Elvis Presley undies go on sale, stains and all

by: Pat Hurst, Press Association From: AAP August 26, 2012

THE King's briefs are to go on sale at an auction of Elvis Presley memorabilia.

..Unwashed and still soiled with stains, Presley's underpants were worn beneath one of his famous white jumpsuit's during a performance in 1977.

The light-blue dance briefs are expected to fetch up to Stg10,000 ($A15,281) when they go under the hammer next month at the auction in Stockport, Cheshire.

Elvis did not want any lines visible while he was on stage wearing his vast array of dazzling jumpsuits and this pair of underpants was obtained from the estate of Vernon Presley, Elvis's father.

Presley died 35 years ago this month and there is expected to be a lot of interest from his fans around the world.

Other items up for sale include his personal Bible, which is expected to raise as much as Stg25,000.

The Bible was given to Presley on his first Christmas at Graceland in 1957 and was used throughout his life until his death on August 16, 1977.

It contains his handwritten notes, thoughts, annotations and underlining throughout.

Poignantly, one of the many lines emphasised by the entertainer states: "What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose himself or be cast away?"

Also on sale is 16mm film footage from Priscilla Presley's personal home movies of Elvis, of family holidays and their daughter Lisa growing up.

It also includes footage of their wedding and the first time Elvis and Priscilla brought their daughter home to Graceland from hospital, Christmas inside Graceland and other special family moments.

The full catalogue and auction will be streamed live from the auction room in Stockport at www.omegaauctions.co.uk on September 8.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/elvis-undies-go-on-sale-stains-and-all/story-e6frf96x-1226458285806

Humanity sometimes :roll:

4 Real-Life Robot Suits You Won’t Believe Exist
September 12, 2012 9:45 AM

Does the adorable pilot come standard?
by Richy Craven

The human body is a fleshy, inferior thing. Sure, it lets us metabolize glucose and oxygen to create energy and all that boring, nerdy stuff but when it comes to allowing us to leap tall buildings in a single bound and toss cars about like Frisbees it is sorely lacking.

No culture understands this better than Japan, which is why robot exo-skeletons and other mecha-suits save been staples of their popular fiction for decades.But something wonderful has happened in recent years. All of those kids who enjoyed Gundam and Voltron as kids grew up, looked around that their Megazord-less world and set out to rectify that $#!+.

That’s how we got stuff like:

1. The Landwalker


Warning: extremely susceptible to stone-age technology

Like most well-adjusted man-children we would happily wound an orphan if it meant we could get our hands on some of the gadgets from Star Wars; but while owning our own lightsaber or X-Wing still remains a fantasy, the Japanese company Sakakibara-Kikaihas made it possible for you to pilot your very own AT:ST. The bipedal Ewok-stomper from Return of the Jedi.

They have developed the Landwalker, the first commercially available bipedal exoskeleton which is just a fancy way of saying it’s a giant robot suit that you can buy legally.

The Landwalker stands an intimidating 10 foot tall and weighs over 2000 lbs. If this wasn’t enough to put the fear of Palpatine into that damn rebel alliance then it’s also armed with two automatic turrets on either side of the cockpit. At present those turrets only fire squishy rubber balls rather than lasers but it should still be more than enough to crush any teddy-bear uprising that you may have to deal with.

What It Looks Like: The Landwalker looks so much like Star Wars’ AT:ST that we’re surprised George Lucas didn’t turn up after it was finished to ruin it with some bull$#!+ CGI and offensive racial stereotypes. Then again, its hamhock legs make it also resemble Robocop‘s ED-209, so we’re lucky they didn’t put guns on it.

The Down Side: The Landwalker would set you back about $300,000 so those of us whose names don’t end in “-ardashian” shouldn’t really expect one for Christmas. It also only has a top speed of 1.5 miles an hour so you can forget any fantasies you had about taking this thing down the freeway.

2. The Toyota Mobility Suit

People in the developed world are living longer and longer in modern times now that we’ve resolved such hazards as holera, typhus and random cheetah-attacks and as the population grows older companies are putting more and more effort into increasing the quality of life in our golden years.

And by “increasing the quality of life” they seemingly mean “turn us all into senior-cyborgs.” The Toyota Mobility Suit is proof that “adding giant robot legs” is always the best solution to any problem, even if that problem is the growing pension crisis.

The Mobility Suit is a bipedal robotic chair that is capable of climbing stairs and navigating difficult terrain, in theory making it more practical than modern wheelchairs and also a whole lot more awesome.

