Fan Playing Away From Home Falls Victim To Cruel Hoax

A MARRIED Manchester United fan drove 400 miles for a saucy weekend with a girl he’d met on the internet only to discover it was an elaborate hoax set up by two burly Liverpool supporters he had upset on holiday.

Stuart Slann spent nine hours in his car travelling to Aberdeen believing he was about to enjoy his first night of romance with a girl called “Emma”, whom he had never talked to but had been sending him suggestive email messages for over a month.

But when Stuart, 39, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, finally got to the remote farm in the north of Scotland where “Emma” had told him she lived it was locked up and deserted. He then got a text message saying she was delayed at work and that he would have to wait.

After sitting in his car growing increasingly cold and frustrated for over three hours, Stuart finally called “Emma” and was horrified to hear a man with a Liverpool accent answer and say: “Hello Stuart, do you remember us? It’s them Scouse lads who threw you in the pool. You’ve been framed.”

To complete Stuart’s misery, his wife Louise, 34, now knows about the “affair” on the Facebook website and has left him.

Last November Stuart, a lifelong United fan, fell out with the two Liverpool supporters who were staying in the same holiday hotel in Cancun, Mexico, after chatting each day about football.

During one row beside the pool during his three-week break the two Liverpudlians, who are both professional Cage Fighters, got so fed up with Stuart’s claims about how much better Manchester were than Liverpool they threw him into the water, accidentally breaking his ankle and smashing one of his ribs.

But their revenge didn’t stop once they got home to Merseyside. The pair then tricked Stuart into sending emails to “Emma”, a fictional girl they had created on the Facebook website.

The tricksters, under the guise of “Emma”, contacted Stuart and claimed to like the look of his photo on the web and share his love of United.

During the nightly email exchanges that followed, “Emma” told Stuart how she couldn’t wait to meet up and make more of their budding relationship.

To make matters even worse, as Stuart drove to Scotland he was even persuaded in a text message to use his mobile telephone to send a rude photograph of himself to “Emma”, who he mistakenly thought was excitedly waiting for him to arrive north of the border.

Now the two unnamed Liverpool fans have posted that photo – and a tape of the telephone conversation when Stuart finally discovers who “Emma” really is – on the YouTube website, where it is proving a huge hit. Even websites for supporters of Liverpool, Manchester United and Sheffield Wednesday are now advertising where to find the footage and last week it began appearing on internet pages in Holland, making him a laughing stock with football fans across Europe.

Last night, the father-of-one, a building labourer, said: “There’s no doubt I’ve been done good and proper by the lads from Liverpool.

“It was cruel, but I’ll hold my hands up and say they really wound me up.”

Source

Coraline is a high-definition 3D animated feature. Director Henry Selick employs old-fashioned stop-motion animation enhanced by computers to create state-of-the-art 3D effects. For the last three years the most talented animators and puppet makers in the world have been making Coraline.



Althea Crome, a miniature knitter, made the clothes for the film at a ridiculously tiny scale...

"She said that they had always wanted miniature knitting for their movies but never had anyone who could knit at that scale. She and Georgina Haynes (puppet fabrication supervisor) decided to do a Google search and they came across my website. They said that because the plot of the story had a mystical quality, they were looking for knitting which felt “magical” and they really felt that my designs fitted the bill.

She asked if I was interested in doing commissions. At the time, I was so overwhelmed with trying to raise four children on my own and figure out how to make a living, that I wasn’t sure I could take on commission work, but I asked Shere to send me a follow up email, which, thankfully, she did.

I recognised soon enough that this was a really special project and that I would be a fool to turn it down. I simply HAD to find the time to fit it in. The first request from the studio was to knit a pair of black and white striped stockings for Coraline. Henry Selick loved them and even said they were “scary good” but in the end they decided not to use them in the movie.

Instead, they told me about the magical star sweater they needed - it would have to sparkle. I went on a tireless thread quest for about a month - finding everything from stainless steel thread to paintable sparkles and then set about knitting swatches and sending them to Laika. None of them looked right on screen and because of a time issue, it was looking like my hopes of making something for this wonderful project were fading. In fact, at one point, they told me that they were going to have to start shooting soon and would not be able to wait for me to find the right combo of threads.

