Harking back to yesterday

Don't drive to the voting station

At last in paperback: how to understand women

Can be so hard to give up smoking

End of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher?

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's marriage is reported to be in trouble after they spent their six year anniversary apart.
Amid reports of 33-year-old Ashton partying in San Diego - Demi has apparently been hinting to her Twitter followers that all is not well.
The actress tweeted a quote from Greek philosopher Epictetus on September 23, the day before her anniversary, writing: "When we are offended at any man's fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger."
Three days later, Demi posted a picture of herself lying down with her eyes closed, unsmiling, with the caption: "I see through you."

Best coverage of the shark attack in False Bay

Michael Cohen, 42, was about 50 yards from the shore when he was attacked at lunchtime today. Witnesses said one of his legs was bitten off and the other was badly mangled.

Mr Cohen, a part-time accountant who lives in Cape Town, was dragged from the sea by friends who were with him at the city’s Fish Hoek beach. Paramedics stabilised him before he was airlifted to hospital in Constantia, where he underwent surgery. Last night, his father was at his bedside.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/southafrica/8795288/British-expat-who-lost-leg-in-shark-attack-ignored-warning-signs.html

Saudi woman will not be lashed: king

And this is what she would have endured:

Saudi King Revokes Lashing Sentence for Female Driver
Saudi King Abdullah has revoked the sentence of 10 lashes imposed on a woman for driving in the conservative kingdom, a government official said.

The official didn't elaborate on Abdullah's decision, and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Saudi Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel, wife of billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Amira, also announced the development Wednesday on her Twitter account.

"Thank God, the lashing of Sheima is cancelled," the posting read. "Thanks to our beloved King. I'm sure all Saudi women will be so happy, I know I am."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/28/saudi-king-reportedly-revokes-lashing-sentence-for-female-driver/#ixzz1ZImMLrgo

Damn, Justin Bieber survives

This is his Ferrari. The oke hardly has pubic hair.

Religion

 Thanks to friend Duncan McLeod for this.

Petrol price set to soar

Oil Market Report 28th September 2011

(Thanks to David Blood for this)


Consumers are in for a stormy ride as the price of petrol could increase by as much as 55 cents next month. It has come to light that Transnet has applied for an 83% pipeline tariff hike.

The hike applied for by Transnet could cause the price of fuel, already climbing to new record high levels, to rocket. A steadily weakening rand, currently rising to above the R8 mark, offsets gains of a lower oil price. With the local economy shrinking, the price of petrol looks set to increase by around 39 cents a litre next week.

If the National Energy Regulator of South Africa approves an application by fuel retailers to increase profit margins by 15 cents a litre, the hike could top 55 cents a litre. The likely hike will push the petrol price to a new record high.

  The looming hike has left motorists fuming

According to Econometrix economist Tony Twine, should the proposed increase be effected, it surely will take the country’s petrol price to record highs. With a possible 83% pipeline tariff increase for Transnet next year, motorists and consumers could find things getting harder in months to come.

Serious shark attack at Clovelly

Unfolding story: I think people are so shocked they are confusing beaches.

But utterly terrifying:

An eyewitness to a shark attack at Muizenberg Beach said a man was bitten while swimming near Clovelly Corner on Wednesday afternoon.

Cape Town city officials said this apparently happened while a section of the beach was closed to the public.

The man is believed to be in a critical condition.

Cathy Ryan saw the drama unfold.

“He wasn’t too far in and then a really big great white shark just came and bit him. I think it tossed him around. One of his legs was bitten off,” she said.




http://www.ewn.co.za/Story.aspx?Id=74847

Saudi woman to get 10 lashes for driving

Damned good thing! Next thing, women will be demanding equal pay!

Cairo - Saudi activists say a court has sentenced a Saudi woman with 10 lashes for defying the kingdom's ban on women driving.

Activist Samar Badawi says Shaima Ghassaniya was found guilty on Tuesday of driving without the government's permission.

No laws prohibit women from driving, but conservative religious edicts have banned it.

The ruling comes just two days after Saudi King Abdullah announced that, for the first time, women have the right to vote and run in the country's 2015 local elections.

Najalaa Harriri, who is also facing court for driving, told The Associated Press she needed to drive to take better care of her children.

Tuesday's verdict is the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia. Other women were detained for several days, but had not been sentenced by a court.


http://www.news24.com/World/News/Saudi-woman-to-get-10-lashes-for-driving-20110927?utm_source=news24-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletters

Eating spanspek can be fatal!

