Lifeguard Fired for Saving a Drowning Man

As lifeguards are paid and trained to do, Tomas Lopez rushed down Hallandale Beach in Florida to rescue a drowning man and then got fired for it. The problem: Lopez stepped out of the beach zone his company is paid to patrol, a supervisor said. "I ran out to do the job I was trained to do," said Lopez, 21, of Davie. "I didn't think about it at all." At least two other lifeguards have quit in protest. "What was he supposed to do? Watch a man drown?" asked one, Szilard Janko.
Lifeguards in Hallandale Beach work for Orlando-based company Jeff Ellis and Associates, which has been providing lifeguard services for the city's beaches and pools since 2003. Company officials said Lopez broke a rule that could've put beachgoers in his designated area in jeopardy. The firm could ultimately have been sued, officials said. "We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," said supervisor Susan Ellis. "What he did was his own decision. He knew the company rules and did what he thought he needed to do." Lopez said he was sitting at his post at about 1:45 p.m. on Monday when someone rushed to his stand asking for help.

Lopez said he noticed a man struggling in the water south of his post. The man was previously swimming in an "unprotected" stretch of the beach, city officials confirmed. "It was a long run, but someone needed my help. I wasn't going to say no," he said. Company officials said the rescue took place about 1,500 feet south of the company's protective boundaries. The unprotected area has signs alerting beachgoers to swim at their own risk. By the time Lopez arrived, several witnesses had pulled the unidentified man out of the water. Lopez said the man appeared semi-conscious and had water in his lungs. Lopez said he and a off-duty nurse attended to the man until the city's paramedics arrived.

The man, whose identity was not released because of medical privacy laws, was taken to Aventura Hospital, where he remains in the intensive care, said city spokesman Peter Dobens. After the incident, Lopez said his boss asked him to fill out an incident report. His boss then fired him for leaving his assigned area. "They didn't tell me in a bad way. It was more like they were sorry, but rules are rules," Lopez said. "I couldn't believe what was happening." Lopez became a lifeguard four months ago after passing the company's requirements, which include swimming and physical exams. The job pays $8.25 an hour, the lifeguards said. Company officials said other lifeguards watched over Lopez's area during the rescue and were on the phone with 911 operators. "The beach remained protected at all times," Ellis said.

Also:

Tomas Lopez is a lifeguard in Florida who got fired because he saved a drowning man's life. If you think that's odd because that's exactly what a lifeguard's supposed to do, he was fired because the man was swimming outside of his zone:

"The reason I was fired is just ridiculous," Lopez told CNN late Wednesday night. "It is a ridiculous rule, really. What was I supposed to do? Just let the guy drown?"
The incident occurred Monday at Hallandale Beach in southern Florida.
Orlando-based Jeff Ellis and Associates, the company Lopez worked for, said lifeguards cannot go beyond the perimeter of the beach they are responsible for overseeing.

CNN has the story: here

The truth be told

Odds and Ends

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Artist who made near-perfect US$100 bills

From Wired comes David Wolman's indispensable piece on master counterfeiter Hans-Jürgen Kuhl, a printmaker, artist and rounder who forged millions in flawless US $100 bills, only to have the boodle nabbed in a sting before even one of his Franklins could circulate. Kuhl combined mechanical printmaking talent with an artist's eye and an obsessive commitment to detail, and came up with many ingenious workarounds for beating the Treasury's anti-forgery technology.
However, he sucked at tradecraft. He got rumbled when he took bags and bags of paper waste to a commercial incinerator. A worker noticed what seemed to be bags of US currency (at first) but turned out to be obvious cast-offs from his forging op, and the cops were called in. One sting later, and Kuhl was in jail.
He's out now, and painting again (for the first time in 20 years). He still dreams of making a forgery so perfect you could hand it to the US Secret Service.

Kuhl’s intricate production process combined offset printing with silk-screening (see “How to Make $100″). The hardest features to forge with any level of sophistication are on the front of the note: the US Treasury seal, the large “100″ denomination in the bottom-right corner, and the united states of america at the top. Real US currency is printed on massive intaglio presses (intaglio is Italian for engrave). The force with which the presses strike the paper lying over the engraved steel plates creates indentations that fill with ink, giving the bills a delicate 3-D relief and a textured feel. Its absence is a telltale sign of a counterfeit. For Kuhl this was the most critical puzzle piece: how to create that texture convincingly without the benefit of actual engraving. “I had an idea,” he says, “and I was itching to try it.”
His idea was to apply a second layer of ink, creating sufficient relief to mimic intaglio-pressed paper. But looking under a microscope, Kuhl saw that this second coat slumped as it dried, giving the image a blurred appearance. This problem stymied his progress until he read about UV-sensitive clear lacquer, which dries instantly when exposed to ultraviolet light. That, he says, was when everything clicked. “The ink wouldn’t have time to slump,” he says.
He ran a sheet of paper through the silk-screen press again, this time applying the lacquer and then drying it under UV light. “You don’t see the UV varnish—that is the key. You only feel it,” Kuhl says. This invisible coating atop the raised US Treasury seal and large “100″ in the lower-right corner of the bill was his masterstroke. One official told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that Kuhl’s dollars were “shockingly perfect.”

