrassed. Huge sums of money have changed hands. Lots and lots of Mentos have been dropped into Diet Coke. The rules are different now, and one website changed them: YouTube. It’s been an interesting year in technology. Nintendo invented a video game you control with a magic wand. A new kind of car traveled 3,145 miles on a single gallon of gas. A robot learned to ride a bike. Somebody came up with a nanofabric umbrella that doesn’t stay wet. But only YouTube created a new way for millions of people to entertain, educate, shock, rock and grok one another on a scale we’ve never seen before. That’s why it’s Time’s Invention of the Year for 2006. (more)

Witty Wheels
A cross between a chopper, a compact and a UFO, the low-emission Clever car runs on compressed natural gas stored in two cylinders behind the passenger’s seat and gets a dizzying 108 m.p.g. The three-wheeled, aluminum-framed Clever turns like a dream thanks to computer-controlled cornering and hydraulics. And even though its engine is good for the earth, this two-seater has plenty of pep; it can cruise at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. (more)

TRANSPORTATION INVENTIONS Start Your Engine

What do you do if your car battery goes kaput in a storm, and you don’t have jumper cables or roadside assistance? With Black & Decker’s Simple Start you can get rolling again without getting wet. The self-contained battery booster plugs into the 12-volt accessory outlet and will restart your car in about 10 minutes. The device beeps when your car battery is charged, and the LED area light lets you read while you wait. Schumacher Electric has a new E-Charge Emergency Car Starter that works similarly, but we prefer the Simple Start for its slick design. (more)

Finder of Lost Gloves
For years, people prayed to St. Anthony for help finding misplaced items. Now you can attach radio-frequency-emitting tags to your most losable possessions. When something is missing, fire up the Loc8tor, and it points you in the right direction–not just left or right, but up or down too. It homes in to within an inch of your item, while the tag itself emits helpful beeps. The only thing the system can’t do is locate the Loc8tor itself. For that you still need St. Anthony. (more)

- Just Claws
You already drink organic milk, buy free-range chicken and shun foie gras. But have you assessed your seafood-eating habits? After watching a lobster thrash about as it was boiled alive at a grocery store, a British barrister devised a kinder way to kill crustaceans. His CrustaStun electrocutes them with a 110-volt shock, dispatching them in about five seconds, vs. the two minutes it takes in hot water. A commercial version is already being used by a pair of seafood wholesalers in Britain. A smaller, home version–measuring about 1.5 feet in width and depth–will be out by year’s end. (more)

- Drip Patrol
Umbrellas are supposed to keep the water out, but those $5 throwaway models will soak through in a downpour, and even the best umbrellas drip annoyingly when you bring them indoors. Here’s a dryer, albeit pricier, alternative. The NanoNuno umbrella dries after a quick shake, so you don’t have to park it outside the door on rainy days. The canopy’s nanotech polyester surface is designed to repel water droplets, so they don’t end up on you or your floor. Its inventors were inspired by the way moisture and dirt roll off the leaves of a lotus plant. (more)

- The Doting Dinosaur
Lots of robot toys look like real animals, but they can’t walk the walk. Pleo, which is modeled after a baby camarasaurus (a plant-eating dinosaur), aims to be more lifelike. When it walks, its whole body sways. It’s equipped with more than three dozen touch, sound, light and tilt sensors, and it even has moods. Ignore Pleo, and it will get depressed and sleep all day. Give it some TLC, and it will wag its tail when you get home and purr like a cat. O.K., maybe it’s confused about which animal it’s supposed to be–but it’s sure got (a mechanical) heart. (more)

- Transformer
The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR), developed for military search-and-rescue missions, has hydraulic arms that can support injured soldiers weighing up to 400 lbs. (more than most troopers in full gear) and a system of wheels, tracks and joints that enable it to maneuver in all sorts of positions. It can balance on its back wheels to climb up a steep hill or roll over rough terrain while staying low to the ground. For now the BEAR needs a human to drive it via remote control, but a more autonomous version is in the works. (more)

