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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Boy Needs Hole Drilled in His Head – Doctor Grabs the DeWalt

The Australian

Handyman doctor saves boy
A local GP removed a blood clot in the brain of a 12-year-old boy by using an everyday house drill....
Views today: 4199


Drill
Very lucky ... Nicholas Rossi with his parents Karen and Michael at Parkville in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis
  • Boy, 12, had bike accident
  • Doctor drilled into his brain
  • Had internal bleeding in his skull

A COUNTRY doctor has saved the life of a dying 12-year-old boy by using a household drill to bore into his brain after the boy had a bike accident.

The emergency "operation", by local GP Rob Carson in the Victorian country town of Maryborough, was yesterday hailed by a leading neurosurgeon as "one of the gutsiest life-saving efforts imaginable".

The drama happened late last Friday when Nicholas Rossi fell off his bike while riding in a quiet cul de sac outside a friend's house.

Nicholas was not wearing a helmet and the impact of his head hitting the pavement knocked him momentarily unconscious.

"He was a bit delirious at first, but then he stood up and said he was fine," his father, Michael Rossi, told The Australian yesterday. When he got home, Nicholas kept complaining of a headache and his mother, Karen, a trained nurse, took him to the district hospital where Dr Carson, a local GP, was on duty.

Jean Gradillin of Denmark, England

The doctor kept him for observation, but an hour later Nicholas began to drift in and out of consciousness and have spasms.

Dr Carson recognised it as a sign of internal bleeding in the skull that places acute pressure on the brain - the same deadly condition that recently claimed the life of actress Natasha Richardson, wife of Hollywood actor Liam Neeson. He also noticed that one of the boy's pupils was larger than the other - another sign of the internal bleeding.

The boy had fractured his skull and torn a tiny artery between the bone and the brain just above his ear. This created internal bleeding that became trapped between his skull and brain and formed into a huge blood clot, placing pressure on the brain.

If Dr Carson did not act within minutes, the boy would die.

"Dr Carson came over to us and said, 'I am going to have to drill into (Nicholas) to relieve the pressure on the brain - we've got one shot at this and one shot only'," Mr Rossi recalled.

The small hospital was not equipped with neurological drills, so Dr Carson obtained a household De Walt drill, used for boring holes in wood, from a hospital maintenance room.

He telephoned leading Melbourne neurosurgeon David Wallace to help talk him through the procedure, which he had never tried before.

"He drilled into my son's head and we heard the suction," Mr Rossi said.

Dr Carson drilled until a blood clot fell out and continued to treat Nicholas until he could be airlifted an hour later to Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital.

"If you are in that situation you just do those things," he said.

"It is not a personal achievement, it is just a part of the job and I had a very good team of people helping me."

Read more of this story at The Australian

10 things you didn't know about orgasm (SFW)


"Bonk" author Mary Roach delves into obscure scientific research, some of it centuries old, to make 10 surprising claims about sexual climax, ranging from the bizarre to the hilarious. (This talk is aimed at adults. Viewer discretion advised.)

About Mary Roach

Death, the afterlife, and now sex -- Mary Roach tackles the most pondered and least understood conundrums that have baffled humans for centuries. (She's funny, too.) Full bio and more links

Top 5 Regional Drive Thru’s


By Ned Hepburn

fast-food-drive-thru-1

Ever wonder why there’s ads for Sonic all over the television but the nearest one is 200 miles away? Or why Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle is such a good movie DESPITE never having been to a White Castle? Or, for our East Coast readers, when you hear about In N Out Burger from all your West Coast friends?

Well, Manolith is here to answer all your questions.

1. Sonic

sonic-food-1

Anywhere you go, you see the ads. You always hear about how good the shakes are, and you know a friend that magically found one, but predominately these burger joints are found pretty far away wherever the hell you’re at. I had a roommate - true story - who drove three hours from Chicago to downstate Illinois just to get one (he was that kind of guy).

The burgers themselves aren’t that bad, the shakes are frankly amazing for a fast food place, and the fries are too puffy for my liking, but who else serves tater tots and who else serves them on roller blades up to your car, using a sort of pseudo-Jetsons food board?

The reason that the ads are so ubiquitous but the franchise themselves are so spread out (unless you’re in the Bible Belt or the South) is, according to a Sonic spokesperson who declined to give her name, is that “we’re expanding our franchise and merely building brand awareness. We’d rather have five or six locations be visited all day every day than have many locations barely visited. We’re in a huge expansion phase via word of mouth and the television ads help expand that and drive more people to try our burgers”.

2. Del Taco

del-taco-1

A largely Southern California franchise, Del Taco retains the kind of fervor in young boys hearts of a certain upbringing best reserved for baseball cards and Radio Flyers. If you’ve were brought up south of Bakersfield and enjoy beer now and then, you’ve made a late night run to Del Taco. A spokesperson declined to give an answer as to why they had not expanded nationality, but in Manolith’s opinion its because the market is more than monopolized by Taco Bell. Taco Bell is - lets face it - somewhat of a joke; Taco Bell is to Mexican food what Madonna is to acting. Just not good. Sadly, the Bell is everywhere, and Del Taco just ain’t, which sucks, because Del Taco is three times better. They use real chunks of meat that you can actually see as opposed to the strange meat hybrid that Taco Bell uses and its a shame they’re not more widely available - during my college years in Chicago I’d have killed for a hangover-killing taco feast from a drive thru, but alas, to no avail.

3. In N Out

in-n-out-1

In N Out is another Southern California staple so fucking synonymous with the landscape of SoCal food that one particular member of the Manolith Office actually chose an apartment due to its approximation to an In N Out franchise. They’re delicious, totally delicious, burgers and fries and milkshakes - and that’s it. You’ll be pressed to find onion rings or anything else (save “coffee” and “milk” and your choice of soda) on the menu, because In N Out does just those things: burgers, fries, and shakes.