It is designed to aid the elderly and disabled in moving from place to place more easily and also let them act out whatever Robocop dreams they may have.

What It Looks Like: The Mobility Suit looks like the bastard offspring of a cybernetic ostrich and one of those floating chairs from Wall-E.

The Down Side: Seriously, this thing looks really goofy and unfortunately the Mobility Suit doesn’t come with weapons that would allow you to destroy anyone who mocked you about it.



The Mobility Suit is also merely a “concept creation” which is corporation-speak for “something awesome we created just to tease you.” You’re unlikely to see these in mass production any time soon.

3. HAL-5 exo-skeleton

If we ever needed proof that R&D departments come up with design concepts by checking out the trailers on IMDB it’s here. The HAL-5 robot suit is the closest you’ll come to Tony Stark’s Iron Man armour outside of Robert Downey, Jr.’s garage and our own personal fantasies.

HAL stands for Hybrid Assisted Limb (and not Hugeass Armored Laser like we’d hoped) and it’s an exo-skeletal suit that cam read the nerve signals sent from motor-neurons and interpret these signals to move the armour in sync with your own body, increasing the force of these movements. This is a really complicated way of saying that it’s a robot suit that can read your mind and lets you punch through walls, meaning it has at least three separate superpowers by our count.



Cyberdyne’s named after the company that built the Terminator, and they call their exoskeleton HAL; it’s like they’re daring the robots to uprise

The current version of the suit only increases your lifting and carrying capacity five-fold so you won’t be bench-pressing any 18-wheelers but we’ve calculated that’s still enough juice to make your high-school bully regret every wedgie he ever gave you.

It was designed to restore movement to disabled people and to provide heavy labour support in factories and at rescue sites. This is incredibly noble and all but our main question right now is when are they going to build the commercial version that lets us shotput our stepdad’s car into a lake?

What It Looks Like: The HAL suit looks like if Master Chief’s power armor had been designed by Steve Jobs.

The Down Side: It’s highly unlikely that you’ll see many of these state-side any time soon as they are mostly all in Japan. Also, HAL is, at the moment, just a prototype and so it doesn’t come with fist-lasers and repulsor boots…yet. And come on, one of the first evil robots in history

5. The Kuratas

The Kuratas is what happens when you gather a group of talented engineers and robotics specialists and let them create something we doodled on the back of our trapper-keepers when we were 9.

The end-result is the Kuratas, an honest to God functioning battle-mech and proof that dreams really can come true if you throw money at smart people for long enough.

The 12-foot-tall labor of love is supported by 4 insect-like legs ending in wheels that give it a top speed of ten miles an hour, which is pretty good considering this thing weighs over 10,000 pounds. Don’t let the slow speed deter you though, nobody is going to escape your mecha-wrath thanks to its hull mounted rocket launcher and Gatling gun.



“Safe for humans” and “will not hurt anyone” is the last thing every executive says in a sci-fi film before the demonstration goes awry

Ok, they only shoot water and BB pellets at the moment but this is just a prototype we’re sure lasers are in the pipeline for the 2.0 version. The trigger for these instruments of death (okay, instruments of slightly dampness) as it happens, is smiling. The on-board camera has a facial scanner and fires the Gatling gun whenever it registers a smile on the operators face. This is an interesting design-choice but we have one small issue with it. When would you stop smiling while piloting your very own, armoured battle-mech?

It can be piloted from the internal cockpit, Voltron-style, or operated remotely via an I-phone if you want to terrorize the Justice League from the comfort of your couch.

This magnificent piece of comic-book mad science costs $1.3 million and we’ve never been more motivated to become millionaires in our entire lives.

What It Looks Like: The Kuratas looks so much like our wildest fantasies that we half-expect to find Olivia Wilde naked in the cockpit. Aesthetically, it’s a mix between ED-209 from Robocop and that giant, metal spider from Wild Wild West.

The Down Side: The instruction video says that there is absolutely no smoking in the Kuratas. This presents a problem since we’re guessing that, after rolling this up the driveway of our mortal enemy and smiling him to death, we’d definitely need a cigarette.

Melissa George has meltdown on The Morning Show after hosts mentioned Home and Away

CHANNEL 7 spoke out yesterday about a tirade unleashed by former Home And Away castmember Melissa George, who threw a hissy fit on Friday's The Morning Show because the segment referenced her days at Summer Bay.

The brekkie newsroom was still reeling from the outburst yesterday, which witnesses described as "erratic" and "unbelievable", as the Aussie actress threatened to walk off the set if hosts Larry Emdur and Kylie Gillies made mention of the character that made her a star, Angel Parrish.

