American Babysitter

credit to Victor Palagano III.

Stupid criminal

I think everyone derives a certain satisfaction out of watching videos of stupid criminals. This man should win some kind of award...

Please send this man 200,000 cigarette butts

from the Sunday Tasmanian: Adrian Avenell, of Devonport, needs 200,000 two-tone cigarette butts to make a sculpture and he wants Tasmania's smokers to help him.

"I've estimated if I can get 50 40-a-day smokers to save their butts for me I could get what I need in about six months," Mr Avenell said. "I'm asking smokers to save their butts and post them to me, then I'll reimburse them their costs."

The sculpture will feature a pavement covered with cigarette butts, a coffin and the Grim Reaper.

"I am hoping Australia's anti-smoking lobby will commission the piece, or maybe even QUIT or Clean Up Australia, but the sculpture is not necessarily intended to have an anti-smoking message.

"It is just an artistic piece I want to make using quite different material."

Mr Avenell's passion for sculpture arose during his 35-year career as chef; carving ice, mud and clay sculptures on buffets. In his retirement he has moved on to working with tin and stone and hopes in the future to explore brass.

"But first I need to get this butt sculpture out of my head."

[Personally, I've never understood "modern art." I don't plan to start now...]

Here, drink some of this bleach...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida teens who believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy have prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education...

[It's not just the schools at fault here. Where are the parents? The churches? The media? Are Florida children learning anything? If children actually believe drinking bleach will prevent HIV and Mountain Dew will prevent pregnancy, then I'm embarassed to be an American.]

French advertisement for Wonderbra

Rioting in Egypt

I have absolutely no idea as to whether this is important or not, but the top item in the Reddit discussion board today links to an entry in a blog named Rantings of a Sandmonkey, which claims that 50,000 people are rioting in Egypt. There seems to be disagreement at Reddit as to whether the "Western media" are ignoring this, or whether it is too insignificant to warrant coverage. I'll blog this today, and if it turns out to be nothing, delete the post next month.

Reflection in Dick Cheney's glasses

What IS that reflected in the Vice President's glasses? (I know what it looks like).

It shouldn't be a 'shopped image, because the source is the White House.gov website sublink to "vice president/photoessays."

The only accompanying text says "Vice President Dick Cheney spends an afternoon fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho."


addendum April 12: I have subsequently seen a higher-res image elsewhere which shows that the white blur leading up to the "figure" is a sleeve, and the "figure" itself is a hand gripping a vertical (fishing) pole. Nothing exciting here, folks. Enjoy the rest of the blog...

Creature Comforts - "Self Image"

One of the Creature Comforts series, many of which can be found on YouTube. Claymation (a la Wallace and Gromit posted earlier) done with superb artistry and good humor.

A geographically diverse group of Americans were interviewed about their self-image, and then the Creature Comforts staff added on clay animation. Karl - if your students in Barcelona want to hear a variety of American accents, you could play this for them (some of it would be very challenging).

Antarctica without its ice

Click to magnify.

Bring Your Children To Work Day ???

Full text from Orange County (Florida) television news webpage:

SWAT Officers Bring Children On Raid

POSTED: 11:41 pm EDT April 4, 2008

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- Two SWAT officers are being counseled after bringing their young children along with them on a drug raid. The Orange County SWAT team searched a house on Napoleon Street Friday, arresting three people and recovering guns and drugs. The two officers who brought their children on the raid will not be disciplined.

Ted (or someone in Florida) - any insight, explanation, or further details? Bizarre.

Belly button ring stuck in nose???

Here's the full text from the Daily Telegraph (Australia):

A young woman caught her belly button ring in her nostril this morning after falling from her bed. The distressed 22-year-old called NSW Ambulance at 4am begging for assistance from paramedics.

She told triple zero operators she had fallen out of bed and her belly button piercing had jammed up her nose in the fall.

Ambulance officers rushed to Warwick Farm to assist the woman but she was not taken to hospital.

An ambulance spokeswoman said it had been a tough day for Sydneysiders, with a St Ives man stubbing his toe at 3.30pm.

I don't understand how - physically - this happened. Perhaps M.W. or someone else in Sidney can extract more details from the local press...

Credit to Nothing To Do With Arbroath. And I do hope the bloke who stubbed his toe is feeling better...

World's smallest teenager

I'm always impressed and pleased to encounter stories of little people doing well. Jyoti Amge is a well-adjusted 14 year old achondroplastic dwarf who weighs only 11 pounds. The photo above depicts her standing in front of classmates and next to her backpack (!). More about her at this link. Credit to Presurfer.

The culture of India is particularly well-suited to treating "different" people with respect. More on this subject in a subsequent post.

"Shock" at polar bear killing carp

"Shock???" Because a polar bear killed carp??

Germany's celebrity polar bear Knut has triggered a new controversy by fishing out 10 live carp from his moat and killing them in front of visitors. Critics say Berlin Zoo should not have put live fish inside Knut's enclosure. But German media report that the carp were put there to eat up algae.

There is speculation that hand-reared Knut killed the carp just for fun.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine news website reports that Knut "senselessly murdered the carp", fishing them out, playing with them and then leaving the remains.

"Murdered the carp???" This is shocking? - O.M.G. wait until they find out what bears do in the woods...

Pavarotti lip-synched final performance

"Tenor Luciano Pavarotti was miming during his last performance at the winter Olympics in Turin in 2006. Conductor Leone Magiera has revealed the singer's rendition of Nessun Dorma was pre-recorded, as a live performance would have been "too dangerous"...

Magiera said: "The orchestra pretended to play, I pretended to conduct and Luciano pretended to sing." He added: "It came off beautifully, no one was aware of the technical tricks."

Probably understandable, given the winter weather and Pavarotti's illness, but still...

The irrationality of McCain's foreign policy...

...was graphically illustrated today when news coverage of his speech to the VFW was interrupted by news of violence inside the Green Zone:

McCAIN: Faced with the prospect of defeat, we had two fundamental choices. We could retreat from Iraq and accept the horrible consequences of our defeat. Or we could change strategies and try to turn things around. It was, I believe, a critical moment in our nation’s history, and a time of testing for our nation’s political leadership.

In the year that has passed, our nation showed its strength –

MSNBC: And speaking of Iraq, we do have breaking news out of Iraq, where at least four mortars have been fired into the heavily-fortified Green Zone today. It’s unclear at this time if there are casualties or any major damage. Now the news comes just a day after five U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq...

The image above is just a screencap, NOT an embedded video; I couldn't find one on YouTube yet - probably tomorrow.

Tuesday a.m. - image replaced by embedded clickable videoclip.