Wellington - The search for a man who disappeared while trying to paddle a kayak 1,600 kilometres from Australia to New Zealand was called off Sunday night after it was revealed that he was not carrying an immersion suit. Fricking genius...
Andrew McAuley's upturned kayak was found late Saturday night, about 80 kilometres off New Zealand's Milford Sound where he was due the next morning at the end of a journey that began in Tasmania's Fortescue Bay on January 11.
So he went 1500 klicks without an immersion suit. It's that last 100 that'll get you every time ...
Two helicopters searched the area on Sunday without finding any trace of the 39-year-old adventurer who was trying to complete the first solo kayak crossing of one of the world's roughest stretches of water. And how much did the choppers cost? Less than the price of a DUI dry-suit, I reckon...
McAuley's wife Vicki and five-year-old son Finlay were awaiting his arrival at Milford, in New Zealand's South Island Fiordland. I feel bad for them- seriously.
A Maritime New Zealand spokesman told Radio New Zealand the search had been called off and would be reviewed overnight. She said family members had advised that contrary to earlier information, McAuley was not carrying an immersion suit, which would have given him a better chance of survival. In other words- IDIOT.
The helicopters searched a 10-square-kilometre area around where his kayak was found after a garbled emergency distress call was monitored on radio. His life jacket was not on the boat, raising hopes that he would have survived and be floating nearby. Radio New Zealand said McAuley had endured many capsizings, giant waves and the attention of sharks on his journey below the 40th parallel, an area that regularly produces some of the world's worst weather.
He was paddling a sea kayak fitted with a cockpit cover, offering some protection from the elements, and a solar panel to power instruments and communications equipment. All of that, yet no dry-suit. What a fool.
#2
There are now reports that he at least OWNED a dry-suit, and that reports that he wasn't wearing it were in error.
This would lower his idiocy level considerably.
#5
This is a run of ocean where big racing yachts get into serious, and occasional fatal trouble. And now McAuley is telling Davey Jones all about his adventure, while he leaves his widow and a 5 year old son behind. What a selfish moroon.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/11/2007 13:07 Comments ||
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#6
why did he attempt the kayak 1,600 kilometres from Australia to New Zealand thingy?
motives?, likely for the adventure/challenge of putting his life on the line in a tiny kayak crossing a notorious patch of Sea.
And for the recognition he'd receive for surviving the dangerous voyage. Well he didn't make it.
Andrew McAuley did accomplish something though, I'd hazard a educated guess that the next adventure seeker is already making plans to kayak the very same Sea because it's even more famous now thanks to poor ole dead Andrew.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/11/2007 15:32 Comments ||
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#8
Damn Blogads... every time I get ready to comment on an article, I reach the bottom of the thread and there's that damnfool picture of Dippy Dennis The Moonbat with the big ears.
I forgot what I was gonna say.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
02/11/2007 15:47 Comments ||
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#9
Dave D.---Forget him, just focus on lovely Gracie of Rangerup fame. She is just over there off to starboard, like a siren. Heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/11/2007 15:55 Comments ||
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Jaipur: A suspected meteorite today Thursday claimed the lives of three nomads and injured four others at Banchola village in Rajasthan's Bundi district. Two persons died on the spot and the third at a local hospital, police said.
A crater was formed due to a blast-like situation, police said, adding it might be a blast in explosive scrap which the nomads or `banjaras' had collected from somewhere.
Could have been a Hellfire from a UAV. Anyone look up?
According to fellow nomads, the victims, who used to sell utensils in exchange of old clothes, were sitting in a field when an `ulkapind' (unknown flying object) hit them around 9 a.m., police said.
A Bangladeshi immigrant taxi driver in New York is the toast of the Big Apple after returning a $500,000 lost bag of diamond rings to their rightful owner.
Osman Chowdhury's honesty has made him an instant celebrity, propelling him onto the city's airwaves to receive the plaudits of the great and the good.
