A very funny look at weddings

Lucy Mangan describes how, after having given up on the idea of marriage, she found herself swept off her feet - and the challenges of getting ready for the big day. I laughed out loud at several of her comments. Here's a couple of excerpts:

First of all, despite coming from a Catholic family, I don't believe in God. And while this doesn't exactly mean I therefore believe that marriage is 'just a piece of paper', it does remove one of the traditional main impetuses towards embracing the state.

Second - well, it has just always seemed like such an impossibly huge thing to be doing.

You don't have to believe in God to be daunted by the prospect of plighting your troth to someone for ever. I've watched a million friends get hitched and I've never come to see it as a mechanical or soulless experience.

At some point during every service I find myself become overwhelmed by the enormity of the undertaking. Not just at assembling unboned chicken breasts for 90 people, but promising yourself to someone else for life. For life. For life.

It always seemed to me the most grown-up thing you could possibly do. I know having children should have taken that pole position, but a lot of my friends got pregnant at school (well, not at school - at the nightclub round the corner) so childbearing has always been, in my mind, more firmly linked with adolescent idiocy and haphazard condom application than maturity and decision making.

Marriage, on the other hand - that's different. Among my friends, it is only those who take the matter seriously who have bothered. I've never been to a wedding where people are sitting in the back pews muttering 'Of course, it'll never last' because the couple at the front are 17, met three days ago in Faliraki and haven't sobered up yet.

. . .

I first met Christopher at a mutual friend's book launch. After a few glasses of wine, I was chatting to a group of fellow guests when I noticed a man standing by the window. He caught my eye for many reasons.

First, there were the clothes - an ancient pair of blue cord trousers, a frayed red gingham shirt and a green (probably) velvet (originally) jacket. He had a shock of thick, prematurely grey hair and a furious face.

When he caught me looking at him, he raised his glass so unsmilingly that my first thought was to wonder whether you could be hit in the face by a face.

My second thought was to raise my glass in turn, go cross-eyed and stick my tongue out so far that I almost licked my shoulder.

A moment later he was by my side. 'I've been looking for a woman who would realise that I can't help my terrible face all my life,' he said. 'I hoped I was beaming at you over there,' he said, frowning ferociously, 'but I wasn't, was I?' 'No,' I said.

'What about now?' he said, still frowning in a manner that would have killed any small child in the vicinity. 'Not really.' From such unpromising beginnings did our relationship grow.

. . .

The desire to get married, I realised, grows out of a desire to mark the difference in quality of this relationship from all the others.

And from there, it is but a small step to all-out madness. Within, I think, seven minutes of us arriving home from New York, my mother and sister arrived with 18 bags of paper, Europe's entire supply of lever arch files and a gleam in their eyes that boded ill for all of my hopes of a lowkey affair.

'We've printed out the internet,' said my sister with a demonic grin. 'Let's get to work.'

There's more at the link. Recommended, heart-warming and frequently very funny reading.

Peter

Now that's a dam!

I was amazed to read of a gigantic beaver dam in Canada.

This woodland construction is actually the world's biggest beaver dam. It is so big that it spans twice the width of the Hoover dam and can even be seen from space.




The enormous edifice measures 2,790ft (850 metres) in length and shows the skill of the big-toothed furry animals.

The mammals use trees, mud and stone to make a type of moat where they can use their swimming skills to evade any predators.

The families live in lodges on the dams and spend their days adding to and repairing the incredible structures.




The dam was spotted by experts monitoring the size and spread of the beaver dams in north America.

It is located on the southern edge of Wood Buffalo National Park in Northern Alberta, Canada.

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

It's astonishing to think that a few families of relatively small animals can be so industrious as to build a dam that big! Shows what hard work and singleness of purpose can accomplish, I guess.

Peter

The Nashville floods

I've moved to Tennessee, as some readers know, and thought I'd left hurricane season behind in Louisiana: but this weekend demonstrated that Tennessee has some pretty wild weather of its own! We had torrential rain Saturday and Sunday, easily equivalent to what a minor hurricane would dump. The only blessing was that we didn't have the high winds to go with it. Here's a radar image from Weather Underground showing cumulative rainfall over last Saturday and Sunday.




As you can see, there are some big patches where 15+ inches were recorded; and the highest rainfall metered at one station was 26.6"! That's hurricane-quantity rain in anyone's book!

Today was fine and sunny, and things have begun to dry out in places. Other areas, unfortunately, are still experiencing rising water, as the downpour drains off into rivers, which continue to rise and inundate low-lying areas. Here are a few photographs taken during and after the rainstorm, showing its dramatic impact. They were e-mailed to me by friends, apart from one that I took myself.

