w h o a r . c o . n z

being somewhat opinionated on a regular basis…i have succumbed to the lure of twitter…

my twitter-name is vegandogs50

“…Scott Jurek, a Seattle physical therapist and ultramarathoner, broke the American record in the IAU 24-Hour World Championship run Friday in Brive, France …

… by covering 165.7 miles in the one-day run..”

whoar…!..eh..?

go to source/story>>>Seattle runner breaks American 24-hour record

“…Private equity company Ironbridge has finally revealed the parlous state of TV3 operator MediaWorks, releasing accounts that show a mammoth $314 million loss for the year to August 31, 2009.

After being loaded with debts when bankers bought it in 2007, the media firm that owns TV3, C4 and several radio stations has had to shell out more than $91 million a year in interest.

Financial statements to the Companies Office show MediaWorks’ holding company - HT Media Holdings - weighed down with the debt from Ironbridge’s leveraged buyout in 2007.

The big bottom line loss includes a write-off of $258 million in goodwill - representing more than 30 per cent of the 2007 purchase price.

The $314 million loss compares to a $40 million loss for the previous year…”

(gee..!..i wonder if the person(s) who pulled this stinking dead-albatross of a ‘deal’ together..are still there..?

..and..did they get a nice big bonus..?

..(um..!..any clawback provisions there..?..you’d hope..?..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>>MediaWorks owner reveals $314m loss - Business - NZ Herald News

be amazed…

go to source/story>>A small portion of the Carina Nebula, one of the largest seen star-birth regi…

“..Investors owed millions of dollars by a New Zealand man who claims to have a knighthood want to know why he appears to have gone unpunished ..

.. despite being charged with fraud in the United States.

A Herald investigation has revealed “Sir Grant Cardno” is working as a petrol station attendant in Otaki, near Wellington ..

.. using the name “Tom”.

The revelation has infuriated his victims, who cannot understand why he has not been brought to justice.

The Herald revealed last week that in 2005, Grant Thomas Cardno was named by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as being involved in a “prime bank” Ponzi scheme involving up to US$390 million (nearly $550 million at today’s exchange rates) …

.. from more than 1400 American investors.

He was served with a summons and an outline of the case against him, but didn’t turn up in court to defend himself, and in November 2006 a Texas judge found against his company, Sovereign Capital Investments, by default.

The SEC said Sovereign was involved in “fraud, deceit and a deliberate or reckless disregard of regulatory requirements” which “directly or indirectly” resulted in substantial losses to investors.

The other defendants in the case, who were American, went to jail. But Mr Cardno, who was living in New Zealand at the time, appears to have avoided punishment.

Police sources said he would probably not be able to re-enter the US, but American officials would not necessarily alert New Zealand authorities.

Investors claim Mr Cardno also has many victims in New Zealand - including some who lost their life savings after investing in similar schemes.

One investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he knew of at least 20 or 30 people from “all over the country” who invested millions of dollars in Sovereign and in another of Mr Cardno’s companies, Liberty Establishment.

Liberty was also named as a defendant in the US case.

Investors were lured by promises of high returns in overseas funds .. and claims that some of the proceeds would benefit charities, he said..”

go to source/story>>Fury over $550 million scam - National - NZ Herald News

“..New research reveals the potent gas is leaking through Arctic permafrost.

But don’t be alarmed — it’s just science

Some scientists believe that previous episodes of rapid temperature rises in the earth’s climate were caused by abrupt releases of methane gas into the atmosphere.

Salon published an excellent story a year ago exploring the possibility that such a scenario could happen again.

The doomsday scenario goes something like this:..

.. If global temperatures keep rising, some methane hydrates will melt .. sending methane gas bubbling up through the ocean and into the atmosphere.

Like any good greenhouse gas, the methane will trap heat close to Earth’s surface, causing temperatures to climb even higher.

Hotter temperatures will melt more hydrates, and on and on.

In other words, methane hydrates could trigger the mother of all feedback loops.

The story, says David Archer, a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, “has a great apocalyptic side to it.”

Now comes this, from a paper to be published today in Science:

A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas ..

.. according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov.

