What's in the News

The Phantom is dead 


(from Courier Mail)
Theatre legend Rob Guest deadArticle from: Font size: Decrease Increase Email article: Email Print article: Print Submit comment: Submit comment Staff writers
October 02, 2008 06:45am

ACTOR Rob Guest - who found fame in his starring role in the hit musical Phantom of The Opera - has died in hospital overnight after suffering a large stroke.

Guest, who had been starring as the Wizard of Oz in hit musical Wicked, was rushed to hospital on Tuesday night with bleeding on the brain.

He died peacefully in hospital last night.

Early this morning, a hospital spokesperson said: "The family want the public to know he was surrounded by family and friends when he died''.

The former Phantom of the Opera star and host of 90s TV show Man O Man had been in a critical condition on life support.

Before the tragic incident, the English-born actor, 57, was relaxing at home with partner Kellie Dickerson when he started feeling unwell and collapsed at his computer.

Ms Dickerson, a musical director, was joined by Guest's mother and Wicked producer John Frost at the bedside of the former Phantom of the Opera star at St Vincent's Hospital.

Guest's children Christopher, 19, and Amy, 17, flew from Sydney yesterday with their mother Judy Barnes to be with him.

As Guest was fighting for life earlier yesterday, the family released a statement saying he was critically ill.

Mr Frost, a long-time friend, said the family was distraught at news of the stroke.

"It's that thing of not wanting to believe what's happening. We went in and held his hand and told him how much we loved him, and to be strong,'' he said.

Mr Frost said many in the cast of Wicked cried when he broke the news.

"I addressed the cast and I never have seen a cast fall apart like that in 35 years.

"(Guest) was such a father figure to the cast. He led the cast on this show. There's a lot of upset young people. The youngest cast member is 18 so they may not have had something like this happen before.''

Guest last played the Wizard on Sunday night.

There are no performances on Monday and Tuesday.

His place was taken last night by understudy Rodney Dobson, who had been playing the part of Doctor Dillamond.

Theatregoers were saddened when told he was ill.

"He'll be here in spirit,'' said Sacha George, from Tasmania.

"I bought tickets just to see him. I saw him in Phantom and he was just great.''

Hugh O'Brien, of Cairns, said he felt dearly for the cast, who had to carry on.

"I'm very disappointed he won't be here tonight because he's a fabulous performer. I listen to him in my car on the way to work.

"He's just the iconic Australian performer, so we wish him all the best.''

Pennie Briese, who travelled with her husband from Canberra to see the show, said she had been a fan since seeing Guest in Phantom.

"We've been travelling all day, so I had no idea. What horrible news,'' she said.

"He was the attraction for us to come tonight.''

Mr Frost said Guest did not have any known health problems and was not a heavy drinker or smoker.

"It's like you and I talking now and then `bang', in half an hour something happens.''

He said Guest was "doing what he loved to do'' in his role as the Wizard.

He played the Phantom in a record 2289 performances.

More recently he played Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. He also starred in productions of Les Miserables and hosted the short-lived '90s TV game show Man O Man.

Exploding sperm, stale chips - it's Ig Nobel

By Maggie Fox in Washington | October 03, 2008

A RESEARCHER who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough have won alternative "Ig Nobel" prizes.

Other winners included physicists who found out that anything that can tangle, will tangle and a team of biologists who ascertained that dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas.

The Ig Nobels honour real research, but are meant as a funny alternative to next week's Nobel prizes for medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace.

Awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, the prizes are based on published research, some intended to be humorous but often not. Usually the "honoured" researchers go along with the joke.

Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Centre and colleagues were awarded the chemistry prize for a 1985 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola kills sperm.

She said she was serious in testing the soft drink because women were using it in a douche as a contraceptive and, later, to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus.

"It definitely wouldn't work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast," she said.

But Coke made with sugar does kills sperm, probably because sperm soak it up. "The sperm just kind of explode."

The Ig Nobel committee made up a "nutrition prize" for Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Britain's Oxford University, who tricked people into thinking they were eating fresh potato chips by playing them loud, crunching sounds when they bit one.

The biology prize goes to a French team that found dog fleas can jump higher than cat fleas, while the medicine prize was awarded to a team at Duke University in North Carolina who showed that high-priced placebos work better than cheap fake medicine.

Dorian Raymer of the Scripps Institution in San Diego and a colleague won the physics prize for demonstrating mathematically why hair or a ball of string will inevitably tangle itself in knots.

The peace prize was given to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology for adopting the legal principle that plants have moral standing and dignity. There is a website explaining this: http://www.ekah.admin.ch/en/topics/dignity-of-creation/index.html.

A team at The University of Sao Paulo in Brazil won a special archaeology prize for showing how an armadillo can mess up an archaeological dig.

The economics prize went to researchers at the University of New Mexico who learned that a professional lap dancer earns bigger tips when she is most fertile.