The secret, though, is the ingredients. All the ingredients are 85% local and fresh - a HUGE advancement for a fast food chain - but its quality that you can literally taste, as anyone who has been to one during lunch or dinner rush can attest to, the place is always packed. Having been in an hour long line for one of their famous Double Doubles (two patties, two cheese slices burgers) and happily waiting for it, I’ll be the first to tell you that the quality is the best part about this thing.

And also exactly why they haven’t expanded. Despite being hugely, hugely popular, the company simply hasn’t found reliable farmers for their tomatoes, lettuce, and beef, and refuses to expand until they can find somewhat that meets their high standards.

4. White Castle

white-castle-1

White Castle seems to stop somewhere west of Chicago, which is a huge shame, because - sweet Jesus - it’s the best hangover food you’ve ever had.

Nothing can quite prepare you for the anal carnage that goes on six to eight hours after you’ve had their famous Sliders, which are basically miniature hamburgers, which live up their name if you are want to believe the urban legend as to how they got their name (about how they slide right out of you on the way out). But they’re so good going down it should be made criminal.

Speculation on as to why White Castle haven’t made it from coast to coast runs from Internet rumors about lack of money to simply the fact that they’re so well established and in the words of Alfred E. Neuman, “Why Try Harder?”. We couldn’t get anyone on the phone from White Castle, but we’d speculate on the latter. They’re so ingrained in East Coast life that moving them to the West might prove fruitless, dealing with heavyweights In N Out and Jack In The Box.

5. Jack In The Box

jack-in-the-box-1

One of the great tragedies in life is that Jack In The Box is just a West Coast phenomenon. It is - without a doubt - a stoners paradise. Per say you want two tacos at three in the morning? And you only have a dollar? DONE. Maybe you’re really feeling on some rice bowl thing, an’ hell why not, an egg roll? YOU CAN HAVE ONE. It’s fucking beautiful; democracy at work. And the burgers and all that aren’t exactly Michelin cuisine, but hey! I’m stoned! Where else can you get mini churros, a rice bowl, a chicken pita sandwich, and a mint shake at any time of the day? It’s insane. The menu follows no rhyme nor reason but it’s the best place to go after a few hits of the Honey Bear Bong.

Graphic video aims to stem teen pregnancies

British health officials produced Web ad to educate kids

Video
Shocking ad depicts teen giving birth
May 20: A town in England is trying a new and shocking tactic to educate kids about teen pregnancy. NBC's Dawna Friesen reports.

MSNB


LONDON - A gory video meant to shock teenagers into avoiding pregnancy by showing a girl giving birth on a school field while ogling children taunt her is capturing plenty of attention from Web users.

Public health officials in the city of Leicester, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London, produced the video and posted it on social networking and video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Facebook.

Organizers said Wednesday that the video, filmed to look as if it were shot on another student's cell phone, had received more than 250,000 hits.

The video shows a girl in a school uniform screaming in agony while jeering children jostle for a close look, while another girl trying to fend them off is helping deliver the baby.

The video ends with the caption: "Not what you expected? Being a teenage parent might not be either."

Public health officials in Leicester said local students were picked to act in the video and that a focus group of students offered suggestions on how to make it.

Liz Rodrigo, a public health specialist in Leicester, said kids came up with the video's concept, saying they liked the idea of using digital media to reach their peers instead of leaflets and posters they disliked.

She said they also prefer a shocking or funny approach instead of "preachy," a word often used to describe the current sex education methods.

The video has drawn criticism as well as praise, but Rodrigo says that comes with the territory.

"I think it is very hard hitting. Hairs on the back of my neck do stand up, but you know teenage pregnancy is a hard-hitting issue and we've got lots of teenage pregnancies in our city," she said.

There are about 50 conceptions per 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 in Leicester City, eight more than the country's average, according to statistics provided by Leicester City public health officials.

Overall, Britain's teen-pregnancy rates are among the highest in Europe and one recent report indicated that they are on the rise, specifically in England and Wales.

The government and educators have been trying to address the problem by distributing condoms in some schools, creating a sex-education program for the youngest elementary-school students and instituting a pilot program to distribute birth-control pills without a prescription.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Autumn of the Capo: The Diary of a Drug Lord

A 36-page handwritten memoir by one of Mexico's biggest drug lords is smuggled out of prison even as his successors have expanded Mexico's narco-mayhem

read more | digg story

Microsoft seeks patent for holographic meetings

Why settle for WebEx when you can be like Obi Wan and Luke? Microsoft is seeking to patent technology that would allow companies to conduct holographic virtual meetings. Along those lines, it is also seeking to patent gesture-based computing and a magic wand.

read more | digg story

Time-Lapse of 1200 lbs. of Cheese Carved



Champion cheese carver Troy Landwehr recently transformed a 1200 pound block of cheddar cheese into the Statue of Liberty. The entire process is captured with time-lapse.
Music: The Sweet Nothings "Bedridden"

FBI arrest four in alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues, shoot down plane

Keivom/News

James Cromitie is the alleged leader of the plot, the criminal complaint states.

The FBI and NYPD busted a four-man homegrown terror cell Wednesday night that was plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues while simultaneously shooting a plane out of the sky, sources told the Daily News.

The idea was to create a "fireball that would make the country gasp," one law enforcement said.

Little did they know the plastic explosives packed into their car bombs and the plane-downing Stinger missile in their backseat were all phony - supplied by undercover agents posing as Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda.

"If there can be any good news from this terror scare it's that this group was relatively unsophisticated, penetrated early, and not connected to another terrorist group," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). "This incident shows that we must always be vigilant against terrorism, foreign or domestic."

The suspects - three U.S.-born citizens and one Haitian immigrant - at least three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, were angry about the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan, sources told The News.

