most wonderful day

Most extreme journeys

2012-05-08T00:15:00.002-07:00

The Australian man who circumnavigated the globe with an amphibious vehicle

Ben Carlin, an Australian, took the challenge to circumnavigate the world in a modified amphibious jeep. He set out with his wife Elinore as first mate in 1950. His wife eventually came to her senses and left the expedition somewhere in India at about 3/4 of the journey but Ben continued with other mates finally completing the voyage in 1958. The trip began and ended in Montreal, Canada. It took
8 years, covering 62,000 km on land and 17,000 km on sea.

The man who completed 4,115 km pushing a wheelbarrow to raise money for cancer research

David Baird completed his Herculean 112-day journey pushing a wheelbarrow across Australia (that’s 4,115 km or 2,557 miles on foot). He did this to raise money for breast and prostate cancer research. The fit looking 65-year-old said he was feeling ‘amazingly good’, considering he had traveled a massive 4,115km on foot. He ran the equivalent of one hundred full marathons in just 112 days. Taking in about 70 towns along the way, Mr Baird said he pushed the wheelbarrow for between 10 and 12 hours a day. While he never had any doubts he wouldn’t complete his journey, he admitted each day “was hard”. During the charity run well-wishers threw more than £9,145 ($20,000) into the barrow.

The man who literally ran around the entire globe

British runner Robert Garside, also known as The Runningman, is credited by Guinness World Records as the first person to run around the world. Garside began his record-setting run after several aborted attempts leaving Cape Town, South Africa, and London, England. Garside set off from New Delhi, India, on October 20, 1997, completing his run at the same point on 13 June, 2003. Garside’s run has been questioned by other runners and by the press. Due to the inherent difficulties certifying such accounts, Guinness World Records spent several years evaluating evidence before declaring it authentic.

During his run, he updated his online website, wwww.runningman.org, with a portable computer, describing an arduous journey complicated by human and natural hurdles that included physical attacks and imprisonment as well as grueling climate extremes. He also met with considerable assistance, as he was offered lodgings around the globe in such diverse settings as five-star hotels and private homes to prison cells and police stations. In addition to corporate sponsorship of £50,000, he indicated he received £120,000 in donations from individuals. Along the way, Garside also found love, meeting girlfriend Endrina Perez in Venezuela.
It took him 2,062 days to cover 30,000 miles (48,000 km) across 29 countries and 6 continents. He used 50 pairs of trainers.

The student who did a 3,000 mile walk from Beijing to Germany and made a short film

Christoph Rehage’s birthday present to himself in November 2007 was to go for a long walk. The plan was to walk from Beijing, China — where Rehage was a student — to his home in Bad Nenndorf, Germany. An amazing proposition, when you consider the vastness of China.
Along the way, he photographed himself. We’ve all seen those “picture a day” time-lapse videos. But the five-minute version of Rehage’s epic walkabout, eventually covering over 4,000 kilometers, is in a league of its own. We see a young, clean shaven man being changed by his adventure. There’s obvious physical hardship: snow and the blazing sands of the Gobi desert, long, empty highways, and the pain of endless plodding. His hair and beard grow wild. People come and go; places spin behind him. Rehage finds love — and maybe heartbreak, too.

The Baptist minister who crawled 1,600 miles to the White House

In 1978, a 39 year old Baptist minister Hans Mullikin arrived at the White House after crawling 1,600 miles from Marshall, Texas. His legs were wrapped in furs and sheathed in thin galvanized steel; one of his wheels on his armrests was smaller than the other to compensate for road-grade. On the 22nd of November, 1978 he ended his two and a half year crawl only to hear from an aide that President Carter was too busy to see him. “I just wanted to show America that we need to get on our knees and repent,” Mullikin told reporters. “This is something I had in my heart and wanted to do for my country.”

Lottery Winners Who Were Better Off Without Their Prizes

2012-05-06T02:16:00.005-07:00

Janite Lee
The Missourian who gave away her money to politics, education and the community and ended up with nothing left

Sometimes, even good intentions can get wildly out of hand — as was the case for Janite Lee, the 52-year-old woman, who landed an $18 million payout from the Missouri Lottery back in 1993. The South Korean immigrant immediately began to contribute chunks of her wealth to various educational programs, community services and political organizations. Besides the usual million-dollar house and cars, Lee reportedly donated more than $1 million to Washington University, where her namesake reading room commemorates the occasion. She reportedly donated $277,000 to
Democratic political candidates, earning herself meals with Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and even the President of South Korea. She didn’t stop there. $30,000 went to the family of a South Korean church pastor who passed away. The St. Louis Korean American Association received a house from her. Another Korean adoption-related association also benefited. Lee’s philanthropy was expensive. But combined with her gambling habit—she lost $347,000 in a single year—bank loans, and credit card debt, it harkened disaster. She filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2001.

“Jack” Whittaker Jr
The once biggest lottery winner who lost $114 million in four years

On December 25, 2002, West Virginia building contractor Andrew Jackson “Jack” Whittaker Jr. won $315 million in the Powerball multi-state lottery, at that time the largest jackpot in history won by a single person. At the time, he was the president of a successful contracting firm called Diversified Enterprises Construction. 55-year-old Whittaker was living a successfully comfortable American life complete with a net worth of over one million dollars, a well rounded family, great job and healthy grandkids. After winning the prize, he famously pledged 10% of his winnings to various Christian charities and created the Jack Whittaker Foundation with another $14 million.
Whittaker did some good, but his bad deeds make his story. He was arrested twice, once for drunk driving and once for threatening a bar manager. A woman sued him after he groped her at a dog racetrack. Thieves took $545,000 in cash from Whittaker’s car while he was visiting a strip club. About a year later, thieves again stole $200,000 from his car. Caesars Atlantic City sued him for bouncing $1.5 million in checks. His wife divorced him. Then, there were the dead bodies. In 2003, Whittaker’s granddaughter’s boyfriend was found dead of an overdose inside Whittaker’s home. His 17-year-old granddaughter, whom he had been giving a $2,100 weekly allowance, fatally overdosed months later, at a different location. His daughter—mother of the dead granddaughter—died this year of as-yet-undetermined causes. When reached for comment, Whittaker, now with no family and no fortune, said “I wish I’d torn that ticket up.”

Ken Proxmire
The machinist who won $1 million, went into car business and bankrupt in 4 years

Ken Proxmire was a machinist when he won $1 million in the Michigan lottery. He moved to California and went into the car business with his brothers. Within five years, he had filed for bankruptcy. “He was just a poor boy who got lucky and wanted to take care of everybody,” explains Ken’s son Rick. “It was a hell of a good ride for three or four years, but now he lives more simply. There’s no more talk of owning a helicopter or riding in limos. We’re just everyday folks. Dad’s now back to work as a machinist,” says his son.

Evelyn Adams
The woman won the lottery twice and now lives in a trailer

Everyone knows the odds of winning the lottery once are astronomical. But Evelyn Adams beat those odds — twice. The New Jersey resident hit the jackpot in 1985 and 1986 to the sum of $5.4 million. But Adams was a heavy gambler. And with Atlantic City being located in New Jersey, it wasn’t long before Adams had lost all her money. Twenty years later, Adams is broke and living in a trailer.

Callie Rogers
The teenager girl who spent all her money on clothes, parties and silicone

Callie Rogers was once the world’s luckiest teenager. At the tender age of 16, Ms. Rogers won £1.9million lottery. That was, at the time, about $3 million. Now it’s all gone. The ecstatic girl spent her winnings on vacations, homes, shopping, friends, and even a couple of breast improvements. Six years and two attempts of suicide later, Rogers is a 22-year-old single mother of two. She now works as a maid to sustain herself and her family. She is paying off debt induced by her spending.

Bizarre sleeping bags

2012-05-06T02:04:00.003-07:00

Bear Sleeping Bag

Concerned about getting mauled by a bear when you’re out camping? Maybe if you sleep in this bear sleeping bag by Eiko Ishizawa, you won’t have to worry about that. Just crawl out of your tent and scare that bear back to its den. Just watch out for hunters, you don’t want to get shot. Ehhh… so maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all.

Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

They did it! The Tauntaun sleeping bag is a reality. This sleeping bag started as an April Fool’s joke by the people at ThinkGeek. Demand was so intense they decided to try to make the sleeping bag for real. And what Star Wars fans want, Star Wars fans get. It is complete with saddle, internal intestines and plush lightsaber zipper pull. Perfect for surviving the sub-zero temperatures of Hoth after recovering from a deadly wampa attack. It is machine washable and costs $99.99.

Coffin Sleeping Bag

This is probably the creepiest sleeping bag ever since it’s shaped like a coffin. But if you like the gothic style, this probably will suit you perfectly to impress and scare your friends during a night in the woods. Especially if it’s Halloween season.

Adam and Eve Sleeping Bag

Pratt design grad Alyona Makeeva’s masters thesis was titled Designing for a Better Marriage. One of the thesis products was this Adam & Eve Interactive Sleeping Bag. Inside the warm top cover of the sleeping bag are 12 Tyvek panels that can have multiple uses. You and your lover can write your special romantic memories, keep a running diary during a long romantic excursion, copy your favorite love poems, draw, use each panel for an individual theme, or use just one panel per trip to keep a shared “post-card” to record highlights of your times together. Inside or outside the bag, find your own Garden of Eden!

Shark Attack Sleeping Bag

Actually called the “ChumBuddy”, it was created by 19 year old design wondergenius Kendra Phillips. The Shark Attack Sleeping Bag is 7 feet tall, hand sewn and is filled with 30 pounds of soft fill. It’s $199 but can you really put a price on awesomeness? I guess you can and it’s just shy of 2 bills. At least shipping is free.

Most lever bandits

2012-05-03T01:32:00.003-07:00

Colton Harris-Moore: the 19-year-old boy who stole 3 airplanes and a $450,000 yacht barefoot

For more than two years, lawmen had been hunting Colton Harris-Moore, the elusive 19-year-old “Barefoot Bandit” they believe is responsible for hundreds of burglaries and the theft of at least three airplanes and a $450,000 yacht. Harris-Moore is suspected in countless burglaries round the country, including Washington, Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois. He is also believed to have committed crimes in Canada and, most recently, the Bahamas. Since many of Harris-Moore’s alleged crimes were committed while he was barefoot, the media dubbed him the “Barefoot Bandit.” Not
only have several folk-hero-style ballads been written about Harris-Moore, but he also has a huge fan following on the Internet. A Facebook fan page dedicated to him boasts more than 89,000 fans.
Harris-Moore was captured in the Bahamas on July 2010.
Victor Lustig: the criminal who managed to “sell” the Eiffel Tower, twice!