David Sims of Cass Business School in London won the literature prize "for his lovingly written study 'You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organisations'," the committee said.

Look out crocodile Hunter:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/03/australia.zoo.carnage.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Boy feeds Aussie zoo's animals to croc

 SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.


The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.

Times are achanging!  The money or the history. 

Mao's personal plane up for sale

Posted Fri Oct 3, 2008 10:42pm AEST

Mao Zedong's personal aeroplane has been put up for sale by the owner of a shopping centre in southern China to make more space for parking.

Wang Zhilei, general manager of property developer Ridong Group in Zhuhai, a city in southern Guangdong province, confirmed the company had put the 46-metre-long plane up for sale.

"There are not enough parking spaces, so we decided to sell the plane," Mr Wang said.

But he would not comment further on prospective buyers or on the price Ridong was seeking for the plane, and referred to a report by the Southern Metropolis Daily, a Chinese newspaper.

Mr Wang told the newspaper that it was shop owners that had asked for the plane - which was purchased by the company in 1999 and put on display near the shopping centre - to be moved to make way for more parking spaces.

The jet is one of three that the Chinese airforce bought from Pakistan in 1969, according to the report.

One was given to Mao, the founder of modern China, the other was given to Lin Biao, Mao's heir apparent, and the third was reserved for the military.

But Lin's plane crashed in neighbouring Mongolia when he fled from China in 1971 after a failed coup to oust Mao.

The two remaining planes stayed in service until 1986, at which time Mao's personal plane was put on display in an airport in Beijing's suburbs until it was bought by Ridong Group.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/03/2381998.htm

What does $315 billion look like?
http://m3.torispics.com/piles/?s=315billiondollars#nav-holder

Quote

The US state of Texas has banned fish pedicures over health and safety concerns, denying salon customers the opportunity to enjoy the sensation of hundreds of small fish nibbling away the dead skin from their feet.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3161892/Texas-bans-nibbling-fish-pedicures.html

That's terrible!! Let's hope that Chinese 'fish nibbling' places don't read this.  Especially as the article states NO person has been made ill from this.   

Texas allows people to carry guns, drive cars, smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol - all proven killers and stops fish nibbling??? 

The US state of Texas has banned fish pedicures

I wouldn't think this would be a serious issue.  Very few fish have feet.
 

One of the big questions hanging over this summer's Games was whether the measures China took to clean up its polluted capital would work. After a few hazy days, the sun came out and banished the doubters. Now many are wondering if China will stick to its greener ways.

So far, the signs are promising. The country's leaders and Beijing residents were thrilled with the results of the green drive, and ordinary folks have clamored to keep some measures in place. No one is happier about this than Wan Gang, the father of China's green-car R&D program and the minister of science and technology. "The Olympics taught us all a good lesson," he says. "Now people all over the country have an urgent desire for a better environment." Such enthusiasm is helping him and like-minded leaders push for the adoption of clean-energy car technologies and other antipollution measures.

Chief among them are restrictions on the use of Beijing's 3.5 million registered automobiles. In the past, leaders hesitated to place permanent limits on private-car traffic because the increasingly assertive middle class squawked at such constraints. But the Games have helped shift attitudes, and now the city is unveiling new rules for a six-month trial, inspired by—though not as drastic as—the cutbacks that took 2 million vehicles off roads for two months during the Olympics and Paralympics. Under the new regulations, a third of government cars have been mothballed. As of Oct. 11, a fifth of official and private vehicles are barred from driving on weekdays. Municipal authorities will also begin phasing out hundreds of thousands of vehicles that exceed emission standards by Oct. 2009, a year ahead of schedule.

And soon the government is slated to unveil 1,000 clean-energy public-transport vehicles in 10 Chinese cities. Beijing introduced 23 fuel-cell cars, 470 electric vehicles and 102 hybrids during the Games, and drivers loved them. Wan says local officials and citizens are warming to the green vehicles, too. "The Olympics has been a time for demonstrating new kinds of high technology," he says. "It'll be just like people who have an old TV at home—they'll change it when they see a new LCD screen."

Another improvement has been in public transportation. Among Beijing's Games-related initiatives were a new subway line, an airport rail link and reduced bus fares. Such transit saw heavier use as drivers were forced off the roads. Bluer skies and fewer traffic jams have since persuaded more than two thirds of respondents in a recent survey to support the traffic controls. New rules will take 800,000 vehicles off the streets daily and require ordinary citizens to take public transport one day a week.

Of course, the battle is not over yet. Parts of the Olympics pollution crackdown can't be sustained on a permanent basis, such as shutting down construction sites and factories inside Beijing and closing some factories in neighboring provinces. That means pollution is likely to return in the coming months, if not to previous levels. Beijing's pollution index in August was the lowest in a decade—but it quadrupled in early October after Olympic traffic restrictions were relaxed. And private-car owners—and China's powerful auto industry—may vigorously protest the new regulations in hopes of persuading authorities to scrap them when the trial period ends next April.

