Panda poop perfect for paper

There's a new Chinese saying: When life hands you panda poop, make paper. Researchers at a giant panda reserve in southern China are looking for paper mills to process their surplus of fiber-rich panda excrement into high quality paper. Liao Jun, a researcher at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base in Sichuan province, said the idea came to them after a visit to Thailand last year where they found paper made from elephant dung. They thought panda poop would produce an even finer quality paper, he said. The base is in talks with several paper mills on how to turn the droppings of Jing Jing, Ke Bi, Ya Ya and dozens of other pandas at the base into reams of office paper and rolls of wrapping paper, Liao said. They hope to have a product line available by next year, he said. "We are not interested in doing this for the profits but to recycle the waste," said Liao. "It's environmentally friendly. We can use the paper ourselves, and also we can sell whatever is left over." The center's 40 bamboo-fed pandas produce about 2 tons of droppings a day, but Liao said he was not sure yet how much paper would result. What about squeamish customers who might consider the paper unsanitary? "People won't find it gross at all," Liao said. "They probably won't even be able to tell it's from panda poop." The Chiang Mai Zoo in northern Thailand already sells multicolored paper made from the excrement produced by its two resident pandas. Making paper there involves a daylong process of cleaning the feces, boiling it in a soda solution, bleaching it with chlorine and drying it under the sun.

Man swiped 1,500 women's undies

A man was charged with theft and burglary after police said they found 93 pounds of women's panties, brassieres and other underwear at his home. Investigators believe Garth M. Flaherty, 24, took as many as 1,500 undergarments from apartment complex laundry rooms before he was caught, police Cmdr. Chris Tennant said. A man was seen taking underwear from two laundry rooms Saturday, a witness recorded his license number, and Flaherty was identified from photographs, Tennant said. Police found enough underwear in his bedroom to fill five garbage bags, Tennant said. "He said he had a problem," Tennant said. Flaherty has been jailed on 12 counts of second-degree burglary and one of first-degree theft. Police had previously received 12 reports of underwear thefts in the northeast part of town, where Washington State University is located. "We were kind of concerned about how to match up bras and panties with victims," Tennant said. "Based on the unique descriptions from a couple of women, we can tie him to those thefts." The underwear will be held as evidence until the case is resolved, after which their disposition is uncertain, Tennant said. "Would you really want them back?" he asked. "I would say not."

"My Sweet Lord"

A planned Holy Week exhibition of a nude, anatomically correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ was canceled Friday amid complaints from Catholics, including Cardinal Edward Egan. The "My Sweet Lord" display was shut down by the hotel that houses the Lab Gallery in Manhattan, said Matt Semler, the gallery's creative director. Semler said he resigned after officials at the Roger Smith Hotel shut down the show. The artwork was created from more than 200 pounds of milk chocolate and features Christ with his arms outstretched as if on an invisible cross. Unlike the typical religious portrayal of Christ, the artwork does not include a loincloth. The 6-foot sculpture was the victim of "a strong-arming from people who haven't seen the show, seen what we're doing," Semler said. "They jumped to conclusions completely contrary to our intentions." But word of the confectionary Christ infuriated Catholics, including Egan, who described it as "a sickening display." Bill Donohue, head of the watchdog Catholic League, said it was "one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever." The hotel and the gallery were overrun Thursday with angry phone calls and e-mails. Semler said the calls included death threats over the work of artist Cosimo Cavallaro, who was described as disappointed by the decision to cancel the display. "In this situation, the hotel couldn't continue to be supportive because of a fear for their own safety," Semler said. The sculpture was to debut Monday evening, the day after Palm Sunday and just four days before Roman Catholics mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. The final day of the exhibit was planned for Easter Sunday. Cavallaro is best known for his quirky work with food. Past efforts include repainting a Manhattan hotel room in melted mozzarella, spraying five tons of pepper jack cheese on a Wyoming home and festooning a four-poster bed with 312 pounds of processed ham.