"They wanted to make a statement," a law enforcement source said. "They were filled with rage and wanted to take it out on what they considered the source of all problems in America - the Jews."

The group's alleged ringleader, James Cromitie, according to the complaint, discussed targets with an undercover agent. "The best target [the World Trade Center] was hit already," he allegedly told the agent. Later, he rejoiced in a terrorist attack on a synagogue.

"I hate those motherf-----s, those f---ing Jewish bastards. . . . I would like to get [destroy] a synagogue."

The men allegedly parked car bombs wired to cell phones outside the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center. They were also heading to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, Orange County, when the law swooped in on them.

Sources said their plan was to shoot down a cargo plane headed to Iraq or Afghanistan with a surface-to-air guided missile while simultaneously calling the cell phones and blowing up the Riverdale synagogues.

Sources said the four men were arrested after a year-long investigation that began when an informant connected to a mosque in Newburgh said he knew men who wanted to buy explosives.

FBI agents supplied them with what they billed as C-4 plastic explosives and a Stinger missile.

The weaponry was all phony.

"The bombs had been made by FBI technicians," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "They were totally inert."

Witnesses said an NYPD 18-wheeler blocked a black SUV on Independence Ave. in Riverdale and then officers broke in the darkened windows and yanked out the four men from inside the car.

Among those arrested was Cromitie, of Newburgh, who is the son of an Afghan immigrant and his African-American wife.

Cromitie, who also called himself Abdul Rahman, has served a long stretch in prison.

David Williams, Onta Williams and Leguerre Payen - his alleged henchmen - were busted with him. Cromitie allegedly recruited them at the Newburgh mosque.

The undercover informant who promised to arm them posed as a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an anti-India Pakistani group with connections to Al Qaeda, said Joseph Demarest, assistant director of the New York FBI field office.

"This shows the real risks we face from homegrown terror and jailhouse converts, and the need for constant vigilance," said Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.).

The four alleged terrorists are expected to be arraigned Thursday in White Plains Federal Court.

"These guys were angry, they had intent and they were searching for capacity," a senior federal law enforcement official told The News. But, the official added, "It's not exactly Al Qaeda."

Richard Williams, who identified himself as Onta Williams' uncle, said he doesn't believe his nephew would be involved in the plot.

"I spoke to him last week, he gave no indication that anything was wrong," Williams told The News Wednesday night outside his Newburgh home.

Mayor Bloomberg hailed the joint investigation that took down the wanna-be mass murderers.

"While the bombs these terrorists attempted to plant tonight were - unbeknownst to them - fake, this latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism," Bloomberg said.

agendar@nydailynews.com

With Joe Kemp in Newburgh, N.Y., Kerry Burke in New York and James Gordon Meek in Washington

Good Morning, Megan Fox: The Full Portfolio and Cover Story

You've seen the sexy Megan fox video. But once you get the Transformers star something to eat, once you get her out in the fresh air, once she's comfortable... Hallelujah.

By David Katz

1 of 12 Photograph by Greg Williams

Megan Fox won't kick her horse.

She's just sort of tapping it, using her Ugg-booted right foot to give it a nudge with her heel. But to Bandit (that's the horse), this is more of a suggestion, and what this horse needs right now is a command, a firm whack on the undercarriage with both heels that says "Stop screwing off!" — and this Fox is either unwilling or unable to give.

So we're gonna pause here for a minute or two, just a few hundred feet up the Topanga Canyon horse trail we're ascending, until Bandit can behave.

It's sunny but still mild for L. A., so Fox is wearing an open yellow cardigan over her black tank top. Her jeans, waist-baring low-riders, were rolled up just beyond her calves until Michael (our serene and tan guide for the day) mentioned she might want to roll them back down to avoid "chafing" — the kind of advice you don't ignore.

She's got a self-professed weakness for eye makeup, but she's not wearing much now, just a little mascara. Today's look is all-natural — though liberal cleavage and the "Brian" hip tattoo that occasionally peeks out above the waistband of her black underwear prevent it from being remotely wholesome.

"If you're a real wimp with him," Michael is explaining, "he's gonna keep taking advantage of you." Dominance over horses is established in the first ten minutes of the ride, which means Fox has about one minute left to show Bandit who's boss. "Don't worry, there's no way you're gonna hurt him," Michael says. Definitely not with the little love kicks she keeps delivering.

It's hard to hold this unwillingness to kick Bandit against her, because it is, after all, kicking an animal, but also because she's clearly freaked out — "terrified" is how she puts it — being in the saddle for the first time. "I have a healthy fear of horses," she said when she was introduced to Bandit, and considering he's a thousand-pound brown beast and she's a five-four, hundred-pound twenty-two-year-old actress, this was odd only because the riding lesson was her idea. She wanted to learn, she said, but really she just wanted an escape.

"You are catching me at a really vulnerable point in my life," she says, alluding to the recent breakup with her boyfriend of four and a half years. She's moving out of their home and being chased by an ever-growing pack of camera-wielding bruisers as she tries to get her personal life under control. "I've never really lived as an adult by myself. Like, I've never even bought my own dishes." That's all about to change. So yeah, Fox is spooked, and Bandit isn't really helping.

(Click here for Esquire's exclusive sexy Megan Fox video!)

The Smoke House, an old-school barbecue restaurant in Burbank, is dim, quiet, and pretty much empty except for Megan Fox tucked into a red vinyl booth in a corner. It's the day after the ride, and she's wearing the same kind of snug, low-cut tank top, this time in white, framed by a gray cardigan, the sleeves pushed up to reveal the Marilyn Monroe tattoo on her right arm. (She plans on sleeving the whole limb in the next year.)