In 1925 a con artist called Victor Lustig managed to sell the Eiffel tower, not just once, but twice within two months! France had just recovered from World War I, and Paris was booming, an excellent environment for a con artist. Lustig’s master con came to him one spring day when he was reading a newspaper article regarding the debate raging around the maintenance costs of the 36 year old Eiffel tower. Lustig saw the possibilities behind this article and developed a remarkable scheme.
Lustig produced fake government stationery for him and invited six scrap metal dealers to a confidential meeting at one of the most prestigious hotel in Paris, to discuss a possible business deal. There, Lustig introduced himself as the deputy director-general of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He told the group that the upkeep on the Eiffel Tower was so outrageous that the city could not maintain it any longer, and wanted to sell it for scrap. Due to the certain public outcry the matter was to be kept secret until all the details were thought out. The idea was not as implausible in 1925 as it would be today. The Eiffel Tower had been built for the 1889 Paris Exposition, and was not intended to be permanent. It was to have been taken down in 1909 and moved somewhere else. Lustig took the men to the tower in a rented limousine for an inspection tour. It gave Lustig the opportunity to gauge which of them was the most enthusiastic and gullible. Lustig asked for bids to be submitted the next day. In reality, Lustig already knew he would accept the bid from one dealer, Andre Poisson. Poisson was insecure, feeling he was not in the inner circles of the Parisian business community, and thought that obtaining the Eiffel Tower deal would put him in the big league. However, Poisson’s wife was suspicious, wondering who this official was, why everything was so secret, and why everything was being done so quickly. To deal with her suspicion, Lustig arranged another meeting, and then “confessed.” As a government minister, he did not make enough money to pursue the lifestyle he enjoyed, and needed to find ways to supplement his income. This meant that his dealings needed certain discretion. Poisson understood immediately. He was dealing with another corrupt government official who wanted a bribe. That put Poisson’s mind at rest immediately, since he was familiar with the type and had no problems dealing with such people. So Lustig not only received the funds for the Eiffel Tower, he also collected a large bribe. Lustig and his personal secretary, a Franco American con man Robert Arthur Tourbillon, hastily took a train for Vienna with a suitcase full of cash. Surprisingly, nothing happened. Poisson was too humiliated to complain to the police. A month later, Lustig returned to Paris, selected six more scrap dealers, and tried to sell the Tower once more. This time, the chosen victim went to the police before Lustig could close the deal, but Lustig and Collins managed to evade arrest.

Frank Abagnale: the teenager impostor who passed over 2.5 million dollars in forged checks

Frank William Abagnale, Jr. is an American security consultant best known for his history as a former confidence trickster, check forger, skilled impostor, and escape artist. He became notorious in the 1960s for successfully passing US$2.5 million worth of meticulously forged checks across 26 countries over the course of five years, starting when he was only 17 years old. In the process, he claimed to have assumed no fewer than eight separate identities, successfully impersonated an airline pilot, a doctor, a prison inspector, and a lawyer. He escaped from police custody twice (once from a taxiing airliner and once from a US federal penitentiary), all before he was 21 years old. Abagnale’s life story provided the inspiration for the feature film Catch Me If You Can. He is currently a consultant and lecturer at the academy and field offices for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He also runs Abagnale & Associates, a financial fraud consultancy company.

Anthony J. Curcio: the bank robber who fooled the police by hiring decoys through Craigslist

In an elaborate robbery scheme, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities. It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. It appears to have unfolded this way, around 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, the robber, wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash to the bank from the truck. He sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed his bag of money, and fled the scene. But here’s the hilarious twist. The robber had previously put out a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages of $28.50 per hour. Recruits were asked to wait near the Bank of America right around the time of the robbery–wearing yellow vests, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and preferably a blue shirt. At least a dozen of them showed up after responding to the Craigslist ad. “I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour,” one of the unwitting decoys said. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.
Three weeks prior to the robbery, a homeless man contacted city authorities after seeing someone recover an oddball array of items from behind the same bank branch–a black wig, a reflective safety vest, dark glasses, a two-way radio, a baseball cap, and a can of mace–and provided a license plate number. It’s believed that the witness may have seen a test run of the heist-in-progress. Using the license plate data, cops tracked down 28-year-old Anthony J. Curcio, recovered a “significant” amount of money from him, and are holding him in the Snohomish County Jail. His family had apparently recently had some financial difficulties, and had a prior home foreclosed. Curcio also had an infant daughter born 10 days before the robbery, according to birth announcements that the Seattle Times surface.

The woman who robbed a house, was caught by the owner but escaped by saying she was on the wrong house

A woman stole cash and jewelry from a home a Wednesday morning but pretended she was in the wrong house when she was caught by the resident. A Maple Avenue resident told the police that he returned to his house at about 10 a.m. to find a woman standing in his foyer. The woman told the resident she mistakenly entered his house through the garage thinking it was her friend’s house. The woman then claimed she was going to a false address, and appeared to call a person she said was her mother before leaving.. The resident called a family member who told him to call police and soon discovered jewelry and cash missing from his house. The woman was described by the resident to police as approximately 5 foot 8 inches tall, with a medium build, medium length hair and in her 20s.

Bizarre torture methods

2012-05-01T03:32:00.003-07:00

Thumbscrew

This was used to get a confession from the offenders. The fingers of the person were placed in the device and crushed by the torturer turning the handle on the top. It could last for a very long time and it was very painful. This was also used to crush a person’s toes. They even made bigger versions of this device used to crush feet, knees, elbows and even heads.

Iron Maiden

This iron cabinet with a hinged front was made to be a tall upright cabinet that would enclose a human being. It would have a small opening, which was closeable, so the interrogator would be able to open and close it at their will. They would then poke the bodies of the person with a sharp object. They would use knives, spikes, or nails and the person inside was forced to remain standing in one position, ultimately causing their demise.

The Knee Splitter

The whole purpose of this device was to make a person’s knees useless. It was used in mainly during the Inquisitional period of time. This device was faceted with spikes, from three to twenty of them, and depending on the crime committed, depended on the number used. IT had a handle the torturer would use to close the device. The spikes would mutilate the skin and begin to crush the knee. They would also use the device on elbows, arms and the lower legs. There were even instances that they would heat the device to cause a maximum amount of pain. Death wasn’t a result of this device, but it the person refused to cooperate they would use other means.

Heretic’s Fork

This device was used during the Spanish Inquisition. It has two forks at opposing ends of a metal rod. One of the forks would be placed under the chin, piercing the skin, and the other end would be piercing the flesh in the upper chest. It didn’t puncture any vital organs, so death would not take place during the use of this method, but it made talking and neck movements impossible. While wearing this device a person’s hands would be tied behind their backs, so they could not escape it. It would harm the person’s neck and, often times, spread diseases.

Saw Torture

This method was used to torture and kill the condemned person, which were typically accused of witchery, adultery, murder, blasphemy, or theft. The accused was hung upside down. This slowed down the blood loss by forcing the blood to the brain and it humiliated the person. This type of torture could last for several hours. Some of the victims would be cut completely in half, while some would only be cut up to their abdomen in order to prolong their deaths.

Most insane marriage rituals

2012-04-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Marrying animals to exorcise ghostsPracticed in: some regions of India

The Western culture is no stranger to superstition, especially during a wedding. Most brides would sooner set fire to the church and postpone the ceremony than to get married without something old, new, borrowed and blue. And don’t even think about trying to catch a glimpse of your wife-to-be before the nuptials or that’s 3 stitches to the temple right there on the spot.
But the Santhal tribe in India decided to one-up us all and cranked the wedding-crazy dial all the way up to 11. They believe that if a baby girl has a tooth rooted to her upper gum, it’s the obvious sign she will be eaten by a tiger or something in the near future, because ghosts hate her. Therefore, she
must marry a dog. Such was the story of Karnamoni Handsa, a 9-year-old Indian girl who “married” the local stray Bacchan amidst the dancing and cheers of her 100 guests getting shitfaced on home-made booze. Huh… Somehow the presence of moonshine in a cross-species wedding is not surprising in the least…
The good news is, this is nothing but a mock ceremony and the couple don’t have to consummate the wedding. It’s just to ward off the evil spirits so the girl can marry a real boy some time later. Thank God, otherwise this exorcism ritual between a child and a canine would have been really weird.

Blackening of the bride
Practiced in: Scotland

In many ways the Scottish people are just like your typical Europeans but with a few notable quirks: they eat sheep entrails, wear male-skirts and instead of rice, they throw stinking crud like eggs and sauces on their brides.
This custom is called the “blackening of the bride”, a very old Scottish tradition; some say even older than Sean Connery himself. It’s part of a hazing ritual that actually happens before the wedding. The bride is taken by surprise, by hands down the crummiest friends you could have, and covered from head to toe with all kinds of crap. It can be anything: spoiled milk from the back of your fridge right down to tar and feathers. It serves 2 possible purposes. Either it gets the men in the proper mood, (assuming all Scots have a fetish of homeless chicks who never bathe), or it helps the women deal with the prospect of marriage, because nothing that will happen to them from that point on will be as cruel or humiliating as the blackening.
It’s sort of like punching your bride right before saying “I do”. No amount of douchebaggery you pull off later in life will ever amount to that, so your lady will at least not be disappointed or, at best, pleasantly surprised. Man, the Scots have this marriage thing figured out.

Fat Farms
Practiced in: Mauritania (Africa)

There are different standards of beauty in every part of the world. For example, despite the majority of Western brides stopping short of having their kidneys removed to lose weight before the big day, some cultures actually find huskier women more attractive…. and are prepared to go to disturbing lengths to put more junk in their women’s trunks. Enter the Mauritanian Fat Farms.
Fat Farms are sort of the opposite of Fat Camps – a place where brides as young as five are sent to gain weight under the watchful eyes of wrinkled old crones, in order to become more attractive and get married as soon as possible. In the practice known as Leblouh, the girls are force fed a truckload of food—which might include more than 4 pounds of millet and 5 gallons of camel milk a day—and if they vomit, the supervising hags force them to eat it up. Failure to comply is reportedly often met with torture. So OK, maybe those places are not that different from Fat Camps.
The sad part is, this practice has virtually disappeared until a couple of years ago when a military junta took over the country and reinstated it, probably hoping that fatter women will be easier to catch or something. Not like anyone would sleep with them otherwise, being a bunch of civilian-terrorizing assholes with grenade launchers.

No shitting
Practiced in: parts of Malaysia

There is nothing more beautiful than a wedding. It is after all the couple’s first day as two happily married people, surrounded by friends, flowers and fancy foods. But for the tribes of the Tidong community in northern Borneo, a wedding is the first day of a grueling journey to the deepest levels of Hell and back. It’s the day when the couple must stop pooping for 72 hours.
The Tidong tradition dictates that a newly married couple be confined to their house and not empty their bowels or urinate under any possible circumstances for the entirety of 3 nights and 3 days. That’s why they are often carefully watched over by family members and given very little food or water. The Tidong people believe that if the couple makes it, they will lead a happy and long life with lots of non-dead children, so the stakes are pretty high here.
When you think about it, there is a spark of genius in this practice. Nothing binds 2 people for life like going through difficult times together, and there is nothing more difficult than being denied to go to the bathroom for nearly half a week. When the 3 days are up, these people will be closer to each other than ever before, because they will no longer be just husband and wife… They will be poop buddies.

Bride Kidnappings
Practiced in: The Roma communities (all over the world)

Most unions can trace their beginnings to that one special night at a frat kegger when the couple first met their gaze in a crowded room and forever cemented their fate by a quicky in the backseat and a broken condom. Some cultures however decided to skip all this romantic crap and go from the “total strangers” phase straight to marriage in one messed-up leap of criminal activity: kidnapping the bride.
The Romani, also known as Gypsies, for centuries have had this tradition, that if you manage to forcefully kidnap a girl and keep her by your side for 2-3 days, she officially becomes your wife. Long ago this probably made a lot sense, as it helped you avoid buying the bride off the parents or having Thanksgiving dinner with them every year. But even in this day and age it’s not viewed as anything strange in the Roma culture, and many women simply go with the fact that the overweight guy, who cornered them with a bottle of chloroform at a McDonald’s lady’s bathroom, is now the love of their life.
Some of you are probably wondering, how in the f**k is this legal? Well, it’s a cultural practice of a large ethnic minority and most governments would rather start flossing with razor wire than to commit the PR equivalent of suicide by banning a minority tradition.