Soon after that email my mom came over with some holographic thread and said, “Althea, I really think this will work on the sweater for Coraline.” I combined the holographic thread with some Polyester sewing thread and sent off several more swatches to the Coraline people. Eureka! That was the ticket and at the 11th hour Henry decided to have me go ahead and knit up the first star sweater for Coraline.

At that point, the studio sent me a Coraline body to fit the sweater on to and a drawing of what they wanted the sweater to look like. I designed a pattern that would fit the willowy Coraline and it took about two weeks to knit the sweater. I was delighted when I got the thumbs up from the studio and over the next couple of years I made a total of 14 identical sweaters for Coraline.

I was also thrilled to learn that they would need a pair of gloves for Coraline because gloves are my favorite thing to knit - they are so intricate and personal and somehow very intimate. Knitting gloves in 1/12 scale was what got me noticed in the miniature world because up until I started knitting them, miniature collectors had never had true 1/12 scale knitted gloves.


I have been an avid knitter since my college days and thought I could do at least as well as I had seen online. That very night I made a man’s cardigan with 0 needles and baby weight yarn. It was bulky and clumsy but it was an instant thrill. I felt at once that I had to do more. I still have that first project and enjoy pulling it out from time to time to look at it and see how far I’ve come. That sweater is made at about 11 stitches per inch whereas the sweaters I make now often have more than 50 stitches per inch.

Her site

Watch her knit...( I can't believe I just wrote that)...(2;01)

Nano Ink 'Tattoo' Could Monitor Diabetes

Controlling your diabetes could make you look tough.

A special tattoo ink that changes color based on glucose levels inside the skin is under development by Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories. The injectable nanotech ink could eventually free diabetics from painful blood glucose tests.

"It doesn't have to be a large, over-the-shoulder kind of tattoo," said Heather Clark, a scientist at Draper. "It would only have to be a few millimeters in size and wouldn't have to go as deep as a normal tattoo."

Clark and her colleagues didn't set out to create a glucose-detecting ink.

"At first I didn't even think it was possible," said Clark.

Originally the scientists developed a sodium-sensitive ink to monitor heart health, advancing basic knowledge of electrolytes in the body, or to ensure athletes are properly hydrated.

Monitoring a single ion is easier than a complex molecule made of 24 atoms however. After speaking with a colleague, Clark decided to give glucose detection a try.

She started with the basic three-part system to detect sodium and modified to detect glucose. The nano ink particles are tiny, squishy spheres about 120 nanometers across. Inside the sphere are three parts: the glucose detecting molecule, a color-changing dye, and another molecule that mimics glucose. When the particles are dissolved in water they look like food coloring, says Clark.

The three parts continuously move around the inside the hydrophobic orb. When they approach the surface, the glucose detecting molecule either grabs a molecule of glucose or the mimicking molecule.

If the molecules mostly latch onto glucose, the ink appears yellow. If glucose levels are low, the molecule latches onto the glucose mimic, turning the ink purple. A healthy level of glucose has a "funny orangey," color, according to Clark. The sampling process repeats itself every few milliseconds.

Time measured in milliseconds is much faster than then most current blood testing systems, and certainly less painful. But is it as accurate?

Glucose levels in the skin, where the ink would be injected subcutaneously, might not necessarily reflect the more critical measurement of glucose levels in the blood. Some studies show that skin glucose levels can lag up to 20 minutes behind blood glucose levels, while other show a much faster change.

"It's an interesting question," said Clark. "It's one that we might even be able to help answer."

Even if there is a significant lag time between blood and skin glucose levels, a small tattoo, in the several square millimeter range, according to Clark, would let diabetics know if an abnormally high or low reading was either returning to a normal level or getting worse.

Initial tests of the sodium-detecting ink in mice have had "spectacular" results, according to Clark. Testing the glucose monitoring nanotech ink in mice could begin by the end of this month.

Consumers will have to wait. Clark estimates that it will be at least two years before the necessary human testing is complete to bring the ink to the market.

Robert Rubin, a professor at Harvard Medical School, is excited by Clark's work at Draper.

