The WTF News Files

[CougarKing]

That's not enough to feed the population of the starving North.  :rofl:  Kim Jong Un will probably eat them all.

Christian Science Monitor

Why South Korea is throwing 10,000 Choco Pies at the DPRK
North Korean defectors and South Korean activists sent balloons full of the chocolate treats over North Korea Weds.

Christian Science Monitor

By Max Schindler

Despite years of international sanctions, North Korea hasn’t budged in unlocking the doors to its closed economy. But one possible tool for wedging open the recluse nation may be a popular chocolate treat.

On Wednesday, hundreds of South Korean activists – along with North Korean defectors – blew up balloons containing thousands of Choco Pies and flew them over the border.

North Korea receives Choco Pies from South Korea via balloon ++http://t.co/KGpxngnss8 pic.twitter.com/7ft59lTHFD— DramaFever (@dramafever) August 1, 2014

They were acting in response to a North Korean ban on the perennially popular chocolate confections, a sign of the difficulty in staving off its capitalist neighbor’s influence.
After months of simmering tension between the two bitterly divided nations, the hermit kingdom’s leader, Kim Jong-un, banned pies from the country earlier in July, due to a fear that the chocolate would inspire an upheaval.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

I just lost my appetite for Cantonese food... 

Hong Kong couple 'salted and cooked by son'

Hong Kong (AFP) - An elderly Hong Kong couple were allegedly dismembered by their son and his friend before being salted, cooked and packed into lunchboxes "like barbecued pork", a court has heard.

The severed heads of 65-year-old Chau Wing-ki and his wife Siu Yuet-yee, 62, were found in March last year, stuffed into two refrigerators in a bloodstained apartment, days after they were reported missing.

The other remains were found in a rubbish bin, cooked and packed into lunchboxes with rice, in an attempt by the duo to hide the crime after they ran out of space in the refrigerators.

(...EDITED)

From AFP via Yahoo News Australia

 

[cupper]

More proof that Global Warming is not a hoax, or that the Law of unintended consequences is a real thing (one or the other) >

BrightSource solar plant sets birds on fire as they fly overhead
Death estimates range from 1,000 to 28,000 per year

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/brightsource-solar-plant-sets-birds-on-fire-as-they-fly-overhead-1.2739512

Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the concentrated beams of solar energy focused upward by the plant's 300,000 mirrors — "streamers," for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair.

Federal wildlife investigators who visited BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one "streamer" every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator's application to build a still-bigger version.

The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

The $2.2 billion plant, which launched in February, is at Ivanpah Dry Lake near the California-Nevada border.

Unlike many other solar plants, the Ivanpah plant does not generate energy using photovoltaic solar panels. Instead, it has more than 300,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door. Together, they cover 1,416 hectares.

Each mirror collects and reflects solar rays, focusing and concentrating solar energy from their entire surfaces upward onto three boiler towers, each looming up to 40 stories high. The solar energy heats the water inside the towers to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate enough electricity for 140,000 homes.

The operator says it is the world's biggest plant to employ so-called power towers.

The concentrated sun rays sent up by the field of mirrors are bright enough to dazzle pilots flying in and out of Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Possible 'mega-trap' for wildlife

Federal wildlife officials said Ivanpah might also act as a "mega-trap" for wildlife, with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds that fly to their death in the intensely focused light rays.

Federal and state biologists call the number of deaths significant, based on sightings of birds getting singed and falling, and on retrieval of carcasses with feathers charred too severely for flight.

The deaths are "alarming. It's hard to say whether that's the location or the technology," said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. "There needs to be some caution."

The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.

"We take this issue very seriously," said Jeff Holland, a spokesman for NRG Solar of Carlsbad, California, the second of the three companies behind the plant. The third, Google, deferred comment to its partners.

Ivanpah officials dispute the source of the so-called streamers, saying at least some of the puffs of smoke mark insects and bits of airborne trash being ignited by the solar rays.

Wildlife officials who witnessed the phenomena say many of the clouds of smoke were too big to come from anything but a bird, and they add that they saw "birds entering the solar flux and igniting, consequently become a streamer."

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials say they want a death toll for a full year of operation.