The piece includes a pretty good technical HOWTO on making your own forged notes. You know, for kids!

The Ultimate Counterfeiter Isn’t a Crook—He’s an Artist

The Thief Who Stole A Dali Then Sent It Back

A brazen art thief recently stole Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio by Salvador Dali, valued at over $150k, from the Venus Over Manhattan Gallery in New York by distracting the guard and walking out with the piece in broad daylight. Then he sent it back.
The gallery put the word out about the thief, but didn’t expect to get the work back, until they received an anonymous email saying it had been sent back, and it was delivered to the gallery later that week via Express Mail.
Why would someone do such a thing? Your guess is as good as mine…

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Medieval Codex Calixtinus recovered

Four arrested

By Teresa Larraz Mora and Sarah White

A medieval text stolen from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northwest Spain last year was found in a nearby garage on Wednesday, after police arrested a handyman - fired after 25 years at the cathedral - and three members of his family.
The Codex Calixtinus, a 12th century collection of sermons and liturgical passages, vanished last July from a safe deposit box in the cathedral, the end of the ancient pilgrimage route the Camino de Santiago.
Police said they had found the elaborately illustrated manuscript, a treasured part of Spain's cultural and religious heritage, in a garage near the Galician town.

The cathedral is the reputed burial place of Saint James the Greater, one of Jesus's twelve apostles who, according to tradition, went to Spain to preach Christianity.
The Codex tells the story of how the apostle's remains were transferred to Santiago de Compostela and details the various routes to the town - effectively a guide for early pilgrims.
Earlier dawn raids on properties connected to the detained former church handyman, his wife, son and another woman had led police to the discovery of at least 1.2 million euros ($1.5 million), eight copies of the Codex and other ancient books that had also been stolen from the cathedral.
Officers also found documents and correspondence related to senior church figures and keys to various outbuildings. The cathedral's book of hours, a popular type of devotional book in the Middle Ages, was also recovered.
The main suspect, whom police have not named, is a man who was sacked after working for the cathedral as a freelance handyman and electrician for more than 25 years, police said in a statement.
He was made redundant after faking a work contract to make it look like he had permanent job, and claimed he was owed 40,000 euros for unfair dismissal, the police said.
Facsimile of the codex

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How to check whether you are vulnerable

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Does Torture Work?

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A 911 call while sleeping leads to drug arrest

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Emiratis Want Dress Code For Tourists

By Michael Casey  

With the number of foreigners dwarfing that of locals in her hometown of Abu Dhabi, Asma al-Muhairi has become increasingly anxious at the prospect of her younger nieces abandoning their full-length black robes in favor of Western attire that seems to be everywhere she goes.
But it wasn't until the 23-year-old marketing worker came face to face with two scantily-clad female foreigners at one of the many luxury shopping malls in the United Arab Emirates that she decided to take action.
"While going to a mall, I saw two ladies wearing ... I can't say even shorts. It was underwear," said al-Muhairi, whose black abaya – a long garment worn by conservative Gulf women – is offset by a gold Versace watch and egg-shell blue handbag.
"Really, they were not shorts," she said. "I was standing and thinking: `Why is this continuing? Why is it in the mall? I see families. I see kids around.'"
Failing to persuade the mall to intervene, al-Muhairi and another Emirati woman, Hanan al-Rayes, took to Twitter to air their concerns in May.
They were inundated with responses that prompted them to launch a Twitter campaign dubbed (at)UAEDressCode that aims to explore ways to combat the growing number of shoppers in low-cut dresses and hot pants.
As the campaign picked up steam, it also has served to symbolize the growing concerns among Emiratis, a tiny minority in their own country.
Emirati citizens account for a little more than 10 percent of the 8 million people living in the Gulf nation. Most of the population is made up of Asian, African and Middle Eastern guest workers, as well as Western expatriates living here temporarily.
The overall population more than doubled over the past decade as the country embarked on a building boom that transformed Dubai, up the coast from Abu Dhabi, into the Arabian Gulf's financial hub and a popular tourist draw.

