Links that Caught My Eye

A sample of some of the stories that caught my eye.

• Harry Potter's Wizarding World conjures up crowds 
• Swiss Firm Says Its Fabric Can Clean Up Oil Spill 
• 7 Classic Disney Movies Based On R-Rated Stories 
• Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed sushi-digesting genes from ocean bacteria 
• Putting a Private Detective in Your Laptop 
• Q.&A.: Updating a Digital Camera’s Software 
• Coffee's Mysterious Benefits Mount

Things of Note

A collection of links that caught my eye today:

Pakistan: Taliban brainwashes kids with visions of virgins- Sadly there are no surprises here.
Finding the G-spot: Is it real?- Interesting article. Reminds me of the secret meetings we had back in my youth about girls.
Charter Richard Branson's yacht- It is 105-foot catamaran, named Necker Belle. There is a picture but no specs. Of course if I had the $88,000 a week it costs to rent it I'd have no problem calling and asking for them.
10 of the year's coolest gadgets- I love gadgets. So disappointed not to be at C.E.S.

Amazon Eve, A Giant Model

I found this story over on The Huffington Post.

A model named Amazon Eve recently appeared in the Australian magazine Zoo Weekly. She has a beautiful face and figure, but it's her height that makes her stand out the most. According to Eve's MySpace page, the American model is 6' 8'' and 30 years old.

A Different Sort Of Fish Tale

I can't decide who this guy looks like, Woody Allen, Lyle Lovett or Elvis Costello. Doesn't matter because any way you slice it the dude has tremendous problems. The picture is provided courtesy of Multnomah County Sheriff.

A 27-year-old Southeast Portland man who beat his ex-girlfriend and then stabbed her pet fish and left it impaled in her apartment has been sentenced to two years of probation and a psychological evaluation.

An attorney for Donald Earl Fite III said he didn’t want to talk about the details of the assault, but that stabbing the fish was “a very low point” in his client’s life.

"He is absolutely mortified and ashamed about what he did to the fish," said attorney Tom MacNair today in Multnomah County Circuit Court."

A few comments. This really is a sad tale that is almost comical. He feels badly about the fish, but not about assaulting his ex. WTF.

Mr. Fite (what an unfortunate name for this story) apparently is quite disturbed that his lady friend has decided that he is no longer the king of love. Apparently she came home and found him there waiting. He suggested that they get back together, she refused and said that she had plans for the evening.

And now the story begins to get more bizarre. She tried to leave and he attempted to restrain her. She punched him in the nose and then he grabbed her by hair and ripped out her hair extensions. (I don't know if that was intentional, just sharing information from the article.)

She fled the apartment and called 911. She returned with a police officer and discovered her fish, DeLorean impaled upon the wood floor. Let's return to the article for a moment so that you can see just how weird it gets.

"I started crying hysterically," said Harris, who didn't attend the hearing but spoke with The Oregonian by phone.

"Donald bought the fish for me, and I'm sure he knew how much I cared for it."

Fite admitted to police that he killed the betta, saying, "If she can't have me, then she can't have the fish."

Fite pleaded guilty to first-degree animal abuse and fourth-degree domestic-violence assault. In addition to probation and a mental-health evaluation, he must work 80 hours of community service, pay $617 in fines and fees and stay away from Harris.

Deputy district attorney Eric Zimmerman told Judge Eric Bergstrom that the victim had requested restitution for an unusual reason – she wanted Fite to pay for a memorial tattoo she plans to get of the fish. The judge declined to order Fite to pay for the tattoo.

The judge also decided against banning Fite from having contact with fish, saying the stabbing was probably a one-time incident."

