Man sits on $5 billion riches, but he’s not interested in it.

 

Jeffrey Lee is one Australian not interested in becoming the world’s next billionare.

As the last living member of an Indigenous Australian clan, he is the custodian to a sacred piece of land near the world famous Kakadu National Park, called Koongarra. A swath of land in Australia’s Northern Territory that French nuclear energy giant Areva would love to mine for pricey uranium.

At a potential Australian $5 billion (US$4.5B) plus windfall, Jeffrey isn’t interested in the temptation of riches; he’s much more interested in preserving this amazing part of the world for the future.

But he may be running of time. He has no partner and doesn’t have any children.

Although the Australian Government has promised the land won’t be mined unless the traditional land owners give the green light, if Lee doesn’t have any children before he dies and the land doesn’t become world heritage listed, then his wishes may be denied.

“I’m not interested in money. I’ve got a job; I can buy tucker; I can go fishing and hunting. That’s all that matters to me.”

Sydney Morning Herald has more on the last of the Djok clan.

Video: Billions of rats infest rural China.

 

Rats! Wheres’ that dam Pied Piper when you need him!

An estimated 2 billion rats have infested farm crops and villages after flooding in China’s east.

Farmers armed with ferrets and shovels had killed 90 tonnes of rats in the country’s eastern province of Hunan, where 1.6 million hectares (6,200 sq miles) of cropland have been laid to waste by rats fleeing rising flood waters in the giant Dongting Lake.

The rodents, whose island habitats in the lake were submerged by the rising tide from heavy summer rains, migrated in huge numbers to dry land, leaving a trail of destruction in about 20 counties, local farmers and officials told Wednesday’s China Daily.

“It’s like the mopping up by enemy troops in wars. We have nothing left,” 65-year-old farmer Yin Xinjin said.

Amazing video form Reuters.

No laughing matter, humour comprehension decreases with age, study.

 

Here’s a joke for you.

Three guys and a lady were sitting at a bar talking about their professions.

The first guy says ” I’m a Y.U.P.P.I.E, you know… Young, Urban, Professional, Peaceful, Intelligent, Ecologist.”

The second guy says “I’m a D.I.N.K, you know… Double Income, No Kids.”

The third guy says, ” I’m a R.U.B, you know… Rich, Urban, Biker.”

They turn to the woman and ask her, ” What are you? “

She replies: ” I’m a WIFE, you know…
Wash, Iron, Fuck, Etc.”

 Laughter

Didn’t get it? Well, yes it was a little sexist and lame but…

A new study suggests that an individual’s comprehension of humour actual decreases the older you get, well duh’.

msnbc.com has the details.

The research indicates that because older adults may have greater difficulty with cognitive flexibility, abstract reasoning and short-term memory, they also have greater difficulty with tests of humor comprehension.

Researchers at Washington University tested about 40 healthy adults over age 65 and 40 undergraduate students with exercises in which they had to complete jokes and stories. Participants also had to choose the correct punch line for verbal jokes and select the funny ending to series of cartoon panels.

Test showed that the younger adults did 6 percent better on the verbal jokes and 14 percent better on the comic portion than did older participants.

“There are basic cognitive mechanisms to understanding what’s going on in a joke. Older adults, because they may have deficits in some of those cognitive areas, may have a harder time understanding what a joke is about.”

Scientists figure out why we hate/love Barbra Streisand.

 

Love it?

Or

Hate it?

An Australian researcher claims to have discovered why singers like Barbra Streisand and Barry Manilow; make people (like me) feel either angry and irritated, or happy and uplifted, Australian Broadcasting Corp reports.

Dr Emery Schubert says he had a gut instinct aboeut why some people found some songs schmalzy, while others found the tunes uplifting and inspiring.

But he decided to find out for sure by studying people’s reactions to songs.

“We know, psychologically, that one of the things that makes people like music is simply familiarity,” Dr Schubert said.

“So if you know a piece of music well enough you will start to like it.

“You may well attribute it to the features of the music – something about the melody and the harmony and so forth, but we also do note there’s a psychological effect.

“The other issue that [I was] interested in [was] the emotional effect.

“The new research that’s just come out is identifying a new measure, a new feature. Basically it comes down to this – if you can measure the emotion that a piece of music is trying to convey, and if you rate that by the particular listener, you [can] also measure the emotion that the listener is experiencing as a result of listening, and you take the difference of those two you get what’s called the ‘Differential Affect Gap’.