"This will give me a great short cut for understanding what is happening inside the body," said Rubin.

Source

Cool animation short... (4:15)

Sebastian's Voodoo - Award's Grand Winner HQ

Should motorists ever talk on the phone?

Most of us know we shouldn't be talking on a handheld cell phone while driving. But recent studies suggest that hands-free devices are just as dangerous on the road.

Engaging in a phone conversation on a mobile device while driving distracts the brain and delays reaction times, experts said. Drivers are more likely to swerve between lanes, slow down and miss important signs.

"When you're on a call, even if both hands are on the wheel, your head is in the call," said Janet Froetscher, president of the National Safety Council, which in January urged legislators in all 50 states to pass laws prohibiting motorists from using cell phone devices.

A recent University of Utah study found that drivers engaging in a cell phone conversation on a headset were more likely to make errors behind the wheel than a driver talking to a front-seat passenger.

"It doesn't matter what kind of cell phone device they are using, because the impairments are so large," said University of Utah professor David Strayer, who used a high-tech driving simulator for his experiment.

Strayer's study, published in December, concluded that conversations with a front-seat passenger can actually mitigate accidents, because the passenger can help observe road conditions and warn the driver of possible hazards.



In Strayer's previous studies, he found driving while talking on a mobile device is "just as bad as driving drunk."

The risk of getting into a car accident while talking on a wireless device -- including headsets and vehicles with built-in communication systems -- is growing as the number of cell phone subscribers increases.

There are 270 million cell phone subscribers in the United States, up from 76 million in 1999, according to CTIA -- The Wireless Association, an organization representing the wireless communications industry.

In a survey by Nationwide Insurance, 80 percent of people admitted to talking on their cell phones while driving. About 45 percent of drivers said they have been hit or nearly hit by someone using a cell phone, according to Nationwide's survey, conducted in 2006.

Some experts said drivers talking on cell phones are four times more likely to get into a crash than those who don't talk on their phones behind the wheel.

One study from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimated that 636,000 traffic accidents each year -- about 6 percent of all accidents -- are caused by drivers using their cell phones, resulting in an estimated 2,600 deaths.

Elderly and younger drivers are most at risk of getting into an accident when they talk on a mobile device while driving, said Arthur Kramer, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"I don't think legislation alone is the answer," Kramer said. "Education needs to go along with the legislation to encourage people that these are risky habits for yourself and for others."

There is no federal law against using handheld devices on the road, but six states and the District of Columbia have such laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a group that tracks legislative data trends. No states ban the use of hands-free or wireless communication devices, experts said.

Some private industries, such as trucking and bus companies, prohibit their employees from using cell phones on the road. Other states restrict teenagers from talking on cell phones while driving.

Anne Teigen, a policy specialist on transportation issues for the National Conference of State Legislatures, says states are moving to ban handheld cell phone use. Almost all states have debated the issue, but many governments are reluctant to pass restrictions because they say there isn't enough research.

They point out that talking on a mobile device isn't the only distraction. Other distractions, such as reaching for the glove compartment, changing the radio station or putting on makeup, also can cause accidents.

The popularity of smart phones equipped with Internet, text messaging and e-mail present drivers with even more distractions. Such new technology also makes it difficult for states to keep their laws updated.



"Then there is the final question of whether these laws are enforceable or not," Teigen said.

Some members of the cell phone industry are advising drivers to stop using cell phones on the road, but few have taken a stance on hands-free devices, because research has been limited.

Verizon Wireless was one of the first cellular phone companies to support hands-free driving laws in the early 2000s. The company is focusing on promoting laws against text-messaging while driving. So far, only a handful of states ban the practice.

Aegis Mobility, a Vancouver, Canada, company, has created a device that would reduce cell phone usage in cars. The product, DriveAssist, set to launch this fall with a major network carrier in the United States, will enable cell phones to automatically detect when a mobile user is driving.

Users can subscribe to DriveAssist's service, which manages incoming and outgoing calls, text messages and e-mails electronically. Callers get a message that the recipient is driving but can leave an emergency message alerting the driver to pull over and return the call.