 Thirteen people have died and another 72 are ill across 18 states after eating cantaloupe (spanspek) contaminated with listeria, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention reported which makes this the deadliest outbreak in the USA in a decade. Three additional deaths may be added to the tally once officials have examined evidence. Most of the victims are elderly – the average age of the dead is 78. The source of the infections has been traced back to a farm, but the cause of the diseased fruit is yet to be established.

NY Times, LA Times

Astonishing development at 702

“F*** racism, f**** the pigs who killed Andries Tatane, f**** the AWB, f**** racism. We are all wild animals here, meant to live free. F*** capitalism, f**** fascism. F*** this f****ing wage slavery shit. F*** domestication, f**** Julius Malema, f**** the state. F*** the petrol economic growth on a finite planet.”

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2011/09/27/talk-radio-702-fires-esterhuysen

Darned passwords

Good analysis of speed of light issue

In the time it takes you to read this, billions of neutrinos will have passed through you. There are 100 million neutrinos for every atom in the universe.

About 65 billion (6.5×10¹⁰) solar neutrinos per second pass through every square centimetre perpendicular to the direction of the Sun in the region of the Earth

Wall Street Journal analyses the implications of the fact that the speed of light has been exceeded.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576588662498620624.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

And this recalls a song from 1977 by Canadian group Klaatu, "Little Neutrino".


http://www.metrolyrics.com/little-neutrino-lyrics-klaatu.html

They can vote but they can't drive

Saudi Arabia: A Trial for Woman Who Drove
A Saudi lawyer and human rights advocates said that the authorities would bring a Saudi activist to trial for defying the kingdom’s ban on women driving. The lawyer, Waleed Aboul Khair, said that the activist, Najalaa Harrir, had been summoned for questioning by the prosecutor general in the city of Jidda on Sunday, the same day that King Abdullah said women would be permitted to vote and to run in local elections in four years.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-a-trial-for-woman-who-drove.html

Blonde Springbok

Collective nouns and ANC

(As sent to me by my friend David Blood)
 
The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

We are all familiar with a herd of cows, a flock of chickens, a school of fish, a gaggle of geese and a pride of lions.

Then we get a murder of crows (as well as thteir cousins the rooks and ravens), an exaltation of doves, and, presumably because they look so wise, a parliament of owls.

Now consider a group of baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Believe it or not ... a congress!

That pretty much explains the things that come out of the African National Congress.

Live lobster in shorts: speechless

 Shopper arrested with live lobsters in shorts
D'IBERVILLE, Miss. (AP) — A man in southern Mississippi is accused of trying to walk out of a D'Iberville grocery store without paying for food items he'd stuffed into his cargo shorts including live lobsters.

Police Chief Wayne Payne says 35-year-old Nathan Mark Hardy was arrested Saturday after allegedly being caught stuffing food into his cargo shorts — two bags of jumbo shrimp, a pork loin and two live lobsters.

Payne says Hardy, of Biloxi, tried to escape by throwing the pork loin at employees at the local Winn Dixie but fell while running away. He was arrested at the scene.

The shoplifting charge is a misdemeanor, but Hardy remained jailed Wednesday in the Harrison County jail with no bond pending a hearing on a probation violation.

http://news.yahoo.com/shopper-arrested-live-lobsters-shorts-134005861.html

Einstein's law is no longer a law

This is not the first time E=MC2 has been violated. But it really does open a big can of worms.

It is a concept that forms a cornerstone of our understanding of the universe and the concept of time – nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.

But now it seems that researchers working in one of the world's largest physics laboratories, under a mountain in central Italy, have recorded particles travelling at a speed that is supposedly forbidden by Einstein's theory of special relativity.

Scientists at the Gran Sasso facility will unveil evidence on Friday that raises the troubling possibility of a way to send information back in time, blurring the line between past and present and wreaking havoc with the fundamental principle of cause and effect.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/22/faster-than-light-particles-neutrinos?newsfeed=true

No more last-meal requests in Texas

Brewer requested an elaborate meal that included a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a meat-lover's pizza, a big bowl of okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue, a half a loaf of bread, peanut butter fudge, a pint of ice cream and two chicken-fried steaks.

When it arrived around 4 pm at Brewer's cell, he declined it all, telling prison officials he was not hungry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/23/us-last-meal-texas-idUSTRE78L6CQ20110923

Obama: excellent play on words

The world's five leading death penalty implementers

Four of them are not at all democratic. The fifth proclaims itself as the world's leading democracy.