It got real dark, real quick . . .

No, that's not a time-exposure, that's really how hard it was raining!

A lot of cars went slip-sliding away in torrents like this. Several people drowned.

A timely announcement?

Lots of houses like this one, flooded out and probably beyond economical repair.
Because many areas weren't in traditional flood plains, few owners had flood insurance.

As a friend commented on seeing this one: "No s***, Sherlock!"

At least the overflowing rivers brought the fish within easy catching reach!

Lots of roads like this one. Many motorists were stranded far from home,
and had to spend at least one night with friends or in emergency shelters.

Er . . . yep, you might say that!

Funny to see ducks sheltering from the rain beneath a gazebo - while swimming!

This is a mile or so from my home.

So is this.

The commuter trains won't be running for a while.

Waterfront homes, going cheap!

The damage is truly massive. I've no idea what the clean-up and repair costs will be, but they're bound to be in the multiple billions of dollars. The rivers are still in flood, many only cresting tonight, and they'll only start to drop tomorrow: so there are many areas where rescue workers and damage assessment crews can't even get access yet.

Miss D. is going to be heartsore, too: the Cornelia Fort airport, where she'd hoped to base her light aircraft, is completely under water, and all the planes on it (except one) are submerged. TV images are surreal: hangars submerged to their roofs; a Cessna 172 with only its wings and the tips of the tail and propeller above water; a Beechcraft showing only the latter, its low wings invisible beneath the muddy soup; a twin-engine aircraft (the exception mentioned above) that's been towed as far as possible up a rise, but not far enough. Water's swirling around its undercarriage and the base of its engines.




I suspect most of the aircraft based there are write-offs. I hope their insurance covers flood damage!

It's been a wild weekend. We'll see how the recovery goes.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #347

Today's Doofus is from England.

It's the sort of silly sea tale that couldn't be made up.

The 32ft Myra Two motor cruiser had to be guided to safety by coastguards yesterday after its captain ran aground as he attempted to sail out of the River Thames.

It turned out the hapless mariner and his passenger had no maps, emergency flares or radio - and had been using a car sat-nav system to help guide them through the treacherous waters.

. . .

A source said: 'Leaving port with no radio, no maps and no flares is bad enough, but using a sat-nav system designed for cars is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my life.

'Sat-navs are for roads, not the sea - and if the captain of a vessel doesn't know that he should not be in control of a boat.'

There's more at the link.

I'd love to know what a boat skipper would do when his GPS tells him to turn right at the next traffic light!



Peter

Feel-good story of the week!

I have to admit to uttering an "Awwww!" or two (or three) over this story.

These extraordinary images show the trust and understanding developed between children and orphaned elephants calves rescued from a forest.

The one-year-old elephants live in Arignar Anna Zoo in Chennai, southern India, where they are cared for by a team of mahouts - a person who works with the animals - and their children.

The youngsters are carried home from school on the elephant's backs, shower together, play football and even sleep curled up with them.




Zoo staff believe without this friendship and love the orphaned elephants would have died soon after being rescued.

Mahout Rajan, 25, said his four-year-old daughter Lavindya has a special bond with the orphans.

"When she says 'stop' the calf obeys her," he said.

"She is very gentle with them and they will wrap their trunks around her to show their love. Such is the bond the calves will only go to sleep when the children cuddle up and pat their backs."

This extraordinary emotional bond between child and elephant has been developing over the past year since the zoo took in its first orphan.

Rangers found Sharon wandering alone in the forest and brought her to the zoo. Now the 14-month-old orphan has a fixed routine along with the three other baby elephants Narsima, Urigam and four-month-old Giri.

Their day starts with a morning bath, and it's not just the elephants who get a scrub down.

The children join in too, and 14-month-old Urigam can't resist grabbing the bucket with his trunk and pouring water over gorgeous Lavindya.

Lying in the small pool, the youngsters splash cooling water over the elephants and tickle their tummies with a scrubbing brush.

"Every morning at 7am they wait at the place where the kids have a bath before going to school," said Rajan.

"They are so punctual and they adore showering with the children." Breakfast follows bath time and once again the children are quick to help feed the orphans a mix of milk, coconut water and glucose.

The mahouts feed the elephants every three hours with their favorite snacks of water-melon, bananas and sugarcane, to build up their strength.

Fed and washed, the youngsters head off to school but out here in the bush there is no school bus to collect the students.

Instead Lavindya, Nandini, 4, Nandgopal, 8, and Anu, 6, hop onto the elephants backs and trundle through the scrubland to their village school. The elephants carefully carry their school bags in their trunks.