She's sipping hot tea and picking at a basket of bright-orange garlic bread as she finishes an entry in her journal, which she calls her "book of feelings," fully aware of how corny that sounds. "Whenever I'm just sitting and thinking and feeling, I write it out," she says. "Sometimes it's an angry anti-man poem, and sometimes I'm just being funny and cute. Some of it is really disturbing, some really insightful, and some just bullshit. Sometimes I'll just rant about something someone does on a plane. Or about an interview on a horse."

She's joking — hopefully. It's hard to tell. She's more relaxed than yesterday but not exactly at ease, occasionally bringing her intertwined hands over her head in a stretch or rubbing her own neck, working out some kinks. It's been one of those weeks. "I don't know how I feel or think about anything right now, and I feel like I'm under a microscope. Normally I love playing the game, but that's when I'm in an assertive place. I'm not there right now." All the attention on her love life has got her rattled, wondering if it's time to start watching her words more carefully, to start "acting like an adult" in interviews.

"Because of some things I've said, some jokes I've made, I've got this wild, crazy reputation. Like I'm into sex with knives," she says, laughing at the thought. "People assume that I'm really promiscuous. There's a difference between being very sexual and being promiscuous. I'm not promiscuous. I'm extraordinarily sexual within a monogamous relationship. Nothing's off-limits. But that has nothing to do with experiencing a lot of people. I've only had two boyfriends my whole life."

The recent breakup with actor Brian Austin Green, whom she'd been dating since she was eighteen, helps explain the twenty or so paparazzi who now wait outside (and will continue to wait for the next few hours) to see whom she leaves with. She has no problem with attention — "mass validation" is how she jokingly refers to it — but this is too much too soon and in danger of overshadowing a career that's just getting started.

Fox moved out to L. A. five years ago, when she was seventeen. She was born in Tennessee, but after her parents divorced, her mom and new stepdad relocated the family to Port St. Lucie, Florida, where she was enrolled in a strict Christian high school. "They had right-wing conservative teachers teaching Bible class," she says. "They'd tell us how abortion was wrong, how evolution was wrong, how sex was wrong. I hated school." She wanted to act — has for as long as she can remember — so she left school (she later got her degree) and moved out to L. A. with her mom. Three months later, she landed a part in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen with Lindsay Lohan, then a guest spot on Two and a Half Men spent mostly in a bikini, followed by the short-lived Kelly Ripa sitcom Hope & Faith.

But odds are you'd never heard of Megan Fox until last summer, when she starred as tan-and-toned high school gearhead Mikaela Banes in Transformers, a role she reprises this month in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and that mostly entails, as she puts it, "a lot of running and screaming — you sort of have to let the acting aspect go, because it's just not there. People come to see the effects and the robots and the explosions." Which is not entirely fair. They also come to see Megan Fox in a half shirt bending over a '76 Camaro, an image your fourteen-year-old cousin has as his screensaver, and not because of the car. "I know I'm seen as a sex object," she says. "I'm just really confident sexually, and I think that sort of oozes out of my pores. It's just there. It's something I don't have to turn on."

Which is obvious when you're watching her eat the barbecue-chicken platter at the Smoke House. She's not licking her fork seductively, or smearing barbecue sauce all over her face, or dripping mashed potatoes down her chest, or doing any of the things she's asked to do time and time again in photo shoots. She's not even using her bare hands. She's simply a twenty-two-year-old girl eating some chicken, so it's really not her fault if watching this makes you feel as if you should be paying for the privilege. "I don't get it," she says. "I don't find food sexy, and I don't see the connection between food and sex." Obviously she hasn't been watching the right people eat.

"If you know how to take control of it, then it can be powerful," she says of being a sex symbol. "But I have no idea how to handle it yet, how to deal with it. I don't want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson — who I have nothing against — but I don't want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every single SAT word I've ever learned to prove, like, 'Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.' I don't want to have to do that. I resent having to prove that I'm not a retard — but I do. And part of it is my own fault."

If that's true, it's because of a few tantalizing stories she's told the press, or maybe those seven artfully placed tattoos, not because she prances around L. A. like Kim Kardashian. In fact, Fox is a homebody who prefers to watch hours of Animal Planet rather than go to bars or clubs, and she tries to avoid the Hollywood scene as much as she can. "When I go to a party, I always feel like I'm chum. Like my agent is just chumming the waters until I'm circled by all these dudes."

Awards shows, after parties, any kind of large social gathering — they all make her anxious. Before she walks a red carpet, she gets a nice buzz going (even though she's not much of a drinker), smokes a few cigarettes (even though she quit two years ago), and tries to get quickly in and out as she parries the inevitable come-ons from colleagues hopped up on their own egos. "Actors aren't necessarily the most intelligent guys you're ever gonna come across," she says. "They're so easily manipulated that if you have any sort of control over your own sexuality, they're just fucked."

Such was the fate of one up-and-coming Irish actor who hit on her as she was smoking a cigarette alone after an awards show. "He was like, 'Cigarettes? Do you have an addictive personality? Well, what else are you addicted to?' " she says. "Like, I'm unaware that he wants me to say, 'Sex. I'm addicted to sex, I just can't get enough. I just really want a daddy, can you be my daddy?' " She played with him for a bit, gave him a little string — then "cut him off at the knees."

Maybe it's the third herbal tea, but Fox is starting to relax, and with this comes a glimmer of her more unfiltered self, the one she was so worried would get her into trouble: not some cliché wild child but someone more engaging than that. When she lets her guard down, Fox is gossipy and outspoken. And funny.

Of course, beautiful women always think they're funny, because men laugh at everything they say. Fox could tell a knock-knock joke and every man within earshot would keel over with laughter. But Fox is actually funny. Get her going and she'll deliver a blue monologue that sounds as if it were lifted out of a Judd Apatow stoner flick. Confess you've never seen High School Musical, for example: "Wait, what?" she says, raising her voice. "Okay, well, let me tell you what it's really about. High School Musical is about this group of boys who are all being molested by the basketball coach, who is Zac Efron's dad. It's about them struggling to cope with this molestation. And they have these little girlfriends, who are their beards. Oh, and somehow there's music involved. You have to get stoned and watch it." Fox is funny like your fat friend Phil is funny: dry, dirty, sarcastic — a little bit mean. "People are not used to seeing starlets have a sense of humor, especially an off-center, foul sense of humor," she says. "I think it would be different if I were a guy. Seth Rogen can say whatever he wants and people know it's a joke."

