[Emirates 24/7] A cash-strapped New Zealander is auctioning off the chance to put a tattoo on her derriere so she can pay her bills.
Wellington woman Tina Beznec, 23, says she needs the money after being made redundant twice in the past year.
She set up an online auction under the title "Your Tattoo on my Bum" and within 24 hours bidding had reached NZ$10,250 (US$8,135) while another three people have followed suit with auctions offering body parts to be tattooed.
"You might think I am crazy for doing this! But yes, the winner of the auction gets anything they like tattooed on my bum!" Beznec said in her auction notice.
She said 20 percent of the winning bid would go to charity "and the rest will go to me, I deserve it, I have been made redundant twice over the past year."
The tattoo would be 9x9 centimetres (3.5x3.5 inches), it could be on either cheek and could be something personal or "a business promotion" she said.
"The way I see it is it's going to be on my bum and it is something I can look back on in the future and remember this point in my life," she told the Stuff.co.nz website.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
How about "Leviticus 19:28"
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/15/2012 1:28 Comments ||
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#2
WTF does it mean to be redundant here in the US?
[Emirates 24/7] A camel killed his African shepherd after going berserk and chasing the man for several hours before getting him, press reports said on Saturday.
She was a beauty of her kind, meant to be wooed with the gentlest of words and the most delicate of flowers. He boorishly took a more direct route, which has demonstrable costs.
Police said they found the 53-year-old man dead and his body had marks of several bites and kicks at a farm in the northwestern town of Hail.
"Police said the man died after suffering from serious injuries and bleeding...they are still investigating the incident," Ajel Arabic language daily said without mentioning what happened to the camel.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/15/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Guess he really abused that animal. Can't see any other way a camel would go berserk like this.
#6
Gorb, upon rereading the article I discovered to my mortification that the camel in question is male. Nonetheless -- thank goodness! -- our principle still holds. Thank you for your kind words, my dear.
Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time.
And you thought the zebra mussel was bad...
The vicious form of cholera has already killed 7,000 people in Haiti, where it surfaced in a remote village in October 2010. Leading researchers from Harvard Medical School and elsewhere told ABC News that, despite UN denials, there is now a mountain of evidence suggesting the strain originated in Nepal, and was carried to Haiti by Nepalese soldiers who came to Haiti to serve as UN peacekeepers after the earthquake that ravaged the country on Jan. 12, 2010 -- two years ago today. Haiti had never seen a case of cholera until the arrival of the peacekeepers, who allegedly failed to maintain sanitary conditions at their base.
Too bad the UN didn't do any health screening of the Nepalese soldiers. Imagine how all the usual suspects in progressive NGO-land would react if American soldiers were being implicated in this. But then, US military officials ensure that American soldiers don't have cholera in the first place.
"What scares me is that the strain from South Asia has been recognized as more virulent, more capable of causing severe disease, and more transmissible," said John Mekalanos, who chairs the Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. "These strains are nasty. So far there has been no secondary outbreak. But Haiti now represents a foothold for a particularly dangerous variety of this deadly disease."
Like the Asian carp, you won't eradicate it; it will spread throughout the western hemisphere.
More than 500,000 Haitians have been infected, and Mekalanos said a handful of victims who contracted cholera in Haiti have now turned up in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and in Boston, Miami and New York, but only in isolated cases.
How cholera landed in Haiti has been a politically charged topic for more than a year now, with the United Nations repeatedly refusing to acknowledge any role in the outbreak despite mounting evidence that international peacekeepers were the most likely culprits. The UN has already faced hostility from Haitians who believe peacekeeping troops have abused local women residents without consequence.
They now face legal action from relatives of victims who have petitioned the UN for restitution. And the cholera charge could further hamper the UN's ability to work effectively there, two years after the country was hobbled by the earthquake.
'Further hamper'?
Over the summer, Assistant Secretary General Anthony Banbury told ABC News that the UN sincerely wanted to know if it played a part in the outbreak, but independent efforts to answer that question had not succeeded. He said the disease could have just as easily been carried by a backpacker or civilian aid worker.
