Apparently, lemmings do exist... WTF?!?

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- First one sheep jumped to its death. Then stunned Turkish shepherds, who had left the herd to graze while they had breakfast, watched as nearly 1,500 others followed, each leaping off the same cliff, Turkish media reported.

In the end, 450 dead animals lay on top of one another in a billowy white pile, the Aksam newspaper said. Those who jumped later were saved as the pile got higher and the fall more cushioned, Aksam reported.

"There's nothing we can do. They're all wasted," Nevzat Bayhan, a member of one of 26 families whose sheep were grazing together in the herd, was quoted as saying by Aksam.

450 sheep jump to their deaths in Turkey

This week's Onion "must-read".

MILTON, MA—Tragedy was narrowly averted in the Bourke household Monday, when Harry, the family's pet hamster, was violently thrown from the 4" by 4" payload of a toy Ford F-350 monster truck.

According to reports, the toy vehicle was racing through a living-room obstacle course—which included a coffee-table-coaster slalom, a cardboard ramp, and a Dixie-cup pyramid—when it swerved out of control and crashed into a Lincoln Log structure, sending the hamster flying through the monster truck's driver-side window and knocking over three nearby Fisher-Price Little People.

The scene quickly devolved into pandemonium, with the launched hamster tumbling humorously in mid-air several times before landing at the foot of the sofa and fleeing in shock. A frantic, living-room-wide search for Harry ensued and, after extensive search efforts behind the sofa, under the recliner, and behind the bookcase, the hamster was found between the vertical blinds and the sliding glass door, shaken but alive.

Hamster Thrown From Remote-Control Monster Truck

That's a whole lot of Rubles, 8,652,743,920.61 at current exchange rates.

Astrologer sues NASA for 300M for comet blast

Oops!

A Taiwan stock trader mistakenly bought $251 million worth of shares with a misstroke of her computer keyboard, meaning her company is looking at a paper loss of more than $12 million and she is looking for a new job.

The trader with Fubon Securities miskeyed in a small order from Merrill Lynch on Monday, creating confusion when many small companies inexplicably surged past the 7 percent trading limit.

"Something like this is difficult to explain to superiors," a Fubon executive said Tuesday.

Fubon said that the trader was unfamiliar with new computer systems and will be fired. The company will also examine its procedures of placing orders, it said

Bad keystroke leads to $251 million stock buy

VATICAN CITY—The Vatican has released a strict new set of Church laws intended to reduce the nocturnal emissions of teenage polluters by 50 percent in the next decade, Cardinal Antoni Bertoli announced Monday.
"In the past 10 years, unholy emissions from young men have risen by 150 million cubic centimeters, releasing erotic-dream byproducts into the bedsheet environment," Bertoli said. "The accumulation of pollutants from millions of individual violators around the world is having a devastating effect on the moral atmosphere."

Vatican scientists believe the increase in emissions contributes to the Hothouse Effect, a steady rise in the overall temperature of the average Catholic male's genitals.

"Unchecked, we will soon reach a crisis point that no amount of will power can contain," Bertoli said.

Bahahaha

Onion: Vatican Tightens Nocturnal Emission Standards

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- This big one did not get away. Thai fishermen netted a 646-pound catfish believed to have been the world's largest freshwater fish ever caught in Thailand, a researcher said Thursday.

The nearly 9-foot-long Mekong giant catfish was landed May 1 by villagers in Chiang Khong, a remote district in northern Thailand, and weighed by Thai fisheries department officials, said Zeb Hogan, who leads an international project to locate and study the world's largest freshwater fish species.

He confirmed it was the heaviest fish on record since Thailand started keeping such statistics in 1981.

The fishermen had hoped to sell the fish to environmental groups, which planned to release it to spawn upriver, but it died before it could be handed over and then was chopped up and sold in pieces to villagers as food.

Hogan, whose work is funded by the World Wildlife Fund and the National Geographic Society, said he is planning to write a paper about the catch for a scientific journal.

Does a super size catfish mean super size hushpuppies?

Reel Big Fish

There's a sucker born every minute - P.T. Barnum.

A Lexington woman who says she was jilted by a WLTO-102.5 FM contest filed a lawsuit yesterday against Cumulus Media Inc., which owns Hot 102 and four other local stations.

The complaint, filed in Fayette Circuit Court, says the radio station and its Atlanta-based parent company breached a contract to pay $100,000 after a radio contest prize was revealed to be a caramel-filled candy bar, Nestle's 100 Grand, instead of cash.

On May 25, night host DJ Slick said he wanted to thank people who listened throughout the American Idol finale by sponsoring a contest to "win 100 grand." "No joke," the host's Web blog said of the contest.

Norreasha Gill won by listening to the radio show throughout the night and being the 10th caller just before the Idol winner was announced. As family members rushed to her house to celebrate, she screamed over the airwaves and began describing what she would do with $100,000, she said.

"I just freaked out," Gill, 28, said. "I couldn't move, I was so afraid that the phone would click off. I was shaking. They congratulated me and told me I could pick it up the next morning."

Radio contest winner suing radio station over candy prize

Ok, This should not come as a surprise to anyone... It confirms what most of us have known about this business for a long time.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Women and some racial minorities are "significantly underrepresented" in the U.S. technology industry, according to a new study from the industry's trade group.

Women made up 32 percent of the tech work force in 2004, a drop from 41 percent at its peak in 1996. That's largely because of the shrinking number of administrative jobs in the tech industry, the Arlington, Virginia-based Information Technology Association of America said.

Hispanics were the most underrepresented racial group, according to the ITAA's analysis of data from U.S. Department of Labor.

Hispanics made up 13 percent of the U.S. labor pool but only 6.4 percent of the tech work force, an underrepresentation of more than 50 percent. Still, the numbers have improved since 1996, when Hispanics made up a scant 5.3 percent.

Study: IT has too few women, minorities

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's baseball players have been banned from putting frozen cabbage leaves under their caps to beat the summer heat.

The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) took action after Doosan Bears pitcher Park Myung-hwan's cap fell off during a game last weekend, revealing his secret cooling agent.

After an emergency meeting, KBO officials ruled that cabbage leaves are a distraction and cannot be considered part of the baseball uniform.

"Park has been using frozen cabbage to cool down since last summer, but we didn't know until now," KBO chief of referees Heo Koo-youn told Reuters Wednesday.

"We had to act because imagine if it happened in the World Series. If something drops out of the pitcher's cap, it could put the batter off. Does the umpire call strike or ball?"

Park, who twice dropped leaves on the mound during last Sunday's game with the Hanhwa Eagles, said he was disappointed with the ruling but would not appeal.

"I'm sensitive to the heat and my wife recommended I put frozen cabbage leaves under my cap to cool my head," he said.

"I will respect the KBO's decision. Even without the cabbage, my pitching won't be affected."

There's no room for cabbage in baseball...

Sounds like a kernel vulnerability / buffer overflow to exploit... :)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark Jun 20, 2005 — New research indicates that parts of the brain that govern fear and anxiety are switched off when a woman is having an orgasm.

In the first study to map brain function during orgasm, scientists from the Netherlands also found that as a woman climaxes, an area of the brain that governs emotional control is also heavily deactivated.
...
When women faked orgasm, the cortex, the part of the brain governing conscious action, lit up. It was not activated during genuine orgasm.

The most striking results, however, were seen in the parts of the brain that shut down, or deactivated.

Brain Areas Shut Off During Female Orgasm