"I think in an increasingly tumultuous region and in an era of powerful and often intrusive globalizing forces, citizens of the UAE are increasingly concerned that their traditions and core values are being eroded," said Christopher Davidson, an expert on Gulf affairs at Britain's Durham University.
"In some senses, it is a grassroots reaction to authorities and leaders that have for many years done little to check this erosion," he added. "We've seen reactions to alcohol, so now we are seeing a reaction to immodest dress."
Jalal Bin Thaneya, an Emirati activist who has embraced the dress code campaign, said it is a way for Emiratis to show they are concerned about the loss of traditions.
"If we were the majority and had the same make up, things would be different," Bin Thaneya said. "You wouldn't need anything. You would see Emiratis everywhere and you would be afraid of offending them ... Now, we're a minority so you feel the need to reach out to an authority."
As the number of foreigners has increased, so have the stories of them violating the UAE's strict indecency code, which limits drinking to bars and nightclubs and bans public displays of affection. A drunken couple was caught having sex on the beach and another allegedly having sex in a taxi. A Pakistani was deported for flipping the middle finger at a motorist, and the courts are filled with cases of foreigners having sex out of wedlock.
Most Emiratis rarely come face-to-face with misbehaving foreigners.
The malls, however, are a different story.
They are one of the few places where everyone comes together to escape the brutal summer heat. The cultural clash is hard to ignore, as families of traditionally dressed Emiratis shop and relax in cafes alongside foreign women wearing tank tops, shorts and even transparent gowns over bikinis.
Most malls have policies in place that require "conservative" dress and encourage shoppers to avoid showing shoulders and knees, but few publicize them or enforce them. Police in Dubai, where the mall that al-Muhairi visited was located, didn't respond to a request for comment. They told the Gulf News newspaper there is nothing they can do since there are no specific laws against immodest dress.
"People were seeing it for a long time but they didn't say anything," Bin Thaneya said. "You can't go to the police for such stuff. There is no one to go to. You can't go to the mall management. The mall security guard gets paid less than someone at McDonald's. He isn't going to do anything."
Al-Muhairi's campaign is just one of several over the years led by Emirati women who have tried in vain to enforce the dress code – handing out brochures, confronting foreigners. But hers has benefited from the growing popularity of social media as well as the Arab Spring popular uprisings, which has given Emiratis a sense they can speak out on some social issues.
The UAEDressCode feed has more than 3,300 followers with a lively discussion that includes plenty of support for a code but also concerns that it would unfairly target foreigners or create divisions between locals and foreigners. Unlike similar campaigns in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, the impetus for a code has not come from Islamic hard-liners, but from moderate locals like al-Muhairi who love their Starbucks and Western movies but just want foreigners to respect local customs.
"We are not asking others to cover up like us. We are giving them freedom based on their beliefs and religion," al-Muhairi said. "We are not judging and saying this shows she has other interests. We never want to judge. Do whatever you want and wear what you want but with limits. Just respect the public here."
The campaign has caught the attention of the Federal National Council, which pledged last month to push for stronger measures to enforce the dress codes. That came after the country's culture minister, Abdulrahman al-Owais, supported efforts to emphasize the conservative traditions of the UAE.
Members of a half-elected, half-appointed council have suggested a law could include warnings and fines but not jail time for offenders. But the FNC has no law-making powers, so any decision now rests with the UAE government.
"If there is a law, the behavior will be different," said Hamad al-Rahoomi, an FNC member who compared a UAE dress code to laws in France that bans the niqab, in which a veil has only a slit exposing a woman's eyes, or the new dress code at Royal Ascot in Britain that aims to limit provocative outfits.
"We don't want to catch people. We just want people to think of the other parties," al-Rahoomi said. "What I want is to go with my family in my country and not see something that is harming me."
The Abu Dhabi police issued this week a booklet on dos and don'ts for tourists that will be available at the Abu Dhabi International Airport and hotels, according to The National newspaper. It advises tourists that public displays of affection including kissing are considered indecent and that they should wear "modest" clothing.
Tourists – some in skimpy summer dresses, others in shorts and T-shirts – defended their right to wear what they want, either because it is fashionable or keeps them cool in the summer heat. None of the 10 people interviewed in Dubai and Abu Dhabi knew about a mall dress code, nor were they advised their outfits violated it. Several said a dress code law would go too far.
"I think it's ridiculous because most of the people in Dubai are tourists," said Sarah, a 21-year-old tourist from Kenya wearing a short dress exposing her shoulders and legs. "I want to go somewhere where I would be comfortable in my own skin as a travel destination. I feel comfortable like this and this is how I will dress."

World News

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King of Great Britain Dies in Australia

Mike Hastings of Jerilderie, Australia passed away at the age of 71. He was a forklift driver by trade. But according to one understanding of British history, he should have sat on the royal throne in place of Elizabeth II:

He made international headlines in 2004 when a documentary team from Britain’s Channel Four conducted extensive research into the monarchy and concluded his ancestors were cheated out of the crown in the 15th century. [...]
Hastings was a descendant of England’s House of York, whose dynastic struggle with the House of Lancaster became known as the Wars of the Roses and was dramatised by William Shakespeare.
The British documentary’s historian Michael Jones found documents in France’s Rouen Cathedral that he believed showed King Edward IV, who ruled with a brief interruption from 1461 to 1483, was illegitimate.
Jones believes that Edward’s father Richard of York was fighting the French at Pontoise when he was conceived, while his mother Cecily was 200 kilometres (125 miles) away at Rouen, allegedly in the amorous arms of an English archer.
If true, the crown should have passed on to Edward’s younger brother George, the duke of Clarence, who was a direct ancestor to Hastings.

