Real life ‘Rain Man’ dies at 58

A gifted savant with an extraordinary memory who inspired author Barry Morrow to write the book “Rain Man” is dead at 58.

Kim Peek, was said to be whiz kid in subjects that included history, literature, geography, sports, numbers, and dates but, strangely enough, had limited motor skills that even dressing himself up became a problem.

“Rain Man” was made into a movie with the same title in 1988 and it introduced people to a rare but amazing disorder called savant syndrome.

The most common behaviors demonstrated by people with the syndrome are obsessive preoccupations with trivia (facts about U.S. presidents, for example), license plate numbers, maps, or obscure items. Others have outstanding mathematical skills, such as being able to perform complex calculations within a few seconds.

“It was just unbelievable, all the things that he knew,” Fran Peek, the father, said. “He traveled 5,500 miles short of 3 million air miles and talked to nearly 60 million people — half have been students.”

Couple rescues cat super glued to highway

After heedless motorists continued cruising on a highway in the state of Minnesota, a cat named, Timothy, was finally rescued by a concerned couple who pulled over to help it, thinking it was injured.

What they saw instead was a cat whose paws were heartlessly superglued to the road.

Rosey Quinn, from Second Chance Rescue said, their rescue service has never encountered such cruel treatment as they saw done on the poor cat.  “It’s a mouth dropper because you are just like are you kidding me? But they did it.”

Despite all the preventive measures applied by the rescuers, still the cat’s paw pads and claws were torn off.

While a foster family is taking care of Timothy at the moment, eventually the cat will be put up for adoption.

Selling fridge to an Eskimo is becoming a reality

It used to be a truism that to be the best salesman in the world, one has to be able to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo living at the Arctic.

It sounded more like a joke than a challenge to a salesman worth his salt for in reality, how could a fridge sale be consummated at the Arctic region, especially to the Inuits, the indigenous people of Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Russia, when it is, perhaps, the last thing that they need.

With permafrost practically all over the area, all the Inuits have to do is dig a hole to store their food and cover it back with ice so their provisions do not go bad prematurely.

But, with the issue of global warming hotly contested now, indeed, it may be highly probable these days that a salesman can close a deal with an Inuit by being able to persuade him to buy a unit of a cooling or a freezing appliance such as a refrigerator.

Climate change in the Arctic is considerably affecting communities and, thus, the lifestyle of the Inuits. Their hunting culture has been altered and so are the ways to store the meat of the Arctic species they hunt for food, like seals, polar bears, whales and the caribous.

In fact the Inuit communities are said to be appealing for funds to build communal deep freezers as an alternative to the fast melting ice cap.

The ice is no longer thick and safe as before that the Inuits have to find other ways to store their meat. Some of their villages are literally falling into the seas because of erosion as a result of global warming.

There is greater apprehension especially that the ice cap is melting much faster now. It has raised ocean levels and  thinned the winter ice and in the process is threatening the Inuit’s existence.

Unless the U.N. talks in the Danish capital of Copenhagen on a new global climate deal is being agreed upon  by the 190 governments attending it, could we be seeing pretty soon a proliferation of refrigerators being sold at the Arctic?

Nevada brothel soon to have first male prostitutes

Bobbi Davis, owner of Shady Lady Ranch brothel in Nevada, is planning to boost further her business by hiring her first legal male prostitutes.

“With so many other male revues going on in Vegas, we thought it was time to give this a try,” Davis said.

But, what made Davis finally decide to try having the oldest profession practiced by men in Nevada is the fact that state health officials have finally agreed on a method to test men for infectious diseases.

Unlike the frequent cervical testing for sexually transmitted diseases undertaken by women, men  will undergo urethral examination.

“The world is ready for women, or even other men, to legally buy sex,” said Davis.

Before the male prostitutes start plying their trade, however, Davis, Flint and Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo admits that brothel owner Davis still needs county approval to have a lineup of male prostitutes offering their services.

“We’re going to look at it. We have some concerns,” said DeMeo, who is a member of both the health commission and the board that administers alcohol, gambling and brothel licenses.

The Shady Lady Ranch owner, who lives and works at her compound of trailers off U.S. 95 about 150 miles northwest of Las Vegas, says she is still studying the pay structure of her male prostitutes. The women charges $300 per hour.

Richard Branson unveils tourism spaceship

Billionaire Richard Branson has unveiled the first commercial passenger spaceship, a sleek black-and-white vessel, which is scheduled to fly in 2011.

The spaceship is said to be Branson’s expensive gamble on creating a commercial space tourism industry.

Present in the unveiling of the SpaceShipTwo at its hangar in Mojave, California that will rocket tourists into zero gravity were the 300 people who have given their initial deposits of $20,000 to Virgin Galactic, an offshoot of Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways. Space-ride tickets will cost $200,000.

A twin-hulled aircraft would carry SpaceShipTwo to an altitude of about 60,000 feet (18,288 meters) before releasing it. The spaceship would then fire its onboard rocket engines, climbing to about 65 miles (104 km) above Earth.