July 19th, 2008 | Posted in World news | 1 Comment |

BERLUSCONI HOPES TO BREAK PROTOCOL WITH LIST READY
(ANSA) – Rome, May 7 -
Premier-elect Silvio Berlusconi hopes to break with protocol and make history by presenting a list of ministers upon receiving a mandate from the head of state to form a new government, well-informed sources said. President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to ask Berlusconi to form a new government late Wednesday afternoon or early evening, after winding up his second day of consultations. (read more)

Hunger Facts: International
World Hunger and Poverty: How They Fit Together
* 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago. 3
*Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes–one child every five seconds. 12
* In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food. 1
* Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. 1 (read more)

A Ukrainian Pop Star’s Would-Be Revolution
by Dan Charles
All Things Considered, April 7, 2008 · In Ukraine, an unlikely voice is speaking — and singing — about the need for clean, green, energy. Ruslana is Ukraine’s biggest pop star. Her live shows are spectacles with fire, smoke, dancers and costumes. In the middle of it all, there’s Ruslana, tossing her hair, stamping her feet and usually not wearing very much — a small bundle of unbridled energy. (read more)

Students claim police chief who shot himself was careless
RIVERDALE, Utah – The police chief who shot himself in the ankle was waving a loaded pistol and being careless, according to two students who were attending his class to qualify for a concealed-weapons permit. “We were told the gun is the chief’s personal sidearm, but it looked to me like he didn’t know anything about the gun,” Lewis Walker said. Bart Ulm, another student seeking certification to carry a concealed weapon, said he was surprised Chief Dave Hansen was using a loaded gun to show how it worked. (read more)

In Cuba it’s close, but no giant cigar
By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer Tue May 6, 8:22 PM ET
HAVANA – Looks like it will be close, but no giant cigar, for Cuba’s stogie-rolling king Jose Castelar. The 64-year-old former world-record holder has teamed up with five assistants, using nearly 93 pounds (42 kilograms) of top-quality tobacco to assemble a 98-foot (30-meter) cigar. Castelar set Guinness Records for the world’s longest cigars in 2001, 2003 and April 2005, when he completed a stogie measuring 20.41 meters, just shy of 67 feet. On Tuesday, he said he is shooting for a fourth title. But Castelar, who learned the art of cigar-making from an uncle at age 5, is likely to fall short this time: Guinness says Puerto Rican cigar-maker Patricio Pena crafted a whopping 41.2-meter (135-foot) stogie last year.(read more)

May 7th, 2008 | Posted in World news | No Comments |

Marriages up, divorces down in 2007
12:40PM Tuesday May 06, 2008
Love and marriage is still going strong in New Zealand, with the number of marriages and civil unions remaining steady and the divorce rate declining, Statistics New Zealand says. In total, 21,500 couples said “I do” last year, an increase on the 20,800 average for the last decade, statistician Geoff…((read more)

Man Sues For Right To Take His Wife’s Last Name
Michael Buday Is Now Michael Bijon — Thank You Very Much!
LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Shakespeare asked “What’s in a name?” but for one Marina del Rey man, the answer is, well, relative.
Michael Buday wanted to take his wife’s surname after marriage but found that the DMV wouldn’t issue him a new license in that name. Women get to change their names all the time, and Buday figured it was his right to change his. Plus, he promised his new wife that he would take her name, Bijon, because their were no sons in her father’s family to carry on the Bijon name. So, what’s in a name? A three-year legal battle for starters. Today, Buday, uh, Bijon was granted the right to become Michael Bijon. Strike up one for women’s liberation. The couple were married on Aug. 20, 2005 and now, for the first time legally, the Bijons are united in name and relationship. (read more)

Being blessed with a large wooden phallus (+photos)
Today I was blessed by a monk wielding a large wooden phallus. Apparently this Bhutanese blessing has proved remarkably successful in promoting fertility. That’s all very well but I’m not sure that, should I return home with a living reminder of Bhutan, my husband will believe me that it was the divine gift from a famous 15th century Buddhist monk. This blessing is only available at the 15th century Chimi Lkakhang (temple) built in honour of the renowned lama Drukpa Kinley who is also known as the Mad Monk. Drukpa Kinley was born in Tibet in 1455 but has strong ties with the Punakha valley that lies to the east of Bhutan’s capital Thimpu. It’s a low altitude valley with a sub-tropical climate where rice and bananas flourish. (read more)