The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science ..

.. show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf .. long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane ..

.. is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming..”

go to source/story>>Get ready for the methane apocalypse - How the World Works - Salon.com

“..NASA scientists have spotted a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern with trailing streamers of dust that is unlike any image astronomers have seen before.

The behavior is not typical of comets, UCLA investigator David Jewitt explains, and researchers believe something unprecedented has been spotted:

This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets. […]

The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus.

Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks.

Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies..”

go to source/story>>NASA Spots Mysterious Space Debris (PHOTO)

(as the headline informs..this is from the annual stats from kiwiblog..)

“..Top Search Terms:

1. Kiwiblog 127,000

2. Whale Oil 19,000

3. Cactus Kate 10,300

4. David Farrar 9,200

5. NZ entertainer name suppression 4,300

6. Pearl Going 4,000

7. Phil Ure 3,900

8. Clayton Weatherston 3,700..”

go to source/story>>Kiwiblog’s 2009 Stats | Kiwiblog

“..NASA’s HiRISE camera, the most powerful camera ever sent into space, has snapped breathtaking portraits of Mars.

From ‘trees’ on Mars to an ‘organic cemetery,’ see the ‘Red Planet’s’ craters, dunes, gullies..

.. and even avalanches ..

..in stunning detail .. in the slideshow below..”

go to source/story>>Mars Pictures: NASA’s Most Extraordinary Images EVER (PHOTOS)

“..Few who saw the documentary Food Inc. will forget the scene involving Beef Products Inc., a South Dakota company that makes a widely used hamburger filler product.

No other industrial-meat company allowed director Robert Kenner to enter the shop floor with his cameras.

In sharp contrast, a Beef Products executive invited the Food Inc. crew to record his company’s inner workings.

The man is clearly proud of his company’s product.

“We think we can lessen the incidence of E. Coli 0157:H7,” he says.

The scene, a clip of which appears above, features the Beef Products executive talking over a scene straight out of Chaplin’s Modern Times: ..

.. a vast network of steaming tubes, with people in protective gear and face masks wandering about fussing with dials.

Evidently, scraps of cow flesh, swept up from slaughterhouse floors and pulverized into a kind of paste, are moving through the tubes ..

.. subjected to a lashings of ammonium hydroxide to kill bacteria.

The scene ends with those heavily protected workers carefully packing uniform flesh-colored blocks into boxes.

“This is our finished product,” the executive declares.

He then claims that the product ends up in 70 percent of hamburgers served in the U.S.

“In five years we’ll be in 100 percent,” he predicts.

The brief scene seems to me to be a more accurate document of our material food culture than 1000 hours of the Food Network.

“I’m a mechanic, that’s what I am,” the exec says over the whir of the machines.

I don’t think anyone had been mistaking him for a chef..”

go to source/story>>Ammonia-treated burgers, tainted with E. coli! | Grist

“..A sexual quest that has for years baffled millions of women — and men — may have been in vain.

A study by British scientists has found that the mysterious G-spot, the sexual pleasure zone said to be possessed by some women but denied to others, may not exist at all.

The scientists at King’s College London who carried out the study claim there is no evidence for the existence of the G-spot —

– supposedly a cluster of internal nerve endings — outside the imagination of women influenced by magazines and sex therapists.

They reached their conclusions after a survey of more than 1,800 British women.

“Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise, but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits,” said Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology, who co-authored the research.

“This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and it shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective.”

go to source/story>>What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth - Times Online

check out the transformation..!

..whoar..!

go to source/story>>YouTube - Dr. Oz Turns Meat-Eating Cowboy Vegan

“.. Yellow Pages Group has posted a net loss of $338 million as big debts weighed down the business and the recession constrained spending on its directories listings.

Chief executive Bruce Cotterill said that like a lot of big private equity deals ..

.. the acquisition of Yellow Pages by investors including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, happened at the peak of the boom in 2007 ..

.. and the market now looked very different.

The investors paid Telecom $2.2 billion for Yellow Pages and forked out $191m in interest payments in the year to June to service the $1.7b of debt that was taken on to fund the acquisition.