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Contemporary wax cylinder recordings

Phonographies is a collection of contemporary audio recordings made on wax cylinder phonographs from more than a century ago. In the late 1880s, Thomas Edison's wax cylinder phonographs were a mass market item. By the 1920s though, gramophone records totally dominated and cylinders quickly became a dead media. Phonographies founder Aleks Kolkowski records numerous musicians using the technology, from a jazz trio to a children's choir to avant-garde electronic composers. From the project's introduction (photo by Helen Petts):

The epoch of sound rendered into physical objects has reached its nadir with the rise of the digital file. Compact discs are devalued while vinyl records and magnetic tapes have become niche products for audiophiles and widely fetishised. This archive began as a response to the increasingly transient nature of digital music consumption by returning to the very first stable recording and reproduction medium of the 1880s – the wax cylinder, in order to create and assemble a permanent collection of material sound objects. It has since developed into a more exploratory project, one that examines the potential of the wax cylinder as a recording medium by employing experimental techniques and pushing the boundaries of its recording capabilities, as well as being a joyful discovery for each contributor who re-enacts for the first time, the bygone practice of acoustically inscribing sound.

Phonographies

Sewer hunters of Victorian London

In 1851, Henry Mayhew published the four volume London Labour and the London Poor, an influential work of sociology/journalism that documented the life of working class Victorians. He wrote of "bone grubbers," basically dumpster divers seeking food and bits of household detritus, individuals who spent their days seeking cigar-ends for reselling, and scores of others with strange, sad, dirty, and curious jobs. One of the most interesting groups were the "toshers," sewer hunters who traveled the tunnels and sieved the waste for bones, metal, coins, cutlery, or other valuable goods, all the while avoiding the supernatural "Queen Rat" and "race of wild hogs" (predating NYC's alligators!) that roamed the shafts, according to other historians. Apparently, toshers could earn as much as six shillings (approximately $50 today) for their work. Drawing from Mayhew's work and others, Smithsonian offers a fascinating description of what they call "quite likely the worst job ever":

Even after the tunnels deteriorated and they became increasingly dangerous, though, what a tosher feared more than anything else was not death by suffocation or explosion, but attacks by rats. The bite of a sewer rat was a serious business, as another of Mayhew's informants, Jack Black - the "Rat and Mole Destroyer to Her Majesty" - explained.
"When the bite is a bad one," Black said, "it festers and forms a hard core in the ulcer, which throbs very much indeed. This core is as big as a boiled fish's eye, and as hard as stone. I generally cuts the bite out clean with a lancet and squeezes… I've been bitten nearly everywhere, even where I can't name to you, sir."

"Quite Likely the Worst Job Ever"

Hairdresser uses Zen meditation to cut hair with his eyes closed

Hairdresser Tian Hao is head and shoulders above his rivals with a hair-raising stunt where he cuts two heads of hair side by side - with his eyes closed.

Tian - from Xi’an, Shaanxi province, western China - claims he uses Zen meditation techniques to 'feel' the aura of the hair on his customers' heads.

"It takes a lot of concentration but I have never had an accident with the scissors yet," explained Tian, who charges £400 for a blind trim.

To finish off, artist Tian shuns hairdryers and uses a vacuum cleaner to style his punters' hair. "Not only does it layer the hair perfectly, but is also sucks up all the clippings too," he said.

The Exam From Hell

Drunk Teacher Forced Students to Take 23-Hour Exam

Think that your professor is bad? Try this one for size:

A lecturer at a Russian university allegedly submitted students to a 23-hour exam without food or lavatory breaks while she was drunk.
Landysh Zaripova is said to have mostly ignored students and rambled about her business interests and her love for clothes during the marathon science test at Kazan Federal University, in central Russia.

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Space Fireworks

Image: Yves Grosdidier (University of Montreal and Observatoire de Strasbourg), Anthony Moffat (Universitie de Montreal), Gilles Joncas (Universite Laval), Agnes Acker (Observatoire de Strasbourg), and NASA/ESA 

Did you enjoy spectacular fireworks display on Fourth of July? (Well, maybe not those of you in San Diego, though that is spectacular on its own right).
Take a look at these celestial fireworks set off millions of years ago. This one above is from the start WR124:

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope picture of the energetic star WR124 reveals it is surrounded by hot clumps of gas being ejected into space at speeds of over 150,000 kilometres per hour, somewhat resembling an aerial fireworks explosion.