“The bigger that gap is – so, for example, if the piece of music expresses a lot of emotion but you are left unmoved by it, it’s a big Differential Affect Gap.

“What seems to happen is that when that’s big, people don’t like the music as much. When the two measures are connected, if they’re congruent between the expressed emotion and the felt emotion, people tend to like the piece more.”

Drink Up! Booze doesn’t kill brain cells, says new study.

 

Good news everyone!

Scientists in Australia will present new evidence that shows consumption of alcohol does not kill off brain cells.

For years imbibers have been told a big night on the drink wipes out entire sections of human brain cell function with much the same destructive equivalent as a napalm bombing strike.

According to Queensland Brain Institute director Professor Perry Bartlett, this is not true.

There is no evidence drinking alcohol leads directly to the death of brain cells, he said.

“Some of the best studies, done in Italy, show a bottle of wine a night can reduce the risk of dementia in old age,” Professor Bartlett said.

In moderation, alcohol has positive benefits for blood vessel health and stroke prevention. And, as an added bonus, new brain cells are generated every day of our lives.

Research by Professor Bartlett and his team has found we all have an inbuilt repair kit replenishing the more than 100 billion cells – or neurons – in our brain.

The new evidence will be presented at a conference in the tropical northern Australian resort city of Cairns.

Speakers at the conference will include distinguished scientists from Oxford, Cambridge and Yale.

So everyone, it’s party time! All the more reason to get into onto the piss, as we say in Australia.

Spanish women demand equal rights with Bulls.

 

As you may know, the Spanish town of Pamplona is in the middle of it’s world famous running of the bulls festival— a nine day celebration that honors the city’s patron saint, San Fermín.

A few days before the annual festival started a semi-naked ”running of the nudes” protest took place by PETA, demanding an end to the event. 

And now a group of feminists are demanding, not the end of the bull running events, but a running of the cows to make the festival more gender equal.

The women are demanding that they get thier own version of the festival made world famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

A local student web site, www.estudiln.net, is demanding “equality for men and women”, arguing that its only logical that women should have their own bull run, despite the fact that women have been allowed to participate in the death defying race for many years.

 ”Cows, as well as bulls, have four legs and a natural instinct to run,” says their manifesto. “An encierro for cows, would put Pamplona at the vanguard of traditional fiestas with equality for men and women.”

Organizers of the festival, which runs from July 7-14, have not responded to the suggestion.

But, do cows have massive horns on their heads which can be used to spear the flesh of an adrenalin pumped human?

Not that I know of.

But perhaps a running of the cows would result in much less death and injury than a running with the bulls, but less fun offcourse.

Bull Running 2007- Yeeha!

Girlfriend proves revenge is sweeter the second time. Until your thown in jail.

Yowzers!

Now, this story brings a whole new meaning to the term eye for an eye.

A Hong Kong woman who partly blinded her boyfriends’ eye six years ago has been jailed after poking the other eye with a chopstick.

Po Shiu-fong, 58, accused long-time boyfriend Kwok Wai-ming, 49, of having an affair, and a row quickly erupted.

During the heated arugment, Po stabbed a plastic chopstick into Kwok’s left eye, the same eye she wounded just years earlier.

“Po became hysterical when she saw the wound and mopped it with a towel. The pair then went to bed,” reports said.

“The next morning they had another argument in which she grabbed a chopstick and stabbed Kwok’s right eye.”

Two days later, he sought medical treatment and filed a police report against Po, whom he had dated since 1993.

Apparently he didn’t report the attack six years ago, telling the court his silence was “a love sacrifice.”

“If I forgive her, God would not forgive me,” Kwok was reported as saying. “No matter what, nothing could compensate for the loss of my eye.”

Po was jailed for six months.

Video: Hot Dog! Chestnut cracks the big one.

 

As The Crazy News reported last month the dual between Joey Chestnut of the United States and Takeru Kobayashi of Japan was hotting up.

Today the rivalry crescendoed as America celebrated Independence Day with the famous Nathan’s hotdog eating contest in New York.

The American food extraordinaire beat the reigning six time Japanese champion in a thriller, breaking a new record. The nut scoffed down 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. That’s a rate of one dog every 10.9 seconds.

Kobayashi finished second with an amazing 63 hot dogs consumed, despite the fact that he was suffering from a jaw injury and a pulled wisdom tooth.

 Here’s the exciting video:

You really get the feeling that one day someone is going to die pushing the limits of food scoffing….

