Coss

Several complaints have poured into police in France after a rash of attacks by 'armed clowns'. Photo / Thinkstock

A wave of panic sparked by evil clowns stalking French towns has spread to the south of France where police have arrested 14 teenagers dressed as the pranksters, carrying pistols, knives and baseball bats.

A police source said the group of teens were arrested in the parking lot of a high school in the port town of Agde, as several other complaints poured in over "armed clowns" in the region over the weekend.

In the Mediterranean city of Montpellier a man disguised as a clown was arrested after beating up a pedestrian with an iron bar, while three motorists in different towns complained about "scary clowns" threatening them.

The phenomenon of dressing up as an evil clown and terrifying passers-by - a trend which has also been seen in the United States and Britain - cropped up in the north of France in early October.

In the northern French town of Bethune, a fake clown last week received a six-month suspended jail term for threatening passers-by while in full circus garb.

Using fake weapons these "clowns" have been "mostly spotted outside schools, but also on public roads, in bushes, in a square. Their targets are often young children or teenagers, but also adults," a police source in northern France said.

Theories abound as to the origin of the trend in a country where American fear-fest Halloween has yet to take hold.

These include a challenge launched on social networks, a video published on YouTube showing a terrifying clown pranking people - which has had some 31 million views - or even a recent episode of popular series American Horror Story featuring Twisty the killer clown.

After a rumour a clown was stalking the eastern town of Mulhouse, five teenagers on Wednesday armed themselves with a baseball bat, a teargas canister, a hammer and a truncheon to mete out vigilante justice to the not-so-funny pranksters.

They were arrested and later released, but the incident prompted the national police to step in to quell the hysteria.

"Since mid-October, a rumour inspired by videos published on the internet, is worrying the population about the presence of threatening and aggressive clowns in France," the national police said in a statement this week.

The statement cautioned that "despite numerous reports made to police, there have been only a few sightings of people dressed as clowns having fun scaring passers-by."

"Symptomatic of the impact of the internet, this phenomenon can lead to damaging individual acts and disturbances to public order."

Whether brandishing a rubber chicken at a children's party or starring as the evil protagonist in a horror film, clowns have long had both the ability to both entertain and terrify.

Infamous creepy clowns include notorious American serial killer and rapist John Wayne Gacy - who would dress up as Pogo the clown - to the fictitious Pennywise in Stephen King's movie It.

The fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia.

NEW YORK—Hoping to downplay fears of a potential Ebola outbreak in New York City, health officials assured residents Friday that most puddles of bodily fluid found on the streets are not contaminated with the deadly Ebola virus.

“I want to emphasize that the pools of vomit, urine, and other fluids people may notice as they walk around the city are very unlikely to be contaminated with Ebola,†said New York City health commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett, adding that such fluids, as well as occasional clumps of feces, were almost certainly not deposited onto the streets and sidewalks by an infected individual.

“While we are confident that these substances are free of Ebola specifically, contact with them may pose other health hazards, so we encourage all New Yorkers to continue stepping over them as always. There is no reason for anyone to change their normal routine.â€

Bassett went on to say that any individual who displayed the symptoms indicative of Ebola should immediately refrain from discharging bodily fluids in public.

Source

SILVER SPRING, MD—Saying that he didn’t “give two shits†if they had to knock on the door of every trailer and halfway house in the country, TLC producer and programming director Mark Livingston reportedly told his staffers Friday that he expects to see a list of at least 100 fucked-up families on his desk by the end of the workday.

“We’re up shit creek right now, so I need each one of you assholes rooting through every gutter in the goddamn Ozarks to find me a household of inbreds, addicts, or fat-as-fuck morons that we can put in primetime,†a visibly aggravated Livingston said to his staff following the cancellation of the network’s popular Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, stressing that the new families had better be “borderline brain-dead†and “messed up as all fuck.â€

“If they have 20 dipshit kids, that’s great. If they only have one greasy dimwit kid who can barely string a sentence together, that’ll work too. Hell, you get me some snarl-toothed family of backwoods idiots who all call their dad Papa Pig or some shit like that, and I’ll sign them immediately.

Just find me some family of sewer people I can throw in front of the goddamn camera, got it?â€

At press time, Livingston was angrily telling his staffers that they could all find a new job wiping asses at the Disney Channel if they brought him one more suggestion for a morbidly obese teen mother.

Source

"What is it about Thais and having to have new cars".

Face is all important. Yes, much more important than money saved, or husband happy.

Another 'nother Nail In The Coffin The Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory

More Science, you know, Science, facts. Not feelings and beliefs...

Read on...

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Ocean circulation a major factor in climate change

Washington: It isn't just the atmosphere, but the circulation of the oceans plays an equally important role in regulating the Earth's climate, new research shows.

The study revealed that the cooling of Earth and continental ice build-up in the Northern Hemisphere 2.7 million years ago coincided with a shift in the circulation of the ocean - which pulls in heat and carbon dioxide in the Atlantic and moves them through the deep ocean from north to south until it's released in the Pacific.