"She kept saying she's had so many bigger roles since Home And Away that it was offensive to talk about it - she even said she'd send Seven an invoice because she inadvertently promotes it through the media," an insider said.

The program's executive producer Sarah Stinson, said she originally thought the meltdown was a prank.

"At first I thought I was being Punk'd because it seemed so surreal," she told Confidential. "We're genuinely proud of Melissa's achievements, she's done a lot of great work, and I didn't realise she had such an issue with her roots. Most of our guests are usually proud to embrace where they've come from and we never would have done anything to purposely upset her."

George, who has appeared in The Amityville Horror remake, Grey's Anatomy and Alias, said the Australian press were "disgusting" for constantly aligning her with the soap.

"I don't need credibility from my country any more, I just need them all to be quiet," she said. "If they have nothing intelligent to say, please don't speak to me any more. I'd rather be having a croissant and an espresso in Paris or walking my French bulldog in New York City.

"I've never spoken out about it because I have to be the loyal good Aussie, who goes away and comes home.

"But I'm a really hard-working woman and people have to respect me for what I've done ... my next call will be to Home And Away to ask them to pay me because nobody does more promotion for that f ... ing show than me."

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/melissa-george-has-meltdown-on-the-morning-show-after-hosts-mentioned-home-and-away/story-fndo1sdf-1226514684954

Sounds like someone needs to get the fuck over themselves.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart defends chase stand as young crim taunts police over ‘no chase policy'by: David Murray From: The Courier-Mail November 16, 2012 11:29AM

.."I have personally had to tell a father that his teenager died as a result of a police pursuit," Mr Stewart writes in his blog From the Commissioner's Desk.

"I never want another one of our officers to have to go through that awful task.

"The reality of our pursuit policy is that our officers can pursue if there is a significant public risk in letting the offenders go. This is rarely the case."

Mr Stewart was responding to a report in today's The Courier-Mail about a teenage offender who taunted police (see the full story below) about the policy, which is causing frustration for officers.

He also revealed the 18-year old offender who phoned Policelink and triple-0 to taunt police from a stolen car last week had since been arrested and is due to appear in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on 20 November.

The teenager had been charged with stealing, failing to stop a motor vehicle, armed robbery, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and unlicensed driving.

"We have to be the cool, responsible head in these situations, and understand that by pursuing these people, we are dramatically increasing the risk to you, to our officers, and to the offenders.

"Our first priority is always to public safety, and it must always be that way.

"The good news is that we are getting better at catching these offenders."

Earlier, it was revealed that criminals are taunting police over the "no pursuits" policy, with one teenage car thief phoning the service during a chase to complain that officers should not be on his tail.

In one of the most frustrating incidents to emerge since the policy was introduced last year, the 18-year-old offender phoned the Policelink hotline and triple-0 when he was behind the wheel of a stolen car on Brisbane's southside last week.

His brazen phone calls, in which he skited that officers had to back off because the pursuit was becoming dangerous, have prompted renewed calls from the Queensland Police Union to scrap the no-pursuits policy, which was designed to save lives.

"The entire system has become dysfunctional, with criminals now taunting police and the courts refusing to enforce the mandatory penalties in legislation," police union president Ian Leavers said.

"Criminals know police have a 'no pursuits policy' and we have just seen a frightening increase of criminals deliberately taunting and stalking police in their cars, knowing full well police are not allowed to pursue them."

However, Police Commissioner Ian Stewart last night warned of the dangers of chasing drivers who were often young, inexperienced and affected by drugs and alcohol.

"The juvenile behaviour of this offender does not trigger a potentially life-threatening response by police," he said.

"Pursuing is not the answer in these circumstances.

"We are increasingly tracing and arresting these individuals in the days or weeks after incidents like this and they are facing the courts. They may have their juvenile fun but the harsh realities of their actions will catch up with them."

In his first public comments on the policy, Mr Stewart also said the public "understands that no stolen vehicle is worth their life, or the life of one of their family or friends".

"To pursue these people, we would very likely be making a dangerous situation far, far worse, especially as they have only usually committed minor traffic offences. To do so is to endanger not only our officers but members of the general public who are innocently going about their lives.

"There are circumstances where more serious crimes have been committed, and where not pursuing may lead to a greater danger to the public, and in those instances the policy does allow our officers to pursue."

Under the pursuits policy, introduced last December, officers are barred from high-speed chases unless the offender is a violent high-risk or lives are threatened.