Alien mystery deepens, 60 years on.

 

It is 60 years ago this week since the Roswell Army Air Field released a press statment that said it had recovered a crashed “flying disc” from a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, a statement quickly retracted a few hours after.

With a 60th Anniversary festival planned for the town reliant on the UFO tourist dollar, the mystery, which has inspired movies, TV shows and documentaries has deepened, with witness testimony shining light about what happend at the old air base just south of the site of the first ever atomic bomb test.

A sworn affidavit from the deceased 1947 Roswell Army Air Field public relations officer.

News.com.au reports the story:

Last week came an astonishing new twist to the Roswell mystery.

Lieutenant Walter Haut was the public relations officer at the base in 1947 and was the man who issued the original and subsequent press releases after the crash on the orders of the base commander, Colonel William Blanchard.

Haut died last year but left a sworn affidavit to be opened only after his death.

Last week, the text was released and asserts that the weather balloon claim was a cover story and that the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar.

He described seeing not just the craft, but alien bodies.

He wasn’t the first Roswell witness to talk about alien bodies.

Local undertaker Glenn Dennis had long claimed that he was contacted by authorities at Roswell shortly after the crash and asked to provide a number of child-sized coffins.

When he arrived at the base, he was apparently told by a nurse (who later disappeared) that a UFO had crashed and that small humanoid extraterrestrials had been recovered.

But Haut is the only one of the original participants to claim to have seen alien bodies.

UFO pieces handed around

Haut’s affidavit talks about a high-level meeting he attended with base commander Col William Blanchard and the Commander of the Eighth Army Air Force, General Roger Ramey.

Haut states that at this meeting, pieces of wreckage were handed around for participants to touch, with nobody able to identify the material.

He says the press release was issued because locals were already aware of the crash site, but in fact there had been a second crash site, where more debris from the craft had fallen.

The plan was that an announcement acknowledging the first site, which had been discovered by a farmer, would divert attention from the second and more important location.

The clean-up operation

Haut also spoke about a clean-up operation, where for months afterwards military personnel scoured both crash sites searching for all remaining pieces of debris, removing them and erasing all signs that anything unusual had occurred.

This ties in with claims made by locals that debris collected as souvenirs was seized by the military.

Haut then tells how Colonel Blanchard took him to “Building 84″ – one of the hangars at Roswell – and showed him the craft itself.

He describes a metallic egg-shaped object around 3.6m-4.5m in length and around 1.8m wide.

He said he saw no windows, wings, tail, landing gear or any other feature.

Haug ’saw the alien bodies’

He saw two bodies on the floor, partially covered by a tarpaulin.

They are described in his statement as about 1.2m tall, with disproportionately large heads.

Towards the end of the affidavit, Haut concludes: “I am convinced that what I personally observed was some kind of craft and its crew from outer space”.

What’s particularly interesting about Walter Haut is that in the many interviews he gave before his death, he played down his role and made no such claims.

Had he been seeking publicity, he would surely have spoken about the craft and the bodies.

Did he fear ridicule, or was the affidavit a sort of deathbed confession from someone who had been part of a cover-up, but who had stayed loyal to the end?

The US government came under huge pressure on Roswell in the ’90s.

In July 1994, in response to an inquiry from the General Accounting Office, the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force published a report, The Roswell Report: Fact Versus Fiction In The New Mexico Desert.

Weather balloon ‘cover story’

The report concluded that the Roswell incident had been attributable to something called Project Mogul, a top secret project using high-altitude balloons to carry sensor equipment into the upper atmosphere, listening forevidence of Soviet nuclear tests.

The statements concerning a crashed weather balloon had been a cover story, they admitted, but not to hide the truth about extraterrestrials.

A second US Air Force report concluded claims bodies were recovered were generated by people having seen crash test dummies that were dropped from the balloons.

Sceptics, of course, will dismiss the testimony left by Haut.

After all, fascinating though it is, it’s just a story. There’s no proof.

But if nothing else, this latest revelation shows that, 60 years on, this mystery endures.

Women’s clothing the best cover.

Wearing a burqa as a clever undercover disguise is the new in thing these days, with the head to toe Islamic garment used as a convenient cover by everyone from European bank robbers to Indian pop stars.

On Tuesday it was reported that a group of armed men in Bosnia stormed into a Sarajevobank bank branch, ordering customers to hand over belongings and emptied out the day’s takings, getting away with around US $40,000.