He says that he is proud of what he did, because cab drivers are honest.
In the same week, a cab driver of Indian origin in New York returned a wallet containing nearly $6,000.
Owner traced
Forty-one-year-old Mr Chowdhury - a Bangladeshi green card holder - was plying his trade as usual in Manhattan on Monday evening, when a female passenger boarded his cab at a midtown Hotel.
The passenger got off at an apartment building on 35th street.
She paid $11 for the $10.70 fare. But she left a bag full of diamonds in the boot of the vehicle.
When the next set of passengers tried to put their luggage in the boot, Mr Chowdhury found the bag.
But with the help of the New York City Taxi Workers' Alliance, a cabbies' advocacy group, the bag was opened to reveal around 30 diamond rings, neatly tucked into cases.
There were some loose diamond rings too. There was also a laptop and some business papers. Next Mr Chowdhury, with the help of the taxi workers' alliance, had to contact the owner.
Eventually they found a Texas phone number in the bag, and after repeated calls they traced the mother of the bag's owner.
Mr Chowdhury's citation from NYC Council
Mr Chowdhury has received plaudits from far and wide
She in turn contacted her daughter, who came over to the alliance office and thanked Mr Chowdhury profusely.
She tried to reward him, but he refused, saying that he had only done his duty.
"I never thought about any reward or anything in return. I can never keep anything that belongs to any other person. I have been this way all my life," he said.
His honesty has led to a barrage of media interviews, with American newspapers and TV stations - including international channels - wanting to interview the "honest cabbie".
Reward
For the last two days he has also been interviewed by scores of news organisations in the US and across the globe.
In addition, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has honoured him with an Achievement Award for 2007. Even the City Council of New York City has joined in, by given him a citation praising his honesty.
And the word is that the New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, may announce a reward for him.
Mr Chowdhury is unfazed.
At his residence in Sunnyside, Queens in New York, he was his usual humble self.
"I never imagined that I will be the centre of so much media attention.
"I'm proud of what I did. I hope my next generation will remember what I did and follow me. I also want to tell people that New York taxi drivers are honest," he says.
The members of the Bangladeshi community in New York are proud of this son of the soil.
"There are good and honest people in every community. But with his deeds Osman has made us all Bangladeshis very proud," neighbour Shafiq Alam said.
Mr Chowdhury came to the US in 1992 to work as a taxi driver in New York.
Distraught
Back home in Bangladesh he used to work as a contractor. He is still unmarried, but lost his parents recently and has to provide for his family which includes many sisters.
He does not even own a cab, but rents it for 12 hour shifts.
The job is so stressful that it has affected his health. He suffers from high blood pressure, and kidney problems.
"But I have always maintained that no matter what the problems we face in life, we should not resort to dishonesty," he said.
And in what has been a good month for South Asian taxi drivers in New York, a taxi driver of Indian origin returned a wallet containing $5,950 to a passenger.
"If money doesn't belong to me, I don't keep it," said Vinod Mago, 55, an Indian immigrant.
"I know God is watching everybody, every second." Mr Mago had just started his shift when his taxi controller called to say a distraught man was missing his wallet.
He found the wallet in the back seat and raced to the airport in time to return it to the owner, who gave him and the taxi coordinator $100 each in gratitude.
Posted by: john ||
02/11/2007 20:24 ||
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#1
Notice to all you illeagal that think you have a right to be here: Use these 2 examples for your own actions. These guys came to America the right way and have probably busted their ass every day to get where they are.
Rhetorical question time: how many non immigrant taxi drivers would have returned the lost goods?
#2
Probably more than you might think USN-R.
NYC Cabbies return stuff all the time, and we have 311 to check up on the lost and found.
This is espically due to 9/11- ALL the cab services put out Mayday calls to help people to hospitals, rescue workers to GZ, and anybody needing to get out of the war zone.