It followed 19 deaths and 737 injuries from police pursuits since 2000, including the tragic case of schoolgirl Caitlin Hanrick, 13, who died after being hit by a stolen car during a chase at Redcliffe.

Several officers told The Courier-Mail they were aware of last week's incident involving a teen wanted for questioning over multiple incidents of assaulting and evading police.

One source said the youth had been driving a stolen car near the Marsden Park shopping centre about 2am last Wednesday when he came across a police car.

A cat-and-mouse incident followed in which he drove in front and behind the police car then took off at speed before coming across police again, it was claimed.

He phoned the Policelink hotline first and then triple-0, saying he wanted police to stop chasing him.

Australian Institute of Criminology research released this week revealed there were 219 pursuit-related deaths nationally from 2000 to 2011.

Figures revealed 37 per cent of those who died during pursuits were bystanders, while autopsy results revealed 88 per cent of drivers had taken drugs or alcohol or both.

Mr Leavers warned the road toll could rise rather than fall.

"The road toll has seen an increase of 10 per cent on last year, and coming into Christmas, with police having their hands tied not being able to engage in pursuits, I fear it will continue to rise," he said.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/trivial-pursuit-young-crim-taunts-police-over-no-chase-policy/story-e6frf7jo-1226517748010

28 women cram into Mini

November 16, 2012 - 4:35PM
David McCowen

British women break world record for the number of people to jam into a Mini.


A team of 28 gym members jammed into a new Mini hatch in London on Wednesday as part of the eighth annual Guinness World Records Day.

It is difficult to quantify how much larger the new Mini is than the 1960s original, but the brand has given us a new measure.

We can now tell you that the interior of the current mini is six ladies larger than Sir Alec Issigonis' classic.

A team of 28 gym members jammed into a new Mini hatch in London on Wednesday as part of the eighth annual Guinness World Records Day.

The flexible femmes were all from East Sussex, aged 18 or over and more than 1.52 metres tall.

They broke their own record by one person, beating a previous record that saw 27 women cram into a Cooper.

Fairfax Media understands that there may have been more space in the Mini, but that no one would sacrifice life or limb to see if 28.5 people would fit into it.

Remarkably, a full four women fit into the boot , a fact that might see Minis star in The Sopranos – should the gangster drama ever return to the small screen.

An original Mini at the scene was soon home to 22 people, confirming suspicions that the new car is at least one size larger than its forebear.

But we're not sure whether the Mini's new record is the most important car-filling feat we've seen.

A group of 20 cheerleaders crushed into a Smart car in Los Angeles in 2002, and some 346 students squeezed into a 56-seat bus in 1989.

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-news/28-women-cram-into-mini-20121116-29gze.html

A round about way to build a roundabout: apartment block stuck in middle of multi-lane highway as couple flatly refuse to give way

Published: November 23, 2012 - 2:20PM

Exclusive location. Close to transport. Lots of room. Unique view.




For once all those tired, old real estate cliches are accurate.

Luo Baogen and his wife have refused to move out of their five-storey apartment block to make way for a highway in Wenling, in China's Zhejiang province.

So the apartment block now serves as an unusual roundabout, surrounded by a multi-lane highway which, when complete, will lead to Wenling railway station.

International media have picked up on the Baogen family's firm stance, quoting the People's Daily, which reported the couple were not happy with the compensation they were offered to move out.

Their neighbours have moved on, leaving much of the building empty.

Several reports said changes in private ownership laws in China have made it harder for residents to be forced out of their homes.

The family are not the only people in China to put up such a fight.

The Daily Mail reported Hong Chunqin, 75, and her husband Kung, residents in Taizhou, in Zhejiang province, had made a similar decision this year to stay in a building, which now sits in the middle of a multi-lane road.

The family initially accepted compensation, but then changed their minds.

In England, the M62 highway near Scammonden runs right through Stott Hall Farm.

It was one property to survive when hundreds were bulldozed in the 1970s.

The tenant farmer, Paul Thorp, told the BBC in 2008 the farm had become an unofficial service station for motorists.

"People running out of petrol; coming and wanting to buy petrol and diesel; wanting to borrow spanners and jacks and to use the telephone," Mr Thorp said.

"If I've got some petrol I'll sell them some. I'll try and help anybody out.

"It's just not a nice spot to be, at the side of the road, especially if it's rough weather. I can't afford to give the petrol away, though. If I could get a regular trade, it'd be OK."

