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Former county commissioner Jimmy Dimora is on trial in Akron, Ohio, for corruption. Channel 19 is covering the trial, but are not allowed to take cameras into the federal courtroom. So they did the next best thing -or some would call a better thing- and recreated the court scenes using puppets! This video is day two. You can also see day one at WOIO. Link -via Fark
If you get stung by a jelly fish, don’t ask your friend to pee on you. Similarly, reading in the dark won’t make you go blind. For explanations and more interesting body myths, head over to Life Hacker.
Russian authorities made a fishy discovery this week, when a whopping 385 pounds of caviar was found stashed in a hospital morgue refrigerator.
The employees who were arrested for stashing the stuff claim that it was being reserved for a staff New Years party. Here’s why the St. Petersburg police were after the caviar:
Most of the red caviar was from salmon, but 38 kilograms (84 pounds) of the stash was black caviar from sturgeon, an endangered fish. Amid heavy restrictions on sturgeon fishing, black caviar is increasingly produced and sold illegally.
A day after the morgue discovery, St. Petersburg police said they seized an additional 100 kilograms (220 pounds) intended for illegal sale at local markets.
On Friday, the Interfax news agency reported that border guards in the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv confiscated 249 cans of caviar worth almost $22,000 that was allegedly being smuggled from Russia to Ukraine.
In the far eastern region of Khabarovsk, a vehicle inspection turned up 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of caviar, leading police on a weeklong investigation, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. They raided a village home on Friday and found another 26 kilograms (57 pounds).
At two different spots along the Amur River basin, police found 47 sturgeon carcasses and 2.5 tons of live sturgeon. Sturgeon fishing in the Amur basin is prohibited.
Apparently, the war on drugs in Russia includes battling the sale of illegal caviar. I wonder if they have dogs trained to sniff out the fishy stuff?
Mental_floss magazine dug up songs that made the news in the past quarter-century. They may be from a different era, and most of them aren’t particularly popular or critically acclaimed (although some are), but they all made a difference in the world one way or another. Many different ways, actually. Read the stories of each and every song at the blog. Link
How much do you remember about the big events of 2011? OK, how about the not-so-big events that you should recall? That’s the subject of today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. It’s not all that easy; there are some diverse subjects covered. I scored 67%, not because I forgot already, but because there were some thing I just never knew (like the sports). Link
Barry Pilling compiled news footage of the big events of 2011 into one video. The music is “The Height Of Summer” by The Knife. Warning: graphic images. -Thanks, Barry!
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It does tend to make a boring interview more interesting. -via Arbroath
Can you tell a real news headline from one made up by the satirical website The Onion? It’s not as easy as you might think, but that’s the challenge of this quiz from mental_floss. You might remember some of these headlines, but you need to remember how true they are. I knew them all, but it’s my business to know weird news stories. I want to see how well you do! Link
Pit bulls have a bad reputation, but many of them are actually wonderful, loving family dogs. In fact, this particular dog actually saved his owner who was having a brain aneurysm by alerting her husband to her problem in time for her to be rescued.
Video after the jump: more …
Last Sunday was the 160th anniversary of The New York Times. Throughout those years, The Times has created quite a reputation for itself and has even garnered the nickname the “newspaper of record.” These days, the paper is the third most popular in the world, only ranking behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, neither of which are location-based like The Times. But how did the paper get to be so well-respected and widely circulated? Read on to learn more about the illustrious “Gray Lady.”
The Times was founded on September 18, 1851 by journalist/politician Henry Jarvis Raymond (that’s him above), who eventually became the second chairman of the Republican National Committee, and former banker George Jones(below). Originally the paper went by the name of the New-York Daily Times and was sold for one cent. Rather than just diving into the news of the day, the first edition attempted to explain why the editors created it and what positions the paper would take on issues, stating:
We shall be Conservative, in all cases where we think Conservatism essential to the public good;—and we shall be Radical in everything which may seem to us to require radical treatment and radical reform. We do not believe that everything in Society is either exactly right or exactly wrong;—what is good we desire to preserve and improve;—what is evil, to exterminate, or reform.
Within only a few years, the paper changed its name to The New York Times and in 1858, the paper was doing well enough to move into its own building, making it the first newspaper in New York City to be housed in a building built specifically for its own use. Ten years after its original release, it started adding a Sunday edition. Prior to this time, it was fairly rare for any paper to print on a Sunday, but public demand for news updates about the Civil War caused the change in papers around the country.
more …
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In the eternal struggle for survival, animals are constantly evolving new strategies to win. This arms race is particularly evident when looking at the fight between opossums and snakes. Possums have built up a tolerance to pit viper venom by eating the potential predators. This has also helped them protect themselves from bites from rattlesnakes and copperheads. Even more interestingly though, the viper is constantly evolving more deadly poison:
Rapid evolution of both the snake’s venom and the opossum’s venom defense suggest that the two creatures are in a chemical arms race, having evolved in response to each other, according to researchers at the American Museum of Natural History in an article published in PLoS One.
