A shark killed an American tourist surfing in western Mexico, police said on Tuesday, the second fatal attack along North America’s Pacific coast in four days.

A shark bit 24-year-old San Francisco resident Adrian Ruiz in the leg on Monday, opening a 15-inch (38-cm) wound. (…) “He was rushed in a bystander’s vehicle to the military naval hospital, where he died soon after from blood loss,” the statement said.

On Friday, a 66-year-old man was attacked and killed by a shark in the ocean near San Diego in the United States, the first person to die in a shark encounter off Southern California in nearly 50 years.

Fatal shark attacks in Mexico are also uncommon. The last one was in the Caribbean in 1997, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File. No one has been killed by a shark on Mexico’s Pacific coast in over 30 years.

Attacks on the Atlantic coast are more frequent, especially in Florida, which has about 25 to 30 a year. Last year, the only fatal shark attack in the world was in New Caledonia, in the southwest Pacific

{ Reuters }

A family called police to their home to report a fight and ended up being arrested on drug charges.

Police said they went to the Roehl family home on Monday after getting a call about a fight, possibly involving baseball bats.

They said that when 17-year-old Karl Roehl was showing them a large clock that had been damaged, they noticed two potted marijuana plants.

Officers said Roehl was arrested when he tried to hide the plants and that his mother, Lee Ann Roehl was arrested after ripping a plant from its pot and throwing it into the yard.

Police returned with a search warrant and said they found more pot and a growing room, so they added more charges to the mother and son and arrested the father, also on drug charges.

{ AP/WTOP | Continue reading }

related { The number of people arrested for small amounts of marijuana in New York City has increased tenfold in the past decade, making NYC the world leader in marijuana arrests }

related { Phallic symbolism }

An Adelaide man accused of biting, whipping and having unlawful sex with a girl he met via a vampire website has told a court he was furious when he learned she was underage.

Italian scientists spent 6.3 million euros building a robot that makes coffee.

Police say they’ve made an arrest in the case of the loud bang and bright flash of light disturbing a neighborhood in Pikesville.

Ronaldo’s prostitute turns out to be a transvestite, who accused him of using drugs and not wanting to pay.

Man cleared by DNA free after 27 years.

Cher was “crazy” about Tom Cruise during a brief romance between the two stars in the mid-1980s.

Dogs bark for different reasons and heart rates show that other dogs can tell the difference.

Two or more alcoholic drinks a day can increase the risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, new research suggests.

Children who attend daycare or playgroups cut their risk of the most common type of childhood leukaemia by around 30%, a study estimates.

To save species from extinction, get people to eat it.

It seems bees can discover how to “rob” flowers of nectar.

Heated debate over who planted first sunflower.

An elephant in the picture.

I always feel that ♫ somebody’s watchin’ me ♪

Despite decades of interest in human flight powered by backpack jets, the technology’s limitations have kept it grounded.

Powered model aircraft.

Skating.

Hitchcock, Truffaut, Scorsese… Directors in their films.

The history of New York City in video games.

Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 New York subway map [$299]

A 7-year-old Florida boy stole his grandmother’s SUV, smashed mailboxes, hit parked cars and signposts.

Cross-dressing banker busted for hiding in women’s toilet.

Dolphin dies after collision during Sea World trick.

Polar bear not ‘endangered’, just ‘concerning’.

One of Mexico’s biggest drug cartels has launched a brazen recruiting campaign, putting up fliers and banners promising good pay, free cars and better food to army soldiers who join the cartel’s elite band of hit men.

A sex scandal rattles Tehran government, in spite of numerous attempts to hush it up. But is Reza Zarei, the police chief caught in a brothel with six prostitutes, still alive?

Is Iran’s nuclear program peaceful or not? A trove of new photos is offering some tantalizing clues.

40 people injured when floor collapses at Canadian church.

OPEC president sees $200 oil possible: “Each time the dollar falls one percent, the price of the barrel rises by $4.”

Oilwells are drying up.

When you’re paying more at the pump, don’t blame the station owner.

Warren Buffett: “I think consumers are feeling gas and food prices, and not feeling they’ve got a lot of money for other things.”

Economist says supplies aplenty for U.S. consumers.

They fired the most powerful woman of Wall Street.

Millions of Web surfers crashed a magazine Internet site on Monday in an attempt to see racy pictures of tween idol Miley Cyrus that have triggered a cross-country furor.

The record labels want you to pay a tax on music.

The presidency is the most famous job in America, and probably the hardest. The country is currently trying to fill the position. What does a president do?

Google experiments with next generation Image Search.

The twentieth century is hardly behind us but already its quarrels and its achievements, its ideals and its fears are slipping into the obscurity of mis-memory.

