patti labelle blog: April 2007

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Torch Unveiled

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Torch together with Beijing 2008 Olympic Torch Relay Plan was unveiled by BOCOG today in Beijing, China. Below are the key facts of the Olympic torch designed by Chinese computer maker Lenovo :

The torch is 72 centimetres high, weighs 985 grams and is made of aluminium. The torch is of a curved surface form, with etching and anodizing being used during its production. A torch can usually keep burning for approximately 15 minutes in conditions where the flame is 25 to 30 centimetres high in a windless environment.

The torch has been produced to withstand winds of up to 65 kilometres per hour and to stay alight in rain up to 50mm an hour. The flame can be identified and photographed in sunshine and areas of extreme brightness. The fuel is propane which is in accordance with environmental guidelines. The material of its form is recyclable.

Dancing Bush is Beaten by the Bongos

Mr. President's awkward expression when dancing with a group of African performers for a Malaria Aware event at the White House makes me chuckle again and again. Link

Video: Why You Don't Throw Paperclips at Coworkers

Here is a lesson!

That's One Big Pothole

A large section of Shunwai Road (顺外路) in Nanchang, capital of East China's Jiangxi Province, collapses on Wednesday, April 25, 2007. No one was hurt in the incident. Link

Eelko Moorer's Bat-Style Footwear

Eelko Moorer's footwear can latch on to hand strap rails inside Tube trains. The bat-style boots allow travelers to hang upside down in the carriage. Do you want to try? Link

David Huckabee Arrested With Handgun At Airport

david huckabee mugshot

David Huckabee arrested! The 26-year-old son of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, was arrested at Little Rock's Airport on a Thursday last April after a federal X-ray technician detected a loaded .40-caliber Glock pistol in his carry-on luggage.

Huckabee pleaded guilty in Little Rock District Court after being charged with a misdemeanor count of possessing a weapon in a prohibited place.

District Judge Lee Munson gave Huckabee a one-year suspended jail sentence and ordered him into 10 days of community service which Huckabee can avoid by paying $100. Source: ABC

British Man Pulls Plane of 7.4 Tonnes with Ears

Manjit Singh, 57, pulled a Jetstream passenger plane weighing approximately 7.4 tonnes 12ft along the apron at East Midlands Airport, at Castle Donington in Leicestershire, U.K.. When responding to the medias after the record attempt, he said he did have a little bit of pain around the ears. :-)

The strong man also attempted to raise money for his charity Manjit Fitness, which aims to get children living in his native Mahilpur, India involved in sport.Link

Pelicans Tie the Knot at Zoo

Zookeepers at a bird zoo in Fuzhou, southeastern China's Fujian province decorated a "bridal house" for a pair of two spotted-billed pelicans. The female pelican was found in Hainan, south China, and brought to Fuzhou to mate with the male pelican, who lost his spouse three years ago. Link

World's Eight Tallest Statutes

I am yet to find one chance to visit one of them .

No. 1. Ushiku Amida Buddha, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan

The staute is 100 meter tall, standing on a 10m lotus base and a 10m platform, total 120 meters. It weighs 4000 tons and is the tallest statue in the world. The monument is three times taller and thirty times larger in volume than the Statue of Liberty. link

No. 2. The Statue of Emperors Yan and Huang, Zhengzhou, Hunan Province, China

The statue is 106 meters high, with the eye three meters wide and the nose eight meters long. Emperors Yan and Huang, two emperors in ancient Chinese legends, are said to be the earliest ancestors of the Chinese nation. link

No. 3. Kiev's statue of the Motherland, Kiev, Ukraine

The memorial of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) itself is 62 meters tall, the overall height is 102 meters. link

No. 4 Peter the Great Statue, Moscow, Russia

The 94 meter high bronze sculpture of Peter the Great standing in the Moscow River was designed by Zurab Tsereteli. link

No. 5. Statue of Liberty, New York, USA
A colossal statue given to the United States by France in 1886, is standing at Liberty Island in the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor. The overall height is 93 meters. The statute is 46 meters tall, with the foundation adding another 46.9 meters. link

No. 6. The Motherland, Volgograd, Russia
The statue has another name called Mother Motherland Is Calling. Measured from the tip of her sword to the top of the plinth, the distance is 85 meters (279 feet). It is can be found at 48°44′32.5″N, 44°32′13″E on Google Maps. link

No. 7. Leshan Giant Buddha, Sichuan Province, China
Standing 71 metres tall, the statue is the tallest stone Buddha statue in the world. link

No. 8.Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The statue stands 38 m tall and is located at the peak of the 710-m (2330-foot) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park, overlooking the Rio de Janeiro city. link

