/
/
blog-heap o' links
With more shark attacks reported in South Africa this
year than for a decade, scientists, marine environmentalists, conservationists
and tour operators are locked in fierce argument over accusations that the
booming shark-cage-diving industry is to blame... abclocal.go.com/ ...
11:46:59Inmates at a prison in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans have
rioted, attempted to escape and are now holding hostages... A deputy at Orleans
Parish Prison, his wife and their four children have been taken hostage...
seattlepi.nwsource.com/ ...
09:48:54Hurricane Katrina picked up several... floating barge casinos in
hard-hit Biloxi... and hurled them hundreds of yards inland, crippling the
region's gambling industry for months and potentially even years....
Cloned mammals have bred naturally for the first time...
Endangered African wildcat clones... two litters... eight kittens in all...
"The science which produced these beautiful kittens is nothing short of
wondrous," said Ron Forman, of the Centre for Research of Endangered Species
where the kittens were born... five ..on July 26.. three.. on Aug 2... The team
now plans to turn to critically endangered species of small cat such as
black-footed cats, sand cats, fishing cats and rusty spotted cats...![[flag]](pix/us-flag.png){kind=small}
Army Spc.
Joseph L. Martinez, 21, of Las Vegas, Nev., died on Aug. 27, 2005, in
Tal Afar, Iraq, where his dismounted patrol was engaged by enemy forces using
small arms fire.defenselink.mil/ ... 10:22:30Army 1st
Class Obediah J. Kolath, 32, of Louisburg, Mo., died on Aug. 28, 2005,
in Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained on Aug. 25, 2005, in Husaybah,
Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near his position. The
incident involved three other soldiers whose deaths were announced on Aug. 27,
2005. Kolath was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort
Bragg, N.C.defenselink.mil/ ... 10:20:02Army Staff
Sgt. Damion G. Campbell, 23, of Baltimore, Md., died on August 26, 2005,
in Khayr Kot, Afghanistan, where an improvised explosive device detonated near
his HMMWV during a combat patrol.
An
ostrich got loose from a minivan Monday and
started roaming around near the toll plaza... on the
Golden Gate Bridge... 
A Swedish nuclear power plant shut
down one of its three reactors Monday because of an abnormal
accumulation of jellyfish in the cooling system...
wdsu.com/ ... 20:22:56Rescuers are continuing to bring
survivors from Hurricane Katrina to the
[Superdome].. air conditioning is out.. bathrooms are filthy.. more than 10,000
people in the arena... Officials had earlier reported two
deaths at the Superdome, and now, they report that
someone died Tuesday after plunging from an upper level of the stadium.
They say the person probably jumped... ap.wwltv.com/ ... 10:45:59New
Orleans lies mostly below sea level and is protected by a network of pumps,
canals and levees. Many of the pumps were not working Tuesday morning... Little
islands of
red
ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown... some 30 of the
dead at a beach-side apartment complex in Biloxi. Three other people were
killed by falling trees in Mississippi and two died in a traffic accident in
Alabama... "Total devastation. Apartment complexes are wiped clean.... Houses
that withstood Camille are nothing but slab now..." Biloxi.. at least five
casinos out of commission... All that remained of one hotel was the toilets...
demolished major bridges along the coast... swept sailboats onto city streets
in Gulfport and obliterated hundreds of waterfront homes, businesses, community
landmarks and condominiums... A foot of water swamped the emergency operations
center at the Hancock County courthouse - which sits 30 feet above sea level.
The back of the courthouse collapsed... knocked out power to more than 1
million people from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle... could be two months
before electricity is restored... disrupted petroleum output in the very center
of the U.S. oil refining industry and rattled energy markets... downgraded to a
tropical depression... winds around 35 mph.. moving northeast through Tennessee
at around 21 mph... could swamp the Tennessee and Ohio valleys with... 8 inches
or more of rain... On Monday, Katrina's remnants spun off tornadoes and other
storms in Georgia that smashed dozens of buildings and were blamed for at least
one death... wwltv.com/ ... 10:37:43Marshal Law
in effect in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish. 60 percent of homes in
Plaquemines Parish under water... Rising waters caused one hospital to evacuate
patients to the.. Superdome... wwltv.com/ ... 10:35:20Jefferson
Parish.. "very dangerous" place... gas leaks everywhere, water needs to be
boiled... no commercial power, no pumping stations.. water's toxic... still
some deep water in some neighborhoods...
snakes in the water, other vermin, loose dogs and cats
everywhere. "We kind of have to fight for survival with them..." Katrina tears
holes in roof of Superdome.. water was leaking in.. elevators and stairwells..
wind forced water in through any small opening... sunherald.com/ ...