Most bizarre competitions

2012-04-28T00:34:00.002-07:00

High Heel Marathon

High heel race is an unusual event, which is held in many cities, such as Sydney, Paris, Moscow and Amsterdam. But the citizens of Milan were lucky most of all – not every day the winner of such race gets a couple of delicious, lust luxury open-toe sandals from Manolo Blahnik.
Up to 300 girls took part at this competition who must overcome a distance of 80 m running on high heels. The heels should be a minimum 7 cm height and 1.5 cm in diameter. All these fashion
sacrifices make only with the aim to get a pair of sandals from the shoe master Manolo Blanik. The winner in the Milan race was not single, but three which means that these three lucky women became the owner of the most elegant heels in the world.

Wolf-whistle Contest

These days, any builder foolhardy enough to wolf-whistle at a passing woman is likely to get a slap in the face for his trouble – but not in County Fermanagh town. In 2009 Irvinestown played host to Ireland’s first ever wolf-whistling championships, complete with scaffolding, hard hats, and plenty of women. The men of the town were more than eager to show their appreciation of the fairer sex, eagerly donning hard hats and lining up along the pavement to demonstrate their whistling skills.
They had a lot to whistle for. Part of the annual Lady of the Lake Festival, the parade through the streets was led by 2009 year’s ‘lady’, beautician Claire Timlin. The politically incorrect competition was the work of festival organizer, and whistling devotee, Joe Mahon. Joe’s years of experience stood him in good stead when asked to pick a winner out of the fine whistles in competition in Irvinestown.
Mahon chose a married man, local butcher Stephen Millar, as the champion wolf-whistler who, like Mahon, credits the technique for getting him a wife.

Hot Water Bottle Nose Bust Competition

In 2009 during a competition in Tbilisi, Georgia, 18-year-old Jemal Tkeshelashvili managed to burst three hot rubber bottles. One in 23 seconds, the second in 16 seconds, and his last bottle in only 13 seconds. He even blew one up while a man sat on top of it. He set a new record for the quickest burst at 13 seconds.
The previous record for blowing up a standard hot water bottle until it bursts was 51.98 seconds set by Brian Jackson from the United States in April 2006.

Gurning Competition

Gurning contests are a rural English tradition. By far the most notable that is held annually at the Egremont Crab Fair, which dates back to 1267 when King Henry III granted the fair a Royal Charter. The origins of the gurning competition itself are unclear, and may not be so old, although it was described as an ancient tradition by local newspaper the Cumberland Paquet in 1852. The competitions are held regularly in some villages, with contestants traditionally framing their faces through a horse collar — known as “gurnin’ through a braffin’.” The World Gurning Championship takes place annually at the same crab fair in Egremont, Cumbria. Those with the greatest gurn capabilities are often those with no teeth, as this provides greater room to move the jaw further up. In some cases, the elderly or otherwise toothless can be capable of spectacular gurns covering the entire nose.
Peter Jackman became England’s best-known gurner, winning the world championship four times, beginning in 1998 with a face called the “Bela Lugosi.” He had his teeth removed in 2000 to make his features easier to manoeuvre. Three years later, he died playing golf in Spain when a cliff face collapsed underneath him. ‘Rubber Faced’ Grant Owens then took the vacant crown by performing the unprecedented, and rarely seen, treble gurn. Owens states the reason for this is his extra large bottom lip which he used to be able to nestle polos in when he was a child.

Unemployment Championship

The increasing ranks of the unemployed today aren’t just sitting around the house feeling sorry for themselves. A group of the recently job-deprived gathered in New York City’s East Village on Tuesday, March 31 2009, for an event described as the Unemployment Olympics. A laid-off computer programmer came up with the idea to lift spirits of the jobless. Some 20 contestants took part in events such as Pin The Blame On The Boss, Office Phone Skee-Ball, Office Phone Pinata, and the “You’re Fired!” race to the cardboard Unemployment Office. Phone Skee-Ball, where an old office phone was tossed across the park for points, drew much fanfare and even had students from P.S. 34 cheering participants on. Phone Pinata, which involved hitting a pinata with an office phone, only took two strikes to burst. Unfortunately, the much anticipated Fax Toss, which reminded everyone of the infamous scene in Office Space, was canceled at the last moment due to Parks Department concerns over tossing large office equipment around.

Weird taxes

2012-04-26T03:00:00.005-07:00

Soul tax

Peter the Great, czar of Russia, imposed a tax on souls in 1718, meaning everybody had to pay it (it’s similar to a head tax or a poll tax). Peter was antireligious (he was an avid fan of Voltaire and other secular humanist philosophers), but agreeing with him didn’t excuse anyone from paying the tax—if you didn’t believe humans had a soul, you still had to pay a “religious dissenters” tax. Peter also taxed beards, beehives, horse collars, hats, boots, basements, chimneys, food, clothing, all males, as well as birth, marriage, and even burial.

Witchcraft tax

Like many countries, Romania is in a recession so it’s doing whatever it can to raise revenue. This year, the Romanian government identified a new source of heretofore untaxed profession: witches! Naturally, the witches aren’t taking this laying down and are planning to use cat excrement and dead dogs to cast spells on the president and government. Under the law, like any self-employed person, the witches must pay 16 percent income tax and make contributions to health and pension programs.
Also among Romania’s newest taxpayers are fortune tellers — but they probably should have seen it coming.
Tattoo tax

Since 2005, anyone in Arkansas wanting to get an eagle etched on their abs or a nose ring notched in their nostrils will have to pay an additional 6 percent, as the state included tattooing and body piercing in its list of services subject to sales taxes. Electrolysis treatments count, too.
Wig powder tax

In 1795, powdered wigs were all the rage in men’s fashion. Desperate for income to pay for military campaigns abroad, British prime minister William Pitt the Younger levied a tax on wig powder. Although the tax was short-lived due to the protests against it, it did ultimately have the effect of changing men’s fashions. By 1820 powdered wigs were out of style.

Flush tax

You pee, you poo, you pay. In 2004, the Maryland Legislature took a major step towards protecting the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, when it passed what has become known as “the flush tax”.
The bill established the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Restoration Fund to be supported by a $2.50 a month fee on sewer bills and an equivalent $30 annual fee on septic system owners. Utilities customers saw a new line item on their quarterly bills beginning January 1, 2005 for $7.50 per quarter ($2.50 per month). These funds are collected by the County and turned over to the State who distributes the funds to utilities to upgrade wastewater treatment plants to reduce nitrogen discharge which causes algae blooms that harm fish, crabs, native plants and other aquatic life. The revenues from septic tank users are used to upgrade or replace failing septic systems and to provide financial assistance to farmers to help plant cover crops to prevent nutrient runoff from agricultural land.

Bizarre doll houses

2012-04-24T04:08:00.004-07:00

$82,000 English Doll House

A dollhouse selling for a big sum of $82,000 is bound to create waves in the news world. We hear that the exquisiteness of this stunning toy is such that it will capture the heart of anyone who lays their eyes on it. Complete with the tiniest of detail been taken care of, the scale down version of a well-furnished home took 15 years of labour to be completed.

The doll house resembles a traditional English house complete with all the regular fixtures of a bath, bedroom, dining room, hallway and a living room. Little extravagances like the chandeliers also find their way in here. The maker of this small splendor has made more money than those selling several real homes in the UK.

Kaleidoscope Doll House

The Bozart Kaleidoscope Dollhouse designed by PMW Architects in 2001 was perhaps the coolest doll house ever. A 1:12 scale multi-level modernist dream, it featured colorful sliding transparent walls that changed cover when overlapped. In addition, modern furniture collections and action figures from well-known designers could be purchased. Now available only on auction sites, they sell quickly for upwards of a $1000.

Dust Doll House

Dust bunnies yes, but dust houses? I don’t know about you but this sure is too cool for me!
“Save those dust!” — Maria Adelaida Lopez, a Master’s degree in art school, cleaned houses to support herself through the art school, intricately created this unique series of ‘Dust Houses’ that are doll houses & are covered over in vacuum cleaner lint. At present she is an artist & educator in Miami, no longer cleans houses for others. Well, the dust sure helped!

Henry Colbert’s Doll House

Henry Colbert is the designer of this 1930′s Art Deco master piece. He makes a few houses a year and there’s a way to get on a waiting list. I’ve heard that they cost about $6,000 but I’m not sure if that’s true. All sold houses have been unique since the customers always wanted to make changes on his design. He’s also making bathroom furniture in 1930′s style in various colors.

Frida Khalo Doll House

Cuban-American artist Elsa Mora created this lovely miniature doll house featuring artist Frida Kahlo.

Most bizarre showers

2012-04-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

The 18-head Shower

With all of the crazy inventions people come up with today, it comes as no surprise that this baby would be invented. What? You want to be freakishly clean and you enjoy a solid stream of water to caress your nether-regions? Well, look no more! As you can see in the picture, this shower does enjoy the advantage of sporting 18 different shower heads. With adjustable settings (i.e. temperature, water pressure, etc.), you really can’t go wrong with this. Oh wait, yes you can. How? Well, one only needs to look at its price tag. $100,000. Yes, that is 5 zeros you are looking at. I need to find
someone who has this and see if they will give me a spin in it.

Colour Phasing Shower Light

This is shower head with a temperature controlled light so you will never burn your bottom again. Temperature changes from green (when the temperature is less than 32C) to red (at more than 45C). The phasing colours in between are blue, orange, purple and pink.

Deer Stag Shower

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a shower with a deer stag head spewing water onto you? Now you can. This porcelain version was unveiled at Milan Design Week 2010. I’ve no idea what such a design would even cost, but it’s safe to assume it won’t be showing up in the fixtures aisle of your local Home Depot anytime soon.

Aquarium Shower

This totally baller shower enclosure called Plano Acquario by Cesena has a real aquarium built right into one of the walls. How cool would it be to be standing in the shower under a flow of water while watching fish swim around you? Very relaxing. They say you can put a TV or a bookshelf in there instead of the fish tank but what fun would that be?

Viteo Garden Shower

The Viteo Garden Shower begins a gentle, meter high shower as soon as you step on its white platform a little over four inches high. What’s interesting about it is that instead of water coming down on top of you; it springs up from below, fountain style. Honored with the iF Product Design Award 2007, the white platform is made from a stainless steel frame base, sturdy UV-resistant ABS plastic white skin and slip-resistant tread. Sandwiched in between are springs which take a light load of about 33 pounds in order to activate the valve which causes water to spray from an inner channel system to 16 fine cone shaped jets. The result is a gentle cone of water from 2 to 4 meters (6ft to 13ft). And while the gushing flow of cold water from your tap may prove rather startling, not nearly as so as the cool $930US price tag.

Most famous military commanders

2012-04-20T01:17:00.003-07:00

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon was a General during the French Revolution. He would eventually take absolute control of the French Republic as Emperor of the French. He became King of Italy, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. He reformed the government and economy of the island of Elba when he was exiled there.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caeser took absolute control of the Roman Republic and it’s armies. He defeated the optimates led by Pompey in a Civil War, and defeated the Gauls at the battle of Alecia during the Gallics Wars, led by Vercingetorix who had united them against the Romans. He was ultimately murdered by Brutus.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world by the age of 30. He crushed the once mighty Persian Empire, defeated the much larger army of Darius III at the battle of Issus, and influenced the spread of Hellenistic culture throughout his empire. Alexander mastered the use of the phalanx formation in his armies.

Cyrus the Great

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian Empire through his conquering of the Median, Lydian and Neo-Babylonian Empires. His empire spanned across three continents. Unlike many others, his empire endured long after his demise due to the political infrastructure he created. He is considered by many to be equal if not greater than Alexander the Great in his accomplishments.