God Dance

Nepalese artists perform Dev Nach (God Dance) during a parade marking "Democracy Day" in Kathmandu. Link

Chinese Bar Serves Wine Using Syrindge and Test Tubes

The owner of a bar in Shengzhen of south China's Guangdong Province had his bartender girls dress in modified nurse suit and serve wine with syringes and test tubes. The boss thought of such unique idea to attract customers, and was planning another theme of female pirates. Link

Giant Sweet Potato Weighs 15 Kilograms

An extraordinarily large sweet potato weighing 15 kilograms were recently harvested by farmer Carrion in the northwest Peru's Lambayeque province. The owner planned to cook his super large potato after the completion of a display and share it with others. Link

Nutrition Facts Printed on Cookies

Design firm AndrewAndrew comes up with a novel idea to show nutrition facts of snacks -- printe them right on the icing using edible ink. Oh, yeah, as sold $25 for a set of two, the cookies must be a bit more pricey than many other cookies. Link to BB & Sci Fi

80-year-old Leaves His Palm Marks On A Rock.

An 80-year-old man from Quanzhou City of Fujian Province repeatedly smacks a rock with his palms for 10 years and literally leaves two of his palm mark on the stone.

Octogenarian Hong Qing-gen, who lives near Jinbang Park, began hitting the rock as an exercise to keep fit a decade ago.

He would hit it some 1,000 times each day for two hours. After 10 years of this daily exercise, the imprints of his palms are now clearly visible on the rock.

Link to Kooky Photos: hxkjw

Learn to Fly Here?

Check out Snope's Flight School to know the story behind this cool picutre!

Drunk Man Rides Horse nto Bank

From Metro

Wolfgang Heinrich, 40, from the German town Wiesenburg, had been riding with his Haflinger horse Sammy when he stopped to have a drink with friends.

But when he left the pub he realised he was too drunk to ride all the way home - and because it was cold, he decided to use his bank card to open up a nearby bank foyer and take himself and Sammy inside to sleep it off.

Wrestling in Tamato Pool

Two men of Zhuang ethnic minority were wrestling in a tomato pool to celebrate the Buluotuo Cultural Festival (布洛陀文化节) of the Zhuang people on April 24, 2007 in Tianyang County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China.

Astronomers Find "second Earth"

Using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, astronomer Stephane Udry and his colleagues discovered that a planet about five times as massive as Earth is the smallest and potentially most Earth-like planet outside the solar system. It orbits a small, dim "red dwarf" star called Gliese 581 which lies 20.5 light years away every 13 days. The planet is believed to be habitable because the astronomers calculated that it has a pleasant right-for-liquid-water-existence surface temperature of about 0 to 40° C. Link

Huge Spinning-tops

A citizen of Sichuan Province added a final touch on one of five 40kg-heavy and 68cm-high huge spinning-tops on April 24, 2007. The spinning-tops were painted with 5 colors featuring Olympic rings and symbolizing 5 continents. They are expected to be presented to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Link

China's Most Popular Surname is Wang

A new study has debunked the notion that Li (李) is China's most popular surname.
A 2006 survey of 296 million people in 1,100 counties and cities by the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that Li led the ranks of family names with about 7.4 per cent of the population.

However, state media reports a recent analysis of household registration data covering nearly all of China's population revealed that Wang [which literally could be translated as King] is, in fact, the most common name in the country.

It says data shows almost 93 million mainland Chinese are called Wang, or about 7.25 per cent of the total population.

Link via Uniquedaily

Tortoise Race

The interesting tortoise sport was held in the Donghai Ocean World on April 21, 2007 in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China.

Video: The Cat Who Plays the Piano

The antics of Nora, the piano-playing puss, is amazing! Link

An Angry Female Soldier 's Rants on Iraq War

What misery story from a pregnant soldier who lose her husband recently! From Craigist

...I'm a Marine and I served my tour in Iraq. My husband, also a Marine, served several. I left the service six months ago because I got pregnant while he was home on leave and three days ago I get a visit from two men in uniform who hand me a letter and tell me my husband died in that fucking festering sand-pit. He should have been home a month ago but they extended his tour and now he's coming home in a box. [...]

And you know what the most f*ked up thing about this Iraq sh*t is? They don't want us there. They're not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We f*ked up their lives even worse than they already were and they're pissed off. We didn't help them and we're not helping them now. That's what our soldiers are dying for. [...]

And I'm going to go to my husband funeral and recieve that flag and hang it up on the wall for my baby to see when he's older. But I'm not going to tell him that his father died for the stupidty of the American government. I'm going to tell him that his father was a hero and the best man I ever met and that he loved his country enough to die for it, because that's all true and nothing will be solved by telling my son that his father was sent to die by people who didn't care about him at all.