Troy Davis executed yesterday. Discarding the merits of his case, how can the world's leading democracy keep such company?

* China killed up to 5 000 last year
* Iran more than 250
* North Korea more than 60
* Yemen more than 50
* The US 46

Great company the US keeps.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty

Japan's suffering knows no end ...

 15 dead, 2.2m evacuated.

Look at what's hitting Japan today

 More than 1.3 million Japanese have been urged to leave their homes as powerful Typhoon Roke approaches the mainland, swelling rivers and threatening landslides.

Packing winds of more than 140 kilometres per hour, the typhoon is expected to move over the main Japanese island of Honshu today.
In Nagoya, in central Japan's Aichi prefecture, officials have advised about one million residents to leave their homes because of fears that rivers might burst their banks.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-20/japan-evacuates-as-typhoon-looms/2908552

Awesome insight from the Times of London

"South Africa is the only country in the world where affirmative action is in the favour of the majority who has complete political control. The fact that the political majority requires affirmative action to protect them against a 9% minority group is testament to a complete failure on their part to build their own wealth making structures, such that their only solution is to take it from others."

Times of London

Cost of tornado will reach R16bn

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/joplin-tornado-billion-dollar-damage-2005/

Al Gore to the rescue

Reno air crash: pics and video

http://bit.ly/qwF6sV


http://bit.ly/nZiKxi

Darwin was right

Driver was breastfeeding before crash
Johannesburg - An entire family were killed on Thursday morning when the mother - apparently breastfeeding her 1-year-old daughter while driving the car - collided with a bus.

A passenger in the bus lost both her legs when she was flung through the windshield.

Paramedics removed baby Miné's body from the breast of her mother Eunice Franklin,29, in the driver's seat of the family’s car.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Driver-was-breastfeeding-before-crash-20110915

VW Beetle banned from LA roads

 

A woman was proudly driving her 'pubic beetle' until the police arrested her after a series of accidents.
The court ruled that her car was creating a dangerous situation on the roads.

It was ruled that she had to paint-over her car's hood

Thanks to David Blood for this, as always,

Now naughty pics of Scarlett Johansson hit the Internet

The story: Scarlett took pics of herself in the bathroom. Hackers broke into her phone. The pics have gone viral. The FBI is hunting the hackers.

3 nightmares in one

http://huff.to/qCLsK0

Justin Bieber Confirms Boyz II Men Collaboration On Christmas Album

Demi Moore finds a great use for Twitter

http://huff.to/nMu0BW

Woman strip-searched after 9/11 flight landed

DETROIT - An Ohio woman who was one of three people taken off an airplane at Detroit's airport and questioned on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks says she was shocked when armed officers stopped at her row and ordered her off.

Shoshana Hebshi, 35, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday that she believes she was targeted because of her Middle Eastern appearance. Hebshi, who describes herself as half-Arabic, half-Jewish with a dark complexion, said she endured nearly four hours in police custody that included being forced off an airplane in handcuffs, strip-searched and interrogated.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/14/national/main20105942.shtml

Can you read this book without arms?

Good book to tackle!

9/11 as viewed from space

Look at what's hitting the UK today

The worst storms since 1996.

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/tropical-storm-katia-slams-into-ireland-britain-1315837850-slideshow/lone-walker-watches-gales-high-tides-sweep-coast-photo-132703682.html

Couple make out in loo, cause '9/11' scare

Fighter jets scramble over passengers 'making out' in toilet
Fighter jets were scrambled and bomb squads were called out after security fears on US passenger planes on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks -- but officials said the scares were nothing more than people ''making out'' in bathrooms and long toilet breaks.

A domestic Frontier Airlines flight from Denver to Detroit was shadowed by F-16 jets today after two passengers were spending ''an extraordinarily long time'' in the plane's bathroom, spokesman Peter Kowalchuck told the Associated Press.

But officials later said the ''suspicious behaviour'' was two people ''making out'', US television network ABC News reported.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-incidents/fighter-jets-scramble-over-passengers-making-out-in-toilet-20110912-1k4xx.html#ixzz1XhC7tSv3

Some events leave you speechless

US mother charged with raping infant son
Columbus - An Ohio woman is accused of raping her 10-month-old son, videotaping it and sending it to her boyfriend in Michigan.

Ashley N Jessup, 24, was indicted in Columbus on Thursday on two counts of rape, one count of child endangerment and one count of pandering sexually-oriented material involving a minor.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien says the rape charge could land her life in prison.