Hannibal Barca

Hannibal invaded the mighty Roman Empire through the Alps. He defeated the Romans in a series of battles at Trebia, Trasimene and Cannae. Never personally losing on the battlefield to the Romans, he maintained his Carthaginian army in Italy for more than a decade after the Second Punic War. He is considered one of the greatest military strategists ever, his Roman enemies even adopted some of his tactics for their own use

The best cults

2012-04-19T08:53:00.001-07:00

The full name of this cult is the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a breakaway group from the Roman Catholic Church that formed in Uganda in the late 1980s. As the name implies the group strongly emphasized the Ten Commandments. This emphasis meant they even discouraged talking: out of fear of breaking the commandment about giving false witness. They also believed that their strict adherence to the Ten Commandments would be advantageous after the apocalypse.
In March of 2000, around 300 followers died in a fire in what is considered a cult suicide. Investigations conducted after the fire discovered mass graves, raising the death toll to over 1,000. This may mean it was larger than the Jonestown murder/suicide in 1978, but some speculate the death toll was around 800. There are also allegations that the event was more of a mass murder by the leadership.

Aum Shinrikyo, is a Japanese religious group founded by Shoko Asahara. The group gained international notoriety in 1995, when it carried out a Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subways. In 2000 the organization changed its name to “Aleph” (the first letter of the Hebrew and Arabic alphabet), changing its logo as well. In 1995 the group had 9,000 members in Japan, and as many as 40,000 worldwide. As of 2004 Aum Shinrikyo/Aleph membership was estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 people.
The movement was founded by Shoko Asahara in his one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward in 1984, starting off as a Yoga and meditation class known as Aum-no-kai and steadily grew in the following years. It gained the official status as a religious organization in 1989. It attracted such a considerable number of young graduates from Japan’s elite universities that it was dubbed a “religion for the elite”. Aum’s PR activities included publishing. In Japan, where comics and animated cartoons enjoy unprecedented popularity among all ages, Aum attempted to tie religious ideas to popular anime and manga themes – space missions, extremely powerful weapons, world conspiracies and conquest for ultimate truth.
At the end of 1993 the cult started secretly manufacturing the nerve agent sarin and later VX gas. They also attempted to manufacture 1000 automatic rifles but only managed to make one. Aum tested their sarin on sheep at a remote ranch in Western Australia, killing 29 sheep. Both sarin and VX were then used in several assassinations (and attempts) over 1994-1995. Most notably on the night of 27th June 1994, the cult carried out the world’s first use of chemical weapons in a terrorist attack against civilians when they released sarin in the central Japanese city of Matsumoto. This Matsumoto incident killed seven and harmed 200 more. However, police investigations focused only on an innocent local resident and failed to implicate the cult. 11 cult members have been sentenced to death, although none of the sentences have been carried out, nor the time and date for the executions to take effect has been publicly established.

The Manson Family was a cult started by Charles Manson. Manson was born to Kathleen Maddox, an unwed sixteen year old girl, in 1934. It is said that his mother, an alcoholic, sold him to buy beer. When he was returned to her she had him sent to a boarding school. After a number of years living with his religious aunt and uncle, he returned to his mother who rejected him. After a number of robberies, he was put in jail for the first time. One month before his parole hearing in 1952, he raped a boy in jail by holding a razor to his throat. Two years later he was paroled. Manson began to pimp a young woman he met and eventually took her, and a second woman to New Mexico to work for him as prostitutes. He was caught and tried under the Mann Act (a 1910 act that prohibited white slavery and trafficking for immoral means).
In 1967 he was released (having spent more than half of his life in institutions). Upon release, he requested permission to move to San Francisco which was granted. When he arrived he became part of the Hippie movement centered around the Haight-Ashbury region and he set himself up as a guru. He moved in with 23 year old student Mary Brunner and convinced her to allow other women to join them. Eventually eighteen other women were living with them – this was the beginning of the family.
By 1968, Manson had established a home for the “family” at a ranch owned by George Spahn. Manson convinced one of the family members, Lynette Fromme, to sleep with Spahn in order to get free rent. Manson began teaching his followers that social uprisings were coming – using the assassination of Martin Luther King as evidence. He also told them that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by The Beatles. The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code; in fact, he maintained, the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.
In 1969, on August 8, Manson told Family members at Spahn Ranch, “now is the time for Helter Skelter.” That evening the family, under the direction of Manson, would commit the famous murder of Sharon Tate, leading to other murders over the two day period.

The Church of Bible Understanding (formerly known as the Forever Family) is a destructive cult started in 1971 by former atheist and vacuum repairman Stewart Traill in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The cult targeted teens as young as 13 by drawing on their weaknesses. Throughout the 1970s, the cult expanded to many other parts of the United States.
Traill, born in Quebec in 1936 is the son of a Presbyterian minister, who teaches that he is the reincarnation of Elijah, and that he knows the date of the return of Christ. Members of the cult live in a commune and donate 90% of their income to the cult. Traill amassed a fortune and owns four planes and a half million dollar mansion. According to former members, Traill controls every aspect of members’ lives through harsh criticism, shame, and public humiliation.

Raëlism or Raelian Church is a UFO religion founded by a purported contactee named Claude Vorilhon, who is known recently for supporting Clonaid’s claim that an American woman underwent a standard cloning procedure, which led to the birth of her new daughter Eve in December 26, 2002. National authorities, mainstream media, and young adults have increasingly investigated the church’s activities as a result of controversial statements by Clonaid’s head Brigitte Boisselier the day after.
Members of the Raëlian Church consist of people who have been baptized by Raëlian clergy in quarterly ceremonies, and among the converts are members of Raëlian-founded free love groups such as the Order of Angels and Raël’s Girls. The organization—which preaches a sensual philosophy and a physicalist explanation of the origin of life—could have as many as sixty-five thousand members.
Raëlians emphasize secular and hedonistic ideas, rather than worshiping a supreme metaphysical deity.[30] The Raëlian Church members follow a UFO religion that favors a strong version of physicalism – the belief that everything consists only of physical properties. Raëlians deny the existence of the ethereal soul and a supernatural god, and believe that the mind is a function of matter alone. This ties into their belief that mind transfer is possible and that it will be possible to create an identical human clone in terms of mind and personality—as long as the clone and the original are not alive at the same time.

Most evil disney villains

2012-04-17T05:44:00.006-07:00

Jafar
Aladdin

The evil sorcerer is seen in his advisor attire in a majority of the movie. However, he goes through quite a few transformations. These include: an old cripple, sultan, cobra and a frightening genie. He pretends to be a faithful advisor to the Sultan in an attempt to steal his throne and rule Agrabah.

Ursula
The Little Mermaid

This manipulative, lip-pouting octopus has a mean hobby of collecting souls so that they can suffer in misery for the rest of their existence. She manipulates Ariel with empty promises in order to collect her soul and lure King Triton in the process.

Scar
The Lion King

The evil brother of Mufasa will do anything to become King of the Pride Lands, even if it means killing his brother and his nephew Simba. Although he only succeeds in murdering Mufasa, he convinces his nephew that it was his fault, leaving Simba to live with the guilt of his father’s death and tells the cub to “run far away, Simba, and never come back.”

The Queen
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

When “the fairest of them all” reaches an age where her radiance is fading, she plots to have her stepdaughter Snow White killed and demands that she have her heart to feed on. She even uses witchcraft to transform into an old lady which allows her to give a poisoned apple to a naive Snow White.

Maleficent
Sleeping Beauty

Maleficent’s evil knows no bounds as all of her insidious plans are devised out of spite. The malicious enchantress casts a spell on Aurora to ensure that “Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday, she shall prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die.” With her devil-like horns, she is easily seen as the most evil villain of all. If you don’t agree, look up “maleficent” in the dictionary and the definition will be “doing evil or harm”.

Most evil womens

2012-04-14T04:37:00.001-07:00

Mary Ann Cotton Born: 1832; Died: 1873. Englishwoman Mary Ann Cotton is another for-profit serial killer, predating Belle Gunnes by thirty years. Married at age twenty to William Mowbray, the newlyweds settled in Plymouth, Devon, to start their family. The couple had five children, four of whom died of ‘gastric fever and stomach pains’. Moving back to the north-east, tragedy seemed to follow them; three more children born, three more children died. William soon followed his offspring, dying of an ‘intestinal disorder’ in January 1865. British Prudential promptly paid a 35 pound dividend, and a pattern was established. Her second husband, George Ward, died of intestinal problems as well as one of her two remaining children. The power of the press, always a force to be reckoned with, caught up with Mary Ann. The local newspapers discovered that as Mary Ann moved around northern England, she lost three husbands, a lover, a friend, her mother and a dozen children, all dying of stomach fever. She was hanged at Durham County Gaol, March 24, 1873, for murder by arsenic poisoning. She died slowly, the hangman using too short a drop for a ‘clean’ execution.

Ilse Koch Born: 1906; Died: 1967. “Die Hexe von Buchenwald” the Witch of Buchenwald, or “Buchenwälder Schlampe” the Bitch of Buchenwald was the wife of Karl Koch, commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald from 1937 to 1941, and Majdanek from 1941 to 1943. Drunk on the absolute power rendered by her husband, she reveled in torture and obscenity. Infamous for her souvenirs; tattoos taken from the murdered inmates, her reputation for debauchery was well earned. After building an indoor sports arena in 1940, with 250,000 marks stolen from inmates, Ilsa was promoted to Oberaufseherin or “chief overseer” of the few female guards at Buchenwald. She committed suicide by hanging herself at Aichach women’s prison on September 1, 1967.

Irma Grese Born: 1923; Died: 1945. Another product of the Nazi’s final solution, Irma Grese or the “Bitch of Belsen” was a guard at concentration camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Transferred to Auschwitz in 1943, (she must have shown particular enthusiasm and dedication to the job), she was promoted to Senior Supervisor, the 2nd highest ranking female in camp, by the end of the year. In charge of over 30,000 Jewish female prisoners, she reveled in her work. Her work included; savaging of prisoners by her trained and half starved dogs, sexual excesses, arbitrary shootings, sadistic beatings with a plaited whip, and selecting prisoners for the gas chamber. She enjoyed both physical and emotional torture and habitually wore heavy boots and carried a pistol to facilitate both.

Legendary Michael Jackson

2012-04-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, Jackson promised to record a song about the disaster to aid charity. He worked on the project with artists from London and Los Angeles, according to reports in the autumn of 2005 — but the single never eventuated.

Neverland

Jackson’s home “Neverland” contained, among other things, a zoo and a theme park, with a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, zipper, spider, sea dragon, wave swinger, super slide, dragon wagon kiddie roller coaster, and bumper cars. It is named after Neverland, the fantasy island in the story of Peter Pan, where children never grow up. On February 25, 2008, Jackson received word from Financial Title Company, the trustee, that unless he paid off $24,525,906.61 by March 19, a public auction would go forward of the land, buildings, and other items such as the rides, trains, and art. On May 12, 2008, a foreclosure auction for the ranch was canceled after an investment company, Colony Capital LLC, purchased the loan. Jackson was in default on the $24.5 million owed on the 2,500-acre (10 km2) property. In a press release, Jackson stated, “I am pleased with recent developments involving Neverland Ranch and I am in discussions with Colony and Tom Barrack with regard to the Ranch and other matters that would allow me to focus on the future.”

Balcony Baby

In 2002, Jackson brought his new born son (Prince Michael Jackson II – also known as Blanket) onto the balcony of his hotel room in Berlin, as fans stood below. Holding him in his right arm, with a cloth loosely draped over the baby’s face, Jackson briefly extended the baby over the railing of the balcony, four stories above ground level, causing widespread criticism in the media. Jackson later apologized for the incident, calling it “a terrible mistake”.

