Japanese astronaut tests stink-free underwear

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Teen-age boys, are you tired of embarrassing questions about when you last changed underwear? Japan’s space scientists may have just the answer — a line of odour-free underwear and casual clothing.

Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to live on the International Space Station, is testing the clothes, called J-ware and created by textile experts at Japan Women’s University in Tokyo.

“He can wear his trunks (underwear) more than a week,” said Koji Yanagawa, an official with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Wakata’s clothes, developed by researcher Yoshiko Taya, are designed to kill bacteria, absorb water, insulate the body and dry quickly. They also are flame-resistant and anti-static, not to mention comfortable and stylish.

Japanese astronaut Takao Doi gave the clothes a trial run during a shuttle mission last year. Even after a vigorous workout, Doi’s clothes stayed dry.

“The other astronauts become very sweaty, but he doesn’t have any sweat. He didn’t need to hang his clothes to dry,” Yanagawa said.

J-ware should reduce the amount of clothing that needs to be sent to the space station, which has no laundry facilities. Toting cargo into orbit is expensive, so having clothes that stay fresh for weeks at a time should result in significant savings.

The Japanese space agency plans to make the clothes available to NASA and its other space station partners once development is complete. A commercial line also is in the offing.

Taya also is working with clothing manufacturers Toray Industries and Goldwin. on clothes that have a microscopically thin chemical layer in the materials.

Wakata, who arrived at the station last week for a three-month stay, said on Sunday that the clothes appear to be working.

“Nobody has complained, so I think it’s so far, so good,” Wakata said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090323/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_space_underwear

Man slips climbing power pole, saved by his pants

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) – Authorities say a Georgia man was saved by his pants when he decided to climb 35 feet up a power pole and slipped. The pants luckily caught on the metal tower, stopping his fall.
Gwinnett County Fire Department officials believe the 21-year-old man from Duluth, Ga., had been drinking and ignored a companion’s suggestion he had climbed far enough up the pole.Officials did not identify the man.

After his pants caught, the man spent about two hours dangling before a rescue team climbed the tower and got him down.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96PGFP00

American taste for soft toilet roll ‘worse than driving Hummers’

We keep hearing that the “era of big government is back.” Now we can say that the “era of soft toilet paper must end.” My favorite line in this story – “softness equals ecological destruction.” – gt

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The tenderness of the delicate American buttock is causing more environmental devastation than the country’s love of gas-guzzling cars, fast food or McMansions, according to green campaigners. At fault, they say, is the US public’s insistence on extra-soft, quilted and multi-ply products when they use the bathroom.

“This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous,” said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council.

“Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution.” Making toilet paper has a significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting down forests.

A campaign by Greenpeace seeks to raise consciousness among Americans about the environmental costs of their toilet habits and counter an aggressive new push by the paper industry giants to market so-called luxury brands.

More than 98% of the toilet roll sold in America comes from virgin forests, said Hershkowitz. In Europe and Latin America, up to 40% of toilet paper comes from recycled products. Greenpeace this week launched a cut-out-and-keep ecological ranking of toilet paper products.

“We have this myth in the US that recycled is just so low quality, it’s like cardboard and is impossible to use,” said Lindsey Allen, the forestry campaigner of Greenpeace.

The campaigning group says it produced the guide to counter an aggressive marketing push by the big paper product makers in which celebrities talk about the comforts of luxury brands of toilet paper and tissue.

Those brands, which put quilting and pockets of air between several layers of paper, are especially damaging to the environment.

Paper manufacturers such as Kimberly-Clark have identified luxury brands such as three-ply tissues or tissues infused with hand lotion as the fastest-growing market share in a highly competitive industry. Its latest television advertisements show a woman caressing tissue infused with hand lotion.

The New York Times reported a 40% rise in sales of luxury brands of toilet paper in 2008. Paper companies are anxious to keep those percentages up, even as the recession bites. And Reuters reported that Kimberly-Clark spent $25m in its third quarter on advertising to persuade Americans against trusting their bottoms to cheaper brands.

But Kimberly-Clark, which touts its green credentials on its website, rejects the idea that it is pushing destructive products on an unwitting American public.