Toronto police aid worldwide search for suspected pedophile
Jorge Barrera, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Interpol has received tips from Canada after issuing a worldwide appeal for information on a man suspected of sexually abusing young boys from Southeast Asia, a spokesperson for the agency said Tuesday. Interpol spokesman Michael Moran, a criminal intelligence officer, said the appeal was issued after a fruitless two-year investigation led the agency no closer to identifying or locating a man who allegedly appears in about 100 photographs to be sexually abusing boys five to 10 years of age. (read more)

Trouble In Paradise: Global Warming A Greater Danger To Tropical Species
ScienceDaily (May 6, 2008) —
Polar bears fighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world. A team led by University of Washington scientists has found that while temperature changes will be much more extreme at high latitudes, tropical species have a far greater risk of extinction with warming of just a degree or two. That is because they are used to living within a much smaller temperature range to begin with, and once temperatures get beyond that range many species might not be able to cope. (read more)

May 6th, 2008 | Posted in World news | No Comments |

Everyday that I live in America I hear about what’s going on in my backyard, I barely get any news from around the world unless it’s really outrageous like the freak in Vienna… Well I should say Alleged freak,not fair since in America you are innocent until proven guilty, (*grumble mumbel the MF is guilty). A lot of things may not pertain to you and I directly but in order to become a stronger better informed country I feel it is my duty to get some tid bits of OTHER news in order for my readers to see… this country is not the Universe. Please read on. If you find any news that you would like to add to this blog feel free to drop me a line I will read it and include it.

‘Dungeon dad’ admits to incest
28/04/2008 14:22 – (SA)
Vienna – A 73-year-old Austrian admitted on Monday to having fathered seven children with his daughter whom he kept imprisoned in a dungeon for 24 years. Josef Fritzl, a retired electrical engineer from Amstetten in eastern Austria, had “started” to admit to having locked his daughter, Elisabeth, 42, in the basement in August 1984, the Austrian Press Agency said.(read more)
Divorce – who gets the pets?
24/04/2008 21:23 – (SA)
Sydney – Forget the family silver or the car. Increasing numbers of couples who split up have a greater bone of contention – who gets the family pet? With pets being treated more as one of the family than just an animal, the fate of Fido or Cuddles is becoming a growing problem which lawyers are taking on board, drafting “petimony” contracts and sparking a new focus on animal law issues. Michelle Brown, a family law expert from Sydney firm Watts McCray, said it’s becoming more common for couples to share access to pets after they split but the law in most nations was not equipped for this.(read more)

Raikkonen leads Ferrari 1-2
(Reuters) 28 April 2008
BARCELONA — Ferrari’s world champion Kimi Raikkonen stretched his Formula One lead to nine points with a dominant win from pole position in the Spanish Grand Prix yesterday.
Brazilian Felipe Massa sealed Ferrari’s second successive one-two finish, and third win in a row, with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton third to revive his title challenge after a disappointing last race in Bahrain. Raikkonen’s 17th grand prix win left the Finn with 29 points, nine clear of closest rival Hamilton, and catapulted Ferrari back in front of BMW Sauber in the constructors’ standings. While Raikkonen had an uneventful afternoon in the sunshine, his compatriot Heikki Kovalainen was flown to hospital with concussion after his McLaren plunged across the gravel and into a tyre wall. (read more)

Militia crackdown pays off for al-Maliki
LIZ SLY; Chicago Tribune
Published: April 28th, 2008 01:00 AM
BAGHDAD – The fortunes of Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have received an unexpected boost from his initially botched offensive against militias in Basra, which has turned into a standoff between al-Maliki and the Shiite Mahdi Army militia. The showdown is recalibrating the political balance in Iraq in ways that could help break the deadlock that has stalled progress on key measures including a new oil law and the broader issue of national reconciliation. (read more)

UN frustration at DRC allegations
By Laura Trevelyan
BBC News, New York
At UN headquarters there is both irritation and unease over the BBC story. Irritation because officials regard the allegations of gold smuggling in the Congo by Pakistani peacekeepers as rehashed. Unease because, as the head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, put it in a letter to the BBC: “Every incident of misconduct by the Blue Helmets diminishes public confidence in our work and weakens the institution of peacekeeping.” (read more)

