Archive | July, 2009

Really Old Historic Antarctic Hut Burns Down

31 Jul

I don’t know much about Antartica, but what I do know includes kiwis LOVE it there and it’s ARID.

REDUCED TO ASHES: The timber and bitumen hut was a favourite haunt of Sir Ed, shown outside it during his 2007 visit to Antarctica. Image www.stuff.co.nz

REDUCED TO ASHES: The timber and bitumen hut was a favourite haunt of Sir Ed, shown outside it during his 2007 visit to Antarctica. Image www.stuff.co.nz

The hut had been used by New Zealanders since 1971. Image BBC.com

The hut had been used by New Zealanders since 1971. Image BBC.com

The bitumen and timber hut burst into flame in the dry conditions. Image BBC.com

The bitumen and timber hut burst into flame in the dry conditions. Image BBC.com

Hut prized by Sir Ed burns in Antarctic
REBECCA PALMER – The Dominion Post   |  5/25/2009  |  www.stuff.co.nz

A hut that sheltered Sir Edmund Hillary on his last night in Antarctica has been destroyed by fire.

The A-frame hut on the Ross Ice Shelf near Scott Base burnt down on Saturday night.

Originally part of the United States base, it served New Zealand staff in Antarctica for decades after being discarded by the Americans.

Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson said the fire started during a routine inspection and changeover of the diesel fuel tanks used to heat the timber and bitumen hut.

When the heater was reignited, priming fuel “flashed over” and set fire to the hut, he said.

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Red Bull Diet Works-If You Don’t Mind a Heart Attack

30 Jul

I can only imagine the pressure she was under to slim down, as New Zealand is the nation with the lowest BMI and is very “sporty.” Good luck with your health Ms Robertson.

Kiwi Brooke Robertson loses 45 kilograms or around 100 lbs in 8 months with a all Red Bull energy drink diet. 23-year-old now suffers from chronic health issues and only stopped after suffering a heart attack. Image newsbizarre.com

Kiwi Brooke Robertson loses 45 kilograms or around 100 lbs in 8 months with a all Red Bull energy drink diet. 23-year-old now suffers from chronic health issues and only stopped after suffering a heart attack. Image newsbizarre.com

Brooke Robertson once weighed 105kg. She is now slim, but has a weak heart. Photos / Herald on Sunday, supplied.

Brooke Robertson once weighed 105kg. She is now slim, but has a weak heart. Photos / Herald on Sunday, supplied.

Woman’s extreme Red Bull diet
24/05/2009  |  www.stuff.co.nz

A 23-year-old Auckland mother who lost 45kg in eight months by drinking nothing but energy drink Red Bull says she has ongoing health problems because of the diet.

Brooke Robertson told the Herald on Sunday she shrank from 105kg to 60kg drinking nothing but 10 to 14 cans a day, often accompanying them with nothing more than a handful of dry Honey Puffs.

Ms Robertson said she put on weight while carrying son Keir, now four, but did not make a conscious decision to go on a Red Bull diet.

“I just started drinking it. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating – I was exhausted,” she said.

“I just continued to drink it because it’s an appetite suppressant and I noticed I was losing weight so stuck with it.”

Ms Robertson said she managed to keep her addiction secret from family and friends, and did not recover from it until after a two-week stay in hospital following a minor heart attack.

“I managed to wean myself off it by being in hospital for that long but I had severe withdrawals – sweating, nausea, shaking. It was an addiction. The doctors stated that.”

Ms Robertson now maintains her figure through exercise and a Weight Watchers diet, but said she still suffers the effects of the extreme diet.

She said she has a heart murmur, gets severe pain and cramping in her stomach and bowel, and suffers anxiety attacks.

A Red Bull spokesman said there was “scientific evidence that caffeine is not addictive”.

The drink was available in 148 countries “because health authorities across the world have concluded that Red Bull is safe to consume”, he said.

The drink is banned in Norway, Denmark and Uruguay because of health fears.