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

Call me a soppy sentimentalist if you like, but I love stories like this - particularly because I've worked with orphaned elephant calves in South Africa, and know just how intelligent and social they are.

Peter

"Pixie Dust": magical therapy or quack nostrum?

There's a new report about the material known as 'pixie dust' and its healing properties. I remember when this stuff first hit the headlines in 2008, and was immediately debunked by 'experts' as not having been proven to have any therapeutic effect, despite the headlines. The new report seems pretty positive.

A powder nick-named "Pixie Dust" is being used to save the limbs of war heroes who have been wounded in Afghanistan.

Surgeons have already used the dust to save several soldiers so badly mutilated that they were at risk of amputation.

Made from pig bladders it has the ability to help the human body grow new tissue to replace large areas of a leg or arm destroyed by blast damage.

. . .

Pig bladders contain a substance called extra cellular matrix, which is made up largely of collagen.

Scientists have already used powdered pig bladders [to] help grow replacement human bladders.

But researchers working for the American military realised the substance might also help hundreds of wounded soldiers.

Professor Steve Wolf - one [of] the US's top plastic surgeons - is carrying out a trial in Houston, Texas on victims of the Afghan fighting and has already treated several young soldiers whose limbs were so badly damaged they were unable to walk or faced amputation.

He said: 'The word has got around about how this substance from pig bladders has got this magic ability to grow new tissue. Then one day one of the patients used the phrase 'pixie dust' to describe it and the name stuck.

'We don't quite know how it works which adds to its magical qualities. We think that it attracts cells in the body that have the ability to multiply and gives them a chemical signal to make new tissue.'

. . .

Corporal Hernandez, a 25-year-old marine, was wounded in 2008, in an incident in which a colleague died.

He said: 'The surgery that Dr Wolf performed has been fantastic. Within a few weeks of the operation last year I was doing things with the leg I hadn't done for months.

'It was so quick that you could almost see it growing and filling the hole where I was blasted.

'Before I had the sheets made from pigs bladder put into my leg I could barely use it. I had to crawl upstairs or take the elevator and I was either on sticks or in a wheelchair. It was pretty much useless.

'I had only 10 per cent strength in my injured leg compared to my good leg which was one reason why they'd wanted to amputate.

'After the operation it was up to 25 per cent. Now my leg is back to 35 per cent strength and I'm able to get out on my mountain bike and I can walk as far as I want.

'The Extra Cellular membrane had not only made muscle but also built nerves. I could feel my limb tingling as the new tissues grew.'

'Professor Wolfe has said there's a good chance I might be able to go back to active duty.'

He had a gaping, crater-like wound, in his thigh right down to the bone and doctors had no way of replacing the muscle and other tissue that had been blown away.

Professor Wolf operated and instead of using powered bladder he used it in sheet form putting layers of it into the large wound in leg Corporal Hernandez's leg.

Magically over a period of several weeks new tissue and muscle grew until the wound was filled.

Professor Wolf said: 'This was an amazing result. It was quite a sight to see the body regenerate in this way because in the past we have not been able to replace muscle and tissue once it has been lost.'

There's more at the link.

I note that the Wikipedia article on extra cellular matrix has a cautionary label [in the 'medical applications' section] saying that it sounds like an advertisement for the stuff - with which I agree. I really don't know where to get unbiased, solid, scientific information. If anyone has a good source, please post it in Comments.

Do any readers have any experience with this stuff, either on the receiving end, or as a therapist involved in its use? Is it really the 'magic bullet' that the article above would have us believe, or is there room for doubt? Please let us know in Comments.

Peter

When justice is not only blind, but deaf and dumb as well!

I'm astonished to read of a miscarriage of justice in Holland that's only just been corrected. It has implications for judicial systems all over the world, which is why I'm highlighting it here. The Globe & Mail reports:

Ms. [Lucia] de Berk ... has lived a Kafkaesque nightmare for the past nine years, sentenced to life in prison for crimes that Dutch prosecutors admitted may never have occurred.

She was convicted of murdering seven patients and attempting to kill three others while she was working in three Dutch hospitals between 1997 and 2001. She served six years in prison, two of them under constant observation on a psychiatric ward, before she was publicly exonerated earlier this month.

While in jail, she suffered a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. She still has no use of her right hand.

Throughout her trials and appeals, Ms. de Berk, who is now 48, insisted she is innocent. Legal scholars and a support committee campaigned for her release, and the case is the subject of books and documentaries.

“In the beginning, when it all starts, you don’t believe it’s going to last as long as it does,” she says. “So after you’re first in prison, you think this is such a mistake and they’re going to find that out.”

