Star-Struck?

Buddhist statue discovered by Nazis is made of meteorite

A 1,000-year-old Buddhist statue discovered in Tibet by Nazis searching for the origins of the Aryan race was hewn from meteorite, scientists have found.

The "Iron Man" statue, which bears a swastika on its chest, was brought back to Germany in 1938 after being found in Tibet by a team of SS members led by zoologist Ernst Schäfer.
The expedition was backed by Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief, who believed that the secret origin of the entire Aryan race could be uncovered in Tibet.
Now the first scientific study of the statue's origins by experts from Stuttgart University has found that it is made of ataxite, a rare type of iron meteorite with a high nickel content.
Experts concluded it had been chiselled from a remnant of the Chinga meteorite which fell to Earth near the border of Mongolia and Siberia 15,000 years ago.
Meteorites were worshipped by a host of ancient cultures including the Inuits of Greenland and Australia's aborigines.
The 10kg Iron Man statue, believed have originated from the 11th century Bon culture, depicts the god Vaisravana, the Buddhist King of the North, who is also known in Tibet as Jambhala.
After being brought to Munich in 1938 it was included in a private collection and was only made available for scientists to analyse after it was auctioned in 2007.
Dr Elmar Buchner, who led the study published in the Meteoritics and Planetary Science journal, said: "While the first debris was officially discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors, we believe that this individual meteorite fragment was collected many centuries before.
“The Iron Man statue is the only known illustration of a human figure to be carved into a meteorite, which means we have nothing to compare it to when assessing value.
"Its origins alone may value it at $20,000 (£12,500); however, if our estimation of its age is correct and it is nearly a thousand years old it could be invaluable.”

PSY - GANGNAM STYLE

I Need The Sun Sir….Honest!!

Solicitor's curfew relaxed so that he can go sunbathing in France

A solicitor who narrowly escaped jail has had a strict curfew relaxed by a court so he can go sunbathing in the south of France.

Michael Passmore of Colchester, Essex claimed he needed the sunshine break on the French Riviera in order to boost his body's vitamin D.
A crown court has now agreed to give Passmore the green-light for his getaway.
Passmore originally found himself in hot water when he was stopped by police after sinking five drinks at a pub before trying to get behind the wheel of his car.
The 58-year-old was four times over the drink-drive limit.
He then fled the country to Sri Lanka before his court appearance and was arrested six months later upon his return where he was handed a 12-week suspended sentence of drink-driving along with a four-week suspended term for failing to attend court.
In August this year magistrates placed the former solicitor on a strict curfew which keeps him at home every night.
A recorder at Chelmsford Crown Court has now agreed to overturn the restrictions of the curfew.
Nneka Akuddlu, representing Passmore, said her client had skin condition which would benefit from him spending time in the sunshine.
She said: "Although doctors have told him they can prescribe creams, he has been told the best source of treatment would be vitamin D.
"He would like to visit a good friend in the south of France so that the climate there can assist with his condition."
Miss Akuddlu told the court the condition was known as lichen planus which causes itchy rashes on the skin.
Recorder Neil Graham QC, who heard the appeal at Chelmsford Crown Court, agreed to relax the curfew so that Passmore could head abroad.
However, he restricted the relaxation of the curfew to seven days.
The court heard that Passmore also wanted to visit his sister, who is suffering from cancer, in Easbourne.
Miss Akuddlu said her client had imposed a driving ban upon himself since fleeing the country.

A Bit Of A Cock-Up??

Parents' shock as children's pool party coincides with naturist outing

Parents have complained after a public swimming pool hosted a children’s birthday party at the same time as a nudist swimming session.

