Canada vows to protect Santa Claus from Russian troops in the Arctic

Canada has vowed to defend the North Pole and Santa Claus, insisting the mythical figure is a citizen, after Russia ordered its military to step up its Arctic presence.

Paul Calandra, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister, cited Canada's claim of the North Pole to bash an opposition party in Parliament.

"We are defending the north further by making a claim on the North Pole," he said.

"We know that the (opposition) Liberals do not think that the North Pole or Santa Claus are in Canada. We do. We are going to make sure that we protect them as best we can."

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the move by ordering the formation of new military units in the Arctic that are to remain on constant combat alert.
Russia, he said, was "ever more actively reclaiming this promising region, returning to it" after a brief absence that followed the Soviet Union's collapse.

Source: The Telegraph

Man sent threatening letters to himself, others

Syracuse, NY

On December 6, at around 7 p.m., police were called to [Jason] Wilson's residence at 603 E. Pickwick Drive. They found a vehicle on fire in the driveway and Wilson in the backyard leaning against a tree. Wilson told the officers that he noticed his truck on fire and that someone tried to break his sliding glass window to gain entry into the house.

He said he chased the person and the two of them got in a fight, but the unknown male got away. Police searched the area but located no one.
On Saturday, December 7, Wilson and the female in Bremen both again received threatening letters.
After an investigation, it was determined that Wilson sent the threatening letters to himself, the female and her father in Bremen and also to Kohl’s’ department store in Warsaw where the woman works.

Making Eggs Without Chickens (Video)

 

Hampton Creek Foods, San Francisco, California

Chef's poisoning may have sunk plan to battle invasive lionfish by getting Americans to eat them

It happened in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina: WBTW-TV: News, Weather, and Sports for Florence, SC

Lakers Fan Cancels Wedding To Watch Kobe Bryant’s Return

From San Diego:

28 year old Simon Bradley, a self-described ‘obsessed’ Laker fan decided to post-pone his wedding so he can attend Kobe Bryant’s highly anticipated return to the court from a torn Achilles this Sunday at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The man promised his fiance’ Melissa they will set a future date...

Melissa, save yourself a divorce and drop the guy now.

Video of NYPD's vain attempt to stop skateboarding event goes viral

Click here to see the full, uncut video. At nearly 14 minutes long it gets rather boring pretty quickly.

Dog Parking Available at IKEA in Koln, Germany (Photo)

The image and caption above is from the store's website. Here's a translation:

Coming with the dog to IKEA Köln-Am Butzweilerhof ?
There are many adults and children who are afraid of dogs. For this as well as for hygienic reasons we have decided not to allow dogs in IKEA stores, with the exception of guide dogs.
If you do not want to leave your dog at home, we've set up a dog parking area in front of our entrance.

And here is a photo of a couple of dogs parked at the store:

Bigfoot a bigger deal in USA than Canada

People in the United States are more likely than Canadians to consider that Bigfoot is real, an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of representative national samples, three-in-ten Americans (29%) and one-in-five Canadians (21%) think Bigfoot is “definitely” or “probably” real.
The Bigfoot, or Sasquatch, phenomenon is definitely bigger in the United States, where 77 per cent of respondents claim to have heard “a great deal” or a “moderate amount” about Bigfoot (compared to 61% of Canadians).

American and Canadian men are more likely to believe that Bigfoot is real than their female counterparts.
Liberal Party voters in Canada (16%) are the least likely to believe that Bigfoot is real. Democrats in the
United States more likely to believe in Bigfoot (33%) than Republicans or Independents.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

This Exists: Christmas Dinner in a Can

In the UK:

It’s called the Christmas Tinner and consists of nine layers of processed festive food, as demonstrated in the picture below. Apparently the chain has actually trialled this product in its Basingstoke store and is considering a national rollout “if there is enough gamer demand”.
How said “demand” will be measured remains unspecified. Although we do know that it will cost £1.99 per tin if it comes to fruition.
A “without sprouts” variant is available for those who dislike brussel sprouts. But like the idea of an entire Christmas dinner in a tin.

'Penis snake'

Commonly referred to as the 'penis snake,' this animal is actually something called an atretochoana eiselti, which is an amphibian species of the caecilian order. Until it's rediscovery in Brazil in 2011, only reserved specimens were known to exist.

Man sues library after being told he stinks

Salt Lake City, Utah

After being asked to leave a Sugar House library because of his lack of hygiene, a Utah man is suing the Salt Lake City Library for $25,000 — and he wants his library card re-activated.

According to a lawsuit filed in 3rd District Court Wednesday, the man wrote that over the summer, he was banned from the public library at 2131 S. 1100 East by a librarian "who said that I smelled and I was unclean."

The man wrote that the librarian was talking loudly with another man, and the duo then began "badgering" him while he was using a library computer.