With each twist and turn of the legal process, her hopes were revived and then dashed. “After the first three months, they say more investigations have to be done, so you think, okay, I can last another three months,” she recalls. “And then there would be something else. And that’s how you hang on.”

The case against Ms. de Berk began after a hospital investigation of the death of an infant on her watch. It ultimately turned on faulty statistical probabilities.

An expert witness for the state testified that the chances were one in 342 million that so many suspicious deaths would take place during the shifts of one particular nurse. But his data and method of calculating the odds were eventually discredited, as prosecutors finally conceded when they asked for the dismissal of all the charges against Ms. de Berk last month.

On April 14, a court granted the acquittal. In their ruling, the judges said that there was no evidence that any of the patients she had been accused of killing had died of anything other than natural causes.

Ms. de Berk was in the courtroom to hear the decision, although the Dutch Attorney-General had called her to his office two weeks earlier to inform her and to apologize personally. He later apologized in public.

There's more at the link.

This leaves me open-mouthed with astonishment. Am I to understand that Ms. de Berk was convicted, not on the basis of forensic evidence or the testimony of eye-witnesses, but solely on the grounds of statistical probability - and flawed statistics at that??? What sort of justice system would even dream of convicting anyone on such grounds? Surely they'd heard the old saw that there are "lies, damned lies, and statistics"?

I've never heard of any other court case where guilt or innocence was decided solely on the basis of statistics, and by the evidence of a single 'expert' witness (who turned out to be anything but expert!). Does any reader know of a similar incident? If so, please let us know in Comments. Meanwhile, one can only wish Ms. de Berk well as she gets used to her freedom again, and trust that she'll receive a handsome payout from the Dutch government for her wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

Peter

A miniature aircraft with a difference!

The Biomimetics & Dextrous Manipulation Laboratory at Stanford University has come up with what they call the 'Perching Project'. It's trying to produce a series of MAV's (micro aerial vehicles) for reconnaissance and surveillance. The vision of the designer is stated thus:

A flock of small, unmanned air vehicles flies quietly into a city, maneuvering among the buildings. They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or flat rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat or insect-like, in safety and obscurity. Upon identifying landing sites, each flier turns toward a wall, executes an intentional stall and, as it begins to fall, attaches itself using feet equipped with miniature spines that engage small asperities on the surface. Using its propeller in combination with its limbs, the flier can creep along the wall and reorient for a better view. With opposed pairs of spines, the flier clings tenaciously to resist gusts of wind and ride out inclement weather. The fliers stay attached for hours or days, consuming little power and emitting no sound as they monitor the area. When finished, they launch themselves with a jump and become airborne again, ready for their next mission.

Ares reports on the project:

Stanford's testbed is a Flatana RC aeroplane with a powerful electric motor (giving an aerobatic capability that comes in handy), Paparazzi autopilot, three-axis inertial sensors, and an ultrasound sensor to detect the wall. The jointed landing legs have a foam "hip", short balsa/carbon "femur" and long carbonfiber "tibia". Each of the feet has five microspines, or "toes".

On sensing the wall, the aircraft pitches up to reduce speed and shuts down the motor to protect the propeller. The highly compliant, highly damped suspension both absorbs the remaining kinetic energy and directs the forces to the feet to engage the microspines on small bumps or pits in the brick, concrete, stucco or wood, allowing the aircraft to cling to the vertical surface.




To take off, the microspines are retracted electrically, the aircraft drops, the motor starts and it hovers briefly before transitioning to forward flight.




For a more efficient MAV with lower thrust-to-weight ratio, Stanford is looking at using a pigeon-inspired jump maneuver to get the aircraft off the wall and airborne.

Work is already being done on MAVs that can land and crawl on horizontal surfaces, but Stanford wants to develop the capablity to maneuver on sloped and vertical surfaces to reposition the vehicle. An example of a flying/crawling MAV is the Micro Air-Land Vehicle (MALV) developed by the University of Florida by equipping its hand-launched micro-UAV with "Whegs" (wheeled legs) developed by Case Western Reserve University.

The way ahead is shown by the SpinyBot developed by Stanford and now under development by Boston Dynamics as the RiSE climbing robot, which has six legs tipped by micro-claws.

There's more at the link.

The video below shows how the MAV works, including a fascinating close-up look at its 'toes' that grip the wall upon landing.

It's a very interesting development . . . also a bit creepy. In the not too distant future, if one sees what one thinks is an insect settling on a wall nearby, it might not be an insect at all - it might be relaying audio and video data back to a controller!

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #346

Today's Doofus is from Pittsburgh.