Given the apparent scale of bird deaths at Ivanpah, authorities should thoroughly track bird kills there for a year, including during annual migratory seasons, before granting any more permits for that kind of solar technology, said George, of the Audubon Society.

The toll on birds has been surprising, said Robert Weisenmiller, chairman of the California Energy Commission. "We didn't see a lot of impact" on birds at the first, smaller power towers in the U.S. and Europe, Weisenmiller said.

Proposed plant on bird flight path

The commission is now considering the application from Oakland-based BrightSource to build a mirror field and a 75-story power tower that would reach above the sand dunes and creek washes between Joshua Tree National Park and the California-Arizona border.

The proposed plant is on a flight path for birds between the Colorado River and California's largest lake, the Salton Sea — an area, experts say, is richer in avian life than the Ivanpah plant, with protected golden eagles and peregrine falcons and more than 100 other species of birds recorded there.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials warned California this month that the power-tower style of solar technology holds "the highest lethality potential" of the many solar projects burgeoning in the deserts of California.

The commission's staff estimates the proposed new tower would be almost four times as dangerous to birds as the Ivanpah plant. The agency is expected to decide this autumn on the proposal.

While biologists say there is no known feasible way to curb the number of birds killed, the companies behind the projects say they are hoping to find one — studying whether lights, sounds or some other technology would scare them away, said Joseph Desmond, senior vice president at BrightSource Energy.

BrightSource also is offering $1.8 million in compensation for anticipated bird deaths at Palen, Desmond said.

The company is proposing the money for programs such as those to spay and neuter domestic cats, which a government study found kill over 1.4 billion birds a year. Opponents say that would do nothing to help the desert birds at the proposed site.

Power-tower proponents are fighting to keep the deaths from forcing a pause in the building of new plants when they see the technology on the verge of becoming more affordable and accessible, said Thomas Conroy, a renewable-energy expert.

When it comes to powering the country's grids, "diversity of technology ... is critical," Conroy said. "Nobody should be arguing let's be all coal, all solar," all wind, or all nuclear. "And every one of those technologies has a long list of pros and cons."

 

[expwor]

Zara pulls kids' shirt design resembling WW II concentration camp uniforms
Shirt designed as part of Wild West clothing theme, spokeswoman says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/zara-pulls-kids-shirt-design-resembling-ww-ii-concentration-camp-uniforms-1.2748387
WTF just doesn't even cover it. 

Tom

 

[ModlrMike]

Zara pulls kids' shirt design resembling WW II concentration camp uniforms
Shirt designed as part of Wild West clothing theme, spokeswoman says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/zara-pulls-kids-shirt-design-resembling-ww-ii-concentration-camp-uniforms-1.2748387
WTF just doesn't even cover it. 

Tom

Not even close!

 

[OldSolduer]

Zara pulls kids' shirt design resembling WW II concentration camp uniforms
Shirt designed as part of Wild West clothing theme, spokeswoman says
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/zara-pulls-kids-shirt-design-resembling-ww-ii-concentration-camp-uniforms-1.2748387
WTF just doesn't even cover it. 

Tom

That's f$$kin sick......whoever designed this needs a swift kick in the junk.

 

[cupper]

Gasoline-Loving Spiders Are Forcing Suzuki To Recall 19,000 Cars

http://www.businessinsider.com/suzuki-recall-kizashi-sedan-due-to-spider-webs-2014-8

DETROIT (Reuters) - Spiders drawn to gasoline vapors and weaving webs that block a hose to vent those vapors have caused Suzuki Motor of America to recall about 19,000 Kizashi mid-size sedans from model years 2010 to 2013, U.S. regulators said on Wednesday.

Air flow blocked in the cars' evaporative emissions system can cause negative pressure in the fuel tank, which can lead to cracks which could cause leaks that increase risk of a fire, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

This is a similar problem to one experienced by some Mazda6 owners. Mazda Motor Corp <7261.T> has recalled the Mazda6 twice since 2011 because of spiders building webs in ventilation hoses.

No crashes or injuries have been reported in relation to this issue, Suzuki told NHTSA.

Suzuki <7269.T> last year stopped selling cars in the U.S. market after nearly three decades, so NHTSA and Suzuki advise Kizashi owners to take their sedans to authorized “service providers.” Letters the company will send to car owners and filed with NHTSA do not identify where these service providers are, but owners can call a customer service line at 800-934-0934 to find out.