Check out more at SPACE.com: here

The Judas Ear

That's not a real ear in the picture above. Its quite remarkable resemblance to the human ear has, however, given it a host of names throughout the ages - some it has to be said less flattering (or at least politically correct) than others.

The fungus is called Auricularia auricula-judae and it is found throughout the world. As you will see, some examples look more ear-like than others. In fact, anywhere you find elder trees you will likely find the Judas Ear.

Dark Matter Bridge Connects Galaxies

Image: Jörg Dietrich, University of Michigan/University Observatory Munich

Scientists have discovered a "bridge" made of dark matter that connect clusters of galaxies:

A ‘finger’ of the Universe’s dark-matter skeleton, which ultimately dictates where galaxies form, has been observed for the first time. Researchers have directly detected a slim bridge of dark matter joining two clusters of galaxies, using a technique that could eventually help astrophysicists to understand the structure of the Universe and identify what makes up the mysterious invisible substance known as dark matter.
According to the standard model of cosmology, visible stars and galaxies trace a pattern across the sky known as the cosmic web, which was originally etched out by dark matter — the substance thought to account for almost 80% of the Universe’s matter. Soon after the Big Bang, regions that were slightly denser than others pulled in dark matter, which clumped together and eventually collapsed into flat ‘pancakes’. “Where these pancakes intersect, you get long strands of dark matter, or filaments,” explains Jörg Dietrich, a cosmologist at the University Observatory Munich in Germany. Clusters of galaxies then formed at the nodes of the cosmic web, where these filaments crossed.

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Japanese Doctor Fabricated 172 Science Papers

A investigation by a panel set up by the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists have discovered that a particularly productive doctor named Yoshitaka Fujii has been faking a whopping 172 papers over the past 19 years:

Fujii's findings have been under a cloud since 8 March when an analysis in the journal Anaesthesia raised questions about his data. On 9 April, 23 journal editors publicly asked seven Japanese institutions named in the papers to investigate. The anesthesiology society took on the task because "it would have been difficult for any one institution to clarify what happened," says Koji Sumikawa, an anesthesiologist at Nagasaki University who headed the investigation.
The panel focused on 212 of 249 known Fujii papers. It tried to review the raw data, laboratory notebooks, and records on the patients or animal subjects involved. Committee members also interviewed relevant people.
Among the 172 papers judged bogus, the report claims that 126 studies of randomized, double-blind, controlled trials "were totally fabricated." The committee identified only three valid papers. For another 37 papers, the panel could not conclusively determine if there had been fabrication.

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That beat the record for faked scientific papers, previously set by Joachim Boldt (curiously, another anesthesiologist) who fabricated 90.

Astronomical News

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Physics and the Metaphysical

6 Reasons Why The 'God Particle' Matters

In the world of science, the excitement doesn't mount much higher than the frenzy yesterday around the announcement that scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher may have found the 'God particle.' The discovery is called a boson, a class of sub-atomic particle, but the description stopped just short of confirming that it's the long-sought Higgs boson particle.

While there are still questions to ask and research to do to confirm it is indeed the Higgs boson, physicists see massive implications to the discovery.

Full Moon Names

Some almanacs like to give each month a special full moon name. Other almanacs like to reference full moons relative to seasonal markers, as defined by equinoxes and solstices. Is one way better than the other? No. Both have their roots in folklore. Here's a list of common North American full moon names, by month and by season.

9 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics

So now that scientists have discovered the elusive Higgs boson, what's left in physics? Don't worry, science geeks - there are a lot left for you to work on.
Natalie Wolchover of Life's Little Mysteries put forth the 9 Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Physics. For example:

What is dark matter?
Evidently, about 84 percent of the matter in the universe does not absorb or emit light. "Dark matter," as it is called, cannot be seen directly, and it hasn't yet been detected by indirect means, either. Instead, dark matter's existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation and the structure of the universe. This shadowy substance is thought to pervade the outskirts of galaxies, and may be composed of "weakly interacting massive particles," or WIMPs. Worldwide, there are several detectors on the lookout for WIMPs, but so far, not one has been found. [If Not Dark Matter, then What?]

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A Soap Bubble Is the World’s Thinnest Display Screen

Do you remember Star Trek‘s holographic viewscreens that would disappear when not in use? We may have something like them in the near future. Researchers at the University of Tokyo have developed a system that projects images onto the surfaces of bubbles:

“It is common knowledge that the surface of soap bubble is a micro membrane. It allows light to pass through and displays the color on its structure,” the lead researcher, Yoichi Ochiai from the University of Tokyo, wrote in his blog.
“We developed an ultra-thin and flexible BRDF [bidirectional reflectance distribution function, a four-dimensional function defining how light is reflected at an opaque surface] screen using the mixture of two colloidal liquids.”