Champagne, Switzerland, can’t use its own name.

How to capture yellow jackets (and not get stung).

Spider snacks on snake.

Calculator spelling, also known as beghilos.

Makes sense.

Gals.

Ball.

Vampires can’t exist. Why? Because they’d quickly depopulate the earth.

To prove it, the scientists do some calculations by picking a random year in history — 1600, specifically — and imagining what would happen if one vampire suddenly appeared on earth. They assume, for the sake of argument, that a vampire needs to feed “only once a month”, and that in the course of feeding, the vampire turns its victim into another vampire. They note that the global population of humans was 536,870,911 in the year 1600.

Then the calculations begin. If a single vampire fed on a single human in the first month, this would create two vampires — and decrease the human population by one, leaving it at 536,870,911 - 1 = 536,870,910. In the second month, those two vampires would each feed, transforming two people into vampires — so you get four vampires and a human population of 536,870,911 - 3 = 536,870,908. So you can see where this is headed. The vampire population is increasing in a geometric progression, and the population of humans is similarly decreasing — and at that rate, the authors calculate, the entire human population would be transformed into vampires in only 30 months. QED!

Sure, humans could increase their numbers by having children — but the birth rate could never keep pace.

We conclude that vampires cannot exist, since their existence contradicts the existence of human beings. Incidently, thelogical proof that we just presented is of a type known as “reductio ad absurdum”, that is, reduction to the absurd.

{ collision detection | Continue reading }

I don’t trust scientists and I don’t trust mathematical formulas, and therefore I will continue to wear a string of garlic around my neck while carrying a 2 foot wooden stake where ever I go. This is obviously a vampire-funded study that aims to lower our guards.

{ Dancing at gunpoint }

Six-month-old male deer, 70 pounds, hanging in a 12-foot-high crotch of a maple tree
in Delaware county, New York, near the Pennsylvania border, 2002.

Hunter Gerald Inman, a stockbroker from West Nyack, NY, was at first disoriented by the sight of a deer hanging in the middle of all the white trees in front of him. Upon closer inspection, Mr. Inman estimated the deer was hanging between two branches about twelve feet or more off the ground. (…) The animal was killed by an arrow, which did go through the heart and lungs. So, it was a very good shot, whoever shot the animal made a really good shot, so that deer was dead very quickly. (…) So, there isn’t any mystery about how the deer died. It died from an arrow wound. How it got up in the tree is another story and I think Ward Stone and myself believe that somebody put it, some human, put it up there. We’re reasonably sure of that. (…) The only thing I can think of is a hoax, to play a trick. But you’d think that if someone was going to play a trick, they would have done this near a road or hunting cabin or some place where they knew it was going to be seen. But this was a place in the middle of nowhere.

{ Continue reading }

In 2003, Baltimore Gas & Electric (Canada) received a call from a customer saying: “My power is out. When you come to fix it be sure to bring a truck with a tall enough bucket to remove the deer”.

The customer service rep prudently trying to gather helpful information to help diagnose the problem asked, “What deer”? The customer replied ” There is a deer on top of one of the electric poles on Wilkes Rd about 1/2 mile west of Perimeter Rd”.

The customer service rep tried desperately to pull herself together and not laugh in front of the customer and replied, “We will dispatch someone right away to investigate the power outage. Thank you for the call”.

Upon completion of the call, the customer service rep proceeded to share the funny story with her coworkers in the office and they all had a good laugh. Until the serviceman who repaired the problem stopped by the customer service office the following day with the pictures [right]. Sure enough, the poor deer had been hit by a train and landed on top of distribution feeder pole. (…)

The issue of whether the deer was really launched atop the pole when it was struck by a train is less certain. The Canadian National Railways (CNR) maintained they received no report from any of their engineers about a train’s hitting a deer in the Headingley area, and whether a deer’s torso could have been struck with enough force to launch it 25 feet up in the air yet remain mostly undamaged (save for missing portions of its back legs) has been the subject of much debate. The general consensus was that the feat was rather improbable but technically possible, but some people speculated that the deer was indeed hit and killed by a passing train, but it was then somehow deliberately set atop the pole by local pranksters.

{ Snopes | Continue reading }

{ Gov Love: The Elliott Splitz-Her Story DVD | via Copyranter }

Why do whales beach themselves?

Whales are the largest marine mammals in the world — the smallest species weigh in at several tons. When whales beach themselves, they can die simply from the crushing weight of their own bodies or from overheating due to their blubber, which is needed for insulation in cold ocean waters.

