Cave News

Is this the Loch Ness Monster on video?

Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old technician at Bradford University claims to have caught Nessie on camera.

Mr. Homes was at Loch Ness to use new hydrophone equipment in an attempt to eavesdrop on Nessie in the water.

He was minutes from going home when he saw something in the water and grabbed his camera.

Link here and here for more of the story. The YouTube video is here.

Russian scientists can prevent global warming

At the link below there is an article titled: Russia knows how to prevent global warming.

Russian scientists have found a way to prevent global warming of the Earth.

Russian Academy of Sciences Academic Yury Izrael told a news conference that the method envisions air spraying of a sulfur-containing aerosol in lower stratosphere layers at a height of 10-14 kilometers (six to 10 miles). Sulfur drops would then reflect solar radiation.

According to scientists, one million tons of aerosol sprayed above the planet would make possible a reduction of solar radiation by 0.5-1%, and a reduction of air temperature by 1-1.5 degrees Celsius.

Link

School counselor gets $2.5 million after typo

A computer keystroke led the state to accidentally issue a $2.5 million check to a school counselor. After receiving the erroneous check Sabrina Walker spent thousands of dollars on cars, jewelry and electronics before she was arrested for theft by swindle and concealing the proceeds of a crime.

Ms. Walker allegedly bought four cars, a $500,000 certificate of deposit, funded two retirement accounts, bought a $500,000 Treasury bond, spent $5,500 on jewelry, $3,817 at Best Buy and $2,069 on limousine services.

Her criminal attorney said there was more to the story than just the criminal complaint submitted by prosecutors which "fails to recite all the pertinent facts.”

The pertinent facts would seem to be that she spent money that was not hers to spend.

Link

200 spammers send 80% of all spam

Ever wondered where most of you spam comes from?

80% of all spam received by Internet users in North America and Europe can be traced via aliases and addresses, redirects, hosting locations of sites and domains, to a hard-core group of around 200 known spam operations ("spam gangs"), almost all of whom are listed in the ROKSO database.

These spam operations consist of an estimated 500-600 professional spammers with ever-changing aliases and domains. The vast majority of those listed here operate illegally and move from network to network (and country to country) seeking out "spam-friendly" Internet Service Providers ("ISPs") known for lax enforcing of anti-spam policies.

Link here and here

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The U.S. "Spam King" has been arrested

A nefarious Internet marketer was arrested on Wednesday. He was responsible for so much junk e-mail they called him "Spam King."

Robert Soloway, 27, was arrested in Seattle, Washington, a week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and e-mail fraud.

If convicted as charged, Soloway will face a maximum sentence of more than 65 years in prison and a fine of 250,000 dollars.

Link

Erroneous refinery fire story rocked global oil markets

World oil prices jumped briefly after a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma posted an erroneous story about a refinery fire on its Web site.

CBS affiliate KOTV reported that a lightning strike had caused a fire at an Oklahoma refinery -- sparking a flurry of excitement among energy traders and boosting U.S. crude prices 40 cents.

The refining company announced the story was "completely wrong" and the station withdrew the story.

"All it takes is a screw-up on a Web site to move the market. It just goes to show how tense this market is," said a Houston-based oil trader.

Link

He survived shooting when cell phone deflected bullet

A wheelchair bound amputee in Colorado is fortunate to be alive.

He survived a shooting at his home Tuesday when his mobile phone slowed a bullet before it hit his chest.

Roger Baxter, a C-DOT employee who lost his legs after a semi going 70 mph hit him on I-70 last October, was shot in the chest after interrupting a burglary.

Roger Baxter was in a coma for nearly a month. He went through 13 surgeries and lost his legs.

Mr. Baxter arrived at his Aurora, Colorado home last Tuesday to find a man inside the house. He yelled at him to get out of the house.

Instead of leaving, the intruder shot him. The bullet hit his cell phone before it hit his chest.

There he was in his wheelchair, trying to call 911 on his damaged phone while he was bleeding from his chest.

The shooter and a second suspect fled the scene but were later arrested.

It takes a heartless intruder to shoot a disabled man in a wheelchair!

Link

Europe hit by snow and freezing temperatures

Freak snows and freezing temperatures pelt Europe.

In Spitzing Germany, locals have been forced to wrap up after ten centimeters [about four inches] of snow brought out the snowploughs for the first time this year.

Maybe someone should alert Al Gore. He has enough carbon credits to fly over there in his private jet, which he can use to help thaw the snow.

Global warming will be blamed for this unless Bush gets blamed first.

Link

Another big city newspaper in financial trouble

It’s common knowledge (unless you’ve been hiding under a rock) that big city newspapers are in financial trouble.

Word of the New York Times financial troubles appear in the news so often I’m beginning to wonder how long before the Gray Lady publishes her own obituary.

By the way, do you know how the New York Times received the Gray Lady nickname? It’s because of the Times staid appearance and style with mostly words and few pictures.

Now we are reading about another big city newspaper on the financial skids.

This time it’s the San Francisco Chronicle in financial decline.

The Chronicle, a Hearst publication, is reportedly losing a million dollars a week and forced to lay off 100 newsroom jobs in the coming weeks.

In the age of "new" media, this rollback in "old" media may be among the most drastic in recent memory, but it is nothing new to the public.

Indeed, across the country newspapers have suffered enormous financial losses over the past decade, with far fewer professionals today covering the news locally, nationally and internationally as a result of the industry's contraction.

The rise of the Internet has produced sharp declines in traditional advertising revenues in the printed press.

Free online advertising competitors such as Craigslist.com have sharply undermined classified advertising as a traditional source of revenue.

If big city newspapers continually lose the ability to do investigative reporting, we lose more than just a fish wrap or bird cage liner. The biggest thing we lose is the watchdog reporting of scandals that will go undetected.

The fewer qualified reporters and editors, the more a newspaper may be inclined to rely on “news” fed by partisan groups knowing the material has a chance to get past a decimated editorial staff.

Link

Jimmy Carter on hot seat - again

Since Jimmy Carter’s error-filled book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid was published last November, it has been a firestorm of controversy.

Simon & Schuster, a CBS subsidiary, is accused of damaging CBS’s reputation by publishing the error-filled book.

After its publication, 14 advisory board members of the author's Atlanta-based nonprofit think tank, the Carter Center, resigned in protest.

Link

Getting back to work shouldn’t be so difficult

It takes me a while to get back in the swing of things again after a long holiday weekend.