Dave Dixon, a company spokesman, said toilet paper and tissue from recycled fibre had been on the market for years. If Americans wanted to buy them, they could.

“For bath tissue Americans in particular like the softness and strength that virgin fibres provides,” Dixon said. “It’s the quality and softness the consumers in America have come to expect.”

Longer fibres in virgin wood are easier to lay out and fluff up for a softer tissue. Dixon said the company used products from sustainbly farmed forests in Canada.

Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country – about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources – most of it comes from virgin forests.

“I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenom,” said Hershkowitz. “People just don’t understand that softness equals ecological destruction.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/toilet-roll-america

I triple-dog dare you: Boy’s tongue stuck on pole

HAMMOND, Ind. – In a scene straight out of the movie “A Christmas Story,” a 10-year-old boy got his tongue stuck to a metal light pole. Police said the unidentified fourth-grader was able to tell them that a friend dared him to lick the pole Wednesday night. Temperatures in Hammond were around 10 degrees at the time.By the time an ambulance arrived, the boy was able to yank his tongue off the frozen pole.

Police said ambulance personnel explained to the boy’s mother how to care for his bleeding tongue.

The 1983 movie is set in a fictional city based on Hammond, the hometown of author Jean Shepherd.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_fe_st/odd_tongue_pole

The Text Messaging Whiz Kid – Almost 15,000 Each Month

Greg Hardesty didn’t LOL when he got his teen daughter’s cellphone statement.All he could think was “OMG!”

PHOTOS: Text-Crazed Teen

The California man’s 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up an astonishing 14,528 text messages in one month. The online AT&T statement ran 440 pages.

“First, I laughed. I thought, ‘That’s insane, that’s impossible,’ ” the 45-year-old dad said. “And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible.”

He found it was – barely.

It works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour.

“Then I thought maybe AT&T made some mistake on the bill,” said Hardesty, of Silverado Canyon.

The reporter for the Orange County Register grilled his daughter on her texting habit – by text message, of course.

“Who are you texting, anyway? Your entire school?” he asked.

“Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time,” she explained.

She messages a core of “four obsessive texters” – all girls between the ages of 12 and 13 – on her LG phone.

Reina had a karaoke birthday party, and while other people were singing, she was texting her best friend sitting right next to her.

She even texted her friends to brag about the high number of text messages she had logged when her parents got the statement.

Her texting soared last month because “it was winter break and I was bored,” Reina told her parents.

Luckily, Hardesty has a phone plan that allows unlimited texting for $30 a month. Otherwise, he estimates, he would have owed AT&T $2,905.60 at a rate of 20 cents per message.

The average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old teen is 1,742, according to a Nielsen study of cellphone usage.

Hardesty admits he himself punches in 900 messages a month – 700 more than average for his age group, according to Nielsen.

Hardesty and his ex-wife have since placed restrictions on Reina’s cellphone use, ruling she cannot text after dinner.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01112009/news/nationalnews/this_kids_a_text_maniac_149614.htm

The man who can down a huge bottle of ketchup in just 39 seconds

Speed is the word for Guinness Rishi as he powers his way through a giant 490 gram bottle of ketchup in just 39 seconds.Guinness believes he holds the fastest time for drinking the world’s favourite condiment, which he sups through a straw.

His brand of choice is a toss up between Maggi or the more traditional Heinz.

And 67-year-old Guinness, from Delhi, India, doesn’t confine his talents to the world of tomato sauce.

He claims to hold 19 world titles and even changed his name – from Har Parkash to Guinness Rishi – in a bid to win over official record-keepers.

But so far none of his bizarre stunts have been recognised in the Guinness Book of Records.

Guinness puts his motivation down to the need to stand out in a country of over 1 billion people.

‘People consider me an extraordinary person, not an ordinary person,’ he said.

His records include ‘taking on the world’s oldest adoptee’, after he legally took custody of his 61-year-old brother-in-law.

Guiness also built the tallest sugar cube tower in the world, which stands at 64 inches.

He took his new name in 1991, after keeping a motor scooter in continuous motion for 1,001 hours for another bizarre record.