Fox is obsessed with how she's perceived. She won't look at her own press — not because she doesn't care but because she cares too much. Looking at a sexy photo spread she's in or a critical blog post will make her physically ill. "Because I'm young and female, people want me to be like some Disney Channel, supersafe, sex-before-marriage-is-bad, Taylor Swift, I-date-someone-with-a-promise-ring, bullshit girl." Which would mean watering down the Megan Fox now in full swing at the Smoke House, the unrestrained woman who seems to have a polemicist's position on everything from Superman ("I just think he's a lame superhero. He's not interesting. He's not dark. He's just kind of a douchebag.") to sex: "I think people are born bisexual and then make subconscious choices based on the pressures of society. I have no question in my mind about being bisexual. But I'm also a hypocrite: I would never date a girl who was bisexual, because that means they also sleep with men, and men are so dirty that I'd never want to sleep with a girl who had slept with a man."

She makes this last statement, one she knows will get bolded and underlined and hyperlinked into oblivion, near the end of lunch, after the plates are cleared and the family-dinner crowd is starting to pour in. It's as if she's reached her own internal conclusion about whether she's going to self-censor for them and for all of us. Then she sums it up easily enough: "Fuck it."

(Click here for Esquire's exclusive sexy Megan Fox video!)

It’s the choice she must have made at some point yesterday, too.

There were those initial rough spots when Bandit was taking advantage of her — so much so that Michael the guide had to hop off his horse, grab a six-foot length of heavy rope out of his saddlebag, and tether Fox's animal to his own. (At least, he said it was because Bandit was misbehaving.) But that setup wasn't needed for long.

Halfway up, she got the hang of it, comfortable enough to make small talk, about horses, naturally, but this afforded some surprising information, like the fact that Fox knows the name of Gandalf's horse in The Lord of the Rings, a trilogy she's seen "a billion times" because Fox isn't just a fanboy's wet dream but a fanboy herself. "If I were to get typecast in comic-book movies for the rest of my life, that would be okay." The pervasive rumors that she'll be playing Wonder Woman or inherit Lara Croft's bodysuit from Angelina Jolie are "complete Internet bullshit," but she is currently shooting Jonah Hex, a bloody western comic-book adaptation with Josh Brolin. In September, she stars in Jennifer's Body, a horror parody by Diablo Cody, as the man-devouring zombie captain of a high school flag team.

After Transformers came out, Fox passed on a bunch of challenging scripts because she was scared she wasn't good enough or the roles seemed laughably implausible for her. ("Seriously, I'm gonna be playing a mom on a rampage, looking for her lost kid? What a joke. I look like a little kid.") So it's possible Fox actually will spend her career as the Hot Chick, running and screaming in strategically ripped cheerleading outfits as she battles talking cars and evil cowboys — but that's not likely. After all, she said she was "terrified" of horses, and within an hour into her first ride she was relaxed in the saddle, smiling, talking about coming back and seeing Bandit again.

By the return trek, Fox was confident enough with her horse that Michael agreed to let her trot. She gave Bandit a kick — commanding, with both feet — then she let out an excited little scream and off she went.

T-Mobile Lets Consumers Put Its Pricing To The Test, Courtesy Of BillShrink


by Robin Wauters on May 20, 2009


T-Mobile USA announced today a new campaign dedicated to helping people save money on their wireless service, and the carrier is not only using the lovely Catherine Zeta-Jones as the face of the campaign again, they’re also giving a huge vote of confidence and a heap of exposure to Redwood City, CA-based startup BillShrink.

BillShrink launched in April 2008 as a way for people to compare the value they are getting with their current wireless provider against other national carriers. It has since raised an additional $8 million on top of a $1 million round it secured back in 2007 and expanded its technology to other products and services, like helping you find the cheapest gas in your neighborhood or the ideal credit card based on your profile.

People can now visit the T-Mobile website or one of its retail stores for a so-called “Mobile Makeover”: free, unbiased and personalized savings recommendations for wireless plans, powered by BillShrink. That’s a big boost for the fledgling company, especially considering the first television spot featuring Zeta-Jones will air tonight during the American Idol season finale on FOX (that’s a lot of eyeballs). It’s also a bit of a risk for T-Mobile, although they seem pretty confident of the outcome of the comparison engine:

“Providing great wireless coverage at a great price is at the heart of what T-Mobile offers,” said Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA, Inc. “We’re so confident that T-Mobile provides the best overall experience for a majority of Americans, we’re willing to put our value to the test by pointing people to an independent source. And while we may not come out on top each and every time, we believe a majority of people will see T-Mobile offers them the value they want, and the best experience in wireless.”

Billshrink is headed by CEO Peter Pham, a former Photobucket executive who joined the company in February last year.

(Via Trading Markets)

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Website: billshrink.com
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Funding: $9M

BillShrink provides a free, online service to help consumers make better purchase decisions for complex product categories. It takes a scientific, highly-personalized approach which identifies the products that best fit users’ individual… Learn More

Terminator movie gets motion-activated theater seats, giving new meaning to the term 'movie'


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The next Terminator movie debuts tomorrow, and along with it, a new theater gimmick: moving seats. At a theater that will be showing Terminator Salvation in Bloomington, Minnesota's Mall of America, special seats will shake up startled moviegoers using patented D-BOX Motion Code to make them move along with the movie:

Each seat moves "in perfect sync" with the onscreen action; creating an unmatched immersive experience. With its unique, patented technology, D-BOX Motion Code uses programmed motion effects embedded and specially programmed for each film, which are sent to a motion generating system integrated in a platform or a seat. While audience members will experience motion during action sequences, the seats will remain still during quieter scenes. It also comes equipped with adjustable settings so individuals can customize the experience.