I know- I was there, and it was transmitted across all NYC radio stations. Cabbies pitched in what they had- transport.
Meanwhile, I can still hear the F-16s banking overhead...
#3
F.R.: Thanks.
My experience (in a myriad of cities) w/ cabs and other people-centric occupations is that the tourist / business guy/ whatever is a target. Not necessarily for bodily harm, but a target as in the separation of financial related 'stiff' from him.
Appreciate the setting straight of the record for this small town Michigan boy.
Two men who disguised themselves in clothing traditionally worn by Muslim women and robbed security guards carrying cash to and from banks have been jailed for a total of more than seven years, according to a report in the Guardian. The report said that Kingston crown court in southwest London heard on Friday how Anthony Roberts (22) and Nicholas Bidar (19) stole the Muslim clothes from Regents Park mosque last June, and used them to cover their heads and faces during a bank robbery in Kilburn, north London, later on the same day. It said that the pair, who had committed another robbery three weeks earlier, had pleaded guilty to three counts of theft.
The court was told that their approach was the same on each occasion: they would wait in banking halls before rushing the unsuspecting guards as they made cash deliveries and collections, it added. They would then speed away in a waiting car. Bidar was arrested on June 14 following a foot chase by officers, but briefly managed to escape from custody a day later after assaulting a police officer. Bidar tried to escape again on June 23 by running from guards and trying to climb a fence. He also pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer, escaping from lawful custody and attempting to escape from prison, and was sentenced to four years and three months. Roberts was arrested in Edgware, north London, on October 19. He was sentenced to three years.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/11/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
another reason to ban the burkha in public
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/11/2007 10:24 Comments ||
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Update:
An appeals court in Paris on Friday confirmed a conviction against Pierre Pinoncelli, a self-proclaimed performance artist who vandalised the world's most famous urinal.
In January last year Pinoncelli, 77, used a small hammer to attack "Fountain" by French-US artist Marcel Duchamp, which was on display at the Pompidou Centre as part of an exhibition on the early 20th-century Dada movement. He also scrawled the word "Dada" to indicate that he was acting in the sprit of Dadaism -- a precursor to Surrealism.
A lower court gave him a three month suspended prison term and ordered him to pay 214,000 euros (280,000 dollars). On Friday the appeals court confirmed the sentence but cut the fine to just 14,000 euros for the cost of restoration.
Eight versions of Duchamp's urinal exist, and the Pompidou Centre's example is valued at 2.8 million euros.
Three Italian women were brutally attacked while vacationing on a resort island off the coast of West Africa, dragged into the woods, pelted with stones and left for dead at the bottom of a hole, the sole survivor said Saturday. The bodies of two of the women were found half-buried near a beach Friday in the Cape Verde islands, police officer Vladmir Silva said.
Preliminary autopsy results found the victims, aged 28 and 33, died as a result of head injuries from blunt and sharp objects, the Portuguese news agency Lusa reported. Cape Verde police said official autopsy results were expected to be released Sunday.
Police chief Oscar Tavares said three local men had been arrested and would soon appear in court, Lusa reported.
The women were part of a surfing group that arrived in the islands last Sunday for a weeklong vacation, said Italy's honorary consul in Cape Verde, Luigi Zirpoli. The survivor whom Italian news reports identified as a 17-year-old named Agnese suffered fractures and needed 18 stitches in her head, Zirpoli said. Speaking with Italy's Sky TG24 TV from a hospital Saturday, Agnese recounted how she and the two other women had been invited to dinner by one of their attackers a man who apparently had had a relationship with one of the victims. She said the attackers sprayed the women with something and immobilized them before taking them to the woods where a hole had been dug in the ground. Speaking in a stunned voice, she said they were pelted with stones and she blacked out. When she awoke, she climbed out of the hole and walked down a road until she found help.
"I don't know how I managed to recover after he threw a stone at my head," she told Sky.