The afternoon service at Poale Zedeck synagogue on Tuesday had drawn to a close, and some of the congregants lingered to listen to the rabbi speak in what should have been a tranquil moment.

"We heard what sounded like a bomb," said Marcia Robkin, who rushed to the doors with dozens of other temple-goers, fearing the worst. Maybe the landmark synagogue at Phillips and Shady avenues in the heart of Squirrel Hill had been targeted, they thought. Maybe it was a hate crime.

Outside, they saw a smoke-billowing car halfway up the steps, metal handrails, a lantern, and a concrete wall in ruin, and two men darting up Shady Avenue. So they chased after them.

They were further mystified after they managed to capture the struggling driver.

"He said, 'You're not going to believe this, but I'm the messiah,' " said Michael Cohen, one of several men who tackled Adam Disabato to the ground and held him there until police arrived. "He was in a seemingly religious state of mind, but I'm not quite sure he knew where he crashed into."

. . .

Mr. Disabato, 30, of Squirrel Hill, remained jailed Wednesday on charges of institutional vandalism and a plethora of traffic crimes. The passenger, Steven Bradford, wasn't charged. Mr. Bradford told police the two were en route to a relative of Mr. Bradford's in Wilkinsburg, and that he repeatedly told Mr. Disabato to slow down.

Moments before he struck the synagogue, police said, Mr. Disabato hit a moving car while trying to make a right turn onto Forward Avenue. Witnesses said he backed up and sped off, then turned north onto Shady.

. . .

Mr. Disabato defended his actions to his captors, saying he was mentally ill, that he was God and that "he was sent by God to do this purposeful act," police wrote in his criminal complaint. He talked about Osama bin Laden and religious propaganda, and said he and a friend were "hanging out at my apartment, and I got a call from God telling me to do this," the complaint says. "I'm not crazy," he said. "I'm just doing God's work."

Police called the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force but did not consider the crash a hate crime as of Wednesday. Police who questioned Mr. Disabato asked him if perhaps he wanted to change his story to a more reasonable one.

"Isn't it true that when people say they are God, they get off with an insanity plea?" he said, according to the complaint. "I'm not crazy and I don't hear voices. I just got a feeling sent by God to drive real fast for some reason."

There's more at the link.

Uh-huh. Good luck using that excuse in court!

Peter

A new long-range sniper record

The ranges at which enemies can be engaged with modern sniper rifles seem to get longer and longer as the technology improves. The previous record was held by a Canadian sniper, Corporal Rob Furlong, equipped with a McMillan Tac-50 rifle in caliber .50 BMG. In 2002 he hit a Taliban opponent in Afghanistan at the remarkable range of 2,430 meters (2,657½ yards, or 7,972½ feet) with his second shot.

Corporal Furlong's record has just been broken by a British sniper. The Times reports:

A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.

“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm [.338-inch] bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

The distance to Harrison’s two targets was measured by a GPS system at 8,120ft (2,707 yards, or 2,475 meters), or 1.54 miles. The previous record for a sniper kill is 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an Al-Qaeda gunman in March 2002.

. . .

Harrison and his colleagues were in open-topped Jackal 4x4 vehicles providing cover for an Afghan national army patrol south of Musa Qala in November last year. When the Afghan soldiers and Harrison’s troop commander came under enemy fire, the sniper, whose vehicle was further back on a ridge, trained his sights on a Taliban compound in the distance. His L115A3 long-range rifle, the army’s most powerful sniper weapon, is designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft and supposedly capable of only “harassing fire” beyond that range.

L115A3 Long Range Rifle (click image for a larger view)

“We saw two insurgents running through its courtyard, one in a black dishdasha, one in green,” he said. “They came forward carrying a PKM machinegun, set it up and opened fire on the commander’s wagon.

“Conditions were perfect, no wind, mild weather, clear visibility. I rested the bipod of my weapon on a compound wall and aimed for the gunner firing the machinegun.

“The driver of my Jackal, Trooper Cliff O’Farrell, spotted for me, providing all the information needed for the shot, which was at the extreme range of the weapon.”

Harrison killed one machinegunner with his first attempt and felled the other with his next shot. He then let off a final round to knock the enemy weapon out of action.

Harrison discovered that he had set a new record only on his return to UK barracks nine days ago. The previous record was held by Corporal Rob Furlong, of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who was using a 12.7mm McMillan TAC-50 rifle.

Tom Irwin, a director of Accuracy International, the British manufacturer of the L115A3 rifle, said: “It is still fairly accurate beyond 4,921ft, but at that distance luck plays as much of a part as anything.”

There's more at the link.