Child Abuse

This is undoubtedly the most controversial scandal that occurred in Michael Jackson’s life. In 2003, Jackson was charged with seven counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent in order to commit a child sexual abuse felony against Gavin Arvizo, who was under 14 at the time. Earlier that year, a Granada Television documentary, called Living with Michael Jackson, showed the pop star holding hands and discussing sleeping arrangements with Arvizo. Jackson denied these allegations, saying that the sleepovers were in no way sexual in nature. Jackson was found not guilty but this ultimately ended his music career.

Cosmetic Surgery

In 1979, Jackson broke his nose during a complex dance routine. His subsequent rhinoplasty surgery was not a complete success; he complained of breathing difficulties that would affect his career. He was referred to Dr. Steven Hoefflin, who performed Jackson’s second rhinoplasty and other subsequent operations. Many believe that he used this as an excuse to get a nose job. In 1993, the popstar stated that he had only had two cosmetic operations – on his nose and chin – done, for medical reasons. His extreme physical transformation suggests that he’s had more than just two, however.

Night club fires

2012-04-11T02:48:00.001-07:00

Beverly Hills Supper Club. The Beverly Hills Supper Club fire is the third deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history. It occurred on the night of May 28, 1977, during the Memorial Day weekend. 165 persons died and over 200 were injured as a result of the blaze. Located in Southgate, Kentucky, The Beverly Hills Super Club was a major attraction, drawing headline talent from Las Vegas, Hollywood, and New York. That night’s entertainment was singer and actor John Davidson. The building had been a popular night spot since 1937 and by the time of the fire in 1977, several additions had created a sprawling complex of rooms, corridors, and service areas connected by narrow corridors.
More than 3,000 guests and staff were inside the club on the evening of the fire. The main show was in the Cabaret Room and it was estimated that over 1,300 patrons had been squeezed into the room. Other guests were in several restaurants, bars, private party rooms, and other rooms. Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 PM, a fire started in the Zebra Room which had hosted a wedding reception. The fire was discovered around 9:00 AM by waitresses. Attempts were made to control the fire with fire extinguishers, but it was too late. The cause of the fire was never completely determined though it is thought that the use of aluminum wiring may have contributed.
At 9:08 PM, busboy Walter Bailey interrupted the show in the Cabaret Room, taking the stage to ask patrons to leave and pointing out the exits to the left and right of the stage. Some of the spectators obeyed and began to leave the Cabaret Room through the exits. Bailey was hailed as one of the heroes of the night, receiving official recognition and a letter from then U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Bailey said later that for years he rejected the title of hero and wondered if he’d done enough.
The fire burst into the Cabaret Room at 9:10 PM, preceded by thick smoke that spread all over the room, quickly engulfing it. Those who had not evacuated quickly panicked; many of them would be found dead piled up near the main entrance. The flames spread so rapidly that a full evacuation of the sprawling, crowded building was not possible.
Firefighters concentrated on the Cabaret Room where it was known that many people were trapped, but at midnight the roof had collapsed, and authorities doubted any more survivors would be found. John Davidson escaped via a door that had recently been constructed near the talent dressing room. His road manager also escaped, but his musical director perished.

República Cromañón. The República Cromañón nightclub was located in Buenos Aires, Argentina. On December 30, 2004, a fire started inside the club because of the unsafe use of fireworks/pyrotechnics. The fireworks, as we have seen before, ignited highly flammable construction and decorating materials, in this case, a plastic net hung from the ceiling, and foam material . Elsewhere in the building, flammable teddy bear stuffing was used as a cheap alternative to fiberglass or rock wool. Approximately 3,000 people were inside the club when the fire started and 194 were killed, another 714 were injured. Where there are pyrotechnic displays, there are usually bands and this fire was no exception. This night, the club was being playing by the rock group Callejeros. The club owner and the band’s lead singer had told the patrons not to use flares inside the building, to no avail. As always seems to be the case with nightclub fires, four of the six doors, some of which were fire exits, were chained shut so that “people would not enter without paying”. Most of the victims died from inhaling poisonous gases, smoke and carbon monoxide. The band members escaped with their lives.

Rhythm Night Club. The two deadliest nightclub fires in US history are bookended around the start of the second world war. The second deadliest, the Rhythm Night Club fire, happened on April 23, 1940, barely 18 months before Pearl Harbor. The nightclub was located in Natchez, Mississippi and the fire killed 209 African-American party goers, while severely injuring many others.
The fire started sometime around 11:30 p.m. as members of the local Moneywasters Social Club were enjoying the song “Clarinet Lullaby” performed by Walter Barnes and His Royal Creolians orchestra from Chicago. The fire started at the main entrance door of the building and quickly engulfed the structure in flames. Foretelling future nightclub fire disasters, flammable materials contributed to the speed and intensity of the fire, in this case, decorative Spanish moss was draped over the rafters. When burning, the moss generated flammable methane gas which fueled the fire. With windows boarded up to prevent outsiders from viewing or listening to the music, more than 300 people struggled to escape the building. A few managed to escape but most died from smoke inhalation or were crushed in the stampede to escape. Bandleader Barnes and nine members of his band were among the victims. Only three band members survived, one vowing never to play again. The cause of the fire is unknown but thought to be accidental, possibly related to a carelessly discarded match or cigarette.

Cocoanut Grove. The worst nightclub fire in US history also happened near the start of the second world war when the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, Massachusetts caught fire on the night of November 28, 1942. Almost a year after Pearl Harbor, the nightclub was filled with US military service men and their guests and locals when the fire started. 492 people were killed that night and hundreds more were injured. It is also the second-worst single-building fire in American history; only the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago in 1903 killed more (602). The tragedy shocked the nation and briefly replaced World War II in news headlines. The fire led to a reform of fire codes and safety standards across the country.
The Cocoanut Grove was filled with approximately 1,000 occupants that evening, more than twice its official capacity of 460.
Fire officials later testified that, had the doors swung outwards, at least 300 lives could have been spared.

The Station. Perhaps the best known recent nightclub disaster was The Station nightclub fire. The fire at the Station was captured on video and images of the horror which unfolded were seen around the world. Perhaps the other reason this nightclub fire is so well known is because of the band that was playing The Station that night – the very popular, Great White. The fire began at 11:07 PM on Thursday, February 20, 2003. The Station was a rock n roll themed nightclub located in West Warwick, Rhode Island. One hundred people died in the fire, making The Station fire the fourth deadliest nightclub fire in American history, As we have seen time and time again, the fire was caused when pyrotechnic sparks, set off by the Great White tour manager, ignited flammable sound insulation foam in the walls and ceilings around the stage. This created a flash fire that engulfed the club in 5 1/2 minutes. Some 230 people were injured and another 132 escaped.

Incredible theoretical megastructures

2012-04-11T02:29:00.001-07:00

Stellar Engine. Stellar engines are a class of hypothetical megastructures which use a star’s radiation to create usable energy. Some variants use this energy to produce thrust, and thus accelerate a star, and anything orbiting it, in a given direction. The creation of such a system would make its builders a Type-II civilization on the Kardashev scale (a method of measuring a civilization’s level of technological advancement). The three classes of engine are:
A class A stellar engine is a stellar propulsion system, consisting of an enormous mirror/light sail — actually a massive type of solar statite large enough to classify as a megastructure, probably by an order of magnitude.
A class B stellar engine is a Dyson sphere (item 3), which uses the difference in temperature between the star and the interstellar medium to extract usable energy from the system.
A class C stellar engine combines the two other classes, employing both the propulsive aspects of the Shkadov thruster, and the energy generating aspects of a Class B engine.

Matrioshka brain. This structure would be composed of one or more (typically more) Dyson spheres built around a star, and nested one inside another. A significant percentage of the shells would be composed of nanoscale computers. These computers would be at least partly powered by the energy exchange between the star and interstellar space. A shell (or component, should a Dyson swarm be the design model used) would absorb energy radiated onto its inner surface, utilize that energy to power its computer systems, and re-radiate the energy outwards.
The ideal mechanism for extracting usable energy as it passes “through” a shell or component, the number of shells (or orbital levels) that could be supported in such a manner, the ideal size of the shells to be constructed, and other details, are all issues of speculation.
The idea of the matrioshka brain violates none of the currently known laws of physics, although the engineering details of building such a structure would be staggering, as such a project would require the “disassembly” of significant portions (if not all) of the planetary system of the star for construction materials.

Dyson Sphere. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure originally described by Freeman Dyson. Such a “sphere” would be a system of orbiting solar power satellites meant to completely encompass a star and capture most or all of its energy output. Since then, other variant designs involving building an artificial structure — or a series of structures — to encompass a star have been proposed in exploratory engineering or described in science fiction under the name “Dyson sphere”. These later proposals have not been limited to solar power stations — many involve habitation or industrial elements. Most fictional depictions describe a solid shell of matter enclosing a star, which is considered the least plausible variant of the idea.

Alderson disk. The Alderson disk (named after Dan Alderson, its originator) is an artificial astronomical megastructure, like Niven’s Ringworld or a Dyson sphere. The disk is a giant platter, like a CD or phonograph record, with a thickness of several thousand miles. The sun rests in the hole at the center of the disk. The outer radius of an Alderson disk would be roughly equivalent to the orbit of Mars or Jupiter. According to the proposal, a sufficiently massive disk would have a larger mass than its sun. One drawback to a disk is that the sun remains stationary. There is no day/night cycle, only a perpetual twilight. This could be solved by forcing the sun to bob up and down within the disk, lighting first one side then the other.

Ringworld. Finally, the Ringworld, It is an artificial ring with a radius roughly equal to the radius of the Earth’s orbit. A star is present in the center and the ring spins to provide artificial gravity.
The Ringworld is described as having a mass approximately equal to the sum of all the planets in our solar system. The adventurers surmised that its construction consumed literally all the planets in that original system, down to the last asteroid and/or moon, as the Ringworld star has no other bodies in orbit. In Ringworld’s Children it is additionally explained that it took the reaction mass of roughly 20 Jupiter masses to spin up the ring; thus either the combined mass of the planets of the original system was that much larger than our solar system’s, or there was other source material.
The construction of a ringworld remains firmly in the area of speculation. If such a structure were built it could indeed provide a huge habitable inner surface, but the energy required to construct it, set it rotating, and keep it stabilized is so significant (several centuries’ worth of the total energy output from the Sun) that without as-yet unimagined energy sources becoming available, it is hard to see how this construction could ever be possible in a time frame acceptable to humans.

Amazing cities

2012-04-11T02:20:00.000-07:00

Minnesota Experimental City. The Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) was the brainchild of a private partnership between the University of Minnesota and the Federal Government in the 1960s and would be intentionally open to observation and evaluation by urban studies experts. Like its name suggests, the city would be a combination of experimental ideas never before tried on such a large scale.The city would accommodate about 250,000 people, and it would focus on open spaces such as parks, farms, and wilderness. Only one sixth of the area would be paved and the city would be partially covered by a geodesic dome (designed by Buckminster Fuller). This design is extraordinarily strong, is hurricane and tornado proof, and is widely used today. The city would be car-free, with cars parked at the edge and people-movers whisking people into the center of the city. A futuristic and highly advanced automated highway system, in which magnetic, driverless cars were used, would connect people to the outside world.
Perhaps the most drastic and controversial departure from conventional cities was that there would be no schools. Instead, the practice of lifelong learning would be practiced. Lifelong learning states that everyone is a teacher as well as a student and that education takes place through social interactions, observations, and joining groups and clubs among other things.

Budgetary problems as well as logistics quashed the city’s groundbreaking.