Links That Caught My Eye

Elderly Woman Wants Decapitation Sentence Reduced- I am going to say no. Even if she was abused the stabbing in conjunction with the hacksaw makes me nervous.
Sacramento Police Searching for Boobie Bandits- Milk this story for all its worth.
Swimming Pool Rules Must Be Obeyed- Not Sure how they are going to enforce this one. Yuck.
Harvard Crimson says Holocaust denial ad published by accident- Nice to see that an Ivy League education is worth something.
Pot Heads Moving to LA- 58 applications for one person(s), business(es). I am hungry.
28 Year Old Mother May Have 10th kid In Jail- Compassion for idiocy only goes so far.

America's Best Public Restrooms

Friends it is time again to announce the winners of America's Best Restroom contest. As you know this is one of the yearly features of the blog so I am pleased to present it to you again.

Here is a list of the top five which I am sad to say have never received a visit from me, but perhaps one day.

1. The Shoji Tabuchi Theater, Branson, Missouri (Click Here)
2. The Tremont Plaza Hotel, Baltimore, MD (Click Here)
3. Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY (Click Here)
4. Zeffirino Ristorante, Las Vegas, NV (Click Here)
5. The Drake Hotel, Chicago, Illinois (Click Here)

Among the remaining finalists, those placing in sixth through tenth place are as follows: Macy’s – Union Square in San Francisco, California; The Tampa Theatre in Tampa, Florida; NOVA 535 in St. Petersburg, Florida; The Fox Theatre in Detroit, Michigan and Canlis Restaurant in Seattle, Washington.

The Shoji Tabuchi Theatre received the coveted “America’s Best Restroom” plaque of recognition from Cintas during a special presentation today, and secured its place in the “America’s Best Restroom Hall of Fame” found at www.bestrestroom.com.

Links that Caught My Eye

The Healing Power of Music- CNN reports on the work of a cardiologist and his study of the effects of music on the cardiovascular system. "Turns out music may be one of the best de-stressors. Makes sense to me.

Why Your Baby’s Name Will Sound Like Everyone Else’s -Wired gives you the rundown on why your baby's name isn't all that unique.

The Best & Worst Owners in Sports- SI comes up with another list.

Blue Whales Are On The Move- Live Science has some great stuff.

365 Days of Face Painting

Wacky artist paints his face for a full year.

Indian Women Say No Toilet, No Wedding

This story is a good reminder to be thankful for what we have. More televisions, than toilets, that is bizarre.

In the northern Indian state of Haryana, courtship is generally intricate business, but the mothers of the brides-to-be have simplified matters by clearing stating to potential grooms: “If you don’t have a toilet, you cannot marry my daughter.”

In the northern Indian state of Haryana, courtship is generally intricate business, but the mothers of the brides-to-be have simplified matters by clearing stating to potential grooms: “If you don’t have a toilet, you cannot marry my daughter.”

The slogan, which is a bit longer in Hindi and specifically reads: “If you don’t have a proper lavatory in your house, don’t even think about marrying my daughter,” has been plastered all across villages as part of a campaign to increase the number of available facilities.

The chronic shortage of proper plumbing is ironic in a region of the country where more households have TV sets than toilets.

Believe it or not, it is estimated that in India more than 660 million people still defecate in the open, causing a myriad of medical conditions ranging from diarrhea to polio.

With 8% more men than women, the fairer sex in India have become more vocal about expressing their resentment at having to relieve themselves outside, giving brides more leverage in pre-marital bargaining.

“Women suffer the most from this situation. They must go outside and they have to do so before sunrise or after nightfall so they can’t be seen,” said Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of Sulabh, a company that has built toilets for ten million Indians, and the recipient of this year’s Stockholm Water Prize for developing eco-friendly lavatories to improve public health.

Hard Rock Bug Repellent

Who knew that listening to Stairway to Heaven or Paint it Black can help you rid yourself of vermin.

TUSCARORA, Nev. -- The residents of this tiny town, anticipating an imminent attack, will be ready with a perimeter defense. They'll position their best weapons at regular intervals, faced out toward the desert to repel the assault.

Then they'll turn up the volume.

Rock music blaring from boomboxes has proved one of the best defenses against an annual invasion of Mormon crickets. The huge flightless insects are a fearsome sight as they advance across the desert in armies of millions that march over, under or into anything in their way.