May 1st, 2008 | Posted in World news | No Comments |

Through Africa with hope
By Ban Ki Moon
Published: May 1, 2008
There was, last week, a glimmer of hope in the world food crisis. Expecting a bumper harvest, Ukraine relaxed restrictions on exports. Overnight, global wheat prices fell by 10 percent. By contrast, traders in Bangkok quote rice prices around $1,000 a ton, up from $460 two months ago. Such is the volatility of today’s markets. We do not know how high food prices might go, nor how far they could fall. But one thing is certain: We have gone from an era of plenty to one of scarcity. Experts agree that food prices are not likely to return to the levels the world had grown accustomed to any time soon. (read more)

Natural changes may briefly offset global warming
By Andrew C. Revkin
Published: May 1, 2008
After decades of research that sought, and found, evidence of a human influence on the earth’s climate, climatologists are beginning to shift to a new and similarly daunting enterprise: creating decade-long forecasts for climate, just as meteorologists routinely generate weeklong forecasts for weather. One of the first attempts to look ahead a decade, using computer simulations and measurements of ocean temperatures, predicts a slight cooling of Europe and North America, probably related to shifting currents and patterns in the oceans. (read more)

Magician’s breathtaking 17 minutes under water
By Reuters
Published: May2, 2008
CHICAGO: US magician David Blaine has set a world record after holding his breath for more than 17 minutes while suspended in a water-filled sphere on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show.
“I feel great,” Blaine said when he was pulled to the surface yesterday.
“I actually started to doubt I was going to make it because I’d never done it with such a high heart rate.” His aides said during the event that his heart rate should have dropped far lower than it did. “I feel happy … a life-long dream,” he told Winfrey on the set of her show. He said he had hoped to reach 23 minutes. Blaine, 35, was pulled from the water after 17 minutes, 4.4seconds.(read more)

Cellar captives threatened with poison gas
Rachel Stevenson and agencies guardian.co.uk,
Thursday May 1 2008
Austrian investigators say Josef Fritzl threatened to gas his daughter and the children he fathered with her if they tried to escape from the cellar underneath his home. Helmut Greiner, of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, said today that the 73-year-old repeatedly told his victims they would not survive if they harmed him because he had wired up a system to pump deadly gas into the windowless basement. Officers are now checking whether Fritzl had set up such a mechanism. Further evidence suggesting Fritzl may have had an accomplice has emerged today. A lodger at the house where Fritzl allegedly imprisoned and abused his daughter says he saw another man go into the cellar. Alfred Dubanovsky told the BBC the man was introduced as a plumber. His claim contradicts those of investigators who say Fritzl had no help in his crimes.(read more)

Every Italian’s income posted on internet
Rachel Stevenson and agencies guardian.co.uk,
Thursday May 1 2008
The incomes of every Italian citizen were published on the web without any prior warning by the government, just days before it was due to leave power. Claiming it was part of a crackdown on tax evasion, the finance ministry yesterday put details of the declared taxable income of every citizen on the country’s tax website. The site proved hugely popular. Surprised Italians, delighted at the chance to find out how much their neighbours, colleagues, and high-profile celebrities were earning, bombarded the site within hours of it going live. Critics condemned the publication, however, saying it was an outrageous breach of privacy as the government did not have consent to make the information public. “It’s a clear violation of privacy law,” ADOC, the Italian consumer group, told Reuters. “There is a danger for an increase in crime and violence as the data are an irresistible source for criminals.” (read more)

May 1st, 2008 | Posted in World news | No Comments |

Scuffles in Japan at torch relay

The Olympic torch has met with more protests and scuffles on the latest leg of its troubled relay in the Japanese city of Nagano. With security tight along the route, two demonstrators tried to seize the torch and a third threw eggs at the flame. All were arrested. But correspondents say the relay passed off without serious disruption.
The streets were lined with thousands of Chinese supporters, as well as dozens of protesters. A sea of wellwishers greeted the torch as the final runner completed the relay at a city park. Officials said four people were slightly injured in separate incidents, and a smoke-emitting tube was thrown at the relay without effect, according to reports. (read more)