Welthauptstadt. Welthauptstadt Germania (World Capital Germania) was to be the jewel of the Third Reich. Adolph Hitler, unmatched in his hubris, was convinced that Germany would become the center of Europe, and perhaps the world, and had begun to plan his capital city, which was a rebuilt Berlin, even before World War II began. His goal was to exceed the quality and splendor of other world capitals such as London, Paris, and Washington D.C.
Plans for this grandiose city included a stadium that could house 400,000 spectators, a Chancellery with a lavish hall twice as long as the one at the Palace of Versailles, the Triumphal Arch (based on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris but much, much larger), and a giant open square to be surrounded by large government buildings. The centerpiece of the new city would be the Volkshalle, or People’s Hall, which would include a humongous domed building designed by Hitler himself and chief architect Albert Speer. If this domed building was built it would still today be the largest enclosed space in the world, being sixteen times larger than the dome at St. Peter’s.
Even though the War began before construction could begin and put a halt to commencing building, all the necessary land was acquired and engineering plans were developed. Hitler’s plan was to win the war, finish construction on Welthauptstadt, hold an extravagant World’s Fair there in 1950, then retire. Needless to say, the crushing of the Nazi regime and Third Reich at the hands of Allied forces put an end to the future of the great city.
One humorous aspect of the planning of Welthauptstadt is that the marshy-like ground of Berlin never could have supported the monstrous structures Hitler wanted as the showpieces of his city.

Seward’s Success. A planned city across the bay from Anchorage, Alaska, the name was a reversal on “Seward’s Folly” which was the name bestowed on the transaction that Secretary of State William Seward made when he purchased Alaska from Russia. It was to be a city unlike any in the world.
First and foremost, it was to have a colossal, glass dome covering it which made it completely climate controlled. The city would have amenities for 400,000 citizens including a sports arena, mall, schools, and petroleum center. Transportation would be quite innovative and included moving sidewalks and an aerial cable car line that would shuttle people around the city and to nearby Anchorage. Skylights and large windows would give people the sense of openness but would not compromise the climate-controlling properties of the dome. Cars would be nonexistent inside because it was a city “for people, not cars”, and all energy used in the city would be provided mostly by natural gas. Later, plans called for a subway under the bay that would also lead to Anchorage.
Failure to make lease payments on the land, and the impracticality of it all, ensured that Seward’s Success would, in the end, not be such a success.

BoozeTown. No, this was not an insincere idea concocted by someone just to garner attention. Back in the 50s it was the dream of one man who doggedly fought to make it an actuality. It was to be a resort city completely centered around the culture of drinking, where alcohol would be embraced, loved, and revered.
Mel Johnson loved to drink. As a young man he traveled the world to see the great drinking cities: Dublin, New York, Havana, Rio, Barcelona, New Orleans, and Paris. But the drinking culture of these cities just wasn’t enough for him; he wanted something more. He was a very intelligent man who dropped out of Harvard University and served in the armed forces, but after World War II he had his epiphany and set out to create BoozeTown.
His city would be comprised of dozens upon dozens of bars and nightclubs, all with different themes. He was meticulous in his planning and fleshed out every detail. Street names would allude to alcohol, such as Gin Lane, Bourbon Boulevard, and 21st Amendment Ave; there would be a moving sidewalk and an electric trolley system which would help escort staggering drunks home (or to another bar); much of the alcohol would be brewed or distilled inside the town which would produce revenue; every bar and liquor store would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; drinks would be allowed everywhere, even banks and places of worship; the city would have its own currency, BoozeBucks; there would be a police force, the Party Police, but instead of harassing drinkers they would be there to assist them; the BoozeTown Bugle would keep citizens abreast of the current news; and no children would be allowed inside. There would be a big daycare just outside city limits for visitors. Johnson figured that the permanent populace would consist of “retirees, artists, and goof-offs”, people who wouldn’t be responsible for children in the first place. He believed that famous artists, writers, and actors would in time flock to the city to live. In the middle of the city would be a towering building shaped like a martini glass in which Johnson would have his home and headquarters.
He scouted out areas for BoozeTown, such as somewhere in Middle America, northern Nevada, and an island off of the western coast of Mexico. Johnson had money from the death of his wealthy father but he needed much more capital and held numerous, lavish fundraisers in order to raise it. He printed up a plethora of trinkets such as maps, postcards, and matchbooks with BoozeTown’s logo on them to help persuade investors. At times, he believed he had enough money and set various opening dates for his city. However, very few people were actually serious about ponying up the money Johnson needed. This, added to the fact that he was acting increasingly more erratic and eccentric, and that the press was vilifying him, basically ended his dream of BoozeTown. In 1960 he gave up on the dream and was later committed to a hospital and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He died just a few years later.

California City. While this is a city that you can visit, you will never see its original plan fulfilled. Nat Mendelsohn was a developer who had a dream of developing a city that would rival Los Angeles in terms of grandeur. He ambitiously began building on a 320 square kilometer piece of land in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert complete with a huge park and artificial lake. If one were to look at a satellite picture of the city it may seem like Mendelsohn had at least come close to realizing his dream. However, if you are to look closer you would notice something conspicuously missing – houses.
Although hundreds of streets, complete with cul-de-sacs, crisscross in one continuous, gigantic grid, the network is just one, prodigious ghost town. But at least ghost towns have structures; these streets are lined with absolutely nothing, not even a telephone pole. It kind of looks like an intricate crop circle mysteriously made in the middle of the desert or threadbare hiking paths run amok twisting through the dirt and sand.
Mendelsohn had the same idea as many real estate developers of the time. He would buy a vast amount of land, divide it into thousands of home plots, then sell them to families who longed for a piece of property to call their own. The gamble did not pay off for him however, because 50 years later decaying streets still lie there empty. One reason is that dust storms are a common occurrence in the area, but he mainly overestimated demand.
The city is not empty though. It has a population of roughly 14,000 people comprising a small town. The entire town, however, only takes up a small corner on the outskirts of the boundless, barren grid. Although it’s a town with services, it will never be a large city the likes of Los Angeles that Nat Mendelsohn conceptualized.

Grueling endurance events

2012-04-10T04:20:00.003-07:00

North Pole Marathon. By competing in the world’s coolest marathon, the North Pole Marathon, you will become one of a truly select few to race at the top of the world – at the Geographic North Pole. And you will feel on top of the world when you manage to overcome the extreme sub-zero temperatures to finish 26.2 miles in one of the remotest parts of the planet. But first you must ask yourself if you have got the nerve and drive to travel to the North Pole and run on Arctic ice floes, with 6 to 12 feet separating you from 12,000 feet of Arctic Ocean? Can you handle the extreme cold? Are you fit enough? Do you want to push yourself to the edge? If the answer is yes, then you are ready for the North Pole Marathon. Join race director Richard Donovan, the first marathoner at both the North and South Poles, in a trip of a lifetime. Remember, this marathon is not run on land – it is run ‘on’ water, frozen water, in the high Arctic Ocean.

Antarctic 100k ultra Race. The Antarctic 100k ultra race will take place on December 15th. Undoubtedly, “the world’s coldest 100”, this ultra marathon challenge is reserved for only the toughest of endurance athletes. The 100k (62.1 miles) distance will seem endless, run under a sun that never sets against the backdrop of hills, mountains and large expanses of ice. This race presents the only opportunity to complete a 100k event on the frozen continent and creates the prospect of a 100k Seven Continents Club for global ultra athletes.

Namibian 24h Ultra Marathon. The Namibian 24h Ultra Marathon is a 24 hour ultramarathon that takes the participants through one of the oldest deserts on earth, the Namib Desert. The race is a 126 km, a distance equivalent to three marathons, self reliant race where participants must carry their own equipment (food, clothes, water, GPS, maps etc see kit list). Participants in the gruelling foot race cover 126 km, a distance equivalent to three marathons, in 24 hours. During the day the heat in the desert can reach above 45 degrees Celsius, and at night the temperature can drop as low as 0 degrees Celsius. The race was inaugurated in April 2008 and will be a yearly event.

Badwater Ultramarathon. The Badwater Ultramarathon describes itself as “the world’s toughest foot race”. It is a 135 mile (215 km) course starting at 282 feet (85 m) below sea level in the Badwater Basin, in California’s Death Valley, and ending at an elevation of 8360 feet (2548 m) at Whitney Portal, the trailhead to Mount Whitney. It takes place annually in mid-July, when the weather conditions are most extreme and temperatures over 120 °F (49 °C), even in the shade, are not uncommon. Consequently, very few people—even among ultramarathoners—are capable of finishing this grueling race.

Spartathlon. The race starts at 7:00 am, usually on the last Friday each September, at the foot of the Acropolis. It runs out of Athens toward the coast and runs along the coast towards Corinth via Elefsis, Megara, and Kineta. The route reaches the Corinth Canal at 78.5 kilometers and the runners hit the first of six major check points at 81 kilometers.
After Corinth, the race heads toward Ancient Corinth, Nemea, Lyrkia and at 159 kilometers, reaches the top of Mount Parthenio. From there, it continues south toward Nestani and Tegea, before reaching the main Sparta highway just before the 200 kilometer mark. Runners must pass through 75 checkpoints along the way and each checkpoint has a cut-off time. Runners outside the cut-off may be pulled out of the race although tardiness in the first half of the race is generally tolerated. This tolerance begins to fade after sunset and in the last third of the race, organizers may pull out runners who are either outside the time limit or who display extreme fatigue.

Most weird places

2012-04-10T03:31:00.002-07:00

The North Yungas Road (Road of Death or Death Road) is a 61 kilometres (38 mi) or 69 kilometres (43 mi) road leading from La Paz to Coroico, 56 kilometres (35 mi) northeast of La Paz in the Yungas region of Bolivia. It is legendary for its extreme danger with estimates stating that 200 to 300 travelers are killed yearly along it. The road includes crosses marking many of the spots where vehicles have fallen. The road was built in the 1930s during the Chaco War by Paraguayan prisoners. It is one of the few routes that connects the Amazon rainforest region of northern Bolivia, or Yungas, to its capital city. Because of the extreme dropoffs of at least 600 metres (2,000 ft), single-lane width – most of the road no wider than 3.2 metres (10 ft) and lack of guard rails, the road is extremely dangerous. Further still, rain, fog and dust can make visibility precarious. In many places the road surface is muddy, and can loosen rocks from the road.

In the Spring of 2001, volcanic activity under the Caspian Sea off the Azeri coast created a whole new island. In October 2001 there was an impressive volcanic eruption in Azerbaijan at Lokbatan, but there were no casualties or evacuation warnings. But Azerbaijan does not have a single active volcano, at least not in the usual sense of the word. What Azerbaijan does have is mud volcanoes – hundreds of them. Mud volcanoes are the little-known relatives of the more common magmatic variety. They do erupt occasionally with spectacular results, but are generally not considered to be dangerous – unless you happen to be there at the wrong time: every twenty years or so, a mud volcano explodes with great force, shooting flames hundreds of meters into the sky, and depositing tonnes of mud on the surrounding area. In one eruption, the flames could easily be seen from 15 kilometers away on the day of the explosion, and were still burning, although at a lower level, three days later.

The Zone of Alienation is the 30 km/19 mi exclusion zone around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster and is administrated by a special administration under the Ukrainian Ministry of Extraordinary Situations (Emergencies). Thousands of residents refused to be evacuated from the zone or illegally returned there later. Over the decades this primarily elderly population has dwindled, falling below 400 in 2009. Approximately half of these resettlers live in the town of Chernobyl; others are spread in villages across the zone. After recurrent attempts at expulsion, the authorities became reconciled to their presence and even allowed limited supporting services for them. Because of looting, there is a strong police presence – so be warned, if you visit, you may either be shot or get radiation poisoning – and we all know how awful that can be.