But the crickets don't much fancy Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, the townspeople figured out three years ago. So next month, Tuscarorans are preparing once again to get out their extension cords, array their stereos in a quarter-circle and tune them to rock station KHIX, full blast, from dawn to dusk. "It is part of our arsenal," says Laura Moore, an unemployed college professor and one of the town's 13 residents.

Around the Web

It is never too late to be circumcised.

Mosques face wrong direction...oops

Not the kind of sink you want for a family bathroom.

Don't show Octomom this picture.

cleveland schools

Canada's Planned Parenthood Ads Suck

How Baseball Players Catch Fly Balls

I thought that this was pretty cool. Somewhere my high school algebra teacher is smiling, more proof of math in the real world.

"Years ago, physicist Seville Chapman proposed a model to explain how players manage the path of a fly ball so that they arrive to intercept it at just the right time. His theory, called Optical Acceleration Cancellation (OAC), used the acceleration of the ball through the vision field as a guide for player movement.

As a fielder watches the ball rise, he moves either forward or backwards so that the ball moves at a constant speed through his field of vision. If he moves too far forward, the ball will rise faster and may eventually fly over his head. If he takes too many steps back, the ball will appear to rise slower and will drop in front of him.

By managing the ball's position with his movement, a fielder will end up at the right spot at the right time. This explains why the stationary fielders could not predict where the ball would land, as they did not have the benefit of OAC.If we ask real fielders how they knew where to run to catch a ball, they may not respond with, "Well, I simply adjusted my relative field position to keep the tangent of the vertical optical angle to the ball increasing at a constant rate." So, to test the OAC geometric equations against real life, researchers led by Dinant Kistemaker of the University of Western Ontario, compared the predicted running paths from their mathematical simulation with the real running paths of fielders observed in a previous study.

"We have found that running paths are largely consistent with those observed experimentally," Kistemaker told LiveScience. "Largely, and not completely, because the start of fielders is somewhat strange: They tend to step forward first, irrespective of the fact that they have run either forward or backwards to catch that fly ball."

The research is detailed this month in the journal Human Movement Science."

Make Sour Things Sweet

Kind of interesting.

But after chewing the fruit and rubbing the pulp against the tongue, the berry, known by a promising name -- "miracle fruit" or Synsepalum dulcificum -- releases a sweetening potency that alters the taste buds.

For about 15 to 30 minutes, everything sour is sweet.

Lemons lose their zing and taste like candy. Oranges become sickeningly sweet. Hot sauce that usually burns the tongue tastes like honey barbecue sauce that scorches as it trickles down the throat.

Through word of mouth, these miracle fruits have inspired "taste tripping" parties, where foodies and curious eaters pay $10 to $35 to try the berries, which are native to West Africa.
About five months ago, a Miami, Florida, hospital began studying whether the fruit's sweetening effects can restore the appetite of cancer patients whose chemotherapy treatments have left them with dulled taste buds.

"What happens in patients is the food tastes so metallic and bland, it becomes repulsive," said

Dr. Mike Cusnir, a lead researcher on the project and oncologist at Mount Sinai Medical Center. "Most of the patients undergoing chemotherapy have weight loss. Then they cut further into their diet and then this furthers the weight loss. It causes malnutrition, decreased function of the body and electrolyte imbalance."

He Went Over Niagra Falls

Used to hear stories about people going over in a barrel, but this sounds more like a suicide attempt.

(CNN) -- A man went over Niagara Falls and survived Wednesday afternoon, one of the few people to ever survive the plunge unprotected, authorities said.

The man was seen entering the icy water just above Horseshoe Falls, on the Canadian side, and apparently jumped in about 2:15 p.m, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Fire Chief Lee Smith said.

Smith said the unidentified man was in the near-freezing water for "40-plus" minutes before he was rescued by Niagara Parks Police and Niagara Falls firefighter Todd Brunning.