F*k you, war supporters, George W. B*h, and all the god damn mother f*kers who made the war possible. I hope you burn in hell.

Picture from Tagworld

Rare Borneo Rhino Caught on the Video for First Time

A video grab released by Malaysian WWF on April 24, 2007 shows a rare two-horned Borneo rhino in the Malaysian jungle of Sabah, Borneo. One of the world's rarest rhinos has been caught on film for the first time on Borneo island, wildlife officials said on Tuesday as they showed footage of the animal eating, walking about and sniffing the camera.

Malaysian officials of global conservation organisation WWF said the two-minute video, recorded in February by a camera hidden in the jungle, was the first to capture the behaviour of the elusive two-horned Borneo rhino in the wild.

There are only between 25 and 50 of the rhinos left alive in the dense jungles deep in the heart of the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo, and the animals are so secretive that the first still picture of one was only taken last year, the WWF said.

Borneo Rhino, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis harrissoni, is a subspecies of the Sumatran rhino and the smallest and hairiest of all the rhinos. It can weigh from 600 to 800kg (1,300 to 1,800 lb).

The Rock That Stops Superman Discovered in Serbia

Scientists found a new mineral matching nothing known previously to science but the unique chemistry of kryptonite that robs the superhero of his powers in the film Superman Returns. It will be officially named as Jadarite.

The large green crystals of kryptonite have a devasting affect on the superhero. However, unlike its famous counterpart, the new mineral is white, powdery and not radioactive. And, rather than coming from outer space, the real kryptonite was found in Serbia.

'Towards the end of my research,' says Dr Stanley [at the Natural History Museum], 'I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula, sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, and was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns'.

'The new mineral does not contain fluorine and is white rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite. We will have to be careful with it - we wouldn't want to deprive Earth of its most famous superhero!'

The mineral could be used as a source of lithium , which has many uses including in batteries, or as a source of borate, which is used for cleaning, also known as borax.

Link

£650,000 Mansion to be Sold for £60

Alf and Kath Overy, of the Old Parsonage near Goole, East Yorkshire, put their home on the market last year.

But after it failed to sell for the £650,000 asking price, they decided to offer the 300-year-old Grade II listed building as a competition prize [for £60].

Entrants have been challenged to look at a doctored photograph of the house and guess where a missing shadow should fall.

The couple say they have limited the number of entries to 25,000 and plan to donate some of the money raised by the competition to the International League for the Protection of Horses.

"We thought we'd give everyone a chance and the response has been that it's an unusual, good idea", Mr Overy said， "Whoever gets it for £60, it could change their lives completely."

Man Received 5,000 calls for Youtube Posting

Ryan Fitzgerald is unemployed, lives with his father and has a little bit of time on his hands.

So, he decided to offer his ear, to anyone who wants to call. After posting a video with his cell phone number on YouTube on Friday, the 20-year-old told The Boston Globe he has received more than 5,000 calls and text messages.

Fitzgerald said he wanted to "be there," for anyone who needed to talk. "I never met you, but I do care," a spiky-haired Fitzgerald said into the camera on his YouTube posting.

Fitzgerald, who said people consider him "easy to talk to," was inspired by Juan Mann. YouTube video clips of Mann offering "Free Hugs" to strangers became wildly popular on the user-controlled Internet site.

Google vs God

A supplement collection of RC's previous Claude Presbyterian Church Google Billboard. Apparently, numerous churches believe that Google is not omniscient but God does.

by Carpolena

by David Cancel

by Mark Blevis

by Rob Partington

via Googlified

13-year-old Wins US Texting Champion With $25000 Prize

Morgan Pozgar wins US texting championship

Morgan Pozgar , a 13-year-old girl from Claysburg of Pennsylvania, was crowned the US Texting Champion together with a top prize of $25,000 at an message typing contest in New York after beating 250 competitors from across the country.

She clinched the title with a quickfire error-free rendition of 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. If you say it loud enough you'll always sound precocious'.

In the final, Morgan at first seemed to have been beaten by Eli Tirosh, a 21-year-old law student from Los Angels, who put down her mobile phone first, only for the judges to rule that she had made a typing error.

She trained by sending on average 8,000 text messages a month to her friends - that rate equates one every five and a half minutes. She pays $US10 a month for an unlimited text package on her mobile phone.

The girl plans to do some shopping with her prize money in Manhaton, while her mother has already eyed it for her college fund.

Link Ananova & the Age

Armless Woman Logs Her Life by Feet

Ji Hong, 24, who lost both arms in an electrical accident when she was six years old, answered and submitted the paper sheet by feet during the college entrance exam in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, on April 21, 2007. Ji taught herself all high-school courses, and has acquired a junior college certificate. Link

Lifelike Lychee Fruits Carved from Stone

Lifelike Lychee Fruits Carved from Jade Stone

The stone carving of lychee fruits is made of thousand-year-old natural shoushan stone (yes, this rare Chinese agalmatolite once was carved to a braised chicken). Link

Peruvian Scissors Dance

Didn't he feel painful?