Last week Indian composer and music star Himesh Reshammiya created an uproar after he visited a 13th century Islamic shrine in the traditional women’s clothing to avoid thongs of fans mobbing him.

Himesh likes it under-cover.

And today it was reported that a radical Islamic Pakistani cleric tried to give security forces the slip after a mosque siege in Islamabad.

Dinosaur fossil eaten.

 

Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers.

The calcium-rich bones were sometimes boiled with other ingredients and fed to children as a treatment for dizziness and leg cramps. Other times they were ground up and made into a paste that was applied directly to fractures and other injuries, he said.

The practice had been going on for at least two decades.

Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as “dragon bones” at about 4 yuan (US 50 cents) per kilogram.

“They had believed that the ‘dragon bones’ were from the dragons flying in the sky,” said Chinese scientist Dong Zhimin.

Dong was among a team of scientists who recently excavated a 60-foot-long plant-eating dinosaur, which lived 85 million to 100 million years ago.

The Henan area is also rich in fossilized dinosaur eggs.

Stinking rich Arab businessman shouts everyone a wedding!

   Everyone loves a mass wedding!

A wealthy Arab businessman has treated 13 couples from the tiny African nation of Djibouti to a free wedding. Why not!?

The couples were chosen from hundreds who replied to an advert seen on TV, radio and in print, offering the all expenses payed mass ceremony.

In order to qulify couples had to ”be Djiboutian, be a love match, one of them had to have a job, and had to demonstrate they had enough money to bring up a young family.”

“I am very excited, and I hope to have sons and daughters from my marriage,” Amina Omar Aden, one of the 30 brides all dressed in white gowns, said.

“I am very happy, because it is the 30th anniversary of our country and we are marrying. Ibrahim Loita has helped us so much,” Ibrahim Dhaban Hufane a bridegroom from the Arte region told the BBC.

Dubai businessman Sheikh Ibrahim Said Ahmed Loita paid for clothes, hotel party and accommodation and the dowry of $400 given to each bride and an undisclosed amount to her family.

The mass wedding was even attended by the nations (dictator) President and First Lady.

The former French colony is celebrating 30 years of independence this year.

Djibouti is one of the poorest nations in the world.

 Djibouti slum.

Adulterous sex to bring down Chinese Communist Party?

 

In a hardening of previous policy, the Chinese government are set to crack down on government officials who have been found to have “kept and supported” mistresses, in a move aimed at ‘raising social morals’.

Mistresses and “second wives” are common among government officials and businessmen in China.

Corrupt officials are a major cause of public outrage in China, and the country’s Communist rulers have warned that if graft is not checked it could threaten the party’s grip on power.

Chinese policy makers found it ”necessary to make a clarification and emphasis” on the punishment for officials who supported mistresses.

“The morality of government officials shown in their management or power operation… directly affects the moral level of the whole society.”

“Therefore, officials should set up good examples, and abide by social morality rules.”

Last year, a Chinese vice admiral was jailed for life on embezzlement charges after one of his many mistresses blew the whistle on him when he refused to give in to her demand for money.

iLoser. Sloths line up for hyped up Apple phone.

       Sloth of a time.

The Crazy News- Tool of the Week

Some people have all the time in the world.

Regular Homer Simpson, Greg Packer, is claiming his 15 minutes of fame for the second time in New York this week. Or is it the 3rd or 4th or 5th time?

The 43-year-old retired highway maintenance worker (retired? how much do they get paid) started lining up to be the first to purchase the new iPhone from Apple’s flagship store in Manhattan, 101 hours before it goes on sale 6pm Friday US eastern time.

  Apple Man

Packer has since been joined by about more than a dozen other iPhone fans and opportunists, who have also chosen to join in on the sit in, braving the concrete enhanced heat of the other famous Big Apple.

Packer says he is relying on food donations and the bathroom facilities at the Apple Store, which is open 24-hours a day.

 Sitting is fun.

This isn’t the first time our good friend has made headlines waiting for fancy new products to come on sale; he was one of the first to buy a Playstation 3 when that went on sale last November. Indeed, he even has his own wikipedia page, which says he has appeared in mainstrem media more than 100 times, quoted by various media organisations since the mid 1990’s infact.

And according to US TV news host Keith Olberman, this guy is a bit of a pest. The Associated Press even put out a memo to it’s journalists, warning them not to “indulge him”.

The iphone retails between $US499 for a 4GB memory and $US599 for one with 8.