The ocean conveyor system changed at the same time as a major expansion in the volume of the glaciers in the northern hemisphere took place along with a substantial fall in sea levels.

It was the Antarctic ice, researchers argued, that cut off heat exchange at the ocean's surface and forced it into deep water.

This led to global climate change at the time and it could be said that the formation of the ocean conveyor cooled the earth and created the climate we live in now.

"We argue that it was the establishment of the modern deep ocean circulation - the ocean conveyor - about 2.7 million years ago, and not a major change in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that triggered an expansion of the ice sheets in the northern hemisphere," said Stella Woodard, lead author and a post-doctoral researcher at Rutgers University in the US.

The new findings, based on ocean sediment core samples between 2.5 million to 3.3 million years old, provide scientists with a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of climate change today.

The changes in heat distribution between the ocean basins is important for understanding future climate change, the team concluded.

The study was published in the journal Science.

Source

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Not Somchai the Taxi Driver? Tell me it's not true!

"A team of leading scientists, including a Kiwi, have gazed beyond our planet to solve a mystery phenomenon tampering with winter weather patterns."

 

 

 

Smart bird.

We let them run the country

He's wrong, he's obviously never been to church...

In my home state you can only use lethal force if you are being physically threatened. You cannot shoot someone running away from you (even in your own home), let alone someone behind a closed door.

"You cannot shoot someone running away from you (even in your own home), let alone someone behind a closed door." "or a loved one..."

Key points -

* Storms in our planet's outer radiation belt, tens of thousands of kilometres above the Earth (remember, you and I didn't cause these), generate powerful energetic electrons.

* These are dumped into the polar atmosphere, causing a temporary but large loss of the ozone layer, at altitudes of up to 80km. (again, you and I didn't do this)

* During winter, the flow-on effect can cause changes in wind patterns and raise or drop temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by as much as 5C. (again, you and I didn't do this)

Once upon a time the global warming folks morphed their opinions into "Climate Change", blaming extreme weather events on you and me.

Here's the article:

A team of leading scientists, including a Kiwi, have gazed beyond our planet to solve a mystery phenomenon tampering with winter weather patterns.

In newly-published findings, the team has discovered a chain of effects that begins in space and results in changes in wind patterns that impact temperatures on Earth.

They found energetic electrons from the Earth's outer radiation belt were hitting the polar atmosphere below, causing a temporary but large loss of ozone up to 80km above the Earth's surface.

The team believed this could explain changes in wind patterns that had been previously shown to raise or drop winter temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by as much as 5C.

"This link between space weather, ozone loss and our own weather was not truly understood before," said Otago University space physicist Professor Craig Rodger, who authored the study with colleagues from the Finnish Meteorological Institute and British Antarctic Survey.

"While the dominant effect is around the poles, those changes in turn can influence weather as far away as the sub-tropics."

The variation in temperature was only seen during winter because of the complex linkages from space through to the Earth's surface.

The scientists found frequent and large ozone depletions after radiation belt storms after studying data from three different satellites gathered between 2002 and 2012.

The measurements suggested that heightened electron precipitation during storms lasting a few days could temporarily reduce ozone in the upper atmosphere as much as 90 per cent.

The findings were exciting as they revealed how incoming electrons from space could affect ozone, and in turn polar weather systems, Professor Rodger said.

Other models had already shown how variations in Antarctic weather systems helped drive New Zealand weather and climate, influencing winds, rainfall and drought.

Forecasters could incorporate this new-found effect into models, possibly improving accuracy of seasonal predictions for both hemispheres.

Chain Reaction

* Storms in our planet's outer radiation belt, tens of thousands of kilometres above the Earth, generate powerful energetic electrons.

* These are dumped into the polar atmosphere, causing a temporary but large loss of the ozone layer, at altitudes of up to 80km.

* During winter, the flow-on effect can cause changes in wind patterns and raise or drop temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by as much as 5C.

Source

So old school, what you need is a TENS machine, then you can wind it up slowly, making the transition from pleasure, to screaming, howling, pain...

I've always wondered why Yankee Cops do this, empty gun after gun full of bullets into a criminal suspect.

Then I remember what an ex SAS/Armed Defender squad member once told me.

When faced with shooting a suspect, he and other members of the team had a clear understanding, that they would each try and get multiple bullets into the suspect.

Because, if only one bullet were found to be the cause of death, rightly or wrongly, the person who fired the bullet could end up, tied up in court for years whilst people took legal actions against the police for wrongful death and such.

This could hamper or end a career for the police officer.

So I guess there is some reason in this behaviour.

But then we down here in Middle Earth, don't see incidents where 33 Police Officers Fire 600 Bullets into a Car. This sort of behaviour seems to imply the officers were, panicking like girls, thinking they were in a video game, or otherwise out of control.

