dude, the Rocketeer is real?
next you'll be telling me he wears a suit of Iron and shoots mini rockets out of his wrists.....

Quoted: Swiss pilot Yves Rossy, who calls himself "Fusion Man", becomes the first person to fly with jet-fuel powered wings strapped to his back. He completed several loops at 300km/h (186mph) above the Alps.

i mean seriously, is this like everyday Austrian news that is finally just making its way onto my cpu screen now, or is this whole country all of a sudden turning into a sick and twisted familial nightmare?

Quoted: An Austrian man hands himself in after allegedly hacking his wife, daughter, parents and father-in-law to death.

you see, when Ikea doesn't stock Playboy pillows, it leaves the French with little other choice....

that, or these weren't no ordinary pillows. i think, yeah.

Quoted: French robbers stop a goods train and make off with cushions bearing the Playboy logo.

an eyewitness account of the food crisis going on in Haiti, the riots and violence surrounding it, and some of the contributing factors involved.

Quoted: Prospery Raymond, Christian Aid's country representative in Haiti, reports on the island's food riots.

maybe we're inventing new drugs because the euros are stealing our old ones?

Quoted: A strong euro and weak dollar may explain why cocaine is more available in Europe, a US anti-drugs official says.

at first this sounded really dystopic and strange, like when we all heard a few years ago that they were developing a drug to erase traumatic memories...and, likewise, it seemed this article was saying that this drug prevents the formation of new traumatic memory. but then as i read along, it seems that all these 'scientists' have figured out is that getting totally fucked up on downers and anaesthetics makes it hard to remember stuff...
ummm, yea, science didn't know that?
they should've asked me. i'da tol'em the newz....

Quoted: Low doses of a commonly-used anaesthetic could prevent painful memories forming, say researchers.

a 240 years old monarchy will soon end when the Maoist party of Nepal steps to a landslide victory in November.

Quoted: Nepal's Maoist party does far better than expected as results for a new constituent assembly are declared.

some of you on aut-op-sy probably saw this. but andy on there makes a noteworthy point:

"This obviously puts at risk the confidentiality of sources and broader issues of academic freedom. If this was extended to people working on radical political movements, mobilisations (such as summit protests), or doing fieldwork on politics in other countries, it could leave participants who cooperate with academics extremely at risk, which in turn puts academics at risk either of violence or of being denied access to do research in the first place. I wonder what measures can be taken by people doing direct fieldwork to avoid compromising their respondents - perhaps to keep all notes under deniable encryption and hand over only suitably sanitised versions?"

Quoted: Counter terrorism police have won the right to force the author of a new book about terrorism to hand over his research.