Fairfax Media

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/drive/motor-news/a-round-about-way-to-build-a-roundabout-apartment-block-stuck-in-middle-of-multilane-highway-as-couple-flatly-refuse-to-give-way-20121123-29xxi.html

Naked man straddles Duke of Cambridge statue in London

From: news.com.au November 24, 2012 9:51AM

A NAKED man shut down part of central London when he straddled a statue of the Duke of Cambridge.

..It was not a likeness of Prince William that was being assaulted - but the statue of the Duke of Cambridge was the previous owner of that title, Prince George, The Sun reported.

Police closed 100 metres of road outside Whitehall - where a number of government departments are situated - to keep the public away from the potentially dangerous man on the Duke of Cambridge statue as several ambulances and police cars gathered for about three hours, Sky News reported.

"I was on a school trip, on my way to the National Portrait Gallery and I looked up and saw the naked man on the statue," school girl Savannah Severn, 16, told The Sun.


The unidentified man sat and stood naked on top of the statue of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, in Whitehall in central London for almost three hours. AFP/JUSTIN TALLIS Source: AFP

"There were police on horses pushing the crowd back and firemen were trying to get him down.

"I was really shocked but it was quite funny. It looked like he was posing and he had his arms stretched out wide."

The naked man sits on top of a statue of Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, in the heart of Whitehall, London's government district. (AP Photo/ John Stillwell/PA) Source: AP

The naked man was seen waving his arms and speaking to the emergency services on the ground as he sat astride the statue. Prince George, the Duke of Cambridge, died in 1904.

Scotland Yard police said it was believed that the man might have a knife. He was coaxed down and put into the back of a police van. He was believed to have been clothed when he climbed on to the statue.


Naked Man, Whitehall, London, statue
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/the-other-side/naked-man-straddles-duke-of-cambridge-statue-in-london/story-e6frfhk6-1226523252510

A BUXOM woman has been accused of trying to kill her lawyer boyfriend… with her 38DD breasts.

John McAfee: Belize Life Was Full Of Guns, Girls And Dogs

SAN PEDRO, Belize (Reuters) - To the many people who crossed his path on a tropical island in Belize, it was apparent John McAfee's life had taken some bizarre turns in the past few years.

The anti-virus software guru, who started McAfee Associates in 1989, has been in hiding since police said they wanted to question him about the weekend murder of his neighbor, fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Despite his disappearance, McAfee, 67, has remained in contact with the media, providing a stream of colorful bulletins over his predicament, state of mind and his claim that Belize's authorities want to kill him.

Residents of the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye and others who know him paint the picture of an eccentric, impulsive man who gave up a career as a successful entrepreneur in the United States for a life of semi-seclusion in the former pirate haven of Belize, surrounded by bodyguards and young women.

"Never mind the dog, beware of owner," counsels a small sign, embellished with a sketched hand gripping a large pistol, tacked to the fence separating McAfee's beachfront swimming pool from the pier that cuts into the azure sea.

McAfee, a yoga fan who has lived on the island for about four years, often moves around with bodyguards, wearing pistols in his belt. Since going into hiding, he has compared his lot to that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is battling extradition from Britain from inside the Ecuadorean Embassy.

Officials suspect McAfee used designer drugs, and neighbors say he tried to chase them off the public beach in front of his house. Inside his home, a blue-roofed cottage complex, he kept a small arsenal of shotguns and scope-fitted rifles.

There were also complaints about the millionaire's numerous and noisy dogs. Officials say the poisoning of four of the dogs may be linked to the murder of Faull, a 52-year-old Florida building contractor who was shot dead at his salmon-hued two-story villa about 100 yards (meters) down the beach from McAfee.

Faull was one of the locals who had complained about McAfee's attitude and his dogs.

McAfee told Wired magazine, with whom he first kept up a running conversation, that he was disguised and holed up in what he describes as a lice-infested refuge. In comments to the magazine, McAfee denied he shot Faull and said he fears that the police will kill or torture him. Police, who believe he is still in Belize, say they just want to talk to him about the killing.

McAfee, who has not responded to requests for comment by Reuters, blamed Belize's "pirate culture" for his troubles in an essay Wired said he had sent to the magazine.

"Belize is still a pirate haven and is run more or less along the lines established centuries ago by the likes of Captain Morgan, Blackbeard and Captain Barrow," McAfee said.

Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow has urged McAfee to help police with their inquiries, calling him "bonkers."

In an interview with CNBC television by phone on Friday, McAfee said he would not seek refuge in the U.S. Embassy.

"What would happen? They will offer me either sanctuary where I will spend my days living in the embassy like poor Julian Assange or when I leave ... I will be nabbed by the police. My ultimate goal is they'll figure out who killed the man, it will have nothing to do with me and they will leave me alone. Or if enough international pressure is applied," he said.