Net equity fell to $232m, meaning the company ended the year with a gearing ratio of 88 per cent.

“The issues we are grappling with … are related to the purchase price paid ..

.. and the capital structure that was put in place when the company was bought from Telecom,” Mr Cotterill said.

“Our job is to manage our way through that.

It has nothing to do with the fundamentals around the business itself.”

The company this year outsourced the handling of its 018 directory services business to a call centre in Manila.

But Mr Cotterill indicated there was limited scope for further cost-cutting ..

.. saying that while Yellow Pages was watching its costs like all businesses .. it was not a fat business..”

(no..!..it would seem to be just about to die from starvation..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>Yellow Pages in $338m loss - business | Stuff.co.nz

“..Once upon a time, some brave scientists had a noble dream of ridding our food of the plague of nutrients.

Today, at the start of the 21st century, the miracle of food processing has brought that dream closer to reality than ever before.

From vitamin-free “blueberry bits” to spray-can cheese to avocado-free guacamole, food scientists have worked tirelessly to bring us new and exciting foods that contain as little nutrition as possible.

Even apparently “healthy” foods such as soups have been ingeniously overloaded with so much salt you feel as if you’re eating French fries.

In this article, we’ll provide a handy guide to six uniquely unnatural processed foods ..

.. that will hopefully serve as a blueprint for humanity’s eventual triumph over the tyrannical fist of Mother Nature..”

go to source/story>>The 6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods | Food | AlterNet

“..Space is big,” wrote Douglas Adams in his book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”

He wasn’t exaggerating.

Even our nearest star Proxima Centauri is a staggering 4.2 light years away - more than 200,000 times the distance from the Earth to the sun.

Or, if you like, the equivalent of 50 million trips to the moon and back.

Such vast distances would seem to put the stars far beyond the reach of human explorers.

Suppose we had been able to hitch a ride on NASA’s Voyager 1 the fastest interstellar space probe built to date.

Voyager 1 is now heading out of the solar system at about 17 kilometres per second.

At this rate it would take 74,000 years to reach Promixa Centauri - safe to say we wouldn’t be around to enjoy the view.

So what would it take for humans to reach the stars within a lifetime?

For a start, we would need a spacecraft that can rush through the cosmos at close to the speed of light.

There has been no shortage of proposals: vehicles propelled by repeated blasts from hydrogen bombs, or from the annihilation of matter and antimatter.

Others resemble vast sailing ships with giant reflective sails, pushed along by laser beams.

All these ambitious schemes have their shortcomings and it is doubtful they could really go the distance.

Now there are two radical new possibilities on the table that might just enable us - or rather our distant descendants - to reach the stars.

In August, physicist Jia Liu at New York University outlined his design for a spacecraft powered by dark matter (arxiv.org/abs/0908.1429v1).

Soon afterwards, mathematicians Louis Crane and Shawn Westmoreland at Kansas State University in Manhattan proposed plans for a craft powered by an artificial black hole (arxiv.org/abs/0908.1803).

No one disputes that building a ship powered by black holes or dark matter would be a formidable task.

Yet remarkably there seems to be nothing in our present understanding of physics to prevent us from making either of them.

What’s more, Crane believes that feasibility studies like his touch on questions in cosmology that other research hasn’t considered..”

go to source/story>>Dark power: Grand designs for interstellar travel - space - 25 November 2009 - New Scientist

this is an awe-inspiring/beautiful piece of vid..

as 300,000 birds perform an ariel ballet..

go to source/story>>» 300,000 birds move at once (VIDEO) Dvorak Uncensored: General interest observations and true web-log.

“..These extraordinary images are literally out of this world.

Galaxies and supernovae, protostellar jets and pulsars:..

.. these pictures of stars from the depths of the cosmos are spectacular, mysterious, and inspiring..”

go to source/story>>Star Pictures: NASA’s Most Extraordinary Images EVER (PHOTOS, POLL)

“..What are you thinking about?

Which memory are you reliving right now?

You may think that only you can answer, but by combining brain scans with pattern-detection software ..

.. neuroscientists are prying open a window into the human mind.