Brunning, who was tethered to shore, swam about 60 meters (nearly 200 feet) into the river and was able to get hold of the man and bring him to shore.

A Flying Submarine

The Deep Flight Submersible sounds so very cool. CNN has a nice story about them. If I had the cash I'd consider buying one.

"The Deep Flight Super Falcon looks like a fighter jet, with its thin body, two seats, two sets of wings and two tail fins.

"We just had to tear up everything we knew about submersibles and start again on winged subs -- underwater flying machines," Hawkes said.

He said Deep Flight submersibles are designed to be more agile than any creature living in the ocean -- with the exception of dolphins. The company says that because of the wings, the Super Falcon can go barrel-rolling with dolphins while traveling at speeds much faster than other private submarines.The craft can stay underwater for up to five hours and travel at speeds up to 6 knots, the company says on its Web
site.

The first client for the Super Falcon was venture capitalist Tom Perkins, who wanted a toy to keep on his mega-yacht, the Maltese Falcon. The base price: $1.3 million. Another model, which has open cockpits and cannot dive as deep as the Super Falcon, sells for $350,000.

Perkins, writing in Boating International magazine, said he joined the project to take the Super Falcon from prototype to a fully functional craft.

"Like some of my other projects, we didn't finish on time, but also like some of the others, the end result exceeded all our expectations," he said.

The second machine is being built for Hawkes' personal use.

A submarine driver wouldn't recognize the cockpit of the Super Falcon.

"There are no valves, there are no gauges," Hawkes said. "You just power up the thrusters, start your take-off run, put the joystick forward, then the nose goes down. The wings literally pull it down."

He Escaped Twice

What kind of crazy prison are these guys running. Even Andy from the Shawshank Redemption wants to know.

Two men hijack a helicopter and then force the pilot to fly over the roof of a maximum security prison in Greece. They unfurl rope ladders and bam, they are on their way:

Prison guards shot at the helicopter during the escape, witnesses told local media.
No injuries were reported.

The pilot was found gagged near the helicopter north of Athens, a state-run media report said.
The inmates and the unidentified accomplices had not been located, Greek authorities said.

"I will not tolerate this embarrassment and all necessary measures will be taken, no matter how stringent they may be," Justice Minister Nikos Dendias told CNN.

The prison break by helicopter is the second for Paleokostas, who was convicted for abducting a businessman and escaped the prison the first time in June 2006. He was recaptured several months later.

The Bungee Cord Breaks

Maybe I'll pass on the Bungee Jumping.

AMBOY, Wash. — A day of bungee jumping with friends from work came to a sudden stop when the cord broke and a man dropped into Canyon Creek northeast of Yacolt, Wash. Thursday.
Mark Afforde said the cord broke shortly after he'd hit the lowest point of the jump from an estimated 400-foot high bridge — about 25 feet from the surface. Paramedics from North Country Medical said that probably saved his life as he was relatively close to the creek when the cord snapped.

Afforde, 49, said he heard the bungee cord snap and he felt the impact as he went underwater. Then, he realized he was still alive and okay and made his way to the side of the creek.
"I am incredibly fortunate. Not only to be with the people I'm with, but to be here. Had it been a different situation, I probably wouldn't be here," Afforde told KGW in the exclusive interview.
Despite the scare, Afforde said he would bungee jump again.

President Obama Loves Air Force One

This article is a bit of fluff. Does anyone really expect to hear comments that are critical in nature about Air Force One.

Anyway, I never get tired of reading about the history, specs and capabilities of the plane.

"The aircraft is maintained and operated by the Presidential Airlift Group, which falls under the White House Military Office.

It was founded at the request of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 and originally called the Presidential Pilot Office, according to the White House Web site.

During the next two decades, different propeller planes served as the main transportation for the president. That was until President Kennedy became the first to travel in his own jet aircraft, which was a modified Boeing 707, according to the site.

