Things in the news

Chris Noyb · Oct 30, 2014

This isn't actually in the news, but I find it interesting.

The republican candidate for governor of Texas uses a wheelchair. In the TV ads attempting to show his humanitarian concern for us he is shown in the wheelchair. In the TV ads attempting to show him as being strong and tough--the Texas-Mexico border NEEDS more patrols!!--the wheelchair isn't shown.

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Did our openly lesbian mayor, Anise Parker, cross the line in order to quash opposition to the ordinance banning discrimination of gay and transgender residents?

IMO, definately. I don't know what her legal team was thinking, if they were even thinking, but they blew it. Any attorney with even half a brain would've said "Don't do it."

‘Houston Five’ Claim Victory as Mayor Annise Parker Says City Has Withdrawn Subpoenas Seeking Pastors’ Speeches | TheBlaze.com

Taliesin · Nov 5, 2014

Here is a story I've been following for a few days because Traci Harding is my favourite author.

These are screenshots I took from facebook on Saturday to post in a different forum

Today it entered the news, which is why I'm now posting this here.
No Cookies | dailytelegraph.com.au

A SEARCH is under way for a Sydney grandmother who has disappeared in India.
The Department of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it would send consular officials to Bangalore, where Toni Anne Ludgate, 75, was believed to be heading when she was reportedly last seen getting into a taxi with an older lady on September 23.
Ms Ludgate was on an annual pilgrimage doing charity work in an ashram.
Her daughter, best-selling author Traci Harding, said local police had been unable to find the cab driver and adding to the mystery, one of her mother’s two mobile phones had received a couple of short calls, about one second each, since then.
Police are trying to trace which telephone towers in India directed the calls.
Ms Ludgate was a regular at the Prasanthi Nilayam (Abode of Supreme Peace) ashram and friends there have been liaising with police and helping her family.
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redux · Nov 5, 2014

Japan Beats Scotland to win world's best whiskey title

Few things are as Scottish as whiskey. But a leading whiskey critic may have just dealt a major blow to Scotland's identity.

From the cover of “Whiskey Bible 2015,” whiskey connoisseur Jim Murray gazes over a snifter with a smile playing on his lips and a fedora shading one eye.
In his annual guide to more than 4,500 whiskeys released Monday, he ranked a Japanese single malt as No. 1.

Murray awarded “World Whiskey of the Year” to the Yamazaki Single Malt Sherry Cask 2013, giving it a score of 97.5 out of 100. He described it as a drink of “near incredible genius” with a taste “thick, dry, as rounded as a snooker ball.” In the book, Murray touts its “nose of exquisite boldness and finish of ‘light, teasing spice.’
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redux · Nov 5, 2014

Harvard University is Offering Workshop on Anal Sex

Tonight Harvard university will be offering a course on anal sex for the very first time as part of its annual Sex Week program.

The course is officially titled: “What What in the Butt: Anal Sex 101.”

The course description reads:

Come learn everything about anal sex from the experts of Good Vibrations, a sex-positive store located right in Brookline! They will dispel myths about anal sex and give you insight into why people do it and how to do it well. They will cover a wide variety of topics, including: anal anatomy and the potential for pleasure for all genders; how to talk about it with a partner; basic preparation and hygiene; lubes, anal toys, and safer sex; anal penetration for beginners, and much more! Learn the facts about this exciting yet often misunderstood form of pleasure, find out the common mistakes people make, and get all your questions answered!
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hamsterball · Nov 5, 2014

redux said: ↑

Harvard University is Offering Workshop on Anal Sex
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How many credits? Or can you just audit?

Taliesin · Nov 6, 2014

What does global communication look like? One way to picture it is by mapping phone calls—specifically where they're coming from and heading to. The map below, first flagged by my colleague Tim Fernholz at Quartz, shows a year's worth of cross-border calls, as measured in minutes per person spent on international phone calls in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. It's one component of a study, written by business scholars Pankaj Ghemawat and Steven A. Altman, with funding from the logistics firm DHL, thataims to quantify globalization by tallying up measures of "cross-border flows of trade, capital, information, and people."
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The world, mapped by phone calls | SBS News

Taliesin · Nov 7, 2014

Here's an update on that Toni Ludgate story; an Australian Grandmother missing in India.