News Story and Video

Awesome Pictures

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If you want to photobomb someone, it takes hard work and speed. This sloth has both. He dropped in front of several international student volunteers in Costa Rica posing for a photo.

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Squirrel-Tailed Dinosaur with Feathers

Scientists have found the fossil of a squirrel-tailed dinosaur with feathers that challenged the image of the dinosaurs as giant lizards:

Previously, paleontologists have found feathers only on coelurosaurs—birdlike dinosaurs that evolved later than so-called megalosaurs such as Sciurumimus.
Because Sciurumimus is not closely related to coelurosaurs, the new fossil suggests feathered dinosaurs were the norm, not the exception, Rauhut said.
"Probably all dinosaurs were feathered," he added, "and we should say good bye to the familiar image of the overgrown lizards."

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Animal News

30 Squirrels Escape from Zoo, 38 Recaptured

A typhoon wrecked the squirrel enclosure of the Inokashira Park Zoo in Tokyo last week, resulting in the escape of 30 squirrels. Attempts to recover the animals have been quite successful; at one count, 38 squirrels have been “recaptured.”

So why the mysterious additional squirrels? Zoo officials have come up with a number of explanations. According to Japan Today, zoo official and animal biology specialist Hioshi Mashima said on Friday, “More than 40 squirrels must have gotten away in the first place. There are no wild squirrels inhabiting this area. That is for sure.” Mashima said the zoo could not be precise on the exact number of squirrels it currently has in it possession “because they are difficult to catch, and they keep reproducing.”
But another zoo official, Eri Tsushima, told the Japan Times on Friday that animal handlers may have actually swept up wild squirrels from outside the zoo’s walls, noting that the zoo implants a microchip in each one of its squirrels and that each animal taken into captivity would be checked for the microchip.
Meanwhile, the zoo continues to get calls about runaway squirrels at large in Tokyo.

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Three little bear cubs found in back seat of car

A Colorado town has issued a bear warning to its residents after three cubs were photographed rummaging around inside a car. A woman spotted three of the bears and their larger mother when she went to her car in a parking lot in Snowmass Village on Saturday.

The mother bear ran away, but when local police arrived they found three cubs still inside the car. Police believe the group of bears have broken into 14 cars recently. Kevin Wright from Colorado Parks and Wildlife said the mother bear's spree began a week ago when it got inside a vehicle that had food inside.

"We're trying to get a hold of her before she breaks into any homes," Mr Wright said. The mother bear has gained entry mostly through unlocked car doors, but at least two cars have been damaged as a result.

"Please lock your cars and try to clean all traces of food out of them," the Snowmass Village Transportation Department said. "These cute little guys' lives depend on you to act responsibly in bear country."

Baby giant panda born in a Tokyo zoo

A baby giant panda was born at a Tokyo zoo on Thursday, in a rare success for Japan's captive breeding program, a zoo official said.

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Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Not expecting that, now where you?

Some of our readers today have been in:

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Today in History

1776		The Declaration of Independence is first printed by John Dunlop in Philadelphia.
1806		A Spanish army repels the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires, Argentina.
1814		U.S. troops under Jacob Brown defeat a superior British force at Chippewa, Canada.
1832		The German government begins curtailing freedom of the press after German Democrats advocate a revolt against Austrian rule.
1839		British naval forces bombard Dingai on Zhoushan Island in China and occupy it.
1863		Federal troops occupy Vicksburg, Mississippi and distribute supplies to the citizens.
1892		Andrew Beard is issued a patent for the rotary engine.
1940		Marshal Henri Petain's Vichy government breaks off diplomatic relations with Great Britain.
1941		German troops reach the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.
1943		The Battle of Kursk, the largest tank battle in history, begins.
1944		The Japanese garrison on Numfoor, New Guinea, tries to counterattack but is soon beaten back by U.S. forces.
1950		American forces engage the North Koreans for the first time at Osan, South Korea.

R.I.P. Andy

 

"He's best remembered as Sheriff Taylor, but Andy Griffith's great gift to the world was 'A Face a the Crowd' - a film that completely retains its bite in this era of packaged political corn pone. I first saw Andy doing standup at the Raleigh Little Theater in the early fifties. My father got him a gig playing opposite my mother in a convention sketch for the North Carolina Automobile Dealer's Association. Then he hit Broadway and became a star. He was a good liberal Democrat and that sweetness and generosity shone through everything he ever did."

'God particle' may have been found

To cheers and standing ovations from scientists, the world's biggest atom smasher claimed the discovery of a new subatomic particle Wednesday, calling it "consistent" with the long-sought Higgs boson - popularly known as the "God particle" - that helps explain what gives all matter in the universe size and shape.
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The truth hurts

Anti-tax movement region of Colorado hit by fires

And guess what ... they are begging  for federal help

 By all means the people of this area should receive federal help during such an emergency, but they also ought to be charged heavily for it. Those same right wing extremists like to talk about personal responsibility, so surely they wouldn't accept freeloading off of the generosity of fellow Americans without paying them for the services, right?