Man with No Fingerprints Detained at Airport

29 Jul

I wonder how many other  people are unaware their fingerprints have vanished.

Image from howstuffworks.com

Image from howstuffworks.com

Man without fingerprints detained at airport
Ian Simple  |  The Guardian  |  Wednesday 27 May 2009

US immigration officials detained a man at an airport for four hours after customs checks revealed he had no fingerprints. The 62-year-old man, identified only as Mr S, is thought to have lost his fingerprints as a result of a rare side-effect of capecitabine, a common anti-cancer drug. Mr S, who had been taking the drug for more than three years, was unaware that his fingerprints had vanished. He was released after customs officials interviewed him. The incident happened last year but only came to light after his doctor published a report on the case in the journal Annals of Oncology yesterday.

Marmite Jar Lid Jesus

28 Jul

MMmm, this is not the best Christ simulacra I’ve seen. The cheesus is better.

Pot luck: The Marmite lid showing the likeness of Jesus Christ found by South Wales mother Claire Allen. Image dailymail.com

Pot luck: The Marmite lid showing the likeness of Jesus Christ found by South Wales mother Claire Allen. Image dailymail.com

Star of the yeast: Mrs Allen with her Marmite messiah. The mother-of-three says she is comforted by the finding. Image dailymail.com

Star of the yeast: Mrs Allen with her 'Marmite messiah'. The mother-of-three says she is comforted by the finding. Image dailymail.com

The Marmite messiah: How a mother found Jesus in a jar
Daily Mail  |  28th May 2009

The Lord manifests himself in many ways – on the bottom of a frying pan, in a baby scan and on a burnt fish finger, for instance.

His latest appearance is equally unlikely – on a Marmite jar lid. At least that’s how the Allen family have interpreted the gooey residue on the inside of it.

Mother-of-three Claire Allen, 36, saw the image when she was preparing toast for her youngest boy Robbie, four.
Clare Allen from South Wales who found the ‘Head of Jesus’ inside a marmite jar lid.

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Cat Regularly Visits Library

27 Jul

I smell a book deal!

Fidel the cat spends his days at the library while his owners are at work. BBC image.

Fidel the cat spends his days at the library while his owners are at work. BBC image.


Literary cat makes library visits
BBC NEWS  |  2009/04/27

A Kent library has been visited almost every day for two years by its own “puss in books”, the council has said.

Fidel, an eight-year-old black cat, turns up at Deal Library almost every day while his owners are at work.

He spends the day on his favourite blue chair, only leaving the building when he sees his owners arriving home.

Staff say they have never tried to encourage Fidel with food and even used to put him outside when he first began to visit them, but he always came back.

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Gardener saved from grenade by lawnmower

26 Jul

I’ve tried to find more information about this article. Alas I can’t. It’s a great image though, sort of like the opening scene in CASINO.

Image from gizmodo.com

Image from gizmodo.com

Gardener saved from grenade by lawnmower
Croatian Times  |  01. 05. 09

A gardener had a lucky escape when he cut his grass – and mowed over a hand grenade.

Police said the 39 year old was saved from serious injury as the lawn mower, which was destroyed, took the full blast of the grenade when its rotor blades set off the device at his home in Zagreb yesterday (Thurs).

They said someone had thrown the grenade into his garden.

Fish said to cause LSD-like effects turns up off Cornwall

25 Jul

Veddy interesting.

Mediterranean Sarpa salpa

Mediterranean Sarpa salpa

‘Hallucination’ fish netted in Channel
Mediterranean Sarpa salpa, said to cause LSD-like effects, turns up off Cornwall
Steven Morris  |  guardian.co.uk  |  Wednesday 13 May 2009

A fish that has been reported to cause LSD-like hallucinations when eaten has been found in the Channel, many hundreds of miles away from its normal habitat.

The fish, Sarpa salpa, is commonly caught off the coast of South Africa and in the Mediterranean but turned up in the nets of Cornish fisherman Andy Giles.