Me, I am unable to learn a language with any level of proficiency. What little I do learn, is by mimicry. Some of us are just not wired correctly for language. On the other hand I have what I consider, high levels of understanding and empathy with Thai and Lao speakers, perhaps I am learning non-language communication unconsciously. Some of the people I know who are fluent in the languages, have more difficulty than I when communicating.

Or the beer makes it easy, I'm not sure...

nice

"The Power of Shadows, ... which aired in 2012 ... recorded the highest ratings in the history of its network."

Rape is very very very bad. If, like other countries, women are the majority of viewers of these Soaps, why do they tolerate it?

I mean, if these soaps featured, constant shots of people doing motorcycle engine repairs, presumably, the women, would not watch the shows.

But seemingly, put a rape in the show - strillions of women tune in to watch, why?

​Me, I'd sentence anyone found watching more than 1 hour of soaps per week, to hard labour.

Well what most do not realize is that the Khmer empire extended all of the way

in the west to Kanchanburi and down into southern Thailand (Srivijai Kingdom)up until the

early 14th century-The Thais call it Lopburi period.So there are Khmer artifacts all over Thailand that

are "indigenous" so to speak .Wonderful art.

There are also Khmer ruins in Laos

About 15" of copper water pipe, marbles and the stuff from the inside of firecrackers, we never hurt anyone, but we did break a window once for which I was punished...

All part of growing up.

where are the real ones?

My understanding is that they were long gone, prior to the re-discovery of the Angkor complex, by various explorers several hundred years ago.

Well this is getting interesting...

No, the brain or the computer was the same, just it's content was different.

i.e. 100 pages of a tabloid newspaper probably does not contain much useful information, whereas 100 pages of a journal such as 'Nature' or 'Lancet' probably contain a wealth of useful information.

or: the brain of a typical guest on the Jerry Springer show, whilst the same size and structure as yours or mine, is likely to be full of absolute crap, dross and bullshit, whereas yours and mine, I can confidently say, are full of knowledge and of a high intellect. Tee hee...

Albert Enstien was regarded as a genius, so when he died they cut his head open to look at his brain to see if was different to anyone else. Apparently not so what makes a person a genius ?

The physical structure of the Human brain is analogous in computer terms to computer hard disks/memory - they all look the same, roughly, so it's not what they are, but the information that they contain that makes the difference.

If Ebola breaks out in Bangkok TOT will be selling tickets to go and see the victims...

Apparently so. I hope none of this interferes with my planned tourist trip to North Korea.

Could you get me a souvenir? Perhaps a hat off one of those sexy marching girls?

Kong, you mean Penguin is a bird, I am sure.

Dexi - what you said, sort of aligns with what I am talking about with the Mind and Soul.

The idea that all a person knows and is - (a bit airy fairy that), is contained in information residing somewhere in the brain, is fairly well accepted. It may not be in there like data in a computer, 1s and 0s, but in there it is. I am not sure how far they have got, finding out what method is used for the storage of information, but once that has been ascertained, we would only need to write a translation algorithm to store said information in a computer.

To then re-introduce that information into a "blank" human should theoretically be possible, assuming you can find a blank human, but that shouldn't be a problem, there's a few living down my street we can start with...

I am still stuck on this idea that something else, other than the physical storage of data, is the key to the concept of Mind or Soul or that which makes us Human,

If you think that, from the moment of conception, till the moment of death, each of us has a magnetic field surrounding us, due to the electrical activity going on inside us, then we start to see that there are things about us we don't yet fully understand. At the moment all we can do with magnetic fields is measure their relative strength and produce vague maps, a la the iron filings experiments, from school day science classes.

What if there was understandable information contained in magnetic fields? We may not know how to access this at the moment, but in 50 years maybe we will, that is if there is anything to find.

But I only use the magnetic field as an example.

It could be that our individual magnetic fields affect the way light is refracted when being reflected from out physical persons. This would account for this of us whose vision is sufficiently different that they claim to see aurae surrounding people.

But it may not be any of these, if could be as vague as radiation emitted or reflected by us, could be anything.

These are things, that are encompassed by that greatest of all American sayings, "We don't know, what we don't know.." At once the typical idiocy of politicians and yet the most profound of intelligent inquiry.

Have at it folks...

Sorry Coss,

 

Soul and mind is getting close to religion a topic I stay away from, ducks farting in a forest is my level of conversation.

 

Why don't polar bears use Penguins to wipe their bum, it is all polar, Myself from the northern hemisphere we have the white bear stomping around where as the Penguin is a southern hemisphere based mammal.

 

Here we go then, do bears shit in the wood's

Ahhh, but.... I am not talking religion, I am talking about how to explain these things from a scientific point of view, remember, we used to think lightning was angry gods, now we know it's electricity. The Mind and Soul, in my view are the same kind of misunderstood thing, we just have to work out, how they work. And so we shall...