'PARANOID'

Many locals in San Pedro describe the tattooed McAfee, who made a fortune developing the Internet anti-virus software that bears his name, as a generous but unstable man.

"He's a good guy, he helped a lot of people. The problem was when he wanted something he wanted it right now. And when he didn't get it, he'd get paranoid," said one islander, a former McAfee employee, who like many people here spoke on condition their name not be used for fear of retribution.

"He's a complex man, very impulsive," the islander added.

Doug Singh, Belize's former police minister, told Reuters he was at a loss to explain McAfee's recent comments.

"Mr. McAfee seems to have a bit of a divorce from reality and it seems to be consistent in his behavior and some of the things he has said recently. He's way out of line and out of proportion. Nobody has anything against Mr. McAfee," Singh said.

After making millions with his anti-virus product, McAfee decided to abandon the United States for Belize, a languid coastal paradise. It is a path that has been taken by a number of rich Americans over the years.

He took a beachfront compound on the island's isolated and exclusive north side, 6 miles from the town of San Pedro by boat or by driving over badly cratered asphalt and dirt track. It is a world away from California's Silicon Valley, which he once called home.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelangelo, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company's products.

Officials at the company he created and its parent, Intel, have declined to comment on the controversy.

But one long-time McAfee manager who recently left said company executives were likely monitoring the news closely. He said they have tracked reports of John McAfee's activities over the years out of concern they might need to do damage control.

A case is already pending in Belize against McAfee for possession of illegal firearms, and police previously suspected him of running a lab to make illicit synthetic drugs.

But McAfee said this week he was opposed to drugs.

"My life is f----d up enough without drugs, and always has been," McAfee told Wired magazine.

BENEFACTOR

For all his trouble with authorities, McAfee has worked hard to be the island's benefactor. Upon arriving in Belize he bought a $1 million boat for the country's new coast guard, and donated equipment to the local police force, according to local reports.

He tipped generously everywhere he went, and hired a steady stream of taxis for frequent female guests on the $150 round trip from the small airstrip in San Pedro out to his house.

"Not two or three, a lot of women," said Artemio Awayo, 24, a local waiter. "Every time I saw him it was a different woman."

Those who knew him said he didn't drink and never hung out at the island's many bars. But employees at a restaurant near the pier where McAfee's water taxi company is based said his actions grew more bizarre following a police raid last April on his mainland hacienda outside the town of Orange Walk.

Even for casual lunches, McAfee began regularly coming to town with at least two bodyguards, clad in camouflage and each packing pistols, they said.

"Generally, you don't need a bodyguard in Belize," said Jorge Alana, a San Pedro Sun reporter who interviewed McAfee several times, noting top elected officials don't have them. "It does call attention when you move with so many guards."

McAfee's home is in a stretch of Ambergris where the wealthiest foreigners hole up. Raw lots of land 100 feet by 200 feet can cost up to $500,000 here. Even modest-looking houses reflect multimillion-dollar investments.

On Thursday afternoon, a 23-year-old calling herself Tiffany used a key to enter McAfee's home with another young woman and said he had spent Saturday night with them - around the time police said Faull's murder took place.

They had not spoken to McAfee since Sunday, she said.

On Friday, an outside light was still on at his beachfront complex, and a dog roamed freely around the grounds.

Like McAfee, many of his north shore neighbors tend to favor being left alone, rarely coming to town and loath to mix with tourists.

"That's why they come to San Pedro," said Daniel Guerrero, the tour guide and real estate broker now serving as the town's mayor. "They like the quietness. They like the isolation."

But even fishing, scuba diving and sunset daiquiris can get tiresome. Accustomed to hard work and achievement, newcomers established and kept up the island's charities, locals say. Quite a few foreigners, like McAfee, started local businesses. And some fall out of synch with local culture.

"It's one thing to vacation here and another thing living here," said Wyoming native Tamara Sniffin, owner and editor of the San Pedro Sun, the local newspaper.

Immortalized in song by Madonna as La Isla Bonita, Ambergris Caye stretches 27 miles along the blue Caribbean below the Mexican border, flanking the world's second-largest barrier reef and some of its finest sport fishing waters.

Those attributes have attracted well-heeled foreign retirees and celebrities such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who owns a small island nearby.

"Here it's just party, party, work, party," said Iris Mavel, 27, a waitress at a restaurant favored by McAfee. "A lot of couples who come here leave divorced. That's why they call it Temptation Island."