The other obvious point of the Colorado fires is the link to climate change. This is not unlike the extreme weather that we also see in the south, also another region where many people don't believe it's a problem. How's that working out?

Bloomberg has more on the anti-tax extremists who now are looking for federal assistance.

The city where the Waldo Canyon fire destroyed 346 homes and forced more than 34,000 residents to evacuate turned off one-third of its streetlights two years ago, halted park maintenance and cut services to close a $28 million budget gap after sales-tax revenue plummeted and voters rejected a property-tax increase.

The municipality, at 416,000 the state’s second-largest, auctioned both its police helicopters and shrank public-safety ranks through attrition by about 8 percent; it has 50 fewer police and 39 fewer firefighters than five years ago. More than 180 National Guard troops have been mobilized to secure the city after the state’s most destructive fire. At least 32 evacuated homes were burglarized and dozens of evacuees’ cars were broken into, said Police Chief Pete Carey.

“It has impacted the response,” said Karin White, a 54- year-old accountant, who returned home June 28 to a looted and vandalized house, with a treasured, century-old family heirloom smashed.

Something about this story really bothers me because what I've come to dislike the most about the modern GOP is their brutality to others. The have no sense of community and never care about anyone besides themselves.

We see the same behavior throughout the extremist south every time a new tornado or hurricane blows through. These are the people who mostly receive much more federal revenue than they pay into the system yet they still want to slash taxes more so the supposed freeloaders up north (i.e. poor city people) don't get anything.

Each time a terrible storm comes through, there there are, asking for handouts and yes, each time they receive those handouts because there are still enough Americans who care about their fellow Americans. It's not their precious Bible that's saving them, it's federal goddamn dollars paid that come from those people that they hate.

It's going to be a loss for America if our old spirit of togetherness goes away but the anti-tax Republicans are trying their hardest to make it a reality. If that day comes where there are no federal handouts to handout, it is likely going to be those anti-tax extremists who pay the price much more than anyone else.

Eva Longoria: There is no way women can vote repugican

Eva Longoria, a national co-chair of President Barack Obama's reelection campaign, can't imagine why a woman would pull the lever for a repugican.

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Wingnuts bully a 17 year old

The former wingnut poster child, Jonathan Krohn.

They call him a "defector"...among other "choice" words. They are still keeping it "k"lassy (yes,with a k).

Jonathan Krohn, the former teen wingnut idol turned into a person with a functioning brain (liberal heretic to the wingnuts), is on the receiving end of a world of abuse from wingnut pundits this week. Fine by him. But please folks, lay off his mom. - More

To the wingnuts out there - Get over it ... he grew up and matured (something you failed to do) ... Deal with it.

The truth be told

French police raid Sarokozy's home

Nicholas Sarkozy made a lot of enemies on both sides of the aisle over the years so it's not much of a surprise that someone is continuing the fight.

 The Guardian:

French police have raided the home and offices of the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as part of an investigation into illegal campaign financing and alleged brown envelopes of cash from France's wealthiest woman, the L'Oreal hairspray heiress Liliane Bettencourt.

Police searched the mansion rented by Carla Bruni in a chic gated community in the west of Paris, where she and Sarkozy live with Bruni's 11-year-old son and the couple's new baby daughter. Officers also searched the office of the legal firm where Sarkozy is a partner and the new office he moved into after losing the presidential election to Socialist Francois Hollande in May.

Accusations grow of vote-buying in Mexico election

Neighbors at one store in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Mexico City said the unusually large crowds had prevented them from doing their daily shopping.

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Ohio Attempt at "Personhood" Amendment Falls Short

An anti-abortion group in Ohio has fallen short in its attempt to gather enough signatures to change the state constitution to declare that life begins when a human egg is fertilized.

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Pope fires bishop over "administrative issues"

Yet covering up child rape is still OK for the Vatican. Though this latest firing is completely different from the numerous child rape scandals within the Catholic church, there are implications for those cases.

In the face of U.S. lawsuits seeking to hold the pope ultimately responsible for abusive priests, the Holy See has argued that bishops are largely masters of their dioceses and that the pope doesn't really control them. The Vatican has thus sought to limit its own liability, arguing that the pope doesn't exercise sufficient control over the bishops to be held responsible for their bungled response to priests who rape children.

The ability of the pope to actively fire bishops, and not just passively accept their resignations, would seem to undercut the Vatican's argument of a hands-off pope.

"If the pope can fire a bishop, that implies he's their supervisor," said Nick Cafardi, a U.S. canon lawyer and former chairman of the U.S. bishops' lay review board that monitored clerical abuse. "This will invite more lawsuits attempting to sue the pope in American courts."

Economic Optimism Jumping

Although most Americans think that the economy is currently in poor shape, economic optimism has skyrocketed since last fall, according to a new national poll.