Missing Australian woman found murdered - TOI Mobile | The Times of India Mobile Site

PUTTAPARTHI: A 75-year-old Australian woman was found murdered at Puttaparthi town of Anantapur district. The woman, identified as Toni Anne Ludgate, came to Prashanti Nilayam, the abode of Sri Satya Sai Baba, to do charity work. She went missing on September 24 and the local police on Friday cracked the mystery behind her sudden disappearance after they took a watchman into custody.
During interrogation, the watchman, Baghwant, told the police that he had murdered Ludgate for money and valuables. The police also took two others into custody for questioning. The woman came to Puttaparthi on July 14 and hired a flat by paying Rs 30,000 as advance to the watchman.
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Borla · Nov 17, 2014

This should make you smile.

Family dresses as superheroes for little boy's adoption | abc7chicago.com

Taliesin · Nov 19, 2014

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A group of Insane Clown Posse fans grabbed brooms, shovels and some trash bags and hit the streets of Buffalo to help clean up.
The fans, also known as Juggalos, took part in the Buffalo Juggalos' Outreach Program's first community clean-up program on Buffalo's East Side.
Some area residents even joined in to help beautify the area.
Organizers said they love lending a helping hand to those who need it."It is a pretty rough area, it needs the improvement, needs the help. There's a lot of vacant lots. Our home base hatchet house is nearby so we figured we'd start at home and expand outwards," said Jeremy "Polmar" Killingbeck.
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Juggalos Clean Up An East Side Neighborhood - Time Warner Cable News

Whoop Whoop!

redux · Nov 22, 2014

Poop bus fueled by human waste

There's a new poop-related form of transport on the road, and this one is more neat than nasty.

A "Bio-Bus" that runs solely on the biomethane gas generated by treated waste (of the food and human variety) is up and running as of this week in the UK, where it's following a Bristol-to-Bath route.

The BBC reports that the 40-seat bus can go 186 miles on a single tank of gas; creating that tank requires the equivalent of five people's waste for one year. (It's unclear if that's sewage waste only, or includes a person's food waste, too.)

The bus emits 30% less carbon dioxide than a comparable diesel engine would.

GENeco runs Bristol sewage treatment works, which produces the gas through a process known as anaerobic digestion: oxygen-hungry bacteria break down the waste, producing the gas; carbon dioxide is removed and propane is added.

Also removed: "impurities" that might make the bus smell like, well, your bathroom.

A quote from GENeco's GM, which may have passengers eying each other warily: The bus "is actually powered by people living in the local area, including quite possibly those on the bus itself."

The Washington Post notes the news has been predictably greeted with bathroom humor.
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redux · Nov 25, 2014

Rare footage shows Black Seadevil, perhaps the deep sea's freakiest looking fish.

Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif., have produced what they believe to be the only video footage of the bizarre and scary looking anglerfish in its natural habitat 1,900 feet below the surface of the bay.
Also known, fittingly, as the Black Seadevil, the anglerfish is extremely elusive. It's only been caught on film -- still or video -- half a dozen times.

Camera shyness notwithstanding, there's no questioning the identity of this freaky fish, with the telltale protrusion extending from its head. The fish uses the bioluminescent lure at the end of the fishing pole appendage to attract prey in the dark waters of the two-mile-deep Monterey Canyon. As prey approaches, the anglerfish inhales it and traps it behind its teeth.
Only females boast the clever apparatus. This female specimen, terrifying as she is, measures in at just 9 cm long.
The video was captured by a remotely operated robotic vehicle launched from a research ship on Nov. 17.
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Taliesin · Dec 3, 2014

This is hardly news, but I found it entertaining...