It's only the fourth such theater in the U.S. outfitted for such kooky hijinks. We've tried some of these moving-along-with-the movie thrill rides before, emerging with an acute case of carsickness. Let's hope this iteration of that goofy idea is better executed. Is there no length to which theatermongers won't go to entice viewers way from their cushy home theaters?

Press Release, via Coolest Gadgets

What happened when this teen auctioned her virginity

'I was attracted to him, so I enjoyed it': Teen who auctioned off her virginity for £8,800 reveals details of her first time

By Deborah Arthurs


 Alina Percea

Student Alina Percea auctioned off her virginity to the highest bidder on a German website

A teenager who sold her virginity online for £8,800 has revealed the details of her tryst with the winning bidder.

Alina Percea, 18, auctioned her virginity on a website so that she could afford to pay for her computing degree.

The winner of the auction was a 45-year-old Italian businessman but she had no qualms about going through with the deal.

The businessman from Bologna paid for her to fly to Venice where the couple toured the sights before spending a night in a luxury hotel.

Alina, who underwent two medical examinations to prove her virginity, said: 'I liked the man and got on with him well. He didn't look 45, and he seemed much younger.

'We spoke in English as I can't speak Italian and he can't speak Romanian. He paid me a lot of compliments throughout the day, and he was very funny and charming. We got on very well, and I was pleased he'd won.

He told me he had a good job, but he didn't say if he was married or had a family, and I didn't ask him.'

Alina left her home town of Caracal, Romania, in January with two cousins, to find work in Mannheim, Germany, but lost her job in a restaurant because her German was too poor.

She was inspired to auction herself on a German erotic website after reading how American woman Natalie Dylan, 22, from San Diego, had put her virginity up for sale for £2.5million.

The Romanian had hoped to raise as much as £50,000 through the controversial sale but still plans to go to university.

'The bidding lasted two weeks,' she told Closer magazine.

'It started off at 90p but within a couple of days it was almost at £4,400.'

'The winner was a new bidder, who appeared right at the end of the auction.

'He said he would fly me to Venice to meet him.'

The auction ended at £8,800 (10,000 euros).

Enlarge Natalie Dylan

Alina Percea was inspired to auction herself on a German erotic website after reading how American woman Natalie Dylan (pictured) had put her virginity up for sale for £2.5million

'When the auction ended, I emailed the winner, a 45-year-old Italian business man, to congratulate him.'

'I hoped I'd meet a nice man, like in the film Pretty Woman,' Alina says.

Alina Percea, who auctioned her virginity on the internet

Alina Percea had unprotected sex with her businessman lover

'At the arrivals lounge, a man came over, smiled, handed me a box of chocolates and said: "Welcome to Venice." He looked much younger than 45, short, but nicely dressed, with dark hair, green eyes and a kind smile.'

The two went sightseeing, then to a five-star hotel where they had unprotected sex.

'We kissed, then undressed each other,' Alina says. 'I'd never done that before, so I was nervous. He laid me on the bed and started kissing my body, then we had sex. I was attracted to him, so I enjoyed it, even though it was quite painful.

'We only had sex once, then fell asleep. Next morning, we had breakfast together like any other couple, and I took the morning-after pill. He told me he'd like to see me again, and I agreed.'

But the money raised from the auction was far less than the amount Alina had hoped to make.

'Ten thousand euros is not so much money, even in Romania,' admitted Alina. 'But it will be enough.

'I hoped I'd be able to have an apartment in town. But now I will live with my parents while I go to university.

The auction was hit by controversy three weeks before its culmination when a teacher at Alina's former school claimed she was not a virgin.

But Alina, who had already undergone a medical examination, was seen by a second doctor, who confirmed at a press conference she'd never had sex.

Student Alina Percea auctioned off her virginity to the highest bidder on a German website

'I hoped I'd meet a nice man, like in the film Pretty Woman,' Alina said. The final bid of £8,800 was short of the £50,000 she needs to pay for her education, but Alina said the experience was not unpleasant

Alina promised in her auction pitch that she would bring documentation proving she was a virgin, and said she would agree to forgo the use of condoms on the condition the winning bidder provided her with certificates proving he was free from STIs.

The teenager, from Caracal in Olt country, posted an advert on German dating website www.gesext.de, saying: 'I am a 108lbs, 5ft 6in tall, brown-eyed Romanian girl.

'I don't smoke and own a certificate from a gynaecologist which says I'm a virgin. I want my first time to be special and not very abrupt.

'I want to meet a gentle, respectful and generous man.'

It wasn't just sex that Alina was after either. Although her first concern was to raise money for her education, Alina was open to finding more from the transaction, saying that if she should meet her 'happiness and future, then that would be great too'.

And could it be that Alina has found love after all?

'I hope to see the man again,' she says. 'And next time I won't make him pay!'

The Evolution of Christian Bale

The Terminator: Salvation star's rise from child actor to action hero. Empire of the Sun, 1987 In his first major role, the 13-year-old Christian Bale plays Jim Graham, a young boy who, after being separated from his family in Shanghai, becomes a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp in China during World War II.

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Weird New NASA Rovers Really Get Around

hoppers1

At some point on their five-year journey, Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have both gotten their feet stuck in the soil, and NASA is taking notes for the design of the next generation of rovers.

In 2005, Opportunity spent five weeks spinning her wheels in a dune later dubbed “Purgatory.” Last week, Spirit sank into a sandpit scientists are calling “Troy,” and could stay there for weeks — or forever.