Indeed, the backlash has already begun. Within two hours of the announcement of the new traffic restrictions on Sept. 28, thousands of Netizens posted complaints on the China's leading web portal, sina.com, grousing that the new measures discriminate "unfairly" against car owners. "There is still a debate over the vehicle ban, even though the government is determined to uphold the air quality, and is getting a lot of support from ordinary people," says Mao Shoulong, a public administration expert at Renmin University. This resistance is one reason Wan—who worked for 10 years at the German automaker Audi in vehicle development and strategic planning—has trained his sights on building cleaner cars, not banning them entirely. He says the government is "trying its best" to build on green vehicles introduced during the Games. If all public transport vehicles were switched to clean energy, Wan says, the sector would reduce fuel consumption by nearly 25-30 percent and cut emissions by a quarter. That could outstrip the benefits of halving the number of buses and taxis currently on the roads. In other words, it would let Beijingers keep their blue skies—and their beloved cars, too.

Some 40% of female gas station employees in Metro Detroit are women, up from almost none a year ago. (Detroit News article)

Marijuana Issue Sent To A Joint Committee (Toronto Star headline)

Publicize your business absolutely free! Send $6. (Entrepreneur Magazine ad)

Gators To Face Seminoles With Peters Out (The Tallahassee Bugle)

Messiah Climaxes In Chorus Of Hallelujahs (The Anchorage, Alaska Times)

Married Priests In Catholic Church A Long Time Coming (The New Haven, Connecticut Register)

Governor Chiles Offers Rare Opportunity To Goose Hunters (The Tallahassee Democrat)

Would She Climb To The Top Of Mr. Everest Again? Absolutely! (The Houston Chronicle)

Governor's Penis Busy [should be "Pen Is"] (The New Haven, Connecticut Register)

Thanks To President Clinton, Staff Sgt. Fruer Now Has A Son

Clinton Places Dickey In Gore's Hands (Bangor Maine News)

Starr Aghast At First Lady Sex Position (The Washington Times)

Clinton Stiff On Withdrawal  (The Bosnia Bugle)

Long Island Stiffens For Lili's Blow (Newsday)

Organ Festival Ends In Smashing Climax  (San Antonio Times)

Rose Petroleum Jelly Keeps Idle Tools Rust-free (Chicago Daily News)

Textron Inc. Makes Offer To Screw Company Stockholders (The Miami Herald)

This one TRULY had me crying with laughter!!


Geldof launches 'Bank Aid' as markets plummet

Sir Bob Geldof today launched a moving appeal to third world nations to 'give whatever you can' in the face of the ever worsening crisis in the western financial markets. The credit crunch, which has now come to dwarf the AIDS pandemic sweeping Africa, has, said Sir Bob, seen 'suffering on an unprecedented scale'.

Addressing an audience of peasant subsistence farmers in Ethiopia, he urged Africans to 'Give us your money. Pick up the phone and give us your f***ing money now. These people are losing their bonuses, their stock, their options… People are literally losing their liquidity right now and you have the power to stop it.'

The appeal follows a harrowing television report by Michael Buerk from a Wall Street wine bar, where thousands of economic refugees have ended up. They can't drink the water, and so are forced to drink the Pinot Grigio, despite the long term risks to their health. Many of their wives are painfully thin – this morning this woman walked forty miles on a Treadmaster, but has only eaten one lettuce leaf in three days.'

Meanwhile the people of Eritrea sent a television message to Washington, expressing their sympathy at the horrendous financial losses, and promising to return in its entirety all aid money received over the last twenty years. "It's impossible for us to imagine what it must be like to lose that much money" said one man, 'Literally, impossible.'     

  Lotus, if I didn't know you better I'd swear you made this up. What's next...third world African nations  gathering up their top recording artists to record benefit songs for starving rich people? A giant African charity concert to aid starving CEOs? Lord almighty...

 Oh shit. I just reread it again and realized it was clearly a joke. The Onion perhaps? I'm a little slow this time of night I'm afraid. Hilarious, though.

It does help me put things into perspective, though.

Aussies required to register online for US travel

 

October 17, 2008 - 12:29PM

Travellers from Australia, Japan, western Europe and a number of other countries must request authorisation to enter the United States on the Internet from January 2009, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Thursday.

These countries are currently exempt from visa requirements to enter the United States for short visits under the Visa Waiver Program, and the new program will keep travel to the United States "visa free" for travelers from VWP countries.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/news/aussies-to-register-online-for-us-travel/2008/10/17/1223750294754.html


And from their website.......

If your electronic travel authorization application is approved, it establishes that you are eligible to travel, but does not establish that you are admissible to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program. Upon arrival to the United States, you will be inspected by a United States Customs and Border Protection officer at a port of entry who may determine that you are inadmissible under the Visa Waiver Program or for any reason under United States law.