"People find it hard to stop talking on their cell phones because we've been conditioned our entire life to answer the phone," said David Teater of Spring Lake, Michigan, one of the product's backers.

Five years ago, Teater's seventh-grade son died in a daytime car accident after a woman talking on her cell phone ran a red light.

"Her life was ruined as well," Teater said. "She had no idea what she was doing was so dangerous. The vast majority of drivers have no idea that it's dangerous."

Source

Ok, Ok, you got me.

A bit back, I naively posted the clever ruse...

link

that the site, tshirthell.com

was shutting down.

Guess what was in the newsletter this month....


..."T-Shirt Hell is not going out of business. In fact, we wouldn't leave even if we had to resort to selling dead babies for food when this economy truly hits the fan. Consider Feb, 2009 a fresh start for us."

You can read the whole thing, but be aware that it's, as always when I'm discussing Tshirt Hell, NSFW.

Property seizure by police called 'highway piracy'

TENAHA — A two-decade-old state law that grants authorities the power to seize property used in a crime is wielded by some agencies against people who are never charged with, much less convicted, of a crime.

Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.

Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.

Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”

Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops and seizures in Tenaha “highway piracy,” undertaken by a couple of law enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.

Guillory is suing officials in Tenaha and Shelby County on behalf of Dorman and nine other clients who were stripped of their property. All were African-Americans driving either rentals or vehicles with out-of-state plates.

Lawsuit filed

Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged. Guillory said most did as Dorman did, signing the waiver to avoid jail.

The state’s asset seizure law doesn’t require that law enforcement agencies file criminal charges in civil forfeiture cases.

It requires only a preponderance of evidence that the property was used in the commission of certain crimes, such as drug crimes, or bought with proceeds of those crimes. That’s a lesser burden than that required in a criminal case.

But Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, said the state’s asset forfeiture law is being abused by enough jurisdictions across the state that he wants to rewrite major sections of it this year.

“The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Supporters tout the state’s forfeiture law, when used right, as an essential law enforcement tool, allowing state and local departments the ability to go after criminals using the criminals’ money. Law enforcement agencies last year captured tens of millions of dollars from such seizures statewide, according to records from Whitmire’s office.

But in Tenaha, a town of chicken farms that hugs the Louisiana border, critics say being a black out-of-towner passing through with anything of value is almost evidence of a crime.

Town needs revenue

Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force,” Bowers said.

Local police, he said, must take aggressive action to stem the drug trade that flows through town via U.S. 59. “No doubt about it. (Highway 59) is a thoroughfare that a lot of no-good people travel on. They take the drugs and sell it and take the money and go right back into Mexico,” said Bowers, who has been Tenaha’s mayor for 54 years.

Bowers said he would defer questions about whether innocent people were being stripped of their property to Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell.

Russell could not be reached for comment, and her attorney declined comment. Randy Whatley, a local constable who himself deposited $115,000 into the county’s seizure account for fiscal year 2007 — state records show $45,000 was eventually returned to their owners — also could not be reached for comment. Russell, Whatley and Bowers are named in Guillory’s lawsuit.

Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos said the state’s forfeiture law, which last year put millions in the coffers of local law enforcement agencies, including hers, takes some of the profit out of crime. “These ill-gotten gains are used to further the aims of law enforcement and public safety,” she said. “It’s kind of poetic justice, isn’t it?”

Lykos praises law

Lykos believes the law, if followed, provides citizens with adequate safeguards. Local police and attorneys in her office, she said, are well-versed in what constitutes adequate evidence for seizures. Rarely, she said, do seizures take place locally without the filing of criminal charges.

In Shelby County, the district attorney made legal agreements with some individuals that her office would not file criminal charges so long as the property owner waived all rights to the valuables.

“In exchange for (respondent) signing the agreed order of forfeiture, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office agrees to reject charges of money laundering pending at this time,” read one waiver, dated April 10, 2007.

The property owners named in the waiver had just signed over $7,342 in cash, their 1994 Chevrolet Suburban, a cell phone, a BlackBerry and a stone necklace.

The law, forbids a peace officer at the time of seizure to “request, require or in any manner induce any person . . . to execute a document purporting to waive the person’s interest in or rights to the property.”