Exploding Pig Farm Mystery

At first, the manure was just harmlessly foaming. Only later on did things get lethal. 
Hog farms in the Midwest are great big barns sitting on top of great big pits filled with a great deal of awful-smelling manure. The pigs walk about on a slatted floor that lets manure fall into the pit several feet below. Around 2007, farmers began noticing pig poop acting funny. The normally liquid mixture started producing foamy bubbles, rising up and up, past the slats, right to the pigs’ cloven hooves.
Then it got worse. Among the gases in the bubbling foam are two of special note: methane and hydrogen sulfide—both highly flammable. All it takes is a small spark and Kaboom! In September 2011, a barn explosion killed 1,500 pigs and seriously injured one worker. It was just the most serious in a string of barn explosions that have cost farmers millions of dollars in the past several years.
Scientists have scrambled to solve the mystery of the exploding hog-manure foam, but no straightforward answer as emerged so far.

 Source: Nautilus

Thief who swallowed diamonds must retrieve them from bowel movement himself (Video)

An accused jewel thief who swallowed two diamond engagement rings before his arrest has been ordered to retrieve them himself.

Mark Watts is being held in the Brisbane city watchhouse until he returns the rings, with police insisting he does not need a hand.

"At the moment he hasn't passed them,'' said Francesca Antonaglia-Monteverde, from the chain of stores that owns the rings. "He's in the watchhouse and there's a toilet there. He has to retrieve them himself.''

Watts has been sitting on the country's most anticipated bowel movement ever since the case was revealed in The Courier-Mail on Tuesday.

He is accused of swiping the rings, worth a combined $59,000, after posing as a customer at Crown Family Jewellers at Indooroopilly Shopping Cente on Friday.

When workers cornered him, he swallowed the rings - a one carat diamond solitaire ring and 1.53 carat yellow diamond surrounded by 28 white diamonds.

Doctors have told Watts the jewellery could take five to seven days to reappear...

Source: News.com.au

Update, Dec 6:

Police trusted the alleged ring thief to return his swallowed loot - but he never delivered.
X-rays have confirmed David Watts now has only one of two stolen rings inside him.
The other lost ring is suspected to have been in waste bags he handed to police, which were disposed without a search.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett today said internal investigators from Ethical Standards Command had been called in and police would discuss compensating the owners for their loss.

 

Spike Away: The Thorny Way to Protect Your Personal Space in Public (Photos)

Made of spiky plastic strips & cable ties. Created by Siew Ming Cheng of Singapore.

NORAD tracking Santa with a new twist: armed jet fighters

As Santa streaks through the sky this Christmas Eve, Rudolph merrily guiding the way, he will be flanked by some new and unusual companions: a jet-fighter escort, bristling with missiles.
That is the twist that — to the dismay of at least some child advocates — the US military has chosen to put on this year’s version of its traditional animated tracking of the yuletide journey.
The popular program, without the jet escort, reached 22 million people last year and generated tens of thousands of phone calls from kids and their parents around the country. The mock mission allows families, either by calling or logging on, to get “real-time” updates on Old St. Nick’s global trip to bring holiday cheer to girls and boys.
This year’s updated segment, now previewing on the military’s website, depicts Santa soaring over snow-capped peaks with military aircraft keeping pace on either side.

Adding the jets is “part of our effort to give the program more of an operational feel,” said Navy Captain Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the command that sponsors the event, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD.

Source: The Boston Globe

Walmart is selling 'Destroy Capitalism' by Banksy prints

Corporation is selling alleged prints of graffiti artist's work for $57.99 to $868.99.

The absurdity of the situation was not lost on the Twitterverse:

Walmart is selling a Bansky print titled "Destroy Capitalism," which shows people buying a T-shirt with that slogan http://t.co/b3IMPHS4a4
— Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) December 3, 2013

Why is Banksy being sold at @Walmart ? http://t.co/xsjv8YU2Lq #banksy
— Jordan Lea Bender (@mrsJbender) December 3, 2013

Can we all take a moment to admire the fact that Banksy's 'Destroy Capitalism' canvas prints are now available at Walmart?
— Valerie (@ValerieShawley) December 3, 2013

Is nothing sacred RT Walmart's Selling A Bunch Of Banksy Ripoffs
http://t.co/YixQl4Frf3
— Matt Rodriguez (@RodStrategies) December 3, 2013

Source: UPI

Awkward Moments Not Found In Your Average Children’s Bible

 

Awkward Moments Not Found In Your Average Children’s Bible

Island celebrates first birth in 35 years

Ile de Sein, France, population 215:

It’s been a long time coming, but after a 35-year wait the residents of the tiny island of Ile de Sein, off Brittany had cause to pop the Champagne corks this weekend.
On Sunday morning the remote island in the Atlantic Ocean witnessed its first birth in over a third of a century when a mother of three had a baby girl.
The birth of Emily at 6.25am on Sunday was announced later that morning by the island’s doctor Ambroise Menou.
In recent years on the rare times when a newborn has been expected, the birth has taken place on the mainland in Brittany where parents can get access to medical facilities that don’t exist on the island.
But the mother of Emily and her husband, a volunteer firefighter who both live on the island, were determined to end the drought and decided their baby should be born on Ile de Sein.

