Dema, a Sumatran tiger, licks Nia, a baby orangutan, in a nursery room at the Taman Safari Zoo in Bogor, Indonesia. The tiger and orangutan baby, which would never be together in the wild, have become inseparable playmates after they were abandoned by their mothers. __________ Kangaroo joeys peek out from their mothers pouch at [...]
Archive for February, 2009
Zoo babies
Posted in Photo galleries on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The Great Solvent North
Posted in Economy and business, tagged Canada, Stephen Leacock on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Has the world turned upside down? America, the capital of capitalism, is pondering nationalizing a handful of banks. Meanwhile, Canada, whose banking system had long been notorious for its stodgy practices and government coddling, is now being celebrated for those very qualities. The Canadian banking system, which proved resilient in the global economic crisis, is [...]
‘Newbos,’ self-made multi-millionaires, have built wealth, influence
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Economy and business, Living on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Basketball star LeBron James — a quintessential Newbo — has established notoriety in one field with the goal of leveraging that success into other businesses. Newbos take their brand very seriously. Americans have a deep penchant for classifying people, including by race and socio-economic categories. Blacks historically have not fared well in either of those [...]
’Scuse me, while I sue this guy
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Law, tagged Jimi Hendrix on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
In this 1970 file photo, rock and roll guitarist Jimi Hendrix is shown performing on the Isle of Wight in England. The estate of rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix says it has won a trademark infringement lawsuit against a company that promoted Hendrix Electric vodka. The Experience Hendrix and Authentic Hendrix companies in Seattle say they [...]
Vatican Sponsoring Conferences on Works of Darwin and Galileo
Posted in Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Religion, tagged Darwin, Galileo on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Darwin – Galileo Over the next several months, the Vatican will sponsor academic conferences dedicated to the work of biologist Charles Darwin and astronomer Galileo Galilei, two thinkers whose ideas have posed revolutionary challenges to religious belief. Featuring distinguished international panels of scientists and theologians, these events are the latest efforts by the Catholic Church [...]
Schwarzenegger declares California drought emergency
Posted in Energy and Environment, tagged California on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday because of three years of below-average rain and snowfall in California, a step that urges urban water agencies to reduce water use by 20 percent. “This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment, making today’s action absolutely [...]
Richard L. Adams Jr. of Oakton bought this 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence for $475,000 in 2002. __________ A Fairfax County collector who paid nearly half a million dollars for a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence received a welcome declaration of ownership yesterday when Virginia’s Supreme Court dismissed the State of [...]
Faking it
Posted in Law, Weird cases on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
A dentist in Italy whose unorthodox methods raised suspicion is exposed as an imposter In 1969, a legal report said a key feature of any profession is its restriction of admission to only those with the required training. Certainly, you’d expect that your dentist met that professional standard. But you’d be disappointed if you were [...]
World Book Day
Posted in Literature, Other, tagged Cervantes, Shakespeare on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Fond as we are of World Book Day, we have to admit it’s a bit of a funny old business. It happens, in Britain and Ireland, next Thursday, and is marked by all sorts of wonderfulness, most particularly by children being given £1 book tokens that they can spend on some specially produced £1 books. [...]
13 Unsolved scientific puzzles
Posted in Other on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Watching a solar eclipse Author Michael Brooks has investigated some of the most puzzling anomalies of modern science, those intractable problems that refuse to conform to the theories. Here he counts down the 13 strangest. 1. MOST OF THE UNIVERSE IS MISSING We can only account for 4 per cent of the cosmos If you’re [...]
Dean Grose to quit as Los Alamitos mayor over e-mailed cartoon
Posted in Law, Politics, Strange but true on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The image that was sent to Keyanus Price from Mayor Dean Grose’s personal e-mail account. __________ The mayor of Los Alamitos said he will resign after coming under fire for an e-mail depicting the White House lawn as a watermelon patch, saying the controversy over racism has made it difficult to lead the city. Dean [...]
Sex chemistry ‘lasts two years’
Posted in Living on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The husband-and-wife writing team Rolf and Gabriele Froböse wrote the big-selling Royal Society of Chemistry book “Lust and Love: is it more than Chemistry?” __________ 1- Sex Chemistry ‘lasts two years’ (BBC News – 2006) A team from the University of Pisa in Italy found the bodily chemistry which makes people sexually attractive to [...]
Twelve Angry Lebanese was staged in a Beyrut prison before government and judicial officials
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Law on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Lebanese prisoners stage drama, at Roumieh Central Prison, Beirut Magdi has spent 15 years on death row, waiting for his execution in an airless, overcrowded prison cell. The jail where his life is supposed to end is wrapped in miles of barbed wire, surrounded by checkpoints and perched on top of the mountain [...]
Germany Asked to Boycott UN Racism Conference
Posted in Law, Politics, tagged UN Racism Conference on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Germany Asked to Boycott UN Racism Conference The US, Canada and Italy have said they will not attend the United Nations Conference on Racism out of fear that it will be used primarily for attacks on Israel. With states like Iran, Libya and Cuba dictating the agenda, calls are growing for Germany to join the [...]