Lesbian's asylum case opens immigration door

Olivia Nabulwala says her family in Uganda was so angry and ashamed to learn she was a lesbian that her relatives hurled insults at her, pummeled her and, finally, stripped her and held her down while a stranger raped her. "I hated myself from that day," she said in a sworn statement. "I disliked my family for subjecting me to such torture, and yet they felt this was a good punishment for me." Now, in a case that illuminates a relatively unexplored area of U.S. immigration law, the African immigrant is asking for asylum in the U.S. on the grounds she was persecuted over her sexual orientation. A federal appeals court ruling last week has raised her hopes of success. Persecution based on sexual orientation has been grounds for asylum in the U.S. since the 1990s, but such cases are still rare. Most involve gay men persecuted by their government. There are few cases involving women, who are more likely to be persecuted by family members, said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a gay rights group that represents immigrants. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it does not systematically track the number of asylum claims based on sexual orientation. Most immigration cases are dispensed without a published opinion. "That's why we're so excited about this case," Tiven said. "A published opinion gives it greater weight, makes it citable." Immigration Equality, based in New York, said that last year it won 18 asylum cases for gay men and transgender women from the Congo, Algeria, Jamaica, Russia, Egypt, Peru, Bangladesh, Venezuela and Colombia. It said it lost two such asylum cases. Among some recent cases: A man who said he was beaten by Mexican police and threatened because he is gay won asylum in January. Another Mexican man was granted asylum in a 2000 appeals court ruling that extended protection to transvestites. To qualify for asylum, applicants must demonstrate past persecution or well-founded fear of future persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular group, which now includes homosexuals. Asylum seekers must also show, among other things, that their government was unable or unwilling to protect them. In 1990, a gay Cuban who said he was abused by government officials in his homeland won asylum in the first significant ruling of its kind in the U.S. That ruling became the basis for then-Attorney General Janet Reno's 1994 order allowing gays from other countries to seek asylum for persecution based on sexual orientation. "It is a relatively new area of asylum law; there's not a lot of bricks in the wall as to how these cases get played out," Tiven said. "But here's a high-level court, citing a reasonable and relevant application of government passivity." "For women, it's developed quite slowly," she added. "Around the world, women face harm, often severe harm, from the nearest and not so dearest." In an affidavit in support of her application for asylum, Nabulwala, who is in her late 20s, says being gay is shameful in African culture and illegal in Uganda, and that her family expelled her from the clan. The Associated Press normally withholds the names of people who claim to be victims of sexual assault, but Nabulwala agreed through her lawyer to allow her name to be used. In her affidavit, Nabulwala says she realized she was a lesbian while attending an all-girls Christian boarding school in Kampala. In her senior year, 1994, after the local newspaper wrote a story about lesbian relationships at her high school, and her parents confronted her, Nabulwala admitted she was gay. She says her admission was a "big blow" to her father, who angrily told her she must end it or she "could no longer be his child." Later, she says, she was brought to a family meeting, where insults were hurled at her and an aunt "beat me so hard with clenched fists and said it would help bring me back to my senses." In 2001, Nabulwala, by then in college, says she was called to another family meeting after relatives learned she was still involved in a lesbian relationship. "During this meeting, my Dad said so many unpleasant and hurtful words to me," she says. "He was so angry that he reached out to grab my neck to strangle me. He stated he was going to kill me because I was an embarrassment to him, our family, as well as the entire clan." She says two aunts dragged her out of the meeting into her room, where a young man was waiting. "I was forced to have sex with a total stranger, which was very nasty, while my aunts watched in laughter," she says. "Afterwards, they all left me lying there in a lot of pain." Three months later, she entered the U.S. on a visitor visa, overstayed, then fought deportation by asserting a right to asylum. An immigration judge in Minnesota, where she now lives, said he did not doubt Nabulwala had suffered in Uganda because of her sexual orientation. But he ruled that the rape was a "private family mistreatment," and not sponsored or authorized by the government. However, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge used the wrong legal standard, and ordered the case sent back for further proceedings on whether the Ugandan government was unwilling or unable to control the abuse, as Nabulwala contends. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and punishable by one to four years in prison. But a police spokeswoman, Alice Nakoba, said no one has ever been convicted. She defended her country's treatment of gays, saying that Ugandans seeking asylum in developed countries exaggerate. Nabulwala is "extremely happy" about the March 21 ruling, said her attorney, Eric Dorkin. Dorkin would not allow her to be interviewed or photographed, citing concerns about her safety and privacy. If Nabulwala is unsuccessful, she will be deported.

I wish my camera took cool pictures like this

ditching the skinny look

Indian models flaunted their flesh at the country's top fashion event, ditching the skinny look for healthy curves and joining the global backlash against "size zero". With deeper cleavages and ampler derrieres, Indian models are generally better endowed than their Western counterparts, but that has not stopped them winning top global beauty pageants. India followed Madrid last year by banning underweight models from the catwalk, saying it wanted to project an image of beauty and health, not starvation. The show's organizers said they ran a check on models to find out if any of them suffered from eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia. The health code applied to male models as well. Indian health experts say many girls in India's cities and small towns were suffering from the brittle bone disease, osteoporosis, and anorexia due to strict dieting.

