In the original "The Dukes of Hazzard," The General Lee is the name given to the 1969 Dodge Charger muscle car driven by Bo and Luke. The car inspired countless imitation, but this one is particularly bad: Behold, the worst ever Honda Civic General Lee!

Oobject has more: Link

The Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa, Japan, has a fish tank so big that it's called the Kuroshio Sea. The gigantic tank is 10 m (33 ft) deep, 35 m (115 ft) wide and 27 m (89 ft) long and holds the equivalent of 3 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water.

The tank is so large that not one, but four whale sharks live in it. The Daily Mail has more gorgeous photos of the aquarium exhibit: Link

You can vote or see the results (quite surprising - I thought it'd be Confucius with one of his Confucius Says jokes!) - via Reality Carnival

Photo: Bryan Derballa

Alex Klein and Bryan Derballa travelled to Israel and Gaza to surf and experience life first-hand in the area filled with hate, tension, war but also vibrant culture and life. They are documenting their experience in a fascinating blog called God Went Surfing With The Devil, and will be coming out with an indie documentary film of the same name next year.

A sample entry from Day 8:

Had coffee with a navy commando. Discussed war and peace, surfing and politics. The men here are affable and deadly. Tried tracking down Abdullah, the leader of the surf scene in Jaffa. No one seems to know his whereabouts. The last anyone heard he was in jail. Lots of phone calls, chasing leads, waiting around. A two-hundred shekel guitar was purchased to alleviate boredom. Went to the skatepark at night, a dog got stuck in the bowl.

In other news, four Hamas gunmen were killed in gun battles today, a commander of Islamic Jihad was struck with a rocket while riding a motorcycle, two Palestinian civilians were injured when their house was struck by a tank mortar, and three Israel Defense Force soldiers were injured, including one who was shot by a sniper. Numerous Qassam rockets were fired at Sderot and the western Negev.

Link - via Vice magazine

Boing Boing Gadgets blog has a neat post about Waste of Time, a functioning grandfather clock made entirely out of old bicycle parts.

The contraption was made by Yedidya Vardi and Vladimir Zviagintsev, and BB Gadgets has the video clip: Link

In an homage to kid_icarus' excellent haiku in the comment of our recent post about a certain Japanese DVD niche market, I'm making this shirt for him (her?). Anyhoo, kid_icarus: all you have to do to claim this shirt is to email me.

For the rest of you, If you want one or think it's a good idea, please let me know in the comment - if there's a big demand, I'll put a "Best Neatorama Comments" category in our online shop. Your patronage helps support this blog and I appreciate your business.

I've been thinking of ways to reward loyal Neatorama readers and to encourage good comments. In the past, we've given rewards to top commenters of the month every now and then, with varying success. In the end, doing so only encourages the quantity but not necessarily quality of the comments.

Let me try something new: great comments deserve to be rewarded, and what's the use of all these t-shirt printing equipments if I can't make a neat shirt out of some of your great comments? So put on your thinking cap: your great comments (no, it doesn't have to be in haiku form!) may just earn you a free shirt!

When Paul Curtis (aka Moose, previously on Neatorama here) tells people that he cleans for art, many are baffled - how can cleaning be considered art? Here's Paul explaining his latest project, the reverse graffiti of San Francisco's Broadway Tunnel, in a short documentary clip by Doug Pray.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Reverse Graffiti Project | Reverse Graffiti Video Clip

The Chongqing Wild Zoo in China is creating a musical group that is unlike any other: they're trying to teach wolves to sing...

Luo Yong, a keeper at Chongqing Wild Zoo, said he discovered the wolves' singing ability by accident, reports People's Daily.

"Once I was playing guitar and singing the song 'I Am A Wolf From The North', and a young wolf I raised walked up to me and stared at me. Suddenly he howled with the rhythm, and even patted the strings with his claw," he said.

Luo said that ever since he dedicated himself to training his wolf group, and now all 30 wolves at the zoo can sing along to a rhythm.

Link

A health spa in Russsia has just unveiled its tribute to a medical procedure it administers there routinely: the enema!

"We administer enemas nearly every day," said Alexander Kharchenko, the head of the sanatorium which specializes in treating illnesses of the digestion tract.

"So, I thought, why not use our sense of humor and give it a monument," he said of the bronze statue that stands about 1.5 meters high.

Local artist Svetlana Avakova, who designed the monument which cost around 1 million roubles ($42,000), said Botticelli's classic painting Venus and Mars had given her the inspiration to tackle the tricky subject.

Link (Photo: Eduard Korniyenko/REUTERS)

Good guys and scientists have pondered the question of "why are women attracted to bad boys" for ages. Now, Peter Jonason of New Mexico State University has figured out why bad boys seem to get their women: statistics - they just try more often!

According to a new study, men who are narcissistic, thrill-seeking liars and all round "bad boys" tend to have the greatest success finding more sexual partners.