The story of the attack has shocked Italians, many of whom consider the archipelago a paradise for beachgoers and windsurfers. The Italian Foreign Ministry said the two women had been "barbarously murdered" and dispatched a diplomat from its embassy in Senegal "to ensure that those responsible for this tragic aggression are brought swiftly to justice." Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he was "stunned" and "aghast" by the killings, the Italian news agency Apcom reported. Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is located about 500 miles to the west of Senegal's capital, Dakar, in the Atlantic Ocean.
#1
"Italian Premier Romano Prodi said he was "stunned" and "aghast" by the killings"
Don't get out much, does he?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/11/2007 0:17 Comments ||
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#2
Seems so Islamic, with a modern date-rape drug twist. I checked it out and it seems that it is mostly Christian-based, and I found some reference to Judaism.
In any case, it seems only fair to return the favor and stone the men to death.
Oh, for the days when Arizona's high school students could roll pizza dough, sweep up sticky floors in theaters or scoop ice cream without worrying about ballot initiatives affecting their earning power. That's certainly not the case under the state's new minimum-wage law that went into effect last month.
Some Valley employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees. And teens are among the first workers to go. What is this "cause and effect" you speak of? I don't understand...
Companies maintain the new wage was raised to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour to help the breadwinners in working-poor families. Teens typically have other means of support.
Mark Messner, owner of Pepi's Pizza in south Phoenix, estimates he has employed more than 2,000 high school students since 1990. But he plans to lay off three teenage workers and decrease hours worked by others. Of his 25-person workforce, roughly 75 percent are in high school. "I've had to go to some of my kids and say, 'Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent,' " he said. " 'Sorry, I don't have any hours for you.' " Ugh--PLEASE don't introduce math into this! This is Feel-Good™ legislation!
Messner's monthly cost to train an employee has jumped from $440 to $580 as the turnover rate remains high. "We go to great lengths to hang on to our high school workers, but there are a lot of kids who come in and get one check in their pocket and feel like they're living large and out the door they go," he said. "We never get our return on investment when that happens." Dammit--let's just increase the minimum wage to $20/hr and be done with poverty altogether! It's so obvious!
Posted by: Dar ||
02/11/2007 12:54 ||
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#1
If Hillary gives me $10 million tax-free and a lifelong membership in the same health-care program she gets, I'll vote for her.
#2
Some of the best employees, that the grocery chains fight over, are the retarded and mentally slow. This is because the biggest complaint they have with normal kids is that they just don't show up to work. The get the job, sometimes even get trained, then just disappear.
The retarded will be there every day, on time, and ready to work. And an employer can do a lot more with a retarded kid who is there, than with a smart kid who isn't.
Amusingly, one now-defunct food chain a few years ago was surprised to get a run of normal intelligence teen girls who wanted to work as baggers. That lasted until they found out that the girls were hooking on the side, and would proposition men who would hit on them at "work".
Very sneaky. They got away with it for over a year.
The store then made the mistake of firing all its baggers when it found out, and the union cashiers were not happy at all having to bag for several weeks until they could hire new ones.
The store should have just played dumb, and only fired a bagger if she got busted. A lot of men stopped shopping there, too.
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.
Search called off for missing kayaker
Jaipur: A suspected meteorite today Thursday claimed the lives of three nomads and injured four others at Banchola village in Rajasthan's Bundi district. Two persons died on the spot and the third at a local hospital, police said. 
Two men who disguised themselves in clothing traditionally worn by Muslim women and robbed security guards carrying cash to and from banks have been jailed for a total of more than seven years, according to a report in the Guardian. The report said that Kingston crown court in southwest London heard on Friday how Anthony Roberts (22) and Nicholas Bidar (19) stole the Muslim clothes from Regents Park mosque last June, and used them to cover their heads and faces during a bank robbery in Kilburn, north London, later on the same day. It said that the pair, who had committed another robbery three weeks earlier, had pleaded guilty to three counts of theft. 