Learn more over at Discovery News.
Link Image via normanack [Flickr]
With the scandal unfolding in Britain we see just how powerful someone like Rupert Murdoch really is. However there have been many like him before as we see in this list of some of the most powerful media moguls in history. My favorite is Joseph Pulitzer (pictured). You know you have power when you have facial hair like that.
Since the dawn of mass media, newspapers, radio and television have all been used to inform and educate the public. They have also been used to whip mobs into a frenzy, control the world of politics and consolidate their owners’ power. These media moguls all straddled the line between entertainment and politics, preaching to the public and wielding an immense influence over lawmakers and politicians.
In Poland there is a small forest of pine trees that grow with a bend in the middle of their trunk and no one knows why. They kind of look like a cartoon tree that is trying to avoid being chopped down, bending whenever the lumber jack swings his ax.
In a tiny corner of western Poland a forest of about 400 pine trees grow with a 90 degree bend at the base of their trunks – all bent northward. Surrounded by a larger forest of straight growing pine trees this collection of curved trees, or “Crooked Forest,” is a mystery.
It may seem like a simple thing to research, but simply typing in the year of your birth and getting a instant history lesson on pop culture, politics and the news is somehow very entertaining. Type in your year and let us know what were some interesting facts you found out about the year of your birth.
Potholes are a conundrum for journalists. They are newsworthy because potholes directly affect the live of local readers or viewers. However, they don’t lend themselves to great visuals, which are necessary for newspapers and television broadcasts. So, what do you do? Many news outlets take pictures of potholes with the people they affect. It happens so often that it’s become a cliche, and when you see these pictures gathered together, the effect is quite funny! That’s what the blog Posing with Potholes is for. See picture after picture of the poor folks who have to deal with these holes day in and day out. You can submit your own personal pothole picture as well. Link -via Breakfast Links
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I’m sure many of you are familiar with the German superstar bear, Knut. He rose to stardom when his mother abandoned him at birth. A keeper at the Berlin Zoo stepped in and raised the cub from childhood, feeding him from a bottle, cuddling him, playing with him and otherwise rearing the little one. The issue really came into the public attention when PETA and other animal rights groups argued that the cub should have been left to die, as it was nature’s course and these activists believed animals shouldn’t be kept in zoos anyway.
Knut passed away on March 19 and while activists are still crying foul, blaming the zoo for Knut’s death, his fans will remember the adorable little bear that passed away far too soon -at only four years old. The zoo will be performing an autopsy, but results have not yet been released. In the meanwhile, we can console ourselves by remembering Knut kindly through this great memorial over at Cute Overload.
On a more positive note, the circle of life always continues and as the star of Berlin’s zoo passes on, Rotterdam recently introduced their newest addition to the public for the first time. Little Vicks (seen above) was born on December 6 and is every bit as cute as little Knut once was.
Some of the most important events can slip past us because we don’t know how important they are until much later. You know about Sputnik, Elvis, and Rosa Parks, but did you know that The Pill was developed in the ’50s?
You probably think that – along with Twister and concept albums – the oral contraceptive pill was one of the great inventions of the swinging sixties. In fact, it was a product of the more famously staid and conservative fifties. Developed by a team of biologists led by Gregory Pincus, it was first tested in Puerto Rico April 1956. The Food and Drug Administration did not approve the marketing of the pill until 1960, just in time for it to be a symbol of sixties freedom.
Read about four other events that also turned out to be very newsworthy …much later. Link
June is the Humane Society’s Adopt-A-Cat Month and what better way to celebrate than to take a look at some of the world’s most famous felines. Actually, there is one much better way to celebrate: if you have room in your home, why not open your heart up to a new kitty this year? Ok, enough with the preaching, on to the internet’s favorite pastime (outside of “adult” things) –kitties!
Throughout the centuries, famous animals have gotten headlines and attracted attention for heroic deeds and fascinating behaviors. Perhaps one of the earliest cats to garner this sort of worldwide attention was Faith, The Church Cat. Faith was adopted by the parishioners of a London church in 1936. In 1940, she gave birth to a single kitten. In early September of that year, she started insisting on being let into the church basement and then she carried her kitten downstairs. The kitten was retrieved twice by Father Ross, but each time she brought him back downstairs.