In the last few years, patterns in brain activity have been used to successfully predict what pictures people are looking at ..

.. their location in a virtual environment .. or a decision they are poised to make.

The most recent results show that researchers can now recreate moving images that volunteers are viewing -

- and even make educated guesses at which event they are remembering.

Last week at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago, Jack Gallant, a leading “neural decoder” at the University of California, Berkeley, presented one of the field’s most impressive results yet.

He and colleague Shinji Nishimoto showed that they could create a crude reproduction of a movie clip that someone was watching ..

.. just by viewing their brain activity.

Others at the same meeting claimed that such neural decoding could be used to read memories and future plans -

- and even to diagnose eating disorders..”

go to source/story>>Brain scanners can tell what you’re thinking about - life - 28 October 2009 - New Scientist

“..NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, has just produced new images of the solar system that has shocked astronomers.

This first full-sized map shows 9 billion miles of atoms surrounding the solar system .. that scientists are describing as looking like a ribbon.

This completely defied expectations:..

.. astronomers believed the atoms were evenly distributed rather than densely packed together in this ribbon formation.

Take a look at the map for yourself..”

go to source/story>>Astronomers Shocked: “The Edge Of The Solar System Is Tied Up With A Ribbon” (VIDEO)

“..From newly-discovered deep sea crustaceans .. to rodent-resembling primates ..

.. nature has brought us some outright weird-looking creatures.

Check out these animals that just seem out-of-this world..”

go to source/story>>9 Weirdest-Looking Animals You Didn’t Know Existed (PHOTOS)

“..A mysterious halo-shaped cloud was seen hovering in the sky over the city of Moscow a few days ago.

Lest you believe that this confirms your various conspiracy theories .. meteorologists have ruled out any supernatural cause:

A spokesman from the city’s weather forecast said: ..

..’Several fronts have been passing through Moscow recently, there was an intrusion of the Arctic air too, the sun was shining from the west -

- this is how the effect was produced.’

He added: ‘This is purely an optical effect, although it does look impressive..”

go to source/story>>Halo Cloud Seen Hovering In Moscow Sky (VIDEO)

“..This has been a big year for big food records.

Since 2009 began we’ve seen folks set the world records for biggest burger, tamale, meatball, cheesecake, sandwich..

.. and piece of fudge..”

go to source/story>>The World’s Biggest Burger & 19 Other Record-Breaking Foods (PHOTOS)

“..Kay Thorton has been blind for almost nine years.

She had a rare disease which essentially stopped her body from producing moisture, causing her corneas to dry out and become scratched.

In an astonishing and first of it’s kind surgery ever performed in the United States..

.. doctors extracted one of her teeth, drilled a hole in it and inserted a plastic lens..

.. and then implanted it in her eye.

The rare surgery was successful and Thorton is regaining her vision..”

go to source/story>>Blind Woman Regains Sight After Doctors Implant Her Tooth In Her Eye (VIDEO)

“..Imagine a contact lens that could connect you to the internet, providing information about what you see in a format invisible to other people.

Or a contact lens, powered by radio frequencies or solar power, that could monitor cholesterol or glucose levels for diabetics.

Babak A. Parviz, writing for IEEE Spectrum, is already working on the technology, and has successfully tested early versions on live rabbits.

Parviz envisions the contact lens turning into a platform like an iPhone..

.. where developers create new applications and inventions to improve the human eye..”

go to source/story>>The Internet in a Contact Lens

“..This past weekend, a thought provoking e-mail circulated through Internet news groups, and was sent to the Muckraker Report by Mr. Paul V. Sheridan (Winner of the 2005 Civil Justice Foundation Award), bringing attention to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist web page for Usama Bin Laden.[1]

In the e-mail, the question is asked, “Why doesn’t Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster make any direct connection with the events of September 11, 2001?”

The FBI says on its Bin Laden web page that Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya.

According to the FBI, these attacks killed over 200 people.

The FBI concludes its reason for “wanting” Bin Laden by saying, “In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorists attacks throughout the world.”