‘Persons who have no money wish to do something in their lives, so the poor people try to break records by their strength or their will,’ said Guinness, who is joint owner of an auto-parts factory.

The ketchup-crazed pensioner said he will continue to find new records to break until he achieves his dream of official recognition.

‘I hope to make my family proud,’ he said

‘My children feel they are more important in the field of business and money-making.

‘I have to show the family and the community that I am a professional person.’

Now Guinness is trying to find a way of combining eating chips with his ketchup-drinking record in the hope of attracting the attention of judges.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1103854/Pictured-The-man-huge-bottle-ketchup-just-39-seconds.html

Michigan twins born on different days, months, years

ROCHESTER, Mich. – They’re twins, all right, despite what their spanking new birth certificates say. Tariq Griffin entered the world at 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, Mich. Twin brother Tarrance was born a bit earlier – 26 minutes to be exact.That means the boys have the unique distinction of having been born on different days, months and years.

Their dad, Tarrance Sr., is also a twin. The parents say the boys are doing well, which is their main concern.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_fe_st/odd_new_year_s_twins

400 dress as Jesus to put Christ back in Christmas

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Dressed in flowing robes and thorny crowns, about 400 churchgoers promised their pastor they’d dress like Jesus as a hard-to-miss reminder of the holiday’s religious roots.

Members of Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship began showing up that way last week at jobs, shopping malls and restaurants. The demonstration wrapped up Wednesday.

“I know it’s a crazy idea,” said pastor Kelly Lohrke, whose 600 members attend services in Kansas City, Kan., and nearby Lee’s Summit, Mo. “I know it’s a radical idea. Christians can have fun with their faith and sharing their faith.”

Lohrke said he came up with the idea out of frustration over the removal of crosses, nativity scenes and other religious symbols from public view.

Several groups have pushed the issue this year, with the American Humanist Association plastering ads on Washington, D.C., buses that proclaim “Why believe in god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” That story motivated Lohrke protest.

Lohrke, whose church is part of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based Praise Chapel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers International, isn’t convinced the founding fathers intended separation of church and state to mean the end of Jesus displayed publicly for holidays.

“It’s just absurd,” he said, “that Jesus is taken out.”

Lohrke brought up the idea at services on Dec. 14, telling parishioners: “We aren’t going to preach.” If asked about their attire, he said, participants are free to share their faith.

“We’ve gotten nothing but positives,” said Lohrke, who has dressed like Jesus at a Starbucks, a Target store and a post office.

Lohrke posted a video on YouTube declaring “Jesus is Back” and showing a participant in long gown and crown of thorns strolling through a mall, sitting on Santa’s lap and averting his eyes as he strolls past a Victoria’s Secret store.

“Next year, we are going to make this a big deal,” he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95980KG1

Fast-food worker laughs, tells robber to get a job

SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio fast-food restaurant cashier laughed at a robbery suspect and told him to get a job if he wanted money during a failed holdup on Tuesday evening.

Police said the suspect approached the worker and demanded money, but the cashier laughed and apparently didn’t realize the man was trying to hold up the place.

The suspect then allegedly pulled out a box cutter and demanded the cashier’s wallet. The employee complied, but had no money in his billfold.

The suspect fled, but was caught by police who responded to the robbery call.

San Antonio police said the suspect is expected to be charged with aggravated robbery.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_on_fe_st/odd_get_a_job

Man sprays ‘toilet-papering’ teens with fox urine

WILLMAR, Minn. (AP) – A 50-year-old man who told authorities he was fed up with teens toilet-papering his house decided to defend his property-with a squirt gun filled with fox urine. Now, Scott Wagar is in trouble with the law.

Wagar pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in Kandiyohi County District Court to misdemeanor assault and other charges. He was released on personal recognizance.

According to police, Wagar was on his property Sept. 16 when he used night vision goggles to see 15-20 people running toward his place. He told police that he told them to leave, swore at them and sprayed them with the fox urine. He also allegedly struggled with one of the teens.

A phone message left at a home listing for a Scott Wagar was not immediately returned to The Associated Press.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D950SCC00