The island also has a darker side. Dumped at sea and carried ashore by the tides, bundles of Colombian cocaine flow through the island not far from McAfee's house and on, many say, toward the Mexican border. Cocaine not recovered by the smugglers is collected by islanders, supplying a thriving local drug market that has sparked low-level gang feuds and occasional killings.

International fugitives have taken refuge here. In the summer, a Slovak man accused of murdering a woman, her 10-year-old son and a gangster in his home country was arrested on an international warrant, processed for extradition but then released by a Belizean judge.

Some townsfolk suspect McAfee is hiding on a yacht off of San Pedro. Others note that Mexico is only an hour away by the sort of fast boat McAfee owns and that passports are never checked for people landing in the oceanfront villages there.

San Pedro's mayor believes he will surface.

"I have the feeling that this guy will turn up," Guerrero said. "But he'll turn up with his attorneys. He's a big guy."

(Additional reporting by Jose Sanchez in Belize, Jim Finkle in Boston, Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Mike McDonald in Guatemala; Editing by Dave Graham, Kieran Murray and Bill Trott)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/john-mcafee-belize_n_2158292.html

Germany to ban sex with animals: report

news.com.au
November 26, 2012 11:36PM

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Sheep

Germany is about to ban sex with animals, including the 'pimping' of farm animals for sex. Source: Herald Sun
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THE German government is about to reintroduce a ban on bestiality, after pressure from animal welfare groups.

Newspaper die Tageszeitung reports that the governing coalition are soon to amend the country's Animal Welfare Act to make sex with animals punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($31,000).

Bestiality was legalised in Germany in 1969, the same year that gay sex was also removed from the criminal code. After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured.

However animal welfare groups have pushed for the ban to be reinstated, in an advertising campaign that used dramatic examples of "animal rape".

Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner has agreed to change the law to make it illegal for people to "use (animals) for their own sexual activities or sexual acts of third parties" - which also bans the 'pimping' of animals to others.

However the move has aroused the ire of zoophile group ZETA.

Lobbyist Michael Kiok, who lives with his dog Cassie, told the newspaper there were more than 100,000 zoophiles in Germany.

"Mere morals have no place in law," he said.

Mr Kiok said he was worried that if the law took effect the authorities would try to take away his dog.

The amendment to the law will be debated in the German parliament in mid-December.

Man jailed for five days after he beat estranged wife with his penis when she refused sex

News Limited Network
November 28, 2012 11:07AM

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A MAN has been jailed after he struck his estranged wife with his penis when she refused him sex.

Fred Thomas, from Cushing, Maine, will spend five days in jail after pleading guilty to the assault, which happened in July.

The 62-year-old offered her $20 for intercourse and, when she refused, he took out his penis and struck her with it, according to the prosecution, The Bangor Daily News reports.

Defence Attorney Justin Andrus said Thomas was tremendously upset that his marriage of 39 years was ending. He said his estranged wife was planning to go to Pakistan to meet a man she met online.

“This was not his normal conduct,” Andrus told Justice Jeffrey Hjelm during the sentencing hearing in Knox County Superior Court.

Apparently if they ever catch McAfee the trial will last 30 days.

:lol:

=d>

In the beginning there was the game and the game was Pong

DateDecember 2, 2012
Vince Chadwick

BEFORE Super Mario, Zelda, Sonic, Lara Croft and World of War Craft, there was Pong. The arcade game batting a ball between two paddles on either side of the screen was launched 40 years ago this week.

It was not the first video game. It was the first commercial success. Back in 1972, people began queueing outside the bar in California where the game first appeared, until one day the machine broke down. Pong's designer, engineer Al Alcorn, arrived and quickly diagnosed the problem as coin overload.

Three years later, the company Atari began selling Pong, with its minimal instructions such as ''avoid missing ball for high score'' - into homes as a console game connected to the television, and a fledgling industry took flight.

''Pong is a small game that has had a big impact,'' said Conrad Bodman, curator of international projects at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

''It established the sports game genre. It used sound to create tension and excitement in the game, and it also introduced a two-player format and the notion of competitive one-on-one play.''

Last year, Australians spent $1.5 billion on interactive gaming, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Worldwide, $54.7 billion was spent on console, handset, computer, online and wireless games. And this figure was expected to reach almost $77 billion by 2016.

The rules established by Pong, including the one-on-one or ''versus'' play using the language of today's generation, apply for such modern developers as Mark Boulton, who worked at the Australian video game company Blue Tongue Entertainment before it folded last year.