And guess what! Our iPhone friend even has his own wordpress blog!

He’s looking for someone to donate him a comfy chair for all that sitting he’s been doing. It just goes to show, you don’t need to have much talent to be famous in America, just ask Paris Hitlon.

You also have to wonder, could this be a smart marketing stunt from the Jobs’ Apple team? Maybe you should ask..maybe I should ask. Naaa…

Update: Interview with iPhone Greg and fellow lineruperer David.

It’s a circus out there!

Meanwhile, on Friday, just hours before the iPhone went on sale in New York City, a camera crew doing a live interview had a number of those gathered in and near the line taunting and swearing at them. A bloke even tired to grab the reporter’s microphone, before being hammered to the ground by security/teamsters.

 

Spice Girls Back!, be afraid, be very afraid.

 

A few years ago all the rage in fashion was 70’s and then 80’s inspired looks, and now after more than 9 years since splitting, the quintessential 90’s pop band, The Spice Girls are back. Oh shit!

Yes, Scary, Baby, Ginger, Posh and Sporty are set to make a comeback and introduce themselves to a new generation of uber cool 00’s kids, after a press conference in London.

Video from press conference.

 The ladies will play 11 live shows in 8 countries around the world to support a greatest hits album which comes out later this year.

The tour dates are as follows:

2007

December 7 – Los Angeles

December 8 – Las Vegas

December 11 – New York City

December 15 – London

December 20 – Cologne

December 23 – Madrid

2008

January 10 – Beijing

January 12 – Hong Kong

January 17 – Sydney

January 20 – Cape Town

January 24 – Buenos Aires

The girls promised to perform all their classic hits during the show.

But they refused a challenge to sing live at the press conference in response to a report that their voices will be digitally enhanced on the tour.

“We don’t need to prove anything,” Mel C said.

The tour will be supported by a documentary which claims it will show the definitive story of the Spice Girls.

Halliwell said: “It’s going to be the most honest story that you’ve ever heard. You get to see the dark side of the Spice Girls, the gritty side, the tears.”

“I like to think our songs are universal and they are timeless. Hopefully, the young’uns will like it too,”Geri Halliwell,the oldest of the group gushed.

They sold more than 55 million records around the world, and even starred in a film, Spice World, after forming in 1994.

 Melanie Brown (Scary Spice)

 Melanie Chrisholm (Sporty Spice)

  Emma Bunton (Baby Spice)

 Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice)

  Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice)

Pandas for all! China uses it’s native bear like currency.

 

Spanish King Juan with happy communist Chinese poltician.

King Juan Carlos of Spain will be presented with two cute and furry mammals as he departs a visit to Beijing, Chinese authorties said.

A pair of endangered pandas will be given as a gift of mutual freindship to Spains head of state, who is in China to ‘develope a strategic partnership’.

“It will be a lovely present for the Spanish people, and we hope this pair of pandas, as the friendly envoys of the Chinese people, can help promote mutual relations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference.

Beijing presented a pair of pandas to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong in 1999 and another pair this year. It has also offered pandas several times to Taiwan, the independently governed island which China considers its own. Taipei has turned down all offers so far.

It is estimated that their is only about 2,000 Giant Pandas left in the world.

If the Chinese keep this up most of those won’t be located in the world’s 4th largest economy.

Chancellor shows us her tits, via photoshop.

Got milk?

A conservative Polish news magazine Wpropst (you need to know Polish if you click that), has gone soft-core porn and stirred up a fuss ,which as you can see, is a little bit of an eye catcher.

The politics and society magazine chose to take the visual dig at the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, and Poland’s ruling twins Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, after complex pole-itical (yes I know, lame) agreements were made between the countries at a European summit recently.

“Germany used to be Poland’s principal partner in the West,” it said. “Now it has become our prosecutor-in-chief,” the mag wrote.

London newspapers reported that the article argued:

 Germany was treating its eastern neighbour neo-colonially and refusing to accept it as a European partner and accused Dr Merkel of humiliating Poland at the summit because she was full of complexes.

 A Polish media watchdog said the publication “overstepped the limits of good taste”.
 

“Dont mention the war!”

During the same summit that prompted the magazine cover, the Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said that Polands’ population would be a lot larger if so many had not been killed by the Nazis in World War 2.

Errr, awkward.

How do twins become President and Prime Minister of a country anyway?

Speaking of awkward….

Faulty Towers classic.

Marijuana good to eat, says politician.