But rovers of the future may have an easier time of it. NASA scientists are building an army of prototypes with new and ever weirder ways to rove.

CLIFFBOT

cliffbot_svalbardOne of the toughest tasks for rovers is climbing steep slopes. Some of the most interesting bits of Martian geology, like exposed rocks on cliff faces or gullies in craters that might once have been flowing streams, are off-limits to Spirit and Opportunity. Anxious engineers fear a spill, or worry that once they’re in, they won’t be able to get back out.

The Cliffbot (known more formally as the Sample-Return Rover) gets around this by borrowing tricks from human mountaineers. It’s tethered to two “anchorbots” that belay it from the top of the cliff using modified fishing reels. This configuration lets it climb down 80 degree slopes to take pictures and soil samples at the bottom.

Cliffbot is already getting its feet dirty: It spent the past three summers doing field tests in Svalbard, Norway, where it froze its batteries off and dodged polar bears.

LEMUR

lemur3-5901

Another rover tackles the climbing problem with sheer dexterity. With a typically charming NASA acronym, the Lemur (Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robots) was designed to help build things in orbit. It can crawl along a segmented mirror and climb the walls in a rock gym. Engineers hope it will be able to place “holds” in rock and soil, like rock climbers do. And at just 18 inches across, it’s downright adorable.

ATHLETE

athletescorpion-hiresThe behemoth Athlete (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer) rover is based on the Lemur, but it’s anything but cuddly. Designed to carry people and equipment across the surface of the moon, it tackles tough terrain with sheer size. The prototype is four meters (about 13 feet) wide, and the rover is expected to be nearly twice that. It can roll up to six miles an hour on the lunar hills, while keeping the center of the vehicle perfectly level. That might not sound like much, but it’s more than 100 times as fast as the Mars rovers, which have each traversed about five miles in as many years. And unlike other rovers, it doesn’t just roll around. It can lift up its limbs to step over boulders (not to mention strike menacing scorpion-like poses).

Athlete would probably be used in tandem with a lunar rover like the one featured at Obama’s inauguration.

“It’s like retired people with their big Winnebago and the Jeep behind them,” said Richard Volpe, manager of Mobility and Robotics Systems Section of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “You park your Winnebago [in this case, Athlete] and it stays stationary for a week or two, and you do your little sorties in your Jeep.”

One way engineers imagine getting these colossal insects to the moon is to make them collapsible. They’d fold down into discs, stack up for the flight, and self-deploy on landing like giant robot spiders popping out of a Pringles can. Another is to have them split into two three-legged “Tri-Athletes” that can click back together or dock to other robots on the moon.


HOPPER

hoppers2

Able to leap small boulders in a single bound, this hopping robot doesn’t waste time on navigation. The prototype is so new it doesn’t have a catchy acronym yet, but it’s the latest in a long line of hopping robots, all designed to save the time and energy lost tiptoeing around obstacles. Most earlier hoppers landed on their heads and needed helmets to survive, which meant they couldn’t make long jumps or carry fragile equipment. This one deftly lands on its six spring-loaded feet. It can jump about a foot in the air on Earth, which would be six feet under lunar gravity. All six legs are also steerable, letting it take off and land at different angles. And it carries a small motorized gyroscope in its underbelly to keep it from tumbling mid-hop.

AXEL

axel-rover1The simplest proto-rover of them all, Axel is aptly named. It’s just two wheels connected to an axle. Its symmetry means it’s safe from one of the biggest rover worries on steep slopes: flipping over.

“Even if it’s turned upside-down it doesn’t matter, because upside-down is right-side-up,” Volpe said.

Like the Cliffbot, Axel would be tethered to a bigger rover that would stand at the top of a cliff. But Axel can take unprecedented amounts of abuse. Its wheels can be foldable or inflatable, letting it absorb a lot of impact on landing. It’s unperturbed by dangling in mid-air. It can carry scientific instruments in the cylinder that connects the two wheels, and could even take samples back the same way. All the tether rover needs to do is reel it back in when it’s done.

MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY

pia11436_modestMost of these rovers are years away from seeing the dim light of space. According to Volpe, it typically takes 10 to 20 years from rover concept to deployment. But how will the next generation of Mars rovers handle the sand?

The Mars Science Laboratory, slated to launch in 2011, is based on the same basic system as Spirit and Opportunity, but twice as big.

“When it comes to rocky terrain, we can climb obstacles that are about twice as high or as deep as Spirit and Opportunity,” said mobility engineer Jaime Waydo. “In that undulating terrain where there’s rocks or holes, we do very well.”

But they haven’t solved the sand problem yet. “When it comes to sand, what you care about is something we call ground pressure, how much you float in the sand,” Waydo said. “MSL has the same ground pressure as Spirit and Opportunity, so when we start driving in sand, we expect the performance to be about the same.”

There’s an obvious trade-off at work: The heavier your rover, the more it sinks. MSL could be more buoyant if it had bigger wheels (which would be harder to ship) or took fewer instruments, but “that would be really sad,” Waydo said. “We could take less science, but that’s the whole reason we go.”

Images: NASA/JPL

Ron Paul: Legalizing Marijuana Is a State's Constitutional Right

POSTED BY: Dennis DiClaudio

Ron Paul recently told all 23 members of Air America's listening audience that he is strongly in support of state sovereignty concerning the legalization of the sticky icky pot weed

He said that he believes that the U.S. Constitution gives the fifty states the right to legalize hemp production or marijuana. He said the issue was a matter of personal liberty but added that drug users should not be entitled to government-funded treatment if they abuse legalized drugs.

Not in a free market America, they shouldn't. That would make them a burden on society. Instead, they should seek treatment on reality television, where their struggles can be put to good use entertaining fellow drug users.

"If drugs are legal and people misuse them, then they do it at their own risk," he said. Bottom line, said Paul: "I do trust individuals to make their own decisions."

