Are you being tracked?...

Fox News reports that "Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell-phone use and concluded that most people rarely stray more than a few miles from home.
The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods, which would be illegal in the United States.
It also yielded somewhat surprising results that reveal how little people move around in their daily lives.
Nearly three-quarters of those studied mainly stayed within a 20-mile-wide circle for half a year.
The scientists would not say where the study was done, only describing the location as an industrialized nation.

Researchers used cell-phone towers to track individuals' locations whenever they made or received phone calls and text messages over six months.
In a second set of records, researchers took another 206 cell phones that had tracking devices in them and got records for their locations every two hours over a week's time period..."

Here is the rest of the story.

Ouch! He put what on his what?...

The Daily Telegraph reports that "A man was operated on in Hornsby Hospital early today to remove 16 stainless steel washers from his penis.Berowra Fire Rescue officers were called to alleviate the man from his awkward predicament at 3am. It was not clear how the situation arose. The man may well have thought long and hard about placing himself in the difficult situation. Fire Rescue Officers spent more than an hour unsuccessfully attempting to remove the washers, before the man was taken into an operating theatre about 4.30am. Surgeons took about 90 minutes to remove the washers using fire brigade equipment. A hospital spokesman said equipment normally used to remove rings from fingers was ineffective because of the thicker nature of the washers. The man was in a satisfactory condition. It is believed the only lasting damage may be to his pride."

Some Late Night Fun

Here's a clip from ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Show. It is his look at unnecessary censorship. Enjoy!

Random thoughts on "Lost"

Hmm... Could our Island be a link back to the lost land of Atlantis?... Remember the large sculpture of a foot? These amazing feats from unknown powers or technology...

Tribute to Harvey Korman

I only got to see Harvey Korman in Carol Burnett Show reruns. Thank you Harvey for bringing joy into so many lives.

Anyone Else Notice This?...

Has anyone else noticed the recent rash of major earthquakes striking aroung the world lately? I am not trying to be a harbinger of worse events to come shortly... Here are details on the latest major earthquake to strike. This was a 6.8 earthquake that struck off the coast of Taiwan on Sunday June 1st.

More Election 2008 Fun...

ABC's Jimmy Kimmel brings us a couple of clips from Election '08. The video ends with a real dig...

Lost Parrot Finds Its Way Home

ABC News reports that a lost parrot in Japan was reunited "with its owners after squawking its address."

"Open Water" Revisted...

"Open Water (Widescreen Edition)" revisted?... If you saw the movie, then you have a good idea how frightened and fortunate the following couple was:
The Times reports "Two scuba divers were plucked from the open ocean almost 24 hours after they went missing on a pleasure dive on Austrailia’s Great Barrier Reef.
The divers, 38-year-old Briton Richard Neely and American Allison Dalton, 40, were found shortly before 9am 7.8 nautical miles from where they had lost contact with their diving boat on Friday afternoon.
They were winched to safety after an 18 hour air rescue effort involving up to 12 aircraft and flown to a Queensland hospital where they are said to be in good spirits despite suffering from mild hypothermia.
Last night, police and emergency services used helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft equipped with search lights and infrared sensing equipment to search for the divers but were forced to call off the search.
At first light this morning the search continued with seven helicopters and three fixed wing aircraft. A rescue helicopter spotted the pair near the Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland's coast.
Police said the experienced divers surfaced yesterday afternoon around 200 metres from the dive boat but were unable to raise the crew.
They decided against fighting the strong current to conserve their energy, tying themselves to each other with a weight belt.
"They conserved energy throughout the evening and stayed as a pair awaiting rescue," Acting Superintendent Shane Chelepy of the Water Police said at a press conference in Brisbane today.
"From the debrief we have, these people said they did spot one of the search aircraft last night but were unable to attract its attention," Deputy Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said.
Following the search, attention has now turned to the dive boat operator, The Pacific Star, whose skipper was believed to have waited three hours until 5.30pm to alert emergency services to the missing divers.
"That issue will be investigated thoroughly, not only by Queensland Police but also by Workplace Health and Safety in a joint investigation," Mr Stewart said
"Obviously there were other divers with that vessel at the time so we will have to look into what happened with their recovery - whether they were back on the boat and what actions the captain took to commence the search.”
Attempts to contact the operator of The Pacific Star were unsuccessful today.
A similar incident occurred in 1998 when an American couple was left on the Great Barrier Reef by a dive operator at St Crispin Reef near Port Douglas.
The skipper of the dive boat was charged and later found not guilty of the manslaughter of Thomas and Eileen Lonergan after it was concluded by the coroner they had drowned or been killed by sharks."
I never thought this could happen again...