Sarpa salpa is a popular dish in Mediterranean restaurants but cases of it supposedly causing hallucinations have been reported.

Giles, who caught the fish six miles off Polperro in south Cornwall, said: “We were trawling for lemon sole and hauled up the net at the end of the day and almost immediately saw this striped fish. We didn’t have a clue what it was. I put it in the fish box and brought it back for experts to have a look at it.”

James Wright, a senior biologist at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, said: “These are a fairly common fish off Tenerife, Malta and Cyprus but it is very rare to get them this far north. It could be a single fish that was shoaling with a different species but it could be that there are more of them in our waters.”

In 2006 two men, one aged 90, were taken to hospital in the south of France after eating Sarpa salpa. The elderly man is said to have suffered from auditory hallucinations a few hours after eating the fish, followed by a series of nightmares over the next two nights.

The younger man, aged 40, endured similar effects, which took 36 hours to disappear.

Oliver Crimmen, fish curator at the Natural History Museum, said it was rare to get such poisoning from Sarpa salpa.

The hallucinatory properties are believed to come from plankton eaten by the fish. Crimmen said: “Plankton has very minute amounts of poison in and fish that eat a great deal of it can develop this poisoning. Sarpa salpa are a popular fish in the Mediterranean and I think the 2006 incident was a rare event.”

Amish Teen Ticketed for Beer in Buggy

24 Jul

Those darn kids!

Random Amish horse and buggy image.

Random Amish horse and buggy image.

Police ticket Amish teen for having beer in his horse-drawn buggy
Associated Press  |  May 12, 2009 – 8:01 PM

LEON, N.Y. – Police cracking down on rowdy Amish youths ticketed a teenager for having beer in his horse-drawn buggy when they pulled him over on a western New York road. They said the 17-year-old was charged with underage possession of alcohol after he was stopped by deputies late Monday night in the town of Leon, 40 miles south of Buffalo.

Detective Nathan Root said the teen admitted drinking beer, but passed a field sobriety test.

Root says another Amish man in the buggy, a 22-year-old, was charged with providing the beer. Both are scheduled to be arraigned June 22.

Patrols were stepped up after an Amish elder’s property was vandalized when he confronted youths about their drinking and listening to radios.

Man gets parking fine 13 years later

23 Jul

Croatia is efficient no?

Map showing Croatia and its neighbors.

Map showing Croatia and its neighbors.

Man gets parking fine 13 years later
www.croatiantimes.com  |  07. 05. 09. – 16:00

Zagreb resident Jove Vrljanovic has been fined for illegal parking – 13 years later.

Vrljanovic had his car towed away by city parking authorities in May 1996 and was told he would get a court summons to pay a fine soon after.

But the case was only heard this week after courts worked their way through a backlog of other cases.

Vrljanovic, who was ordered to pay 136 Euros, said yesterday (Weds): “To be honest I had completely forgot about it until I got the summons.”

Crunch Berries Lawsuit

22 Jul

Well of course crunch berries aren’t real. However, any effort to make food labeling honest is to be lauded in an era of genetically modified foods and slippery corporate standards. For example, there’s a possibility in the future that chocolate may be called and sold as chocolate even if the cocoa butter is replaced by a cheaper oil like canola.

Judge Dismisses Suit Claiming Cap’n Crunch ‘Crunchberries’ Aren’t Real Fruit
www.attorneyatlaw.com  |  June 9, 2009

A California federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a San Diego woman who said she ate Cap’n Crunch cereal for years thinking “crunchberries” were real fruit.

Janine Sugawara sued General Mills, the maker of Cap’n Crunch, for fraud for claiming the colored balls of sugary cereal sprayed with strawberry juice concentrate were fruit. Sugawara only noticed the true nature of the cereal after eating it for four years, she claimed in her suit.

Judge Morrison England of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, however, dismissed Sugawara’s suit on May 21 and ruled that she had failed to prove her legal case against the Cap’n.