20 bizarre calls from travellers to DFAT | SBS News

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has warned Australians travelling abroad that they cannot assume that their embassy or consulate staff will bail them out. “Consular assistance should not be seen as a right. It is a privilege," Ms Bishop says.
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4. I'm attending a conference overseas with a large group of Australians but I have heard it is a dangerous city. Can the High Commission arrange for a risk assessment and some armoured cars? We only need them for a week.
5. Multiple inquires to embassies overseas as to the closest pub televising the State of Origin game.
14. I'm going on a cruise. What will the food be like? Can you drink the water on the ship?
15. Some travellers evacuated from civil unrest in Egypt on government-funded flights questioned why they were not entitled to frequent flyer points. Similarly, some travellers evacuated from the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami made seat requests (including for first class).
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POPEYE · Dec 3, 2014

NYPD officer not charged in the choke hold death of Eric Garner. I am not surprised, just once again sorely disappointed that our Humanity has no lower limits. Thankfully the Federal Judicial system is investigating, I attempted to watch and listen to all the news on this that I could, and in my opinion that NYC officer should be indited not given a desk job

Borla · Dec 10, 2014

Chicago Firehouse Restaurant burns in South Loop | abc7chicago.com

There is a touch of irony here.

Street Pattern · Dec 10, 2014

Borla said: ↑

There is a touch of irony here.
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And sadness. That was a lovely historic building.

redux · Dec 10, 2014

The French trailer was released today.

The Little Prince could be one of the most beautiful animated films of 2015.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince is one of the best-selling books of all time — about 140 million, which reportedly puts it somewhere between the first Harry Potternovel (107 million) and A Tale of Two Cities (200 million). The story has been adapted numerous times — including an opera and a ballet — but next year's animated film might be the most beautiful interpretation yet, and I'm basing that solely on the new (French-language) trailer.

The trailer itself is a gorgeous blend of papercraft animation (for the story of the Little Prince himself) and Pixar-esque CG (for the framed story around it). There's no English-language version of the trailer yet, but we're expecting one soon enough — the voice castfor this one is pretty phenomenal (Rachel McAdams, James Franco, Jeff Bridges, Marion Cotillard, Ricky Gervais, and Benicio del Toro, among others).

Le Petit Prince will debut October 7th, 2015 in France.
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I'll go see it.

redux · Dec 13, 2014

Paul Revere's 1795 time capsule unearthed

Paul Revere hasn't stirred up this much anticipation in Boston since his midnight ride from Charlestown to Lexington.

More than two centuries later, a recently unearthed time capsule he buried with fellow revolutionary Samuel Adams -- the man whom Revere was riding to see that night to warn that the British were coming -- has got his former city, state and most of the Internet abuzz.

The artifact was unearthed Thursday thanks to a water leak near its resting place inside a cornerstone at the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
...
According to Galvin, the box-shaped capsule was placed by the Revolutionary-era duo in 1795, a year when Adams was governor and when construction began on the State House and its iconic dome, which would eventually be overlaid with copper by Revere.

Both he and Hatchfield said that based on historical records, the box is believed to contain coins, a plate and a Revere-inscribed plaque -- but no one knows for sure.
"It may contain other stuff, too," said Galvin. "We don't know that yet."

But we might soon: Galvin, whose office is inside the State House, said the capsule's contents are expected to be revealed sometime next week.
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Borla · Dec 19, 2014

Random acts of kindness FTW

Dads buy crossing guard new car after his gets repossessed | abc7chicago.com

Borla · Jan 2, 2015

Sometimes stupid criminal stories have to make you laugh.

John Arwood Amber Campbell arrested after being trapped in a closet at Daytona State College - Orlando Sentinel

Lindy · Jan 2, 2015

redux said: ↑

Paul Revere's 1795 time capsule unearthed
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They're finally going to open the box. Followup to @redux post from a couple weeks ago.

Time Capsule Buried By Sam Adams, Paul Revere To Be Opened Jan. 6 « CBS Boston

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