The remedy to be applied is a filter on a ventilation line to keep the spiders out.

The Kizashi was one of the company’s best-sellers in the United States before Suzuki in late 2012 said it would stop selling vehicles in the U.S. market after its standing inventory ran out. U.S. Kizashi sales reached about 7,000 in 2011 and fell each year after that.

 

[cupper]

Is Snapchat really worth $10 billion?

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/snapchat-really-worth-10-billion

Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers made a pretty breathtaking bet today. It agreed to invest in a deal that values Snapchat at nearly $10 billion. Snapchat is a social network where people share photos that self-destruct within 1-10 seconds.

It seems like things go this way. One day, you're a struggling start-up, making no profit, paying people in stock options...

and the next...

Someone is telling you’re worth almost as much as the GDP of Iceland.

James McQuivey is an analyst at Forrester Research. I asked him what exactly Snapchat’s 100 million users share with the service.

"Among my children, it's really just 'this is what my face looks like in response to something that I just read or heard or saw or a song that I’m listening to.' It’s a way of expressing emotions… think of it as a live emoticon."

But can Snapchat be a face that launches 10 billion real dollars?

"Not even... It’s about $9 billion too much," says tech analyst Rob Enderle.  Enderle says Snapchat doesn’t know how it plans to spin its 100 million users into money yet. Still, he says, in today’s overheated tech sector, the nuts and bolts of the business plan take a backseat to the buzz.

"There’s two ways you can value a company: One of them is legitimately based on how much money they’re returning to investors and the other is based on screwy math largely based on the hopes and dreams of those that think that social networks every place should be made of gold and honey."

The question now is whether Snapchat has the makings of a social media Cinderella…or will end up being an ugly stepsister.

Enderle says it’s all about where Google and Facebook drop their magic. Messaging service WhatsApp had no profit plan and only 55 employees, and Facebook snapped it up for $20 billion.

We'll just have to wait and see how the story ends for Snapchat.

 

[CougarKing]

They forgot to mention the harem of Swedish prostitutes that Kim Jong Un supposedly keeps in his palace. 

North Korea owes $395 million for 1,000 Volvos

Posted : 2014-08-31 17:05
Updated : 2014-08-31 17:49
North Korea owes $395 million for 1,000 Volvos

음성듣기


North Korea owes Sweden hundreds of millions of dollars for 1,000 Volvo automobiles that the isolated state bought in 1974, Newsweek reports.

The magazine said Pyongyang owes the European country some $395 million (400 billion won), a figure adjusted for interest and inflation, citing government data.

The debt is a reminder of the North's plummeting status from a growing economy to impoverished country in the span of a few decades, which critics blame on the Kim regime's mismanagement.

"Many had been blinded by North Korea's impressive economic growth people had raced to get there first," journalist Lamm Nordenskiöld told Newsweek. "Sweden was supposed to be the first country to unlock this new market," she added.

(...EDITED)

Source: Korea Times (South Korean news site)

 

[CougarKing]

:blotto:

YUCK!

Gross Photos Show Sewer Workers Battling A 'Fatberg' The Size Of A Boeing 747 Under London

Thames Water, the company that keeps sewers flowing freely under London, has released a set of disgusting pictures of a "fatberg" that took a week to remove from a 262-foot stretch of Shepherd's Bush Road in West London. The water authority says it was the size of a Boeing 747, if it were buried underground.

"A team of sewer experts from the company fought the ‘berg all last week (Tuesday, Aug. 26 to Friday, Aug. 29). The immense, solid blockage needed to be broken up and removed from the sewer to prevent sewer flooding to nearby homes and business," the company said in a press release.

Fatbergs are composed largely of cooking oil that has been poured down drains while hot and runny. Once in the cold water of the sewer system, however, the fat congeals. The solid mess then combines with "wet wipes." The wipes are frequently labeled as "disposable" but are turning out not to be.

Cooking oil + wet wipes = fatberg, it turns out.