On June 5, 2006, the Muckraker Report contacted the FBI Headquarters, (202) 324-3000, to learn why Bin Laden’s Most Wanted poster did not indicate that Usama was also wanted in connection with 9/11.

The Muckraker Report spoke with Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI.

When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said..

.. “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page ..

.. is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

go to source/story>>FBI says, it has “No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11”

“..Frankly, there is a case for Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias to be banged up in the slammer herself, along with some of her colleagues.

Not for challenging the size of the jail population and suggesting a prisoner amnesty..

.. but for presiding over the outrageous waste of public expenditure involved in the new $80 million Supreme Court building in Wellington.

Restoration of the old High Court building, to house a Supreme Court of only five judges, was initially to cost $20 million.

That was exorbitant enough.

But now the cost has gone from $4 million a judge to $16 million a head.

The judiciary and the last government decided that the renovated old High Court would not be grand enough ..

.. and that they could not fit the five judges, with their court and chambers, into the old category one-listed historic building.

So taxpayers were then landed with funding a new structure for the Supreme Court .. while still restoring the old High Court building.

A bit of double-bunking in one of those flash new container prison cells sounds like just the thing to bring the judiciary down to earth.

If anyone had the slightest inkling of this runaway cost of a Supreme Court..

.. who would have voted for cutting our links with the Privy Council?

That gave us an alternative final court of appeal on the cheap -

- in a manner more befitting our circumstances ..

.. as a tiny, hugely indebted country..”

go to source/story>>Time to contain court’s cost - opinion | Stuff.co.nz

“..Remember all of this — the $700 billion bank bailout, the AIG scandal, dark and scary threats of imminent global meltdown if there wasn’t full-scale capitulation by the citizenry to the immense transfer of public wealth to the private investment banking sector?

Such distant, hazy memories: ..

.. so many exciting celebrity deaths and riveting celebrity resignations ago.

If sequences of events like these don’t cause mass citizen outrage..

.. then it’s hard to imagine what will:..”

go to source/story>>The events preceding Goldman Sachs’ new “blowout profits” - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

“..Taxpayers face a $150 million bill to renovate New Zealand House in London -

- $23m more than the building’s book value.

The cost of upgrading the 18-storey centre must be paid despite ownership reverting to the British Government with no compensation when the lease runs out in 2048.

The building is a stone’s throw from Trafalgar Square and houses several government agencies in Britain, including the high commission, Trade and Enterprise, the Tourism Board and Immigration.

Telecom and Air NZ also base their London operations there.

It was built in 1963 on land acquired under a 99-year lease soon after World War II and is owned directly by the NZ Government, rather than Foreign Affairs.

A Treasury spokesman said the lease required the building to be maintained to a high standard and a major upgrade planned for 2012-15 was estimated to cost $150m.

It was valued last year at $127m.

It generates more than $7m a year in rent from non-government tenants.

The spokesman said the Treasury had no plans to try to sell the building..

.. despite the high cost of renovations ..

.. and the fact that it reverts to British ownership in less than 40 years.

Details of the renovations were not immediately available, but it is not the first time taxpayers have faced a massive bill for the building.

It was upgraded in the early 1990s at a cost of $61m for work that included renewing heating systems and installing electronic communications, partitioning and lighting.

At the time, the building was valued at $62m..”

(whoar..!..eh..?..)

go to source/story>>NZ House refit exceeds its value | Stuff.co.nz

“..Zero to 60 in three seconds, no foreign oil required.

And it looks like something out of a Ted Nugent video.

Count me in.

The White Zombie is powered by two motors; motors that are usually used to operate forklifts.

It’s filled up with over 60 batteries that occupy both the trunk and the back seat.

All of this gives the White Zombie about 300 hp..

..and the ability to beat every combustion engine it comes up against.

It takes about 20 minutes to fully charge the car, and it can get up to 40 miles on a full charge.

Check out this fantastic video on John Waylon and his car, which he has nicknamed “White Zombie” ..

..(which also has kind of a Ted Nugent thing going on):..”

go to source/story>>World’s Fastest Electric Car: ‘72 Datsun (VIDEO)

“..Google has updated its Google Mars service to show more details of Mars both in its history and the present day.