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CNN poll: Americans increasingly optimistic about economy

Are they right?

"Americans are usually optimists, but in 2011, polls for the first time found that more than half the country thought that economic conditions would worsen in the next 12 months," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Now that trend has reversed itself, with only four in ten saying that the economy will be in poor shape a year from now."

Sixty percent of those questioned say the economy will be in good shape next year, a surge from 39% who felt that way last October. Despite that jump, three-quarters say that current economic conditions are poor, a slight worsening of opinion since May, but better than where things stood in January.

"Not surprisingly, the poll indicates that the economy's the public's top issue, the only topic that more than half say will be extremely important to their presidential vote in November," adds Holland.

The Superstitious Stock Market Fund

Since investing in the stock market is a little bit like reading tea leaves, artist Shing Tat Chung decided to take it all the way: he has created a stock fund that trades on superstitions.

“We have to realise that actually when a lot of money is involved, we become a whole lot more irrational and superstitious,” Chung tells Co.Design. “We tend to resort to finding ridiculous patterns, creating conspiracy theories, and rituals.” He points to an example in England, where homes at addresses involving the number 13 are automatically devalued by a few thousand pounds. 
A Superstitious Fund foregrounds how irrational humans--and their machines--can be. Chung calls the fund a “superstitious automated robot," programmed with human traits--like a belief in bad luck. The fund trades stock based on numerology, astrology, and a self-taught logic built on its successes and failures. So, it’s a non-living entity that makes random decisions just like your average irrational human would.

Chung got people to invest 5,000 in his fund, aptly called A Superstitious Fund, which began trading earlier this year: More

Put bankers in jail

Joseph Stiglitz -- former World Bank economist and Nobel economics laureate -- has a suggestion for dealing with the Barclay's bank scandals and those that follow: put bankers in jail.

MD admits guilt in Ny rare-coin case with twist

A prominent coin collector thought he had some valuable, ancient pieces with a problem: They shouldn't have been taken out of Italy.

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University Sues Overachieving Student for Lost Income

Marcel Pohl was a student at the School of Economics and Management in Essen, Germany. But not for long -he passed 60 examinations and graduated in three semesters, when the normal course is 11 semesters. You’d think the school would be proud, but they are suing Pohl for €3,000, which is the tuition payments we would have made if he stayed as long as other students!

“When I got the lawsuit, I thought it couldn’t be true,” Pohl, who now works for a bank in Frankfurt, told the Bild newspaper. “Performance is supposed to be worth something.”
Pohl completed his turbo degree by dividing up all the simultaneous lectures with two friends and then swapping notes. At the same time, he completed an apprenticeship in a bank.
“We didn’t get any freebies, and we agreed our plans in advance with the school,” Pohl said.
“We’re always against slow students,” said his lawyer Bernhard Kraas. “But when someone hurries and finishes early, suddenly he has to pay. That can’t be right.”

The school says they are entitled to the full payment, which is for the degree, not the time spent achieving it. More

Snooper cleared after reading colleague's email

A New Jersey teacher rifled through a colleague's email after she left her mailbox open on a public computer. She and her correspondents sued him. Jurors cleared him on hacking charges, however, agreeing that her failure to log out amounted to "tacit authorization." Timothy B. Lee at Ars Technica:

According to New Jersey law, a person is guilty if he "knowingly accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided or exceeds an authorization to access that facility." The judge ruled that Marcus, not Rogers, had accessed her e-mail. So Rogers was on safe ground on the "access" question. However, the judge let the jury decide whether Rogers had exceeded the "authorization" Marcus had accidentally granted to him. The jury ruled that he had not.

At Internet Cases, attorney Evan Brown offers an analysis of the case: "The decision is potentially relevant to contexts other than email accounts on desktop computers. Does a person who finds another’s mobile device have the right to rummage through all the accounts (e.g., social media, email, dating sites) that the phone’s owner is logged into? This case underscores that the answer will be, frustratingly, 'it depends.'"
Also, yes, there is a stock photo for everything.

EU: software licenses may be sold by consumers

The European Union's Court of Justice ruled today that software licenses may be sold.

By its judgment delivered today, the Court explains that the principle of exhaustion of the distribution right applies not only where the copyright holder markets copies of his software on a material medium (CD-ROM or DVD) but also where he distributes them by means of downloads from his website. Where the copyright holder makes available to his customer a copy – tangible or intangible – and at the same time concludes, in return form payment of a fee, a licence agreement granting the customer the right to use that copy for an unlimited period, that rightholder sells the copy to the customer and thus exhausts his exclusive distribution right.

The case concerned Oracle, which sued UsedSoft, a German company which bought and resold "used" software licenses. It's a heartening decision, for sure, though it will encourage commercial software publishers to continue the trend toward subscriptions.