And that's when everybody listening to him realized that Ron Paul has never met anybody who has ever been on drugs ever.

I'm in favor of legalizing — or at least regulating — a lot of drugs, particularly marijuana. But I won't even trust my pothead friends to make decisions concerning the CD player most of the time.*

.

* There's only so many times you can hear that same fucking Morcheeba album before your views start skewing toward totalitarian control of the stereo.

How to Build Wall-E (In 110 Easy Steps)


This project took 18 days from this Russian guy to accomplish. It all has began after he has watched that cartoon. An idea sparked thru his head “I want to build such thing to hold my computer stuff in it”.

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Fossil Ida: extraordinary find is 'missing link' in human evolution

Perfectly preserved fossil Ida, unveiled in New York today, provides unprecedented insight into our ancestry

Ida the missing link primate fossil - whole skeleton

Ida, one of the most complete primate fossils ever found, a 47-million-year-old human ancestor. Photograph: Atlantic Productions Ltd

Link to this audio

Scientists have discovered an exquisitely preserved ancient primate fossil that they believe forms a crucial "missing link" between our own evolutionary branch of life and the rest of the animal kingdom.

The 47m-year-old primate – named Ida – has been hailed as the fossil equivalent of a "Rosetta Stone" for understanding the critical early stages of primate evolution.

The top-level international research team, who have studied her in secret for the past two years, believe she is the most complete and best preserved primate fossil ever uncovered. The skeleton is 95% complete and thanks to the unique location where she died, it is possible to see individual hairs covering her body and even the make-up of her final meal – a last vegetarian snack.

"This little creature is going to show us our connection with the rest of all the mammals; with cows and sheep, and elephants and anteaters," said Sir David Attenborough who is narrating a BBC documentary on the find. "The more you look at Ida, the more you can see, as it were, the primate in embryo."

"This will be the one pictured in the textbooks for the next hundred years," said Dr Jørn Hurum, the palaeontologist from Oslo University's Natural History Museum who assembled the scientific team to study the fossil. "It tells a part of our evolution that's been hidden so far. It's been hidden because the only [other] specimens are so incomplete and so broken there's nothing almost to study." The fossil has been formally named Darwinius masillae in honour of Darwin's 200th birthday year.

It has been shipped across the Atlantic for an unveiling ceremony hosted by the mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg today. There is even talk of Ida being the first non-living thing to feature on the front cover of People magazine.

She will then be transported back to Oslo, via a brief stop at the Natural History Museum in London on Tuesday, 26 May, when Attenborough will host a press conference.

Ida was originally discovered by an amateur fossil hunter in the summer of 1983 at Messel pit, a world renowned fossil site near Darmstadt in Germany. He kept it under wraps for over 20 years before deciding to sell it via a German fossil dealer called Thomas Perner. It was Perner who approached Hurum two years ago.

"My heart started beating extremely fast," said Hurum, "I knew that the dealer had a world sensation in his hands. I could not sleep for 2 nights. I was just thinking about how to get this to an official museum so that it could be described and published for science." Hurum would not reveal what the university museum paid for the fossil, but the original asking price was $1m. He did not see the fossil before buying it – just three photographs, representing a huge gamble.

But it appears to have paid off. "You need an icon or two in a museum to drag people in," said Hurum, "this is our Mona Lisa and it will be our Mona Lisa for the next 100 years."

Hurum chose Ida's nickname because the diminutive creature is at the equivalent stage of development as his six-year-old daughter. Hurum said Ida is very excited about her namesake. "She says, 'there are two Idas now, there's me I'm living and then there's the dead one.'"

"It's caught at a really very interesting moment [in the animal's life] when it fortunately has all its baby teeth and is in the process of forming all its permanent teeth," said Dr Holly Smith, an expert in primate development at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who was part of the team. "So you have more information in it than almost any fossil you could think of."

The fossil's amazing preservation means that the scientific team has managed to glean a huge amount of information from it, although this required new X-ray techniques that had not previously been applied to any other specimens.

The researchers believe it comes from the time when the primate lineage, that diversified into monkeys, apes and ultimately humans, split from a separate group that went on to become lemurs and other less well known species.

Crucially though, Ida is not on the lemur line because she lacks two key characteristics shared by lemurs – a grooming claw on her second toe and a fused set of teeth called a tooth comb. Also, a bone in her ankle called the talus is shaped like members of our branch of the primates. So the researchers believe she may be on our evolutionary line dating from just after the split with the lemurs.

According to the team's published description of the skeleton in the journal PLoS ONE, Ida was 53cm long and a juvenile around six to nine months old. The team can be sure Ida is a girl because she does not have a penis bone.

"She was at this vulnerable age where you are no longer right with your mother," said Smith, "Just as you leave weaning you are not full grown, but you are on your own."

The unprecedented preservation of Ida meant working out how she died was more like a modern day crime scene investigation than the informed guess-work that palaeontologists usually make do with. The team noticed that she had a broken wrist that had begun to partially heal. The injury did not kill her, but they speculate that it contributed to her premature demise.

"It might be that her mother dropped her once or that she fell down from a tree earlier in her life," Smith said. She survived the accident, but her climbing abilities would have been impaired. Unable to drink from water trapped by tree leaves, she would have had to venture down to the lake to drink. This would have proved to be a fateful decision.

The huge range of magnificently preserved fossils at Messel suggest that the volcanic lake was a death trap. Scientists believe that it sporadically let forth giant belches of poisonous volcanic gases that would have immediately suffocated anything in, around and even over the water. Ida would then have fallen into the water and been preserved in the sediment deep at the bottom.

• Atlantic productions' programme, Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link, will be broadcast in the UK on Tuesday, 26 May at 9pm on BBC1 (revealingthelink.com). Colin Tudge's book, The Link, is published on 20 May by Little Brown.