The children were celebrating a boy’s seventh birthday at Radcliffe Pool and Fitness Centre. The young group had enjoyed a swimming party before going to the upstairs canteen for a birthday meal overlooking the pool.
Whilst they were eating members of a naturist group, consisting of about 20 male swimmers, were swimming in the pool below. Staff at the fitness centre had placed paper and bin bags over the canteen window in an attempt to block the view.
Parents who attended the party say that they had to stand in-between cracks in the bin bags and at the doors of a balcony in order to ensure that the nudist group were not visible to the children.
The mother who had booked the party said: “It was wrong and just never should have happened. The management should have told me that it was going on and I would not have booked the party.”
The mother, from Radcliffe, paid £54 to hire the pool and £12 to hire the canteen. She added: “A man at reception said the he had to let me know that there was a naturist party going on and it overlaps with our party. I did not believe him at first.
Would you really book that at the same time as a seven-year old’s party? If we had not been vigilant that the children would have seen everything and that would have been a disaster.” Another mother added: “It certainly should never have been on at the same time.”
A spokesperson from Radcliffe Pool and Fitness Centre said: “This naturist swim was a private booking from 6.30-8pm, at a time when it was assumed that no one else would be in the building. On this occasion, it would appear that we overlooked the fact that children, who were booked in the pool from 5pm-6pm, would then go into the canteen space on the first floor for their party.
"If further bookings are taken again they will be at a time when no other groups will be using the pool area.”
Bury Council said they have not received any official complaint relating to the incident.

A New Tactic For Amazon Perhaps??

Online Shoppers’ Nightmare Sent to Prison

An online retailer engaged into dealing with customer complaints by threatening to hurt them has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. 35-year-old Vitaly Borker was selling specs on the Internet, but for some reason decided to push up his Google page ranking by receiving bad reviews.
The local media confirms that Vitaly did this by employing an interesting business model, which involved deliberately harassing and scaring the life out of the clients in a “terror campaign”, as the US District Judge Richard Sullivan called it.

Vitaly was operating DecorMyEyes.com and found out that negative reviews and comments on the Internet really pushed up the website’s page ranking on Google. Borker was so proud of his way of running the business that he bragged about it 2 years ago in an article by the New York Times.

The judge ruled that he was terrifying customers, putting them in fear of their lives. Vitaly pleaded guilty in 2011 to making threats and fraud charges and the prosecutors admitted that over 200 complaints against him had been filed with the Federal Trade Commission within 3 years he had been running a website.

The defendant said he was very sorry for the awful threats he had made and swore he had never intended on carrying out the threats. In fact, he just had a big mouth he failed to control, which finally ruined his life.
For instance, one customer from Chicago told the court that Vitaly harassed her for around 50 days after she tried to use the site’s money-back guarantee. She received a voicemail message from Borker, who said: “I hope you die. I want to slice your legs off”. Some Louisiana customer also told the court that the site admin threatened to kill all her family unless she stopped trying to use the site’s money-back guarantee.

In the meantime, the defendant’s lawyer, Dominic Amorosa, claimed that most of his customers were satisfied with his products, as there were $18 million in revenue received from the sales of 100,000 glasses over four year when the site was on and running. Only less than $3 million was refunded, which is still an impressive percentage.

According to US Attorney Preet Bharara, Vitaly Borker could only be referred to as "an online shopper's worst nightmare”. That would be right, because you most likely wouldn’t be able to sleep well too if someone was promising to kill you because of the glasses.

Dogged Gone!!

Dog shoots owner in France

A French man has been shot by his dog during a hunt in his local region of the Dordogne

The Blue Gascony Basset hound dog caught the trigger of his gun after leaping up while the huntsman was taking part in a deer shoot.
The bullet shattered a part of the huntsman's right hand which has since been amputated.
The victim said he only had himself to blame for not applying the safety catch and did not hold the incident against his dog "at all".
"It wasn't the dog's fault - and he's adorable!" he told France Bleu radio.
The 55-year-old victim, who has given his name as Rene, was flown to hospital in Bordeaux by air ambulance.
The victim explained that the dog, who was the youngest of three out on the hunt and new to the sport, had stayed by his master while the other two dogs chased a deer.
Rene explained how the pet had "jumped on me to give me a cuddle, I think."
"As he jumped, he put a paw on the gun," Rene added.

Is It You?