“Once in space, [passengers] will unbuckle their seats,” Branson said. “There are enormous windows, which no spacecraft has had before, for them to look back at the Earth. They can float around and become astronauts.”

After experiencing ‘zero-G fun,’ the spaceship with the six paying passengers aboard will glide back to Earth and land in New Mexico, where it was launched.

Bush shoe-attacker received similar treatment in Paris

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the unknown Iraqi television reporter who became an overnight sensation for hurling his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush found himself being treated with a similar shoe-attack in Paris.

Al-Zaidi was holding a news conference about his crusade for the Iraqi war victims when an exiled Iraqi journalist stood up and accused him of being a sympathizer of the ousted despot, before throwing his shoe. Apparently, the attacker was defending the U.S. policy in Iraq.

The shoe did not hit al-Zaidi, but a fracas resulted in the audience.

Al-Zaidi’s defiance against the former U.S. leader during a news conference by shouting “this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog,” became a symbol of Iraqi anger against America for invading Iraq.

Al-Zaidi found himself sentenced to three years imprisonment for assaulting a head of state, but was released earlier as his prison term was commuted to one year.

Soda can safety tabs still being swallowed by some kids

 

A 16-year study at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre has found that children are still brought to the hospitals for swallowing the safety tabs from canned soda or other beverages given them.

The safety tabs are especially found mostly in teens despite having it redesigned by beverage companies to fold back upon opening but stay attached to the containers.

“I think we all know if you fiddle with these stay tabs, you can easily break them off,” Dr. Lane Donnelly, who led the study, said during the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago.

Donnelly believes children play and eventually break off the tab, drop it into the soda can and accidentally swallow the tab. The detached tabs have jagged edges that could injure the stomach or intestine.

Parents are advised to be aware of this problem when giving kids canned soda or other beverages.

It will also be beneficial if beverage companies consider a new design that makes the tabs harder to break off when fiddling with it.

Drop-side crib recall continues to enrage parents

Parents are said to be still irate even as The Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled 2.1 million Stork Craft cribs that caused recent death in four U.S. children as a result of 110 incidents.

It happened when the drop-down sides of the cribs got detached, which consequently entrapped the babies between the side and the crib frame, or falling out of the crib altogether.

Some parents want the Stork Craft drop-side cribs banned for their insufficient safety verification that may yet spread out to include their high-chairs and strollers.

“Most parents are not aware that there was no requirement that the products be tested for safety before they were sold,” said Nancy Cowles, who runs a child advocacy group called Kids in Danger.

Although it appears that there is already a law requiring manufacturers to have their products inspected for safety by an independent third party, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), however, has not been able to monitor this provision and implement tougher inspection requirements.

The recall of the Stork Craft cribs, which has been in circulation since 1993, is said to be the largest recall in U.S. history.

Adopted son traced biological parent to be Charles Manson

 

Matthew Roberts, now 41, was given up for adoption as a baby. Growing up in Rockford, Ill., he didn’t know he was adopted until his sister told him in fifth grade and it shocked him.

Like many adopted children, Matthew embarked on a mission to find his biological parents. He wanted to know, most especially, his father and see if there is any identity of him in what the son has become today.

Matthew, who now lives in Los Angeles, started his search 12 years ago when he contacted the Lutheran Social Services agency that located his mother, Terry, in Wisconsin.

He wrote to her immediately and got back an answer from her confirming she is his mother.

“She said she named me Lawrence Alexander and told me she’d tell me my last name some other time in person,” Matthew remembers.

Curious and confused, he pressed his mother for more information until she finally revealed the awful truth in a series of letters. She admitted having been raped by his father in a drug-fueled orgy in 1967.

Matthew, who is the spitting image of his serial killer-father, Charles Manson, is said to have fallen into depression after discovering his identity.

“He’s my biological father – I can’t help but have some kind of emotional connection. That’s the hardest thing of all – feeling love for a monster who raped my mother,” Matthew said.

“I don’t want to love him, but I don’t want to hate him either.”

Nations arming for cyber war

 

Web security firm McAfee released a report warning of a “cyber space race,” with countries like U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France gearing up for cyber offensives.

The McAfee report was prepared by cybersecurity expert Paul Kurtz, a former White House adviser. It said cyberattacks were on the rise and “cyberwarfare is a reality.”

“Over the past year, the increase in politically motivated cyberattacks has raised alarm and caution, with targets including the White House, Department of Homeland Security, US Secret Service and Department of Defense in the US alone.

“Nation-states are actively developing cyberwarfare capabilities and involved in the cyber arms race, targeting government networks and critical infrastructures,” the report said.

The Web security company said critical infrastructure such as power grids, transportation, telecommunication, finance and water supplies was particularly vulnerable.

“In most developed countries, critical infrastructure is connected to the Internet and lacks proper security functions, leaving these installations vulnerable to attacks,” McAfee said.