Scientists believe that the root of their good fortune is simply that they try it on with more women, therefore by the law of averages are likely to ensnare more.

They say these type of men adopt a more predatory, scatter gun approach to conquests and have more of a desire to try new things which helps when it comes to meeting women, according to the study highlighted by New Scientist magazine.

Link

Almost three weeks ago, Colleen Leduc got a call from her 11-year-old autistic daughter's school. The school reported her to Children's Aid Society that the girl might have been sexually abused ... based on the words of a psychic!

Leduc's weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and headed in to work, only to receive a frantic phone call from the school telling her it was urgent she come back right away.

The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard - the principal, vice-principal and her daughter's teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they'd received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse - and that the CAS had been notified.

How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.

"The teacher looked and me and said: 'We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of "V." And she said 'yes, I do.' And she said, 'well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_23845.aspx (with video) - Thanks Some Canadian Skeptic!

Thanks to the good folks at American Eagle Outfitters, we have two tickets to the New American Music Union, a two-day summer music festival this August 8 & 9 in Pittsburgh, PA, for one lucky Neatorama reader.

Line-up for the music festival include Bob Dylan, The Raconteurs, The Roots, Gnarls Barkley, and more. The festival will also feature college bands (the best of which will win a recording session). More info here: http://www.ae.com/web/77e/music/festival.jsp - Thanks Steve!

If you'd like the ticket, all you got to do is ask (in the comment section). One winner will be chosen at random in the next day or two; the tickets will be sent to US address only.

You don't have to live in Pittsburgh, but obviously you have to go there for the show. Please don't ask for the tickets just because you can or because you want to resell them - they probably won't have good resale value, as tickets are on-sale right now for the affordable price of $25 for students, and $49.50 for general admission.

In return, please let me ask you for a feedback on Neatorama - what we're doing right (or wrong) and what we can do to improve the blog. I gotta tell you, after running the blog for almost three years (with great help from Miss Cellania and other authors), I'm tired and am in need of fresh ideas :) If you'd like to leave a feedback, but not be in the running for the tickets, that's fine too - just let me know.

Science has made a significant stride in curing melanoma, a form of skin cancer, by using cloning cancer-fighting immune cells and injecting them back into the patient:

Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle concentrated on a type of immune system cell called a CD4+ T cell.

From a sample of the man's white blood cells, they were able to select CD4+ T cells which had been specifically primed to attack a chemical found on the surface of melanoma cells.

These were then multiplied in the laboratory, and put back in their billions to see if they could mount an effective attack on the tumours.

Two months later, scans showed the tumours had disappeared, and after two years, the man remained disease-free. The new cells persisted in the body for months after the treatment.

Link - Thanks moronic50!

Photo: dietollevonlioe [Flickr]

Life in the Fast Lane blog has a very neat post about 4 ancient cities of color: The Blue City of Jodhpur, the PInk City of Jaipur, the Amber City, and the Red City of Marrakech.

Jodhpur, shown above, is called the Blue City because of the prevalence of blue-painted buildings in the old quarter:

Most of the buildings in the old quarter are painted blue to signify the Bhraman (Priest) class, but non-Brahmins soon followed suit, as the color was said to deflect the heat and deter mosquitoes, and suddenly everything turned blue, creating a broad vision of indigo from the hilltops.

http://www.lifeinthefastlane.ca/4-amazing-ancient-cities-of-color/offbeat-news - Thanks Jon Jason!

In our recent post about the extreme (and painful) leg lengthening surgical procedure to become taller, a Neatorama reader named Jeannine commented about her own personal experience with the procedure (hers wasn't optional).

Jeannine's story tells us what it means to overcome life's hardship, persevere against all odds, and make the best of the cards life had dealt her (she's now a drag racer!):

Tech. Sgt. Bill and Miyong Johnson feared the worse. But they never gave up hope. Their daughter weighed 1 pound, 10 ounces, and doctors at Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda, Calif., only gave her a 1 percent chance to live. But Bill and Miyong never left their daughter’s side during the three months Jeannine was in intensive care.

“ She was so sick,” said Bill, who works at the 62nd Communications Squadron, McChord Air Force Base, Wash. “We didn’t know from one day to another if she was going to live.” [...]

But the little girl’s right leg will never be normal. When she was 5, doctors started to lengthen the bones in the leg. The painful Illizorov technique they used would eventually help her leg bones grow. But her right foot is still smaller. [...]

The Illizorov process involved driving 42 stainless steel pins through Jeannine’s leg and into her hip and her femur, tibia and fibula bones, which surgeons cut into two. Attached to rings and rods, the pins stabilized the bones and allowed new bone to grow in the area of the cut. To work, however, meant expanding the ring of steel 1 millimeter a day.

http://www.af.mil/news/airman/1003/jeannine.html | Seattle Times news story about Jeannine and Bill Gates (yes, that Bill) | Jeannine's website

Oh, btw, she just graduated high school last week, so congrats Jeannine!