Japanese TV Show: Woman put behind screen, given bikini, told she has 60 seconds to change into the bikini

Video.

Turducken Cat Food

Turducken Cat Food

China's Weather Modification Program

Every year, China launches thousands of rockets and artillery shells into the sky. They're not part of a set of war games or preparation for a battle with Taiwan, but rather a battle with the weather. Through its Weather Modification Program, the Chinese government hopes to control the fickle forces behind rain. Run by the Weather Modification Department, a division of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Science, the program employs and trains 32,000 to 35,000 people across China, some of them farmers, who are paid $100 a month to handle anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers.

More here.

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Now Yu and the other rainmakers face their toughest challenge: making sure it stays dry for the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The idea is for the peasant gunners to work with meteorologists watching radar in the capital. Together, they will hunt pregnant rain clouds and pound them with rockets containing silver iodide. The hope is that any moisture will fall before the clouds can threaten the parade of athletes and lighting of the Olympic flame at the new National Stadium.

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American Society of Magazine Editors picks their magazine favorite covers of 2007

Many more here. Via.

Edvard Munch was known as the “handsomest man in Norway,”

Known as the “handsomest man in Norway,” and well-mannered to boot, he attracted women as catnip does cats, but preferred to keep them at arm’s length. A couple of early affairs had gone wrong, and the antics of his friends had given him a warped sense of women. And he never wanted children, as he feared they would become insane. The classic Madonna/whore view of women is apparent in his paintings of what he called “vampire women” with “nutcracker muscles in their thighs.”

In a quarrel with his Norwegian mistress, Tulla Larsen, who stalked him all over Europe, he ended up shooting himself in a finger, which for the rest of his life remained sheathed in black leather. This slight injury he blew up to mythical proportions, painting himself stark naked on an operating table lying in a huge pool of blood.

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A Star Wars comic book featuring killer rabbits

Russia gives top honor to spy who stole secret to the atom bomb

On Nov. 2, the Kremlin startled Western scholars by announcing that President Vladimir V. Putin had posthumously given the highest Russian award to a Soviet agent who penetrated the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb.

The announcement hailed Dr. Koval as “the only Soviet intelligence officer” to infiltrate the project’s secret plants, saying his work “helped speed up considerably the time it took for the Soviet Union to develop an atomic bomb of its own.”

Link.

"L-Block" of Tetris fame wins favorite video game character contest

Link.

LA Kings bond by competing in a scavenger hunt

The teams were sent out in vans to different locations and had to complete the first of five tasks. The first team to complete all five tasks won the competition. The tasks were:

A) To hit a fly ball beyond the infield grass at Dodger Stadium. Tommy Lasorda was there to provide assistance and, I'm told, a profane pep talk, as only Tommy can provide.

B) To have an artist in Venice Beach sketch a portrait of one of the players.

C) To teach a 10-minute lesson in a classroom at Torrance Elementary School.

D) To stand on a surfboard for at least five seconds in the Manhattan Beach water.

E) To find Jim Fox in Hollywood. A clue was posted near Bob Miller's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which the players also had to locate.

Link. Via.

Protesters march as zombies to protest Boston University's Level-4 Biosafety Laboratory

With Boston Police Department officers close behind, the horde of protesters began their menacing march at the corner of Albany and East Dedham Streets and snaked toward City Hall, moaning, "We have been infected by the BU biolab" and "The BU biolab has infected me with a terrible pathogen." During the march -- the newest form of protest in a seemingly futile battle to stop construction of the biolab -- the zombies stuffed anti-lab flyers under the doors of nearby businesses and into the palms of curious onlookers.

Link.

German Christmas advent calendar includes image of local serial killer

Sales shot up after the word got out.

If Jerry Sloan had a computer, he'd only use it to look at tractors

Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan was asked about the Internet:

"I don't have (a computer), and I wouldn't know how to turn it on if I had one," said Sloan, who maintains a farm in his native Illinois. "The only thing I'd be interested in looking at is tractors anyway."

Link.

Want to see your turkey on a webcam before it's slaughtered?

Heritage turkeys typically cost at least $4 per pound--at 26 pounds, Heritage Foods' biggest bird sells for $209, shipping included; grocers can sell a factory-farm Butterball at a quarter of that price. So Martins and Wickstrom decided to target foodies.

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He helped Frank Reese, one of his suppliers, install a Webcam on his Kansas farm so customers could see their birds pre-slaughter.

Here's Heritage Foods' website. This link appears to be the webcam, but it wasn't working when I checked.

Ferrari is building a theme park in Abu Dhabi

Information and photos from the foundation stone ceremony here.

The Longaberger Company makes baskets, and its headquarters looks like a giant basket

Here's their official site.

Fish in Spaaaaace Aquarium

Buy.

The 5 O'Clock Clock

Designed by Tibor and Maria Kalman, and supposedly occasionally available in the MOMA store. Via.