In a nation renowned for its extremely harsh punishment for drug crimes, Indonesia’s Vice President said it was just fine and dandy for Marijuana to be included in everyday cooking

“It’s alright to use it as a food seasoning,” VP Jusuf Kalla was quoted as saying by the Jakarta Post daily.

 The comments come after two Indonesian agencies recommended the government review policy outlawing marijuana for recreational purposes.

One official even reckons national policy should follow counties like the Netherlands, and legalise modest use of the wacky weed.

   Indo VP High as a kite?

Local Indonesian dishes like mutton and beef curry are said to be laced with marijuana seeds to give them a distinctive local flavour.

Indonesia imposes very harsh penalties including death for drug offences, with 6 Australians, 5 Chinese, a Dutchman and a Frenchman all on death row for recent offences

Man fails exams for 38th time, says he will try again.

 

A 73 year old Indian man has failed to get though his high school exam for the 38th time. Every year since 1969 Shiv Charan Yadav has attempted to pass a test normally given to 15 year olds.

The farmer has vowed not to get married untill he can pass the exam seems like he is running out of time.

“Once I pass I want to get married to a girl who’s under 30,” he told media.

Mr Yadav, who lives alone in Kohari village in the western desert state of Rajasthan, was in his 30s when he first decided to better himself through education.

In this years test, he failed everything except Sanskrit, scoring only 103 points out of a possible 600.

He said he found mathematics especially hard, blaming the subject for dragging down his score.

He is now revising for his 39th attempt next year.

One old whale, 1880’s weapon fragment found in huge mammal caught off Alaska.

 

Fragments of a weapon used by whale hunters off Alaska in the 1800’s has been found lodged in a Bowhead whale, caught by the indigenous Inupiat people recently.

The fragment shows that the whale could be nearly 130 years old, said Craig George, a wildlife biologist with the borough’s Department of Wildlife Management.

“It was probably at least a yearling when it was struck, because the whalemen never took calves”

  

The Beautiful Bowhead whale in icy Alaskan waters.

The fragment of bomb lace was given to scientists by the Inupiat whalers, who are allowed to catch up to 50 of the speices a year in Alaskan waters.  The hunt is managed by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. There is a population of around 8,000 Bowheads in Alaskan waters.

The Inupiat have long said that bowhead whales live for the equivalent of two human lifetimes, and the find suggest that knowledge is indeed right.

Commercial whaling is banned worldwide, althought the Japanese would like that to change. Native tribes from Alaska, Greenland and parts of Russia are allowed to hunt whales under a non-commercial agreement.

 In Alaska, meat from hunted whales is distributed to all residents of the hunters’ villages.

Inupiat in Alaska divide up whale meat.

National Geographic video: Bowhead Whales.

Jericho; TV fans go nuts after cancellation, literally.

  Not crazy, its f*#king nuts!

Passionate fans of TV show Jericho have launched, and may be winning, a campaign to have the show put back on the air by sending millions of nuts to CBS TV executives across the United States.

In May, when CBS Television cancelled the show about life in a small rural town after a nuclear holocaust, legions of fans were incenced, and plans were soon hatched to have the show re-instated. The idea to send nuts was soon chosen, and with a little help of some smart marketing from nutsonline.com, the campaign took off, and now some rumours say the show may get 8 more episodes. 

Quoting an anonymous source, The Associated Press Tuesday said CBS is reconsidering its decision to cancel the show. A decision on whether to bring the show back, probably for a mid-season run, is imminent. Is this a PR stunt to stem the flow of nuts, or is it genuine? Only time will tell Jericho fans.

Jericho cast and babes…

Why nuts?

In the final episode of “Jericho,” the town is under siege from a neighboring community.  When asked to surrender, lead character Jake Green, played by Skeet Ulrich, has a one-word response: “Nuts.”

The response is a reference to Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, a U.S. Army general who in World War II was surrounded by Germans demanding his surrender. His response: “Nuts.”

All I have to say is, what a waste of food.

See what all the fuss is about, 2006 Jericho promo. 

Eating live frogs & rats does wonders for Jiang Musheng, prepare to feel queasy.

  Down the hatch….mmm crunchy.

Now, I’ve heard stories about people of various cultures around the world eat dirt, mud and clay for their perceived long term health benefits, an act called geophagy. But this is something quite ridiculous.

It’s been reported that for the last 40 years or so, a 66 year old man living in rural southeast China has been eating live frogs, mice and rats in a bid to cure his stomach pains and coughing.

