A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage.
Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his bike, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.
Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
A New York Times reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the biker says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I saw a man do in my whole life.'
The biker replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.'
The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist from the New York Times, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?''
The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'
The journalist leaves.
The following morning the biker buys The New York Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on front page:
U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/10/2008 14:30 ||
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Invisibility devices, long the realm of science fiction and fantasy, have moved closer after scientists engineered a material that can bend visible light around objects.
The breakthrough could lead to systems for rendering anything from people to large objects, such as tanks and ships, invisible to the eye although this is still years off.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, whose work is funded by the American military, have engineered materials that can control lights direction of travel. The worlds two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week.
It follows earlier work at Imperial College London that achieved similar results with microwaves. Like light, these are a form of electromagnetic radiation but their longer wave-length makes them far easier to manipulate. Achieving the same effect with visible light is a big advance.
Underlying the work is the idea that bending visible light around an object will hide it.
Xiang Zhang, the leader of the researchers, said: In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock. An observer looking at the cloaked object would then see light from behind it making it seem to disappear.
Substances capable of achieving such feats are known as meta-materials and have the power to grab electromagnetic radiation and deflect it smoothly. No such material occurs naturally and it is only in the past few years that nano-scale engineering, manipulating matter at the level of atoms and molecules, has advanced sufficiently to give scientists the chance to create them.
The tiny scale at which such researchers must operate is astonishing in itself. Zhangs researchers had to construct a material whose elements were engineered to within about 0.00000066 of a metre.
The military funding that Zhang has won for his research shows what kind of applications it might be used for, ushering in a new age of stealth technology.
An Australian scientist has claimed that replacing sheep and cows with kangaroos can greatly help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr. George Wilson, of the Australian Wildlife Services says sheep and cows damage the environment by producing methane gas.
Wilson believes that eating kangaroos can reduce 11% of Australia's carbon footprint caused by Sheep and cattle. "It tastes excellent, not unlike venison - only a different flavor," he said.
Wilson says Kangaroos do not produce any methane because of their different digestive systems and microorganisms, BBC reported.
Australian landholders currently produce 30 million kangaroos per annum; Dr. Wilson believes that the number should be increased to reach that of conventional livestock.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Perhaps Dr. George Wilson could explain to the sheep producers how much wool per head they can expect the roos to yield or is he just a freakin moron.
#2
Perhaps Dr. George Wilson could explain to the sheep producers how much wool per head they can expect the roos to yield or is he just a freakin moron.
No wool, but Kangaroo hide makes some mighty fine leather. Maybe we could all go back to wearing buckskins...er...`rooskins! :-)
#3
This is really going to pinch the supply of females for MiddleEasternMatches.com
Posted by: ed ||
08/10/2008 7:09 Comments ||
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#4
Had some 'Roo' years ago excellently prepared by Chef Warren at the Bat 7 in Kuwait City. Followed up with a lovely sticky date pudding....very tastey indeed.
#6
I can't imagine that the kangeroos have zero emissions, but they may have lwess than cattle. Kangeroos may be browsers instead of grazers. This may account for the difference. If that is the case, then a more planet-friendly alternative for Americans than Black Angus cattle would be porcupines. We may need longer handles on our knives and forks, though.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/10/2008 9:31 Comments ||
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#13
Hey, I'm sure I ate kangaroo when I had burgers at Jack in the Box back when I was a kidlet. ;)
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/10/2008 19:04 Comments ||
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#14
Methinks the RB needs a "SAD 'ROOO" Side Image Graphic wid droopy mopey ears and look to boot. Iff anything we'll see more "I'D RATHER BE NAKED THAN EAT CUTE 'ROOS" demonstrations [read - PICS] from the PETA Babes.
Muttering incantations at a witches' market above La Paz, Faustino Tinta sets fire to a dried llama fetus and wax trinkets, an offering his client hopes will help Bolivian President Evo Morales survive a recall vote.
Tinta, 53, is one of dozens of witch doctors who tend a warren of stalls in the Morales' stronghold of El Alto, making offerings that promise luck at work or in love, or to call up spirits and banish curses. Inside his stall herbs hang on the wall next to a carving of Jesus and a picture of Morales. Outside, at around 13,120 feet above sea level, snow falls on the ground. "Snow. It is a happy omen," he said, sprinkling alcohol on the palms of 23-year-old miner Javier Ramos. "Many people have come to make offerings to Pachamama for Evo."
August is the month of Pachamama, or Mother Earth, central to Andean culture. Ramos wants spirits to protect him while he works underground at a gold mine in the town of Consata, 85 miles north of La Paz, and to ensure that Morales wins Sunday's vote and pushes on with his nationalization and pro-poor reforms. "I'm making this offering so things go well at work, so that nothing happens to me inside the mine, so I make money, and so that Evo wins," he said, his smile revealing tiny gold stars set into his teeth as the smell of caramel wafted from the burning pyre. "I will vote for him. Let's hope he wins."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/10/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
I saw dried llama fetuses on sale in La Paz' "Witches Market." They are still put under foundations of new houses. If it helped Bolivian politicians, then they wouldn't hold the world record for "golpes" (coup d'etats). I seem to recall hearing Bolivians brag about hanging one Presidente from a lamp post.
#2
Many Third World and Indigenous ethnic groups recognize that the WOT > IS A WAR FOR OWG-NWO = "GLOBALISM", i.e. the establishment of layers of NON-TRADITIONAL FORMS OF GOVERNANCE, and hence fear their ethnic/indigens-specific issues and agendums becom forever irrelevant, even to fade from history, as due to various overwhelming pressures and extra/post-National-, Regional, and -Cultural, etc POlitics.
GUAM + OCEANIA WILL BE NO EXCEPTION.
E.g. FOX NEWS AM > IIRC - THE ISLAMIST/ISLAMIC REACH IN AFRICA. As in ASIA, the scale and numbers of violent Islamist Militant-Terror Opers and Groups is increasing. Islamist Groups in AFRICA per se have no qualms waging PROTRACTIVE/DURATIVE JIHAD + MILITANT OPERATIONS, AND HAD STRATEGICALLY POSITIONED THEMSELVES IN VARIOUS MAJOR AFRICAN NATIONS SUCH THAT THEY ARE WITHIN EASY STRIKING DISTANCE OF PARIS, ROME, + MADRID, espec as per ALGERIA + TUNISIA.
Besides anything else that was desired or came before 9-11, Non-Muslim world indigenous cultures now have the very real threat of Radical Islam to contend with.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Muttering incantations at a witches' market above La Paz, Faustino Tinta sets fire to a dried llama fetus and wax trinkets, an offering his client hopes will help Bolivian President Evo Morales survive a recall vote.