Off the shore of Brazil, almost due south of the heart of São Paulo, is a Ilha de Queimada Grande (Snake Island). The island is untouched by human developers, and for very good reason. Researchers estimate that on the island live between one and five snakes per square meter. That figure might not be so terrible if the snakes were, say, 2 inches long and nonvenomous. The snakes on Queimada Grande, however, are a unique species of pit viper, the golden lancehead. The lancehead genus of snakes is responsible for 90% of Brazilian snakebite-related fatalities. The golden lanceheads that occupy Snake Island grow to well over half a meter long, and they possess a powerful fast-acting poison that melts the flesh around their bites. This place is so dangerous that a permit is required to visit.

Ramree Island in Burma is a huge swamp home to 1000s of salt water enormous salt water crocodiles, the deadliest in the world. It is also home to malaria carrying mosquitos, and venomous scorpions. During the Second World War, the island was the site of a six week battle in the Burma campaign. Here is a description of one of those horrifying nights: “That night [of the 19 February 1945] was the most horrible that any member of the M.L. [motor launch] crews ever experienced. The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left…Of about 1,000 Japanese soldiers that entered the swamps of Ramree, only about 20 were found alive.”

Amazing predatory insects

2012-04-07T23:41:00.001-07:00

The Dragonfly is the ultimate aerial killer of the insect world; its design is so perfect, that it has remained almost unchanged for the last 300 million years. It is among the fastest flying insects, reaching almost 90 kms (56 miles) per hour (which is even more amazing if we consider its small size and apparent fragility). It can dive-bomb, hover like a helicopter, and even fly backwards, and its enormous eyes, which cover almost all of its head, give it near-360 degree vision, so that no insect escapes its attention.
Dragonflies feed on any flying insects they can catch, and also on spiders, which they capture from their webs. Although they usually hunt and devour prey at high speed in the air, they can also snatch spiders and insects from exposed surfaces. Dragonfly larvae are also formidable predators; they are aquatic, and use their protractile, sharp mouthparts to stab other small animals to death, including small fish, frogs and other dragonfly larvae.

Also known as the driver, safari or army ant, this African species if the only insect known to attack and devour humans, although this happens only very rarely. Siafu ants have very large, sharp jaws and venomous stings, which they use to subdue small animals such as lizards, worms and other insects. However, there have been reports of cows, goats and other domestic animals that were tied to trees or poles by their owners, and, unable to get out of the way, were killed by the Siafu ants. Wild animals avoid ant armies on the move, and some naturalists have claimed that even lions and elephants flee away from them.
There have been reports of attacks on people who couldn’t run away on time, such as unattended babies, sleeping or injured people and at least one drunken man. Also, one tourist that was reported as missing in Tanzania was later found to have been killed by Siafu ants. It is said that these larger victims may not die of envenomation after being stung, but rather of asphyxia, since the attacking ants will go into any body orifice and crawl into the lungs.

Possibly the best known predatory insect. There are many species of praying mantis, or mantids, around the world, but they are all perfect ambush hunters, armed with long, modified forelegs armed with sharp hooks to capture prey. These forelegs are usually called the “raptorial legs”.
These insects usually stand still, camouflaged, until a smaller insect or animal gets close; then they capture with a lightning fast movement, and start feeding whether the victim is alive or dead.
They are extremely voracious and any kind of prey is good to them; they have been known to capture and devour spiders (including the deadly black widow spider), lizards, small snakes and even birds. They are also infamously prone to cannibalism; females often bite off the head of the male during sex, and feed on the rest of him afterwards. Baby mantids are also known to feed on their siblings when food is scarce. Mantids are skilled flyers but they usually only fly at night, to avoid birds and other larger predators.

Known as “tiger hornets” in some parts of Asia, these large wasps are relentless hunters that kill any insect they can capture, including other predators such as the praying mantis. They are armed with an incredibly potent venom, and inject great amounts of it; like other hornets, they can sting repeatedly. This venom is strong enough to cause serious illness, and even death, to humans; indeed, they are the most dangerous wild animal in Japan, killing around 40 people per year (more than venomous snakes and bears combined). But the Japanese hornet uses its sting as a defensive weapon only; to kill prey, it uses its sharp jaws to decapitate the victim, and cut its body in small pieces. It then carries the carcass back to the nest, where it chews the dead insect into a soft paste to feed the larvae. The larvae then produce a sugary fluid which is the adult hornet’s main food.

Assassin bugs are among Nature’s most ingenious killers. There are plenty of species, and most of them are harmless to man (although some have excruciatingly painful bites). Often, a species of assassin bug will specialize in a certain kind of prey; for example, some of them feed only on spiders, others prefer ants, etc. They are armed with needle-like mouthparts, which they use to inject lethal saliva into their prey; this saliva liquifies the victim’s innards. (Like many other insects, assassin bugs are unable to feed on solid matter). However, most assassin bugs aren’t fast flyers or runners, so they use trickery to hunt. Some of them cover their bodies with bark, dust, or even dead insects to disguise their appearance and scent, and sneak up on unsuspecting prey.
Spider-hunting assassin bugs often mimic the vibrations produced by insects entangled in a spider web; the spider attacks, thinking that it has caught a tasty meal, only to be killed and devoured itself. Perhaps the most amazing assassin bug is a certain species that feeds on ants. It produces a sugary substance through its abdomen, which serves as bait for the sweet-loving ants. But the sugary substance is also loaded with a powerful tranquilizer; soon, the ant collapses, paralyzed, and the assassin bug can suck its innards without any resistance.

Airline disasters

2012-04-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

Manchester United Football Team 1958. On 6 February, 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on its third attempt to take off from a slush-covered runway at Munich-Riem Airport in Munich, West Germany. On board the plane was the Manchester United football team, nicknamed the “Busby Babes”, along with a number of supporters and journalists. 23 of the 44 people on board the aircraft died in the crash. The team was returning from a European Cup match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, against Red Star Belgrade, but had to make a stop in Munich for refueling, as a non-stop trip from Belgrade to Manchester was out of the aircraft’s range. After refueling, the pilots attempted to take off twice, but had to abandon both attempts due to problems with the port engine. Fearing that they would get too far behind schedule, the Captain rejected an overnight stay in Munich in favor of a third take-off attempt.
By the time of the third attempt, it had begun to snow, causing a layer of slush to build up at the end of the runway. When the aircraft hit the slush, it lost velocity, making take-off impossible. It ploughed through a fence past the end of the runway, before the port wing hit a nearby house and was torn off. Fearing that the aircraft might explode, the Captain tried to get the survivors as far away as possible. Despite the risk of explosion, goalkeeper Harry Gregg remained behind to pull survivors from the wreckage. An investigation by the West German airport authorities originally blamed the Captain for the crash, claiming that he had failed to de-ice the wings of the aircraft, despite statements to the contrary from eyewitnesses. It was later established that the crash had, in fact, been caused by the build-up of slush on the runway, which had resulted in the aircraft being unable to achieve take-off velocity.

United States Figure Skating Team 1961. On February 15, 1961, Sabena Flight 548, a Boeing 707 bound from New York to Brussels Belgium, crashed during the approach for landing. All 72 on board were killed, as well as one person on the ground. Among the dead was the entire United States Figure Skating team, who were en route to the 1961 World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia. There was no indication of trouble on board the plane until it approached the Brussels airport. The pilot had to circle the airport while waiting for a small plane to clear the runway. Then, according to eyewitnesses, the plane began to climb and bank erratically and crashed suddenly in a field near the hamlet of Berg. The wreckage burst into flames. All aboard were killed instantly. A farmer working in the fields was killed by a piece of aluminum shrapnel, and another farmer had his leg amputated by flying debris from the plane.
The exact cause of the crash was never determined beyond reasonable doubt, but investigators suspected that the aircraft might have been brought down by a failure of the stabilizer adjusting mechanism. All 18 athletes of the 1961 U.S. figure skating team and 16 family members, coaches and officials died in the crash. The loss of the U.S. team was considered so catastrophic for the sport that the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships were cancelled. American President, John F. Kennedy, issued a statement of condolence from the White House. He was particularly shocked by the disaster. One of the skaters killed in the crash, Dudley Richards, was a personal friend of President Kennedy and his brother Ted Kennedy, from summers spent at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. Because the casualties included many of the top American coaches as well as the athletes, the crash was a devastating blow to the U.S. Figure Skating program, which had enjoyed a position of dominance in the sport in the 1950s.

Zambian National Football Team 1993. The Zambian national football team was flying on a military plane on its way to Senegal for a 1994 World Cup qualification match, when the plane crashed in the late evening of April 27, 1993. All 30 passengers and crew, including 18 players, as well as the national team coach and support staff, were lost in the accident. Two other members of the national team, who were playing in other countries and who had made other flight arrangements to attend the game, were not aboard and survived.
The flight from Zambia to Senegal required three refueling stops and at the first stop, in the Congo, engine problems were noted. Despite this, the flight continued and a few minutes after taking off from a second stop in Libreville, Gabon, one of the engines caught fire and failed. The pilot, who was tired from already having flown back from Mauritius earlier that day, then shut down the wrong engine, causing the plane to lose all power during the climb out of Libreville Airport. The plane fell from the sky and crashed into the water 500m offshore.
A new team was quickly assembled and faced up to the difficult task of having to complete Zambia’s World Cup qualifiers and then prepare for the upcoming African Nations Cup, which was only months away. The resurrected team defied the odds and reached the final against Nigeria, only to lose. In spite of the loss, the Zambian side returned home as national heroes. After the crash, Zambia fell into seven days of official mourning. The 18 players, coaches and crew members were buried there with official honors as tens of thousands of fans poured into the capital’s streets and grieved for what many said was one of Africa’s greatest teams. An official report into the plane crash blamed a mechanical fault in the left engine and the pilot inadvertently shutting off fuel to the functioning right engine by mistake because of a “poor indicator light bulb”.

Uruguayan Old Christians Club Rugby Team 1972. Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known as the Miracle in the Andes, was a chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby team and their friends, family and associates that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. The last of the 16 survivors were rescued on December 23, 1972. The story of the Andes Survivors is well known; popularized by the book “Alive” and the 1993 film of the same name. On Friday the 13th of October, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D was flying over the Andes carrying members of the Old Christians Club rugby union team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to play a match in Santiago, Chile.
Due to bad weather and limitations of the airplane, the flight could not fly over the Andes Mountains and instead had to proceed through one of the “passes” through the mountains, to reach Chile. The pilots misjudged their position and, thinking they were at the pass, flew instead into a mountain, leading to a controlled flight into terrain. But the plane did not smash head long into the mountain. In a last ditch effort to gain altitude and clear the top of the mountain, the pilots clipped the peak at 4,200 meters (13,800 ft), neatly severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such force that it cut off the tail, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The plane then clipped a second peak, which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain slope before finally coming to rest in a snow bank.
Of the 45 people on the plane, 12 died in the crash or shortly thereafter; another five had died by the next morning, and one more succumbed to injuries on the eighth day. The remaining 27 faced severe difficulties in surviving high in the freezing mountains. The survivors had little food and no source of heat in the harsh conditions, at over 3,600 meters (11,800 ft) altitude. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash, when passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 12-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean huaso, who gave them food and then alerted authorities about the existence of the other survivors. Only sixteen would survive. Their survival in the high mountains of the Andes and final rescue just before Christmas 1972 would become known as The Miracle in the Andes.