I'm particularly impressed with this feat of marksmanship because of the caliber used. The .338 Lapua Magnum is a much smaller and lighter round than the .50 BMG which has dominated ultra-long-range marksmanship up to now. It's designed specifically for long-range sniper work, but had been regarded by many US marksmen as simply not as good as the larger round for such tasks.

Cartridge size comparison, from left to right:
5.56x45mm. (.223 Remington) - standard US infantry M4/M16 round
.338 Lapua Magnum (as used in the British L115A3 Long Range Rifle)
.50 BMG (as used in US long-range sniper rifles such as those from Barrett or McMillan)

Corporal Harrison's achievement is likely to make many of them reconsider their options, particularly because rifles built for the smaller round are a lot lighter and less bulky than those made to absorb the recoil of the heavier .50 BMG round. This makes them much easier to carry for extended periods.

Congratulations to Corporal Harrison on his remarkable marksmanship.

Peter

I never knew fishing could be so entertaining!

The well-known angler and TV personality, Bill Dance, has apparently not always been so suave and debonair in front of the cameras. Here's a few out-takes of shots that went wrong.

Kudos to Mr. Dance for letting these make it out of the cutting-room!



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #345

Here's a hint to would-be blackmailers and extortionists: it pays to check out your target carefully before putting your plans into action. Today's Doofus, from Wisconsin, found that out the hard way.

An Appleton woman's attempt to extort $500,000 from an upscale Grand Chute restaurant was "crazy and outlandish," her defense attorney said Friday at her sentencing.

Debbie Miller will spend nine months in jail and four years on probation instead of collecting hush money after planting a rat in her lunch.

. . .

She pleaded no contest in January to a felony extortion charge and a misdemeanor for obstructing police. She planted the dead animal in her food April 17, 2008, before asking for the money in exchange for keeping quiet about the incident. She threatened to alert the media if the money wasn't paid.

Police arrested Miller nearly three months later after an investigation conducted by the restaurant's insurance company.

. . .

At the urging of one of their cooks, restaurant owners Bob and Jessica Doller kept the rat after the extortion attempt. Insurance investigators sent it for testing and determined that it was a domestic white rat that had been cooked in a microwave. The restaurant doesn't use microwaves.

Police determined that Miller purchased the rat days before the incident.

There's more at the link.

Uh-huh . . . checking on the ovens and cooking tools used by the restaurant might have brought Ms. Miller more success; but I'm glad she didn't bother to do that. I hope she enjoys the prison food. Based on my experience as a prison chaplain, I can assure her that it's rather more likely to contain rats (and cockroaches, and inmate kitchen assistants' body fluids, and other nasties) than your average restaurant meal - and her chances of suing for redress and compensation are pretty minimal!

Peter

About not judging books by their covers . . .

Via BoingBoing, we're introduced to a British Web site called, intriguingly, 'Good Show, Sir'. It documents the weird and wacky covers sported by many science fiction and fantasy novels. Some of them are real laugh-out-loud oddities. Here are a couple to whet your appetite, with the Web site's comments in italics beneath them.

According to the author, this cover was commissioned for another book
but somehow ended up on hers. It’s very loosely appropriate:
there is a sword, and there is a hero, but he is quite explicitly gay.

I was going to talk about his lack of spacesuit, or his overabundance of cleavage,
or the protruding rock in space. Then I noticed that one of the strange
ghost-images was smoking a cigar, and all words failed me.

There are plenty more at the link. Go read, and enjoy!



Peter

Another wacky Japanese game show

I've no idea what they're saying, but one doesn't need a translation to laugh!

Peter

A suggestion to deal with the illegal immigrant problem

The political blog HillBuzz has a suggestion about how to highlight the problem with illegal immigration - although it's not one that liberal politicians will necessarily appreciate.

What if billboards were put up all through Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Nevada pointing the way to San Francisco for all illegal aliens?

These would be written in Spanish so the illegal aliens can read them.

They would also feature plenty of large, colorful pictures for anyone who might be completely illiterate.

Each billboard would be like those signs in the mall that say YOU ARE HERE and direct you to the food court with big arrows and simple directions.

The billboards would depict San Francisco as the greatest utopia on Earth ... a sanctuary city where illegals’ dreams all come true, and the Liberals entrenched there welcome all criminals with wide-open arms and faces stained with joyful tears.

Come to San Francisco, lawbreakers.

Come to the Bay Area, anyone who doesn’t believe they have to follow US law.

San Francisco is calling, so bitch, ya’ll best answer da phone.

This would be a fun Photoshop Challenge project, too, because if we can’t ever get these billboards put up, we could at least make posters that people in border states could possibly print up. They could plaster them all over the place in border states, like people did with the Joker posters against Ben Nelson in Nebraska.