"the bathroom extortioner"

Two accused members of a notorious New York crime family turned a strip club into a training ground for mobsters, prosecutors told the jury on Thursday in closing arguments in a Mafia extortion trial Salvatore "Fat Sal" Scala, 64, an accused Gambino crime family captain, and Thomas "Monk" Sassano, 61, an alleged soldier in Scala's crew, both face extortion charges in Manhattan federal court. Prosecutors said the men used the VIP Club to host lavish parties for business associates and extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from the club. "Scala and Sassano used that club as a junior varsity" to groom future mobsters, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig, referring to a training squad of a high school sports team. Defense attorneys countered that the men were protecting legitimate business interests as investors in the VIP Club. Scala installed several underlings in bogus jobs at the club, prosecutors said. They conducted mob business, including one they called "the bathroom extortioner" for using the lavatory to collect payments. Sassano was brought in to do Scala's bidding after Scala was sent to prison on an unrelated extortion charge in 2001, prosecutors said. Biweekly payments of thousands of dollars were funneled up to Scala to "keep the peace," according to prosecution witness, Steve Aslind, a club co-manager. Defense attorneys Ronald Rubenstein and Lindy Urso said the club's financial woes were not due to ties to organized crime but because the club's managers failed to pay taxes and one ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts

"theft of the mummy's hair was not appropriate behavior"

Egypt sent an archaeological team to France on Thursday to retrieve 3,200-year-old strands of hair from the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses II, who presided over an era of great military expansion in Egypt, state media said. The existence of the hair came to light last year when some of the strands were offered for sale on the Internet for between 2,000 and 2,500 euros ($2,668 and $3,336), in addition to tiny pieces of resin and embalmed cloth taken from the mummy. The seller had said he obtained the relics from his deceased father, who had worked in a French laboratory entrusted with analysing and restoring the body of Ramses in the 1970s. He had offered to provide certificates of authenticity to buyers. French archaeologists had reacted with horror to news that the hairs were on sale and French authorities arrested the suspected seller in November. Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass praised the efforts of French authorities to stop the sale of the hair, and said that the "theft of the mummy's hair was not appropriate behavior", state news agency MENA said.

Guilty secret - crack biscuits

Today I woke up, as usual, to Pandora nudging and whining for me to get up and feed her, or more specifically to turn on the tap for her. I love my cat Pandora but damn it, she refuses to drink water out of a bowl and instead will bitch and whine until you turn on the tap for her...the little princess on drinks fresh water. Next she's be requesting bottled water. Little fucker. Maybe I'll have to invest in some fancy gadget so something (hey none of the info shit please...only the best for the little shit!). OK, so today would have been a perfect day to skip work and stay home and sleep. Dark, rainy weather...not too cold were you couldn't walk and get a hot chai, but chilly enough where you would want to snuggle under the covers and watch movies in bed. But, no, being the diligent employee I am, I shuttled along to work...hum dee dum. Guilty secret, I stopped by McDonald's and ate two egg and cheese biscuits...god they're good! Nothing else in the fast food world does it for me, nor do I even crave that crap...but the egg and cheese biscuits, it like crack on a bun!

Acapulco Vacation Pixs

Carpe diem

Lately I've been doing a lot of spring cleaning, and the other night I came across tons of old vacation photos and journal entries spanning back to my early college days. You know I don't consciously think about my age on a daily basis, but after looking over all of my previous escapades I couldn't help but feel the edges of time tearing away. What happened to my outrageous, younger self? Now I feel predictable and bored with my daily routines, granted I have more money now to spend of better-longer vacations, what gets me is that I've somehow lost the wonder and excitement I used to feel (OK. not just wonder and excitement, but massive depression and extremes). So in an effort to tap into my "inner-youth", I've made it my goal to start living and stop using the excuse of being bored.... Goals:

1. Get the tattoos I've been dreaming about for years (the one's I have now are small...I want big!)
2. Travel more, like Thailand or Nepal
3. Buy a motorcycle or Vespa...then of course learn to ride the damn things
4. Enroll in Grad School...stop procrastinating and do it
5. Sign up for language classes (Chinese, Italian and Arabic)...then travel to a country that speaks it!
6. I would love to learn more about holistic health and acupuncture, live my live more "green".
7. Take dance classes like Hip hop, and African dance...I would also love to learn how to box (we'll see...there's only so much time in a day)