Users can access images from the Themis camera on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

They can also view antique maps of Mars from over a century ago..

.. as well as the latest images from the Mars spacecraft.

From Saturday, internet users will be able to explore the Red Planet’s surface, keep track of orbiters ..

.. and see the ‘face’ in the planet’s surface.

They will also be able to go on virtual fly-bys with the Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The new initiative has led bookies to slash the odds on the possibility of finding life on Mars from 500/1 to 50/1.

A Google spokesman said:..

.. “We are entering uncharted territory.”

go to source/story>>Google Mars offers live and historical images of Red Planet - Telegraph

“..Being able to read someone’s mind with a “thought machine” has come a step closer ..

.. after scientists showed that they could guess a person’s memory simply by looking at the electrical activity of their brain.

Scientists have found that spatial memories can be “read” by a brain scanner ..

.. so that it is possible to predict automatically where someone imagines themselves to be (the exact location in a maze, for instance)

.. without actually asking them.

“It’s also a small step toward the idea of mind reading, because just by looking at neural activity, we are able to say what someone is thinking,” said Demis Hassabis of University College London.

It may one day be possible to do the same with other types of memories and thoughts..

.. although the possibility of using a mind-reading machine to solve crimes or to fight terrorism is still a distant prospect, Dr Hassabis said.

“It’s at least 10 years, probably more, from getting anywhere near that kind of technology..

.. where you could literally read someone’s thoughts in a single short session when they don’t want you to,” he said.

“We might be about 10 years away from doing that..

.. so it might be useful to start having those ethical discussions in the near future ..

.. in preparation for that..”

go to source/story>>Brain scanner knows what you’re thinking - World - NZ Herald News

“..The experimental Swiss auto company Rinspeed unveiled a new car this week at the Geneva Motor Show ..

.. whose body adapts to the number of passengers on board.

The streamlined one-seater, named the iChange, transforms to accommodate three passengers at the push of a button.

The idea behind the vehicle is that by maximising its aerodynamic properties at all times, the car will consume less energy.

Rinspeed CEO Frank M Rinderknecht said:

“The iChange is a symbol for the fundamental changes the auto industry undergoes worldwide.

And it is clear that only those companies will survive ..

.. that have innovative answers for the demands of a new automotive era.”

go to source/story>>Shapeshifting car, the Rinspeed iChange launched at the Geneva Motor Show

this figure was bandied about on one of the breakfast telly business shows this morning…

..and it is the amount of value the american stockmarket has shed..

..from it’s peak..

..to the new low..last friday..

..(but hey..!..in this new age of eyewateringly large amounts of money being shouted from the rafters..

..what’s $5 trillion here and there..?

..eh..?..)

(now..that would be a monumental pissing of assets up against a wall..eh..?..)

“..Plans to spend $52 million over four years on a cultural centre and office block in Christchurch for Ngai Tahu have alarmed runanga members.

The plans for the centre on the former King Edward Barracks site were approved in principle by Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu (Tront) board in January.

But runanga members are concerned at the spending plans during a growing recession.

One concerned runanga chairman, who wished to remain anonymous, said the centre was a “luxury item”.

“There are a number of runanga who are very concerned.

Many of our members will be struggling in what has been described as one of the worse depressions in decades ..

.. and to spend this on what can only be described as a luxury item is not right …

.. No matter which way you cut the cake it looks like largesse,” they said.

“Many of our people will be struggling [in the] next few years to pay the mortgage and feed the kids ..

.. and it is absolute arrogance to spend this much money.”

The chairman said the decision would create fallout for Tront board members who voted for the project.

The centre, known as the House of Tahu, will cost $52m over four years ..

.. according to minutes seen by The Press..”

go to source/story>>Ngai Tahu plan to spend $52m causes angst - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

“..There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however.

Most are gas giants like our Jupiter, and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.

But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet.

This simple calculation means there would be huge numbers capable of supporting life.

“Not only are they probably habitable but they probably are also going to be inhabited,” Dr Boss told BBC News.

“But I think that most likely the nearby ‘Earths’ are going to be inhabited with things which are perhaps more common to what Earth was like three or four billion years ago.”