Source

Turn on, tune in, drop out... Millenium version...(2;43)

January 26-28, 2009 Northwest Arkansas Ice Storm Pictures

Some shots I liked from the 6 pages of neato images on ExtremeInstability.com

Kids are weird...(2;39)

From This....


To This....



18 pages of build and photos Here.

Lance Armstrong's Bike Stolen In Sacramento

Lance Armstrong's time-trial bike was stolen from the Team Astana truck during the night before Stage 1 of the Tour of California.

Armstrong rode the bike to a 10th-place finish Saturday in Sacramento during the Tour prologue. The race is his first competitive appearance in his native country since the seven-time Tour de France winner began his cycling comeback last month.

A few hours after the time trial, someone removed four bikes from the Astana truck outside the team hotel in Sacramento. Armstrong's time-trial bike, which was closest to the door because he was delayed by a post-race trip to doping control, was taken along with race bikes belonging to Astana teammates Steve Morabito, Yaroslav Popovych and Janez Brajkovic.

Astana spokesman Philippe Maertens confirmed the theft to The Associated Press after it was reported by Armstrong himself on his Twitter feed. Armstrong later posted a picture of the bike, which has distinctive yellow-and-black wheels and the logo of his Livestrong foundation.

"There is only one like it in the world therefore hard to pawn it off. Reward being offered," Armstrong wrote before jumping on his race bike for the 107-mile ride from Davis to Santa Rosa through a steady rainstorm.

Team Astana manager Johan Bruyneel also mentioned the thefts on his Twitter feed before he began following his riders. The racers all have backup bikes, and two-time defending Tour champion Levi Leipheimer's bike wasn't stolen.

Armstrong won't need his time-trial bike again until Friday in Solvang, where the race holds its second time trial. That segment is crucial to Astana's hopes of winning the overall team title.

Source

Yet another hacked highway sign. Scroll down to find out how...

Deputy who fired shots in wrong house acted 'reasonably and lawfully'

The Dakota County Attorney has concluded that a Scott County deputy's actions were "reasonable and lawful" when he accidentally broke into the wrong house and fired several shots in the direction of a man who had done nothing wrong.

The information is contained in a press release emailed to KARE 11 Wednesday night by the Scott County Sheriff's Department.

On January 4, Deputy Marcus Hoffer responded to a call of domestic assault at a home in New Market Township.

Hoffer found two buildings on the property when he arrived -- a split level house and what appeared to be an empty pole barn.

The press release says Deputy Hoffer repeatedly banged on the door of the house, identified himself as a deputy, and eventually, when no one answered, forced his way inside.

He immediately spotted a man with a gun at the top of the stairs, and according to authorities, again identified himself as a deputy.

When the man appeared to raise his weapon, Deputy Hoffer fired five shots and left the house to wait for help.

The men inside were eventually arrested with no further incident.

The press release from Scott County quotes Dakota County Attorney Jim Backstrom as saying "given the limited information Deputy Hoffer had as he responded to the domestic call and the urgency of the situation, it was reasonable for Deputy Hoffer to assume that the domestic was or had occurred at the single family residence."

Backstrom also concluded the deputy lawfully fired his weapon, fearing for his own safety or that of others.

At the time, the man in the house, Justin Friedges, told KARE 11 the whole thing caught him and his brother off guard, and he didn't believe the man banging on his door was a deputy.

"I was just watching TV and then the guy comes banging on the door. Just sounds crazy. Just screaming open the door," Friedges said in January. "I was screaming get out. 911. I just barely got my head out and see a shadow of a guy and then a gun flash," Friedges said.

Friedges claimed at the time the deputy did not identify himself as a deputy until after firing shots.

Backstrom concluded otherwise.

According to Sheriff Kevin Studnicka, it was later discovered that the original domestic dispute call, made from a cell phone, came from the other building that was near the home at the same address.

No one was hurt in either incident.

Source

The Family guy cow?!!??!

The Top Gear boys tear up three tractor trailers. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Good Stuff. (7;54, with an ad tacked on the front. But worth it.)

I can't tell if I like this or not. Must be "art", then...

Funny recent SNL skit...(2;57)



But, looks like someone's been watching MadTV...(3:36)

I guess it is the sincerest form.