''Most game developers strive to create a product with high replay value, hoping the player will find it addictive,'' Mr Boulton says.

Pong's influence can be seen in any game in which friends' high scores are used to spur players' competitive instincts. But the paddle game nearly did not happen, with the creators at Atari fearing the project was too expensive.

''The integrated circuit boards by themselves cost almost $200, so that was clearly never a consumer product,'' Atari boss Nolan Bushnell said at the time.

Decades later the issue of the cost of gaming technology has not gone away.

Mr Boulton also welcomed the federal government's announcement last month of a $20 million Australia Interactive Games Fund to help local developers, saying the high dollar had made it difficult to compete in an industry already shaken by the global financial crisis, and its reliance on discretionary spending.

This year's Entertainment and Media Outlook released by PwC predicted that the future of the game industry was in mobile devices. While established gamers would continue to invest in traditional consoles and home computers, the report estimated that Australians would spend $400 million on games for smartphones and tablets this year, and that this would increase by more than 11 per cent annually up to 2016.

Melbourne University academic Daniel Golding, who writes and lectures on video games, says games for mobile devices require a huge amount of downloads to turn a profit.

But, he says, designing blockbusters is risky as well, given high production costs and risk of failure.

For ACMI information communications technology manager Paul Cuthbert, it all started with Pong.

The 60-year-old built his own games console from scratch in the mid-1970s, even extending the controller's cord so he could play from the couch. Five years ago he decided to try playing with his children.

''They weren't overly impressed,'' he said. ''They said 'yes dad, but I can do all of that on my iPhone'.''



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/gaming/in-the-beginning-there-was-the-game-and-the-game-was-pong-20121201-2ao4l.html#ixzz2DqepLKq1

Man blinded by vodka has sight saved by bottle of whisky

From: News Limited Network December 02, 2012 10:37AM

A BOTTLE of whisky has saved the sight of a New Zealand man who went blind after a couple of vodkas.

Denis Duthie, 65, suddenly went blind when vodka he had been drinking reacted with his diabetes medication.

Mr Duthie, a catering tutor at New Plymouth's Western Institute of Technology, had been celebrating his parents' 50th wedding anniversary in June by having a few vodkas from a bottle his students had given him as a present, The New Zealand Herald reports.

When he walked into a bedroom in his home everything suddenly went black.

"I thought it had got dark and I'd missed out on a bit of time but it was only about half-past-three in the afternoon. I was fumbling around the bedroom for the light switch but ... I'd just gone completely blind," he told the paper.

Mr Duthie was rushed to Taranaki Base Hospital, where doctors thought he might have formaldehyde poisoning, which is associated with ingesting methanol and can be treated by administering ethanol - the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages.

There wasn't enough medical ethanol available in the hospital, so the registrar nipped down to the local bottle shop and picked up a bottle of whisky.

"Johnnie Walker Black Label. It was good whisky, yeah," Mr Duthie said.

They dripped the whisky into his stomach through a tube, and hoped for the best.

"I woke up five days later and I could see as soon as I could open my eyes," Mr Duthie said.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/weird/man-blinded-by-vodka-has-sight-saved-by-bottle-of-whisky/story-e6frev20-1226528260814

Locals fed suspected killer crocodile

by:
ALYSSA BETTS IN NHULUNBUY From:
The Daily Telegraph December 03, 2012


THE 4m crocodile suspected to have taken a nine-year-old boy in East Arnhem Land was being fed by the community, police and locals said.

The tragedy at the Dhania outstation has not come as a surprise in the town of nearby Nhulunbuy. Several locals said it had been a disaster waiting to happen.

"It was just a matter of time before someone got taken," one local resident said.

The boy was attacked while swimming with other children just in front of the outstation about midday on Saturday. Sergeant Alex Brennan said the community, which sits by Port Bradshaw and is home to indigenous leader Galarrwuy Yunupingu, was distraught.

He said the crocodile believed to be responsible was about 4m long and was "known" to the families living at Dhania, about 100km south of Nhulunbuy.

"It's believed that the community from time to time fed the croc - it's believed to be an older croc," he said.

. Adults tried to save the child by spearing the crocodile, but it dragged the boy out into deeper water.

Search parties - consisting of Nhulunbuy and Darwin police, Parks and Wildlife and rangers - were last night preparing for a third day of combing the waters. Sgt Brennan said there were up to eight saltwater crocodiles living in the search area and the suspected killer was sighted several times by search parties on the first day.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/locals-fed-suspected-killer-crocodile/story-fndo317g-1226528448244