That means bacterial lifeforms.

Dr Boss estimates that Nasa’s Kepler mission, due for launch in March..

..should begin finding some of these Earth-like planets within the next few years..”

go to source/story>>BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Galaxy has ‘billions of Earths’

it was four years ago yesterday..that i penned the first whoar story..

there are now 22,013 stories/links in the whoar database..

..(it makes me tired just thinking about it..)

“..doctors are injecting collagen — you know, the junk that goes in Jessica Simpson’s lips —

– into the walls of the vagina near where the G-spot is located.

We guess the premise is that if you fatten up the vag, the space inside will be less, um, cavernous..

..and hence the G-spot will be extra-stimulated.

So, while we’re all for women taking strides to improve their sexual pleasure..

..we sort of think that injecting a foreign substance (besides sperm, obvi!) into your nether regions..

..especially one that hasn’t really been approved for that usage..

..should come as a last resort after masturbation, sex toys..

..and finding a dude who’s actually committed to seeing you come..

..without a giant needle stabbing you in the groin..”

go to source/story>>The G-Shot: Women Injecting Collagen Into Their Vaginas | Sex and Relationships | AlterNet

“.. I was dreading the return phone call, and I imagined all sorts of horrible things that might have happened, but I failed to imagine what really did happen.

When the PA called again, she was laughing.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, “but the patient accidentally did this to herself with a dildo.”

She was right. I couldn’t believe it.

What could the patient have used?

I’d heard of all sorts of things in the past: fruit, candles (unlit), and glass bottles, among others, but nothing that could cause burns.

“She used a deodorant stick!”

The patient had used the actual stick of deodorant, which she had pried out of the container (for who knows what reason) and the burns she had were serious chemical burns.

We treated her by washing the area to remove any trace of the chemicals and applying the salve typically used for treating burns from gynecologic laser surgery.

Oh, and lot’s of pain medication, too, for obvious reasons.

Her treatment plan included her medications, an appointment for follow up, and a recommendation:..

..should she feel the need to use a dildo in the future, she should avoid deodorant..

..or at least leave it in the container with the cap still on..”

go to source/story>>She used WHAT as a dildo? - AmyTuteurMD - Open Salon

“..The modern banana, one of the world’s most popular and troubled fruits, may be on the brink of extinction.

Though its shape is evocative of sex, the banana is “a sterile, seedless mutant—and therein lies a problem,” Fred Pearce writes for Conservation.

In the wild, bananas are basically inedible due to their hard seeds.

Most bananas found in grocery stores are “mutant plants” and “sterile freaks,” Pearce writes.

They’re almost all of just one variety, the Cavendish, after its predecessor, the Gros Michel, was ravaged by disease.

Today a new disease is stalking the Cavendish, and experts believe it could be just a matter of time before the modern banana goes virtually extinct.

While resistance could be bred in other types of fruits, Pearce reports that “Because all edible varieties of bananas are sterile, introducing new genetic traits to help cope with pests and diseases is nearly impossible.”

For the time being, the disease is kept at bay by massive chemical sprays.

“Forty sprayings of fungicide a year is typical,” Pearce writes, “making the Cavendish the most heavily sprayed food crop in the world.”

This has led to a variety of health problems in banana workers..

..including sterility and alarmingly high rates of leukemia and birth defects..”

go to source/story>>Yes, We’ll Have No Bananas

“..Is it a car?

Is it a plane?

Actually it’s both.

The first flying automobile, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month.

If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater road car to a plane in 15 seconds..

..is expected to land in showrooms in about 18 months’ time.

Its manufacturer says it is easy to keep and run since it uses normal unleaded fuel and will fit into a garage.

Carl Dietrich, who runs the Massachusetts-based Terrafugia, said:..

..“This is the first really integrated design where the wings fold up automatically and all the parts are in one vehicle.”

The Transition, developed by former Nasa engineers, is powered by the same 100bhp engine on the ground and in the air.

Terrafugia claims it will be able to fly up to 500 miles on a single tank..”

go to source/story>>World’s first flying car prepares for take-off - Times Online