O'Brien tells The Columbus Dispatch that Jessup emailed the videos to her boyfriend in Battle Creek, Michigan, where his ex-girlfriend discovered them and contacted police.

Jessup is being held in the Franklin County Correctional Centre in lieu of $1m bond.

The newspaper reported that it wasn't immediately clear who has custody of the child. - AP

Screw up, steal, ANC makes you an ambassador

Yet another dodgy diplomat
Eyebrows have been raised in government circles over President Jacob Zuma's choice of Miriam Segabutla, Limpopo's controversial former health minister, as South Africa's ambassador to Cuba.

She and several other candidate diplomats are currently undergoing training at the department's offices in Pretoria.

Segabutla is the subject of a probe by public protector Thuli Madonsela following damning allegations that, while she was a provincial minister, she allocated two ­tenders worth R16 million to her friends.

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-09-yet-another-dodgy-diplomat/


http://mg.co.za/article/2010-07-16-tenders-for-pals-in-limpopo

Lovely use of rates and taxes ... ANC really knows how to waste money

Ekurhuleni owed R12m in McBride legal fees

Johannesburg - Ekurhuleni must be reimbursed the R12m used to pay for the metro's former police chief Robert McBride's legal fees, the DA said on Friday.

http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Ekurhuleni-owed-R12m-in-McBride-legal-fees-20110909

Jimmy Manyi at work

New England flooding post the most recent hurricane

Defining moment for humanity

Abandoned dogs eat owner

Dogs, abandoned for 2 weeks, eat owner

Jakarta - Seven dogs starved of food and water for two weeks are suspected of eating their Indonesian owner after he returned to his hometown in Manado from a holiday, local media reported on Tuesday.

A neighbourhood guard was curious when he saw luggage lined up at the front of Andre Lumboga's house, days after the 50-year old arrived back home. He approached the house, smelled something foul and called the police, according to a report.

"His skull was found in the kitchen, and his body was found in the front of his house," Eriyana, a local police chief in Batam, an island off Sumatra, told VIVAnews website.

Lumboga arrived home last Wednesday, but his body was just discovered on Monday.

"We suspect that the dogs were hungry, so they attacked Andre, because they had not been fed for 14 days," he said. Police also found bones of two other dogs, believed to have also been eaten by the hungry canines.

This is what a jobless recovery looks like

Giant croc ... even Steve Erwin might have backed off

6.4m long. Weighing as much as a Mercedes-Benz. Caught live yesterday in the Philippines.

Yet another hurricane on its way to the US

The first two have caused spectacular damage. Look at this one, Katia.

About darned time

As our new Chief Justice has shown, men believe they have certain rights, and other men stand by them, nudge wink.

Well, they don't, not all of them. Consensual sex is one thing. Hurting a child, another man, or especially a child, entirely another. For fuck's sake, what gives you the right to touch anyone else?

Only two children in Soweto out of three enter puberty as virgins. For obvious reasons. And our system embraces a Chief Justice who reduced a sentence on the basis that a 12-year-old got Zimba (sic) chips!

Statutory rape is statutory rape.


There is justice, and there is justice. But there is never justice when anyone abuses another human being and gets away with it.

Especially a woman or child. No statute of limitations here, or "I did not apply my mind".

We draw a line in the sand on issues. One of them is the violation of other people's rights. And the man who determines our future judiciary policy reduces a sentence because a woman was not seriously hurt when dragged behind a car, and provoked her man to the assault.

Someone touches my toddler, they die.

See report below

Ireland stepped up its battle with the Roman Catholic Church over child abuse Sunday, with Justice Minister Alan Shatter vowing to pass a law requiring priests to report suspicions of child abuse, even if they learn about them in confession.

The Catholic Church regards information learned in confession as completely confidential. But under the law proposed by Shatter, priests could be prosecuted for failing to tell the police about crimes disclosed in the confession box.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/09/04/ireland.vatican.sex.abuse/

Life after last month's hurricane

Excellent Chief Justice

Croc in pool with swimmers

 Aus swimmers get crocodile fright
Early morning swimmers at a public pool in the Darwin discovered they were doing laps alongside a crocodile, the NT News reported on Friday.

The 40cm freshwater crocodile was liberated by lifeguard Time Dupe, who speculated that pranksters had popped the croc in the pool the night before.

A witness told the Northern Territory newspaper, "I thought the croc had a good stroke and was going to challenge it to a race".

http://www.news24.com/World/News/Aus-swimmers-get-crocodile-fright-20110902