Want...

Great idea for an entrance to a huge underground garage/lair. (0;43)

One night a duck waddled into a bar. He hopped up on the bar and asked the bartender, "Ya got ham?"

"No," said the bartender. "We don't sell food here, only drinks." So the little duck left.

The next night the duck waddled back in, hopped up on the bar and asked the bartender, "Ya got ham?"

"No," said the bartender. "We only sell drinks here, no food!!" So the little duck left again.

But the next night, the duck came back again. Again, he hopped up on the bar and asked the bartender, "Ya got ham?"

"Look!!" said the bartender. "I'm getting sick and tired of this! It's like I told you -- we only sell drinks here, no food! Now -- if you ask that question one more time, I'm gonna nail your little feet to the bar!"

So the little duck left.

But the next night, he waddled back in again, hopped up on the bar and asked the bartender, "Ya got nails?"

"No!" said the bartender.

"Well then," said the duck......"YA GOT HAM?"

Circuit City wants to pay execs bonuses

Circuit City Stores Inc., now liquidating the last 567 of its 721 stores, says incentive bonuses are needed to dissuade 154 executives and other workers from leaving before the company is dissolved.

Bloomberg News reported today that the Henrico County-based Circuit City’s proposal came in a motion filed in federal bankruptcy court in Richmond.

Circuit City proposed that 16 executives would split $2.3 million if they all achieve their targets, and the remaining non-managerial workers would be in line for $1.62 million if the bankruptcy judge goes along with the idea at a Feb. 25 hearing.

Circuit City also wants an additional $750,000 to distribute as discretionary bonuses to the non-management workers and others who aren’t covered by the program.

Circuit City was the second-largest electronics retailer in the U.S. when it filed under Chapter 11 in November. The final going-out-of-business sales were approved in January.

In all, the company will cut about 34,000 employees by the time the liquidation process ends by the first of April. A skeleton crew will stay on for as long as two years to finish winding-down operations.

Circuit City’s bankruptcy petition listed assets of $3.4 billion and debt totaling $2.3 billion as of Aug. 31. Papers show $898 million owing to the secured revolving credit lenders. Unsecured trade suppliers are owed another $650 million, the company said in a court filing.

Source

A cocktail named after Sully Sullenberger

The Sully, honoring Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, the intrepid US Airways pilot:

Two shots Grey Goose
Shake violently
One splash cold water

F1 might have just become a bit more watchable for 2009.. animation of the more interesting changes below...(2;11)

Man cuts hand off for second time

A meatworker in New Zealand who accidentally cut his hand off with a saw had the operation to reattach it complicated by the fact that he'd previously cut the same arm off in a previous accident.

Bryan Speers almost completely severed his left hand at the wrist while cutting a flap of meat with a bandsaw at Crusader Meats in Benneydale, in the Waiakato district of New Zealand's North Island.

He told the New Zealand Herald: 'I just grabbed my hand and walked down to the office swearing my head off ... I really thought I was going to die.'

Colleagues taped the hand back on and Speers was taken to hospital in an ambulance. However, surgeons trying to sew the hand back on ran into problems - both because of the amount of damage to the limb, and the fact that his arm was still scarred from a previous accident.

Dr Katerina Anesti of the Waikato Hospital said: 'He had nearly cut off the same arm before about five centimetres up his arm. The scarring made it difficult to know what was what.'

The operation was eventually successful. However, Speers is expected to remain in hospital for several more days, and his rehabilitation could take months.

Source



Maybe, the whole, "If at first you don't succeed..." motto shouldn't apply regarding meat packing accidents...

Show the Wall Street ‘talent’ the door

President Obama wants to put a cap of $500,000 on executives who work at companies that are getting bailout money. In the aftermath of this announcement, there came a lot of comments that it was unrealistic for ‘top Wall Street talent’ to make such as a paltry amount - that the ‘top Wall Street talent’ would exit their companies. A recent NY Times article detailed the travails of a $500,000 salary - how a person would have to forgo things like their nanny (45k), gowns for social events (35k), personal trainers ($12k), two vacations (16k) - and we won’t even get into second homes out on Long Island.