Jiang Musheng of Jiangxi province told local media that when he was 26 he had chronic abdominal pains and coughing. According to the report an old man called Yang Dingcai came along and suggested he try eating tree frogs as a remedy.

“At first, Jiang Musheng did not dare to eat a live, wriggling frog, but after seeing Yang Dingcai swallow one, he ate … two without a thought…after a month of eating live frogs, his stomach pains and coughing were completely gone,” was the report in a local Chinese paper.

Musheng has been eating live frogs ever since, and has now moved onto mice, baby rats and green frogs, and once ate 20 mice in a single day. Just for kicks I suppose.

Update: It appears eating live frogs isn’t just isolated to the Chinese. Check out this jackass trying to impress his friends by eating a small frog, he isn’t very successful.

Ashera: At $20,000, the worlds rarest and most intelligent cat could be all yours.

Mix the African Serval  

                  

& The Asian Leopard Cat

     

With your regular domestic cat.

& you’ve got yourself…

“The Cat of the Century”

The ultra-exotic  “Ashera” cat.

 

At a cool $20,ooo plus US dollars, the uber trendy Ashera cat is said to be the largest, rarest and most intelligent domestic cat. US based company  Lifestyle Pets Inc. has already sold two of the felines to an unknown Beverly Hills family, as well as a Russian mogul in Moscow.

A proprietary blend of the exotic bloodlines of the African Serval and
the Asian Leopard Cat and subsequently crossing with a domestic cat,
the Ashera is unique in that genetic monitoring is used to standardize breeding and ensure that the defining features and size of the Ashera remain exceptionally consistent.

Fully socialized, the Ashera gets along well with children and other
pets, acting and playing like a regular domestic cat. Unusually for cats,
the Ashera takes well to being walked on a leash (cat walk). The Ashera will be limited to less than 100 per year.

So all you need is just a spare 20,ooo US bucks and you’ll be all set. I think I’ll pass thanks, I’m more of a dog person anyway.

Speaking of Meowing, I thought I might just throw this one in for a cheap feline based laugh.

Prime Minister goes naked.

  ‘Iraq Triptych’

A 71 year old artist and sculptor protested his countries involvement in the war in Iraq by creating a drawing depicting British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie naked.

“I suddenly felt overcome with anger at the way Blair has messed up,”Artist Michael Sandle said. 

“There he was, elected by a huge majority, and he has allowed his vanity to destroy it all.”

The work, in charcoal and chalk, is based on medieval paintings of Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden. The centre of the drawing shows Tony and Cherie blair on the steps of their residence, 10 Downing Street, and side panels show Iraqi civilians being abused by British troops.

The art work is the centrepiece of the Royal
Academy’s Summer Exhibition.

 Michael Saddle, not happy with his PM

 Blair sporting a trendy mullett

Dead man rides through the night.

A Croatian man rode on a tram for nearly 6 hours before the driver discovered he had died. The 61-year-old man boarded the vehicle around midnight Friday night, and soon fell asleep.

The tram went on picking up and dropping off passengers throughout the night, a Croatian daily newspaper reported.

The driver, separated by a glass partition from the rest of the tram, tried to wake him up at the end of his shift and realized he was dead.

The police put the death down to natural causes but are still awaiting post-mortem results of the man identified as Tomislav K.

Knoxville gets sued for genitals in a mousetrap prank.

 

Actor Perry Caravello is suing Jackass star Johnny Knoxville, TV host Jimmy Kimmel and radio personality Adam Corolla for US$10 million. Caravello alledges he was promised money and promotion of a movie if he carried out a stunt that involved putting his genitals in a mousetrap.

The stunt was intended as a promotion for the DVD release of Windy City Heat, in which Carolla, Caravello and Kimmel all appeared.

But the stunt went wrong and Caravello “was severely injured when the trap literally went on his manhood”, according to papers filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.

“Cameras both hidden and exposed capture the fun and pain when Caravello is inexplicably cast as the star of a supposed film called Windy City Heat, in which he portrays a character named Stone Fury, a hard-boiled Chicago ’sports private eye.’

“It’s all just a complete goof, of course. But the real Caravello doesn’t know that,” said the paper in its October 2003 review of the telemovie.

Caravello is claiming US$10 million over the stunt, plus an extra US$500,000 for humiliation after the stunt-gone-wrong was distributed on the internet.