"Might have been an American. You never know."
Banbury said the UN, through both its peacekeeping mission and its civilian organizations "are working very hard ... to combat the spread of the disease and bring assistance to the people. And that's what's important now."
"The scientists say it can't be determined for certainty where it came from," Banbury said. "So we don't know if it was the U.N. troops or not. That's the bottom line."
The bottom line is shifting blame...
A UN spokeswoman repeated the answer when asked again last week: "The [scientists] determined it was not possible to be conclusive about how cholera was introduced into Haiti," said the UN's Anayansi Lopez.
The bottom line is really shifting blame...
But ABC News has interviewed several top scientists involved in researching the origins of the cholera outbreak, and each expressed little doubt that the UN troop was responsible. The reason: A genetic analysis of the strain found in Haiti matches identically the one involved in an outbreak in Nepal in August and September of 2010; The Nepalese peacekeeping troops deployed for Haiti at precisely that time; Two weeks before the outbreak, Haitians had reported sanitary breakdowns at the Nepalese encampment set along a tributary to the Artibonite River, about 60 miles north of the capital Port Au Prince. The next month, the earliest cases of cholera surfaced in the same remote area, from Haitians who had been drinking and bathing in the river.
That's about as good it gets.
"The scientific debate on the origin of cholera in Haiti existed, but it has been resolved by the accumulation of evidence that unfortunately leave no doubt about the implication of the Nepalese contingent of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti," said French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux, whose research on the outbreak was published by a U.S. Centers for Disease Control journal.
Mekalanos agreed, saying the single strongest piece of evidence came from the genetic analysis of the strain, which he said was virtually identical to strains that caused cholera in Nepal around the time that the troops shipped out. Taken in concert with sanitation problems at the Nepalese base, which was located near the epicenter of the outbreak, he said "almost any other explanation I can think of is well behind in confidence to the likelihood that that strain was introduced by UN troops," he said.
"It's outrageous for the UN to try to deny responsibility for bringing cholera to Haiti," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, whose group has been monitoring relief efforts in Haiti. "Was it gross negligence on their part? This is one of the questions they won't have to answer if they can sweep this whole thing under the rug."
Experts said understanding the origin of the outbreak is important. Louise C. Ivers, an infectious disease specialist and professor of global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School, published a paper this week that traced spread of cholera back to the first victim, a mentally ill man who ingested contaminated river water. She witnessed firsthand the destruction it caused as hundreds of villagers started dying from an unfamiliar malady.
"It was overwhelming," she said. "There were no reported cases in Haiti before 2010, ever. Really people had no idea what was happening. To hear the fear and the suspicions and the lack of understanding about how this was happening is very, very sad. The outbreak put a huge stress on what was already a very fragile health system. I'm afraid it will be a problem for the foreseeable future."
She said what has made Haiti so vulnerable was a lack of latrines and clean potable water. She said there have been small outbreaks in the Dominican Republic, but nothing on the scale of what hit Haiti because conditions are more modern and sanitary.
Mekalanos said there are steps that the UN and other aid organizations can and should be taking if they are sending workers from an area where cholera is active into a region where it has long been absent. In the future, he said, the UN might consider giving troops a prophylactic dose of antibiotic before deploying. Or they could do more to insure proper sanitary conditions at UN encampments.
With the likelihood that cholera will be part of the landscape in Haiti for decades to come, though, Mekalanos said his hope is that the missteps that brought the ugly strain of the disease from Asia to the west will not repeat and lead to its further spread.
"Cholera is a disease of the impoverished," he said. "When the standards of living are already at the lowest levels, cholera is a killer of historic proportions. If it spreads to other parts of the world, in those kinds of settings, I fear there will be a very high rate of death."
UN officials said Banbury is currently in Haiti, "actively discussing with the Mission what more the UN can do to help Haiti deal with the outbreak."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/15/2012 10:10 ||
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Note how Scientists don't say it's 100% sure, but damn near, and that's not good enough for the UN. Be nice if they were as skeptical of the AGW scientists against whom there are mountains of negative evidence.