Torino A.C. Football Team 1949. The Superga air disaster took place on Wednesday, 4 May, 1949, when a plane carrying almost the entire Torino A.C. football squad, popularly known as Il Grande Torino, crashed into the hill of Superga, near Turin, killing all 31 aboard, including 18 players, club officials, journalists accompanying the team and the plane’s crew. The Italian Airlines Fiat G212CP airplane carrying the team flew into a thunderstorm on the approach to Turin and encountered conditions of low cloud and poor visibility. They were forced to descend to be able to fly visually. While descending for Turin, the aircraft crashed against the base of the rear wall of the Basilica complex at the top of the hill of Superga. Italian authorities cited low cloud, poor radio aids and an error in navigation as factors contributing to the accident.
The emotional impact the crash made on Italian sports fans was profound, as it claimed the lives of the players of a legendary team which had won the last Serie A title before the league play was interrupted in 1944 by World War II and had then returned after the conflict to win four consecutive titles (1946–1949). At the time of the crash, Torino A.C. was leading Serie A with four games left to play in the season. The club carried on by fielding its youth team (Primavera) and in a sign of respect their opponents in each of these matches (Genoa, Palermo, Sampdoria, and Fiorentina) also fielded their youth sides. The disaster seriously weakened the Italian national team, which had included up to 10 Torino players. Torino itself would not claim another title until 1976. Of the entire squad only one player remained: Sauro Tomà missed the trip to Portugal due to injury.

Capable Apes

2012-04-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

Zippy was a chimpanzee actor and regular feature on the Ed Sullivan Show, the Howdy Doody Show and other American comedy television shows in the 1950’s and 60’s. He entertained audiences with his bike riding, roller-skating and genuinely handsome smile. Indeed, Zippy was so popular that a line of stuffed dolls were produced in his likeness and, today, these toys are among the most cherished vintage items. Other chimpanzee actors meriting a brief mention are Jiggs, the first “Cheeta” from the 1930’s Tarzan movies, Evie from Battlestar Galactica, Punkun from the Japanese show Tensai Shumira Zoo, and Mikey from the Manchurian Candidate, Saturday Night Live and the World Series of Poker.

Michael was an orphan silverback gorilla from Cameroon who, as a baby in the wild, survived the violent poaching of his mother. After this he was brought to California, where he learned sign language at the Gorilla Foundation under the tutelage of Koko. Experts believe Michael witnessed the attack on his mother, and used signs to describe the traumatic event.
At the Foundation, Michael also learned how to paint and his works have been deemed “impressionist” (as opposed to the abstract works of other gorilla artists, including Koko). He always picked his own colors, and he often made a handprint on the canvas, as a signature. One of his most distinguished pieces is a portrait he painted from memory of his pet dog, a border collie whom he named Apple. Michael died of heart failure in the year 2000, and his works are currently available for purchase online.

Buddy was a larger-than-average Congolese lowland gorilla who joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1930’s. Renamed Gargantua and advertised as “The Largest and Fiercest Gorilla Ever Brought Before the Eyes of Civilized Man,” this capable ape is credited with single-handedly saving the iconic circus company from financial ruin during the Great Depression.
Most remarkable about Buddy is the fact that he overcame two brushes with death in his captive childhood. The first event occurred was when he was living in the custody of a sea captain, and a sailor cruelly splashed nitric acid in his face, permanently scaring him physically and emotionally. This trauma caused a lifelong pattern of intense aggression towards humans, adding to his imposing Gargantua persona. The second hardship was a bout of Double Pneumonia from which Buddy suffered greatly, but recovered with the help of a fringe ape veterinarian named Gertrude Lintz, who also helped repair his damaged face.
Buddy’s size was indeed a marvel, and his skeleton now resides with the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University.

Jacco Macacco was a blood-sport champion who competed in the 1820’s at the Westminster Pit dog-fighting arena, in London. During his prestigious career, Jacco wowed spectators with his unique throat-slitting style, defeating some of the most touted dogs in epic struggles (several upwards of twice his weight), and became the subject of many celebratory drawings and paintings.
It should be noted that Jacco’s exact species is unknown, and although the moniker Macacco [sic] is Portuguese for “monkey” and his vocation was categorically “monkey-baiting,” given the detailed descriptions of him most believe he belonged the Siamang gibbon group of apes of Southwest Asia.
Jacco’s heyday was at the height of animal-baiting popularity, an attraction that soon after dissipated and was legally banned by parliament’s Cruelty to Animals Act, of 1835.

Ham was a chimpanzee astronaut who was launched into Earth’s outer orbit on January 31, 1961, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. His historic mission, part of the American Mercury Project, lasted roughly 17 minutes before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Calling him a “space explorer” might be a stretch, but he certainly qualifies as a pioneer, comparable to the goat, duck and chicken that went up in Montgolfier’s hot air balloon in Paris, in 1783.
NASA was hesitant to name their chimpanzee too early, for fear that bad PR that might ensue with his death (had the experiment failed), and so prior to his safe return he was known solely as #65. Although an important milestone among apes (he preceded Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 ascent by three months) his entry into the final frontier was not the first by an animal; that distinction belonging to a dog named Laika, who was launched by Soviet Russia, in 1957.

Creepy Mysteries

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Devil’s Footprints On the night of 8–9 February, 1855, and one or two later nights, after a light snowfall, a series of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, measuring 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide and eight inches apart, continued throughout the countryside for a total of over 100 miles, and, although veering at various points, for the greater part of their course followed straight lines. Houses, rivers, haystacks and other obstacles were traveled straight over, and footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints’ path, as well as leading up to and exiting various drain pipes of as small as a four inch diameter. There were also attendant rumors about sightings of a “devil-like figure” in the Devon area during the scare. Many townspeople armed themselves and attempted to track down the beast responsible, without success. Recently, on the night of March 12, 2009, more strange marks, corresponding to those left in 1855, were found again in Devon – these new footprints are shown above.

Felicia Felix-Mentor reportedly died in 1907, after a sudden illness of the type that Haitian belief finds to be characteristic of a person marked to be made into a zombie. In 1936, a woman (either nude or in ragged clothing, depending on the source) was found wandering the streets, and made her way to a farm which she claimed belonged to her father. The owners identified the woman as Felicia Felix-Mentor, long thought dead, and Felix-Mentor’s husband also confirmed this. Due to her poor health, she was sent to a government hospital. A doctor who interviewed her described her behavior:
Her occasional outbursts of laughter were devoid of emotion, and very frequently she spoke of herself in either the first or the third person without any sense of discrimination. She had lost all sense of time and was quite indifferent to the world of things around her.

Chupas are mysterious objects, or UFOs, allegedly seen by night in the eastern forests of (mainly) Brazil. They are described as smaller, metallic-like objects that fly about the treetops, making a humming sound like a refrigerator or a transformer. Since most people in the area are poor, they often go out during the night to hunt food, such as deer. To do this, they climb up in trees to await their prey. It is often during this period of waiting that hunters claim to spot the chupas. When seen, chupas are claimed to emit a bright white light. Instead of being “just unidentified objects” or lights, they are alleged to be lethal. In some cases, people claim to have been hunted by them. It is claimed that this often results in all kinds of pain for days (sometimes years) after their experience. It has also been claimed that some people have even died from the alleged lethal beams emitted by the chupas, and that some hunters have tried to shoot at the chupas, with no effect.

SS Ourang Medan In February, 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia, from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The chilling message was, “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then one final grisly message… “I die.” When the first rescue vessel arrived on the scene a few hours later, they tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response. A boarding party was sent to the ship and what they found was a frightening sight that has made the Ourang Medan one of the strangest and scariest ghost ship stories of all time.
All the crew and officers of the Ourang Medan were dead, their eyes open, faces looking towards the sun, arms outstretched and a look of terror on their faces. Even the ship’s dog was dead, found snarling at some unseen enemy. When nearing the bodies in the boiler room, the rescue crew felt a chill, though the temperature was near 110°F. The decision was made to tow the ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began rolling up from the hull. The rescue crew left the ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.
To this day, the exact fate of the Ourang Medan and her crew remains a mystery.

Gef In September, 1931, the Irving family — James, Margaret and daughter Voirrey (13) — claimed to hear persistent scratching and rustling noises behind their farmhouse’s wooden wall panels. At first they thought it was a rat, but then the unseen creature began making different sounds, sometimes spitting like a ferret, or growling like a dog, or gurgling like a baby. The creature soon revealed an ability to speak, and introduced itself as Gef, a mongoose. It claimed to have been born in New Delhi, India, in 1852. According to Voirrey, who was the only person to see him properly, Gef was the size of a small rat, with yellowish fur and a large bushy tail (the Indian mongoose is in reality much larger than a rat and does not have a bushy tail).
Gef variously claimed to be “an extra extra clever mongoose”, an “earthbound spirit” and “a ghost in the form of a weasel”. He once said, “I am a freak. I have hands and I have feet, and if you saw me you’d faint, you’d be petrified, mummified, turned into stone or a pillar of salt!” Voirrey Irving, who took Gef under her wing, died in 2005. In an interview published late in life, she maintained that Gef was not her creation.

Weird tattoos flaunted in movies

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Memento (2000) If we are talking about crazy tattoos than we cannot miss out on this one where the lead actor suffers from anterograde amnesia and prefers to write down all his important detail and things to do on his body. Find Him and Kill Him sounds very crazy in the real life but it suits in the movie because of the story line that is created. There are no tribal or celtic design tattoos used in the movie. However, the movie shows us one more important use of tattoos on our body. There are telephone numbers, things to do, list of appointments and other information that are tattooed on the chest and wrist of Guy Pearce which makes him look like a lost man who does not even remember that Post-It pads are available in any of the nearest stationery store. Though, the movie received a number of nominations people were really surprised to see the new trend of tattooing in Hollywood.

Eastern Promises (2007) Criminals have always made use of tattoos in a different way than we do and that is what we see in this 2007 crime thriller. Of course, we all are very much aware that those who are a part of mafia organization use their body as message boards and tattoos as a piece of message. However, in this movie we see tattoos as a way of appreciation and a symbol of skills and accomplishments. Since the movie is about Russian Mafia, director David Cronenberg made sure that his lead actor Viggo Mortensen has some of the very authentic looking criminal tattoos that would suit the role and that would make it more realistic. In the movie, you can see Mortensen having fake tattoos on his fingers, arms, wrists and chest as well. Though, some of the tattoo designs were taken from original Mafia gangs in Russia, other tattoo designs were just created to blend with the character of Viggo Mortensen.

Red Dragon (2002) Another movie that appeared on screen in 2002 was Red Dragon which was a mind boggling thriller. The film was loosely based on a novel by Thomas Harris and features the serial killer Hannibal Lecter. However, it’s the British actor Ralph Fiennes who is the new villain of the story and who loves to get into the skin of evil by tattooing his back in fine details. The movie shows an entire back designed with tribal designs and large curving horns that comes down from the shoulders and gives his character a more evil and deadly looks. The entire tattoo is made up in the same way as it is described in the novel.

XXX (2002) Another great action movie with a lot of daring stunts and heroes loaded with tattoos on their body. In this Vin Diesel starrer you will find Vin Diesel having a variety of tattoos on his body that are not only crazy but something far away from his role in the movie. The tattoos here are made to look jazzy and therefore a lot of color tattoos are applied on the arm and forehand. Vin Diesel is Xander Cage who is a lover of undergrounds sports and therefore the tattoos have American style designs with a lot of tribal and celtic designs which are painted with bright colors to make it look more attractive and stand-out.

Wanted (2008) In Wanted we see an overworked officer ready to move into his father’s profession and becoming a deadly assassin. However, we also see a ready for action Angelina Jolie in a role nothing less than the Tomb Raider. Angelina Jolie has flaunted a lot of tattoos in this movie that literally does not have any relation with her character in the story or with her being a member of group that is always looking for a kill. Of course, all of these tattoos that she flaunts on her body and on her hand are fake, but the director of Wanted to give Angelina Jolie a genuine look of a killer. The tiger at the bottom is a creature taken from Cambodian prayer and the upper arms has a tattoo which says Toil and Tears which gives her character a feel that she has suffered through a lot.