The ‘talent’ will all bolt, people claim, if you put a choke on salaries. The ‘talent’ that lost us $800 billion?

Hmmm….I say, awesome. If they’re so offended at making 500k, then they can go. If they’re so fraking talented, someone else will scoop them up so they can run their business into oblivion.

It never stops amazing us how much importance people can place on themselves. We’ve got a group of self-absorbed, arrogant people who act as if they possess the most precious and rare skills in the world.

Here’s the news to you - you’re replaceable. Very easily, replaceable. People can - and will - learn your job. Maybe even learn it so they don’t lose $800 friggin’ billion. Very few of the Wall Street ‘talent’ have some ingrained skill or ability that makes them irreplaceable. You can’t replace a 100 mph fastball on a pitcher - that’s a skill that simply can’t be learned. But other people have the skill set necessary to become a Wall Street executive.

Are there people on Wall Street who are really good at their jobs? Of course. You don’t get there by being an idiot. But we’ve established a culture that overvalues what they do, and thus created a class of individuals who feed off each other. They give each other big pay raises and bonuses, they tell each other how amazing they are, they tell each other how important they are to the world.

So, before you argue that the Wall Street talent will be stampeding for the doors if there’s a salary cap imposed - just remember, the current group of ‘talent’ has put this nation in its greatest economic peril since the Great Depression.

If they don’t want to help clean up the mess they made, then show them to the door and don’t let your foot get caught up their ass as you boot them to the curb.

Source

Norm Mac Donald and Conan testing Gord Ramsay's patience...(5:21)

Dancin' fools...

Lilcrabe makes my back hurt just watching him...(3:07)



Lindy Hop - Hellzapoppin (1941)- they had meth back then, right? (2:23)

Watch this - Let Gord Ramsay make you hungry. Make eggs. (4;04)

No gold...

Is Stupidity Killing America’s Productivity?


When a society makes it a huge priority to protect people from their own stupidity, it will eventually grind to a slow, bureaucratic halt. I have to show my ID to buy Sudafed, spray paint or glue because someone has decided I might use these items to do something stupid. However, I can buy bullets without an ID. I was talking to a policeman the other day and discovered I could be thrown in jail for the amount of decongestant I had in my house. Seriously!

When it comes to the safety of society as a whole, I’m much more concerned about a couple lunatics running around with an unlimited supply of bullets than teenagers armed with nasal decongestant and super glue. Yes, I know that teenagers can use those items to make drugs, get high, and glue all their fingers together. Using drugs can cause permanent brain damage–but seriously, with all the anti-drug education, if they don’t realize doing drugs is dangerous, don’t they have some type of damage already?

If things continue, we will eventually have to show an ID to buy almost anything. If you try, you can come up with dangerous uses for just about anything.

1. Super-soaker Water Gun - Could be filled with dangerous chemicals and sprayed in people’s eyes.
2. Bleach - See item number one.
3. Disposable Camera - The flash mechanism has a capacitor capable of delivering a shock of 300 volts. (I know this from experience)
4. Hair Dryer, Toaster, Electric Drill, Coffee Mug Warmer - If you drop any of these in your bath water…goodbye cruel world.
5. Rope - Could be used to hang yourself.
6. Coffee Mug - Could be filled with boiling hot water and thrown at someone.
7. Computer and Internet - Could be used to read this list.
8. Telephone - Could be used to call and taunt a bully who comes over with a super-soaker full of bleach and sprays in you in the face.

Let’s try to protect the weaker people in our society, but not at the expense of choosing a path where everyone is eventually protected from doing just about anything.

I know a farmer who is a very intelligent no-nonsense type of person. He feels that all of the warning labels were contributing to a decline in human IQ. If warning labels are the only thing preventing you from raising a running lawnmower over your head, ironing your clothes while wearing them, or trying to cram someone into a clothes dryer, your genetics would probably do more damage than benefit to the human gene pool.

I’m not saying we should just remove all the warning labels and let the cards fall where they may, but I think we need to look down the road 30 years and think about the logical outcome of where we are currently headed as a society. We may be hampering our growth in productivity and technological advances by spending too much time trying to legislate common sense.

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