Month: December 2003

  •                                   


    “Why doesn’t the show Fear Factor show asians on it? Well, like ONCE i saw ONE asian on it, and he won. you know what? I think that they don’t put azns on that show is becuz AZNS CAN EAT NETHING ON THAT 2ND STUNT. Like duck eggs. I eat duck eggs (they’re yummy). I don’t think americans eat duck eggs (so they think it’s yucky). AND, when Fear Factor made the people eat 1000 year old eggs!!! I know VIET people eat that like all the time in soup and stuff! They are good! (well, to asians, particularly to vietnamese ppl) but even tho i dont find them THAT good. That’s y there are no asians in Fear Factor. Becuz asians aren’t afraid of eating those types of things. And that’s y that asian dude on Fear Factor won, on one episode of it. They should put more asians on Fear Factor…but then the american people will get…like…..mutilated by asians!!” -musicis4fools


  • Tuberculosis bacteria
    TB is a major world killer

     

    ‘Super-TB’ created by scientists

    A virulent form of tuberculosis was created in the laboratory by experts trying to alter its genetic structure.

    The mutant form of the bug multiplied more quickly, and was more lethal than its natural counterpart.


    Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley, US, had actually been trying to disable genes and make the bacterium less deadly.

    “This is one of the very few hyper-virulent organisms ever created.”

  •                               







    CHER calls C-SPAN!


    CHER c-span transcript


    Peter Slen, C-Span Moderator: Good Morning Miami Beach

    caller: good morning! thank you for c-span, i watch it every day!
    uh, i would like to say i had the occasion the other day to spend the entire day with troops that had come back from iraq & had been wounded &..um…i also visited troops during the vietnam era…but the thing that i was most shocked by…um…as i walked into the hospital the first person i ran into was a boy about 19 or 20 years old who’d lost both of his arms…& when i walked into the hosptial & visited all these boys all day long…uh…everyone had lost either one arm…one limb or two limbs or had lost one limb & there were…there were a lot of legs that seemed to be missing & a couple of the boys told me it was because that their vehicles …that the rockets pierce the vehicles so much its like being kind of in a tin can…it doesnt have…there isnt…the walls of the humvees are very soft & theres no protection…but three guys in the same vehicle have lost a leg.
     …& another thing that i saw was that…um…if theyd lost one leg that… that shrapnel that had hit the other leg had been so devatating that they were having to pull like the thigh…you know…the muscle & the thigh around the bottom of the calf to try to make the leg workable but in some cases these boys had lost one leg & the other leg was so damaged that they werent sure what they were gonna be able to do.


    More at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/10/27/11625/785


    From el_viajero

  • Va. Residents Find Dead Rats in Toilets

     


    FRONT ROYAL, Va. – Two residents discovered dead rats in their toilets — and town officials say a nest in the sewer line could be the problem.






     

    On Monday, Lyndon Flood found a dead rat she described as “half the size of a cat” in her toilet.



    George Shadman, Front Royal’s director of public works, said sewer rats appear occasionally in the system.


    But two complaints from people living in the same neighborhood within a week made Shadman realize there might be a nest. 



  • Sonya Thomas holds her first-place trophy for eating 18 hot dogs in 12 minutes at the regional preliminary contest in New Jersey. Thomas set the women’s record at the Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island in New York City July 4 with 25 hot dogs.


     

    105-Pound Woman Crowned Fruitcake Champ

     


    BUFFALO, N.Y. – A 105-pound woman was crowned Fruitcake Champion after swallowing nearly five pounds of the treat in 10 minutes, beating her closest rival — a man almost four times her weight — by a single bite.






     

    “My jaw is very tired right now,” Sonya Thomas said Tuesday after out-eating 405-pound Eric Booker of Long Island by one-eighth of an ounce.


    Despite her size, Thomas, 36, is no lightweight on the professional eating circuit.


    She’s eaten 43 tacos in 11 minutes to claim victory in the World Champion Chicken Taco Eating Contest. She also holds the female world record for eating 24 hot dogs in 12 minutes and for eating 68 hard-boiled eggs in 8 minutes.

  • A kiss-off from Brit

    Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are starting the year off right – at each other’s throats.


    “I haven’t seen her in two years, and then she comes up to me in a club in front of all these people and tries to put her tongue down my throat,” an agog Spears recounts …


    “I say: ‘It’s good to see you,’ and she goes, ‘Well, you’re not being real with me.’”

    Spears says: “I was like, ‘Well, what’s your definition of being real? Going up to girls and kissing them after you haven’t seen them for two years? … You know what, Christina, you’re scary and I feel really dark when I get around you. … [You called me] a lost girl? I think it’s the other way around.’”

  • Japan to allow women to inherit the throne

    Japan’s 1889 imperial household law stipulated that only men can ascend to the Emperor’s Chrysanthemum Throne. But all that is about to change. And the revolutionary forces at work aren’t social — they’re genetic.


     Simply put, no boys have been born into the Imperial family since 1965, and the now 2-year-old Princess Aiko is the 9th baby girl in a row born into the family. If she becomes Empress, she’ll be only the 9th female head of the 125-generation, 2,600 year-old monarchy (the world’s oldest).


    But not everyone is pleased. Conservatives are arguing that Japan should give Crown Prince Akihito and his 40-year-old wife Princess Masako more time to produce a male heir.

  •  


     Poll: Bush, Hillary Clinton most admired by Americans


    (12-29) 18:04 PST WASHINGTON (AP) —

    George W. Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton are the most admired man and woman in America, according to a poll released Monday.

    When people were asked to name the man they admire the most, Bush was picked by 29 percent. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Pope John Paul II were named by 4 percent and former President Clinton was named by 3 percent, according to the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll.

    Sen. Clinton, was named by 16 percent, while talk show host Oprah Winfrey was picked by 7 percent, first lady Laura Bush by 6 percent and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice by 4 percent


    ***********************************************************






    Skydivers trust Homer over President


    People considering a tandem skydive would trust cartoon character Homer Simpson over US President George Bush, according to research.


    Homer got 20% of the overall vote in the survey carried out on behalf of disability charity Leonard Cheshire, while President Bush got just 8%.


    More than 1,000 adults were asked to rank personalities in order of who they felt was most trustworthy.


     

  • World’s longest snake goes on show in Indonesia
    From AFP
    December 30, 2003

    A primitive zoo in Indonesia is holding a 14m python captured in a forest in Sumatra, a report said on Monday.

    If its vital statistics are confirmed, the python could be the world’s longest snake.

    The reptile, which measures 14.85m and weighs in at 447kg, the Suara Merdeka regional newspaper reported.

    The serpent, which staff in the small recreation park have christened Kembang Wangi or Frangrant Flower, was found in a forest in Jambi on Sumatra island and was purchased from its captor before being put on show and could be the largest snake found in nearly 100 years.