The UN, bringing the 3rd world disasters home to the comfortable.
#2
The only and I mean ONLY way to get cholera is to drink water that people have shit in. That's the ONLY way. Cholera is a bacteria that is highly susceptible to all of the common disinfection techniques. Boiling water will quickly kill cholera. Anyone who contracts cholera is drinking shitwater.
#4
Boiling water will quickly kill cholera. Anyone who contracts cholera is drinking shitwater.
Haiti is 98% deforested, and most of it (~90%) has no power. Still, it's clear, from the fact that the population hasn't experienced mass starvation, that Haitians are using some kind of fuel for cooking, which could also be used for boiling water. On the assumption that if someone can afford food, he can also afford fuel, I suspect people just need to be educated about basic hygiene.
South Korean cargo ship has sunk after being rocked by an explosion off the country's west coast, leaving three people dead and eight others missing. The ship usually carried chemicals but was empty when it sank.
The incident occurred relatively far from the tense sea border with North Korea and the coast guard doesn't suspect the North was involved. Loose mine? Somebody wanting to impress the new boss? Or just an accident?
#3
Their military is going to want to demonstrate that it has not gone soft. It will certainly kill some people in some pointless and stupidly incoherent act that affirms the stupid and incoherent status quo. Seems like killing, maiming only 11 people would represent an step down in their normal level of totally pointless mayhem. My guess is that their Navy wanted to be in the vanguard of a truly insipid series of triumphantly moronic serial murder of innocents.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/15/2012 1:24 Comments ||
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Empty chemical carrier. That's a possible industrial accident afloat. Not saying that's it, but too soon to get any conclusions about Pudge being involved just yet.
#5
South Korean merchant mariners aren't exactly at the top of their game. I've seen one on 'Iron Mike' (autopilot) sail right through a naval formation, oblivious to radio calls . Another SKor ship boarded during interdiction ops had its entire crew passed out drunk; again on autopilot.
Coastal shipping also tends to be a bit less professional.
I'd go with 'accident'.
#1
Swedish history is a whole lot different than Sweden is today. At times they were militarily aggressive, authoritarian, oppressive to the point of murderous, had their fair share of nanny-statism, theocracy, wealth and grueling poverty, as are still looked at by the other Norse countries as at least a little unpredictable and dangerous.
There are very good reasons that many Swedes came to the US to get away from that.
ISLAM = Among other, teaches that Man's inhumanity to Man is divine, not evil, because that is how God = Allah made him.
SWEDEN's role took place at a time when many nations in Europe were vying for control of the continent; + ata time when SLAVERY + INDENTURED BONDAGE [aka at best as "autonomous slavery"], WHITE ANDOR NON-WHITE, WAS STILL LEGAL.
#3
ION NOT-THE-1980's-SWEDISH-OLYMPIC-BIKINI-TEAM ..
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER [Olaf/Olof Palme] WAS KILLED BECAUSE HE WANTED TO CUT TIES WID THE CIA, + cooperate instead wid Soviet KGB.
NEW DELHI: An official says a stampede during a religious ceremony in central India has left at least 10 people dead.
Senior police officer Rajesh Vyas says the stampede occurred early Saturday when a large number of people surged forward to gain entry into a Muslim shrine, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. Vyas says some pilgrims fell down and were crushed to death.
The shrine is near Ratlam, a town in Madhya Pradesh state nearly 480 miles (760 kilometers) southwest of New Delhi. Police in the region could not be immediately reached for details.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/15/2012 00:00 ||
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Inshalah, and they did it to themselves.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/15/2012 14:13 Comments ||
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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.
[Emirates 24/7] A cash-strapped New Zealander is auctioning off the chance to put a tattoo on her derriere so she can pay her bills.
A camel killed his African shepherd after going berserk and chasing the man for several hours before getting him, press reports said on Saturday.
Compelling new scientific evidence suggests United Nations peacekeepers have carried a virulent strain of cholera -- a super bug -- into the Western Hemisphere for the first time.
NEW DELHI: An official says a stampede during a religious ceremony in central India has left at least 10 people dead.