“Move to the Sanctuary City of San Francisco” should be a major push…depicting the city as a Candyland for illegal aliens.

Let’s see what Gavin Newsom does then.

Let’s watch as California completely collapses under the weight of all those criminals.

Purge them from Arizona and Texas first, two states with brass ones big enough to start this, then work on Nevada and New Mexico, and drive all these lawbreakers into the den of anarchy that most deserves them…with San Francisco, in particular, being the favored nesting place.

Will the Liberals of San Francisco, from their perch on Knob Hill, be so found of unrestricted illegal immigration and the non-enforcement of existing law when it’s not the border states having to shoulder the burden, but Leftist utopia San Francisco?

There's more at the link.

Personally, I think it's a great idea! I'm all in favor of legal immigration - I'm an immigrant myself! - including a guest worker visa program to allow for seasonal farm labor, etc.: but the present situation, where millions and millions of illegal immigrants are leeching off the US economy, taking jobs that Americans need very badly right now, burdening our medical and social systems, and not paying their share of taxes and other dues, is simply outrageous. There can be no solution, no improvement, unless and until we seal the borders and deport those here illegally. Only then can we start to set up a better system, one that will avoid the problems we're experiencing at present.

Nice one, HillBuzz!



Peter

Identity theft just became much easier!

I was surprised - and very angry - to see the report below. CBS News has uncovered a new risk to our personal information of which I wasn't aware, but which might explain a great deal of the identity theft that appears to take place. I think this report is a 'must see' for anyone concerned about their personal security.

A print version of the report can be read here.

I hope readers will spread the word about this report to their families and friends. If we can alert our employers, doctors, pharmacists, and others who routinely use such copiers for our personal information, we can at least minimize the danger as far as we're concerned.

Peter

A very clever - and funny - advertisement

There's a budget airline based in Cologne, Germany, called Germanwings.




It competes with other European budget airlines, including one called EasyJet, which is based in London, England.




It seems Germanwings wanted to advertise its superiority over EasyJet. To do so, they installed actors aboard an Easyjet flight, and filmed them (presumably surreptitiously, and certainly without EasyJet's permission!). Here's the result.

Note the amusement of the Easyjet passengers when the final boards are displayed. Cheeky, but very funny!



Peter

Hic!

I'm pleased to see that an ancient English . . . er . . . entertainment has been re-created.

Even by the excessive standards of Henry VIII, this was something of a corker.

Intent on displaying his wealth, sophistication and generosity at a meeting with Francis I, the king of France, the portly English monarch built two fountains which spouted hundreds of gallons of free wine a day for his courtiers to enjoy.

Today, the clock was turned back to those extravagant times when a fully-working replica of one of those Tudor symbols of magnificence was unveiled at Hampton Court Palace, where Henry did much lavish entertaining.

The project was inspired by the discovery of the remains of a 16th century fountain during an archaeological dig at the palace two years ago.

The replica's design was based on the Field of the Cloth of Gold painting displayed at the palace. It shows Henry's meeting with Francis I at Guines near Calais in June 1520, when Henry also erected a a temporary 'palace' made from canvas.

The Field of the Cloth of Gold, with the wine fountain ringed in red.
(Click the image for a larger view.)

The meeting's aim was to strengthen the friendship between the two kings.

Henry's wine fountains clearly went down well - the painting even depicts some people vomiting after having too much to drink.

Close-up detail of the wine fountain

According to historical documents, one French guest observed that the fountains 'continually spouted white wine and claret, the best that could be found, with large silver cups for any one to drink - which was a remarkable thing!'.

. . .

The 13ft tall replica, made of timber, lead, bronze and gold leaf, stands on the site of the excavated fountain in Hampton Court's largest inner courtyard, Base Court, where Henry's guests were welcomed and received by court officials.

It is painted to look like white and red marble, features a naked gold figure of the Greek god of wine Bacchus, and bears the motto 'faicte bonne chere quy vouldra' - or 'let he who wishes make good cheer.'

The modern replica of the wine fountain

A spokesman for the Historic Royal Palaces admitted they did not know how the fountain would have operated in Tudor times.

'We have had to start from scratch. We know what it was built of and what it looked like but not the details,' she said.

'The outside is very 16th century, but it has a 21st century interior.'

There's more at the link.

Now that's something I'd like to see! Even better, glasses of the fountain's bounty are for sale. I think one could have quite a bibulous tour of the Palace, if one tried!



Peter

Another needless death, caused by sheer carelessness

I've had occasion before to write about the Four Rules of firearms safety. If you adhere to these four rules, you will never, repeat, never injure or kill another living being by 'accident' or negligence with a firearm.