Biotech mogul’s yard yields ancient history
Posted in Natural sciences on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
This photo release by the University of Colorado shows Douglas Bamforth, left, and Patrick Mahaffy, right, show a portion of more than 80 artifacts unearthed about two feet below Mahaffy’s front yard during a landscaping project this past summer. __________ Colorado landscapers uncover a weapons cache in a planned koi pond, and they phone a [...]
Fragments of Ancient Egyptian Papyrus Found
Posted in History on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
The fragments belong to a 3,000-year-old unique document, known as the Turin Kinglist. __________ Some newly recovered papyrus fragments may finally help solve a century-old puzzle, shedding new light on ancient Egyptian history. Found stored between two sheets of glass in the basement of the Museo Egizio in Turin, the fragments belong to a 3,000-year-old [...]
Amazon lets publishers and writers disable Kindle 2′s read-aloud feature
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law, tagged Amazon, Copyright, Kindle on February 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Amazon.com. reversed course Friday on the device’s controversial text-to-speech feature, which reads digital books aloud in a robotic voice. The company gave rights holders the ability to disable the feature for individual titles. The Kindle 2, which shipped this week, is a faster and smaller version of Amazon’s gadget. It can hold more than 1,500 [...]
The Winter’s Spring
Posted in Poetry on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The winter comes; I walk alone, I want no bird to sing; To those who keep their hearts their own The winter is the spring. No flowers to please—no bees to hum— The coming spring’s already come. I never want the Christmas rose To come before its time; The seasons, each as God bestows, Are [...]
On the Gift of a Book to a Child
Posted in Poetry on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Child! do not throw this book about! Refrain from the unholy pleasure Of cutting all the pictures out! Preserve it as your chiefest treasure. Child, have you never heard it said That you are heir to all the ages? Why, then, your hands were never made To tear these beautiful thick pages! Your [...]
As time and tide wait for no man, we’ll go straight to Newfoundland for this week’s first question. THE QUESTION: How did Newfoundland get its own time zone on the half-hour? asked Paul Everest of Toronto. And are there any other places in the world that have a half-hour time zone? THE ANSWER: “Each time [...]
Employee forced to steal millions from Bank of Ireland
Posted in Law on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
A Bank of Ireland employee was coerced into stealing the equivalent of about $11-million (Canadian) from his own branch Friday, police said, after a gang took his family hostage and threatened to kill them unless he co-operated. So-called “tiger kidnappings” — when gangs seize families of bank officials and force them to breach their employers’ [...]
Nurse may be linked to multiple suicides, tracker says
Posted in Law on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Nadia Kajouji is shown in an undated image from Facebook. A British woman who has been tracking the Internet footsteps of a Minnesota man for allegedly encouraging or advising young people to commit suicide through online chats and social-networking sites believes he may have played a role in a number of hanging deaths and attempted [...]
Kenya sleaze book sparks shop ban
Posted in Politics, tagged Kenya on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
A new book about exiled Kenyan corruption whistleblower John Githongo is considered so potentially explosive that some major book shops in Nairobi are refusing to stock it. Author Michela Wrong’s expose looks set to cause further embarrassment to Kenya’s public servants amid public anger at continued allegations of high-level corruption. The title – It’s Our [...]
Top 10 anti-Barack Obama conservatives
Posted in Politics on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
This week, Republican activists are meeting in Washington for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. With President Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, the Grand Old Party is at a low ebb. So who are the figures who might help lead the American Right out of [...]
Sarkozy isn’t the only person to collect things
Posted in Living on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Nicolas Sarkozy has taken up stamp collecting in order to cultivate a calmer image as French president. __________ If anyone could pull off the trick of making philately cool – or at least mildly urbane – it would be the suave Nicolas Sarkozy. But I have to admit I was shocked to discover not just [...]
Obama and Sarkozy ‘in running for Nobel peace prize’
Posted in Strange but true on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The US president Barack Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy are believed to be among the record 205 nominations received for the 2009 Nobel peace prize. The awards committee, based on Oslo, Norway, refuses to say who is nominated. It just says that 172 individuals and 33 organisations were on the final count released [...]
Anything you can do . . .
Posted in Law, Weird cases on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Challenging the conventional thinking about age and the law, at eight or eighty-eight “This lawyer is useless,” thought Wang Jianbang. “I’m sure I could do better than that.” He had been involved in an exasperating two-year litigation struggle and his lawyer had just screwed things up by confusing a civil case with an administrative one. [...]
The Starry Night
Posted in Poetry on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die. It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its [...]
Breaking waves
Posted in Photo galleries, tagged Clark Little, Hawaii, Oahu on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Clark Little, 39, grew up on the north shore of the Hawaiian island Oahu. Clark swims in terrifying seas and crouches on shorelines with his camera to capture views from inside breaking waves, also known as ‘tubes’, images usually reserved for only the most intrepid surfers. Sun curl Sand Monster – Ke Iki Caramel Mohawk __________ [...]
Spend a penny, pay a pound with Ryanair
Posted in Popular culture on February 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Ryanair is considering charging its passengers to use the toilet. __________ It has long cost more than a penny to use a public lavatory but Ryanair is threatening to bring a whole new meaning to sky-high prices by charging passengers to use its aircraft’s toilets. Michael O’Leary, the budget airline’s chief executive, revealed today that [...]