Political Tremors and Social Discontent Shake Up Turkey

The news on Friday, March 14, that Turkey’s chief prosecutor had filed a law suit that might shut down or virtually ban the ruling A.K.P. (Justice and Development Party) and its leaders from political life shook up the country. The grounds for the threatened closure were justified according to Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, the chief judge in the case, as the A.K.P. is “a hotbed of anti-secular activities.” This latest action taken by the courts adds another layer of mayhem to other prolonged legal battles being played out in the country, between the secularists and advocates of greater religious Islamic freedom. The court’s move rattled the Turkish stock market that following Monday, adding to the current state of uncertainly. (read more)

Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

From 2007, but another great talking point on man-made global warming. The polar ice caps on Mars have experienced shrinking over the last three summers. With no anthropogenic reasons for the melt, are the climates of Mars and Earth both affected by their one commonality, the sun? (read more)

Hunger Facts: International

World Hunger and Poverty: How They Fit Together

• 854 million people across the world are hungry, up from 852 million a year ago. 3
• Every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes–one child every five seconds. 12
• In essence, hunger is the most extreme form of poverty, where individuals or families cannot afford to meet their most basic need for food. 1
• Hunger manifests itself in many ways other than starvation and famine. Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness. 1
• Countries in which a large portion of the population battles hunger daily are usually poor and often lack the social safety nets we enjoy, such as soup kitchens, food stamps, and job training programs. When a family that lives in a poor country cannot grow enough food or earn enough money to buy food, there is nowhere to turn for help. 1 (read more)

Colombian Gold

By Liane Bonin
With Christmas shopping just around the corner, the music industry is releasing giftwrap-ready albums by its biggest stars: Britney Spears, Creed, Garth Brooks, Kid Rock, Paul McCartney, Jewel, and… Shakira? Epic’s decision to release ”Laundry Service,” the first English-language album from the Colombian pop star, during a month crowded with major acts might seem risky at best. ”The timing is unusual,” admits Billboard charts director Geoff Mayfield. ”Normally, I would advise a record company not to launch a relatively new artist in the fourth quarter.” (read more)

April 30th, 2008 | Posted in World news | 2 Comments |

These little snippets are things that are happening around the world. I am not sure about you but I am sick and tired of hearing about Hillary and Obama. Is there anything else going on around the world. Well let me tell you there is. Please read on.

Recruiting the bottom of the barrel

By David Isenberg WASHINGTON – United States Army recruits are not being all that they can be, according to data released earlier this week by a congressional committee.
The US Army admitted approximately 25% more recruits last year with a record of legal problems ranging from felony convictions and serious misdemeanors to drug crimes and traffic offenses, as pressure to increase the size of US ground forces has led the military to grant more waivers for criminal conduct. Put another way, the percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since2004 to one for every eight new soldiers. read more

How to solve the global food crisis BBC News

The world economy has many problems but none more pressing than what is happening to food prices. There have been food riots in Haiti, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Indonesia and several other nations. Twenty thousand desperate textile workers in Bangladesh went on a rampage, giving rise to fears of wider instability, since the garment industry accounts for three-fourths of the country’s exports. Global food prices have been rising over the last three years; but in the last few months they have…read more

Battle for busiest station in Europe

Noon and a tense stand-off at Europe’s busiest station. A hundred young men in hoods and baggy trousers punching the air in rhythm confront an almost equal number of policemen. A moment earlier the teenagers had poured off a crowded train from the suburbs – on their way, they said, to a march against education cuts in the center of Paris. The police are skeptical and wary, the teenagers hostile. It is another day and another small skirmish in the battle for the Gare du Nord, a battle which the thousands of tourists who pour off the Eurostar every day know nothing about. read more

In a political fix? Call Shakira

There was a defining moment in the life of Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, one which both her army of devoted fans and her impressive publicity machine agree indicated the world had a huge star on its hands. Aged just 7, Shakira was accompanying her family to a Middle Eastern restaurant in her home town in the steamy Colombian port city of Barranquilla. As the Arabic drums started to pulse and the restaurant’s in-house belly dancers took to the stage, up leapt the little girl, overtaken by a “natural instinct”, she later recalled, “to move my hips and twirl my belly to the sound of the doumbek. I fell in love with the sensation of being on stage”. read more

April 25th, 2008 | Posted in World news | 3 Comments |