The next day, German air raids began to fall on London and the entire church was destroyed. When Father Ross discovered the church in ruins, he heard a faint meowing and discovered Faith and her kitten were safe under the rubble in the basement. He managed to grab the two cats and get out of the building just before the roof collapsed.
Faith was nominated for a Dinkin Medal but was determined ineligible because she was a civilian, but she instead received a special medal for bravery. The Archbishop of Canterbury even made a guest appearance at the medal ceremony.
Speaking of cats with military honors, let’s not forget Simon, a ship cat on the HMS Amethyst, who was in the business of catching rats. When the ship was attacked in 1947, Simon was wounded and wasn’t discovered for four days. The ship’s doctor nursed his wounds and soon the kitty was back to catching rats and he now had a new duty of keeping injured sailors company.
He was presented with a campaign ribbon when they reached port and it was announced that he would receive a Dicken Medal for animal gallantry, but he passed away in quarantine in England before the medal ceremony took place. Even in his death though, Simon was honored. He was buried in a special casket and given full naval honors.
Of course, a cat need not be in the military or involved with a war to be worshiped by the masses. Room 8 was a cat who showed up at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles in 1952 and decided to spend the rest of his life there. Not surprisingly, given his name, his favorite classroom was Room 8. Over the summers he would disappear, but he always managed to reappear when class began again. Eventually the television news crews took notice and Room 8 became the most famous kitty in L.A. Throughout his life he received more than 100,000 fan letters, up to 100 in one day.
Anyone who remembers the Clinton administration is sure to remember Socks, the First Cat. While not the wildest pet to be owned by a president, there was something about Socks that drove the media crazy. They stalked him, even to the point where Clinton eventually had to tell them to leave the kitty alone. He went on his own publicity tours to nursing homes and schools. Later, he became the star of a Murphy Brown plot and the inspiration for a children’s book. Nintendo made a video game about him, but it was never released.
After Buddy was adopted though, Sock’s position seemed to falter in the Clinton household. The two pets never got along and eventually Socks was instead adopted by one of the president’s secretaries.
Perhaps the biggest cat-related news story in the last decade though was Oscar, the cat who could predict patient’s deaths. He lived in a nursing home and had an uncanny ability to recognize who was going to die next. When Oscar curled up with someone in the home, they almost always died in the next four hours. He correctly identified over 50 deaths before they occurred.
While the media and public seemed to be disturbed by the idea, the staff of the hospice feel that he actually helps calm those who are passing on and provides a remarkable connection between patients, their families, and the staff.
Tama is perhaps my favorite cat on this list, you may recall seeing this lovely station master before, but you may not know that she is credited with saving the Wakayama Electric Railway from bankruptcy and she is now the only female manager in the entire company. She’s even an honorary knight in Japan. Of course, all Tama really did was hang out at the station and look cute, which got her the position of station master, which brought in 1.1 billion Yen to the local economy thanks to tourist visits. But hey, it still takes talent to bring in that kind of money just based on your looks.
Sure plenty of people have service dogs, but when was the last time you saw a service cat? Wendy is a service cat who helps Jeff Ward cope with his post-traumatic stress disorder. The kitty acts as a social buffer to help soothe his anxiety in social disorders. While a lot of our readers seemed to have an issue with a man needing a cat to get through the day, I think Wendy’s fascinating if for no other reason than getting a cat to walk around with you on a leash is pretty impressive.
On a sad note, a few months after Wendy made national news, she was attacked by an unknown assailant who broke her pelvic bones. Luckily, she survived the attack and donors covered the cost of the surgery.
Morris is one of the best animals for a feature in Adopt-A-Cat month, as he was one of only a few actually picked up from an animal shelter. He was discovered by Bob Martwick in a Chicago animal shelter and was on the list for euthanasia because he had a torn eyelid from a fight before he came into the pound.
Martwick adopted him and named him “Lucky.” A while later, he found Nine Lives was looking for a cat representative and he sent Lucky into the boardroom alone. The cat jumped onto the table, head-butted the art director and then sat back and watched him. He was immediately hired and started spending his remaining years in first-class flights and five-star hotels.
There are probably thousands of cat internet stars these days, but Chase may be the most inspirational of all of them. After a tragic accident left chase without a nose, cheek skin or eyelids, she required a lot of daily maintenance including daily eye drops. The cat is not in pain, but her face is quite a shock to many people. Rather than keep her away from the public though, her owner has opted to use her as an inspirational icon to accident victims everywhere through the wonderful blog, Daily Tails of Chase. She also works as a therapy cat for Paws For Friendship, where she visits hospitals and schools to educate and inspire about disabilities. Chase teaches people that it’s ok to look a little different and that you can go through something horrible and still live a wonderful life.