20 Uploaders Responsible for 90% Fake Torrents

One of the most important issues that BitTorrent users have to cope with on a regular basis is fake torrents which are uploaded to popular trackers like The Pirate Bay by malicious users in order to distribute malware or use other users in other ways. The latest research claims that 90% of fake torrents are uploaded by only 20 users. The researchers have analyzed a sample set of 30,000 torrents uploaded to TPB within two weeks in 2011. The surprising part was that over 1/3 of all torrents were associated with fake content, which makes an increase of 5% compared to a previous year.
The developers decided not to rely on user accounts in the attempt to identify fake publishers, because it’s a flawed method thanks to the possibility to create as many user accounts as you want on the website. Instead, the developers took a look at the IP addresses that were used to distribute the fake files. That’s how they identified 20 publishers that were responsible for 90% of the fake torrent uploads on The Pirate Bay tracker.

Over 99% of all fake torrents found by the researchers were either used to distribute viruses directly or to take advantage of the users by getting them to visit scam sites or other forms of scams. The rest 1% of the fake torrents were associated with anti-piracy companies and outfits.

The research mentions some interesting products, including a service called TorrentGuard. The latter is available both as an Internet service and a plugin for the Vuze BitTorrent application. Everyone can visit the TorrentGuard official website in order to verify a torrent either by uploading it to the service, or pasting its info hash or magnet link into a special form on the portal.

TorrentGuard basically checks the torrent in a database in order to verify whether it’s legit (which is likely) or fake. However, the industry experts point out that they had some issues to get the Internet service in their attempts to verify the torrents they tried to check through it. 35% seems a very high index for the number of fake torrents. Some of the experts explain it with the small sample size and period. The intentions of the people who distribute them are clear, so it is recommended to be always alert when downloading torrents.

Phew…Now There’s A Statue?

Damien Hirst’s giant, naked pregnant mother to stand tall over seaside town

A 66ft sculpture of a naked, pregnant woman by the artist Damien Hirst will be erected in the seaside town of Ilfracombe, Devon, next month.

Hirst’s offer to loan the bronze work for 20 years has been accepted by North Devon Council, despite plans to place the statue at the town’s harbour attracting more than 100 complaints.
Councillors hope that the sculpture, called Verity, will attract more tourism to the town where Hirst also owns a restaurant.
But others have expressed anger that the sculpture, which will be 10 inches taller than the Angel of the North, will tower over the town.
Julie Hunt, a local councillor, said: “I think it is immoral, disrespectful and tasteless. Would this be allowed if it was a naked man baring his packed lunch for all to see?”
The planning application for the statue of the woman holding aloft a sword and standing on a base of legal books, said it was a “modern allegory of truth and justice”. It is expected to be unveiled at the site in mid-October.
Ilfracombe has embraced modern art and design since its Landmark Theatre was developed in 2007, with a white, conical design which was later nicknamed “Madonna’s Bra”.

A Short Back & Sides Sir??

Man shows off world's tallest mohawk

A Japanese designer has been crowned by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the tallest mohawk haircut in the world.

The tip of Kazuhiro Watanabe's spiked mohawk stands 3 ft 8.6 inches proud of his skull and earned him a place in the 2013 edition of the book, which is released on Thursday.
Watanabe unveiled his hair-do at a press event in New York on Wednesday to mark the launch of the new book.
"It was a lot of work ... but I am happy to have achieved the world's No 1," 40-year-old Watanabe told reporters, adding that it had taken him 15 years to grow the mohawk to its present size.
To get it into shape takes three stylists, three cannisters of hair spray and a bottle of hair gel, Watanabe said.
Without gel and hairspray, the hair reaches his knees.
"It is too expensive to do the mohawk every day, so I only do it for occasions like this and parties," he said.
Watanabe said he began his quest to get into the Guinness Book of World Records when he was 20, although he did not initially mind which record he held. One attempt that he considered before taking on the mohawk challenge was to drink the most tabasco sauce.
The previous holder of the record for the biggest mohawk was Stefan Srocka, of Germany, with a hair-do that stood 31.5 inches tall.
Watanabe said his 10-year-old daughter has already decided that she intends to beat his record one day.