“A reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist,” the judge said in his ruling. “So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.”

The judge ruled that Sugawara’s suit, which had sought class-action status to seek damages on behalf of all others who were similarly tricked, had failed to establish that she relied on General Mills’ fraudulent claims in eating Cap’n Crunch thinking it contained real fruit.

“Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant’s fraud,” the judge said.

This was not the first time Sugawara had gone to court to challenge the contents of a classic American breakfast cereal. She previously filed a lawsuit claiming Froot Loops do not contain real fruit. That suit was similarly dismissed by the court.

Funny Old Man Survives 4 Days Trapped in Well

21 Jul

What a great story with a happy ending. Since Mr Bennett had left his house looking for the very well he got stuck in, I can’t help but think as he fell he thought, “looks like I found that damn well.”

Mr. Robert Bennett

Mr. Robert Bennett

Bob Bennett, 84, poses for a photo with his rescurers after he was found alive and unharmed in a dry well on his sprawling property in the remote community of Benson Lake, B.C. He spent four days trapped in the well. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ho-RCMP

Bob Bennett, 84, poses for a photo with his rescurers after he was found alive and unharmed in a dry well on his sprawling property in the remote community of Benson Lake, B.C. He spent four days trapped in the well. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ho-RCMP

Bob Bennett, 84, was trapped down this eight foot well shaft for four days before being rescued by Port Alice RCMP. June 25, 2009. (RCMP handout photo)

Bob Bennett, 84, was trapped down this eight foot well shaft for four days before being rescued by Port Alice RCMP. June 25, 2009. (RCMP handout photo)

Elderly man survives four days in well by soaking up moisture with tissue
By THE CANADIAN PRESS – Jun 25, 2009

BENSON LAKE, B.C. — An 84-year-old man survived four days trapped inside a dry well by soaking up moisture with a tissue and sucking on it – and keeping his sense of humour intact despite his ordeal.

Bob Bennett had been walking on his property, in the remote Northern Vancouver Island community of Benson Lake, where he was looking for a well that he fell into, said his friend Barry Christenson.

“It wasn’t the Hilton,” laughed Christenson, who alerted police to Bennett’s disappearance.

“He stepped on the wooden cover and it basically disintegrated under him and he fell in and couldn’t get out.”

Christenson, who lives in nearby Port Hardy, sometimes doesn’t see his longtime friend for weeks at a time, but Bennett told him earlier that he would be in town within a few days.

“So this just didn’t sit right with me that he hadn’t shown up.”

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Smuggler Caught With 14 Birds in Pants

20 Jul

Mr Sony Dong is a bad man with a hilarious name. I like that the birds are wearing little jackets almost as much as I like the fact he got busted. Let’s hope Mr Dong doesn’t skip out on bail.

Photograph by AP/Department of Justice

Photograph by AP/Department of Justice

Smuggler Caught With 14 Birds in Pants
nationalgeographic.com  |  Christine Dell’Amore  |  May 6, 2009

Given away by bird poop on his socks, fancy pants here was charged Tuesday in California with smuggling exotic Asian songbirds from Vietnam into the United States by strapping them onto his legs.

Droppings on Sony Dong’s socks and feathers peeking out from under a pant leg tipped off a Los Angeles International Airport inspector in March, who arrested the 46-year-old.

Dong wore an elaborate set of leggings with buttoned cloth wrappings, which held more than a dozen birds (pictured), the Associated Press reported.

Inspectors had flagged Dong for inspection because he had abandoned a suitcase of 18 birds in the L.A. airport in December 2008.

He had returned to Vietnam in February to collect more songbirds, which included red-whiskered bulbuls, magpie robins, and shama thrushes.

The animals sell for up to U.S. $400 each in the United States, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Thom Mrozek told the Associated Press.

“They’re rare and there are collectors who are willing to pay top dollar for these things,” he said.

The birds, now in quarantine, may be donated to a zoo.

Dong, who was charged with conspiracy, is currently free as a bird on bail.

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