What? No "Tobacco Road?"

Talk about a wild night near Seguin. A cow came flying out of its trailer, sent DPS and police scrambling, and left two police cars going up in flames.

The Omaha World-Herald photograph of Sgt. Burghardt — taken in the aftermath of the bomb blast and showing him "standing on his own two feet, pants cut off, legs bandaged and directing a single-digit salute of defiance at his attackers" — appeared in that newspaper five days later and quickly became one of the most popular iconic images of the Iraq War. As the World-Herald noted of its origins and impact:

... with two new young Marines in his ordnance disposal unit — and the insurgent attackers undoubtedly looking on — "I didn't want them to see the team leader carried away on a stretcher," [Burghardt] said.

So after the Nebraskans tended to wounds that reached from his boot tops to the small of his back, Burghardt rose to his feet and reached back with a one-finger salute for his attackers.

"I was angry," Burghardt said.

The photo appeared on numerous Marine-related Internet web logs. Burghardt received more than 100 e-mails within days of the picture's publication. It has become a screensaver on soldiers' and Marines' computers across Iraq.

"I don't know how my anger turned into a motivational picture," Burghardt said. 

A British woman baked a life-size model of her own naked body out of bread and watched an audience eat it, according to a Local 6 Newsreport  Sharon Baker, of Epsom, Surrey, used 24 eggs and the largest oven that she could find to complete the life-sized artwork for an exhibition in London's Docklands.

Baker decided to bake the model after she lost one of her best friends to breast cancer.

She said the piece represents the never-ending cycle of life.

"It demonstrates the cyclical nature of life," Baker said. "That things go on, that things get transformed, they never get destroyed."

Baker was wrapped in plaster to make the mold for the dough.

Local 6 News showed photos of people carving pieces of her bread body and then eating them.

MORE PHOTOS: Woman Bakes Life-Size Bread Model Of Her Naked Body

"raw dogma" by Nkrumah Steward, creator of 8BM.com

You knew it was coming.
 
It was only a matter of time.

Once mad scientists were reportedly flying headless flies around the laboratory by remote control you knew it was only a matter of months before they started remote controlling human beings.

Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan's top telephone company, under the auspice of making video games more realistic, created a remote control for human beings.

Yes, with motion of a joystick they have developed a device which makes it impossible for you to not follow its commands.

I am not kidding.

Kiss goodbye to taking personal responsibility for your actions.

That is going to be an archaic idea pretty soon.

The way the device works is that it sends an electrical current to your brain which tricks you into thinking that you are off balance and you make the appropriate adjustments to keep your balance, thus controlling your actions.
"I felt a mysterious, irresistible urge to start walking to the right whenever the researcher turned the switch to the right. I was convinced -- mistakenly -- that this was the only way to maintain my balance."

The technology is called galvanic vestibular stimulation -- essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.

But this is more sinister than it sounds. It sounds like they trick you into thinking that you are going to fall over.

I wish it was that simple.

NTT researchers claim that they were able to make a person walk along a route in the shape of a giant pretzel using this device.

The lady who wrote the article for the Associated Press, Yuri Kageyama tried it and she said it felt as if "there was an invisible hand reaching inside your brain".

Creepy.

But never fear, mad scientists have learned to play the game. They know how creepy this is so they are rushing to find some practical application for it, that is, outside of making someone really think they are running from the police for real when they are playing Grand Theft Auto.

They are saying that we can make old people wear this thing on their heads so that they won't fall and break their hips, which is the leading cause of death of old people.

I don't know what it is about old people and their hips but once they break that bone, it's over.

Again, we need to make sure that the military gets a fair shot at making some kind of weapon out of this.

Maybe they could fly a drone over an enemies head and make them all dizzy and falling over on themselves before we use another robot drone to bathe them in whatever is the latest fragrance of chemical weapon of the month.
The possibilities are limitless.

But for the time being, let's just remember, this was officially created so we can have even more fun wasting our lives away with our X-Box.

Officially.

Pencil in penis backfires

A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after sticking a pencil inside his penis to keep it stiff during sex.

Zeljko Tupic, from Belgrade, told doctors he had experienced erectile difficulties in the past.

So as he prepared for a night with his new lover, he decided to insert a thin pencil into his penis.

Tupic had to cut his sex session short when the pencil shifted and became lodged in his bladder, forcing him to call an ambulance, the daily Kurir reported.

Doctor Aleksandar Milosevic from Belgrade's Zvezdara hospital, who succesfully removed the pencil, said: "At first the patient did not tell us what really happened, but x-rays proved the truth.