The picture used above was by artist Namowal, who is a fan of Chase. Be warned if you click the link to Chase’s site, her appearance is rather disturbing for many sensitive viewers.
In 1984, Charlie Schmidt shot a video of his cat, “Fatso,” playing piano with the help of someone grabbing him under the belly, their arm was covered up by a shirt. In more recent years, he uploaded the video with some music added, with the title, “Cool Cat.” Then someone put up a video entitled “Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat,” (I can’t track down the original video) where the cat played vaudeville style after someone goofed up bad on another video. That’s when Keyboard Cat quickly became one of the biggest memes on YouTube, as seen above.
Soon enough, the video garnered national attention and was seen on G4’s “Attack of the Show” and “The Colbert Report.” More recently Charlie Schmidt made a video with his new cat, titled, “Keyboard Cat Reincarnated.” While the video wasn’t as successful as the original keyboard cat videos, it still made its rounds on the blogosphere, including Neatorama.
Keyboard cat might be a little better known, but he can’t actually play the piano. Nora can. Nora was a shelter cat who was adopted by a couple who taught piano lessons. She was always interested in the piano, but one day her owners came in the room, shocked to see the cat hitting the keys one at a time. When the cat started playing in front of students, the kids started photographing her and when someone took a YouTube video and posted it online, Nora became a star overnight. She now has a series of YouTube videos and her own website.
Casper, better known as Commuter Cat, was famous for lining up to ride a bus, boarding the vehicle and then riding a few stops down and exiting near a local fish and chips shop. Unfortunately, he recently passed away at the beginning of this year when he was struck by a hit and run driver. Before that though, he spent a four year stint riding the Number 3.
His owner said that she didn’t believe tales of his adventures at first, but when she saw the proof, she guessed he must have just followed all the people who board the bus at a stop just outside their home.
Maru became famous for loving to climb in boxes, but his video channel on YouTube has expanded to show him playing with a variety of objects. While it seems strange that a playful kitty would be enough to develop a fan following, it is very true in his case, as he has received over 50 million times and his YouTube channel is now the ninth most popular in all of Japan. He even had a book published in his home country in 2009.
While these cat video stars may not be famous enough to be known by name, let’s never forget these fabulous felines and their 15 minutes of fame.
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You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t include any fat cats, but that’s purely because Alex covered the issue so well in his Top 15 Amazingly Fat Cats post. If you’ve never read this one, you’ve gotta give it a view.
Now I know there’s probably hundreds more cats that are arguably just as famous and thousands more who deserve to be (I even had to cut out a few or this post would have taken up the whole front page), so share! Who is your favorite cat online or off?
Yang Liwei became China’s first astronaut when he orbited the earth in 2003. Cameras were rolling as Yang emerged smiling from the space capsule after his landing. It appeared to be a perfect mission. But was it?
In a lecture he gave to a group of journalism students last month, a top official at Xinhua, the state news agency, said that the mission was not so picture-perfect. The official, Xia Lin, described how a design flaw had exposed the astronaut to excessive G-force pressure during re-entry, splitting his lip and drenching his face in blood. Startled but undaunted by Mr. Yang’s appearance, the workers quickly mopped up the blood, strapped him back in his seat and shut the door. Then, with the cameras rolling, the cabin door swung open again, revealing an unblemished moment of triumph for all the world to see.
Xia’s account of the space mission agrees with astronaut Yang’s story in his new autobiography of how he suffered injuries during the flight. Xia’s lecture, which covered other news stories and how they were altered for the public, was posted on many Chinese websites and quickly deleted by authorities. Link -via Fark
2009 ends tonight, and looking back at the weird stories of the year is always fun. Oddee has the twelve most memorable events that had us all doing double takes. Remember these?
Door County authorities are trying to figure out how a motorist ended up near the top of the east arm of the Maple-Oregon Bridge across Sturgeon Bay after the arms of the drawbridge were lifted to a 45-degree angle. The car precariously perched in a downward position was photographed and the photos hit the internet pretty fast. Apparently the bridge tender noticed, lowered the bridge and after a short conversation she goes on her way. The incident happened about 6 p.m., but police didn’t learn about it until after news reporters began calling to confirm the authenticity of the photos. At first police thought someone was just playing around with Photoshop, until they realize it was for real.
Link.
You can find a serious look back at the news of 2009 just about anywhere. A lot of those stories can be downright depressing. Meanwhile, Dave Barry reminds you of what happened while putting his ridiculous spin on 2009.