Strandings are of several types, said Susan Parks, a research associate in the Environmental Acoustics program in the Applied Research Laboratory at Penn State. Individual strandings often are caused by isolated incidents such as sickness, injury or old age. Said Parks, “Entanglement in fishing gear is one of the leading causes of mortality for marine mammals, many of which wash up on shore dead or injured.” The tide carries these whales into shallow water, depositing them on the beach.

Then there are multiple-species strandings, explained Parks. “This occurs when different species of marine mammals beach themselves at the same time and place, suggesting that they all died from the same cause,” she said.

Scientists have been researching possible causes of this phenomenon. One explanation involves the whale “pod” social structure. For instance, whales that travel in pods use a “strength in numbers” survival strategy, but this can backfire when the dominant whale runs aground. According to Parks, “The rest of the pod may follow a disoriented or sick whale onto shore.” Another theory is that pods may venture too close to the beach when hunting prey or evading predators and become trapped by low tides.

{ Physorg | Continue reading }

Metal replicas of bull testicles have become trendy bumper ornaments. Florida lawmakers consider bill banning ornamental testicles.

Bear unlocks door, walks into home.

More than 100 aftershocks rattle western edge of Reno, Nevada. Scientists say an even bigger event may be coming.

Moderate earthquake rattles Mexico City.

Why haven’t existing home sales fallen further?

Oil strikes new record near $120 a barrel, up almost $30 in just four months. Why this oil shock is the big one.

Macabre story of the week-end.

Vengeance: What can tribal societies tell us about our need to get even?

Benjamin first realized his attraction to men his senior year of high school, but at Brown he tried to put it out of his mind. He flirted with female students and played beer pong with his straight friends. When that became too tedious to bear, he slowly began coming out to friends. Soon he was dating other male students. Young gay rites.
The art of interrogation. “We don’t have any idea — other than anecdote or moral philosophy — what really works.”

Amy Winehouse released from jail with warning to stay out of trouble.

Alongside whatever she has offered her audience through the years — sex, glamour, dancing, defiance, blasphemy, spirituality — Madonna has never pretended to be anything but diligent. She’s disciplined, hard-working and determined to sell.

Former radio personality stole tens of thousands of dollars from a charity he helped create.

Humanoid robot to conduct Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

The physics of whipped cream.

Food dyes may protect against cancer.

The standard model still doesn’t describe magnets’ spooky action at a distance. What Is Magnetism?

Suicide rates significantly higher among Australian veterinarians.

Last month, a team of scientists announced evidence that the Grand Canyon is 17 million years old, or 11 million years older than previous estimates.

A revisionist Israeli historian revisits his country’s origins.

McFLY 2015 project, wants Nike to make available to consumers the sneakers seen in the 1989 movie Back to the Future Part 2.

How to drain a waterbed mattress.

Naked chicks on post-it notes [anims].

Wall animation.

NYC subway sketches.

Record-breaking Mentos and coke explosions.

Thank you Internet.

A landlord couple have been charged in San Francisco with waging a campaign of terror against their renters in a South of Market building, including cutting out the floor supports at one apartment after the tenant went to court to keep from being evicted, authorities said Wednesday.

Software engineer Kip Macy, 33, and real estate agent Nicole Macy, 32, who have addresses in Sausalito and Incline Village, Nev., were arrested Tuesday and charged with felony stalking, felony residential burglary, conspiracy and other counts in the bizarre case of apparent landlord rage.

The charges stem from tactics the Macys allegedly used after they bought a six-unit, three-story apartment building on Clementina Street for $995,000 in 2005 and started eviction proceedings against the five tenants living there.

When one of the tenants, Scott Morrow, successfully fought eviction, the couple allegedly told workers in September 2006 to cut the beams that supported his apartment’s floor. They also shut off Morrow’s electricity, cut his phone line and had workers saw a hole in his living room floor from below.

{ San Francisco Chronicle | Continue reading }

screenshot { Michael Jackson’s Thriller | watch the video }

Two Federal Way, Washington women claim they’ve been sexually assaulted by ghosts. According to a police report, the two women told officers a paranormal person has been placing sensors on their bodies and having intercourse with them at their apartment in the 28600 block of 25th Place South.

One of the women said the assault began when she lived in Kent and followed them to Federal Way. The second woman said her encounters began recently.

The maintenance man in charge of the apartment complex said the women keep calling him saying the ghosts are raping them on weekend nights. He finally told them to call police. (…)

Candid questions help Ross Allison, a ghost hunter, sort the eerie from the unstable. “A lot of times you’ll find it might be medications that they’re taking or something psychological,” Allison said. He took a walk through the apartment complex where the women say a spirit has haunted them for two years. He said he would need a psychic to check for the presence of a ghost.

{ KATU | Continue reading }

photo { birdinthehand }