"Tupic said he had no idea there were things like Viagra available but agreed that in future he will try pills before he takes any more chances with pencils."

PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Singer Sheryl's strip! She's got no Crows on! By Carole Aye Maung

IF it makes you happy take a look at these sexy shots of Sheryl Crow. They're the first-ever topless photos of the rock chick and we reckon her fans will be raven about them this morning. She's in great shape at 43, as everyone could see when she stripped during a photoshoot on a hillside over Malibu on Wednesday. Wearing just a skimpy G-string she chatted happily to the crew during wardrobe changes. Lucky! Sheryl once said: "I never considered myself a sex kitten." But we think she's too modest—and her cycling ace boyfriend Lance Armstrong is a lucky man. The singer met cancer survivor Lance in 2003 and calls him her "dream man". She added: "I'd never written love songs, but when I met Lance that changed."

Spray-On Solar-Power Cells Are True Breakthrough | Stefan Lovgren | National Geographic News | January 14, 2005 | Scientists have invented a plastic solar cell that can turn the sun's power into electrical energy, even on a cloudy day. The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun's invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology. Like paint, the composite can be sprayed onto other materials and used as portable electricity. A sweater coated in the material could power a cell phone or other wireless devices. A hydrogen-powered car painted with the film could potentially convert enough energy into electricity to continually recharge the car's battery.

The researchers envision that one day "solar farms" consisting of the plastic material could be rolled across deserts to generate enough clean energy to supply the entire planet's power needs. "The sun that reaches the Earth's surface delivers 10,000 times more energy than we consume," said Ted Sargent, an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of Toronto. Sargent is one of the inventors of the new plastic material. "If we could cover 0.1 percent of the Earth's surface with [very efficient] large-area solar cells," he said, "we could in principle replace all of our energy habits with a source of power which is clean and renewable."

Plastic solar cells are not new. But existing materials are only able to harness the sun's visible light. While half of the sun's power lies in the visible spectrum, the other half lies in the infrared spectrum. The new material is the first plastic composite that is able to harness the infrared portion. "Everything that's warm gives off some heat. Even people and animals give off heat," Sargent said. "So there actually is some power remaining in the infrared [spectrum], even when it appears to us to be dark outside."

The researchers combined specially designed nano particles called quantum dots with a polymer to make the plastic that can detect energy in the infrared. With further advances, the new plastic "could allow up to 30 percent of the sun's radiant energy to be harnessed, compared to 6 percent in today's best plastic solar cells," said Peter Peumans, a Stanford University electrical engineering professor, who studied the work.

The new material could make technology truly wireless. "We have this expectation that we don't have to plug into a phone jack anymore to talk on the phone, but we're resigned to the fact that we have to plug into an electrical outlet to recharge the batteries," Sargent said. "That's only communications wireless, not power wireless." He said the plastic coating could be woven into a shirt or sweater and used to charge an item like a cell phone. "A sweater is already absorbing all sorts of light both in the infrared and the visible," said Sargent. "Instead of just turning that into heat, as it currently does, imagine if it were to turn that into electricity." (More...)

December 10, 2004 | It’s an example of rink rage that has received nationwide publicity, and was even the butt of jokes on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno a few days ago. But the Greater Toronto Hockey League sees no humour in the case of the Woodbridge hockey mom who lifted her blouse above her chest, exposed her bra, and shook her breasts from side to side while taunting parents of opposing players during a game in Mississauga between 11-year-olds. The GTHL banned Sylvana Gatti for one year from all of its arenas.

The Nov. 29 incident at the Erin Mills Twin Arena happened while the woman was attending a match between her son’s team, the York Toros, and the Mississauga Terriers, two Double-A level minor pee-wee teams. Her son’s team won 4-0. The woman appeared before a GTHL committee meeting Wednesday night, where she apologized for her behaviour before the league could get a full explanation from her as to exactly what prompted her to do what she did. She can appeal the ban next year, but must first get professional counselling and convince the league that she has changed her behaviour.

The GTHL first learned of the incident after receiving several telephone and e-mail complaints, mostly from other mothers. One complainant, who called the incident "disturbing," wrote that she and her sons ran into the woman after the game and the woman said: "What the hell are you looking at? Have you never seen tits? Yeah, he’s probably seen them on the Internet." One witness said the atmosphere in the stands became rowdy, with parents on both sides exchanging barbs. In a statement, GTHL president John Gardner said the incident showed a "complete lack of respect for the young players involved and the spectators present." The statement also urges parents to use the incident and subsequent punishment as a reminder that minor hockey is played for the enjoyment and development of young players, not parents.(More...)