Camera stolen by eagle retrieved, bird's eye view footage recovered (Video)

[Western Australia] Aboriginal rangers had set up the motion-sensor camera at a gorge on the Margaret River in May, to try and capture images of fresh-water crocodiles.
Gooniyandi ranger Roneil Skeen says the camera disappeared not long afterwards.
"Unexpectedly our camera went missing so we thought we had lost it because it fell into the water," he said.
But a few weeks ago, they got a phone call to say a Parks and Wildlife ranger had found the small device at the Mary River, about 110 kilometres away.
They have been able to extract three 30-second clips that reveal the culprit to be a thieving sea eagle.

Child taken from womb by social services

Big Brother at work in the UK:

A pregnant woman has had her baby forcibly removed by caesarean section by social workers.
Essex social services obtained a High Court order against the woman that allowed her to be forcibly sedated and her child to be taken from her womb.
The council said it was acting in the best interests of the woman, an Italian who was in Britain on a work trip, because she had suffered a mental breakdown. The baby girl, now 15 months old, is still in the care of social services, who are refusing to give her back to the mother, even though she claims to have made a full recovery.
The case has developed into an international legal row, with lawyers for the woman describing it as “unprecedented”.
They claim that even if the council had been acting in the woman’s best interests, officials should have consulted her family beforehand and also involved Italian social services, who would be better-placed to look after the child.
Brendan Fleming, the woman’s British lawyer, told The Sunday Telegraph: “I have never heard of anything like this in all my 40 years in the job.
“I can understand if someone is very ill that they may not be able to consent to a medical procedure, but a forced caesarean is unprecedented.
“If there were concerns about the care of this child by an Italian mother, then the better plan would have been for the authorities here to have notified social services in Italy and for the child to have been taken back there.”
The case, reported by Christopher Booker in his column in The Sunday Telegraph, raises fresh questions about the extent of social workers’ powers.
It will be raised in Parliament this week by John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP. He chairs the Public Family Law Reform Coordinating Campaign, which wants reform and greater openness in court proceedings involving family matters.

Orchid Mantis: The Predator That Lures Prey By Mimicking Flowers

Praying or preying

The orchid mantis (hymenopus coronatus) is famous for its remarkable similarity to the orchid
flower, but researchers from Macquarie University have now discovered that its’ unique form of deception not only attracts its prey by resembling a blossom, but is in fact even more attractive to pollinators than the real flower.
Since its discovery in South East Asia more than a century ago, the rarity and elusive nature of the orchid mantis has made it difficult for scientists to understand why and how it has evolved this bizarre appearance.
Researchers James O’Hanlon and Marie Herberstein from Macquarie University, along with Gregory Holwell from the University of Auckland mounted an expedition to Malaysia to study the orchid mantis. They observed that the body of the orchid mantis was attractive to flying insects, demonstrating how their flower-like appearance has evolved to lure in unsuspecting pollinators searching for nectar in flowers.
“What really surprised us was the fact that the orchid mantises were even more successful at attracting pollinators than real flowers,” said O’Hanlon.
“Their bright floral colours and petal shaped legs create a tantalizing lure for insects. So it seems that orchid mantises not only look like flowers but also beat flowers at their own game.
“After more than a century of conjecture we provide the first experimental evidence of pollinator deception in the orchid mantis and the first description of a unique predatory strategy that has not been documented in any other animal species.”
Their findings have been published in the Chicago Journals for The American Society of Naturalists.

Chowing down on a butterfly.

Press release source: Macquarie University

Mathematical crime-fighter helps hunt for alien worlds

A curious mathematical crime-fighter has just boosted our confidence that the galaxy is brimming with alien worlds.

The statistical phenomenon, called Benford's law, has been shown to fit existing data on both confirmed and candidate exoplanets. The results suggest that of the thousands of planetary candidates, the majority will turn out to be real worlds and not errors in the data.

Initially a mere mathematical oddity, Benford's law states that the first digits of the numbers in certain sets follow a pattern of probability. For the numbers in a variety of data sets, 1 is the leading digit about 30 per cent of the time. Higher digits are less frequent: on average, just 4.6 per cent of numbers in such sets begin with 9.

Thomas Hair at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers wondered if Benford's law would hold true even beyond the solar system. "I became intrigued with the idea that exoplanet mass might fit," he says.

Hair examined data from the online catalogue exoplanets.org, which lists 755 confirmed exoplanets and nearly 3500 planet candidates, many of them found only in the past few years by NASA's Kepler space telescope. Masses are given in multiples of Earth's or Jupiter's mass. He found that the figures closely fit Benford's law for both units.

"The close fit with Benford's law gives a confirmation to experts' belief that most of the candidates are valid," says Hair, who will present the work in January at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.

Source: New Scientist

Historic UFO audio archive dating back to the 40s recovered

"A historic UFO audio archive documenting the beginning of the modern UFO era has been made available online. The archive was compiled by Wendy Connors and Roderick Dyke, and re-discovered and made available online by Isaac Koi and Giuliano Marinkovic.

"You can find the Faded Disk archive at Archive.org."

Source: Open Minds.