Yahoo Finance

 

[Old Sweat]

Tell me that's not from a Brit cookbook.  ;D

 

[Ex-Pat FlagWagger]

Tell me that's not from a Brit cookbook.  ;D

I've never seen any recipe, British or otherwise, call for wet-wipes... our penchant for lard in cooking came first so the problem is solely down to the use of wet-wipes! 

 

[cupper]

Disposable wipes are now the scourge of the sewage system.

 

[CougarKing]

A man becomes Australia's version of the Canadian famous in China as "Da Shan" :  ;D

Yahoo Daily Buzz

Australian man wakes up from coma, can speak Mandarin fluently
By Nadine Kalinauskas | Daily Buzz – 1 hour 2 minutes ago

Ever wish you could speak another language fluently without having to go through all the trouble of learning it?

One Australian man seems to have done just that.

When 22-year-old Ben McMahon woke up from a week-long coma following a horrific car crash, he could speak fluent Mandarin.

“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” McMahon told the Herald Sun. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.”

(...EDITED)


He admitted to having taken some Mandarin classes in the past — and even visiting Beijing before the accident — but he swore the language never really clicked until he woke up from the coma.

The incident occurred in 2012, and when McMahon left rehab, he started using his new language skills to his advantage. He conducted Chinese tours of Melbourne, and started hosting a popular Mandarin TV show called “Au My Ga,” which helped Chinese expats better understand Australian culture.

(...EDITED)

 

[Kirkhill]

So my French teacher should have given into her baser instincts and hit me over the head with a two-by-four? 

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

So my French teacher should have given into her baser instincts and hit me over the head with a two-by-four? 

That might have solved a few problems

 

[Kirkhill]

That might have solved a few problems

Nasty....

 

[jollyjacktar]

Chinese medical student died of heart attack as he looked at 'sexy magazine' when he made fourth donation to sperm bank in a week

A Chinese medical student died of a heart attack while looking at a 'sexy magazine' in a sperm bank - on his fourth visit to the centre in just over a week.  Zheng Gang, 23, was found dead in a private booth of a fertility clinic at Wuhan University after nurses noticed he was spending longer than usual producing his sample.  Two hours after he first entered the cubicle, medics broke in to find him lying unconscious on the floor.  Despite frantic efforts to resuscitate him where he lay, doctors pronounced him dead at the scene.

The tragic death - which happened in February 2012 -  only came to light after the young man's family took the sperm bank, in Wuhan city, Hubei province, eastern China, to court saying that they were responsible for his death.  But the court has now ruled that Zheng, who had started studying at the University to become a doctor in 2010, was entirely capable of making his own decisions about his life, including whether he wanted to take part in the sperm bank programme.  The court heard that the young trainee doctor signed up for the programme in January 2011 and in ten days had made four visits to donate sperm for the universities sperm bank program.

His family had demanded almost half £1 million in compensation, saying that they had pressurised him into agreeing to take part and had not handled the situation properly when he was found unconscious.  A lower court had only awarded the family £19,000 plus £8,000 in funeral costs, and the family had appealed.  But the High Court has now upheld the lower court decision.

Zheng had donated his sperm on four previous occasions before his death and had even solicited others to donate their semen in the interests of society, according to reports.
The father asked the university to hold an autopsy but this request was rejected. The son was cremated the day after he died.  Zheng's wife, Wu, who is also a student at the school, was compensated with a 20,000-yuan (£2,000) reduction in her tuition bill at the top university as well as help finding a job, said the Changjiang Times

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753346/Chinese-medical-student-died-heart-attack-looked-sexy-magazine-fourth-donation-sperm-bank-week.html#ixzz3D7FlDF2J
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

[CougarKing]

Dennis Rodman wannabe?  ;D

US man held for alleged attempt to swim to N Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean border guards arrested an American man who they believe was attempting to swim across a river to rival North Korea, a South Korean defense official said Wednesday.

The man was apprehended Tuesday night while lying on a bank of the Han River in a restricted military area near the border, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to office policy.

The man told investigators that he tried to go to North Korea to meet leader Kim Jong Un, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified government source. It said the man, aged around 29, is a computer repairman from Texas who came to South Korea 10 days ago.

Source: MSN News

 

[George Wallace]

Colossal waste of government funds to be demolished:

MONTRÉAL–MIRABEL PASSENGER TERMINAL TO BE DEMOLISHED