The Four Rules, as codified by the late, great Col. Jeff Cooper, are:

1. All firearms are always loaded. In other words, never assume that a firearm is unloaded until you've personally verified that fact; and if it passes out of your hands for even an instant, re-check it the moment you get it back. Never assume that because it was safe once, it's still safe.

2. Never point the muzzle of a firearm at anything you are not willing to destroy. This means what it says. If you value it, don't point the gun at it. Period.

3. Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target. Again, this means what it says. Your finger stays OFF the trigger until your sights are ON what you want to shoot. If your sights come off target, your finger simultaneously comes off the trigger. No exceptions.

4. Be sure of your target and what is beyond it. Don't shoot at a noise, or a shape that you can't identify; and don't shoot at a 'presumed' threat unless and until you're sure that the threat is real. Remember, too, that your bullet can miss your target, or pass right through it, and hit something - or someone - further away. You're responsible for any harm caused by your shot.

Horrifyingly often, someone forgets to apply one or more of these four simple rules . . . and tragedy results. It happened yesterday in Lebanon, TN.

"In looking at all the cameras, all the policies were followed," Weeks [Lebanon's public safety commissioner] said. "It was just the perfect storm of a nightmare."

The chase that led to Thompson's death started shortly before 3 a.m. Thompson was driving on the wrong side of the road and nearly hit McKinley's patrol car near an intersection just east of Lebanon's public square, Weeks said.

After both drivers slammed on their brakes, he said, Thompson backed up and fled down Carthage Highway. McKinley chased him. About three miles outside of Lebanon, Weeks said, Thompson drove off a highway embankment.

Weeks said McKinley went down the embankment to try to get Thompson out of the car. McDannald, who had joined the chase, stayed up on the road to cover him.

As McKinley walked toward the car with his gun drawn, Weeks said, McKinley slipped on some loose rocks. As McKinley tried to steady himself, he accidentally fired his gun into the air.

McDannald saw the officer's gun go off. Thinking that Thompson was shooting, Weeks said, McDannald opened fire and killed Thompson.

Weeks said that, to his knowledge, Thompson was unarmed.

"It's a terrible thing," Weeks said. "It's traumatic for the family. It's traumatic for the officers."

There's more at the link.

Sorry, Mr. Weeks, but you're wrong. Officer McKinley had his finger on the trigger when he shouldn't have. He violated Rule 3: therefore, his shot wasn't accidental - it was the result of negligence. Furthermore, Officer MacDannald's reaction to the shot, while understandable, was also negligent, in that he wasn't sure of what was going on before he exercised lethal force. He violated Rule 4, in that he could not have been sure that his target needed shooting. If he'd been a civilian, you can bet your boots that he'd be in jail tonight, charged with manslaughter at the very least, if not murder in the second degree. However, Officer MacDannald's walking around a free man. What does that say about the local District Attorney's attitude towards the rights of citizens vs. those of cops?

If Mr. Weeks genuinely believes that 'all policies were followed' in this case, he needs to urgently re-examine his district's law enforcement policies, procedures and standards. They're clearly not up to scratch. A young man is dead, who need not have died. To those who say that cops can't afford to take chances in such situations - what chances? The deceased wasn't armed. To judge by the report, he didn't make any threats, either verbal or by gesture, to the approaching officers. There was no reason to shoot him . . . but he's dead.

I'm no cop-basher. I've been a sworn law enforcement officer myself, and count many cops among my friends. However, the facts in this case appear relatively straightforward . . . and they don't paint a pretty picture of the competence of the officers concerned, or the training provided to them by their department.

Peter

A watch made from the Titanic?

Reader Adrian S. sent me a link to an article about watches made from the steel of the Titanic, salvaged from the wreck site deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean.

We’re all for reuse and recycle, but Romain Jerome’s Titanic DNA Watch is borderline macabre/bizarre. Granted, we really dig the design — but taking actual steel from the Titanic and incorporating it into a watch?




From the release:

"The watches will have black dial faces thanks to lacquer paint, the ingredients of which consist of coal from the Titanic, while pieces of steel from the vessel will also be used in their creation.




"Yvan Arpa, Chief Executive of Romain Jerome, revealed that the number of watches made will be limited to 2,012, to coincide with the centenary anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, when it struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on April 14th 1912."

There's more at the link.

Never mind the macabre/bizarre aspects . . . with prices for the ten different designs in the collection ranging from a mere US $7,800 to a truly Titanic $173,100 (!!!), I suspect I won't be buying one anytime soon!





Peter