Elsewhere in politics, a team of specially trained wildlife agents equipped with nets and tranquilizer darts manages, after a six-hour struggle, to remove Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office. He is transported to an undisclosed swamp, where he is released into the wild and quickly bonds with the native ferret population.
On a more upbeat note, the nation finds a new hero in US Airways Capt. Chesley Sullenberger, who, in an astonishing feat of aviation, manages to land a US Airways flight safely in the Hudson River after it loses power shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia. Incredibly, all 155 people on board survive, although they are immediately taken hostage by Somali pirates.
In entertainment news, an unemployed California mother of six uses in-vitro fertilization to give birth to eight more children, an achievement that immediately catapults her to a celebrity status equivalent to that of a minor Kardashian sister.
And that’s just January. The year ends with Somali pirates hiking the Appalachian Trail to escape North Korean missiles. Or something like that. Link -via Fark
When passengers on a Continental flight out of Houston were told their flight would be delayed because of otters, a lot of them laughed, thinking it was a joke. It wasn’t.
There were a number of otters set to travel in the cargo area, but one somehow managed to escape its cage. “We watched them take them off the plane in a box, and the next thing we know one of the otters got loose and took off across the tarmac,” said passenger Harvey Bullock.
The flight ended up being delayed a full 80 minutes, but at least the passengers were able to make cheesy ‘otters on a plane’ jokes for the rest of their lives.
Link Image Via Savagecat [Flickr]
GOOD magazine has a graphic that shows how big the news stories of 2009 were compared to other news stories. The information used is from Journalism.org, which calculates the percentage of coverage news stories get every week. Link -via Nag on the Lake
What happens on Facebook doesn’t always stay on Facebook, and sometimes those misadventures make the national news. Remember the groom who posted to Facebook during his wedding? Have you heard about the woman who lost her disability benefits over her Facebook pictures? And then there’s Rodney Bradford, who was posting to his page at the exact time of a robbery he was accused of.
His defense lawyer, Robert Reuland, told a Brooklyn assistant district attorney, Lindsay Gerdes, about the Facebook entry, which was made at the time of the robbery. The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status update had actually been typed from acomputer located at 71 West 118th Street in Harlem, as Mr. Bradford said. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.
Read more stories of how Facebook is affecting the lives of people outside the internet. Link -via Unique Daily
2009 has been a great year for weird news. Asylum has collected the best weird stories this year that were featured on the Digg homepage. Remember when Woody Harrelson attacked a photographer, claiming he thought he was a zombie? Or when the girl with stars all over her face lied about falling asleep in the tattoo artist’s chair?
Relive the past 9.8 years in news stories condensed into seven minutes, peppered with snark and wit. via AcidCow.
Her injuries haven’t stopped her from living: she’s been teaching blind children life skills. “Life is what you make it,” she said.And now she and her partner, Jeffrey, who’s also blind, are raising their 2-month-old baby boy, which leaves no time for self-pity. “Just because you have a tragic thing happen in your life, it doesn’t mean that your life is over,” she said.
Now that Walter Cronkite passed, Time decided to ask Americans who their most trusted newsperson was. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of Jon Stewart.
It’s a sad statement that the most trusted name in news is actually a comedian. I’m not sure if it speaks badly about Americans in general or about the state of our news media.
Link Via Good Magazine
Veteran journalist and news anchorman Walter Cronkite died today. Often called “the most trusted man in America”, Cronkite set a high standard for television journalism in the 20th century. He was 92 years old.
Mr. Cronkite anchored the “CBS Evening News” from 1962 to 1981, at a time when television became the dominant medium of the United States. He figuratively held the hand of the American public during the civil-rights movement, the space race, the Vietnam war and the impeachment of Richard Nixon. During his tenure, network newscasts were expanded to 30 minutes from 15.
And that’s the way it is, July 17, 2009.
Link -via YesButNoButYes
See also: A collection of memorable reports from Walter Cronkite.
It is hard to resist a Florida joke here but really, it is a wonderful state … for the most part. What is truly amazing is not that dozens of children were tazered in the same state, nor that it was all on the same day, nor that some of them were also tear gassed. No, what is amazing is that this was done almost entirely with parental consent – and on take-your-child-to-work day no less.
Children held hands so that 50,000 volts could pass through their fingers. Other children were exposed to tear gas.
A total of 43 children were directly and indirectly shocked by electric stun guns during simultaneous Take Your Sons and Daughters to Work Day events gone wrong at three state prisons last month. One was a warden’s daughter.
None of the children required medical attention or were notably harmed, McNeil said. He said the victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 17, were all children of prison officials. In nearly every case, the guards who administered the “electronic immobilization devices” had permission from parents or grandparents.