A "scissors" dancer hummers a nail into fellow dancer Gavilan's tongue during the national scissors dance competition in Villa Maria, southern Lima, April 22, 2007. The Peruvian Scissors Dance (Danza de las Tijeras), continuing a tradition inherited from their Inca ancestors, is characterized by two metal poles which take the shape of a pair of scissors. Dancers compete by dancing as well as by taking part in trials such as glass-eating, walking on fire or sticking wires into their body.

Video: Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix Trailer

Just can't wait!

Russian Ex-president Boris Yeltsin Dies at 76

A heart failure might be blamed for death of the first President of the Russian Federation. From CNN

Kremlin spokesman Alexander Smirnov confirmed Yeltsin's death, but gave no cause or further information. The Interfax news agency cited an unidentified medical source as saying he had died of heart failure.

He was a contradictory figure, rocketing to popularity in the Communist era on pledges to fight corruption -- but proving unable, or unwilling, to prevent the looting of state industry as it moved into private hands during his nine years as Russia's first freely elected president.

He steadfastly defended freedom of the press, but was a master at manipulating the media.

He amassed as much power as possible in his office -- then gave it all up [to Putin] in a dramatic New Year's address at the end of 1999.

Yeltsin's greatest moments came in bursts. He stood atop a tank to resist an attempted coup in August 1991, and spearheaded the peaceful end of the Soviet state on Dec. 25 of that year.

Video: Arab Guy Running on Treadmill

An Arab guy wearing the traditional white thawb is running on a treadmill, and trying to keep up the pace when its speed was increased. The hilarious footage can't prevent me from laughing loudly while in an office stuffed so many colleagues. via Cool Stuff

Pope Got15,001 Pairs of Shoes

During a visit to this northern city known as Italy's shoe capital, a local consortium gave one pair for himself and 15,000 more pairs for the needy around the world.

The Pope was given burgundy-colored loafers designed and manufactured by the Moreschi firm and made from kangaroo hide.

Those destined for the poor include boots and other types of footwear. Local industrialists are due to send them directly to charities chosen by the Vatican.

Carnassial Alligator Killed to Recover Evidence of Eating Child

Police in China's Guangxi Autonomous Region shot to kill a crocodile which was blamed for attacking and eating a pupil. The alligator measures two metres in length and 150 kilograms in weight.

The tragedy occurred at about 6 p.m. on Friday, when a pupil surnamed Liu and three other children from Xiantian Primary School climbed over the fence of a crocodile pool which had been temporarily closed [for aution].

The children shot the animals with catapults and beat them with wooden sticks. One of the irritated alligators bit Liu's clothes and dragged him into water, where he was eaten by a swarm of alligators.

The sinpers lured the crocodiles with pork and shoot one that crawled ashore to death with seven bullets.

Legal medical experts anatomized body of the creature and found remains of a human being, therefore confirmed the missing child was eaten by the crocodiles.

Hitler's Little Helper

Paul Briscoe, a retiree now lives in the peaceful Suffolk countryside. He once had a shocking childhood, as Hitler's Little Helper. Check out this detailed report on Dailymail.

Firemen Rescued Dog Trapped in Wall

After his owner called Fire and Rescue Service for help, the six-month-old husk Keano who had earlier become trapped by his jaw in a garden in Whitchurch, Hampshire was rescued by firefighters . They used bolster to chisel off the part of the wall that had trapped the dog's head. Link

Video: Water Instantly Freezed to the Ice

A scientific experiment shows ropelike peaks (slush) immediately formed when the supercooled water (-21C/-6F) was pour into a bowl. Link to Youtube via Digg

Croatia's Plitvicka Waterfalls

The Most Beautiful Waterfalls,Plitvicka Waterfalls

Waterfalls in Plitvicka Jezera National Park of Croatia are believed as one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world. This amazing photo was taken by the landscape photographer Jack Brauer. To get to this vantagepoint directly facing these waterfalls, he had to bushwack down a slope and downclimb a sketchy cliff. With lucky timing, clouds covered the sun and the photographer was able to take some longer exposures to get the soft waterfall effect. Link to TrekEarth via Digg

World's Largest Chicken Egg

A super large chicken egg was recently found in Jiangyou City, China's Sichuan Province. It weighs 235 grams, 87 grams heavier than a Ukrainian egg officially recognized as the world's largest egg by Guiness World Record in 2004. Link via Uniquedaily