10 Baseball Bats Get You A...

Fox News reports that "During three years in the low minors, John Odom never really made a name for himself until he got traded for a bunch of bats.
"I don't really care," he said Friday. "It'll make a better story if I make it to the big leagues."
For now, Odom is headed to the Laredo Broncos of the United League. They got him Tuesday from the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League for a most unlikely price: 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, double-dipped black, 34-inch, C243 style.
"They just wanted some bats, good bats — maple bats," Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said.
According to the Prairie Sticks Web site, their maple bats retail for $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six to 11 bats.
The Canadian team signed Odom about a month ago, but couldn't get the 26-year-old righty into the country. It seems Odom had a "minor" but unspecified criminal record that wasn't revealed to immigration officials before they scanned his passport, Vipers president Peter Young said.
Odom said the charge stemmed from a fight when he was 17. Although he thought it had been expunged from his record, it popped up during immigration...
The bat trade wasn't the first time Calgary came up with some creative dealmaking. The Vipers once tried to acquire a pitcher for 1,500 blue seats when they were renovating their stadium, Young said."

Here is the rest of this story.

Croc Defeats Shark

"THERE'S no need to be scared of sharks when you're in the Northern Territory - the crocs usually get to them first.
Paul van Bruggen snapped [this below] amazing [picture] of a 2.5m saltie dining out on a shark on the banks of the Daly River...

"We went past one section of the river and we heard some splashing,'' he said. "We looked across and saw a shark's tail coming up out of the water and then a crocodile's head came up and grabbed it.''
Mr van Bruggen said the crocodile knew exactly what it was doing, dragging the shark on to unfamiliar dry land before finishing off its prey. "How smart is the crocodile? It if was you or me it would be dragging you in to drown you, but it takes the shark up on dry land,'' he said. The fisherman, who was on the Daly River last Friday for the Barra Classic, said the crocodile definitely wanted shark for dinner. "We were about 15 metres away and it didn't bat an eyelid,'' he said."

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

TV Meltdown

ABC's Jimmy Kimmel shows a clip of a local weatherman who has a meltdown on tv. According to Kimmel, "this forecast calls for a 100% chance of anger!"

What's In Your Backyard?...

Fox News reports that "It's just a drop in the global oil bucket, but an eastern Indiana man is operating an oil well in his backyard in an effort to capitalize on soaring crude prices.
Greg Losh's rig produces three barrels of crude oil a day, though he told FOX News that he hasn't started selling it yet. For now, he and his partners are keeping it in storage containers.
He declined to say how much oil they've collected in the two weeks they've been pumping.
But as oil is going for about $127 a barrel on the international market, three daily would yield just under $400 a day for Losh on the global spot market — or 1/100,000 of the daily production increase the Saudis agreed to earlier this month.

Still, in spite of those returns and the $100,000 it costs to drill a well, it's worth it to Losh considering the current price of oil...

He expects to drill four more wells soon on his property in the town of Selma about 55 miles northeast of Indianapolis.

"It's a money maker. It is paying off," Losh told FOX.
The oil is stored in a tank and transported to Ohio for sale, he said. His oil well also produces natural gas to heat his home and several others."

It's Getting Rough In Mexico

Fox News reports that "Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.
The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico's acting federal police chief.
Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public's respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply.

Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in the border city of Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to "those who still don't believe" in the power of the cartels.

Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit, and city officials said he didn't want to be interviewed.
"These are attacks directed at the top commanders of the city police, and it is not just happening in Ciudad Juarez," Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said at the funeral of the latest victim, police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia. "It is happening in Nuevo Laredo, in Tijuana, in this entire region," he said. "They are attacking top commanders to destabilize the police force."
The killings are in response to a crackdown launched by President Felipe Calderon, who has sent thousands of soldiers and federal police across the nation to confront the cartels. Drug lords have hit back by sending killers to attack police with hand grenades and assault rifles.
Police are increasingly giving up. Last week, U.S. officials revealed that three Mexican police commanders have crossed into the United States to request asylum, saying they are unprotected and fear for their lives.
"It's almost like a military fight," said Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "I don't think that generally the American public has any sense of the level of violence that occurs on the border."
On May 8, Edgar Millan Gomez, who had taken over as acting federal police chief, just 10 weeks previously, was shot by a lone gunman outside his Mexico City apartment. Police blamed the Sinaloa cartel and said a police officer was among the suspects arrested.
The U.S. Embassy in the capital flew its flag at half-staff. "Mexico has lost another hero," Ambassador Tony Garza said in a statement. "Mexico has lost too many heroes in the fight against criminals and drug cartels."
Mexican government institutions didn't lower their flags, but held elaborate funerals.
In Ciudad Juarez, police have been given assault rifles -- they used to just carry pistols -- but also are instructed not to patrol streets alone. More than 100 of the city's 1,700-member force have resigned or retired since January.
Soldiers are also in the cartels' sights. The Zetas, an infamous group of soldiers who became drug hit men, strung banners above highways with slogans such as "The Zetas want you -- we offer good salaries to soldiers," and taunts about low army pay.
The conflict has become a battle for loyalty on several levels.
"Juarez Needs You! Join up and become part of the city police," say enormous city billboards. The jobs offer salaries about three times higher than those offered by the foreign-owned "maquiladora" factories that are the city's biggest industrial employer.
But police and soldiers keep deserting to the cartels, giving traffickers inside knowledge about tactics and surveillance.
And because of their history of corruption and abuse, police and soldiers run into suspicion as they patrol the border slums where traffickers throw children's parties, hand out cell phones and employ taxi drivers and youths as lookouts..."

Here is the entire story.

Campaign 2008 Fun

57?...

How Do You Tell Your Boss That You're Not Happy?

Fox News reports that "A 19-year-old flight attendant has been accused of setting a fire aboard a commercial airplane that was forced to make an emergency landing in Fargo, N.D.
Eder Rojas was charged Thursday in federal court in Minneapolis. The case will be prosecuted in Fargo.
Officials say the Compass Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Saskatchewan landed safely in Fargo on May 7, after smoke begin to fill the back of the plane.
Court documents say Rojas, of Woodbury, Minn., told authorities he was upset at the airline for making him work that route."

So you can do this to show the boss your displeasure...and end up in jail.

A Blowtorch Game?

Fox News reports that "A 14-year-old boy [in Manitowoc, Wisconsin] suffered burns to more than a quarter of his body after playing what authorities describe as a blowtorch game.
Manitowoc Fire Captain Mark Rusboldt says the boy and another teen were using spray cans as blowtorches. The 14-year-old was burned on his back, head, face, arms and hands. The other teen was not injured.
The burned boy was hospitalized Saturday at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee."

Vatican Says E.T. Could Exist

The BBC reports that "The Pope's chief astronomer says that life on Mars cannot be ruled out.
Writing in the Vatican newspaper, the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space.
Father Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory near Rome, is a respected scientist who collaborates with universities around the world.
The search for forms of extraterrestrial life, he says, does not contradict belief in God.
The official Vatican newspaper headlines his article 'Aliens Are My Brother'.

Just as there are multiple forms of life on earth, so there could exist intelligent beings in outer space created by God. And some aliens could even be free from original sin, he speculates.
Asked about the Catholic Church's condemnation four centuries ago of the Italian astronomer and physicist, Galileo, Father Funes diplomatically says mistakes were made, but it is time to turn the page and look towards the future.
Science and religion need each other, and many astronomers believe in God, he assures readers.
To strengthen its scientific credentials, the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin."

"Great tits cope well with warming"

The BBC reports that "At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.
Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.
Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.
Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commented that other species are likely to fare much worse than great tits as temperatures rise.

The research uses a long record of great tits in a breeding site at Wytham Woods near Oxford, where observations began in 1947..."

Now...What were you thinking when you read the title for this story?

If you're interested, then here is the rest of this story.