                                               You’ve gotta ask, is this for real, or just a really tame stunt to boost DVD sales of the movie Windy City Heat? (which was a flop)

Robot to guard school from ‘outsider seduction’

 A robot is to be deployed as a security guard at a South Korean school in what its creators claim is a world first.  

The robot, dubbed OFRO, will be posted at a Seoul middle school to test its potential before going on sale.Makers DU Robo said it could be used to alert staff to attempts by outsiders to seduce students.

“One possible scenario is that OFRO will alert officials when it detects someone trying to seduce a student,” the firm’s CEO Kang Jung-Won said.

Teachers could then either warn the offender through a loudspeaker or send human security guards.The firm claims it is the first time a robot has been used to guard an educational institution.“After going through the feasibility test, we (will) look to commercialise the feature-rich OFRO that retails at around $US100,000 as a school guardian,” said Kang.

OFRO moves at a leisurely maximum of five kph (three mph) and can either patrol pre-programmed routes or be manually controlled. It has a camera and microphone link to teachers or a security firm.

Cock out, tit in.

 Vistit http://www.thecrazynewsblog.com for more wacky stories!

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the UK has banned the word cock from its website. Visitors to the site found that cock had been replaced with asterisks, however the species, tit, remains.

“As bird lovers will know, a Parus Major is a great tit and while cocks do not get past the forum censor, tits do not cause offence. I’ve heard of PC but that is taking things too far,” said one web site user.

 A worker claimed the word had been replaced because of software filters but an RSPB spokesman said it preferred to describe birds as either male or female.

Sexsomnia, happening in a bedroom near you!

      People are still having sex.

You can add sex to the roster of unlikely sleep behaviors known as parasomnias, which range from sleep driving to sleep eating, say psychological health experts.

“Sleepsex” or “sexsomnia” as it is being called occours during partial arousal from deep sleep, when the brain regions devoted to higher thought, judgment and reasoning are shut down, and areas governing more primitive functions (such as locomotion, eating and sex) are still active.

“One man had been initiating intercourse on almost a nightly basis,” says a psychologist about one case of sleepsex. That was apparently fine with his wife, until “one night he started snoring.” In another case, a female sexsomniac routinely groped her husband. Whenever he responded, “she would wake up and accuse him of forcing sex on her while she slept.”

Not all cases of sleepsex are so amusing. Canadian Jan Luedecke had a history of sleepwalking. One night he’d been drinking at a party and found himself sacked out on the couch with a woman he’d met there. Hours later, she jolted him awake and demanded to know what he was doing. Luedecke claimed he was unaware he was having sex with her. “Under the law, if there’s no intent to commit a crime, you haven’t committed a crime,” says Dr. Colin Shapiro, director of the Youthdale Child and Adolescent Sleep Center in Toronto, who testified for the defense. Luedecke was acquitted (to the outrage of women’s organizations in Canada), and the case is now on appeal.

The condition is highly treatable with the generic anti-anxiety drug clonazepam. Seeking help can only work to a sufferer’s advantage. After all, if you’re going to have sex, you might as well enjoy it.

A cup (or 4) of tea a day keeps the doctor away.

 

“Ahh yes, jolly good I say!”

Health researchers in Britain say tea can have positive benifits againsts heart disease and some cancers, as well as being a good drink to re-hydrate.  Polyphenol antioxidants are found in many foods and plants, including tea leaves, and have been shown to help prevent cell damage.

Other health benefits seen included protection against tooth plaque and potentially tooth decay, plus bone strengthening. “Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so it’s got two things going for it”, said public health nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton at Kings College London.

Dr Ruxton’s team found average tea consumption was just under three cups per day. She said the increasing popularity of soft drinks meant many people were not drinking as much tea as before.

“Tea drinking is most common in older people, the 40 plus age range. In older people, tea sometimes made up about 70% of fluid intake so it is a really important contributor,” she said.

Worlds oldest fruit discovered.

Archaeologists in Japan have unearthed a 2,100 year old melon which still has it’s flesh inside apparently preserved underground over the centuries in a vacuum-packed state.

radiocarbon analysis was used to estimate the age of the fruit, believed to be the oldest melon found with flesh still on the rind, said Shuji Yamazaki, a local official in the city of Moriyama, 200 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The melon might have been so well-preserved because it was in a vacuum-packed state in a wet layer below the ground, an environment hostile to microorganisms that might otherwise have broken down the remains, Yamazaki said.

  The old melon.

I bet it’s still tasty.

There’s only one way to find out….