09:05:49GULFPORT, Miss. - As dawn broke over the ravaged Gulf Coast on
Tuesday, rescuers in boats and helicopters furiously searched for survivors of
Hurricane Katrina. The governor said the death toll in
one Mississippi county alone could be as high as 80. "The devastation
down there is just enormous," Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday... unconfirmed
reports of up to 80 deaths in Harrison County, which includes Gulfport and
Biloxi... "We know that there is a lot of the coast that we have not been able
to get to," the governor said. "I hate to say it, but it looks like it is a
very bad disaster in terms of human life. The beach is essentially destroyed on
the coast..." 
PROVO,
Utah - Paul Dalebout wasn't happy to come across a foot of raw sewage in the
basement of his house, but it was a bathroom that left him horrified: "It was
just gushing up out of the toilet like a geyser..." among 17 in Provo's
Edgemont neighborhood left wallowing in a backup of sewage Friday...
Authorities blamed a dead dog stuffed down a sewer manhole and opened a
criminal investigation. They found the dog's owner from an identifying chip
implanted in it. The owner said the dog had been missing... news.yahoo.com/ ...
23:44:04WILLIAMSPORT, Md. - Big piles of bat droppings have spoiled the
annual C&O Canal Days barn dance at the Springfield Farm Barn... 
"Our observations
suggest that (meteors exploding) in Earth's atmosphere could play a more
important role in climate than previously recognized..." 
A
Chinese wildlife farm has set up a hotline for people to report sightings of 13
runaway crocodiles who are likely to suffer as the weather cools... Altogether
29 crocs escaped... Fifteen had been found and one killed... today.reuters.com/ ...
05:34:45Hurricane Katrina gained power over warm Gulf of Mexico waters
and revved up for a second and potentially more deadly assault on the U.S.
coast after a slow and punishing trek across southern Florida that killed seven
people... A
12-year-old boy who nearly lost his foot to a shark sat in a wheelchair at a
hospital Friday and recalled how he hit the animal's nose and lifted it into
the air to get its clenched teeth from his ankle... remembers the shark tugging
his left foot, causing him to fall on his hands and feet into knee deep water
in the Gulf of Mexico, just a few feet from shore... "I thought it was my
friends playing with me until I looked up.. Then I felt a sharp pain tugging it
and pulling it. At that point, I reached down and I hit
the shark on the nose and pulled it up. And that's when it let go. When
it is actually happening you don't know what to do. I just started hitting the
water..." thepittsburghchannel.com/ ...
19:01:12
SILVER
SPRING, Md. -- As many as 15 adults and children are being treated for what
authorities said was an attack by a swarm of yellow
jackets on a Washington-area elementary school... the children were
walking in a wooded area with adults from their day-care center when they
apparently moved a log, which turned out to be the nesting spot for the yellow
jackets... children range in age from 3 to 5 years old... Army Spc.
Hatim S. Kathiria, 23, of Fort Worth, Texas, died on Aug. 22, 2005, in
Baghdad, Iraq, where an enemy rocket impacted near his position.defenselink.mil/ ... 13:23:25Army Master
Sgt. Chris S. Chapin, 39, of Proctor, Vt., died on Aug. 23, 2005, in Ar
Ramadi, Iraq during combat operations when he was attacked by enemy forces
using small arms fire.
Art Garfunkel'... who
pleaded guilty to marijuana possession last year, was charged again Sunday
after a New York state trooper discovered a joint in his car ashtray during a
traffic stop... 
Kearney [NB] residents and businesses have been receiving
these 
Veterinarian Dennis Bechtold looked at the
As TV producers and executives
gather for the annual Edinburgh Television Festival, British TV lies on the
threshold of the biggest change since the arrival of Sky's multi-channel pay-TV
service some 15 years ago. Some would go further, comparing its impact with
that of the launch of commercial television, which broke the staid BBC's
monopoly 50 years ago... 
Daniel Fletcher has found a way to transform dark meat
chicken into white, a scientific advance some purists say has gone too far...
involves adding excess water to ground-up dark meat to create a kind of meat
soup, then spinning the mixture around in a tub at high speed. The centrifugal
force makes the mixture settle into layers of fat, water, and extracted meat,
which can be molded into breast-like patties of all-white meat...