The current plane was first used in 1990 during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

The aircraft, which is longer than the length of a hockey rink, has 4,000 square feet of floor space stretched across three levels. The plane includes a large suite for the president that includes an office, bathroom and conference room. It also provides sleeping quarters for the president.

The plane has two food preparation galleys that can feed 100 people at a time and a medical suite that can be used as an operating room, according to the site.

While the plane does have its luxuries, plenty of the extras are devoted to security.
Air Force One can refuel in midair, has unlimited range and has electronics "hardened to protect against an electromagnetic pulse," according to the White House site.

In the event of an attack on the country, the plane, equipped with advanced and secure electronic communications equipment, can become the president's mobile command center.

"[The president] has the ability to run the country from Air Force One," said Col. Mark Tillman, who flew the plane for former President Bush during the last eight years, including after September 11, 2001, and into Baghdad, Iraq. "So he has everything that's available to him at the White House available to him at 45,000 feet."

On occasion, press briefings take place aboard the aircraft."

A Really Bad Day

This is what you call a really bad day.

A man survived a rollover accident off a cliff and walked up to Highway 152 for help, but was hit by a car and killed, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The unidentified man was driving a Toyota Tundra east on Highway 152 near Los Banos about 3:15 a.m. Wednesday when he lost control of the car and it went off a cliff, rolling over and landing 200 feet below.

He made his way up to the highway, apparently to flag down help, but was hit by a Honda Accord driven by Fernando Martinez of Los Banos.

Investigators responding to the scene did not know about the first accident until the Tundra passenger, Aria Day Fletcher, 23, of Fresno, made her way out of the car and to the fatal scene.

Controversy Surrounds "The Hokey Pokey"

Now here is a story that you might find to be surprising. Who knew.

"It's a musical staple of nursery schools and seniors' fitness classes throughout
the English-speaking world.

But The Hokey Pokey - the right-hand-in, right-hand-out ditty that sparked a 1950s dance craze - has become the focus of a bizarre controversy in Britain that has drawn in politicians, the Catholic Church in Scotland and soccer fans accused of exploiting the song's alleged anti-Catholic roots to taunt opposing teams.

Now, the son of the famed Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy - the man credited with penning the lyrics to one of the world's most familiar melodies - has weighed in to the furor by revealing what he calls the true inspiration for his father's hit: a traditional Canadian folk tune sung by miners in the early 20th century as a drug anthem celebrating the therapeutic powers of cocaine.The song is known in Britain as The Hokey Cokey, and was originally published by Kennedy during the Second World War as The Cokey Cokey before various U.S. recordings of The Hokey Pokey gave the song and its accompanying movements global popularity.

In December, the song sparked an uproar in Scotland when fans of the Glasgow Rangers soccer team were accused of planning to sing it to insult rival Glasgow Celtic, a club with Catholic roots. A Catholic Church spokesman warned that The Hokey Cokey had centuries-old origins as a Protestant song meant to mock the words and actions of Catholic clergy presiding over the Latin mass.

"This song does have quite disturbing origins. Although apparently innocuous, it was devised as an attack on and a parody of the Catholic mass," Peter Kearney, a spokesman for Scottish Catholic Cardinal Keith O'Brien, said at the time.
He added that soccer authorities should monitor the situation to assess "if there are moves to restore its more malevolent meaning."

Michael Matheson, a Nationalist member of the Scottish Parliament, also issued a warning about The Hokey Cokey in December: "It is important that the police and football clubs are aware of the sinister background to this song, and take the appropriate action against individuals and groups who use it at matches or in other situations to taunt Catholics."

But that suggestion was quickly panned by Murdo Fraser, deputy
leader of the Scottish Tories: "I can't believe Scottish children performing the
Hokey Cokey are doing so in pursuit of any sort of anti-Catholic agenda," he
told reporters.

For weeks, allegations of historical bigotry behind The Hokey Pokey have been the focus of a lively debate in the letters pages and websites of British newspapers."

Read the whole story here.